Photoshop CS4 - Everything and More!

Robin,
How did you apply a shape directly to the 3d model? I've been trying but every time it ends up on it's own 2d layer.

Hi Spitfire! I just answered that, a couple posts up.



Hope this helps!

Im not understanding the process of the psb file . I opened Robin's model dragged a file with several layers onto the the materials top when I initially paint on the model it goes to the file then if I double click to top material to look at the file and go back and paint more it creates another PSB file. Each new psb file has the latest painitng changes I have done. WHy is it doing this and do I just keep deleting the older Psb files?

Also the lighting is really dim I read in another post where Robin says to Appearance to Hard Lights and Shaded Illustration, with black lines instead of the default white, but that was for Cs3 and I can not seem to find where to do that anyone know?

THanks

The PSB thing is weird. I think theyre all temporary files though so I dont really worry about them and click them away.

For lighting,there's a way to get a "full bright" effect, with just the painted color and no extra lighting:
In the 3d palette, delete all the lights in the scene from the lights tab.
From the Scene tab, set the Global Ambient Light to pure white
Then click on each of the 3 texture icons and set the diffuse color to pure white, glossiness and shininess to 0% and turn off whatever other default lighting effects are on like self shadowing and stuff. You'll get a perfectly lit surface to paint on.

Hi Annyka!

Ummm.. yeah, you could do all that.

Or you can just go to 3D > Render Settings, and in the dialog that opens, choose "Unlit Texture" from the Face Style drop down menu in the first section.

Make sure that the only thing checked is Faces, and you'll have exactly the same effect, with a couple of clicks, and the ability to go back to shading in another couple of clicks so you can easily see where things are on the model. (An unpainted Head texture with no shading is totally featureless.)

You can even save that rendering style as a Preset. Just click the button that has a picture of a floppy disk on it (remember those?) and a system browser will open. Give it whatever name you want, and that name will show in the Preset drop down.

If you have time, play around with the settings in that dialog. They are lots of fun!

Sparkly, about the .psb files.

If your model is small enough, or your computer memory is large enough, what you draw on the model will show up on those files as you draw. While that is happening, you can also draw on the .psb, and it will show up on the model when you Save the .psb file.

But if that would take too much processing power, PS apparently is designed not to do that.

That's what I meant when I said, way back there, that the .psb appears to become disassociated from the model.

After that, it doesn't matter what you do to the .psb, or when you Save, it doesn't affect the model in the slightest, at least in my tests. And, as you've seen, if you need to look at the Material again, it will open a new .psb. (Before the disassociation, if you double click on the Material, it just brings the open .psb to the front. So that's one way to test it.)

Since it's probably going to disassoicate fairly soon unless you have a killer machine (I can get about five strokes in, working with the SL Avatar, before it happens) my suggestion is to change your workflow to assume that will happen.

When you want to change layers in the .psb, open the material, change the layer, and then close the .psb. That way, you free up more memory for your actual painting, which is always a good thing.

If you want to paint on the flat surface for some reason, for instance to add a Pattern Adjustment Layer that you want on the entire Material, then open the .psb, do whatever you want to do, Save, and then close it again.

If you've forgotten to close, and you have an extra open .psb, yeah. You can just discard it. It's not attached to the file any more anyway, as far as I can tell.

Hope this helps!

Doh!

I just upgraded from CS to CS4 and have never worked with the 3d model of the avatar in Photoshop. I've been looking everywhere, and can't find a tutorial on how this works, or maybe i'm just not understanding it.

I have Robin's files, and open them in CS4 and then....road block. how do i actually see the model? I think im missing some obvious step and feel like an idiot!! can anyone help?

thanks-

oh don't be afraid to dumb this down either

To get the model in you have to go to the main menu 3D->New Layer from 3D File...

Then you can assign textures to the various body parts in a couple ways but the simplest is to go to the 3D Materials panel and find the Diffuse section and there is a menu icon where you can create or load an image to use for that body part. There is some explanation of this in the Adobe Help area.


The question I have is has anyone tried pasting images onto the 3D layer. In BodyPaint I can freeze the screen and paste and image, stretch it into place, stuff like that and it will paste the various peices onto the various textures even across seams. Seems PS opens a new layer. Can I merge down that layer onto the diffuse layers? Also I saw some stuff referring to wrapping 2D textures around 3D objects but haven't found any explanation on this.

