Getting the bodypaint thing down

[john gonzales]

Greetings all,

Hey Robin I just ordered the CD and I am looking forward to when it gets here. I just thought I would run a few basic questions by you before I start.

When I get my object into Body paint out of Lightwave (via the BP exchange plug-in) it goes with out a hitch but I am a bit lost here. The documentation is scketchy at best. When I contact tech support (at Maxon)most of the people I write to are C4D or Max or Maya users and have little or no experience with Lightwave (starting to feel like a red headed step-child here).

Do I run the UV set up wizard to do projection mapping when sending a LW object over? Based on what I have gathered from the documentation that came with BodyPaint I can only export one channel at a time,.... Is this correct??

I am on a dual 2.5 G5 with 5 gigs of ram and an nVidea 6800 Ultra cardand Lightwave 8.3.

Any info you can send my way would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers

[Robkoni]

Hello John ,I hope you like the vid:cool:
ok, if you want to UV in BP2 ,and set up materials ,then yes you can run the Bodypaint setup wizard ,this will give you a basic Projection from which you can work with ,it will also assign materials, as many channels as you want (colour,bump.spec ,etc)
I often do a lot of UVing in LW or XSI ,then use BPs brilliant relax tool .:wave:
Any other questions feel free to ask:thumbsup:
All the best Robin

[john gonzales]

Originally Posted by Robkoni
Hello John ,I hope you like the vid
ok, if you want to UV in BP2 ,and set up materials ,then yes you can run the Bodypaint setup wizard ,this will give you a basic Projection from which you can work with ,it will also assign materials, as many channels as you want (colour,bump.spec ,etc)

So I am not limited to just one channel. I can do projection painting in all texture channels and send them back to Lightwave then? If so this is great, I have been playing around with the projection mappingand it's really cool. I am still trying to wrap my head around the interface. Been in Lightwave too long I guess. It reminds me a lot of Painter.....

Now just what happens when you send your model back to Lightwave? Does BP write a series of image files to your image diretory in Lightwave? Based on what I have gathered it doesn't touch the model, it just creates the UV coords and maps.


I often do a lot of UVing in LW or XSI ,then use BPs brilliant relax tool .

So you can build UVs in Lightwave and then bring them into BP to paint? I was under the impression that due to the different way LW handles it's mapping that there would be an issue with this.

Any other questions feel free to ask
All the best Robin

Thanks Robin, Keep up the great work

[Robkoni]

Yup you can paint in ,Color,Diff,Luminace,Tranparency,Reflection,Enviri onment,Bump,Alpha,Specular and finaly Displacement.........take your pick

Yup it rights the image to your images directory......in the preferances you can set paths for your images

Theres no issue with LW's and xsi's UV's ,if your used to Uving in LW then do all your UVing in LW...and maybe tweak a bit in BP ,its up to you most people UV in there host application and then just paint in BP2
:wave:

[john gonzales]

Thanks for all the great info,

I am now really looking forward to getting my CD and jumping into BP (eh..... that's Body Paint......not British Petroleum)

Cheers

[john gonzales]

Hey Robin,

I just want to say first of all the DVD really helped a lot in de-mystifying the Maxon/BP interface as a Lightwave user I really don't care for it.

I had entertained the notion of Maxon as an alternative to Lightwave but had a terrible time with the interface. I do know that Maxon has made come concessions to the customization of the interfaces even to the extent of having configs that resemble Lightwave (kudos to Maxon) but even so it's getting used to this new environment the is somewhat vexing especially when I'm used to the fluid workflow of Lightwave. That being said, I am geting used to environment a bit more so the experience is getting better and you have made a great contribution to this......

The one issue I am having and I hope I can get some more info here is I have an object that I have created in Lightwave, this object has a lot of beveling and detailing and is rather comeplex in this respect. I am no UV expert but I am now starting to move more and more into this area, If possible I would like to ask a few questions in regards to the optimal procedure of getting my object to Body Paint and safely back to Lightwave:

1. Would it be better to create one UV map in Lightwave using Atlas and letting Body Paint's UV Edit tools?

2. Once I get my object into bodypaint with my atlas map would the Paint setup Wizard be the best way to optimize and my existing UV atlas map?

Any help, guidance would be greatly apprieciated.

Cheers

[Robkoni]

Hi John ,:wave:
Thanks for getting the VID......
Well on the UV front there are many ways to skin a cat ,although I havent and dont suggest you do............it wont help with UVing.......
So you can apply an Atlas in LW ,then edit ib BP ,you can do the whole thing in BP,using the setup wizard ,you can apply different Maps to different parts of your mesh in LW ,instead of just one huge map ,it really depends on what the model is ,what its going to be used for,and how you like doing things ,theres a Free Tutorial coming out useing XSI and BP2 ,it might give you some tips ,or if you can wait a little while ,the next BP vid will be out with an in depth look at the UVing options in BP
All the best Robin:thumbsup: