By: Maxon
Description
BodyPaint 3D's Projection Painting tool makes distortion-free painting a snap. This quick and easy tool lets you paint across UV seams or even multiple objects. Even the most complex UV coordinates can be tamed with the help of a complete suite of UV editing tools. BodyPaint 3D includes three automatic UV unwrapping algorithms, including the new Optimal Cubic Mapping system.
BodyPaint 3D offers control over your textures with complete layers, filters and tablet support - all for working in 3D. With BodyPaint 3D you can paint on up to ten channels with a single stroke, so a single brush can define an entire material rather than a single color. Plus, BodyPaint 3D's exclusive RayBrush technology lets you view the results of your painting in real-time as a rendered image.
It can even utilize Photoshop .abr brushes. Full support for tablets ensures that painting with a pen feels just as natural as it does in popular 2D image editors. And of course BodyPaint 3D can deal with image files as large as 16k and with 16-bit and 32-bit color depth.
BodyPaint 3D was created for all 3D artists and includes free plugins to connect with 3ds Max, Maya, Softimage and LightWave 3D. All other applications can exchange files with BodyPaint 3D using one of the numerous available file formats (e.g. OBJ, FBX or COLLADA).
Bodypaint 3D R12 New Features
Color Profiles
- BodyPaint 3D now fully supports color profiles. No matter if you import an existing image to modify the texture or if you create a new image from scratch, BodyPaint 3D allows you to set color profiles for textures in 8-bit, 16-bit and 32-bit per channel color depth. And color profiles that are already embedded can be kept, changed or converted if needed of course, if needed.
- Your Editor Display can also use a display color profile. Hence, if you have a calibrated monitor the color information is taken into account so you can create your texture with maximum color fidelity.
Ambient Occlusion
- When texturing a 3D object it is vital to focus on the plasticity of the surface to create a realistic illusion for the structure. Sometimes the lighting can't bring out enough details and contact shadows are needed to create a vivid and convincing appearance.
- Ambient Occlusion is a shader that calculates contact shadows based on an object's geometry. The closer adjacent surfaces lie, the darker the shadow will appear. BodyPaint 3D R12 can now automatically create an Ambient Occlusion texture to emphasize the structures of a 3D model. Espcially with detailed models this saves a great amount of time while being extremely precise, especially when working with detailed models.
RenderMan Connection
- BodyPaint 3D offers a unique feature which allows you to render a 3D model with the textures applied that you are currently painting. This workflow alone saves hours of cumbersome saving and reloading of textures in your image editing and 3D application. Now BodyPaint 3D has become even more versatile - with Cineman.
- For everyone using BodyPaint 3D in a RenderMan-compatible pipeline, preview rendering can now be executed with a RenderMan renderer instead of BodyPaint 3D's own rendering engine, thanks to Cineman. This provides even more accuracy because even light sources using RenderMan shaders are supported.
Features
RayBrush
- RayBrush eliminates the need to continually switch applications or perform test renders. You can see the actual rendered effect while painting in any channel, including reflection, transparency and bump. You can even paint on multiple textures at once when in RayBrush mode. This outstanding feature takes advantage of MAXON's award-winning render engine, known for speed and quality.
MultiBrush technology
- With BodyPaint 3D you can paint an entire material with a single stroke. Each brush can paint up to ten channels simultaneously. A single brush stroke can be used to affect color, bump, specularity, reflection, transparency and other properties. There is no need to match the various channels in your 3D application.
Painting tools
- All your favorite painting tools are available in BodyPaint 3D, including Clone, Smear, Sponge, Dodge and Burn tools. The standard brush tool includes pressure, hardness, size, bitmap, distortion, rotation, jitter and other parameters for hundreds of painting possibilities. The effect of any parameter can be controlled by the pressure, tilt, direction or finger wheel of your graphics tablet. Over 200 presets are provided with BodyPaint 3D, representing a variety of natural media and special effects.