You can merge down and it will paste the new layer into the active layer of the underlying model. You can keep the new layers separate by creating new a blank layer on your model so that it will merge the pasted image into its own layer and it also works across seams and body parts


One thing I've noticed so far, while PS handles seams very well, there are a few places on the avatar that give it trouble. Mainly, anywhere that the texture is very close to the edge of the page, like the top of the forehead/head seam, and the back of the neck/head seam. It helps if you use the blend tool on the flat texture to blend out the pixels to the edge, then touch up the seam on the 3d model.

Thank you Mystical..i got a model! yay!

i just dont know how to draw on it yet.

Trying to figure out how to draw on the model and have it appear on the SL template. Im basically lookin at robins pic from the first page and wanting to do that. http://www.robinwood.com/Discussion...V-CS4-Small.jpg


It keeps telling me that I cannot edit the texture directly, but to open the texture and choose an editable target layer to proceed?

Also, is there a specific place i need to open the model? in a new window? or right ontop of the template?

thanks in advance.

in the 3D layer you will see the list of textures under the Diffuse node in the tree like heirarchy. Double click that and it will open as a new window that will have the 2D texture.

Hi Lyric!

To get the model into PS CS4 Extended, just choose File > Open, and browse to the .obj model you want to use. It will open in PS, ready to go.

To paint on the model, use the Flippy on the right side of the Layer the Model is on to see the Texture layers that are currently in use.

Double click on one to open it.

It will open as a .psb file, right there in Photoshop. (The only way you can tell it's a .psb is to look at the top. Psb is the format that PS uses for Smart Objects, textures on models, and things like that.)

If you're using my models, you might want to change the Image Size to 1024. I made it small to keep file size down during uploading and downloading, but you don't need to keep it that way.

Add a new, empty layer to paint on by using the New Layer icon, just the way you usually would, and Save the file. (It doesn't get transferred to the model until you Save, so that's a necessary step.)

Once you've Saved, close that file. (You don't have to, but since it's probably going to become disassociated from the model as soon as you start to paint anyway, you might as well, and save the computer cycles that it takes to keep it open.)

Do this for all 3 of the materials.

Then take your paintbrush, and start to paint!

As long as you have the layer with the Model selected in your PS document, the paint will be applied to the selected layer in the various Material .psb files.

If you want to change the layer in the Material, open the file, change it, and close it again. It's as easy as that.

I highly recommend that you also open the 3D panel (the things that used to be Palettes) because it has some useful tools that you won't find elsewhere, like the one for the lights.

You'll find it under Window > 3D.

Don't forget to check Help too, since there aren't any manuals any more (Sigh.)

That will open a website, since Adobe has decided to move all the information to the web, where it's easy to update, and people can add to it. (I don't like that, by the way, but there it is.)

Don't let the dozens of totally disorganized things on the Photoshop Help and Support page throw you, and don't use Search there. You'll get a load of "noise and garbage".

Instead, look at the top of the gray sidebar on the right, and click on "Photoshop Help (web)" if you want to stay on the web, or "Photoshop Help (printable)" if you want a .pdf. The .pdf has an index, and is printable or saveable, but it's also very large (40.31 MB) so it takes a while to download.

If you use the Web one, there is a dark gray bar, right under the blue title bar, that has a Search field (in gray, so it's hard to spot) and a place where you can click "This Help System Only".

Click that, and then type your keywords into Search, and you'll go to the right place in the document.

For instance, you can type in "Paint 3D" (no quotes) and it will show you a list of articles about painting on 3D models, from the help files.

If you can't think of keywords, you can also use the headings on the left to look for a section that's likely to contain the info you need.

For instance, you would click on the + next to "3D and technical Imaging" and then "3D editing and output (Photoshop Extended) to find the section about "Paint on 3D models".

There are also lots of tutorials already popping up.

For example, there's one at Photoshop Cafe that tells you how to navigate the 3D window, etc.

You'll fine it here if you're interested.

There are links to some excellent video tutorials on the main Help page that you get if you click Help in the program. So you might not want to utterly dismiss it. But it's not what you need if you just want a quick answer to a simple question.

