• Basic Selections
• Basic Morphing
• Basic Painting
• Basic Modeling

Basic Painting Tutorial

The purpose of this tutorial is to demonstrate workflow of painting. To make things simple, we will use the 'Paint Setup Wizard' to automatically UV map the object and create the texture maps.

• Notice that since no texture is applied to the object's materials, the words 'No Map Applied' appear across the object.
• Likewise, if the object does not have a UV mapping, the words 'No UV Mapping' will appear.

• Chosse the Paint Setup Wizard from the tool bar.
• Press CTRL-A to select the entire object.
• Using the default settings, making sure that 'Auto-UV map' is checked, click on the Execute button.
• Notice how the newly created map contains a color grid. This is to help visualize the locations of the UV seams.
• Uncheck Make Grid in Color Map beforehand to simply create a blank map.
• Also notice the UV seams all over the place. These will not concern us since we can paint across them with ease.

• Change the selection type to Polygons (very important for this tutorial)
• Choose the Picker selection tool.
• Choose the Material type.

• Click on the body of the guitar.
• Notice that in addition to selecting the material in the viewport, it is also highlighted in the manager.

• Choose the Shape Brush from the tool bar.
• Choose the Rectangle type
• Choose the desired color, in this case, reddish-orange.
• Also, we want the paint to go right through the object to the other side, so choose None in the culling section of the control panel.

• Click on a point to the top-left of the object
• Drag the cursor to the bottom-right to paint everything in that area
• Also notice how the paint is only applied to the selected polygons. If no selection was present, then everything within the box would be painted.
• The workflow here is remarkably similar to painting in a 2D paint application (by design of course).

• At this point, it will be useful to hide everything that we are not painting on.
• Invert the selection by choosing Edit->Select...->Invert from the menu, or press the I hotkey.
• Choose Edit->Hide Selected Surface from menu to hide the selected polygons.

• Choose the Paint Brush tool
• Choose a yellow/orange color
• Since we only want to paint on the front of the object, choose Per Pixel from the Culling section of the Control panel.
• Paint the sunburst as shown. Please note that if you are using a pressure sensitive tablet, then check the Tablet panel for pressure options.

• Choose Edit->Unhide All from the edit menu.
• Use the same procedure outlined above to paint exclusively on the fretboard.
• Using the Picker tool, select the fretboard material
• Set culling to None again.
• Select a color, in this case, a shade of brown.
• Use the Shape Brush to paint the whole fretboard a solid color again.

• Follow the same procedure to paint the remaining parts.
• Please note that just because we are painting on individual materials at this point, that doesn't mean we have to. You can easily paint across materials, even if they contain different texture maps.
• It is also important to comment on why we chose Polygon selections instead of Vertex selections. Painting on a polygon selection results in a rigid boundary between the selected polygons and the unselected ones. A vertex selection would result in a smoother transition. Please see the Vertex vs. Polygon Selections section of the reference manual for more details.

• Again, use the Picker tool to select all polygons with the material 'BodyFinish'.
• Notice that the same material is used on the head.
• Choose a shade of red and Paint around the edges.
• Notice that the culling option is still set to None, so the paint goes through to the other side.
• Paint the head of the guitar in a similar fashion.

• Select the touch-up brush.
• Choose the Darken type.
• Set the strength to 50%
• Again, paint round the edges. Since the strength is set to 50%, the effect is a bit weak, so do it a few times until the desired effect has been achieved.

• Although we have the general color scheme, it would be nice to have some texture.
• The next few steps will show you how to add a faint wood grain texture

• Click on the Brush Texture box
• In the 'Wood-and-Trees' section, choose the wood texture as shown
• Alternatively, you can load your own texture by drag and dropping it into the Brush Texture box
• Visualize the placement of the texture given the current tiling scheme, press the V hotkey. This is what the object would look like if you painted all of it with the current texture.
• By default, the texture is tiled according to the current viewport plane. By pressing SHIFT-V, you can set advanced tiling options such as fixed plane, spherical and cylindrical. For now, we'll keep it simple.

• Using the familiar Picker selection tool, pick all of the materials that you want to add a wood grain texture to (in this case, BodyFinish, Fretboard and Neck)

• Choose the Touch-up paint brush
• Set the type to Multiply
• Verify that the strength is still 50%
• Also note that the culling should still be set to None
• In one continuous stroke, paint the texture onto the body. Note that if you apply a second stroke, the texture will get doubly multiplied, yielding a darker result.
• Repeat for the next and head if you did not get them in first stroke.

• Notice how quickly we achieved this result.
• Using the simple techniques in the tutorial, you should be able to texture many objects in a similar fashion.
• See other tutorials for advanced techniques, such as using the clone brush, etc.