Support for Photoshop Brushes
- A real highlight of BodyPaint 3D Release 4 is that it now supports the .abr format for Adobe Photoshop-compatible brushes. BodyPaint 3D artists can now take advantage of vast resources available in the Photoshop community- thousands of brushes are available, many of them are free; and we've even added over 1,400 new brushes to the brush preset libraries.
Multi views
- With BodyPaint 3D you can paint in the 2D view, in the shaded 3D view or in the raytraced 3D view. Changes that you make in the 3D view are applied to the 2D view in realtime and vice-versa. For the first time ever you can open and edit multiple 3D views. This enables you to quickly switch between views - there is no need to adjust camera settings. For example, you can use separate views for important or difficult to reach regions.
Projection Painting
- Projection painting offers hitherto unknown comfort when painting textures onto complex geometry. Visible seams at UV edges are now a thing of the past. The detachable projection layers in particular make this process easier by letting objects or images be placed freely before the projection is applied.
- With projection painting enabled, you can paint onto a virtual glass plate over the model and subsequently project this painting onto the actual textures. This powerful feature supports all of BodyPaint 3D R3's painting tools and provides full control over the projection and final appearance of your paint strokes. Say goodbye to unpredictable distortion caused by model contours and perspective - with Projection Painting, what you see is truly what you get.
Paint across multiple objects
- Projection painting even allows users to paint across multiple objects with a single stroke to eliminate seams.
- Copy and paste paint between layers You can copy and paste between layers while in projection paint mode and you can even join two separate images with perfect blending and distortion.
- Getting the results you want without seams or distortion has never been easier than with the new BodyPaint 3D R3.
Layers
- This familiar layering system operates much like 2D graphics applications, giving you the power to combine various effects and experiment with confidence. In addition to its own B3D format, MAXON BodyPaint 3D can read and write layers and masks in PSD and TIF file formats. Each layer can be assigned a unique opacity and mix mode. BodyPaint 3D also features a real-time preview of layer transformations so you can easily position, scale, rotate, skew and distort layers until your composition is just right.
- You can also define a mask in any layer, work with alpha channels or apply different blend modes to layers. Even .psd files can be read and their individual layers or layersets easily accessed.
- The Layer Shader makes it possible to quickly assign filters or procedural shaders to images. BodyPaint 3D is second-to-none when compared to conventional 2D image editing applications, and is ideal for high-end compositing and montage work.
Selections
- BodyPaint 3D offers a wide variety of intuitive and highly flexible selection tools. All the common tools, like Lasso or Magic Wand, can also be used in the 3D view. Even better, you can easily transform UV selections or polygon selections into image selections.
Filters
- In 2D image processing you are accustomed to working with bitmap filters such as "blur" or "noise" with which you can modify your image. BodyPaint 3D also offers the most important 25 filters - equipped with some functions that turn these filters into real 3D tools. They offer a real-time preview of the filter's effect in the editor and, even better, an edge mode that guarantees your texture can subsequently be tiled.
- You can now use the huge arsenal of Adobe Photoshop®-compatible filters directly in BodyPaint 3D - from simple shareware plugins to complex filters like a pattern generator.
UV-Tools
- MAXON BodyPaint 3D features an arsenal of UV editing solutions that ensure your models and their materials line up properly.
- Painting in 3D is governed by UVs, a set of coordinates that relate polygons to texturing areas. Properly designed UV coordinates are essential to successful painting and quality texturing in 3D. Because almost all 3D models involve contours in 3D space, standard projections like spherical and flat mapping can never provide distortion-free texturing. Each model must be set up with correctly aligned UVs prior to painting, just like taping off the trim in a room prior to painting.