Or, if you really want to learn Adobe products, I highly recommend Lynda.com.

Hope this helps!

Hi Robin!

Thanks so much for the info! I was able to get the SL avatar object in there, and able to paint right on!

Couple more questions tho.

I downloaded your smart objects from your website hoping to use your avatar object instead of SL's. There's seems to be very bumpy and I can't draw very smooth on the surface. And by the looks of your pics from earlier posts, your obj looks much much smoother. Can you tell me how to get your object in? or if there is a place i can dl your objects directly?

2nd..how do i get the templates to appear on the model?

Thanks again in advance!

Lyric

Hi Lyric!

Sure! You can get them from my site, at http://tinyurl.com/6h5ztx

That's here if you have something that lets you just click on links in these seemingly permanently broken forums.

That's a zip file, and the download will start the moment you open the page, so be warned.

They are smoother, because I opened them in LightWave, and merged all the vertices. That lets PS CS4 shade the polys as if they were smooth.

You can get the templates to appear on the model by putting those layers in the material .psb file.

There are low rez .jpgs of the templates on the files in that download, but I mostly put them there because you had to have something in there, in CS3, in order to ever get anything in them again.

Now that you don't, I recommend that you do a couple of things when you first open those files.

First, change the resolution of the image from 512 to 1024. Just change Image Size, as you usually would. It won't change anything on your model. Second, put the templates you're used to working with into those files, and toss the ones that are in there. Since they were really just placeholders, you don't need them; and the others I have are much more flexible anyway.

Sparkle, I'm sorry that I missed your lighting question. Just in case you haven't found it yet, you can get to the lights by going to Window > 3D (or opening the 3D Panel if you have it handy already.)

At the top of that panel is a row of four icons.

Click the first one, and make sure the Scene line is highlighted.

Look at the bottom portion of that panel, and you'll see, among other things, a color swatch labeled "Global Ambient Color". Click it, and choose a lighter color, say 70% white, and your scene will brighten a bit.

Now, look at the list of things in the scene. See the one called "Infinite Light 2"? Click on that, and the bottom of the panel will change to the Lighting panel for that light.

Change the color of that light to white, and things will brighten considerably.

That's the light that's coming from the angle that's behind the "camera" when you first open the scene. Light 2 is coming from the back left, so you can't really see any of the surfaces that it's lighting when you open the scene, and Light 3 is coming from the bottom, and lighting the undersides of the polys.

You can change the angle of any of the lights, in CS4. (You can't, in CS3. You can't touch them at all, which is why I suggested that you use a different rendering for that one.)

To see where the lights are coming from, click the icon on the bottom of the panel, second from the right, that looks like a lightbulb with an eyeball next to it, to enable the Light Guides. Since these are infinite lights, that'll give you a cyan bulb, with a line coming out from it that shows the light direction.

Click the icons on the top left of the lower panel, with the rotate circle, and the pan and move arrows, to move the light around. (Since this is an infinite light, only Rotate will be active.)

To change to a different kind of light, so you can see what the other icons do, choose a different type from the drop down menu at the top there, where it says "Infinite". You can pick a Spotlight, or a Point light. The different ones will give you different kinds of representations on the screen, as well as different kinds of controls, and different lighting effects.

If you want to add or remove lights, you can use the New icon (same page with a corner that you find throughout PS) or the trash can, of course.

If you want to save a light set, or replace the lights with a set you have saved, use the fly out Panel Menu, at the top right corner of the panel, where all the other fly out panel menus are, throughout the program.

Play around with it! It's lots of fun.

The other icons at the top of the 3D panel are filters, that show you only the meshes in your scene, only the Materials, or only the Lights. Very useful, with complex scenes, but for a scene as simple as the Avatar by itself, I find it easier to just look at the whole scene.

If you're going to be working in the 3D environment, by the way, I strongly suggest that you leave the 3D panel where you can get to it easily, even if you don't want to leave it open all the time.

