Reference Manual
BODYPAINT 3D Programming Team Plugins Writers Layout Translation Cover Graphic Tilo Kühn, Thomas Kunert, Richard Kurz, Christian Losch, Philip Losch, David O’Reilly. Sven Behne, Wilfried Behne, Michael Breitzke, Kiril Dinev, Per-Anders Edwards, David Farmer, Jamie Halmick, Reinhard Hintzenstern, Jan Eric Hoffmann, Eduardo Olivares, Nina Ivanova, Markus Jakubietz, Eric Sommerlade, Hendrik Steffen, Jens Uhlig, Michael Welter, Thomas Zeier.
MAXON Computer End User License Agreement NOTICE TO USER WITH THE INSTALLATION OF BODYPAINT 3D (THE “SOFTWARE”) A CONTRACT IS CONCLUDED BETWEEN YOU (“YOU” OR THE “USER”) AND MAXON COMPUTER GMBH ( THE “LICENSOR”), A COMPANY UNDER GERMAN LAW WITH RESIDENCE IN FRIEDRICHSDORF, GERMANY. WHEREAS BY USING AND/OR INSTALLING THE SOFTWARE YOU ACCEPT ALL THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF THIS AGREEMENT. IN THE CASE OF NON-ACCEPTANCE OF THIS LICENSE YOU ARE NOT PERMITTED TO INSTALL THE SOFTWARE.
(3) The license fee for network operation of the Software will be communicated to you by the Licensor immediately after you have indicated the number of admitted users in writing. The correct address of the Licensor is given in the manual and also at the end of this contract. The network use may start only after the relevant license fee is completely paid. 4. Transfer (1) You may not rent, lease, sublicense or lend the Software or documentation.
other software used by the licensee. You are obliged to check the Software and the documentation carefully immediately upon receipt and inform the Licensor in writing of apparent defects 14 days after receipt. Latent defects have to be communicated in the same manner immediately after their discovery. Otherwise the Software and documentation are considered to be faultless. The defects, in particular the symptoms that occurred, are to be described in detail in as much as you are able to do so.
10. Information In case of transfer of the Software you are obliged to inform the Licensor of the name and full address of the transferee in writing. The address of the Licensor is stated in the manual and at the end of this contract. 11. Data Protection For the purpose of customer registration and control of proper use of the programs the Licensor will store personal data of the Users in accordance with the German law on Data Protection (Bundesdatenschutzgesetz).
Contents 1 Getting to Know BodyPaint 3D .........................................................................3 Starting BodyPaint 3D ........................................................................................................................... 3 Quitting BodyPaint 3D........................................................................................................................... 3 Mouse techniques .....................................................................................
3 Configuration................................................................................................... 31 Configuration dialogs .......................................................................................................................... 31 Configuration managers...................................................................................................................... 32 Other settings .......................................................................................
Wavefront Import / Export ............................................................................................................. 76 Texture Paths....................................................................................................................................... 77 Units ................................................................................................................................................... 77 4 Workflow.....................................................
Group............................................................................................................................................124 View..............................................................................................................................................124 7 Brushes........................................................................................................... 129 Brush Settings ............................................................................
9 Edit Menu....................................................................................................... 163 Undo, Undo View.............................................................................................................................. 164 Redo, Redo View ............................................................................................................................... 164 Undo (Texture) ....................................................................................
13 Filter Menu ...................................................................................................203 Photoshop Filters............................................................................................................................... 206 14 Select Polygon Menu ...................................................................................209 Invert All ...........................................................................................................................
Stop Interactive Mapping ............................................................................................................. 237 16 Tools Menu ................................................................................................... 241 Paint Tools..........................................................................................................................................241 3D Painting Mode ....................................................................................
Edges ........................................................................................................................................... 277 Polygons ...................................................................................................................................... 277 Object Axis................................................................................................................................... 278 Model .............................................................
Render Settings ................................................................................................................................. 304 General ........................................................................................................................................ 304 Output ......................................................................................................................................... 307 Save ...........................................................
20 Help Menu....................................................................................................349 MAXON Online ................................................................................................................................. 349 Help (BodyPaint 3D) .......................................................................................................................... 349 Personalize ..........................................................................................
Tags Menu .........................................................................................................................................371 Edit Tag .........................................................................................................................................371 Copy Tag To Children.....................................................................................................................371 Select Identical Child Tags ..........................................
Paste ............................................................................................................................................ 455 Delete .......................................................................................................................................... 455 Select All, Deselect All.................................................................................................................. 455 Display Modes.......................................................
24 Attribute Manager .......................................................................................669 Editing parameters ............................................................................................................................ 670 Navigating the Attribute manager ..................................................................................................... 670 The Attribute manager’s context menu ............................................................................
Import ASCII Data ........................................................................................................................ 689 Export ASCII Data......................................................................................................................... 690 Close ............................................................................................................................................ 690 Edit Menu .................................................................
1 Getting to Know BodyPaint 3D
GETTING TO KNOW BODYPAINT 3D • 3 1 Getting to Know BodyPaint 3D Starting BodyPaint 3D To start BodyPaint 3D, do one of the following: - Double-click on the program’s icon. - Double-click on a scene file. - Use the Start menu (Windows). Alternatively, drag-and-drop one or more BodyPaint 3D files from Explorer (Windows) or Finder (Mac OS) onto the BodyPaint 3D application icon or directly into the program. Template.c4d If the BodyPaint 3D root folder contains a scene named “Template.
4 • CHAPTER 1 Graphics Tablet BodyPaint 3D supports all graphics tablets which conform to the WinTab standard, such as the Wacom range. The pen pressure, pen tilt, pen direction and pen finger wheel are all supported. For details on how to link these input methods to your brush settings, see “Effectors” on page 136. Hotkeys 1 to 7 To use a hotkey, hold down the key and drag the mouse.
GETTING TO KNOW BODYPAINT 3D • 5 The User Interface BodyPaint 3D’s user interface offers many advanced features that you won't find in the Windows or Mac OS GUI: - You can dock all windows into the main window. - When you move a docked window, the surrounding windows are resized to make space. - You can display windows as tabs to conserve display space. 3 1 2 4 8 5 6 7 1. Toolbar, 2. 3D view, 3. Local menu, 4. Texture view, 5. Material manager, 6. Object manager, 7. Attribute manager, 8. Tabs.
6 • CHAPTER 1 To switch to different layout, click the top icon in the left toolbar and choose the desired layout from the list that appears. The “BP UV Edit.l4d” layout.
GETTING TO KNOW BODYPAINT 3D • 7 A Quick Tour In these pages you’ll find details on the various parts of the program which appear when you start BodyPaint 3D for the first time. If you want to know more about a particular part of the program, look it up in the relevant chapter of this manual. Managers Managers are the main program elements in BodyPaint 3D. Each manager has its own window and runs alongside the other managers.
8 • CHAPTER 1 If there isn’t enough space to display the entire menu bar, you’ll see a black triangle appear. Click the triangle to reveal the remaining menu entries as a drop-down list. Icon palettes The default layout includes several icon palettes (aka “toolbars”) containing the most popular commands as icons. In the bottom right corner of some of these icons you’ll notice a small black triangle, which indicates a folded group of commands.
GETTING TO KNOW BODYPAINT 3D • 9 For more information, see “Tabs” on page 35. For details on a particular manager, please refer to the chapter for that manager. Context menus To open a context menu, right-click (Windows) or Command-click (Mac OS). Input boxes Input boxes with two arrowheads (one pointing up, the other pointing down) offer the following features: - Click an arrowhead to increment or decrement the value by one. - Drag an arrowhead to increase or decrease the value rapidly.
10 • CHAPTER 1 Color manager Here you can choose the foreground and background colors that are used by the paint tools and commands. Active Tool manager This is where you’ll find settings for the active tool. For example, if you select the brush tool, the manager gives you access to the brush settings. Object manager This manager lists each object that is present in the scene.
2 Views and Viewports
VIEWS AND VIEWPORTS • 13 2 Views and Viewports You can open as many view panels (aka views) as you like. Each view panel has its own display settings. A view panel can display up to four viewports (views of a scene) and each of these viewports also has its own display settings. Viewport icons There are four icons in the top right corner of each viewport. The right-most icon toggles the active view (see “Toggle Active View” on page 24).
14 • CHAPTER 2 Edit Menu Undo View, Redo View Each viewport has its own Undo View/Redo View commands (the Undo/Redo commands on the main window have no effect on editor cameras, i.e. those in viewports). The short-cuts for Undo View and Redo View are Ctrl+Shift+Z and Ctrl+Shift+Y respectively. Frame Frame Selected Elements The camera will move so that the selected elements (e.g. objects, polygons) fill the viewport and are centered.
VIEWS AND VIEWPORTS • 15 Redraw This command redraws the scene. Usually, BodyPaint 3D updates viewports automatically. Sometimes this is not possible, such as when you have used several CPUintensive commands in quick succession or aborted an action. Configure If you choose Edit > Configure from the viewport’s menu, the Configure Viewport dialog will open. Active Object Display Display sets the display mode (e.g. Gouraud shading, Wireframe) for the active object, although see “Use Shading Property” below.
16 • CHAPTER 2 For example, backface culling checks the direction of each normal to determine whether its polygon should be drawn — if the normal points away from the camera, the surface is not drawn (the surface is assumed to point away from the camera, just like its normal). X-Ray Effect To switch on X-ray mode, enable this option. If the active object is a polygon object, it will become semi-transparent and you’ll be able to see all of its points and edges.
VIEWS AND VIEWPORTS • 17 Show Safe Frames Render Safe Action Safe Safe frames are areas which will be in full view when played back on the target medium. To display safe frames, enable this option and in the preferences, on the Viewport page, enable the desired safe frames (Render Safe, Action Safe, Title Safe).
18 • CHAPTER 2 Cameras Menu Each viewport has its own independent camera, called the editor camera. The editor camera is active by default, but you can create and activate your own cameras. Unlike the editor camera, your own cameras are shown as objects in the Object manager. Scene Cameras To activate your own camera, choose it from this list. For more details on creating and using your own cameras, see “Cameras” on page 400.
VIEWS AND VIEWPORTS • 19 Left: The YZ view. Right: The ZY view. Front: The XY view. Back: The YX view. Top: The XZ view. Bottom: The ZX view. Military: X:Y:Z = 1:1:1. Frog: X:Y:Z = 1:2:1. Bird: X:Y:Z = 1:0.5:1. Gentleman: X:Y:Z = 1:1:0.5. This is a popular choice for architecture. Isometric. A popular choice for technical subjects (e.g. machinery). The X:Y:Z format is 1:1:1. Dimetric. Similar to Isometric, but with an X:Y:Z format of 1:1:0.5.
20 • CHAPTER 2 Display Menu This contains display-related options such as the shading mode. To switch on realtime antialiasing, enable Antialiased Lines in the preferences on the OpenGL Shading page. Level of Detail Choose from Low, Medium or High. The setting affects the amount of detail shown on each object for the selected display type – the lower the detail, the faster the display.
VIEWS AND VIEWPORTS • 21 The default light will also be used if you render and there are no lights in your scene. However, note that the default light used for rendering is different to the one used for viewport shading.
22 • CHAPTER 2 Shaded Box This mode displays each object as a shaded box. Each box has the same dimensions as the object it represents. This is a fast display mode that is suited to large scenes. Box This mode displays each object as a wireframe box. Each wireframe box has the same dimensions as the object it represents. Box is the second fastest display mode available, making it useful for extremely demanding scenes. Skeleton This is the fastest display mode of all.
VIEWS AND VIEWPORTS • 23 Figure 1. Figure 2. By convention, the normals should point outwards from their surfaces, as in Figure 1 above. Objects with inwardly-pointing normals may show display errors. To remedy, reverse the normals, as illustrated in Figure 2 (see “Reverse Normals” on page 286). The following picture shows how backface culling hides concealed surfaces (backfaces). The object on the left does not use backface culling, the object on the right does.
24 • CHAPTER 2 Disable Textures Controls whether textures are shown in the viewport. You can switch textures on or off for individual objects using Display tags. Use Textures enabled in the Display tag (Attribute manager). X-Ray X-ray mode off. X-ray mode on. To activate the X-ray effect, enable this option. If the active object is a polygon object, it will become semi-transparent and you’ll be able to see its concealed points and edges.
VIEWS AND VIEWPORTS • 25 View Menu Each view panel can have up to four viewports. Each of these viewports may have its own camera, projection type and display mode. Viewport arrangement You can choose a single-view mode or all-views mode.
26 • CHAPTER 2 Texture View In contrast to the 3D view, the Texture view enables you to view and paint textures in two dimensions. Sometimes you’ll find it easier to paint an effect in the Texture view instead of in the 3D view. For example, suppose you want to paint a ring of flowers around the neck of a vase. In the 3D view, you would have to keep rotating around the vase as you paint. But in the 2D view, you could paint the entire band without having to stop to navigate to a new position.
VIEWS AND VIEWPORTS • 27 View Menu Fit To Screen Zooms the texture and UV polygons to fill the Texture view. Zoom 100% The texture is displayed at its actual size. Zoom In, Zoom Out Zooms in or out on the texture by 25%. Set Zoom Here you can enter the zoom factor manually as a percentage (100% represents the texture’s actual size), or you can click the triangle right of the box to open a menu of various zoom factors. Close Closes the Texture view.
28 • CHAPTER 2 UV Mesh Menu Show UV Mesh To display the UV mesh while you are using the paint tools, enable this option. The UV mesh is displayed automatically when the UV Polygons tool or UV Points tool is selected. Objects, Texture Tags, UV Tags These menus give you a quick way to choose which UV mesh is shown. You can choose to display the UV mesh for any object, Texture tag or UV tag which belongs to the active material.
3 Configuration
CONFIGURATION • 31 3 Configuration BodyPaint 3D has hundreds of commands and a freely customizable GUI. This means that there are many settings also. To keep BodyPaint 3D easy to use, we have placed the settings in various places where they make the most sense. This chapter shows you where to find these settings and how to use them. Some of the settings are described in other chapters. Where this is the case, you’ll see a reference to the relevant page.
32 • CHAPTER 3 To prevent the Browser from loading the settings, disable the Load Manager Settings option on the Document page of the preferences. Configuration managers Command manager Use this manager to create or edit palettes and to create or edit short-cuts. To access the Command manager, choose Window > Layout > Command Manager from the main menu. The Command manager settings are saved when you quit BodyPaint 3D. See “The Command Manager” on page 40.
CONFIGURATION • 33 Graphical User Interface This section shows you how to configure BodyPaint 3D’s GUI. Among other things, you can tab windows, create your own icon palettes and change the menu structure. Windows Arranging You can load a previously saved layout or revert to the default layout at any time. See “Working with Layouts” on page 91. To change the position of a window, drag the window’s pin icon to the new position. A dark line appears while you drag to indicate the new location.
34 • CHAPTER 3 Undocking You can insert a window or a icon palette into an undocked window to form a new GUI group. This is especially useful if you are using more than one monitor. To undock a window, click its pin icon and choose Undock from the menu that appears. The window becomes freestanding and floats above the main window. Choose Undock. Undocked window. Undocked windows are fully functional. The advantage of docked windows is automatic justification when you resize a window.
CONFIGURATION • 35 Tabs you drop a pin onto another pin, both become tabs, even if the target was not a When tab. You can display a window or icon palette as a tab. To create the tab, click the pin icon and select Make Tab. To move a tab from one group to another, drag the tab’s pin onto a tab or pin in the target group. The mouse pointer changes to a hand to indicate when insertion is possible. Insertion is possible when the pointer changes to a hand. Icon palettes makes great tabs too.
36 • CHAPTER 3 Icon Palettes undocked palette is a window in its own right. For example, it can contain several icon An palettes and windows. This is especially useful if you are using more than one monitor. Icon palettes, also known as toolbars, may contain any command that can be selected from a menu. Commands in palettes can be shown as icons, text, or as icons and text. Icon palettes help you reach important commands quickly.
CONFIGURATION • 37 - Right-click (Windows) or Command-click (Mac OS) on an existing icon palette to open the icon palette’s context menu and choose New Icon Palette. You can only add commands when the Edit Palettes option is enabled. You can add commands to the palette in two ways: drag commands from an existing palette into the new palette or drag commands from the Command manager into the new palette. Once Edit Palettes is enabled, drag the first command onto the Empty Palette box of the new palette.
38 • CHAPTER 3 Loading an icon palette Use the Load Toolbar command to load a previously saved icon palette. The toolbar appears as a freestanding window which you can integrate into the layout as desired. Vertical or horizontal? Choose Transpose to toggle between vertical and horizontal alignment of commands. Rows and columns The values you select for Rows/Columns defines the number of rows or columns used for a palette. If Transpose is set to Vertical, this setting refers to the number of columns.
CONFIGURATION • 39 Next, disable the Edit Palettes option. Click and hold down the mouse button on the visible command. The folded palette appears. Either release the mouse button and select the desired command or position the mouse pointer over the desired command before you release the mouse button. Note that the visible command is also a hidden command. If Lock Icon is disabled on the context menu, the visible command is the most recently selected command.
40 • CHAPTER 3 The Command Manager The Command manager lists all the commands available in BodyPaint 3D. Use this manager to drag commands in order to create your own icon palettes or submenus (see “The Menu Manager” on page 43). You can also use the Command manager to define short-cuts. Inserting commands into palettes First, enable the Edit Palettes option. Next, drag-and-drop commands onto the palette. A dark line indicates where a command will be inserted.
CONFIGURATION • 41 To create a short-cut - In the Command manager, click a command in the list to choose it. - Click in the Assign text box and press the desired short-cut. - Click the green check mark right of the text box. The short-cut appears in the Current box. To remove the short-cut, click the red cross icon. Valid short-cuts are a single key, a combination of a key and Ctrl, Alt or Shift, or a combination of these. The short-cuts are saved in the “c4d_shortcuts.
42 • CHAPTER 3 The Menu Manager Use the Menu manager to edit submenus and drop-down lists. You can also add new submenus. The Menu manager and the Command manager enable you to configure BodyPaint 3D’s interface freely to the way you like to work. The menus BodyPaint 3D has dozens of menus. Use the drop-down list at the top of the manager to choose which menu is shown in the list. Submenus are prefixed with Submenu. To open or close a submenu, double-click it.
CONFIGURATION • 43 Copy, Paste, Delete/Cut Use these commands to copy, paste or delete the selected command. Rename Use this command to rename a submenu that you have created. Move Up, Move Down, New Submenu Use these commands to move the selected menu entry one position up or down the list and insert a new submenu above the selected entry. You can add commands or further submenus. Apply, Save All Changes, Revert To Saved, Revert To Original Apply applies the changes. Save saves all menu changes.
44 • CHAPTER 3 The Pin’s Menu Each manager has a pin icon near its top left corner. Earlier in this chapter we explained how the pin is used to combine and arrange managers (see “Graphical User Interface” on page 33). The pin also has a menu, the commands of which are described below. Undock Removes the current manager from the main window. The manager becomes a freestanding window which floats above the main window. Undock a tab to convert a manager to a floating window.
CONFIGURATION • 45 New Group Window A group window is a window which may contain multiple GUI elements such as a mutliple managers, view panels and toolbars. The command creates an empty group window into which you can dock elements. Close Closes the manager. To open the manager again, choose its name from the main Window menu.
46 • CHAPTER 3 Preferences To reset BodyPaint 3D to its factory settings, quit BodyPaint 3D and delete all files in BodyPaint 3D’s “prefs” folder. Warning: if you also delete the “.b3d” files from the “prefs” folder, you’ll lose your custom presets for colors, brushes and gradients. In the preferences you can change the editor’s appearance and change the way in which commands operate. To open the preferences dialog, choose Edit > Preferences.
CONFIGURATION • 47 Use QuickTime QuickTime may crash if you use damaged image files; this is not due to BodyPaint 3D and hence we offer the option to disable QuickTime. If you enable this option BodyPaint 3D uses QuickTime provided it is installed on your computer system. Additional file formats will then be available to you. If the option is disabled, the Browser will scan faster because it has less file formats to check.
48 • CHAPTER 3 Reverse Orbit This option reverses the camera’s rotation when you navigate using the mouse such as when you drag with the ‘3’ key held down. This useful if you commonly use another 3D application such as 3ds max or Maya where the camera rotates in the opposite direction to BodyPaint 3D’s camera. Render Threads Use this drop-down list to manually set the number of render threads (the number of render lines in the viewport or Picture Viewer).
CONFIGURATION • 49 Interface This tab lets you adjust the look-and-feel of BodyPaint 3D’s user interface. Dialogs Use Style to control the order of the OK and Cancel buttons within dialogs. Windows uses OK on the left and Cancel on the right, while the reverse is true under Mac OS. Choose whichever you feel comfortable with on your platform. Use Alignment to choose the alignment of the OK and Cancel buttons: left-aligned, centered or right-aligned.
50 • CHAPTER 3 Fonts The font changes will be effective only after you quit and restart BodyPaint 3D. Here you can choose which font is used for BodyPaint 3D’s menus, dialogs, and so on. Choose the desired font from the drop-down list and click the F button. In the dialog that opens, choose the font and its size. Clicking the R button reverts to your active system font. Delays If you are a Windows user you may have noticed that windows and menus open much faster in BodyPaint 3D than on your desktop.
CONFIGURATION • 51 Reference Choose Reference to open a list of presets for the GUI elements. In the list, click a preset’s name to enable its settings. Viewport Options BodyPaint 3D shades (i.e. draws) the objects in the viewport using one of two modes: Software Shading or OpenGL Shading. In Software Shading mode, BodyPaint 3D uses its own optimized viewport shading engine. In OpenGL mode, your graphics card’s OpenGL feature accelerates viewport shading (provided that your card supports OpenGL).
52 • CHAPTER 3 Use Draw Cache Enable this option to speed up viewport shading. Keep in mind that the RAM required will rise slightly when you enable this option. Redraw Limit This process enables you to work smoothly in the viewports. With some complex scenes, you may be unable to move objects smoothly in the viewports with full shading due to hardware limitations such as processor speed. To help resolve this issue, BodyPaint 3D estimates how long it will take to refresh the viewports.
CONFIGURATION • 53 Title Safe You can set this option separately for each viewport using the viewport settings, which apply to the active viewport only. (See “Configure” on page 15.) If this option is enabled, a frame is shown in the 3D view. To change the size of the frame, enter a new percentage value into the box to the right. The percentage is based on the film format selected in the render settings.
54 • CHAPTER 3 To reset the colors to the default settings, delete the “CINEMA 4D.prf” file (or “CINEMA 4D” file if extensions are not displayed) from BodyPaint 3D’s “prefs” folder. When you next start BodyPaint 3D, the default colors will be used and a new “CINEMA 4D.prf” file will be created automatically. OpenGL Shading Refresh Smart Window Refresh The Smart Window Refresh function is not supported by all OpenGL cards.
CONFIGURATION • 55 Textures Use Textures You can work more smoothly in the viewports if you disable this option. This option defines whether textures are displayed when the Gouraud Shading mode is activated. This setting is applied globally, i.e. it affects all viewports. You can define this option separately for each viewport using the viewport settings (see “Configure” on page 15), which apply to the active viewport only.
