Photoshop CS4 - Everything and More!

Yeah, Chip and Chosen. I was almost afraid to look, when I was installing the program, because from the promo stuff it sounded like they might have done things like force us to flatten images to get them on the model, or something.

But no, they pretty much did everything exactly the way I'd hoped it would be.

It's not completely perfect; the filter previews don't work, for me, anyway, and with large images you usually have to close the image and reopen it to see what you've painted (probably a memory limitation issue.) I'm sure I'll find some other small stuff as I work with it more.

But yeah, for painting on the model, I've never used anything that even comes close, and I've used BodyPaint, Modo, and a few other things back in the Age of the Dinosaurs.

Anya, I haven't tried all the filters by any means. (I haven't even loaded all my filters into CS4 yet.) But all the ones I've tried work beautifully.

Betty, yep, it only paints on the part facing the camera. But that's good, because this is what you want, when painting on the model. It's not nice turn the thing around and find something odd in an area you couldn't see.

If you want something applied to the entire model, you open the Texture image itself, and apply it to that. That still works, just the way it always has.

The difference, of course, is that now we can do a whole lot more, too!

(And there was much rejoicing.)

Yeah, the previews don't work for me either. Also, I found as I worked I started having more and more issues with changes saving between files. I might have to think about maxing out the RAM on my machine. Photoshop runs smoothly for me, but it seemed to slow down SL when I opened it up. Something CS3 never did.



Good to know. Thanks. Now I can stop feeling like maybe I'm missing something. I was just doing it the old fashioned way, but thought for those filters that create a pattern that cross a seam, it would be nice if you could just apply it to the whole avatar at once and then mask out the parts you didn't want instead of going back and fixing the seams. Now that you mention it though, I can see why it is a good thing.

/me waves at Betty the Wrinkle Queen

Well, I'm excited, to say the least. Are there any tutorials out yet on how to work with 3D objects in CS4?

I think I'm convinced, and will be ordering this today. Does anyone know anywhere one can get an academic discount for an upgrade? The Adobe store didn't list one.

hehe /me waves back at Virrginia!

If you look around the NAPP site (www.photoshopuser.com), there were some videos that you didn't have to be a member to watch. I seem to have lost the link now though.

As far as educational discounts, I can't help. I did a quick search but nothing came up.

Oh, bother. They don't offer academic discounts for upgrade. It's actually cheaper for me to just buy the whole package ($299 for students) than to get a non-discounted upgrade ($349).

Still, I think the ability to work in 3D more than makes this a justified purchase.

At least you could upgrade if you want to! I need a whole new license so it'll be full price for me, alas. Can I just say that I f'ing hate how Adobe bundles their software now? Any package I could choose has things I don't want and lacks things I do, but the individual app prices have gotten so high that you're pretty much forced to get a bundle or feel like you're ripping yourself off. I wish they'd adjust prices for the number of apps you buy, rather than force you into a specific bundle.

I was wondering if there was a tool out there that would do this! I'm totally excited! I have to get this now.

Just a silly question - where would I find the SL Avatar 3d model? That's probably listed someplace but I'm basically helpless at finding stuff

I've been using the ones that Robin very kindly gave out when CS3 extended was released. You can find the link here in post #7:

/109/27/178887/1.html

Sounds pretty good. I'm glad they are going this direction with Photoshop. Going 64-bit is worth the upgrade to me. The 3d tools are tasty icing on the cake.

From what I'm hearing it sounds like it operates in some sort of projection mode as far as interpreting viewport texturing to the model UV space. Does anyone know if you can mirror strokes across model axes?

I am ordering mine today, Yay!!!

Rock on!

I just found this in my mail thought it might be helpful especially for some who ordered the download version like I did.

https://market.renderosity.com/news.php?viewStory=14254&AID=408

Robin, thanks so much for your review and info...I've been looking forward to reading it, and it was as helpful as I'd expected it would be. You're an incredible source of knowledge and assistance.

I do have a question about some uses for CS4 Extended, in regards to sculpts. I've been wanting to experiement with using some of the full-perm sculpt clothing forms that are being sold by some folks in SL, for things like body drapes. I've also purchased full-perm sculpts with sculpt maps to do things like stairs, bannisters, and furniture in my architectural projects. In many cases I can use a texture grid to create or customize the texture and get the effect I want, but in other cases that's just not possible...particularly when the sculpt type is a torus, I believe.

So the question is, is there a way to bring those sculpt models into CS4E (assuming I have the full perm sculpt maps) and use the 3d texturing tools on them to customize the texture and export it? If so, what would the process be to bring in the model?

Forgive me as I know this is probably a newbie question for 3d modelers, but I'm feeling my way into this sphere.

Here's what I'd suggest. Bring the sculpty into a 3D modeling program that supports sculpt import, such as Wings3D. Then export it to a format that PS will understand, like OBJ. Import the model into PS, paint on it as you see fit, and save out your texture.

ah; thank you, Chosen. I'm looking forward to experimenting with this, when I can get CS4. Can't wait!

Hi all.
this might be a stupid question, but I am getting my new cs4 tomorrow
I'm wondering if I need to download a model in order to use your templates
if so where do I download the model from?

I have all of your templates Robin so I just need the model so I can paste them on to it, unless I am missing something some where.

Did I miss the area where I was able to download the model, if I did please direct me to the mannequin.

