Quick Recap:
(Part 1 & 2 of review of Deep Paint 3D,
click on links above to go to parts 1 & 2)

Right Hemisphere's Deep Paint 3d (DP3D) is a powerful and impressive tool for anyone needing to paint with expression or precision on the computer. It can be used in standalone mode, as a plug-in for Photoshop or used with a 3d-animation software package, (with the plug-ins DP3D includes). DP3D's five painting channels: color, bump, shine, glow and opacity render in real-time. DP3D is an awesome tool for painting just about anything you can come up with.

Texture Weapons:

The real power comes from painting on an organic object using the Texture Weapons tool set. These tools boost DP3D effectiveness and productivity immensely. Texture Weapons advanced UV mapping, texturing and painting tools create seamless and distortion free mapping on your 3D object. Something that can be very hard to get away from, depending on the software you use. Especially since UV mapping is virtually non-existent in some programs or has poor workflow.

These tools not only help speed up the mapping process but it allows you much more control over the final UV mapping. The artist can create UV mapping from scratch, use one or multiple UV maps and edit existing UV maps applied in various 3D-animation applications. Whatever the process, the UV mapping can be exported back to same 3D applications, see following on functionality.

Import and Export Capabilities:

Deep Paint 3D with Texture Weapons can be used as a standalone program or with other animation software packages using DP3D plug-ins. The plug-ins for 3D Studio Max, Alias|Wavefront's MAYA and Softimage are free but need to be authorized at registration or at a later time using a username/password account you set up upon registration of DP3D and Texture Weapons. This process seems a bit odd but it won't impact your productivity too much. It can take up to 24 hours to get a response though, so keep this in mind when installing your product.

With LightWave 5.0 or 5.6 you will have to either apply your UV mapping in another program like UView or export your object out in the Wavefront .obj format and apply your map(s) in Texture Weapons. The later of the two seems more productive; it just depends on what your use to. Right Hemisphere may have updates on their web site to fix the 5.0 and 5.6 issue in the near future.

Screen shot LightWave 6.0

LW 6.0 now has UV mapping capabilities (Whew!) and you can open your .lwo directly into DP3D. So you can UV map your object in LW 6.0 fully, apply a general UV map and tweak it in Texture Weapons or apply all UV mapping in Texture Weapons. I believe it's a tad easier if you apply your color maps on your object prior to loading it into Texture Weapons. The point being that the color mapping will allow for separate layers in Texture Weapons which will make your life easier as far as selecting the different areas of your object for mapping. There's one overall problem with LW 6.0 though, albeit it's not a new one, the manuals are incredibly lame. For the time Newtek put into developing LW 6.0 (with LightWavers asking "When??!! Huh…Come on, Come on! Wheeeennn?") You would think they would have given the people in charge of putting the manuals together more time. Especially since the previous manuals were the same way. O.K., I'm off the soapbox! Hee! Side note: Dan Ablan has a new book called, "Inside LightWave 6.0" which is very good and covers UV mapping of a woman's face. It covers a lot of real world issues and would be a great addition to your LightWave library.

Tool Sets:

Texture Weapons, Mercator UV tool is used to apply your UV mapping. Select the type of Map desired from spherical, cylindrical, planar and V.A.M.P (Variable Angle Multi Patch- used with Projection Paint to create distortion free mapping). NURBS, patches and quads are not supported in Mercator UV; the object must be triangulated. There are two types of UV mapping in the Mercator UV tool set. The first is Analytical, click the desired map type and Texture Weapons will automatically UV map the best mapping solution. Interactive is the other type. With this tool you can control the type of UV mapping that is applied to each layer of your object. (It works better if you address mapping your object per color maps (layers) not per object piece. The reasoning is that the same material may span multiple objects, however one of the objects may have many different materials. The Mercator UV screen, during editing, displays your object with coordinate control balls on one side of the window and the unwrapped object on the other side of the window (this is for visual purposes only this does not effect the geometry).

Screen shot Deep Paint 3D with Texture Weapons

On hard to control spots, like the top of a character head, where you may still have some stretching or distortion of the texture you can use Projection Paint. With Projection Paint activated you can have the top of the head in the viewport (it's dependant on the viewport orientation) and paint away any seams or distortion. Very cool! You can use any brush/texture image in the DP3D library or use your own. This tool helps keep UV mapping complexity low.

Manuals:

The manual for Texture Weapons is on the DP3D CDROM or on the Right Hemisphere's web site at http://www.us.righthemisphere.com/gallery/tutorials.htm. The manual is informative but unlike the manual and tutorial book included with Deep Paint 3D Software, this guide is lacking. It explains the tools like a dictionary explains words. It does include a few tips but is lacking in explaining the workflow pertaining to any project. This guide tells you what the names/abilities of the tools are, but doesn't explain clearly what this means to you and your project. However, Right Hemisphere did include on the DP3D CDROM a tutorial by Bill Fleming where he goes into great detail on how to use Texture Weapons to apply seamless and distortion free mapping and painting on a character called Blech. Blech is a simple character to look at, but if you use this tutorial you will learn why Mr. Fleming used him for this tutorial. Blech is not as simple as he appears! This tutorial will help you understand exactly what to do and why. The tutorial takes a short time to do, so you can be working on your own project within an hour or so. Recently Right Hemisphere placed new tutorials on the web, see address above. The two tutorials that are particularly helpful for Texture Weapons are Introduction to Mercator UV Basics and Introduction to Projection Paint. These are very useful in understanding the workflow of the software.

Screen shot Deep Paint 3D with Texture Weapons

Final Thoughts:

Whether you're familiar with UV mapping or just learning, Texture Weapons is a great tool set for adding seamless and distortion free textures to your 3D objects. You don't have to be an UV mapping guru to understand the program because Texture Weapons can do a lot of the problem solving for you. That doesn't mean you won't have to do anything, it does mean however, that the process frees up a lot of time and lessens the aggravation that you would have with traditional methods or with some software packages! It's an incredibly powerful tool and in combination with Deep Paint 3D it will perform way beyond any expectations or dreams! No more flipping back and forth between paint programs and animation programs to create and tweak textures. Texture Weapons will expand your freedom to create and to get a good nights sleep! Deep Paint 3D with Texture Weapons would be a great addition to your creation software applications! A must buy!

PART 4

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