56 • CHAPTER 3 Use Line Polygons Enable this option for faster wireframe display. It affects wireframe display only. Use OGL Points For Handles Enable this option for faster display of object points (the points that are displayed when you select the Points tool). Some graphics cards do not support this feature. Open GL Hardware Lighting You can test the performance of your graphics card using CINEBENCH 2003, the free benchmarking tool based on CINEMA 4D. Check out cinebench.com.
CONFIGURATION • 57 Software Shading Textures Use Textures You can work more smoothly in the viewports if you disable this option. This option defines whether textures are displayed when the Gouraud Shading mode is activated. This setting is applied globally, i.e. it affects all viewports. You can define this option separately for each viewport using the viewport settings, which apply to the active viewport only (see “Configure” on page 15).
58 • CHAPTER 3 BodyPaint Default Texture Format In contrast to previous versions of BodyPaint 3D, the default format is now “TIFF.” Defines the default format used when you create a new texture. You can change the texture format at any time using the Save As command. Undo Buffer For Textures Max Memory Usage Defines the maximum amount of RAM reserved by BodyPaint 3D for undoing changes to texture bitmaps.
CONFIGURATION • 59 3D View Texture Interpolation Shading If this option is enabled, the texture will be interpolated in shading/raybrush mode. Projection Painting Pixel Border Around UV Polygon When you are using projaaection painting, a pixel border is created for the projection each time you paint over the edge of a UV polygon. This setting defines the width of the pixel border in pixels. A pixel border is created to bridge the gap between the UV polygons.
60 • CHAPTER 3 Tile U, Tile V When you apply paint to an edge of the texture, sometimes the projected paint may spill over the edge and also appear on the opposite side of the texture. This mostly happens when you are using a high Pixel Border va;ue and when there are UV polygons at the edges of the textures. To prevent the paint from seeping over the edge onto the other side, disable the appropriate option.
CONFIGURATION • 61 Wrap Texture Enable this option if you want the texture to be tiled. Suppose you want to apply a blur filter to your texture with a blur radius of 20 pixels. What should the filter do at the edges of the texture? Usually, the edge pixel is repeated multiple times in the blur calculation to make up the numbers. This tends to create unwanted seams if the texture is tiled.
62 • CHAPTER 3 Document Save RTTM Textures If you have enabled realtime texture mapping (i.e. the Disable Textures option in the Configure Viewport dialog is off), small temporary textures will be created so that you can see the textures in the viewports. These RTTM textures take a noticeable time to create and they must be calculated each time you load the scene. To speed up the loading process, enable Save RTTM Textures. The RTTM textures will then be saved within the scene file.
CONFIGURATION • 63 Undo Depth Determines the maximum number of changes you can undo in a row. (See “The undo buffer” on page 163.) Recent File List Controls the maximum number of files shown on the File menu’s Recent Files list.
64 • CHAPTER 3 Import/Export Some of the import/export filter options are for animation only. These functions only have an effect you are using the BodyPaint 3D module with CINEMA 4D. 3D Studio R4 Import/Export Scale This option is for import and export. Determines whether and by how much 3ds files are scaled when loaded or saved. Adapt Textures This option is for import only. Only the name is changed. You still need to convert the image.
CONFIGURATION • 65 DEM Import DEM files are often used for landscapes. Factor Determines whether and by how much DEM files are scaled when imported. DXF Export Scale Determines whether and by how much DXF files are scaled when saved. Export Type The DXF standard offers several options for saving an object. Here you can choose the type into which the object is converted when being saved. The choices are Polyline, Solid and 3DFace.
66 • CHAPTER 3 DXF Import BodyPaint 3D can work with DXF files of all versions. It can correctly interpret the following elements: SOLID, 3DFACE, LINE, POLYLINE, CIRCLE, ARC, POINT and TRACE. All three-dimensional data is read in accurately. All documented POLYLINE combinations as well as height and elevation data are supported. The same is true of element coordinate systems, layer names and various line thicknesses. Scale Determines whether and by how much DXF files are scaled when loaded.
CONFIGURATION • 67 Triangulate Polygons DXF files may contain three-dimensional polygons. BodyPaint 3D can triangulate these if this option is enabled. This means that the inscribed surface is generated as a 3D object. This is useful in most cases and therefore is the default setting. Unless the option is disabled, polygon lines are converted, which is useful for further processing in BodyPaint 3D.
68 • CHAPTER 3 Adapt Textures Only the name is changed. You still need to convert the image. DirectX uses mainly the PPM (portable pixel map) graphics format, but also BMP (Windows bitmap). BodyPaint 3D does not recognize the former, which means that textures need to be converted. This can easily be done using most image editors. But what about adapting the names? If you enable this option, all texture filename extensions of scene materials are automatically changed when exported. For example, “image.
CONFIGURATION • 69 LightWave Import When opening a LightWave file, not only the object geometry is imported but also the rest of the scene including the camera’s focal length (especially useful when used with 3D camera tracking software such as MatchMover or 3D-Equalizer), texture maps and bones information. Additionally, UV coordinates and weight maps of LightWave are imported. Scale Determines whether and by how much LightWave files are scaled when loaded.
70 • CHAPTER 3 Monzoom Import This import filter enables you to load objects, materials, textures, light sources and the cameras of a Monzoom/Reflections scene. Scale determines whether and by how much Monzoom files are scaled when loaded. The earliest versions of Reflections are not supported. In these cases load the file into a more recent version of Reflections or Monzoom and save it out as a new file. In Reflections/Monzoom, Phong shading can be assigned to individual polygons.
CONFIGURATION • 71 QuickDraw 3D Import Scale Determines whether and by how much QuickDraw 3D files are scaled when loaded. NURBS Subdivision Specifies whether and to what extent QuickDraw 3D NURBS are triangulated during loading. Sphere Subdivision Specifies whether and to what extent QuickDraw 3D spheres are triangulated during loading. Cone/Cylinder Subdivision Specifies whether and to what extent QuickDraw 3D cones and cylinders are triangulated during loading.
72 • CHAPTER 3 VRML 1 Export Scale Determines whether and by how much VRML 1 files are scaled when saved. Format VRML is a text format. To facilitate manual editing of the file, this option carries out automatic formatting on the entire text file during export. Backface Culling This option enables an attribute on all exported objects which switches off drawing of the non-visible sides of all objects in the web browser. This gives a much faster display.
CONFIGURATION • 73 VRML 1 Import Scale Determines whether and by how much VRML 1 files are scaled when loaded. Optimize Hierarchy If Optimize Hierarchy is enabled, the scene structure is optimized once the VRML1 file has been loaded. Superfluous dummy objects are removed and the object hierarchy is optimized. This creates a clearer overview, helping you to work more quickly. Import Normals Some NURBS modeling applications tend to export mesh which is prone to shading errors.
74 • CHAPTER 3 VRML 2 Export Scale This is for specifying whether and to what degree VRML 2 files are scaled when saved. Format Text VRML is a text format. To facilitate manual editing of the file, this option carries out automatic formatting on the entire text file during export. Backface Culling This option enables an attribute on all exported objects which switches off drawing of the non-visible sides of all objects in the web browser. This gives a much faster display.
CONFIGURATION • 75 Since the texture is written uncompressed, in text format, a texture of 1000x1000 pixels quickly reaches a file size of 4MB. To avoid such large files, specify a value (larger than 0) to limit the size of textures. The materials are then scaled to this value (in pixels). The proportions remain intact. For example, if you have a texture of 800x600 pixels and you set a maximum value of 100, the texture is proportionally scaled down to a size of 100x75 pixels before it is saved.
76 • CHAPTER 3 Keep in mind that if you edit the points of such an imported object, the Normal tag will no longer work properly, which may lead to shading anomalies. Moving, scaling or rotating the object is fine, however. If you delete the Normal tag, the standard shading will be used instead. Wavefront Import / Export Factor This specifies whether and to what extent Wavefront files are scaled during import and export.
CONFIGURATION • 77 Texture Paths BodyPaint 3D searches for texture files in the following locations: in the same folder as the scene; in the scene’s “Tex” folder, in BodyPaint 3D’s “Tex” folder and in the Texture Paths specified on this page. If a texture is in any of these folders, add the texture’s folder to this dialog. You can specify up to ten paths. Each path is searched recursively, i.e. sub-folders are also searched. Type the path name directly into a text box.
78 • CHAPTER 3 Use HPB System You may find this option useful if you are an experienced animator. If this option is disabled, the active object rotates about its local axes or the world axes when you use the mouse. If, on the other hand, you enable this option, the active object rotates about the HPB angles when you use the mouse. In other words, you rotate the object using the heading, pitch and bank of the object’s parent system.
CONFIGURATION • 79 Animation Units This feature only has an effect if you are using BodyPaint 3D as a module with CINEMA 4D. Please see your CINEMA 4D reference manual for details. Color Chooser Color System C4D, Color System BP There are many places in BodyPaint 3D where you can choose a color. Use Color System C4D and Color System BP to specify which type of color chooser appears in parts of the program related directly to normal functions or directly to painting respectively.
80 • CHAPTER 3 Quick Storage / Mixing Panel 1. Quick Storage, 2. Mixing Panel. Quick Storage Enable this option to display a row of color swatches. These are useful for storing and reselecting colors that you will need to select frequently. To save the active color to the quick storage row, do one of the following: - Drag and drop the active color preview onto a swatch in the quick storage row. - Ctrl-click on a swatch in the quick storage row.
CONFIGURATION • 81 The color box (Color System set to “Color Box”) gives you a quick way to choose colors and adjust their saturation and brightness. Click and hold down the mouse button on the color box and drag to adjust the color. The sliders — including those for saturation and brightness — will be updated in realtime. If you click the preview left of the color box, your computer system’s color chooser will open. Choose the desired color.
82 • CHAPTER 3 Two different color models are used, which you can easily toggle between. Probably the best known model is RGB, which is used by most graphics applications because it is best suited to the hardware components for image and color output. The most commonly used output device is the computer screen, which has a grid consisting of fine dots, made up from a red, a green and a blue point. These points can be addressed by an electron beam.
CONFIGURATION • 83 Figure 3: The colors which can be displayed can be represented in a three-dimensional coordinate system. Figure 4: Less technical than the RGB model, and better suited to painters and artists, is the HSV system. The color pigments for the screen dots have been selected in such a way that when equal parts are added they result in a white which comes closest to what the human eye perceives as a pure white.
4 Workflow
WORKFLOW • 87 4 Workflow There are many features in BodyPaint 3D which help you to work more quickly, i.e. improve your workflow. These include: - To move, zoom or rotate a camera, use the icons at the top right of the viewport (drag the desired icon). The fourth, right-most icon toggles the active view panel between single-view and all-views. - Define short-cuts for the commands you use the most. Also, create an icon palette and populate it with the commands.
88 • CHAPTER 4 New workflow enhancements BodyPaint 3D’s new workflow enhancements enable you to work more quickly than ever before. General This latest version of BodyPaint 3D offers you hundreds of workflow enhancements which are described in the appropriate parts of this manual. Below you’ll find a list of just some of these improvements. - Many tasks have been automated. For example, to load a texture or UV mesh into the Texture view, simply click on an object, texture, UVW tag, etc.
WORKFLOW • 89 Selection rays You now select objects in the viewport with the help of a selection ray. A ray is sent into the scene from the point where you click to register all objects that are under the mouse pointer. With the help of the selection ray you are able to choose which one of these objects you want to select. To select using the selection ray, do one of the following: - In the viewport, position the mouse pointer over the object you want to select.
90 • CHAPTER 4 Multiple selection is especially useful when used with the Attribute manager. For example, suppose you want to set several objects all to the same height. Select the objects in the Object manager and in the Attribute manager change the Y value for position to the desired height. All selected objects will then move to this new value. Using the Attribute manager together with multiple selection, you are able to set the selected objects all to the same values.
WORKFLOW • 91 Working with Layouts You can configure the layout to best match the way you like to work. For example, you can reposition toolbars, choose which managers should be open and which should be tabbed together in the same window. Configuring the layout is the key to working faster. To load and save your layouts, use the commands on the Window > Layout submenu. Window > Layout sub-menu Load Layout Loads a previously saved layout.
92 • CHAPTER 4 The Browser The Browser is a powerful control center and is ideal for managing your 3D projects. With it you can create thumbnails for all your digital assets — such as BodyPaint 3D files, 2D textures, 3D models, movies, scene files — and save them as catalogs. Using these catalogs you can quickly locate your assets. Creating a catalog To create a catalog file: - In the Browser, choose File > Import Directory.
WORKFLOW • 93 Drag-and-drop with the Browser You can drag almost anything from the browser and drop it into the appropriate manager. The cursor will change to stop sign or a plus sign (see above) to indicate whether the element can be dropped into the manager. Further browser functions - Double-click a picture file (usually a texture) to display the picture in the Picture Viewer. - Double-click an animation or sound file to play it. - Double-click a scene file to load it.
94 • CHAPTER 4 Save Catalog As, Make Catalog Relative Save Catalog As always opens the File selector. The name you enter here will appear in the title bar of the Browser window. BodyPaint 3D always adds the extension “.cat” to the catalog’s filename. If Make Catalog Relative is enabled, then complete paths are no longer saved; instead only the relative paths are used, starting from the catalog folder. From this location the current catalog folder and its sub-folders are scanned.
WORKFLOW • 95 Pictures, Movies, Sounds, Scenes If these options are enabled, thumbnails for pictures, movies, sounds and scenes are displayed in the Browser. File formats unknown to BodyPaint 3D are ignored. Function Menu Render All Recalculates the catalog’s thumbnails. This is necessary, for example, if you change the thumbnail size in the preferences or add or change files in the folders. To abort recalculation, press Esc. Info If the Browser finds a text file named “Readme.
96 • CHAPTER 4 Initialization Files BodyPaint 3D loads several initialization files during startup. The content of these files is integrated into the layout. template.c4d During startup, BodyPaint 3D checks its root folder for a file called “template.c4d”. If the file is present, its settings are loaded and used as default values. This can be very effective if you keep using the same scene-specific settings (e.g. several different render settings). new.
5 First Steps
FIRST STEPS • 99 5 First Steps If you’re like most people, you probably can’t wait to start painting directly onto your 3D models. However, before you can paint your models, you need to prepare them for painting. This is where the Paint Setup Wizard comes in. Quite simply, it prepares your models for painting. It can set up multiple objects with multiple textures at the same time, assign optimized UV maps and much more. With this powerful wizard, setting up your models for painting is a breeze.
100 • CHAPTER 5 - Remap the UV mesh. Of course, the more objects you wanted to paint on, the longer this manual setup would take. With the new Paint Setup Wizard, you can prepare objects for painting in three quick and easy steps. You can move back and forth between the steps by clicking the Previous and Next buttons. And there’s more! The Paint Setup Wizard can also: - Add missing materials and textures. - Scale multiple textures automatically (to an exact size if desired).
FIRST STEPS • 101 Objects If this option is enabled, all objects in the scene are listed. Select each object that you want to paint on. Materials Enable this option to list all the materials in the scene which already exist. Here you can select which materials will be considered by the Paint Setup Wizard. Select All, Deselect All Selects (green check mark) or deselects (red cross) all geometric objects/materials. Next Click this button to proceed to Step 2.
102 • CHAPTER 5 Optimal Cubic Mapping, Optimal Angle Mapping, Realign, Relaxation The Realign algorithm only works for objects which already have a UV mesh assigned. These four algorithms enable you to choose how the UV mesh will be optimized. They will only have an effect if Recalculate UV is enabled. These algorithms are also available in the UV Mapping manager, where they are called: Optimal (Cubic), Optimal (Angle), Realign and Relaxation Steps.
FIRST STEPS • 103 Step 3 In this third and final step, you choose which channels you are going to paint on, their initial fill colors and which textures should be scaled (if any). Create Missing Materials If this option is enabled, the Paint Setup Wizard will create a new material for each object you selected in Step 1 which doesn’t have a material yet. If the option is disabled, no new materials will be created and the setup will affect existing materials only.
104 • CHAPTER 5 Rescale Existing Textures If you want existing textures to be resized, enable this option and use the Texture Size settings to specify the new size. Automatic Mapsize Interpolation BodyPaint 3D can intelligently choose the size of the textures for you within the limits defined by Minimum and Maximum. Suppose you want to paint on a model which is made up of 24 objects, where each object is a different size.
FIRST STEPS • 105 The Quantize value gives you a further way to control the size of textures. It defines a step size. In other words, the width and height of each texture will be a multiple of the Quantize value. For example, if Quantize is set to 100, you’ll get a texture size of 200x300 instead of, say, 213x323. Or 800x600 instead of 817x643, and so on.
106 • CHAPTER 5 Tweaking the UV Mesh The Paint Setup Wizard is a great help when it comes to preparing objects for painting, and UVs are no exception. The wizard is able to create and optimize UVs automatically. However, for best results, you may need to tweak the UVs. This is because the Paint Setup Wizard cannot possibly know exactly how to intend to paint the objects. Consider the following scenario: you want to paint on the head shown in Figure 1.
FIRST STEPS • 107 Here’s how you could solve the ear problem: 1 Ensure that UV polygons mode is enabled. In the 3D view, select the ear’s polygons. 2 Choose UV Edit > Optimal Mapping from the main menu. The UV manager will open. In the UV manager, select Optimal (Cubic) or Optimal (Angle) and click Apply. 3 In the Texture view, drag the optimized (and still selected) UV polygon groups right of the texture. 4 Choose UV Edit > Fit Canvas To UV from the main menu.
108 • CHAPTER 5 Texturing Made Easy In this section, you’ll learn how to texture objects in seconds using the cut and paste commands in projection painting mode. Is this cheating? Who cares! Suppose you’ve created a head and a UV mesh to go with it. You follow these steps: - Choose File > Open and use the dialog that opens to load a bitmap texture. The bitmap will appear in the Texture view.
6 Color
COLOR • 111 6 Color The Color manager The Color manager is the main area in BodyPaint 3D where you choose colors for the paint tools. Here you can also save colors and patterns as presets. To access the color presets quickly, click the color preview in the Color manager’s top left corner (see “The Color Presets” on page 122). You can use the tabs at the top of the manager to choose which parameter groups are displayed. These tabs work in the same way as those in the Attribute manager.
112 • CHAPTER 6 Channels The Foreground and Background Colors Click the front rectangle or back rectangle to choose a new foreground color or background color respectively for the paint tools. When using the brush tool, drag to paint with the foreground color or right-drag (Windows) or Command-drag (Mac OS) to paint with the background color. The same also applies to the fill bitmap tool, draw line tool and draw text tool.
COLOR • 113 If the multi channel mode button is disabled: the brush (or any other painting tool) will paint to the active material channel only, which is indicated by a small colored pencil icon. The small rectangles show you the foreground and background colors or patterns. If the multi channel mode button is enabled: you can paint to several channels at once.
114 • CHAPTER 6 Blending Mode The Blending Mode slider controls the strength (i.e. opacity) of the color or pattern. You can also enter the strength value numerically using the box right of the slider. You can set values from 0% to 100%. A value of 100% will apply the color or pattern at full strength. If Texture Paint is enabled, the texture will be applied in the ratio of 1:1. The lower you set the strength value, the more transparent the color or pattern will be.
COLOR • 115 Darken BodyPaint 3D compares the brightness values of the original color and the painted color at the pixel level. Where the background color is darker, the pixel’s color remains unchanged. Where the background color is brighter, the painted color is used. Multiply The resultant color is a mix of the original and painted colors divided by pure white. The more you paint over an area in this mode, the darker the area becomes. Screen Screen has the opposite effect of Multiply.
116 • CHAPTER 6 Texture Paint Enable this option if you want to paint textures on the object. You can use the eyedropper tool to pick the texture: - Select the eyedropper tool. - In the Active Tool manager, select Texture. - Click in the Texture view or 3D view to use the active layer as the texture. You can use the eyedropper between all open scenes. Preset Patterns You can select a preset pattern by clicking on the triangle to the right of the material preview.
COLOR • 117 Source X/Y If you picked the texture using the eyedropper tool, these values define the position on the texture where you clicked. This defines which pixel in the texture will be painted first. For example, if the values are set to 0 and 0, the texture’s top-left pixel will be painted first. Tiling If this option is enabled, the pattern will be tiled. Dest. X/Y Dest. stands for Destination.
118 • CHAPTER 6 Brush Pos. This stands for Brush Position. Each movement during the brush stroke paints the texture on top of all previous movements in the stroke. This tends to create fragments of the texture that are very close to each other. If you select rotation (select the Rot. option) and couple its effector (see below) with the Draw Direction method, the pattern will rotate according to the direction in which you are painting. This is useful for painting curved textures such as fur and wool.
COLOR • 119 Effectors To access the effectors for Scale or Rot,: - Enable and then click on Scale or Rot. An effector enables you to change a parameter dynamically using an input method. For example, you can rotate the mouse wheel to change a texture’s Scale while you paint. Most input methods have a graph which lets you fine-tune the effect. Eight different input methods are available. You can assign as many methods as you wish to the same effector.
120 • CHAPTER 6 Pen Finger Wheel This adjusts the setting based on the angle of the finger wheel. The graph to the right defines exactly how this input method affects the setting (the graph is straight by default). Draw Direction This method changes the parameter based on the direction of your brushstroke. For example, if you activate this input method for the Rot. effector, the texture will rotate automatically to follow your brushstroke.
COLOR • 121 Ignore Filter If you select the brush tool, in the Attribute manager you’ll find various filters for the brush on the Filters page. These include effects such as Wet Edges, Smudge and Burn. Use the Ignore Filter option to switch the filter on or off for the active material channel. File Menu You can use these commands to save colors or patterns as presets.
122 • CHAPTER 6 The Color Presets We recommend you use the presets in the following way: whenever you have a color or pattern that you might want to use again, save it as a color preset. When painting, have the 3D view (including the object to be painted) in one window and the Color manager in another. Choose a brush, click on a color preset (click on the top left preview in the Color manager to display the presets) and paint in the 3D view.
COLOR • 123 File Menu New Group To view the presets as names instead of icons, on the View menu enable As List. Over time, the number of color presets will grow as you add to them. This command enables you to create and name groups to help you better organize your presets. Revert To Default This command reverts the color presets to the default settings. As a precaution, you will be prompted for confirmation.
124 • CHAPTER 6 Duplicate Duplicates the active preset or group. Delete Deletes the active preset or group. Group If you choose All Presets, all color presets are displayed. If you choose a different group from the list, only the presets belonging to the group are displayed. View As List If this option is enabled, the icons are displayed as a vertical list and their names are specified. The active icon is indicated by a red frame. To change the order of the icons, drag-and-drop within the list.
COLOR • 125 Small Icons. Medium Icons, Large Icons You can drag-and-drop to change the order of the icons. Choose the size of the icons: small, medium or large.
126 • CHAPTER 6
7 Brushes
BRUSHES • 129 7 Brushes Brush Settings BodyPaint 3D offers you complete control over brushes. When the brush tool is selected, the brush settings will appear in the Active Tool manager. In these pages, you’ll find descriptions for these settings. You can use the tabs at the top of the manager to choose which parameter groups are displayed. These tabs work in the same way as those in the Attribute manager. See “Navigating the Attribute Manager” on page 670.
130 • CHAPTER 7 Brush Shape Defines the shape of the brush. To view the brush cursor while you move the mouse or paint, enable Show Brush Shape While Mouse Move or Show Brush Shape While Painting in the preferences on the BodyPaint page. Store Color Enable this option to blend the active color in the Color manager with the brush preview. If you then save the brush settings as a brush preset, the color will be saved together with the brush settings.
BRUSHES • 131 Generic Brush Type The Type drop-down list (next to the brush preview) defines the brush type: Generic or Bitmap. The tip of the generic brush is defined by means of options and sliders. These are: Shape Choose from two basic brush shapes: circle or rectangle. The settings below refine the basic shape. Profile Round. Linear. Needle. Nozzle. The profile defines the pressure gradient for the brush tip. The graphs should help to clarify.
132 • CHAPTER 7 If you select the User Defined option, you can create your own pressure gradient for the brush tip. Click the blue circle next to Profile to open the following window. The Y-axis corresponds to the brush strength (i.e. pressure) and the X-axis represents the brush radius. The curve is linear by default. Click on the first point of the curve. The point will turn red to indicate that it is selected.
BRUSHES • 133 If you click the triangle in the top left corner of the dialog, a menu will open with the following commands: Copy Curve Copies the active curve to the clipboard. Once you have copied the curve, you can use the Paste Curve command to paste it into an effector’s graph. An effector enables you to change a brush parameter dynamically by means of an input device. For example, if you have a graphics tablet, you can use the pen direction to change the brush size while you paint.
134 • CHAPTER 7 Hardness This determines how much of the brush is hard as a percentage. The lower you set this value, the softer the brush becomes at the edge and the more its edge will blend with the background color. If Hardness is set to the maximum value of 100% the brushstroke will not blend with the background color at all. Spacing High Spacing value. If you enable this option you can define the distance between brushmarks in the stroke.
BRUSHES • 135 Jitter and Randomness enabled. The Jitter option causes the paint to be applied at a certain distance from the brush tip. Squeeze 0% Squeeze. 100% Squeeze. Here you can squeeze (i.e. narrow) the brush tip. A value of 100% leaves the brush in its original shape (circular or rectangular). The lower you set the value, the narrower the tip becomes. Rotation You can rotate the brush tip by moving the slider or by entering a rotation angle in the input box.
136 • CHAPTER 7 Effectors You can enable an effector for each of the following brush settings: Size, Pressure, Hardness, Jitter, Squeeze and Rotation. To open the effector for a parameter, click the blue circle next to the parameter’s name. If the circle is filled, it means the parameter has an effector enabled; if the circle is not filled, no effectors are enabled for the parameter. An effector enables you to change the parameter dynamically by means of a specified input method.
BRUSHES • 137 Pen Direction If you assign this method to the Rotation brush setting, a narrow brush will paint a stroke similar to that of a calligraphy pen. Adjusts the setting based on the pen’s rotation. The graph to the right defines exactly how this input method affects the setting (the graph is straight by default). Pen Finger Wheel You may wish to assign this to the brush Pressure so that you can adjust the setting comfortably while you paint.
138 • CHAPTER 7 Distance You can use Distance with large bitmaps too — you can enter values up to 100,000 pixels. This function’s speciality is fading brushstrokes — assign Distance to the Pressure brush setting and your brushstrokes will fade gradually. Pixel Length defines the effector’s area of influence. For example, if the Pixel Length is set to 200 the curve will be evaluated over the first 200 pixels of the brushstroke.
BRUSHES • 139 Mouse Wheel Changes the setting based on the angle of the mouse wheel. The graph to the right defines exactly how this input method affects the setting (the graph is straight by default). For example, if you assign this to the Pressure brush setting, you can use the mouse wheel to adjust the brush pressure while you paint with the mouse.
140 • CHAPTER 7 Bitmap Brush Type This mode enables you to use any bitmap in BodyPaint 3D’s “library / pattern” location as the brush tip. Keep the following in mind: BodyPaint 3D handles all bitmaps in the “pattern” folder as grayscale images. You can still use RGB Color bitmaps, but BodyPaint 3D will convert them in memory to grayscale. Black areas of the bitmap are transparent and white areas are opaque.
BRUSHES • 141 The Size, Pressure, Spacing, Jitter and Rotation parameters have exactly the same effect as with the generic brush type — see “Generic Brush Type” on page 131 for details. Filter Filters add effects to the brush such as painting with watercolors and smudging. Filter set to Wet Edges. Filter set to Smudge. Wet Edges This filter generates a watercolor effect. The brushstroke is slightly transparent and paint accumulates at the edges (i.e. the edges are less transparent than the center).
142 • CHAPTER 7 The Brush Presets We recommend you use the presets in the following way: whenever you have a brush that you might want to use again, save it as a preset. When painting, have the 3D view (including the object to be painted) in one window and the Color manager in another. Choose a brush, click on a color preset (click on the top left preview in the Color manager to display the presets) and paint in the 3D view. When you want to change the pattern, select a new preset and paint again.
BRUSHES • 143 To access menu commands for these presents, right-click (Windows) or Command-click (Mac OS) on a preset. These menu commands are described below. File Menu New Group The number of brush presets will grow over time as you add to them. This command enables you to create and name groups so that you can store your presets in a more organised manner. New This creates a new preset using the current brush parameters in the Active Tool manager.
144 • CHAPTER 7 Edit Menu Edit This command opens the brush settings in the Active Too manager for the active preset. Rename You can use this command to rename the active preset or group. Duplicate Duplicates the active preset or group. Delete Deletes the active preset or group. Group Menu If you choose All Presets, all brush presets are displayed. If you choose a different group from the list, only the presets belonging to that group are displayed.
BRUSHES • 145 Brush Groups If you change the brush presets, a dialog will appear when you quit BodyPaint 3D to check if you want to save the current brush presets as the default — click Yes if you want to overwrite the old settings. A more cautious approach is to change duplicates of the original brushes. In the Brush Presets you’ll find over a dozen groups offering a wealth of ready-to-use brushes presets.
146 • CHAPTER 7 Creating a Multibrush In this tutorial, you’ll learn how create a brush that paints multiple to channels to form the effect shown in the example picture below. We’ve simply used a cylinder here, but if you have a spaceship handy instead, all the better. This multibrush will paint a rusty red. It will paint a rusty color to the color channel and rust-like bumps to the color channel. The brush will have a soft edge.
BRUSHES • 147 - Now for a rusty bump channel: check for a colored pencil icon in the B (bump) channel. If the pencil icon is grayed out, click it to make it colored. There are now two pencils in the multi channel palette, that you can use the current brush to paint to two channels simultaneously. - Choose the granite pattern once again and set Strength to 100%. This time, set Blending Mode to Normal.
148 • CHAPTER 7 - Set Hardness to about 20% to create the softness we require for this brush. - Choose any Size setting you like and set Pressure to 100%. - The default Spacing value (20%) is fine. - Still in the Active Tool manager, click the Add Preset button, enter a name for your new brush into the dialog that opens and click OK. Congratulations! You’ve just created and saved your first multibrush. Try painting with the new brush preset if you haven’t already done so.
8 File Menu
FILE MENU • 151 8 File Menu To start BodyPaint 3D, do one of the following: - Double-click on the program icon. - Double-click on a scene file. - Drag one or more BodyPaint 3D files in the Explorer (Windows) or the Finder (Mac OS) onto the BodyPaint 3D icon (drag-and-drop). template.c4d During startup, BodyPaint 3D checks its root folder for a file called “template.c4d”. If the file is present, its settings are loaded and used as default values.
152 • CHAPTER 8 Open This command loads a file (a scene, a material, etc.) from a storage device (such as a hard disk) into memory and opens it in a new document window. If the current document window is empty, this is used instead. BodyPaint 3D can import the following formats: - BodyPaint 3D scenes (“.c4d”), catalogs (“.cat”), preferences (“.prf”) - 3D studio R4 (“.3ds”) (including materials, light sources, textures and animation) - DEM scenery files (“.
FILE MENU • 153 Close Closes the active document. If it contains any unsaved changes, a dialog opens to check if you want to save the scene before closing it. Close All Closes all open documents. If you have made changes to the scene or textures, a dialog will check if you want to save these changes. Save This command saves your document without first opening the file selector. The scene is saved using the name chosen when you selected the Save As command (i.e. the name that appears in the title bar).
154 • CHAPTER 8 Save All This command saves all open documents and textures. If you are saving a scene or texture for the first time, a file selector will open to enable you to choose a name and path for the file. Save Project Transferring scenes from one computer to another is always challenging for a project leader. BodyPaint 3D helps you to build complete scenes. Selecting this command opens the usual system file selector for saving files. Choose a folder and enter a name.
FILE MENU • 155 New Texture The following window opens when you choose New Texture: You can now do one of two things: you can either create a new texture (specify the dimensions, color mode, etc.), or you can load an existing texture from a storage medium (e.g. hard disk). New Texture You can type a name for your texture into the top input box.
156 • CHAPTER 8 Exception: you may need to change the default resolution if you want to print out the texture and you have specified the dimensions (Width and Height) in inches or cm. Mode This is where you choose the color mode used by the texture — either RGB 24 Bit (3 Byte/ Pixel) or Grayscale 8 Bit (1 Byte/Pixel). Color This defines the texture’s background color. You can choose one of four options: Background The current background color is used. Foreground The current foreground color is applied.
FILE MENU • 157 Open Texture you can open a QuickTime or AVI movie, you cannot paint on it. Also, you Although cannot paint on materials which contain animation (movies, picture sequences). A dialog opens when you select this command. Use the dialog to select the bitmap file you wish to load.
158 • CHAPTER 8 Save Texture, Save Texture As are saved separately from scenes in BodyPaint 3D. Save textures in the same Textures folder as the scene to which they belong, or in a Texture Paths location (preferences), otherwise BodyPaint 3D will be unable to find the textures the next time you load the scene. To save the scene itself, choose File > Save as from the main menu. Save Texture will save your texture without a dialog appearing.
FILE MENU • 159 Save All Textures Use this command to save all the textures. If any of the textures are being saved for the first time, the following process is repeated for each new texture: - A dialog opens. Use the dialog’s drop-down list to specify the file format for the texture and click OK. - A dialog will open to allow you to specify the filename and save path.
160 • CHAPTER 8 Direct3D / DirectX (X) Direct3D is a Microsoft-specific 3D format, which is used by Windows (provided DirectX is installed). This export module is particularly useful to game developers. DXF (DXF) One of the most common graphics file formats, nearly all professional 3D packages support DXF. BodyPaint 3D splines are generally written as polylines, independent of the surface settings for polygons. QuickDraw 3D (3DM) The standard format for three-dimensional graphics on the Apple Macintosh.
9 Edit Menu
EDIT MENU • 163 9 Edit Menu The Edit menu contains some of the most frequently used commands in BodyPaint 3D such as Undo and Redo, hence you’ll find these commands on most local Edit menus. The undo buffer commands, such as Save and General Settings, are not recorded in the undo buffer Some and subsequently cannot be undone. BodyPaint 3D’s multiple undo enables you to undo not just the last change you made but up to as many changes as RAM permits.
164 • CHAPTER 9 - Throughout the process the buffer content itself is not altered — nothing is deleted. This enables you to restore the changes with the Redo command. Use Undo to move backwards through the undo buffer (i.e. the changes) and Redo to advance through the buffer. - Although nothing is deleted from the buffer, the buffer’s size must be prevented from taking up too much memory. This is the purpose of Undo Depth in the preferences — it specifies the maximum number of actions that can be undone.
EDIT MENU • 165 The clipboard When you use the Cut or Copy commands, the selected objects or elements are copied into a structure in memory known as the clipboard. When you select the Paste command, the data in the clipboard is inserted into the current scene. For example, to copy an object from one scene to another scene; open both scenes, activate the scene that contains the object, copy the object, activate the other scene and then paste.
166 • CHAPTER 9 Paste Inserts the contents of the clipboard (i.e. the last objects that were cut or copied there) into the active scene. Paste Into Selection Pastes the contents of the clipboard into the selection. Delete Deletes the selected objects or elements from the current scene without copying them to the clipboard. Fill Layer Fills the selection — or the entire layer if there is no selection — with the active color.
EDIT MENU • 167 Multi Channel Mode Toggles multi channel mode on and off. Display Selected Channel This mode does not work if the UV Points tool or UV Polygons tool is selected. This mode lets you to display individual material channels on your object. The active channel is temporarily displayed as a color channel. For example, if you activate the transparency channel, you’ll see the channel displayed on the object as a grayscale texture.
10 Image Menu
IMAGE MENU • 171 10 Image Menu What are Textures? The textures used by BodyPaint 3D are, without exception, bitmaps. A bitmap represents an image by means of a grid of small squares called pixels. Each pixel has its own color and position in the grid. The bitmap’s picture quality and its size in bytes (i.e. how much storage space it requires) are affected by its dimensions, resolution, color depth and the data compression method employed.
172 • CHAPTER 10 You can paint finer details on your object by using a bigger texture (i.e. a texture with more pixels). The main disadvantage of larger textures is that they consume more RAM. The demand on RAM increases sharply if you are painting on multiple material channels in projection painting mode or raybrush mode. Avoid using textures that are much larger than they need to be — they need only be as large as they will be in the rendered image.
IMAGE MENU • 173 Image Menu Commands Most of these commands affect the active texture of the active material channel only, i.e. the texture displayed in the Texture view. Texture Size This command also gives you a quick way to set all textures to the same size. This is especially useful if you want to paint on the textures with a multibrush (multibrushes only work if he textures are the same size). You can use this command to scale the textures of the individual material channels.
174 • CHAPTER 10 Maximum Size, Average Size, Minimum Size These mode set the Width and Height values to the largest, smallest or average size of the textures. Interpolation When bitmaps are scaled, pixels must be added or removed and new color values calculated. The new color values can be calculated using one of two interpolation types: Nearest Neighbor or Bilinear. Nearest Neighbor This mode gives you fast results but the quality is relatively poor.
IMAGE MENU • 175 Add Borders Use the top four boxes in the Add Borders pane to enter the size of the border (in pixels) to be added to each side. If Symmetric is enabled, any border value you enter is copied to the other three boxes. Transform UVW Enable this option if you want to fix the UV polygons to the canvas pixels they currently cover. This prevents the UV polygons from venturing into the new border(s). Crop Texture You can crop any shape of selected pixels, not just rectangles.
176 • CHAPTER 10 Rotate Texture This command rotates the active texture by a specified angle. Keep in mind that the size of the texture will be changed for rotations other than 90˚, 180˚ and 270˚. Current Size Select the channels you want to rotate — unused channels are grayed out. Rotate Texture You can select a rotation value of 90˚, 180˚, 270˚ or Free. If you choose Free, you can enter your own rotation value in the Angle box.
IMAGE MENU • 177 Transform UVW You can select Transform UVW only if the textures in the channels to be rotated are all the same size. Enable this option if you want to rotate the UV polygons as well as the texture. Flip Texture Horizontal/Vertical Current Size Select the channels you want to mirror. Transform UVW You can select Transform UVW only if the textures in the channels to be rotated are all the same size. Select Transform UVW if you want to mirror the UV mesh as well.
178 • CHAPTER 10 Convert To RGB You can use this command to convert the active texture from grayscale (8-bits) to RGB (24-bits). Convert To RGB will not restore color to a black-and-white image, but it does enable you to paint colors on the channel. Bitmap Properties To display the bitmap properties in the Attribute manager, select a texture or layer in the Material manager or Layer manager. You can adjust some of these properties directly in the Material manager or Layer manager.
IMAGE MENU • 179 Visible This option enables you to hide or show the layer. This has the same effect as clicking on the layer’s eye icon in the Material manager or Layer manager. Blend Mode For descriptions of the blend modes, see “Blending Mode” on page 114. Defines the layer’s blend mode, i.e. how the layer interacts with the layers underneath it. Opacity You can set values from 0% to 100%. If you set the value to 0%, the layer will be completely transparent.
180 • CHAPTER 10 Texture properties Preview Shows a composite preview of the texture. File Format If the texture is unsaved, here you can choose which file format will be used when you save. Otherwise the setting displays the texture’s current file format. Filename This is the texture’s save path including its filename. Info Here you’ll find details on the width, height, memory usage and color mode.
11 Layer Menu
LAYER MENU • 183 11 Layer Menu Initially a texture has just one layer: the background layer. Think of the background layer as your canvas. Just like a real canvas, you can paint on the background layer and, just like a real canvas, it can be difficult to remove unwanted effects that you painted some time ago. The solution to this problem is to use layers.
184 • CHAPTER 11 Delete Layer The only way to delete a layer mask is to use this command. This deletes the active layer. Merge Layer Down You can select this command only if both the layers are visible. This command merges the active layer with the layer below to form a single layer. This frees RAM and simplifies the layer stack, hence you should merge layers once you have finished editing them. You can also merge layer masks with this command.
LAYER MENU • 185 Add Layer Mask A layer mask masks the layer, it does not alter it. This command creates a layer mask for the active layer. If no pixels are selected when you choose this command, the layer mask is filled with white; otherwise, the layer mask is white within the selection and black outside the selection. In this way, the selection defines which parts of the layer are visible.
186 • CHAPTER 11 Outline Polygons Strokes the edges of the selected UV polygons with the active color and brush. This is useful for marking out the positions of the UV on the texture. This command works on the active layer only. New Alpha Channel If you choose this command, a new alpha channel is created for the material channel or texture based on an existing selection. If there is no selection, the alpha channel is filled with white and the entire channel will be visible.
LAYER MENU • 187 The Layer Manager The Layer manager displays all layers for the texture that is currently displayed in the Texture view. You’ll rarely need to use this manager because all of its functions are integrated into the much more powerful Material manager. The only time you are likely to need the Layer is when you are editing bitmaps that are not assigned to a material, i.e. when you are using BodyPaint 3D as a 2D image editor.
12 Select Menu
SELECT MENU • 191 12 Select Menu These selection tools are indispensable for your day-to-day work in BodyPaint 3D. They restrict the effect of tools to the selected pixels and enable you to cut, copy and move parts of the bitmap. There are two main types of selection tool in BodyPaint 3D: - Polygon and UV polygon selection tools. - Bitmap selection tools. In these pages you’ll learn how to use the bitmap selection tools.
192 • CHAPTER 12 New Selection, New Inverse Selection New Selection creates a new selection; existing selections are deleted in the process. If New Inverse Selection is enabled, everything you select is deselected. This is useful when you want to remove areas from the selection. Add To Selection, Subtract From Selection Add to Selection. Subtract from Selection. If Add to Selection is enabled, the selection will be added to the existing selection.
SELECT MENU • 193 Select Circle This tool gives you three ways to create circular and elliptical selections. Box. Center. Diameter. Active Tool manager options Box, Center, Diameter With Box enabled, drag a marquee to define the area inside which the circle or ellipse will be fitted. With Center, click to define the center of the circle and drag to define its radius. If you enable Diameter, you can drag to define the circle’s diameter and rotate the circle around the point where you clicked.
194 • CHAPTER 12 Select Rectangle This tool gives you three ways to create rectangular selections Box. Center. Diameter. Active Tool manager options Box, Center, Diameter With Box enabled, drag to define the rectangle’s top-left corner and the bottom-right corner. With Center enabled, click to set the center of the rectangle and drag to define the distance from the centre to the edges — you can rotate the rectangle while you do this. With Diameter enabled, drag to define the diameter.
SELECT MENU • 195 Select Polylines, Select Freehand Box. With the Select Polylines tool, you can select pixels by drawing a polygonal shape that encloses them. Click to create the polygon’s starting point. Continue clicking to create successive corner points. When you are ready to finish the shape, double-click on the last point to connect it to the starting point. If you hold down Shift while you create the polygon outline, the lines will be constrained to angles of 45˚.
196 • CHAPTER 12 Active Tool manager options All Visible Layers If this option is enabled, the selection will be based on the composite image of all visible layers. With the option disabled, the selection will be based on the active layer only. Tolerance The Tolerance value defines how similar contiguous pixels must be in color compared with the pixel you clicked in order to be selected. You can set values from 0% to 100%.
SELECT MENU • 197 Feather This command feathers the existing selection. To apply feathering at the same time as you create a selection, use the Feather setting in the Active Tool manager instead. Feather softens the edges of an existing selection. A dialog appears when you select the command. Enter the width of the feathering — you can enter values from 0 to 1,000. Click OK to apply the feathering.
198 • CHAPTER 12 Selection From Layer (Sub) This command removes all non-transparent areas from the existing selection. Create Mask From Selection This command creates a bitmap selection from an existing UV or object polygon selection. Hide Selection Hides or shows the lines of the selection. Edit Selection Mask If you enable this mode and no pixels are selected, the entire selection mask will be transparent.
SELECT MENU • 199 By convention, the selection mask appears as a red overlay. Selected areas are transparent, unselected areas are red. The red areas are slightly transparent to allow you to see through to the image. Even though the mask is shown in red, internally it is actually a grayscale image. Use white to paint a transparent (i.e. selected) region, or black to paint a red (i.e. unselected) region. Use grays for semi-transparency (i.e. partial selection).
13 Filter Menu
FILTER MENU • 203 13 Filter Menu To reapply the last filter used, choose Filter > Execute Last Filter. Filters enable you to apply effects to your textures such as Noise, Blur, Sharpen and Invert. These filters affect the active layer only. If pixels are selected when you call the command, only the selected pixels will be affected, otherwise the effect will be applied to the entire layer. Original image. Blur. Gaussian Blur. Motion Blur. Radial Blur. Selective Blur. Smooth. Gamma Correction.
204 • CHAPTER 13 Invert. Matrix. Oil Painting. Mosaic. Sharpen. Unsharp Mask. Difference Operators. Emboss (Matrix). Emboss (Texture). Enhance Details. Enhance Structures. Texture Blend. To apply a filter to a layer, activate the layer and choose the filter from the Filter menu. A dialog will open — use the parameters in the dialog to control the filter’s effect and click OK or Cancel to apply or abort the effect.
FILTER MENU • 205 In the filter’s dialog you’ll see a preview for the filter’s effect applied to part of the texture. This interactive preview and it will update as you adjust the filter’s settings. To zoom the preview, click the magnify icons. To scroll the preview, click and hold down the mouse button on the preview and drag. Below the preview you’ll see various settings which are specific to the filter you are using. Most filters have a Blend slider which controls the strength of the filter’s effect.
206 • CHAPTER 13 Photoshop Filters If Photoshop is installed on your computer system, you can access Photoshop filters from the Filter menu. If you see “(PS)” next to the name of a filter on the menu, it means the filter is from Photoshop. You’ll find settings for the Photoshop filters in the preferences on the Bitmap Filter page (see Chapter 3, Configuration).