Hope this helps!

hi Robin

Just wanna say thanks for puttin up with my noobness. got the program workin great, and ur objects are smooth and lovely!

lyric

Hey loving all of this , I've been messing around with it abit and its amazing , I've read up some of the information on it , but here seems to be the best help ( Seeing as it has to do with sl haha)
Ok well I converted my nurbs shoe in Maya to polygons.I think I saw that said somewhere here ( as I was having issues opening my model ) so I converted BUT now my mesh isnt nice and smooth to paint on I dont understand how I get it smooth to be able to paint properly on it.
Any help would be great!

Thanks

This is really a Maya question, not a PS question, so I'll keep my answer brief. I don't want to sidetrack this thread too much.

After you convert you NURBS model to polygons, soften the normals. That will make it appear smoother.

If you need more details, I would suggest we take this topic to a new thread.

Okay well I'll try that,and tbh most of my questions are me getting slightly stuck IN CS4
plus it wasn't to smooth in maya as such , was more to have it be smooth in CS4 and if that problem would even give me issues with my texture.

But Anyway I been dabbling with it again but still haven't got to grips with how I paint on my 'shoe'?
It's not making much sense to me lol! logic wise * hangs head in shame*

example , can I load the whole shoe , shoe base , sole and heel into cs4 and paint on it or is it better to load seperate parts?

And then ofcourse how do I actually paint so it paints onto my texture psb? layer so that It would show on my model ?

Hope Im not to confusing :/

Hi Kookie!

Assuming that you have given the mesh one or more Materials in Maya (however that is done; I don't have Maya, so I really have no idea how) you'll be able to see a list of Textures if you open the Flippy triangle on the right side of the 3D Object Layer.

They will probably be listed as "Diffuse" textures, which is all we can use in SL.

To paint on your model, just grab a tool, and start to paint. The strokes you make will automatically appear on the model, and also on the selected layer in the .psb file associated with that Diffuse Texture, as explained in several of the posts above.

To change which layer you are painting on, double click on the Texture (Material) name in the list to open that .psb file. Select a layer, or make a new one, and close the .psb file. When you paint again, the paint will be on the new layer.

It's really that easy.

You don't have to close the .psb file, but if you paint on the model, it's very likely that PS will decide that it can't keep up, and disassociate the two files, which is confusing. So it saves time and grief (and processor cycles) to just close it in the first place.

On the other hand, you can also paint on the .psb file, and your changes will be updated on the model when you Save the .psb. As long as you're painting on the .psb, PS doesn't disassociate them, presumably because it's not having to update the 3D model in real time.

There is lots more information in the posts above, if you read them carefully, or you can try the Adobe Help System. (I miss manuals, though. I miss manuals a lot.)

Hope this helps!

Holy smokes! Could it be?!?! Chip Midnight leaving Photoshop 7 behind?!?!?1

*faints*

*laughs* Not quite yet. I still haven't coughed up for CS4, and I loves me my GhostPainter still. Maybe in 2009 if I have the extra money. Before the 3d paint features were added the only thing I really missed not having is smart objects.

hi,

i've downloaded the CS4 demo and seems really good, i own an old Photoshop CS
About the 3d paint part, i've not found the vay to paint with symmetry.
There is some way to put a Axe and paint symetrically?

Thank You
Zer

finally got my copy up and running today. woohoo and yay for work buying all of this stuff for me to play with. hah!

am loving smart guides in Ps, Ai and Id. and multiple artboards in Ai is nice(if a little late to the party, since Freehand had it) and the new gradient tool/features are awesome!).

still dipping my toes in to everything at the moment. loving it so far, though.

I am considering upgrading my PC to a Mac in the next few months and have the opportunity to purchase C4 premium version inexpensively compared to full retail.

But, before I do I have a simple question...I don't understand the stuff about objects and meshes etc. Really new to photoshop, and glad I bought CS3 back in October. I am learning it little by little thru tutorials and trial and error. What I am really interested in is the 3D portion being spoken of to make clothes for SL. Can you make you designs on the 3d model using your templates or Chips..i.e. good seam matching...make your textures and upload the texture to SL and it look the same?

Thanks!

Just recieved my copy of CS4 for a belated christmas present lol and i'm a little lost already. I've been playing around with CS2 in the past and had the hang of that near enough and CS4 looks pretty much the same other than the 3d tools. I've googled and looked at a few web sites already but they don't seem too deal with the proper basics. So please please recommend me some good tutorials on all the 3d stuff, beginner would be best lol.