Getting to Know

Graphics Tablet

BodyPaint 3D supports all graphics tablets which conform to the WinTab standard, such as the Wacom range.

The pen pressure, pen tilt, pen direction and pen finger wheel are all supported.

For details on how to link these input methods to your brush settings, see Effectors.

A Quick Tour

Texture view

Here you can view and paint your textures in two dimensions. In addition, the Texture view enables you to view and edit UV mesh.

Color manager

Here you can choose the foreground and background colors that are used by the paint tools and commands.

View Menu

Texture View

In contrast to the 3D view, the Texture view enables you to view and paint textures in two dimensions. Sometimes you’ll find it easier to paint an effect in the Texture view instead of in the 3D view. For example, suppose you want to paint a ring of flowers around the neck of a vase. In the 3D view, you would have to keep rotating around the vase as you paint. But in the 2D view, you could paint the entire band without having to stop to navigate to a new position.

To display a texture in the Texture view, do one of the following:

1. Create a new texture or load an existing texture from the Texture view’s File menu.
   
2. Click the desired objects, tags, materials, layers in the Object manager or Material manager.
   

You can paint on the texture as soon as it appears in the window. Note that you paint exclusively to the active layers of the active channels — each active layer is indicated by a red frame in the Material manager; each active channel is indicated by a colored pencil icon. Only one channel can be displayed at a time in the Texture view. When using a multibrush, keep in mind that you are painting to channels that are not displayed as well as the channel that is displayed.

The Texture view also lets you edit UVs thanks to its powerful integrated UV editor. See UV Tools.

View

Fit to Screen

Zooms the texture and UV polygons to fill the Texture view.

Zoom 100%

The texture is displayed at its actual size.

Zoom In

Zooms in on the texture by 25%.

Zoom Out

Zooms out on the texture by 25%.

Set Zoom...

Here you can enter the zoom factor manually as a percentage (100% represents the texture’s actual size), or you can click the triangle right of the box to open a menu of various zoom factors.

32-bit Preview Options

The Exposure, Gamma, Black Point and White Point values of a 32-bit image, can be edited in the preview. The image cannot, though, be itself edited or saved. This functionality reflects the Convert Color Depth function.

UV Mesh Menu

Show UV Mesh

To display the UV mesh while you are using the paint tools, enable this option.

The UV mesh is displayed automatically when the UV Polygons tool or UV Points tool is selected.

Objects, Texture Tags, UV Tags

These menus give you a quick way to choose which UV mesh is shown. You can choose to display the UV mesh for any object, Texture tag or UV tag which belongs to the active material.

Textures Menu

Empty Canvas

This command removes the active texture from the Texture view and replaces it with a neutral gray background. This makes it easier to see your UV mesh.

To display the active texture again, double-click the texture in the Material manager. The Empty Canvas option will be disabled automatically.

Textures List

Here you’ll find a list of all textures currently in RAM. Choose a texture from this list to display it in the Texture view (the texture will be activated automatically in the Material manager).

Lock Texture

You can open multiple Texture views. To lock a Texture view to display the same texture no matter which object is selected, click the lock icon in the top right corner of the Texture view.