14 Select Polygon Menu
SELECT POLYGON MENU • 209 14 Select Polygon Menu BodyPaint 3D works with polygons (surfaces), points, UV polygons and UV points. In BodyPaint 3D, polygons can be triangles or rectangles. The commands on this menu relate to polygons, UV polygons, points and UV points. Note that some of the commands do not work when you are in UV points mode or points mode and will be grayed out. Polygon fundamentals A polygon is a triangle or a quadrangle.
210 • CHAPTER 14 If the angle at points B or D is greater than 180°, problems can occur when rendering — this is because the polygon overlaps itself, as in Figure 4. Another problem arises if all of the polygon’s points are on the same line. In this case, a surface normal cannot exist and the polygon is called a degenerated polygon, illustrated in Figure 5. What is a UV polygon? Each object polygon has a corresponding UV polygon (provided that the object has a UVW Tag or is parametric).
SELECT POLYGON MENU • 211 Invert All This command inverts a selection. All selected elements are deselected and all deselected elements are selected. Hidden elements are not inverted. Select Connected Selects all elements connected to the selected element. For example, if you select a UV polygon and choose this command, the entire group of UV polygons will be selected. Grow Selection The initial selection. Adjacent polygons are now also selected. Adds adjacent elements to the selection.
212 • CHAPTER 14 Shrink Selection Before using Shrink Selection. After using Shrink Selection. This command shrinks the selection — the outer selected elements are deselected. Convert Selection Using this command, you can convert any type of selection to a point, edge or polygon selection. The conversion is one-way only — you cannot convert to a UV polygon selection or a UV point selection. After choosing the command, the Convert Selection dialog opens. You’ll find two columns in the dialog.
SELECT POLYGON MENU • 213 - If the edges tool is selected, the edge selection is converted to a polygon selection. If the Tolerant option is enabled, all neighboring elements are selected. Suppose you’ve selected a point on a cube and you want to convert this to a polygon selection. If Tolerant is enabled, all polygons which use this point will be selected. If Tolerant is disabled, no polygons will be selected. Hide Selected Hides the selected elements (points, edges or polygons).
214 • CHAPTER 14 Set Selection can change the name of a set or “frozen” selection in the Attribute manager on the You Basic Properties page; see “Attribute manager commands”, below. Here you can store selections and restore them as and when needed. You can store either point, edge or polygon selections. You can manipulate frozen selections at any time using these tags in the Object manager. Point Selection tag. Edge Selection tag. Polygon Selection tag.
SELECT POLYGON MENU • 215 Select And Hide Others Selects the frozen selection and hides all other elements (points, edges or polygons). Select Points/Edges/Polygons The frozen selection is added to the existing selection. Deselect Points/Edges/Polygons The frozen selection is deselected. Hide Points/Edges/Polygons All elements of the frozen selection are hidden. Unhide Points/Edges/Polygons All hidden elements become visible.
15 UV Edit Menu
UV EDIT MENU • 219 15 UV Edit Menu To open the default layout for UV editing, choose Window > Layout > BodyPaint UV Edit.l4d. The default layout for UV editing. The Texture view boasts a powerful integrated UV editor which enables you to create a high quality UV mesh for any shape of object. Before you can edit the UVs, though, you must ensure the object actually has UVs (you can have BodyPaint 3D generate these if required). Also, the object’s texture must use UVW mapping.
220 • CHAPTER 15 For example, suppose you want to paint a moustache on a head model. However, the UV polygons are too small (i.e. cover too few texture pixels) to allow you to paint hair without pixelation. One solution is to select the UV polygons for the moustache, move them to an unused part of the texture and scale them up. The UV polygons will then cover more texture pixels, enabling you to paint more detail than was possible in the previous position on the texture.
UV EDIT MENU • 221 This distortion is caused by the fundamental principle of projection: a two-dimensional surface (texture) must be placed onto a 3D object. Distortion is inevitable. Think of trying to wrap your child’s favorite Pokemon™ sticker around a baseball. Maps of the world face the same problem. For example, Greenland appears to be larger than the United States on a map. In reality, the United States is more than three times larger than Greenland.
222 • CHAPTER 15 The UV Manager Even the best paint tools won’t help if your model’s UVs aren’t up to scratch. In this manager, you’ll find several powerful UV editing tools which you can use to optimize your UV mesh to allow for distortion-free painting. In particular, use these tools to avoid overlapping UV polygons (a common problem with complex objects).
UV EDIT MENU • 223 Mapping These commands attempt to optimize the UV mapping while avoiding overlapping polygons. Depending on which settings you choose, the UV mesh will be separated into various groups of UV polygons with gaps between them. You can choose one of three algorithms: - Optimal (Cubic) takes a cubic projection of your model and separates the UVs based on the polygons facing each side of that cubic projection. - Optimal (Angle) separates the UVs based on the direction of the surface normals.
224 • CHAPTER 15 Stretch To Fit Stretch To Fit disabled (left) and enabled (right). If this option is enabled, the UV polygon groups will be stretched in the U and V directions to cover the entire bitmap taking into account the Spacing value. 2D If this option is enabled, a different algorithm is used (Max Area Factor no longer has an effect). The algorithm checks if the first UV polygon overlaps any of the other UV polygons.
UV EDIT MENU • 225 Optimal (Angle) Preserve Orientation, Stretch To Fit, Spacing See “Optimal (Cubic)”, above. Maximum Distortion If the angle between two connected object polygons is less than or equal to the Maximum Distortion value, their UVs are placed in the same group; otherwise, they are placed in different groups. In general, set Maximum Distortion to a low value, otherwise the changes to the UV map will be minimal. Lower values mean more UV polygon groups will be formed.
226 • CHAPTER 15 Relax UV Relax UV gives you a different approach for optimizing the UV mesh. Unlike Optimal Mapping, which splits the UV mesh into groups of UV polygons, Relax UV attaches invisible springs that pull on the UV mesh to straighten it out and prevent overlaps. Click Apply repeatedly to pull harder on the UV mesh. The command is applied to the selection or to the entire UV mesh if no UVs are selected. In the example below you can see part of the UV mesh for a head.
UV EDIT MENU • 227 The original UV mesh (center), both options disabled (top right), Keep Neighbors enabled (bottom left) and Fix Border enabled (bottom right). If both options are disabled, the UV mesh will shrink each time you click Apply. Projection Here you can change the projection simply by clicking on the appropriate button such as the Sphere button for spherical projection.
228 • CHAPTER 15 From top left to bottom right: Sphere, Cylinder, Frontal, Flat, Cubic, Cubic 2, Box, Shrink. For details on each type of projection, see “Types of Mapping” on page 661. Here you will also find two new types of mapping: - Cubic 2: an invisible cube is placed around the selected areas; the selected areas are then “photographed” from each of the cube’s six sides. The cube is unfolded and the corresponding UV mesh is displayed. - Box: The same as Cubic 2 except the texture is distorted less.
UV EDIT MENU • 229 How the algorithm works First a bounding box is placed around the selected UV polygons (or object polygons). This bounding box will represent the texture later on. If Fit To Selection is disabled, the bounding box will enclose the entire object. You can choose how the bounding box is aligned using the drop-down list.
230 • CHAPTER 15 UV Commands Store UV Stores the current positions of the UV coordinates. You can use the following two commands, Restore UV and Remap, to access the stored positions. Restore UV Restores the UV mesh to its stored state (see “Store UV”, above). These commands allow you to experiment with the UV mesh and return to a previous state if things go wrong. Remap Remap enables you to move and scale part of the texture so that finer details can be added.
UV EDIT MENU • 231 First, store the UV coordinates (UV Edit > Store UV). Next, select the UV polygons that are over the part of the texture you want to move. Move the selected UV polygons to an empty part of the texture. If you call Remap now, the bitmap will be copied (or cut and pasted) from the original position of the UV polygons to their new position. Channels Use the list of material channels in the left part of the dialog to choose which channels should be remapped.
232 • CHAPTER 15 But if you’re like most people, chances are you’ve moved UV polygons outside the texture because you want to increase the size of the texture. In such cases, choose Functions > Fit Canvas To UV. The texture will be resized to fit the UV and the new pixels will be filled with the background color. See “Tweaking the UV Mesh“ on page 106 for an example of this technique.
UV EDIT MENU • 233 Copy UV Points, Paste UV Points What’s happening in the illustration above? First we selected the top left polygon and chose Copy UV Points. This copied the polygon’s UV coordinates to the clipboard. We then selected the bottom right polygon and chose Paste UV Points. This applied the UV points stored in the clipboard to the bottom right polygon. Now the bottom right polygon displays exactly the same part of the texture as the top left polygon.
234 • CHAPTER 15 UV Sequence Up, UV Sequence Down Moves the sequence of the points for the selected UV polygons up or down one position. Things will still look the same in the Texture view, but on the mapped object the content of the selected polygons will be rotated (either clockwise or anticlockwise depending on which command you choose). Flip Sequence Reverses the sequence of the points for the selected UV polygons. On the mapped object, the content of the selected UV polygons is mirrored.
UV EDIT MENU • 235 MAX UV Scales each selected UV polygon to fit the texture. On the mapped object, each selected polygon will display the entire texture. Fit UV To Canvas Scales the selected UV polygons as a group to fit the texture.
236 • CHAPTER 15 Mirror U, Mirror V You can use these commands to mirror the selected UV polygons horizontally (U) or vertically (V). The mirror axis runs through the common center of the UV polygons. Transform See “Transform” on page 229. Start Interactive Mapping This command provides a quick way to alter the mapping for the selected UV polygons. For example, suppose you want to change the mapping for the left ear of a head mesh. - Select the UV polygons for the left ear.
UV EDIT MENU • 237 Stop Interactive Mapping Select this command to stop the interactive mapping process. New UV coordinates will be assigned to the selected UV polygons and the tool active prior to interactive mapping will be activated once more.
16 Tools Menu
TOOLS MENU • 241 16 Tools Menu Paint Tools 3D Painting Mode Switch on 3D painting mode when you want to use a paint tool. You can paint in the normal shading mode, in raybrush mode or in projection painting mode. Move Layer To move the active layers (including linked layers) or selection using this tool, in the Texture view click and hold down the mouse button and drag the layer/selection to the desired position. Parts you drag outside the texture area will be cut off.
242 • CHAPTER 16 Eyedropper You can use this tool to pick a color or a texture — click on the corresponding position in the 3D view (the active material channel will be taken into account) or in the Texture view. Click with the left mouse button to define the color/texture as the foreground color, or right-click to define the color/texture as the background color.
TOOLS MENU • 243 Clone You can use the clone tool in multi channel mode as well. Use this tool to clone parts of your texture. When you select the tool, the mouse pointer changes to a pipette (press the Ctrl key if it doesn’t). Move the pipette to the region you want to clone and click the mouse button. The pipette changes to a brush and stamp. Drag to paint the clone. To clone a new region, Ctrl-click. Otherwise the clone tool works in the same way as the brush tool.
244 • CHAPTER 16 Eraser In projection painting mode, the eraser affects the projected layer only (see “Projection Painting” on page 288). If you use the eraser tool on the background layer, the erased pixels are painted black. If you use the eraser tool on any other layer, the erased pixels are made transparent. The eraser tool adopts the parameters in the brush settings in the Active Tool manager, including filters. Smear This tool enables you to smear on the active layer.
TOOLS MENU • 245 Max Exposure This parameter defines the strength of the effect. The more you paint over the same pixels, the brighter they become (provided you keep releasing the mouse button between brushstrokes). Burn This tool is the opposite of dodge and also helps you to build tonal variation. It darkens the pixels you paint on.
246 • CHAPTER 16 Max Exposure This parameter defines the strength of the effect. The more you paint over the same pixels, the more saturated or desaturated they become (provided you keep releasing the mouse button between brushstrokes). Fill Bitmap Click on a pixel with this tool selected to fill all contiguous pixels with the active color. Active Tool manager options All Visible Layers Enable this option is you want to fill all like-colored pixels in the composite image.
TOOLS MENU • 247 This is the same menu that is available for other presets such as the color presets. For details on this menu, see ”The Color Presets” on page 122. To paint a gradient, click-drag in the 3D view or Texture view. The position where you click marks the start of the gradient and the position where you release the mouse button marks the end of the gradient. If you want to restrict the gradient, create a bitmap selection before you use the tool.
248 • CHAPTER 16 Strength This slider defines the opacity of the gradient. Add Preset You can use this button to save the gradient as a preset. Click the button and in the dialog that opens, enter a name for the preset and click OK. The gradient is now saved as a preset. To access this gradient and the other gradient presets, click on the gradient preview in the top left corner of the Active Tool manager.
TOOLS MENU • 249 Linear Linear falloff/growth between the knots. No bias handles. None Uses the color of the left-most knot for the entire gradient. All other knots are ignored. Pos The position of the currently selected knot or bias handle on the gradient. You can type a value in the edit text field or drag the up/down arrows at the right to move the currently selected knot or bias handle. Intensity A measurement for the intensity of the currently selected knot.
250 • CHAPTER 16 Color Chooser See “Color System C4D, Color System BP” on page 79. Noise Variation, Noise Scale These settings enable you to add noise to the gradient. Noise Variation defines how harmonious the gradient is. Low values lead to smooth color transitions while high values generate bands of color. Noise Scale defines the number of disruptions applied to the gradient. A value of 0% means no disruptions, i.e. a smooth gradient.
TOOLS MENU • 251 Move. Scale. Rotate. Perspective. Shear. Note that only the frame is transformed in realtime — transform the frame as you intend the active layer to be transformed, then click on the Apply button (or double-click inside the frame) to transform the active layer. Keep in mind that Transform Bitmap affects the active layer only. If you attempt to activate another layer (by clicking it) while the frame is active, a warning dialog will open.
252 • CHAPTER 16 Active Tool manager options (Stroke mode) This mode gives you access to the same settings as the brush tool (see Chapter 7, Brushes). The line is stoked using these parameters. Draw Text This tool paints text on your layers/objects. You can use any TrueType font installed on your system. Active Tool manager options (Filled mode) Type the text into the text box. The text can span several lines and you can also paste text from the clipboard.
TOOLS MENU • 253 Move If this option is enabled, you can drag in the Texture view to create and move the text. The text will be fixed in place as soon as you release the mouse button — a second drag will create and move a new copy of the text. Rotate If this option is enabled, you can drag in the Texture view to create and rotate the text around the point where you clicked. The text is fixed in position the moment you release the mouse button.
254 • CHAPTER 16 Draw Polygon Shape You can draw certain polygon shapes using this tool. Drag in the Texture view or 3D view to set the position and size of the shape. You can rotate the preview while you drag — hold down Shift at the same time to constrain the rotation to angles of 45˚. When you release the mouse button, the shape will be filled with either the foreground color (drag with left mouse button) or the background color (drag with right mouse button).
TOOLS MENU • 255 Cog Wheel Enter the number of teeth into the Teeth box and type the degree of bevel into the Bevel box. Flower This shape draws flowers. Type the number of petals into the Petals box. Profile Here you can choose one of several profile shapes. You can adjust the shape using the parameters Type, Height, b, s and t. Filled Mode Box Drag to define the top left and bottom right corners of a rectangle inside which the polygon shape will be fitted.
256 • CHAPTER 16 Stroke mode This mode gives you access to the same settings as the brush tool (see Chapter 7, Brushes). The shape is stoked using these parameters.
TOOLS MENU • 257 UV Tools UV Points With Edit Points, the UV coordinates are displayed as points which you can select and modify using the tools described in the following pages. If you select points in the 3D view, the corresponding points in the Texture view become selected and vice versa. UV Polygons This is one of two modes for editing the UV mesh. It enables you to select and modify UV polygons using the tools described in the following sections. The other mode, UV Points, is described above.
258 • CHAPTER 16 If Only Select Visible Elements is enabled, you can only select elements which are visible, i.e. not behind other elements. For example, you can select the polygons at the front a sphere but not the polygons at the back. Rectangle Selection To make a selection using this tool, hold down the mouse button and drag a rectangle over the UV points/polygons you want to select.
TOOLS MENU • 259 Editing UV polygons Each object polygon has a UV polygon on the texture to control which part of the texture is mapped onto the object polygon. Because each object polygon has a UV polygon, the number of UV polygons equals the number of object polygons. If you delete an object polygon, its UV polygon is also deleted. The UV polygon is otherwise independent and can be moved, scaled and rotated.
260 • CHAPTER 16 For the next example, all four UV polygons were placed over the A, then one of the UV polygons was scaled, rotated and moved over the B. Figure 3: Viewport view. Figure 4: Texture view. Figures 5 and 6 below highlight the flexibility offered by UV editing. Figure 6 shows how the UV mesh has been edited to form the name “BODYPAINT 3D”. First, the UV mesh, which originally covered the entire texture, has been scaled down and moved to an empty, black part of the texture.
TOOLS MENU • 261 Move This description applies to points mode, edges mode and polygons modes. For UV points mode or UV polygons mode, see “Editing UV Polygons” on page 259. You can use this tool to move the selected UV polygons: click anywhere in the Texture view and hold down the mouse button while you move the mouse. Active Tool manager Options tab Keep Face Neighbors If this option is enabled, the selected UV polygons will remain attached to their neighbors.
262 • CHAPTER 16 Active Tool Manager Snapping tab Snapping Point and edge snapping can be enabled at the same time. Point snapping takes priority. The Snapping options determine whether the UV polygons you move snap to other UV polygons. A cross will appear in a corner of one of the selected UV polygons according to where you click with the mouse. Keep the mouse button held down and drag to move the selection. If the Point option is enabled, the cross will snap to UV points.
TOOLS MENU • 263 Scale If you have selected a single UV point instead of a UV polygon, you will be unable to scale since UV points have no spatial dimensions. You can only scale if at least two UV points are selected, in which case they will be scaled from their common center. This tool scales the selected UV polygons uniformly about the UV coordinate closest to the pointer, which is represented by a cross.
264 • CHAPTER 16 Active Tool manager options The same options apply as for the move tool except that the point and edge snapping options have no effect. Rotate This tool rotates the selected UV polygons about the UV coordinate closest to the pointer. Click anywhere in the Texture view and drag horizontally. Active Tool manager options The same options apply as for the move tool except that the point and edge snapping options have no effect.
TOOLS MENU • 265 Active Tool manager Magnet tab Nearest Point Method If this option is disabled (the default), the Magnet will only pull if you click directly on a UV polygon. If the option is enabled, the Magnet will deform no matter where you click. In this case, the nearest UV point is chosen as the center of deformation. Radius This is where you define the magnet’s sphere of influence. Type Constant. Linear. Dome. Bell. Circle. Needle.
266 • CHAPTER 16 C4D Tools Most of these tools are of little use when you are working in 3D painting mode or in projection painting mode. Rather, they enable you to move objects, edit the objects in polygon, edge or point mode or adjust the texture axes. Move This tool lets you place the selected object or element anywhere in a viewport, subject to other options like snap, the mouse grid, whether certain axes are locked, etc.
TOOLS MENU • 267 The X, Y and Z icons enable you to lock specific axes. This can be useful, for example, when you have constructed an object that is at floor level. If you now move it in one of the perspective views, it automatically changes its Y value and could, in the worst case, end up below the floor. By taking the precaution of locking the Y-axis the object remains on the floor and moves only in the other directions.
268 • CHAPTER 16 To move multi-selected objects using one of their object axis systems - Ensure the move tool is selected and click the origin of the object whose axis system you want to use. This object’s axis system appears in place of the shared axis system, as shown below (we clicked the pyramid’s origin). Note that all three objects are still selected (indicated by their red frames). - If you want to move the objects freely, drag from an empty space within the viewport.
TOOLS MENU • 269 Scaling is performed by left/right movement of the mouse while holding down the left mouse button (a “drag”). When editing textures, mouse movements have a somewhat different effect. A left/right drag of the mouse resizes the texture along its X-axis, an up/ down drag re-scales it along its Y-axis. The default size of the Y-axis in the object system is 1.0. For example, if you resize the X-axis from 1.0 to 2.0, the object doubles in size along the X-axis.
270 • CHAPTER 16 To scale multi-selected objects using one of their object axis systems - Ensure the scale tool is selected and click the origin of the object whose axis system you want to use. This object’s axis system appears in place of the shared axis system, as shown below (we clicked the pyramid’s origin). Note that all three objects are still selected (indicated by their red frames). - If you want to scale the objects freely, drag from an empty space within the viewport.
TOOLS MENU • 271 Rotating multiple objects When multiple objects are selected, a shared axis system appears in the viewport between the selected objects. You can rotate the objects using the shared axis system or you can rotate the objects using any one of their object axis systems. When multiple objects are selected, a shared axis system appears in the center. Click the origin of the object whose axis system you want to use; this object’s axis system then appears.
272 • CHAPTER 16 You can use the mouse for moving, scaling and rotating. A left/right drag manipulates the X-axis while a back-and-forth drag controls the Y-axis. For the Z-axis you have to use the right mouse button. Macintosh users; as usual, use the Command key to simulate the right mouse button. You can toggle instantly between the left and right mouse buttons. If you are currently pressing the left button, press the right one before releasing the left and vice versa.
TOOLS MENU • 273 Magnify Use the Magnify command to zoom in on a particular region of the work area. To define that area, drag a rectangle around it. Alternatively, click to zoom in by 25% or Ctrl-click to zoom out by 25%. You can also zoom in and out using the ‘+’ and ‘-’ keys. Selection tools When using the Move, Scale or rotate tools, you can click to select individual points. Live Selection. Rectangle Selection. Freehand Selection. Polygon Selection.
274 • CHAPTER 16 Freehand Selection Freehand selection behaves like a lasso. Drag to draw a loop around the elements you want to select. As soon as you release the mouse button, the loop is closed automatically. Polygon Selection This selection tool enables you to draw an n-sided shape to frame the elements that you want to select. The first click defines the starting point of the n-side and subsequent clicks define the n-side’s corners.
TOOLS MENU • 275 HyperNURBS Weights See “HyperNURBS” on page 381. Camera With this tool you work with the camera that is being used in the active viewport. All subsequent actions affect the camera in this viewport. In the planar viewports (XY, ZY, XZ) you can move and magnify the displayed area; in the 3D viewport you can change the Editor camera or the Object camera. You can move in the following ways. Keyboard short-cuts Action Result 1 + drag Move camera left/right/up/down.
276 • CHAPTER 16 No grid is applied for the camera or the visible section of the document so that you can reach any position, even if a motion grid is active. Movements, scaling and rotation processes may be cancelled at any time by pressing the Esc key.
TOOLS MENU • 277 Note that when you scale with the object tool, the object’s axis system is scaled. This is in contrast to the model tool, which scales the surfaces. To avoid problems, always make it a habit to use the object tool when animating. Points Select this tool when you want to edit an object’s points. All subsequent actions such as rotation and scaling will affect the points.
278 • CHAPTER 16 To select multiple polygons (or to add to the selection), Shift-click each polygon that you want to select. Shift-click a polygon a second time to deselect it. Or select polygons using a selection tool such as Live Selection from the Tools menu. To delete the selected polygons, use either the Delete command from the Edit menu or press the Del key or Backspace key.
