Painting Texture in 3DS Max

Today we looked at how to create textures by drawing directly on the object in 3DS Max. One way of doing this is by using the 'Unwrap UVW' tool, which will take your object and present all of the edges or vertices as a set of 2D shapes. From here you can draw on each individual 2D shape, and this will correspond to the respective location on the 3D object. With simple shapes, this is good technique, however once the shapes become more complex and contain a greater number of edges, faces and vertices, trying to paint on the 2D shapes in a way that pieces together seamlessly is a tough ask.

The UVW tool allows you to see a 2D representation of your shape

Using the 'Viewport Canvas' tool brings up a toolbar akin to those found in Photoshop and Illustrator type programs. Brush tools, fill tools, clone tools, all similar to Photoshop, can be used directly on the 3D shape. Rather than piecing together flat geometry, trying to wrap your head around how everything joins up, this method allows you to draw directly on your object, like a 3D version of MS Paint, with your object as your canvas.

The Viewport Canvas tool brings up a similar tool set to Photoshop

The resulting texture map, after drawing directly onto the object using Viewport Canvas

 As you can see above in the texture map, even this simple a design would have been very difficult to create seamlessly if painting onto the 2D faces. I placed the resulting object into a scene, with lighting and cameras, and this was the result.