Which program to use for texturing/painting maya models?

[Anonymous]

Hello community.
I started modeling in maya a week ago and i really like it.
I want to make my own models for my game (using UE4).
However, i used google a lot but not found satisfying answer so im going to ask here:

Which program i have to use when i want texture/paint my characters/props?
Btw i dont know whats diference between painting and texturing... i just want to create my own textures or painting for my models... is it possible in maya (painting tool) or i have to use extern program ? (PS, 3d coat, zbrush?)

Thanks.

[damaggio]

You could start with photoshop , that would be the easiest. Once you understand a bit more about UVs and texturing you can try a demo of Mari, substance or any other. There's mud box also.

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Damaggio pretty much covered it. I would highly recommend using a 2D only environment (Like Photoshop, Krita, Gimp, etc) as a way to really understand how UV's work. It'll force you to understand what good UV's are and how to achieve them. Always reference other's work and guides!

Once you get past that, I would suggest (for game work) looking into Substance Painter and Designer. There are other tools like Mari, 3D-Coat, Mudbox, and (if you're adventurous) ZBrush. The main difference is what they're designed for, Substance from the start was designed for game artists. Mari is an exceptional program, but requires some pretty decent hardware to fully utilize fluidly. It's main target audience is also Film and TV. Need 32K maps on a character? Mari's your guy. But it's projection system is not very well suited for quick iteration and 'realtime' painting that you may get from SP or 3DC.

I'm personally not a fan of 3D-Coat (I'm a Mari guy) as I find it's texturing system to be wonky with a single layering holding Depth/Diffuse/Spec info instead of channels for each. Mudbox seems to have ceased development, but it's painting system will still get you what you need, and ZBrush seems to have the basic toolset.

Painting vs Texturing: They're pretty much the same. If you wanted to get nit-picky about it, painting can mean just that, everything is manual and you hand draw every detail in. Texturing is more broad and encompasses using images and generated maps to aid in creating the textures you will use in your end app. The last step is shading and that's just recompiling the textures in a shader or material in whatever app or render engine you're using.

You can paint in Maya with the Artists Brushes, but it would be (IMO) unwise to do so, as you would have to really understand every part of shading to know what the end result is going to be.

If I've made any mistakes, please correct me!

[Anonymous]

Well detailed! I was a bit confused about it before today. Thanks Mike Rochefort

[sean.heasley]

Hi all!

Just to add my 2 cents, @Anonymous summed it up very well. Photoshop is one of the most common ways texturing is done and is definitely the best way to go to get an understanding of UVs and texturing and the proper workflows.

From there moving on to programs like Substance can allow you to make high detailed textures is a solid route.

I also just wanted to note that Mudbox is still being developed! While I can't say what changes are being made, we had a great in depth panel at Siggraph this year on what the future of Mudbox will look like!

[Anonymous]

Dont forget Blender, it's free and has some solid 3D painting capability:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIKwKa-Fy3o&t=6110s

And also there seems to be lots of people switching to Affinity photo from photoshop these days (I haven't try it yet but surely will seeing how cheaper and more capable it is):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGojM3A5t-g