TOOLS MENU • 279 If your model distorts, you can repair the damage with the Reset System tool. It is different for animation, however. If you want to animate the size of an object over time, you need to use the object tool. Example Figure 1. Figure 2. Figure 3. Figure 4. Consider a scene with two objects, a (polygon) sphere and a cube (Figure 1, above). The cube is a child (sub-object) of the sphere. The axial length of both objects is 1/1/1 (the default). - Now choose the object tool.
280 • CHAPTER 16 To prevent this problem, simply use the model tool for scaling the sphere. If the damage is already done, choose Reset System and select the two options, Normalize Axes and Offsets. In either case, the cube will then rotate without distortion (Figure 4). Texture You can edit one texture at a time only. If multiple Texture tags are selected, the grid lines will not appear and cannot be edited. This enables you to edit the active texture.
TOOLS MENU • 281 Texture Axis You can edit one texture at a time only. If multiple Texture tags are selected, the grid lines will not appear and cannot be edited. This tool enables you to edit the texture axes of the active texture. As soon as you select the tool, the texture of the object is shown and the texture envelope appears. You can move, scale and rotate the envelope in the usual fashion (by dragging with the move, scale or rotate tool selected).
282 • CHAPTER 16 The Axes Using these options, you can restrict movement, scaling or rotation to specific axes. For example, to allow movement along the Y-axis only, enable Y-axis and disable X-axis and Z-axis. Now, when you drag with the move tool selected, the movement will be along the Y-axis only. Use the Coordinate System setting (see below) to choose whether the angles refer to the world coordinate system or the object coordinate system.
TOOLS MENU • 283 You may have come across the terms heading, pitch and bank in connection with aircraft. An aeroplane rotates left or right to change its heading; up or down to changes its pitch; and rolls to changes its bank. When you are changing angles you may find it helpful to think of an aeroplane. Use Generators, Use Deformers The drawing pipeline — and the enabling or disabling of its various elements — is of little importance when you are working with BodyPaint 3D.
284 • CHAPTER 16 Structure The commands on the Structure menu affect one object only — child objects are not affected. The following applies to most of these commands: if there is a selection, the command affects the selection only. If there is no selection, the command is applied to the entire object. Make Editable Primitive objects are parametric, i.e. they have no points or polygons and are instead created using math formulae and parameters.
TOOLS MENU • 285 So, if as many normals point one way as the other way, how do we decide which is the outer surface? We could either choose randomly or, perhaps, look at the first polygon in the sequence and use its normal as the basis of our calculation — BodyPaint 3D does the latter. Why change the direction of the normals? As described above, the direction of the normals defines the interior and the exterior of an object. This is important, among other things, for displaying an object in the viewport.
286 • CHAPTER 16 Reverse Normals This command is similar to Align Normals. Here, however, the normals are reversed. If no polygons are selected, all of the object’s normals are reversed. With an active selection only the normals of the selected surfaces are considered. Optimize If an object is made up of many triangles and quadrangles, very often some points and surfaces will be duplicated.
TOOLS MENU • 287 Points Specifies whether duplicated points are to be eliminated. Tolerance When eliminating points you may enter a tolerance value. This defines the maximum distance that must lie between the two coinciding points for them to be deleted when optimizing. If points are closer to each other than this value, then they are merged into one point. If polygons become redundant (e.g. if all three corner points of the polygon occupy the same point), BodyPaint 3D will automatically delete them.
288 • CHAPTER 16 Projection Painting The advantages of projection painting Constant brush size Projection painting is your best friend when it comes to painting objects without distortion. Take a look at the picture below. The top object was painted in the normal painting mode — not how the brushstroke is massively distorted. Contrast this with the perfect brushstroke on the bottom object, which we painted in projection painting mode. Projection painting mode off (top) and on (bottom)..
TOOLS MENU • 289 How projection painting works When you paint in the viewport using projection painting, a virtual projection layer is created perpendicular to the camera. This projection layer is in turn projected onto the objects you want to paint on. Projection painting is based on a planar projection. The main downside to projection painting is that it requires plenty of RAM. The larger the view and the more material channels you are painting, the more RAM projection painting needs.
290 • CHAPTER 16 Using projection painting Switching on projection painting To switch on projection painting, activate the view you want to paint in (click in the view or click the view’s title bar) and enable the 3D painting mode icon on the left toolbar. You’ll see a green outline appear in the view to indicate that projection painting mode is switched on for this view. You can now paint. You can switch projection painting on for one view at a time only.
TOOLS MENU • 291 Toggle Fore-/Background This command enables swaps the foreground and background colors for all material channels. You can also swap the colors by clicking the small arrow in the bottom left corner of the material channel icon.
23 17 Plugins
PLUGINS MENU • 295 17 Plugins Menu Plugins are auxiliary modules which extend the function range of a program. In BodyPaint 3D, plugins are able, for example, to automate particular functions, to make new tools available to extend import and export filters or to add new shaders. For this purpose BodyPaint 3D includes a powerful programming language, C.O.F.F.E.E., available to both developers and end-users. C.O.F.F.E.E. is an object-oriented programming language closely related to C++ and Java.
18 Render Menu
RENDER MENU • 299 18 Rendering The Render menu contains all the options you need to render a picture including the commands for raybrush mode. You can define several render presets such as for preview and for final rendering; this saves you having to change the settings one by one each time. Using the render settings, you can also switch on effects such as multi-pass rendering. Render Alerts Missing textures If BodyPaint 3D is unable to find any textures when you render, an alert will appear.
300 • CHAPTER 18 Raybrush Mode Restrictions - CINEMA 4D’s Sky, Foreground and Background objects cannot be painted. - Post-processing effects such as glow, lens effects, depth of field and motion blur are not displayed. - Anti-aliasing is not shown. - Textures are not interpolated (e.g. there is no SAT and MIP interpolation). - Only the raytracing mode can be used (e.g. you cannot use Cel-Render Color mode).
RENDER MENU • 301 Raybrush Render Region After activating this command, drag a frame in the 3D view (or a 2D view). Only the framed region will be raybrush rendered, although you will be able to paint outside the region (in which case, the view’s shading mode is used). Render View If you want to save the picture, you must render to the Picture Viewer instead. If an alert appears when you render, see “Render Alerts” above. Use this command to render the scene in the active viewport.
302 • CHAPTER 18 Render To Picture Viewer The Picture Viewer includes display options such as the ability to switch off specific color channels and the ability to change the viewing size. This command renders the scene to the Picture Viewer. If you want to save the picture, enter a filename in the render settings before you use this command. Once rendering starts, a progress bar appears at the bottom left of the window. The bar shows the time elapsed since the render started.
RENDER MENU • 303 You can create settings for a variety of purposes. Perhaps you will create settings with low antialiasing, no reflections and no shadows for preview rendering, called “Preview”. You might also create settings with high antialiasing, reflections and shadows called “Final Rendering”. You can create as many settings as you like. To choose which settings are active, select the corresponding name from the Render menu. The check mark will then appear in front of that name.
304 • CHAPTER 18 Render Settings These settings in this dialog control many aspects of the rendering process; be sure to check all the values before you commit to a final render of your scene. The render settings are saved automatically with the scene. General Name Enter a name for the settings. This name will appear in the Render menu so that you can switch between different settings. Choose a name that will distinguish the settings clearly from any other settings on the Render menu.
RENDER MENU • 305 Transparency None. No Refraction. With Refraction. None Transparency and alpha channels will not be rendered. No Refraction If you have placed a transparent object inside another object, the inner object may be black when rendered. To remedy, increase the Ray Depth value on the Options pages. Transparent materials will be rendered without refraction. If you are working with alpha channels, use No Refraction — otherwise, the surfaces will be opaque when rendered.
306 • CHAPTER 18 Floor & Sky Only Only the floor and sky objects in the scene will be reflected. This allows for much faster rendering than All Objects and is a good compromise between no reflections and full reflections for time-critical projects. All Objects All objects in the scene can be reflected in a relevant reflective object. If there are no reflective objects in the scene, the render time will not increase, even when this setting is selected. Shadow None. Soft Only. All Types.
RENDER MENU • 307 Output The settings on the Output page refer to rendering in the Picture Viewer only. These settings have no effect on rendering in the viewports. You must render to the Picture Viewer if you want to save the rendered image. Resolution Defines the size of the rendered image. Choose the resolution from the drop-down list or enter your own values in the two input boxes to the right. The drop-down list includes most common video formats.
308 • CHAPTER 18 Pixel The two values specified here define the ratio of a pixel’s on-screen width (left box) to its on-screen height (right box). The pixel ratio for most monitors is 1:1, so usually you do not need to change this setting. However, some display media use a pixel ratio other than 1:1 and the setting must be adjusted to avoid distortions such as circles appearing as ellipses.
RENDER MENU • 309 Save Save Image, Path Enable the Save Image option if you want the image to be saved automatically after rendering to the Picture viewer. Choose the save path and filename using Path. You can type in the entire path or you can click on Path to open a system dialog for selecting the folder. If you enter a name without a path, the picture will be saved in the active scene’s folder. Format BodyPaint 3D supports many common file formats.
310 • CHAPTER 18 Depth Defines the bit depth per color channel. Choose either 8 bits per channel (for 24-bit color) or 16 bits per channel (for 48-bit color). File formats that support 16 bits per channel are TIFF, PSD, RPF, RLA and B3D. Name This feature only has an effect if you are using the BodyPaint 3D module with CINEMA 4D. Many editing programs accept picture sequences. However, they tend to use different naming conventions.
RENDER MENU • 311 If you enable this option, a pre-multiplied alpha channel will be calculated during rendering. The alpha channel is a grayscale image of the same resolution as your color picture. Pixels in the alpha channel are either black or white. A white pixel in the alpha channel indicates the presence of an object at that position in the image while a black pixel indicates no object. You can use the alpha channel for compositing in video programs.
312 • CHAPTER 18 Straight Alpha The entire alpha channel is masked if you use a Sky, Floor, Foreground or Background object in your scene. Do not use any of these objects if you need the alpha channel. You can use this option if straight alphas are supported by your compositing program to avoid the dark seam associated with pre-multiplied alphas. Note that straight alphas are suitable for compositing only; they are unusable as conventional pictures.
RENDER MENU • 313 Antialiasing Antialiasing removes jagged edges from your images. It works by breaking down each pixel into sub-pixels; rather than calculate just one color for a pixel, several color values are calculated and averaged to produce the final color for the pixel. Using the settings on the Antialiasing page, you can remove jagged edges. The top right inset box shows jagged edges without antialiasing, the bottom right inset box shows the smoothed result of applying antialiasing.
314 • CHAPTER 18 Antialiasing None. Geometry. Best. None Switches off antialiasing. Rendering is exceptionally fast but edges are jagged. Geometry The default antialiasing mode. Object edges are smooth when rendered. Best Switches on color antialiasing. Antialiasing softens color contrasts such as shadow edges. Object edges are smoothed also. Filter The antialiasing will be blurred or sharpened according to your choice.
RENDER MENU • 315 Catmull. PAL/NTSC. Still Image The default filter. It ensures sharp edges and is best suited to still images. For crisp, sharp stills, keep in mind that you may need to change the Sampling setting of materials. Although the default Sampling setting, MIP, is a good choice for materials on objects that extend towards the horizon — such as a floor — for things like bottle labels you’ll get a much sharper picture by changing Sampling to Square, Alias 1, Alias 2 or Alias 3.
316 • CHAPTER 18 This very soft filter is suitable for VHS. Softness Defines the softness of antialiasing for the Blend, Area and Cone filters. Threshold Neighboring pixels that differ in color by the Threshold value or more are antialiased. The default Threshold value is 10%. Depending on your scene, you may need to lower the Threshold to about 3%. Min Level, Max Level If artefacts appear (e.g. small shadows become absorbed), either reduce the Threshold or increase the Min Level.
RENDER MENU • 317 Antialiasing and adaptive raytracing BodyPaint 3D is an adaptive raytracer, meaning that it only uses raytracing for the pixels that really need it. All pixels that show reflections, transparencies or refractions are raytraced. All other pixels are rendered using much faster scanline rendering. 16x16 antialiasing (i.e. a grid of 16 sub-pixels by 16 sub-pixels) is always used for scanline rendering. For raytracing, the Min/Max Level settings are used.
318 • CHAPTER 18 Effects Use this page to control which post effects are rendered. To choose a post effect, click the Post Effect button in the top right corner of the dialog and choose the desired effect. The effect will then be added to the list below the Enable Post Effects option. To remove post effects from this list, select those that you wish to delete (using Shiftclick) and press the Backspace key. You can also delete effects using Remove Selected and Remove All (Post Effect button).
RENDER MENU • 319 Lens Effects Lens effects will be rendered if they are used in your scene. Remote Use Remote if you want the picture to be passed to another application automatically. If you are using Windows, you can use a batch file with command parameters. If you are using a Macintosh, use AppleScript. Click the button with three dots to open a system dialog. Use this dialog to select the program to which the picture should be passed. Median Filter Removes peaks in color values from the image.
320 • CHAPTER 18 Use the Strength value to define the intensity of blurring for all objects. The value can range from 0% to 200%. Object motion blur is limited to a maximum frame size of 2,000 x 2,000 pixels and is automatically disabled at resolutions higher than this. Also note that particles cannot be blurred. Furthermore, avoid using OMB with post-processing effects (e.g. lens flares), since this may lead to unexpected results.
RENDER MENU • 321 Samples With SMB, intermediate images are calculated and overlapped in the corresponding frame with varying brightness. Choose the number of intermediate images for each frame using this drop-down list. The higher you set this value, the longer it takes to render. If the motion is rapid, you may need to use a high setting to avoid a stroboscope effect (Figure 2, above). If you use scene motion blur in your scene you may be able to reduce the amount of antialiasing.
322 • CHAPTER 18 Cel Renderer Using this post effect, you can render pictures in a cartoon style. Color disabled (left) and enabled (right). Illumination enabled (left) and disabled (right). Outline enabled (left) and disabled (right). Edges disabled (left) and enabled (right). Edge Color black (left) and white (right). Background Color white (left) and black (right).
RENDER MENU • 323 Color The render time increases linearly with the number of polygons. If this option is disabled, objects will usually be rendered with black outlines on a white background. When Color is enabled, all objects will be rendered using a reduced color palette and black outlines on a black background. This gives the rendered subjects a cartoon-like feel: Illumination This option has an effect only when Color is enabled.
324 • CHAPTER 18 Edge Color Use this to change the color used by Outline and Edges — even if the Color option is disabled. Background Color This setting changes the background color provided that Color is disabled. When Color is enabled, the option has no effect. Color Correction Use this post effect to change the gamma, contrast and brightness of the image.
RENDER MENU • 325 Options Active Objects Only If this option is enabled, only the selected objects will be included when you render the scene. Auto Light When enabled, if there are no lights in your scene, BodyPaint 3D uses its auto light (a standard light source) during rendering so that you can at least see the objects. Log File If this option is enabled, a render log will be recorded in “Renderlog.txt” in the BodyPaint 3D folder.
326 • CHAPTER 18 Blurry Effects Use this option to enable/disable the blur effect for the Reflection and Transparency material channels. Volumetric Lighting Enable this option if you want shadows to be cast in visible light. Since the effect is processor-intensive, you may want to speed up test-renders by disabling the option. Ray Depth The Ray Depth value determines how many transparent objects (or areas made invisible using the alpha channel) can be penetrated by the renderer.
RENDER MENU • 327 Reflection Depth When a ray is sent into the scene, it can be reflected by reflective surfaces. With certain arrangements, e.g. two mirrors opposite each other, it is possible that a ray will be reflected forever, trapped between the mirrors, and the raytracer would never finish rendering the picture. In order to prevent this, you can set the maximum number of reflected rays. You can also use Reflection Depth to limit the render time for the picture.
328 • CHAPTER 18 The value you enter for this setting determines for which generation of rays shadows are calculated. For example, if you reduce the value to 2, shadows will not be rendered for reflected, transparent or refracted rays. The results shown above contain reflective and transparent objects and have been rendered with shadow depths of 2, 4 and 8 Threshold This value helps to optimize render time.
RENDER MENU • 329 Multi-Pass you want to try out various lighting setups for your rendering, multi-pass is the ideal Ifsolution. The setups will be rendered more quickly as a single multi-pass file than as separate projects. Multi-pass rendering makes it easy for you to post-edit your renders in compositing software such as Adobe Photoshop. With multi-pass you can split the BodyPaint 3D rendering into separate layers such as shadows, reflections, highlights and each separate light source.
330 • CHAPTER 18 Add Image Layers Adds to the selection list all image layers that form the composite image. These layers are: Ambient, Diffuse, Specular, Shadow, Reflection, Refraction, Atmosphere and Atmosphere (Multiply). All the other image layers (see “The layers”, below) may be used for visual effects but are not actually part of the composite image. If you have the Advanced Render module installed, Radiosity and Caustics layers are also added to the selection list by this command.
RENDER MENU • 331 The layers RGBA Image. Shadow. Depth. Reflection. Refraction. Specular. The lower part of the Channels drop-down list shows the layers that you can add to the multi-pass rendering, a selection of which is illustrated above. These are RGBA Image, Ambient, Diffuse, Specular, Shadow, Reflection, Refraction, Radiosity, Caustics, Atmosphere, Atmosphere Multiply, Illumination and Depth (the remaining layers in the list — i.e.
332 • CHAPTER 18 The illustration above shows a Depth multi-pass channel rendered with Front Blur and Rear Blur enabled on the Camera’s Depth of Field page in the Attribute manager. Depth multi-pass channel with Front Blur and Rear Blur enabled. The Depth channel defines the distribution of depth in the scene. This information can be used in compositing applications to create visual effects. Black parts represent the focus (Target Distance on the Camera’s Depth of Field page in the Attribute manager).
RENDER MENU • 333 Shadow Correction Enable Shadow Correction to prevent artefacts from appearing at the edges of objects. When rendering multi-passes with shadows switched on, slight artefacts such as bright lines may appear at object edges due to antialiasing. To prevent these artefacts from appearing, enable this option. Separate Lights Use Separate Lights to choose which light sources have their own separate layers. None No separate layers. All Each light has separate layers.
334 • CHAPTER 18 2 Channels: Diffuse+Specular, Shadow Adds one blended layer for Diffuse and Specular, and one layer for Shadow. 3 Channels: Diffuse, Specular, Shadow Adds one Diffuse layer, one Specular layer and one Shadow layer. Path This is where you set the save path for the file. Format Here, choose the file format. For a multi-layer file, choose Photoshop (PSD), RLA, RPF or BodyPaint 3D (B3D). Options This button is ghosted unless the format chosen has extra options. To access these, click Options.
19 Window Menu
WINDOW MENU • 337 19 Window Menu Most of the following menu entries activate a window or manager. If the window or manager is already open, the call brings it to the front. Otherwise the window or manager appears in a new, freestanding window. To dock this into the interface, drag the window’s pin icon and drop it where you want the window to be docked. A black line appears while you drag to indicate the docking position.
338 • CHAPTER 19 Reset Layout This command resets your BodyPaint 3D layout to the original, preset layout. This is particularly useful if you need to call our support team since you and they then have a common interface from which to work. Your own customized layouts can increase your workflow enormously but when searching for an elusive problem a common, standardized layout is essential. Save As Startup Layout Save the visible working environment as the default layout (“layout.l4d”).
WINDOW MENU • 339 Menu Manager You can use this manager to rearrange BodyPaint 3D’s menus. You can revert to the original structure at any time by clicking the Revert To Original button. Default Layouts Below the Menu Manager command you’ll find a list of all layouts in the “library/layout” location within the program’s folder. To load one of these layouts, choose its name from the list. Default Menus At the bottom of the Window > Layout menu you’ll find a list of default main menus.
340 • CHAPTER 19 CINEMA 4D Picture Viewer This opens the Picture viewer. Most of the time you won’t need to use this command since the Picture viewer opens automatically when you choose the Render To Picture Viewer command. Coordinate Manager Opens the Coordinate manager, if it is not already open, and brings it to the front if it is hidden behind any other windows. This compact manager is useful for editing the position, scale and rotation of objects.
WINDOW MENU • 341 Structure Manager Opens the Structure manager, if it is not already open, and brings it to the front if it is hidden behind any other windows. Here you can view and edit the numerical data of points, polygons, UVW coordinates and vertex maps. Console The Console window is used for the output and control of C.O.F.F.E.E. programs. C.O.F.F.E.E. print commands are displayed here, as are errors.
342 • CHAPTER 19 Layer Manager Most of the time you won’t need to use the Layer manager because its functions are now integrated into the Material manager. Attribute Manager You’ll use this manager frequently. Here you can edit all object properties. Active Tool Manager Many of BodyPaint 3D’s tools have settings that you can adjust in the Active Tool window. When using a tool for the first time, always check this manager to see if the tool has settings.
WINDOW MENU • 343 Color Settings Here you can choose the foreground and background colors for the active painting tool. See Chapter 6, Color. Brush Presets This command opens the brush presets. Here you can access the default brushes and well as your own saved brushes. You can also access the brush presets by clicking the brush preview in the top left corner of the Active Tool manager.
344 • CHAPTER 19 Color Presets This command opens the color presets. Here you can access the default colors and patterns as well as your own saved colors and patterns. You can also access the color presets by clicking the color preview in the top left corner of the Color manager. Object Manager Opens the Object manager, if it is not already open, and brings it to the front if it is hidden behind any other windows.
WINDOW MENU • 345 Material Manager Opens the Material manager, if it is not already open, and brings it to the front if it is hidden behind any other windows. This holds all of the scene’s materials and textures. You can assign a material to an object using drag-and-drop; drag the material onto the name of the appropriate object in the Object manager or directly onto the object in the viewport.
346 • CHAPTER 19 Other Scene Windows BodyPaint 3D allows you to have multiple scenes loaded. At the foot of the Window menu you’ll find a list of all scenes that are currently open. To activate one of these scenes, choose its name from the list. Only one scene may be active and editable at a time (indicated by a check mark next to its name in the list). The order of the list is determined by the order in which you opened the scenes.
20 Help Menu
HELP MENU • 349 20 Help Menu MAXON Online Get the latest BodyPaint 3D updates, news, support issues, tutorials and more using these links to the MAXON website. An Internet browser and Internet connection are required. Help (BodyPaint 3D) This opens the online manual copied to your hard drive during the standard installation process. Personalize initial serial number will expire after three months of use, after which you will no Your longer be able to use the program.
21 Object Manager
OBJECT MANAGER • 353 21 Object Manager The Object manager is the center of object administration in BodyPaint 3D. Here you can select objects, change object hierarchies and manipulate tags. On the left part of the manager you’ll find a list of all objects in the scene. Hierarchies are shown as a tree structure. You can collapse and open hierarchies, just as you can on your computer desktop. You can use drag-and-drop to re-group or, by holding down Ctrl while you drag, copy objects.
