Blender Texture Paint problems
marble
Posts: 7,500
HI.
I started a converstation in the DAZ Studio Discussion about how to paint directly on to a G8 figure (I was hoping to a free alternative to the likes of Substance Painter). I was informed that Blender could do this so I fired up Blender 2.91 and gave it a try. I followed a couple of YouTube tutorials although none show how to do it on an imported model but I got there - mostly. The problem is that Blender seems to select the wrong UV map for the surface I'm trying to paint and I can't figure out how to change that. I have a full screen capture below which illustrates the proble, Blender's UV image editor is stuck on the face even though I have the Torso selected on the figure.
Any advice welcome.
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Comments
Looks like Daz figures use UDIMs. Have a look at this explanation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObkoiXE212U&ab_channel=askNK
If you don't actually *need* to see the correct UV layouts when painting -- i.e., if you're only going to be painting in the 3d viewport -- then you should be able to just ignore the Image Editor.
Thanks - I watched that video and was totally lost :( ... I still don't understand what the difference is between a UV map and UDIMs. Worse still, I don't understand what I need to do to get into the right mode in Blender. I'll open it up again and play but I always seem to fall at the first fence with Blender because there are so many things that are not explained. I read the Texture Paint section in the manual (several times) and there is no hint at what I am doing wrong.
I played some more and, as you suggested, ignored the Image Editor. I selected the torso and leg materials and paimted over a bit of them. Then I didn't know what to do with the result. A tutorial said to go to the Image Editor and click on Image and Save As but, of course, there is no "Save As" in my Blender 2.91. It just says save image and doesn't allow for an option of where to save it or even what I am saving. Just a total nightmare of confusion,
Yeah, UDIMs can be hard to wrap your head around, and I'm probably not the right person to try to give a detailed explanation. Like I say, though, if you don't need to actually see the 2d UV layout as you're painting, you can just ignore all of that and keep doing what you're doing. Enter Texture Paint mode, use the '+' icon under Texture Slots in the Active Tool Settings panel to add new textures to each material as necessary (e.g., start with adding Base Color textures to the torso, face, arms, legs, etc.), and start painting. Oh, and note that if you want to see a preview of how the material will look when rendered, you can switch to Material Preview mode (top left of the 3d viewport).
Thanks again. I had managed to get that far already and have painted on the figure as I want to but I'm now stuck at what to do with it. I imagined that it would create new UV maps of the torso and leg surfaces that I painted over but, if it does, I don't know how to tell it to do that or where to find the results if they are saved somewhere.
Are you sure you've got the correct texture selected in the Image Editor? You should then be able to select "Image -> Save As..." in the Image Editor.
No I'm not. As I said, I ignored the image editor and just painted directly on the figure. If I select an image in the image editor, the areas I have painted are all wrong - the overpainting appears on the wrong UV maps and in the wrong positions. So we are back to my original issues.
I see that the mods have removed my Blender screen capture - I can't imagine why because there was no nudity - it was just a white figure like a marble statue.
Maybe it was too big - I've reduced the size now.
OK - I think I'm there.
The confusion was that the Image Editor doesn't actually show the painted image on the right UV map but if I just select the Torso from the drop-down in the Image Editor (top of panel) and the select the Image by name (torso, for example) and "Save As" - it creates the overlay in the right place which can then be added with Affinity Photo.
Yeah, the Image Editor is going to display the wrong UV wireframe overlay because of the UDIMs. You can go to View -> Display Texture Paint UVs to disable the overlay if you find it distracting. You should still be able to take the actual textures themselves back into Daz and assign them to their corresponding surfaces.
Btw, I've been operating under the assumption that your goal is to bring these textures back into Daz. Apologies if that's not the case, as things get a bit more complicated.
Nice! It wouldn't be Blender if it was simple, I guess
Yeah - and there was I looking for an easier way of doing it than painting directly on the UV map. I'm not sure which is easier now.
Actually, all I was trying to do was create an opacity map for the surfaces so that I could make a "hole" in the body to show a section of skeleton/flesh under. It's all a bit experimental and I only have the DAZ skeleton/inner organs for V4 so I doubt that it will look very good in the end. Just for my own amusement though.
Just tested it and I don't get any issue. You just have to paint over the selected texture and save of course if you want to keep it. Please note that the saved textures will overwrite the original ones, unless you change the name. So an easy way for custom textures is to pack then unpack so to make a local copy.
file > external data > pack / unpack
Clearly your Blender viewport doesn't look like mine. I tried to follow YouTube tutorials and used the Texture Paint tab which opens two viewport panels side-by-side (see attached image). The left hand panel is an Image Editor showing the UV maps. As you can see from the above discussion, those UV maps were what caused me all the confusion. I saw that what I was painting on the torso was appearing on the face UV. I thought that was a problem (turns out I could ignore it though).
As for saving - I just saved the image to desktop, I don't know what pack/unpack does or how to use it. My save was a flattened UV style map with whatever name I gave it.
@marble It's the same, mine is the right one. I don't care about udims since I paint over the geometry rather than the texture itself. So the texture tiling makes it work, even if it's not converted to udims.
http://diffeomorphic.blogspot.com/2019/12/udim-support.html
Yes, I realised that eventually but at the time it looked like I was painting on the wrong area according to the UV map in the left hand panel. I thought this was maybe a bug in the way Blender imports (or DAZ Studio exports) the texture maps and I tried for hours to figure out how to rectify it. As it happens, I didn't need to and the UV maps can be ignored (so why does the Blender Texture Paint panel open up with a UV Image Editor as well?).
It is just another example of how Blender is so very difficult to get to grips with because, I suspect, most of the people who are skilled with Blender have endured those many hours trying to figure out these inconsistencies and unituitive features.