I'm so new with all this please dont laugh at my question

I looked at your images and noticed they are all on some type of 3d model of a woman with your templates pasted over them,

thank you so much

**nvm, figured it out!**

Is anyone having problems running both CS4 Extended & the 1.21.6 Client release. I have a ASUS 3Ghz & 2 Gig of ram. Duel Monitors. I had no problem with CS3 Extended.

If I start CS4 first... Client crashes during logon... If I start SL first, then all menu options in PS are grayed out.

Anyone run into this or have a suggestion.

My guess is PS and SL are fighting over graphics resources. As an experiment, try turning off hardware acceleration in PS. If the problem goes away, then it's a safe bet there's something in your graphics card and/or graphics driver that both programs were trying to use at the same time. If that's the case, then updating your driver and/or adding a second graphics card might solve the problem.

I'm just guessing, though, really. I haven't upgraded to CS4 yet (still waiting to get paid for my last project), so I don't have any first hand experience yet.

What graphics card do you have, by the way?



The mannequin models are available in the downloads section of the SL website. For a set that already has Robin's templates applied as textures, search this forum for the words "exported avatars" with Robin as the author. You'll find a link to download from her website.


Care to share what happened and how you solved the problem in case anyone else has the same issue?

So how do you get the texture back on the sculpty? Is this process for poly sculpty or can it be done with NURBS sculpty as well?

If you're working with NURBS, you'll need to convert the model to poly before you can bring it into PS.

I'm not sure what you mean by "get the texture back on the sculpty".

In Maya if I convert the NURBS to poly so that I can export as .obj and use in CS4 am I not left with an .obj UV texture map that doesn't work with the original NURBS?

How do you import a texture, and apply it to a 3D object?

When I create or import a 3D object and paint on it, doubleclicking on the texture opens a .PSB file displaying the painted texture. I can either paint on that or directly onto the model, so far so good... but now I would like to import a (PSD) texture I made earlier, apply it to the object in Photoshop, and paint on it.
I've opened the .PSB and just pasted my texture on it, but there should be a better way...?

Hi! Sorry that I've been neglecting this thread. RL has been interfering with all my plans lately.

Rachel and Monique, scuplts aren't 3D models anyplace except for SL and apps that have had Importers for Sculpts written for them. In PS, they are just textures. So you have to export them from something that sees them as a model, to get them into PS as models, as Chosen said.

Once it's in PS, you can just paint directly on it. You can see the underlying UV Map if you want to. Just go to 3D > Create UV Overlays, and pick the kind you want.

To get the texture out of PS, and onto the sculpt in SL, you simply save the texture file as a .tga or .png, as you normally would for upload. Personally, I like to open the .psb file, and click on the "Create new document from current state" button at the bottom of the History palette while the .psb is the Active Document. That makes a .psd copy, which I can flatten, shrink, and export without disturbing the .psb or the 3D file.

Just upload it to SL, and apply it to the sculpt.

If you are using this approach to models that you've purchased, you need to be aware that the less accurate the sculpt is, the less accurate the translation to .obj, and the less accurate the texture will be. I don't have any purchased sculpts, but in my experiments with freebies, some of them were.. ummm.. less than successful. Try to get good, smooth sculpts to work with, and you should be okay. I think.

Kireyo, if you want to use a texture you already have on the model in PS CS4, all you have to do is open the .psb file, and drag the layers you want from the previous texture onto that file. Hold down the Shift key as you drag, and they'll be placed exactly where they were, assuming that the two files have the same dimensions. (Both 1024x1024, for instance.)

If they don't, I'd recommend resizing the .psd so that they do, before you drag.

If you're having trouble with the dragging, you can also make sure both documents are open, then select the layers you want to move, and go Layer > Duplicate Layer. When the dialog appears, choose the .psb from the drop down menu in the Destination Document section, and they will appear in the .psb.

Save, and they will appear on the model.

I've also gotten a PM that had a question pertaining to this thread. I'd like, once more, to discourage people from doing that. Please, if you have a question, ask it here, so that everyone can learn from it. But if you can't bear to do that, for whatever reason, I'm still going to answer it here.

The question was "How did you get a shape to appear on the model? I can't make it do that."

If you look at the Shape Options, you'll see three little buttons at the left part of the Options bar, just after the Tool Presets drop down. Those allow you to make a Shape layer, make a Path, or just Fill the area with Pixels.

If you use the first one, Shape layer, you'll find that you've made a new Shape Layer above the 3D Layer you had selected. That's how shapes work. PS always inserts a new layer in the document with the Shape on it, even if you had a Shape layer selected.

If you use the second one, you'll get a Path. You can fill or stroke the path, or make it into a selection, and if you have the 3D Layer selected, it will act on the Materials in that layer. In other words, if you stroke the Path, the stroke will appear on the model, and on whatever parts of whatever maps are where that stroke is. However, although the stroke is on the model, the Path itself isn't. So, if you move the model, the path will remain stationary on your screen.

This can be handy, as you can fill the path, move the model, and fill again to stamp the design on the model.

Finally, if you choose "Fill Pixels" from the Options (the choice on the right) whatever shape you make will be automatically filled on the model, assuming that you're working on the Model layer.

I often use this option to test things, in PS, since it's faster (and looks better) than drawing a squiggle. That's why I used it to test the intersection of the four map pieces in the opening posts of this thread.

Hope all of this helps!

I have the CS2 production suite and I want CS4 bad. Need a newer video card though right now. I wish I could get this.