354 • CHAPTER 21 To the right of the dots are the object tags (e.g. Texture tag, Phong tag). You can use drag-and-drop to move or copy these tags to other objects. Again, the tags are described in detail later in this chapter. Many commands can be reached in the Object manager, using the context menu. To access the context menu, right-click (Windows) or Command-click (Mac OS) an element such as a type icon, a tag or a visibility dot.
OBJECT MANAGER • 355 You can select multiple tags and move them all at the same time. However, note that for some tag types, only one tag may be used per object. For example, an object may have one Phong tag only. These tags are known as “lone” tags. A lone tag will not be moved or copied if a tag of the same type exists for the destination object. Each object in BodyPaint 3D, such as Polygon object, has a set of properties.
356 • CHAPTER 21 File Menu New Tag For compatibility reasons, this menu contains all the tags that are available in CINEMA 4D. However, only some of these tags are actually useful in BodyPaint 3D. In these pages, you’ll find descriptions for all of these useful tags. Please ignore the following tags, however, which do nothing in BodyPaint 3D and are not documented in this manual: Achor Tag, Kinematic Tag, Metaball Tag, Motion Blur Tag, Restriction Tag, Stick Texture Tag, Stop Tag.
OBJECT MANAGER • 357 Seen By Camera, Seen By Rays Normal object. Visible object. Invisible object. Using these options, you can hide specific objects from reflections or have invisible objects cast shadows. There are many possible uses here. For example, you can have a hidden object block out light to cast shadows where you want them. Or perhaps you’re rendering an advert for a high performance sports car and you don’t want the 3D text to be reflected by the car or shiny floor.
358 • CHAPTER 21 Suppose you are creating a cartoon character for a website. The website uses a white background and you need to render the character so that it appears to cast a shadow onto the web page. You create a floor with a white material (with the RGB values matching the white color of the web page), but when you render the picture, the floor is not of the correct brightness. To remedy, add a Compositing tag to the Floor object and enable Background Compositing.
OBJECT MANAGER • 359 Add to Object Buffer Use this page to specify up to six object buffer IDs for the object. Display Tag Display Mode, Backface Culling, Use Textures Usually, objects use the display settings defined on the Display menu of the viewport. However, you can override these settings for specific objects by assigning them Display tags. These objects will then use the settings in their Display tags instead of those on the Display menu.
360 • CHAPTER 21 Level Of Detail If the tag’s Level Of Detail option is enabled, it is always used in a viewport, even if Use Display Property is disabled on the viewport’s Display menu. This has the same effect as the command of the same name in the project settings. You can use it to control the level of detail for generators and deformers. The tag’s value is used in preference to the value in the Project Settings.
OBJECT MANAGER • 361 Phong Tag This tag gives objects a smooth appearance. The picture below shows a sphere before (left) and after (right) a Phong tag is applied. Look closely at the right sphere and you’ll notice straight lines around the silhouette. Phong shading does not increase the number of polygons. Rather, think of it as an illusion that loses its effect around the silhouette. To smooth the silhouette region, increase the subdivisions (perhaps try using a HyperNURBS object).
362 • CHAPTER 21 Smoothing is a good way to reduce render time and save on memory. Without the Phong tag, an object would require a far greater number of polygons in order to appear smooth. Note that smoothing can only take place across connected surfaces (surfaces that share points). How Phong shading works Each surface has a normal (often called a “surface normal”) that is perpendicular to its surface.
OBJECT MANAGER • 363 Protection Tag The Protection tag prevents scaling with the object tool, but not with the model tool. Use this tag to prevent accidental changes to an object. You’ll be unable to move, scale or rotate any object that has this tag. You’ll need to remove the tag before you can make any such changes. Restriction Tag You can use this tag to restrict a deformer’s effect to a selection of points.
364 • CHAPTER 21 WWW Tag You can assign a URL to an object. This is useful if you are creating VRML files for the Internet. These VRML files (.wrl) contain complete 3D scenes and can be viewed in web browsers provided that you have an appropriate VRML plugin. The viewer can click on a 3D object that has a WWW tag in order to link to an Internet address. URL contains the link address. Enter the complete address, including the prefix such as ‘http://’, ‘ftp://’, or ‘https://’.
OBJECT MANAGER • 365 Load Object You can use this command to load a file containing object information such as DXF, BodyPaint 3D, Illustrator path and so on. The objects and materials in the file will be loaded into the active scene. Save Object As This command saves the selected object. The system dialog for saving files will open, which you can then use to save the object to hard disk. Display Tags You can use this option to show or hide tags in the Object manager.
366 • CHAPTER 21 Edit Menu Undo Undoes the last change, restoring the scene to its previous state. For example, if you accidentally move an object, choose Undo to restore the object to its correct position. Choose Undo repeatedly to undo the changes one by one. Redo Redo redoes a change. Select Redo repeatedly to continue restoring the changes. You can traverse the recent development stages of your scene by using Undo to move backwards and Redo to move forwards.
OBJECT MANAGER • 367 Objects Menu Object Display You can also set the following properties on the Basic Properties page of the Attribute manager. The items in this menu control the viewport and render visibility for the selected object. Alternatively, you can change the visibility using the visibility dots in the middle column of the Object manager: Both dots are grey by default. The upper dot controls viewport visibility, the lower dot render visibility.
368 • CHAPTER 21 Edit Object This command is only of use if the Attribute manager is closed. It opens the Attribute manager, where you can then edit the parameters of the selected object. You can also open the Attribute manager by double-clicking a type icon. Don’t use this command if the Attribute manager is already open and you want to edit an object. Instead, in the Object manager, select the objects that you want to edit.
OBJECT MANAGER • 369 Object Information This command displays the following information about the selected object (including its children): size in KB, number of points, number of polygons and number of objects. If you see figures in brackets, these are the number of points and polygons that will be created if you make the object and its children editable.
370 • CHAPTER 21 Unfold All Proceed with caution if your scene is very large. In these cases you may want to unfold the hierarchies by hand. Large projects often have more than 1,000 objects. The display speed will be just as slow as if 1,000 files were to be displayed hierarchically in your operating system’s window. You can find out the number of objects in your scene by choosing Objects > Scene Information. This command is the reverse of Fold All (see above) — it expands all hierarchies.
OBJECT MANAGER • 371 Tags Menu Edit Tag This command is only of use if the Attribute manager is closed. It opens the Attribute manager, where you can then edit the parameters of the selected tag. You can also open the Attribute manager by double-clicking a tag. Don’t use this command if the Attribute manager is already open and you want to edit a tag. Instead, in the Object manager, select the tag or tags that you want to edit.
372 • CHAPTER 21 Texture Menu Generate UVW Coordinates You can use this command to generate UVW coordinates. This is especially useful for imported objects that do not have UVW coordinates. UVW coordinates prevent a texture from ‘slipping’ when you deform the object. You generate UVW coordinates starting from a normal projection mode such as Flat. To generate UVW coordinates - Create a texture, allocate it to the object and set the desired projection type such as Flat. - Generate UVW coordinates.
OBJECT MANAGER • 373 To assign UVW coordinates - Create a sphere and convert it into a polygon object with Make Editable. - Create a new material with a texture, e.g. the Checkerboard shader, and allocate it to the sphere. - Change the projection type from UVW Mapping to e.g. Flat. - Select the Polygons tool from the left toolbar and select several polygons. - In the Object manager, choose Texture > Assign UVW Coordinates.
374 • CHAPTER 21 Fit To Image You must apply your texture with Flat projection if you want to use this command. Type the name of an image into the dialog. BodyPaint 3D calculates the image’s X and Y resolution and scales the texture image accordingly. You can use this command to ensure that your texture uses the correct proportions, thereby avoiding distortion. Fit To Region You must apply your texture with Flat projection if you want to use this command. Use the mouse to drag a box.
18 Objects 22 Objects Menu
OBJECTS • 377 22 Objects © Benedict Campbell. Objects aren’t just the objects you can see in the picture; they are all the element in the Object manager’s left column such as Phong tags, which control how objects are smoothed. Each type of object has a different set of properties. To display an object’s properties in the Attribute manager, click the object’s name in the Object manager.
378 • CHAPTER 22 Visible In Render Controls whether the selected objects are visible or invisible in the render. Use Color Determines whether the selected objects use their display color. Off switches off the display color so that material colors are used instead. Automatic means the display color is only used if the object has no materials. Always means the display color is always used, even if the object has materials. Display Color Defines the display color.
OBJECTS • 379 Null Object The null object might well mutter to itself “I cannot do anything, I’m nothing”. And that’s right ... almost. If you call this command, BodyPaint 3D creates only an empty axis system in the 3D space. The object contains neither points nor surfaces and cannot be edited in the normal way. So why use a null object? Well, the null object can have other objects placed within it. So it is useful for grouping matching elements of a scene.
380 • CHAPTER 22 Correct rotation behavior through the use of a null object. In addition, some actions that rely on a particular orientation of an object in 3D space (such as the duplicating of objects) profit from the use of a parental null object. Attribute manager settings Object Properties These parameters enable you to change the shape that represents the null in the viewport, including its width and height as well as the general shape.
OBJECTS • 381 HyperNURBS HyperNURBS is one of the most powerful sculpting tools available to the 3D artist. The HyperNURBS object uses an algorithm to subdivide and round the object interactively using a process called “subdivision surfaces”. HyperNURBS are ideal for characters. Image © Yoichi Mimura. Make the source object (cage) a child of the HyperNURBS object. HyperNURBS object and cage both visible (left) and only cage visible (right).
382 • CHAPTER 22 Attribute manager settings Object Properties Use this page to specify the subdivision level for shading within the editor (i.e. the viewport) and for the renderer. The higher you set the resolution, the smoother the object becomes but the more memory it uses and the slower it renders. Figure 1: From left to right: source object, Subdivisions set to 1, 2 and 5. Figure 2: Use point and edge weighting to further refine your HyperNURBS models.
OBJECTS • 383 Weighting HyperNURBS models There are two ways to weight HyperNURBS models: interactively or manually using the Live Selection tool. Interactive weighting Select the points, edges or polygons that you want to weight. Hold down the period key (“.”) and drag left or right to set the weighting for the selected elements. The more weight you apply, the harder the surface will try to reach it.
384 • CHAPTER 22 Polygon mode Selected polygon. . + drag. . + Ctrl-drag. To weight all points and edges of the selected polygons, hold down the period key (“.”) and drag. To weight only the edges of the selected polygons, hold down the period key and Ctrl-drag. Manual weighting Select the elements (i.e. points, edges or polygons) that you want to weight. Select the Live Selection tool. You can now edit the HyperNURBS weighting parameters in the Active Tool manager.
OBJECTS • 385 Symmetry Object The symmetry object is especially useful when modeling symmetrical (or nearly symmetrical) objects such as faces with polygons. Model just one half of the object and the other half is generated automatically for you. Once you’ve finished modeling one side you might want to make the Symmetry object editable to convert the generated half into polygons. You can then tweak either side separately to avoid the model looking unnaturally symmetrical.
386 • CHAPTER 22 Cube This command creates, by default, a cube whose sides are parallel to the coordinate axes of the world system. You can create many arbitrary cuboids by adjusting the various options. Rounded edges are optional. Attribute manager settings Object Properties Size X, Size Y, Size Z The values for Size X (width), Size Y (height) and Size Z (depth) define the size of the object.
OBJECTS • 387 Fillet, Fillet Radius, Fillet Subdivision To fillet (i.e. round) the object’s edges, enable the Fillet option. Fillet Radius is the radius of the curvature, while Fillet Segments defines how finely the fillet appears. The more segments you specify, the smoother the fillet. To create a chamfer instead of a rounded fillet, set Fillet Segment to 1. Different cube shapes. The radius of the fillet can be no larger than half of the value of the smallest of the cuboid’s dimensions.
388 • CHAPTER 22 Cylinder This command creates a cylinder, whose ends (caps) are aligned parallel to the XZ plane. Attribute manager settings Object Properties Radius, Height These values define the basic dimensions of the cylinder. Height Segments Changes the number of subdivisions of the object in the Y direction (cylindrical part only). Rotation Segments Defines the number of subdivisions of the object along its circumference. The greater this value, the smoother the cylinder will appear.
OBJECTS • 389 Caps Caps Enable this option to add caps to the top and base of the cylinder. Otherwise, the cylinder is hollow. Caps enabled (left) and Caps disabled (right). Cap Segments Defines the number of subdivisions of the caps in a radial direction. The subdivision along a cap’s circumference is as defined by Rotation Segments (see above). Fillet, Radius Assuming that the cylinder has caps you can use this option to apply a fillet or chamfer to the join between the cylinder body and the caps.
390 • CHAPTER 22 Fillet Segments With Fillet selected you can choose the degree of the roundness with this option. The higher the value the smoother the join will appear; enter a value of 1 to achieve a chamfer. In the picture is a rounded cylinder. To the left is a chamfer, then a rough fillet and, on the right, a high-value, smooth fillet. The roundness can be set as high as the cylinder’s radius — the caps will then appear to be hemispheres.
OBJECTS • 391 Regular Grid The Regular Grid option is only available when Slice is enabled. By enabling this option and entering a value into the Width box you can control the subdivisions within the plane of section of the sliced object. Small values produce a fine subdivision while larger values result in a coarse structure. This subdividing only affects the face (the plane of section) of the slice. Use this option only if you intend to process the object further after slicing it.
392 • CHAPTER 22 Sphere This command creates a sphere composed of triangles and squares. Attribute manager settings Object Properties Radius Use this to define the size of the sphere. Segments Defines the degree of the subdivision of the sphere. The sphere is divided along its latitude and longitude. However, until you convert a sphere into a polygon object with Make Editable, a sphere is always generated by calculation, no matter by how much you subdivide it.
OBJECTS • 393 Type With this drop-down list you choose of which surfaces, and in which arrangement, a sphere is to be composed. With Standard the sphere surface is made up of triangles and squares, Hexahedron uses only squares and Icosahedron only triangles. Render Perfect If you enable this option, a perfect sphere is generated by the math (if the sphere was not already distorted or deformed). This type of sphere has the advantage that it looks truly round and smooth.
394 • CHAPTER 22 Plane This command creates a quadrangle in the XZ plane, which is divided into further quadrangle surfaces. Attribute manager settings Object Properties Width, Height Defines the size of the plane. Width Segments, Height Segments You can set the level of subdivision separately for the width and height. This is especially useful when you intend to convert the plane to polygons and edit it further. Differently subdivided, deformed planes.
OBJECTS • 395 Interactive editing The plane has two handles. Drag handle 1 to change the width or handle 2 to change the height. The handles of the plane primitive.
396 • CHAPTER 22 Cone This command creates a cone, whose base lies in the XZ plane (but see below). The Cone object is more useful than it first appears. For example, you can quickly create a drop of water by adjusting a few parameters. Attribute manager settings Object Properties Top Radius, Bottom Radius These values define the cone’s top radius and bottom radius The top radius is set to 0 by default, i.e. the top of the cone ends in a single point (see illustration, left).
OBJECTS • 397 From left to right: cone with Rotation Segments set to a low value (left), medium value (center) and high value (right). Orientation Choose a value from this drop-down list to set the cone’s initial position in space. Using this you can turn the cone on its axis very simply and, above all, quickly. Caps Caps Enable this option to add caps to the cone’s top and base. Caps enabled (left) and disabled (right). Cap Segments Sets the number of subdivisions of the caps in a radial direction.
398 • CHAPTER 22 From left to right: Fillet Segments set to 1 (a chamfer), 3 and 10. Top, Bottom, Radius, Height Enable Top and/or Bottom according to where you want to apply the fillet or chamfer. Radius and Height define the shape of the rounding. If both values are the same, the rounding is circular; otherwise, the rounding is elliptical. The following illustration shows a few of the shapes you can quickly achieve with the cone primitive. Slice Slice Enable Slice to show a slice of the cone only.
OBJECTS • 399 Regular Grid, Width The Regular Grid option is only available when Slice is enabled. By enabling Regular Grid and entering a value into the Width box you can control the subdivisions within the plane of section of the sliced object. Small values produce a fine subdivision while larger values result in a coarse structure. This subdividing only affects the face (the plane of section) of the slice. Use this option only if you intend to process the object further after slicing it.
400 • CHAPTER 22 Cameras Camera Object In addition to the default camera, you can add as many extra cameras as you need. When you create a new camera, the camera adopts the 3D view’s current position and focal length. When placing and aligning a camera, BodyPaint 3D uses the camera’s coordinate system. The X-axis and Y-axis define the focal or film plane, and the Z-axis is the direction in which the camera is pointing; this view is shown in the viewport.
OBJECTS • 401 The camera model used in computer graphic programs corresponds to a pinhole camera with infinite sharpness. Therefore CG focal length is to be understood only as a simulation and corresponds in no way to a physical model. Short focal lengths give a wide-angle view and are ideal for a good overview of the whole scene. They do, however, distort objects in the scene — a particularly striking effect is that of a very short focal length.
402 • CHAPTER 22 Zoom For all camera projections except Perspective, by definition there is no focal length, so you may type a zoom factor into this box if required from 0.1 to 10000. Setting a zoom factor is the same as zooming with the Camera tool selected. Show Cone If this option is enabled, the viewing volume is shown in the 3D viewport as a green pyramid.
OBJECTS • 403 Adjusting the camera interactively You’ll frequently use cameras in your scenes. Although you can adjust the camera’s settings via the Attribute manager, the quickest way is to drag the camera’s handles in the viewport. To try out the camera’s interactive handles: - Choose File > New to create a new, empty document. - Create a Camera object. On the Attribute manager’s Depth page, enable Front Blur and Rear Blur. Set the End value for Front Blur to 500 and the End value for Rear Blur to 1000.
404 • CHAPTER 22 If you Shift-drag the handles, the entire plane, rather than just the focal length, is moved along the camera’s Z-axis. As you see, interactive control of the camera is very easy. As mentioned earlier, you may create as many cameras as you wish. Keep in mind that it is always the active camera that is used for rendering. Cameras Menu Scene Cameras Each view may have its own camera. The editor camera is used by default but you may create and use your own cameras.
OBJECTS • 405 Lighting Light Object If there are no lights in the scene, a default light is used — called the auto light. To change the default lighting setup for future scenes, build a new scene that contains the lights that you require for your default lighting and save this scene within the BodyPaint 3D folder under the name “new.c4d”. This setup will be use each time you start a new scene.
406 • CHAPTER 22 Brightness Defines the brightness of the light source. By adjusting brightness values with the slider control you can simulate any type of light from the small glow of a candle to the extreme brightness of sunlight. In most cases the maximum slider value of 100% will suffice, but in extreme cases a value of up to 1000% can be manually typed into the adjacent text field. Type Defines the light’s type, such as Spot, Tube or Parallel.
OBJECTS • 407 Show Clipping Enabling this option shows an approximation of the selected light’s clipping range (the restriction of the light range) in the viewports and can also be interactively adjusted with the wireframe’s handles. Memory Requirement This indicator shows the amount of memory needed for the selected light sources in your scene. Here is an overview of the memory requirements of light sources: - Hard shadows and area shadows need memory-intensive raytracing calculations.
408 • CHAPTER 22 Types of light This section describes the types of light available on the General page. Omni. Spot (round/square). Distant. Parallel. Parallel spot (round/square). Tube. Area. Omni An Omni light source acts like a real life light bulb — casting rays in all directions. Placing an Omni light in the center of your scene will illuminate your scene evenly. Spot (round/square) Spotlights cast their rays in one direction, which is along the Z-axis by default.
OBJECTS • 409 Distant Owing to its characteristics, the distant light source itself cannot radiate visible light. The Distant light type is so called because it mimics the light that is cast from an infinite distance. Using a Distant light would, for example, evenly illuminate the whole of a floor (provided the floor is flat). Since a Distant light is infinite, the light has no actual origin. Thus the exact position of a Distant light, near or far, has no effect on your scene’s objects.
410 • CHAPTER 22 Types of shadow This section describes the different types of shadow you can select for the Shadow option on the General page. Soft shadow. Hard shadow. Area shadow. You can combine all light source types with all shadow types in BodyPaint 3D. For example an area light can cast not only area shadows, but hard shadows as well. And a parallel light can easily cast soft shadows. There are no restrictions to this mixing of lights and shadows.
OBJECTS • 411 Area shadow Although Soft shadows are more natural than Hard shadows, they are still not perfectly natural. On careful examination you can see that the soft edge always has the same width. In nature this does not happen; the nearer an object is to a surface on which it casts its shadows, the sharper this edge will be. Area shadows simulate this effect perfectly. BodyPaint 3D calculates the shadow at the origin of the light source outwards (for all lights, whether Omni, Spot or Area).
412 • CHAPTER 22 Volumetric A visible light does not affect objects which lie within its cone of light — the light rays penetrate objects unhindered, casting no shadow in the visible light’s beam. In order for a shadow to be cast by a visible light, volumetric lighting must be used. The parameters for the visible Volumetric light are taken from the light source’s shadow map values: Resolution X, Resolution Y, Sample Radius and Parallel Width.
OBJECTS • 413 Both Ensures that both the basic light and any visible light are provided with noise irregularities. Details Using the Details tab, you can access the individual properties of each of your light sources. Use Inner, Inner Angle Use Inner disabled. Inner Angle set to 0. Depending on the type of light you use, this will adjust either the Inner Angle (for a standard Spotlight) or the Inner Radius (for a Parallel Spotlight) of the light.
414 • CHAPTER 22 If Use Inner is disabled, the luminosity of the light source in the entire light cone amounts to 100%, resulting in a hard cone of light. If the Inner Angle has a value of 0, the light source will have a soft transition spreading from the center of the light to the light’s edge. Outer Angle Adjusting this value will define how large the light will be in total. The Outer Angle value indicates the limits of the light source’s luminosity.
OBJECTS • 415 In Figure 1, above, a series of pictures of a planet is illustrated, towards which a light is directed. You can clearly see how little the planet’s front and sides are lit using 0% contrast. The transition on this lit surface is not very soft; this surface contrast is not natural for planets. If you look at photographs of a planet you will see that the transition of its lit surface to its shadowed edge is hard — as illustrated further to the right in the series of pictures.
416 • CHAPTER 22 Outer Distance The range between the Inner Distance and the Outer Distance is where the brightness of the source light changes from 100% to 0%. This Outer Distance value indicates the maximum range that will be illuminated by the source light. Ambient Illumination Ambient illumination. Ambient illumination with Falloff enabled. Normally the brightness of a surface is determined by the angle at which a ray of light hits it.
OBJECTS • 417 No Specular This bottle is lit by two light sources, causing more highlights to develop than you’d normally want. No Specular option is enabled for one light source only. Now the highlights are fine. When this option is enabled, the light source produces no specular highlights on your scene’s objects. Imagine you have a bottle on a table with two or more light sources in the scene. The bottle may show too many specular highlights, with the glass material looking too busy.
418 • CHAPTER 22 Use Inner Color In the illustration above, the light source is white and the Inner Color is red — the light shows a gradual color change from red to white. Independently of the light source’s color, which is defined on the General page, you may assign another color to the internal range of the light. When used, this Inner Color is the core color of the light source. Starting at 100% of its value, the Inner Color spreads outwards and gradually changes into the light source’s General color.