Optimal Mapping and LSCM Unwrapping
- BodyPaint 3D includes numerous tools that help you achieve the best UV map for each individual model. You can utilize one of three different algorithms, including Cubic Optimal Mapping, to automatically optimize your UV coordinates and remove overlapping points. The Relax UV tool adjusts the size of UVs in relation to their corresponding polygons, and the UV Terrace tool lets you easily include additional geometry in an existing UV map. The Store and Remap UV features allow you to easily remap areas of UV coordinates to eliminate seams. Using BodyPaint 3D's powerful Interactive Mapping feature you can generate UVs based on standard projection types for different regions of a model. Of course, BodyPaint 3D also includes Move, Scale, Rotate, Shear and other tools to let you manually tweak individual UV coordinates.
- The LSCM unwrapping method, which lets you unwrap a model's UVs based on defined seams, also comes in handy when working with complex shapes. Whether adjusting UVs for a low-res game model or a high-res matte painting, BodyPaint 3D provides the UV tools you can rely on when the UV mapping is not as perfect as the model you have built.
Videos
Specifications & Licensing
System Requirements
Hardware Requirements
- 1024 MB Ram
- DVD ROM
- 3 GB of disk Space
Minimum System Requirements
Windows XP, Vista or 7 running on Intel or AMD CPU with SSE2-Support; Mac OS X 10.5.8 or higher running on an Intel-based Mac; 1024 MB RAM, DVD ROM drive. Standard DVD installation can take up to 2.5 GB of disk space.
Operating Systems
Windows
- Windows 7 (all variations)
- Windows Vista (all variations)
- Windows Vista 64-bit (all variations)
- Windows 2008 Server
- Windows 2008 Server 64-bit
- Windows XP (Pro / Home) Service Pack 2 & 3
- Windows XP Pro 64-bit
- Windows 2003 Server
- Windows 2003 Server 64-bit
OS X
- Apple OS X 10.6 (and up)
- Apple Mac OS X 10.5.8 (and up)
Minimum CPU Requirements
Minimum processor Windows PC
- Intel Pentium 4
- Athlon 64
- Sempron (K8 with SSE2)
- VIA C7
Minimum processor Macintosh
- Intel CoreSolo
Supported processors
- Intel Pentium M
- Intel Pentium 4
- Intel Pentium 4D
- Intel XEON
- Intel Core Solo
- Intel Core Duo
- Intel Core 2 Duo
- Intel Core 2 Quad
- Intel Core i7
- Intel Core i5
- Intel Celeron
- Intel Celeron D
- AMD Sempron (K8/Socket 754)
- AMD Athlon 64
- AMD Opteron
- AMD Phenom
Processors not supported
- Intel Itanium
- Intel Itanium II
- Intel Pentium
- Intel Pentium II
- Intel Pentium III
- AMD K6
- AMD K7
- AMD Athlon XP/MP
- AMD Duron
- Power PC G4
- Power PC G5
Graphics Cards
In short, CINEMA 4D and BodyPaint 3D run on any OpenGL-capable graphics card (which includes the vast majority available in the past 10 years). We do however strongly recommend using a dedicated 3D graphics card with a chipset from ATI or nVidia. Currently, powerful graphics chips are also available on mid-range notebooks.
Always make sure to use the latest drivers. Newer drivers are usually faster and more stable.
The graphics cards listed below are known to run the Enhanced OpenGL mode as of summer 2010. Any newer models will most likely support all necessary features as well.
nVidia GeForce: 8xxx(M)-series, 9xxx(M)-series, 1xx(M)-series, 2xx(M)-series, 3xx(M)-series, 4xx(M)-series
nVidia Quadro FX: x70-series, x80-series, x700 series, x800-series,
ATI (Mobility) Radeon: HD2xxx-series, HD3xxx-series, HD4xxx-series, HD5xxx-series
ATI FirePro: all series
ATI FireGL: x700-series, x800-series
Host Applications
BodyPaint 3D works with the following 3D applications:
- Softimage XSi
- Maya
- 3ds Max
- Lightwave 3D
Support for Photoshop Brushes
A real highlight of BodyPaint 3D Release 4 is that it now supports the .abr format for Adobe Photoshop-compatible brushes. BodyPaint 3D artists can now take advantage of vast resources available in the Photoshop community- thousands of brushes are available, many of them are free; and we've even added over 1,400 new brushes to the brush preset libraries.
