BodyPaint 3
As mentioned in the introduction BodyPaint has had an upgrade to version 3 and is now included in all versions of Cinema 4D. The stand alone version of BodyPaint 3 is essentially the core version of Cinema 4D R10 but it starts up in a BodyPaint layout. This is great news as Cinema 4D on its own had almost no UV editing capability and zero painting capability. About the best that you could do in 9.5 / 9.6 was bake a UV map with a bake texture tag and paint on the UV map in a 2D paint program but this wasn’t very practical and your model would have had lots of seams. The inclusion of BodyPaint 3 in Cinema 4D means the upgrade price from R9.6 to R10 particularly for those without BodyPaint is exceptionally good value. For example to upgrade the core version of 9.6 to 10 is US $295. Obviously if you already had BodyPaint you might be a little perturbed by this but I think MAXON made the right decision as we’re starting to see other 3D applications and some priced less than C4D with UV editing tools and some like Modo with both UV editing and painting tools.
So anyway, what’s new in BodyPaint 3? In truth not really that much but what there is, is excellent.
The main enhancement and it’s a goodie is “LSCM” unwrapping. LSCM stands for “Least Square Conformal Mapping”. It’s a mathematical method of unwrapping a mesh. It’s really easy to use once you’ve done it a couple of times and will greatly reduce the amount of time spent on UV editing. It’s best suited to organic objects like characters rather than angular type objects.
To work with LSCM unwrapping you first need to set up some edge and point selections in a Cinema 4D layout. The idea is that BodyPaint will make the seams where you have edges selected. Release 10 now includes a new path selection tool and this is much easier to select paths of edges or points. The point selection pins down the selected UV points and the UV map is spread out from these points. The new options for LSCM unwrapping incorporated into the Relax tool.
Here's some screen grabs showing before and after shots of LSCM unwrapping. The image on the left shows the edge selections. The UV map is a result of using the wizard. The image on the right is the result of using LSCM unwrapping. In the Relax tool's settings you can see where I dragged in the point and edge selections. Prior to pressing the apply button you have to do a frontal mapping of the head from a front view. This intermediate step is crucial as it sets things up for the for the LSCM unwrapping to correctly unwrap the head.
Click on the images for larger versions
Freeze 3D is another interesting addition. Essentially you do a freeze frame on the 3D viewport whilst painting in Projection painting mode and you’re able to export this view to Photoshop for further editing. You do your editing in Photoshop and merge the modified image back into BodyPaint. The exported image contains Photoshop layer sets so you have to use Photoshop or another 2D application that supports layer sets like Serif Photoplus 11 (US $79 - an excellent Photoshop clone). Paintshop Pro by the way doesn’t support Photoshop layer sets. The documentation is a little confusing for Freeze 3D as it says to use the “Load texture command”. This is incorrect and you in fact use the “Merge texture command”. (Now corrected in the 10.1 documentation update)
Here's a screen grab in Photoshop where the exported frozen 3D view can be edited. In addition to the 2 layers you can create additional layers so long as they are in the PP layer set.
Click on the image for a larger version
BodyPaint 3 now supports both 16 and 32 bit painting. I gather the Production Bundle for 2.5 had this but now us mere mortals get it as well. This means gradients for example can be created without the common problem of banding as a much higher range of colours can be used rather than being restricted to 256 colours for each channel as what 8 bits per channel has. 32 bit mode means that we can paint white values with brighter values than 100% and also that High Dynamic Range images can be viewed and edited.
Lastly the UV Commands tool menu includes 2 new tools. The “Line Up UV” tool straightens up UV points and the “Unstitch UV” tools separates selected UV polygons from their neighbours.
At the café we have a 40 minute free video tutorial demonstrating all of these new tools and commands.
There are a few things that BodyPaint badly needs and that’s the ability to display multiple UV meshes. Since we’re able to use one material on multiple objects you need to see where the UV polygons are to paint in the 2D view. Sadly you can only display one object’s UV’s at a time. Fortunately there’s an easy work around for this by doing a “Outline UV” command on a new layer for all of your objects. Similarly exporting UV maps to Photoshop or another 2D paint application should have a command all of its own. Again the work around is to outline the UV’s.
Next up is a grid and grid snapping for the 2D texture view for UV editing. Rulers and guide lines would be nice as well. This would make the 2D view much more like Photoshop. And I guess while we’re at it, vector drawing tools would be helpful as well even just basic vector drawing tools for creating arcs and closed shapes.
The “Select Geometry” menu in a BodyPaint layout gives the impression that you can do loop and ring selections whilst in UV polygon or UV point mode as the commands / tools are shown active. Strangely this doesn’t work. The work around is to go into regular polygon or point mode and the 2 tools will then work as expected. You then change back into UV mode and the selection is still there.
I got the feeling that the documentation for BodyPaint 3 was rushed. Some of the new things in BodyPaint 3 aren’t indexed. For example doing a search on “LSCM” or “Unstitch UV” or “Line Up UV” turns up nothing. (In the 10.1 update a search on "LSCM" now takes you to the correct documentation page however "Unstitch UV" and "Line up UV" turns up no results) LSCM is part of the Relax tool and even in the documentation for the Relax tool, LSCM isn’t mentioned although it does explain what the extra buttons on the Relax tab do. Both “Unstitch UV” and “Line Up UV” are in the documentation and have a heading in the UV Mapping section but you need to know where to look. At least with a pdf manual a word search would have turned up the 2 tools. These 2 tools should have been included on the UV Edit menu as well. A simple matter to add yourself but an oversight. Having the tools on the menu would have allowed a "Ctrl F1" context sensitive help command to turn up the relevant help section.
One thing I find totally bizarre is the BodyPaint Brush and Colour presets in the Content Browser. You can't actually select and load them. You have to use the Preset Dialog like in the BodyPaint 2 and 2.5. This has caught out a number of people who like me scratch their head and wonder why have them in the Content Browser in the first place if they can't be loaded. Strangely with the Preset Dialogs like the Colour Presets for example you can't create groups in it any more as you could before. You have to create and manage your groups from the Content Browser. The way I see it, this is a half finished implementation of things and as is, things are worse than they were before.
So a few grumbles aside, BodyPaint 3 is a useful step forward. LSCM unwrapping is a very useful enhancement and keeps BodyPaint up with other applications that offer similar unwrapping tools. There is still plenty of room for improvement however.