OBJECTS • 419 Far Clip From = 300, To = 300. From = 220, To = 300. Enable Far Clip to cut off the light source’s illumination abruptly. To use Far Clip, once again two values are needed. This time the From and To values denote where the cut off begins, and where the light source will fully vanish. Again, the larger the difference between these two values, the softer the transition. Individual clipping ranges using an Omni light.
420 • CHAPTER 22 Visibility Use Falloff, Falloff 100% Falloff. 0% Falloff. Falloff is the percentage reduction in the light’s density. The axial falloff of the visible light is set to a standard 100%. This means that from the origin of the light to its outer distance, the density of the visible light falls from 100% to 0%. So, if a value of 10% is entered into the Falloff box, the outside edge will be at 90% visibility. Enable or disable the Use Falloff option to switch falloff on or off.
OBJECTS • 421 Use Edge Falloff, Edge Falloff 100 % Edge Falloff. 0 % Edge Falloff. Edge falloff is relevant only with Spotlight sources. The Edge Falloff determines how quickly the light’s density decreases towards the edge of the light cone. If you enter a value of 0% (or disable Use Edge Falloff), you will produce a very hard visible light. A value of 100% gives a more gradual falloff from the inside of the light cone to its outer edge, until it reaches 0%.
422 • CHAPTER 22 Sample Distance The Sample Distance is only relevant for visible volumetric lights. Adjusting this value defines how finely the visible light’s volumetric shadow will be computed. Larger values lead to a somewhat rough (but swift) calculation, while smaller values lead to a much finer, but more time-consuming, result. Take care with your Sample Distance values. Finding a happy medium (small for fine detail, but as large as possible for reducing render time) is the key here.
OBJECTS • 423 When a beam hits a light cone, it is not only the intensity of the light that needs to be computed. Additionally, for each part of the beam, BodyPaint 3D needs to look for other objects within the light cone that might be casting shadows. So for every part of the beam of light, an extra raytracer ray needs to be initiated and emitted.
424 • CHAPTER 22 Dithering This produces irregularities in the visible light which, in certain cases, can help prevent unwanted banding or contouring in the visible light source. With certain combinations of light, such as overlapping visible lights, you may notice color banding even if your graphics card is displaying 24-bit color. To remove the banding, enable Dithering.
OBJECTS • 425 Shadow Use the parameters on this page to fine-tune your scene’s shadow maps. Density Adjusting this value will vary the intensity of your shadow. A value of 100% means the shadow has full intensity. With 50% your shadow will be half transparent and at 0% the shadow is invisible. Color Here you can change the shadow’s color. Since shadows in nature are rarely jet black, this setting is more useful than it first appears.
426 • CHAPTER 22 Transparency Transparency enabled. Transparency disabled. If you want the shadow maps to take transparency and alpha channels into account, enable this option. The calculation of transparent soft shadows is memory-intensive. An Omni light source can sometimes use six times as much memory as a spotlight, as six shadow map calculations must be computed compared to the spotlight’s single shadow map.
OBJECTS • 427 In order to keep your shadow sharp and smoothly defined, your shadow map will need to increase in size. If you simply need to keep your shadow edge soft, you can increase the Sample Radius. Again, this will increase render time. Rather than use a map with a doubled Shadow Map size, you can achieve an equivalent soft edge by doubling the Sample Radius.
428 • CHAPTER 22 Bias (Rel), Bias (Abs) Because of the particular principle involved in the calculation of shadow maps (shadows do not begin at the object’s origin), you may at times find the need to adjust the shadow’s position using the Bias value. A value of 1 m will suffice for most scenes. However, sometimes an adjustment may be necessary. The smaller an object is and the more you zoom in with the camera, the smaller the Bias value must be set.
OBJECTS • 429 Outline Shadow Using this option will result in your shadow being seen as just a thin outline instead of a full, darkened surface. When enabling this option, we recommended you use higher than usual values for the shadow map’s resolution and the sample radius. Shadow Cone, Angle One of the drawbacks of Omni light sources is that six shadow maps must be computed in total, which can sometimes produce small artefacts at the edges of shadows.
430 • CHAPTER 22 Area Shadow Width High Area Shadow Width value (300 m). Low Area Shadow Width value (50 m). The area shadow is produced by a virtual Area light source (independently of the actual light source). The Area Shadow Width determines the size of this surface. The larger you set this value, the more the light is scattered and the softer the shadow becomes. However, as the value is increased, so too does the render time, sometimes substantially so.
OBJECTS • 431 Noise Type Noise produces dark and bright areas. Chose from four types, including three types of turbulence that change the characteristics of the noise by adding cloud-like effects. Noise. Soft Turbulence. Hard Turbulence. Wavy Turbulence. Octaves Only relevant for the Turbulence types above. The Octaves value determines the graininess of the noise. The higher the value, the grittier the appearance.
432 • CHAPTER 22 Velocity This feature only has an effect if you are using the BodyPaint 3D module with CINEMA 4D. Sets the speed of the irregularities. Brightness Using this you can raise the overall brightness of the irregularities. You may also enter a negative percentage to reduce the brightness. Contrast Higher values increase the contrast of the noise, lower values reduce it. Local Enabling this option ensures that the local coordinates of the light source are nailed down.
OBJECTS • 433 BodyPaint 3D is a powerful tool when it comes to producing the aberrations of realworld camera lens systems. Basic sunbeams are brought to life with a solar corona or a halo. A lens reflection of a low-quality camera lens can be easily simulated, as rainbow colored circles develop and run diagonally across the screen. A welcome flaw in an otherwise all too perfect virtual world...
434 • CHAPTER 22 Glow To change the overall shape of the light’s glow, select a glow element from this menu of predefined light source glows. Default. CINEMA 4D R4. Wide-angle. Zoom. Hi-8. Camcorder. Searchlight. Artefact. Star 1. Star 2. Star 3. Purple. Flashlight. Sun 1. Sun 2. Grey. Blue 1. Blue 2. Red. Yellow-green 1.
OBJECTS • 435 Yellow-green 2. Candle. Brightness Controls the global brightness of the glow. To increase the brightness, enter a value above 100%. To reduce the brightness, enter a value below 100%. Aspect Ratio Modifying this value allows you to change the aspect ratio of the glow. At its default size of 1 the glow appears circular. Smaller or larger values shrink or stretch the glow’s aspect to a horizontal or vertical ellipse. Edit Click the Glow Edit button to open the Glow editor.
436 • CHAPTER 22 Reference Size With this setting you can adjust the distance value with which the glow and reflex effects are calculated. The lower the value the more distant, thus smaller, the effect appears. Increasing the value makes the effect appear closer, thus larger. Lens reflexes normally have a constant size no matter how far removed from the camera they are.
OBJECTS • 437 Glow editor To open the Glow editor, on the Attribute manager Lens page (with a light source selected in the Object manager), click the Edit button in the Glow pane. Glows are a type of over-exposure to light. When the light intensity is sufficient, this exposure bloom includes film grain in the areas surrounding a bright light, even though those areas are not illuminated.
438 • CHAPTER 22 Type Choose a type of glow type for the currently selected element. This defines the distribution of brightness for the element. Size Here you set the overall size of the glow element as a percentage of the screen’s size. A value of 100% represents the distance from the center of the screen to the edge of the screen. Color To set the color for the glow element, click the box to the right of Size. The system color chooser opens. Select the desired color.
OBJECTS • 439 Type Choose a beam type for the element from the drop-down list. This defines the distribution of brightness for the element. Size Here you set the overall size of the beam element as a percentage of the screen’s size. A value of 100% represents the distance from the center of the screen to the edge of the screen. Color To set the color of the beam element, click the box to the right of Size. The system color picker opens. Pick the desired color.
440 • CHAPTER 22 Star-like To have the beams arranged in a star-like pattern, enable this option. The beams will thicken towards the center. For a realistic star, use a low number of thick beams. Lens editor To open the Lens editor, on the Attribute manager Lens page (with a light source selected in the Object manager), click the Edit button in the Reflexes pane. Lens reflections, the technical term for which is “reflexes”, are caused by the focal image of poor quality lenses.
OBJECTS • 441 Position This value sets the positioning of the element on the screen. The axis on which all reflections lie travels through two points; the light source and the center of the screen (which is also the center of the lens). Here the following values apply. 0% 50% 100% = light source = screen center = 2 x distance light source center Negative values place the reflections behind the light source. Size This value determines the size of the element.
442 • CHAPTER 22 Mode If the light should illuminate specific objects only, set Mode to Include and drag the names of the objects that should receive the light from the Object manager into the Objects box. If the light should be switched off for specific objects, set Mode to Exclude and drag the names of these objects from the Object manager into the Objects box. Objects box Click the icons alongside any object in the Objects box to enable or disable illumination, specularity and shadows for that object.
OBJECTS • 443 Target Light This command creates a null object and a light that automatically points at the null thanks to a target expression. Move the null to the desired position — the light will keep pointing at the null. Turbo Squid This command gives you access the world’s largest online collection of digital assets. Turbo Squid is now home to a CINEMA 4D community where you can buy and sell assets including fully-textured and ready-to-use 3D models in the native C4D format.
23 Material Manager
MATERIAL MANAGER • 447 23 Material Manager Keep in mind that the Material manager offers several display modes and may look different to the picture above. Good materials are every bit as important to photorealism as good modeling. Using the Material manager, you can accurately recreate any type of material. The Material manager is where all the materials in the scene are stored. A thumbnail and name is shown for each material.
448 • CHAPTER 23 An object may have multiple Texture tags, in which case the textures are layered one on top of the other. The right-most Texture tag in the Object manager is the top layer. In addition to any materials that are active, you can also select materials. The names of selected are highlighted in red. The Material manager’s commands operate on the selected materials only. To select a material, click its thumbnail. To add a material to the selection, Shift-click its thumbnail.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 449 Painting Modes Layer Manager (compact) mode 3 1 2 5 11 4 12 7 10 13 6 8 9 1. Multi channel mode on/off, 2. Linked layers, 3. You can paint on these layers, 4. These layers are hidden, 5. Layers, 6. Background layer, 7. This materials is active for painting, 8. You cannot paint on this material, 9. Texture is not loaded or is missing, 10. Folded layers, 11. Unfolded layers, 12. You can paint on this layers, 13. Active layer.
450 • CHAPTER 23 On the left you’ll see thumbnail previews for your materials. To the right of each thumbnail, a colored pencil icon means the material is active for painting, a grayed out pencil means the material is loaded in RAM but not active for painting, and a cross means the material is not loaded in RAM. To choose which material is active for painting, click the grayed out pencil icon or cross icon (clicking on the cross icon loads the material into RAM). You’ll see a colored pencil icon appear.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 451 Hiding layers The eye icons enable you to hide the layers to the right. Click an eye icon to hide or display the layers. Note that you cannot paint on hidden layers. The pencil icon The pencil icon tells you whether any of the layers to its right are active for painting. A red frame around a layer means the layer is active for painting. Linking layers You can move or transform linked layers as one. You can only link layers if they belong to the same material.
452 • CHAPTER 23 Layer Manager (expanded/compact) mode This mode works in the same way as the compact mode (see above) except that: 1 The layers and channels are arranged differently. In particular, there is more emphasis on vertical arrangement, to allow space for layer masks. This is the mode for you if you often work with layer masks or alpha channels. 2 Alpha channels and layer masks are displayed. 3 You can drag and drop layers (provided they belong to the same material).
MATERIAL MANAGER • 453 To create a selection from the alpha channel, choose Selection From Layer from the context menu or from the Material manager’s Texture menu. You can convert alpha channels to normal channels via drag-and-drop. An alpha channel defines which parts of a material channel are visible. Note that you cannot use the alpha channel to store a selection.
454 • CHAPTER 23 File Menu New Material This command creates a new material with default values (white with specularity). The new material is placed at the start of the material list. bhodiNUT Volume Use this menu to create bhodiNUT volume (3D) shaders. Shader This menu lists the built-in material shaders. Material shaders are complete materials in their own right, as opposed to channel shaders which can be loaded into various channels of a material via the Material Editor or Attributes manager.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 455 Edit Menu Undo, Redo Undo undoes the last change, restoring the last change you made to a material. Choose Undo repeatedly to undo the changes one by one. Redo redoes a change. Select Redo repeatedly to continue restoring the changes. Cut Cut deletes the selected materials from the Material manager and copies it to the clipboard. You can use the Paste command to retrieve the material from the clipboard, even if you have changed the active scene (i.e. you can paste between scenes).
456 • CHAPTER 23 Display Modes Material This is the original display mode used in previous versions of BodyPaint 3D. Textures and layers are not shown. Material List Displays the materials as a vertical list. Textures and layers are not shown. Layer Manager (compact) This is the default mode. Textures and layers are shown, but alpha channels and layers masks are not. See also “Painting Modes” on page 449.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 457 Layer Manager (expanded/compact) In this mode, textures and layers are displayed as a vertical list. Alpha channels and layer masks are shown (see “Painting Modes” on page 449). Layer Manager (expanded) The multi channel palette is not displayed in this mode. Also, texture previews are only shown for materials that are open.
458 • CHAPTER 23 Layer Manager (active texture) This mode differs from the others in that it only displays the textures and layers that belong to the active material channel of the active material (Texture tag selected in the Object manager).
MATERIAL MANAGER • 459 Function Menu Edit This command opens the Material Editor if it is not already open and makes the Material Editor the active window. You can use the Material Editor to change the properties of the selected material. You can also open up the Material Editor by double-clicking on a material’s thumbnail. You can also edit materials using the Attribute manager. The advantage of the Attribute manager is that you can edit multiply-selected materials at the same time.
460 • CHAPTER 23 Select Texture Tags/Objects Selects the objects and texture tags that use the selected materials. Render Materials, Render All Materials To abort the rendering of the thumbnails, press the Esc key. These commands redraw the thumbnails of the selected materials or all materials. Most of the time you won’t need to use this command since new materials are rendered automatically. However, when you save a scene, the thumbnails are compressed to reduce the scene’s file size.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 461 You can cut, copy and paste within the same group only. You cannot cut or copy a material in one group and paste it into a different group. When a material group’s name is red, it means the group contains materials that are selected. New Material Group This command creates a new material group. A dialog will open which lets you name the material group. Type in a name for the group and click OK. The new group will appear as a tab at the top of the Material manager.
462 • CHAPTER 23 Texture Menu Some of the commands on this menu are described in Chapter 10, Image Menu, and Chapter 11, Layer Menu. Please see the appropriate chapter for details on these commands. Texture Channels The Texture Channels menu enables you to create new material channels and delete existing material channels for the selected material. If you want to create a new material channel, open the menu and choose from the list that appears.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 463 The Material Editor The Material Editor enables you to edit the properties of the materials used in your scene. To open the Material Editor, double-click a thumbnail in the Material manager. The Material Editor is a non-modal window. In other words, there is no need to close it before you can edit another material. Simply click once on another material in the Material manager and its settings will appear in the Material Editor.
464 • CHAPTER 23 Assignments This is a list of all objects in the scene that use the selected material. Right-click (Windows) or Command-click (Mac OS) on an object name to open a context menu that contains the following commands: Remove Removes the material from the selected object (i.e. the Texture tag is deleted).
MATERIAL MANAGER • 465 Texture pane Use the Texture pane to select a two-dimensional picture or shader. Your selection will be used as a texture. BodyPaint 3D recognizes these formats: JPEG, IFF (ILBM), TIFF, TGA, BMP, PICT, Photoshop PSD, MOV, AVI. If QuickTime is installed on your system, other formats will also be available via QuickTime. You can also select a texture that you have created in BodyPaint 3D from the triangle button’s Bitmaps menu.
466 • CHAPTER 23 Reload Image This command is useful if you have changed the texture in an image editor and you want to update the preview. You cannot reload a picture while it is in use such as while the scene is being rendered. Copy Channel, Paste Channel You can use these commands to copy and paste shader settings from one material channel to another. Bitmaps Here you’ll find a list of all pictures currently in RAM. Choose a picture from the list to load in into the Texture pane.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 467 Example texture. None. Circle. Square. Alias 1. Alias 2. Alias 3. MIP. SAT. None When the sampling type is set to None, the original texture values are used without interpolation. This method is fast but often produces poor results. Textures tend to become pixelated. You can try to compensate for the pixelation by using a high antialiasing setting. Generally, avoid using this sampling type unless you are sure you need to use it.
468 • CHAPTER 23 Square Square uses a square of texture pixels (those that surround the intermediate value). This leads to a softer transition between texture pixels than with None. The picture quality is good. Alias 1, Alias 2, Alias 3 Alias 1, Alias 2 and Alias 3 blend the texture more strongly than Circle and Square. Alias 3 blends the most, Alias 1 the least. In the example above, the texture is difficult to recognize with Alias 3 because it is so small (16 x 16).
MATERIAL MANAGER • 469 Figure 1: Rendered with MIP sampling. Figure 2: Rendered with SAT sampling. The downside of MIP and SAT mapping is that they require extra memory. MIP mapping needs an extra byte of memory per texture pixel, SAT mapping requires and extra 12 bytes per texture pixel. Although SAT mapping gives you higher render quality than MIP mapping, MIP mapping uses much less RAM and hence is the default interpolation type.
470 • CHAPTER 23 MIP and SAT mapping only approximate the optimum computation, since a precise computation would increase the render time greatly. SAT mapping is more accurate than MIP mapping. But sometimes these approximations can make a texture too blurred or too sharp. So the O and S options enable you to blur or sharpen the mapping. O (Blur Offset) softens a texture. S (Blur Strength) fine-tunes the strength of the MIP/SAT mapping. A positive value increases the blur; a negative value weakens it.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 471 Color The settings on this page define the basic color of the material such as RGB 255/0/0 for red. If you want to create a more complicated material such as a checkered pattern that uses several colors, use the Texture pane. The texture is layered above the color. If you want to see the color only and not the texture, set the Mix value to 0%. Texture See “Texture pane” on page 465.
472 • CHAPTER 23 Diffusion The Diffusion page lets you darken and lighten the material in specific areas using a diffusion map. One reason for using a diffusion map is to dirty-up materials — a must for photorealism. You can use either a normal texture or a shader as the diffusion map. (If the texture is colored, it will still be treated as a grayscale map.) The darker a pixel in the diffusion map, the darker the corresponding region of the material.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 473 Luminance A luminescent object can be seen even when there are no lights in the scene. It is selfilluminated. Texture See “Texture pane” on page 465. You can use the Image button to load an image that is to act as a luminance map. The brighter a pixel in the luminance map, the more luminescent the corresponding region of the material. If you have chosen a Luminance Color and loaded a texture (luminance map) as well, the color will be added at 100% strength to the texture.
474 • CHAPTER 23 Transparency On this page you can set the material’s transparency settings. If the material also has a color, the color is automatically reduced with increasing transparency. The equation is: color percentage + transparency percentage = 100% . So a white material with 0% transparency is white (100%). A white material with 50% transparency is 50% white (gray). A white material with 100% transparency has no color.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 475 Figure 1: If you enable the Additive option, the color strength is not reduced automatically and unless you take care the material will look unnatural. Figure 2: Transparency may be controlled either by a transparency map (Texture) or by the Transparency Color. You can simulate the refractive index of a material by setting the n value in the Refraction pane.
476 • CHAPTER 23 Useful refraction values Acrylic glass 1.491 Agate 1.544 - 1.553 Air 1.000 Amber 1.550 Amethyst 1.544 - 1.553 Benzene 1.501 Common 1.544 salt Crown glass 1.510 Diamond Emerald Flint glass Glass Ice (H2O) Jade Jasper 2.417 - 2.419 1.576 - 1.582 1.613 1.440 - 1.900 1.310 1.660 - 1.680 1.540 Onyx Quartz Ruby Sapphire Sugar Topaz Vacuum 1.486 - 1.658 1.550 1.760 - 1.770 1.760 1.560 1.620 - 1.627 1.000 Obsidian 1.480 - 1.510 Water 1.333 Texture See also ‘Texture pane’ on page 465.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 477 Dispersion Dispersion set to a low value (left) and high value (right). Defines the strength of blur for the transparency. 0% means no blur. Increase the value to increase the strength of blur. Accuracy Increasing the Accuracy value gives a more accurate blur but a longer render time also. Affects the accuracy of the blur effect by controlling the number of samples per shading point. With a value of 100%, the number of samples defined under Max Samples will be used.
478 • CHAPTER 23 Reflection there are lots of reflective objects in your scene you may notice that, with some of Ifthem, shadows do not appear in the reflections. To make the shadows appear, increase the Shadow Depth value of the Render Settings. Similarly, you may notice that subtle reflections are missing. In this case set the Threshold value in the Render Settings to 0. Use the Reflection page to set a material’s ability to reflect. The color that you set determines the color of the reflection.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 479 Figure 1: Some reflectivity effects including a reflectivity map. Figure 2: Blur Dispersion values of 85% (left), 0% (back) and 65% (right). This effect was created by using a grayscale reflectivity map. The reflectivity map was based on the original tile and joint texture. In the areas covered by a tile the reflectivity map is white. In the joint areas the reflectivity map is black. The resultant map means that only the tiled areas, not the joints, are reflective.
480 • CHAPTER 23 BodyPaint 3D uses samples to create the blur effect and, rather than take samples at even distances, it concentrates the samples where they are most needed. Max Samples defines the number of samples used for the most critical areas. Min Samples defines the number of samples used for the least important areas.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 481 Environment reflections are rendered very quickly, since the raytracing mode is not Environment required. The Environment page uses a texture to simulate reflection. Here, in contrast to the other pages, the Color and Texture are multiplied by the Mix mode instead of being added. So why would you want to use the environment property instead of reflection? One reason is that your scene may not have enough objects to produce good results when reflected.
482 • CHAPTER 23 Texture See “Texture pane” on page 465. Exclusive If this option is enabled, the environment reflections will be excluded from areas where there are real reflections.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 483 Fog uses the refractive index defined on the Transparency page (Refraction pane) and Fog disables the transparency. Fog and transparency are thus never rendered together. You can render either fog or transparency, but not both for the same material. With these parameters you can simulate fog or gas clouds. Objects with such materials are translucent but weaken the light that shines through them, according to their density. If a light ray penetrates into the fog, it is weakened.
484 • CHAPTER 23 Use fog materials with closed objects only. Fog is a volume effect applied to the inside of an object. For non-closed objects, BodyPaint 3D cannot determine the inside and the outside of the object so, if you use a fog material on such an object, strange things may happen.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 485 Bump can enter values up to 500%. High values are especially useful when using MIP or You SAT mapping, since these interpolation types tend to flatten the surface slightly. The settings on this page enable you to simulate bumps for your material. You must use a texture with this channel since it is only from the grayscales in this image that the bump map (a height or relief map) is calculated. Bump You can change the strength of the bump map with the Strength slider.
486 • CHAPTER 23 Figure 1. Figure 2. These height values are converted into a profile, whose height affects the inclination of the normal vectors. Although the surface is actually smooth, through the change in the normal vectors an apparently three-dimensional surface with a bump-like structure is created at render time; this is shown in Figure 3, below. You can strengthen the MIP/SAT mapping effect when using bump mapping by enabling MIP Falloff.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 487 Alpha Many of BodyPaint 3D’s shaders have built-in alpha channels. An alpha channel enables you to use an image to mask out particular areas of your material, allowing any background to show through. This is very useful for faking detail in 3D.