If the built-in filters are not enough, BodyPaint 3D offers you even more: You can now use the huge arsenal of Adobe Photoshop®-compatible filters directly in BodyPaint 3D - from simple shareware plugins to complex filters like a pattern generator.
Incompatibility With Older Versions
In the interest of technological advances it is sometimes necessary to make concessions regarding compatibility. Release 12 represents a giant leap in development, thus bringing with it issues of incompatibility.
In order to minimize the impact for our customers, MAXON has augmented the End User License Agreement for product upgrades to allow users to leave the previous version installed for the purpose of adjusting, tweaking or re-rendering old scenes, if needed.
R12 scenes are not downward compatible. Versions prior to R12 cannot open scenes created with R12. In terms of upward compatibility the following applies: The R12 Dynamics system is based on a new engine and is therefore incompatible with versions prior to R12. Dynamic simulations need to be re-created, except for MoDynamics, Cloth and Hair dynamics, which are the same as before. Bones and all related tools no longer exist in R12. Bones will be converted automatically to joints. Also, Soft IK has been replaced by Dynamic IK. Posemixer, P2P and the Morph tag have been replaced with the much more powerful PoseMorph tag. Most existing settings will be converted but will often need manual adjustment.
The following file formats or tools are no longer supported by R12: FlashEx, UZR export, FBX 6, Shockwave3D, Monzoom, QuickDraw3D, VRML1 and Photoshop filter plugins, muscle object and deformer, object motion blur and PowerPC support.
Some of the mentioned features may not be available in all program versions.
Plugins developed in C++ or Py4D need to be adapted for R12. Plugins for CINEMA 4D R11.5 or earlier will not work in CINEMA 4D R12. Developers should visit MAXON's Plugin Café for further information on how to adapt plugins for R12.
Licensing
For Standalone (Node-Locked) licenses upon purchase you will receive via email a set of serial numbers to be used for activating your software.
For educational institutions and production facilities managing multiple licenses of BodyPaint 3D, Release 11 introduces robust license server technology that makes the management of numerous licenses and groups of licenses with various module configurations a breeze.
Network administrators can define groups, assign individual licenses, modules and extension kits, and define a unique lease time for each group. This means you can allow laptop users to extend their lease for off-site work, or give a specific project group access to additional modules. All this control means you can make more efficient use of your investment in BodyPaint 3D.
Additional Info
Support / Upgrades
Maxon offers the following Upgrades and Support options:
Maxon Service Agreement (MSA)
- Upgrades: updates/upgrades are available electronically for users with active Maxon Service Agreement.
- Training: Three (3) hours per Customer, per calendar quarter of live, online technical assistance regarding use of the Serviced Products. This assistance, to the extent it is not used, will not accrue for use in following quarters. Subject to availability.
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Support:Technical assistance regarding use of the Serviced Products by means of phone or email. Technical Support can encompass:
- Providing general guidance on how to diagnose and correct use issues involving Serviced Products;
- Providing assistance relating to the use of features available within Serviced Products;
- Providing general advice on how to best approach a specific task by use of features available in Serviced Products;
- Supporting system administration activities specifically related to installing and running Serviced Products;
- To the extent reasonably possible, providing practical workarounds to issues that interfere with Customer’s enjoyable and/or productive use of Serviced Products.
Upgrades
- Upgrade from Previous version to Current
- Upgrade Node-Locked to Network (Floating) Licenses
Support
RFX is available for all your support needs.
Maxon offers the following support options
- Maxon provides MSA (see above)
- Maxon provides technical support for a 12-month period after purchase
Related Products
Bodypaint 3D can enhance your pipeline by integrating into the following 3D applications:
- Autodesk 3ds Max
- Autodesk Maya
- Autodesk Softimage
- Maxon Cinema 4D
- Newtek Lightwave
Training / Resources
Go to Cineversity for training, tutorial, tips and resources (available with active MSA)