488 • CHAPTER 23 Use alpha channels built in to the texture to mask areas softly and more accurately (see “Image Alpha” below). Texture See “Texture pane” on page 465. Soft This enables you to fade textures and materials from one to another, which gives you even more ways of creating realistic-looking objects. With Soft enabled (the default setting) the color and delta sliders lose their meaning. The texture map is now used to decide which ranges should be faded.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 489 Now edit your tree material, enable the Alpha channel, switch to the Alpha page and load the tree texture there as well. Firstly, use clipping to mask out the tree. Use the mouse to choose the color which you want to mask; in our case, the blue sky around the tree (Figure 2). BodyPaint 3D sets the color sliders to this color and masks according to the picture. The tree is now shown without the surrounding background (provided that you have Gouraud Shading or Quick Shading on).
490 • CHAPTER 23 Specular can enter a Height value up to 1,000%. High values can be very You mode. effective in Metal Here you can adjust the width, height and falloff of highlights on the material. For a matt surface, use broad and low specular values; for shiny surfaces, narrow and high values are appropriate. Three modes are available: Plastic, Metal and Colored. Plastic lighting model. Metal lighting model. Colored lighting model.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 491 Falloff set to 10 (left) and 90 (right).
492 • CHAPTER 23 Specular Color Here you can select the color of the highlights. The strengths of the colors on the Color page and the Specular Color page are added together. The total color here is multiplied with the normal color of the highlight. For example, if you have a white plastic highlight, you can define its color here directly. With metallic effects in particular, any highlight color other than white greatly adds to the realistic appearance of the material as demonstrated by this spaceship.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 493 Glow cannot be seen through transparent objects, nor in reflections. The glow you Glows specify here does not act as a light; other parts of the scene will not be lit by the glow, nor will any shadows be cast. This page enables you to create a soft glow. Inner Strength specifies the intensity of the glow above the material surface; Outer Strength is the intensity of the glow at the edges (see Figure 1, below). The Radius determines how far the glow extends from the surface.
494 • CHAPTER 23 If a random percentage is defined, the intensity of the glow in each animation frame is increased and decreased in a random pattern, as follows: 0% 100% No change Maximum change Frequency specifies how often the glow changes. The amplitude of the change is given by the Random value. The Frequency setting only has an effect if you are using the BodyPaint 3D module with CINEMA 4D.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 495 Displacement the displacement map displaces points, the object must be a polygon object and Since finely subdivided. Displacement mapping has no effect on parametric objects. Displacement is similar to Bump, the difference being that here the object is actually (not just apparently) deformed. This difference is best seen at the edges of objects. In Figure 1, below, the left half of the sphere uses bump mapping while the right half uses displacement mapping.
496 • CHAPTER 23 Texture See “Texture pane” on page 465.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 497 Illumination radiosity and caustics settings on this tab only have an effect if you are using The BodyPaint 3D with the Advanced Render module. Please see the Advanced Render manual for details. Illumination Model While radiosity is often considered to be the keystone of photorealism, many texture painters feel that life-like texturing is just as important.
498 • CHAPTER 23 Choose the illumination model for the material. For a shiny material, choose either Phong or Blinn. Blinn is for shiny materials that need accurate highlights, whereas Phong is better for plastics. For rough materials like paper, cloth or a car tire, choose Oren-Nayar. Diffuse Falloff Use this parameter to adjust the falloff of diffuse reflection. The default value of 0% means normal falloff.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 499 The Shaders If you want to paint on to a shader, you must first convert the shader to a bitmap. To convert a shader to a bitmap, apply the shader to a plane, render the plane and save the render. Now load the bitmap into the material in place of the shader. BodyPaint 3D’s shaders only work in CINEMA 4D and BodyPaint 3D. They cannot be used in other programs such as 3ds max, LightWave and Maya. They will be lost on export.
500 • CHAPTER 23 Brick (2D) You change the number of bricks using the texture tiling. This shader generates brick patterns. The Brick shader has an alpha channel which you can use within the Material editor on the Alpha page. Color 1 determines the color of the brick. Color 2 determines the color of the joints. Joint is the width of the joint relative to the size of the brick.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 501 Cloud (2D) Effective Cirrus-like clouds can be created with asymmetrical UV parameters (e.g. 0.25, 1). This shader simulates simple cloud structures. The Cloud shader has an alpha channel which you can use within the Material editor on the Alpha page. The gradient determines the color of the clouds. U Frequency and V Frequency determine the fineness and shape of the structure. Thus U=1 and V=2 results in rather regular cloud structures, U=1 and V=0.
502 • CHAPTER 23 Cyclone (2D) The Frequency setting only has an effect if you are using the BodyPaint 3D module with CINEMA 4D. This shader simulates a cyclone. The Cyclone shader has an alpha channel which you can use within the Material editor on the Alpha page. Use the gradient to define the color of the cyclone. Frequency defines the timing of the cyclone rotation, the strength of the storm.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 503 Fire (2D) The T-Frequency setting only has an effect if you are using the BodyPaint 3D module with CINEMA 4D. The wall of flame stretches infinitely in the U direction. Good flame materials can be created by using this shader both in the Alpha channel and the Transparency channel (in the Alpha channel, dr/dg/db should be set relatively high, to approximately. 30%). This shader simulates a wall of flame, whose color you can define using the gradient.
504 • CHAPTER 23 Flame (2D) The T-Frequency setting only has an effect if you are using the BodyPaint 3D module with CINEMA 4D. This shader simulates a single flame, whose color you can define using the gradient. The Flame shader has an alpha channel which you can use within the Material editor on the Alpha page. T Frequency is a scaling factor that affects the speed of flicker, how quickly the flame changes. Turbulence determines how violently the flames break up in a notional wind.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 505 Gradient (2D) The Frequency setting only has an effect if you are using the BodyPaint 3D module with CINEMA 4D. This shader generates a soft gradient between any number of colors. Mode sets the type of gradient such as 2D Radial or 2D Box. Angle defines the orientation of the gradient. If the texture geometry is tiled, the Cycle option ensures the gradient is tiled also. Turbulence adds a distortion to the gradient. Octaves defines the amount of detail for the turbulence.
506 • CHAPTER 23 Marble (3D) This shader generates 3D marble structures. Use the gradient to choose the color of the marble. The Frequency values define the marble’s level of detail in the X, Y and Z directions. Turbulence changes the overall complexity of the marble. Metal (3D) This shader simulates metallic surfaces. The gradient specifies the color of the metal. Increase the Frequency for finer detail.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 507 Noise (2D) This shader creates a random pattern that can be used, for example, for sun surfaces and stone reliefs. By overlapping several Noise shaders with different amplitudes and frequencies, you can create masses of interesting patterns (this is like signal synthesis). The gradient determines the color of the noise effect. U Frequency and V Frequency determine the fineness of the structure. For example, U=1 and V=1 results in a radiallike pattern, U=1 and V=0.
508 • CHAPTER 23 Saturnring Saturn is approximately one third as wide as the width of the ring structure. So that stars shine through between the rings, you should activate the alpha channel of any material to which this is applied. You may want to make the rings quite transparent since in reality these rings are millions and millions of tiny rock and ice particles which allow the light from beyond to shine through.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 509 Rust (3D) This shader simulates rust on metal surfaces. You choose the colors for the metal and rust using the gradient. Rust specifies how much of the material is rusty. Increase Frequency for smaller rust patches. Spectral (2D) The Spectral shader is ideal for prismatic or iridescent effects such as the bright colors of a CD or pearls. The calculation of this effect takes the camera perspective and the angle between the light source and surface into account.
510 • CHAPTER 23 Variation set to 1 (left) and 2 (right). Width set to a high value (left) and a low value (right). From left to right: W Factor set to 1.5, 1 and 0.7. Diffuse Intensity set to 0.3 (left) and 0.8 (right). Diffuse Variation set low (left) and high (right). Intensity The Intensity parameter controls the overall brightness of the color reflexes. A value of 0 means no effect at all while bigger values result in brighter color reflexes.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 511 parameters to see the effect. With Stop, the gradient is applied once only and the last color is used for the outer areas which are out of range. With Mirror, the gradient is mirrored when it is repeated to avoid seams. If the Tiling setting is used, the gradient is repeated according to the Variation value. Spectrum The Spectrum gradient defines the colors for the spectral reflexes.
512 • CHAPTER 23 Starfield (2D) The stars are always computed with a continually varying size. In addition, the brightness of the stars varies. Thus you should have the impression that some stars are closer than others. This shader has no dialog and simulates a starry night. The number of stars can be controlled by tiling the texture. Stars (2D) This shader creates a star-filled wallpaper. Color 1 is the color of the wallpaper. Color 2 is the color of the stars.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 513 Sunburst (2D) The T Frequency setting only has an effect if you are using the BodyPaint 3D module with CINEMA 4D. This shader generates sun flares and eruptions. The gradient determines the color of the sunburst. The Sunburst shader has an alpha channel which you can use within the Material editor on the Alpha page. R Frequency determines the radial frequency; a value of 0 yields an attractive aurora. A Frequency gives the angular disturbance; 0 gives individual layers.
514 • CHAPTER 23 Turbulence (2D) This shader creates colored, fractal turbulence. The gradient determines the colors of the turbulence. U Frequency and V Frequency determine the fineness of the structure. U=1 and V=1 creates a radial-like pattern, while U=1 and V=0.25 elongated shapes. The higher these values, the greater the detail (or frequency) in the relevant direction. Octaves is the number of iteration steps for generating this fractal turbulence. The more octaves, the more added detail you obtain.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 515 Water (2D) The T Frequency setting only has an effect if you are using the BodyPaint 3D module with CINEMA 4D. This shader generates water surfaces and is ideal for use in a material’s Bump channel for simulating water surfaces perturbed by wind. It can simulate slight turbulences (ripples) and more significant ones (waves). Using the gradient, you can change the color of the effect. U Frequency and V Frequency determine the fineness of the structure.
516 • CHAPTER 23 Wood (3D) This shader simulates wood patterns. Using the Type drop-down list you can choose the wood type from Custom, Walnut, Mahogany, Jacaranda and Pinewood. The gradient determines the color of the wood. Increase the Frequency values for finer details in the X, Y and Z directions. Turbulence determines the degree of growth irregularity (0% = even concentric annual rings, 100% = a more natural, uneven ring appearance).
MATERIAL MANAGER • 517 Color Color is the color of the fog. Samples Samples defines the average number of samples that will be computed per raytracing ray. The higher this number, the greater the quality of the fog but the longer the calculation time. Start with low numbers such as 6 or 8. Increase this value only if you get disturbing artefacts or if the detail is not high enough. After a certain point (depending on the scene) higher sample values will not produce better images.
518 • CHAPTER 23 Terrain (3D) This shader generates virtual, fractal landscapes featuring mountains and valleys. Using the Type drop-down list you can choose the terrain type from Custom, Mountain, Mars, Moon, Desert and Polar. Use the gradient to define the colors of the terrain. The leftmost color is the color of the lowest regions while the right-most color is the color of the peaks. Height scales the terrain in the Y direction of the texture axes.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 519 The bhodiNUT Shaders The bhodiNUT shaders, collectively known as Smells Like Almonds, allow you to create textures that simply are not possible with texture maps or other methods. Things like anisotropic surfaces, multiple specular highlights, volumetric woods and more are just not achievable any other way. Although they can be complex, with a little practice and study you should be creating new materials on your own using the shading engines very soon.
520 • CHAPTER 23 Channel shaders calculate a color based on position on the surface which is then used just like a color from an image map. To edit the parameters of a channel shader click the Edit button at the bottom of the channel Texture group next to the MIP settings (Figure 2). Volume shaders completely replace the standard BodyPaint 3D materials and create all aspects of a material algorithmically.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 521 The color gradient at the bottom is similar to gradients in other applications that you have probably seen before. The knots or handles on the bottom of the gradient are used to set the color and position of colors in the gradient. To add a knot just click in an empty area below the gradient and a knot of the color at that position will be added. To remove a knot just click on it and drag it away from the gradient.
522 • CHAPTER 23 • Cmd / Ctrl - Arrow: Changes the currently selected knot or bias handle to the nearest one in the direction pressed. • Shift - Left or Right Arrow: Moves the selected knot or bias handle in the left or right direction. • Cmd / Ctrl - D: Doubles the current gradient by duplicating it and shrinking it to half and making another copy directly adjacent. • Option / Alt - Mouse Drag: Duplicates the currently selected knot or bias handle under the mouse cursor.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 523 2D Noise 2D Noise is a channel shader that produces 30 types of noise for use in your texturing. Animate Preview Turns on and off animation of the preview noise in the dialog. Scale Global, U, V These scale the size of the noise. Noise Type Choose from 30 noise types in the noise type combo box. Later in this chapter you will find pictures of each noise type.
524 • CHAPTER 23 Animation Speed This feature only has an effect if you are using the BodyPaint 3D module with CINEMA 4D. Rate at which the noise animates in cycles per second. Detail Attenuation Used for antialiasing. For most applications it should be left at 100%. If you are animating and are getting a lot of texture flicker then try setting this higher. If you are rendering a still and want crisp detail then set it lower. Octaves Octaves of detail in the noise.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 525 Contrast Contrast controls the overall contrast or range of the noise. Values greater than zero increase contrast of the noise and values less than zero decrease contrast.
526 • CHAPTER 23 3D Noise 3D Noise is a special kind of channel shader. Just like 2D Noise it produces 30 types of noise, however the noise is calculated in 3D space instead of UV. The advantage of this is that you don’t have to worry about mapping or seams in the texture. Animate Preview Turns on and off animation of the preview noise in the dialog. Use As Environment Causes the noise to be calculated as if it were an environment around the object being reflected.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 527 Scale Global, X, Y, Z These change the size of the noise. Noise Type Choose from 30 noise types in the noise type combo box. See ‘Types of Noise’ on page 310. Octaves Octaves of detail in the noise. Animation Speed This feature only has an effect if you are using the BodyPaint 3D module with CINEMA 4D. Rate at which the noise animates in cycles per second. Detail Attenuation Used for antialiasing. For most applications it should be left at 100%.
528 • CHAPTER 23 Camera The Noise is calculated in the space of the camera and will stay oriented relative to the camera. The object can move through the Noise and camera moves will also affect the Noise. Screen The Noise is calculated in the space of the screen including Z depth. The object can move through the Noise and camera moves will also affect the Noise.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 529 Absolute On makes the value of the noise absolute, causing it to fold about its midpoint. Cycles Number of cycles the noise makes between zero and one. Low Clip, High Clip Low Clip controls the bottom clipping value of the noise; any value less low clip will be clipped to zero. High Clip controls the top clipping value of the noise; any value greater than High Clip will be clipped to 100%. Brightness Brightness controls the overall brightness or value of the noise.
530 • CHAPTER 23 Types of Noise Blistered Turbulence Box Noise Buya Cell Noise Cell Voroni Cranal Dents Displaced Turbulence Displaced Vornoi FBM Hama Luka Mod Noise Naki Noise Nutous Ober Pezo Poxo Random Sema Sparse Convolution Stupl Turbulence VL Noise Voronoi 1 Voronoi 2 Voronoi 3 Wavy Turbulence Zada
MATERIAL MANAGER • 531 Banj Banj allows you to gather illumination from the back face of an object. This gives the ability to create translucency effects with backlighting such as rice paper or a thin leaf lit from the opposite side complete with shadowing. The most likely place to use Banj is in the Luminance channel so you can have backlighting and the normal color channel can be used for front face illumination. Color This is the diffuse color of the backlit surface.
532 • CHAPTER 23 Illumination Maximum illumination intensity. Roughness Only applies to the Oren-Nayar illumination algorithm. The higher the value the rougher the surface appears. Shadow Intensity The opacity of the shadow. At 0 there is no shadow and at 100% the shadow is full opacity with no illumination. Contrast Contrast is applied to the illumination to make it break sharper or falloff more smoothly.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 533 Brightness Contrast The Brightness Contrast shader is a filter that is used to adjust another shader or image. It allows you to adjust the brightness and contrast of the texture and also adds clipping of the value. Brightness Brightness controls the overall brightness or value of the image. Values greater than 0 increase brightness and values less than 0 decrease brightness. A value of -100% is totally black and 100% is totally white.
534 • CHAPTER 23 Texture The texture group at the bottom of the dialog is a standard BodyPaint 3D texture channel. This is the source image or shader to affect with the Brightness Contrast filter. You can bring in and affect any image or 2D shader available to BodyPaint 3D.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 535 Colorizer Colorizer takes the value of an input channel and remaps it based on a color spline. This is very useful for colorizing shaders such as noise. Input The aspect of the input texture to remap. You can remap input Luminance, Hue, Saturation, Lightness, red, green or blue channels. Interpolation Is the interpolation type of the gradient knots.
536 • CHAPTER 23 None Uses the color of the knot to the left of the sample point. Position This is the position of the currently selected knot or bias handle on the gradient. You can type a value in the edit text field or drag the up/down arrows at the right. Texture The texture group at the top of the dialog is a standard BodyPaint 3D texture channel. This is the source image or shader to remap with the colorizer gradient. You can bring in and affect any image or 2D shader available to BodyPaint 3D.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 537 Distorter Distorter takes the value of an input channel and distorts it using the value from another texture channel. Type This is the distortion algorithm to be used. Directional The value of the distortion channel is added to the sample coordinate of the texture. Bi-Directional The value of the distortion channel is added to the sample coordinate of the texture if the value is between 50-100% and is subtracted if the value is between 0-50%.
538 • CHAPTER 23 Wrap If enabled then distorted coordinates greater than 1 or less than 0 are wrapped around to the other side. For example 1.1 would become 0.1. If not enabled then values are clamped between 0 and 1 and the edge of the texture is just repeated. Amount Global distortion amount. 100% means that distortion values go from 0 to 1 in UV and 0 to 10 in 3D. X, Y, Z X is the distortion amount in U for 2D and X for 3D. Y is the distortion amount in V for 2D and Y for 3D.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 539 Falloff Falloff calculates the falloff between a custom vector and the surface normal. When the vector is the same as the surface normal the value is 1 and when it points completely away the value is 0. Falloff then remaps the value using a color gradient. Vector X, Y, Z The vector to falloff from in 3D space. Space The space to calculate the falloff in. Object The vector is specified in object coordinates and the falloff is affected by the object’s orientation.
540 • CHAPTER 23 Interpolation Is the interpolation type of the gradient knots. Cubic Knot Interpolates the knots with a CatMull - Rom interpolation while using the bias handles to offset the interpolated value (good for several knots). Cubic Bias Uses a Bézier interpolation algorithm to interpolate between the knot previous to the sample point, a weighted bias to the left, a weighted bias to the right, and the knot to the right of the sample position (good for few knots and accurate control).
MATERIAL MANAGER • 541 Fresnel The Fresnel shader is used in any of the channels of a material. It has no effect upon the bump channel or the displacement channel unless utilized as a secondary channel within bhodiNUT Fusion or something similar. The shader calculates the falloff of the surface normal in world space from the incoming surface ray which is also in world space. Then it utilizes the parameters of the shader to attenuate the output.
542 • CHAPTER 23 Front Only - Trans Calculates the falloff for the front of the object and then sets the back of the object to white if it can be seen (good for use in the transparency channel). Back Only Calculates the falloff for the back of the object and then sets the front of the object to black if it can be seen. Back Only - Trans Calculates the falloff for the back of the object and then sets the front of the object to white if it can be seen.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 543 Position This is the position of the currently selected knot or bias handle. You can type a value in the edit text field or drag the up/down arrows at the right.
544 • CHAPTER 23 Fusion Fusion allows you to combine two textures with a mask using the blending modes standard in photo editing applications, as if they were layers. Using a blend you can set the opacity of the Blend channel to mix with the Base channel and also modify the mixing with the Mask channel. Mode The blend mode that it used to combine Blend channel with the Base channel. Normal Normal blending, the Blend channel is just mixed with the Base channel.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 545 Hard Light If the Blend channel’s color value is less than half of the maximum value, the Multiply blend mode is used. If the Blend channel’s color value is greater than or equal to half the maximum value, the Screen blend mode is used. This mode is generally used to add highlights or shadows. Soft Light If the Blend channel’s color value is less than half the maximum value, the Burn blend mode is used.
546 • CHAPTER 23 Hue The hue of the Blend channel is applied to the Base channel. Saturation The saturation of the Blend channel is applied to the Base channel. Color The hue and saturation of the Blend channel is applied to the Base channel. Luminance The luminance of the Blend channel is applied to the Base channel. Levr The value of the Blend channel is used to apply contrast to the Base channel and is affected by the Blend amount.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 547 Gradient Gradient allows you to create gradients of many different types in both 2D and 3D space. Type The type of gradient to be created. U 2D gradient in U from zero to one. V 2D gradient in V from zero to one. Diagonal 2D gradient diagonally in UV. Radial 2D gradient radially around the 0.5, 0.5 in UV. Circular 2D circular gradient from the center out. Box 2D gradient linearly from the center to each edge in U and V. Star 2D gradient linearly from the corners in UV.
548 • CHAPTER 23 Four Corner 2D gradient where the first 4 gradient knot colors are used as the colors at the UV corners. Linear 3D gradient linearly from start point to end point. Cylindrical 3D gradient cylindrically around the vector defined by start and end point of radius. Spherical 3D gradient spherically around the start point of radius. Cycle If turned on, this causes a 3D gradient to cycle its gradient after it passes the end or exceeds the radius.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 549 World The gradient is calculated in world coordinates and is not affected by the objects orientation or position. This allows the object being shaded to move through the gradient. Camera The gradient is calculated in the space of the camera and will stay oriented relative to the camera. The object can move through the gradient and camera moves will also affect the gradient. Screen The gradient is calculated in the space of the screen including z depth.
550 • CHAPTER 23 None Uses the color of the knot to the left of the sample point. Position This is the position of the currently selected knot or bias handle on the gradient. You can type a value in the edit text field or drag the up/down arrows at the right.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 551 Hue The Hue shader is really a filter that is used to adjust another shader or image. It allows you to adjust the Hue, Saturation and Lightness of the texture in a similar way to many photo editing applications. Hue Adjusts the hue angle of the texture around the color wheel. Saturation Adjusts the overall saturation of the colors in the texture. Lightness Adjusts the lightness of the texture.
552 • CHAPTER 23 Lumas Lumas is an illumination shader. It is useful in combination with Fusion and other channel shaders or images. This includes three specular highlights with anisotropic scratches. Diffuse page Diffuse Color R, G, B, Brightness Sets the base diffuse color of the surface. Diffuse Attributes Algorithm Specifies which illumination model Lumas will use.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 553 Roughness Dictates how rough the Oren-Nayar illumination model will be. Zero is no roughness while 100% or greater is very rough. Experimentation is required to fully understand this parameter. This option is only available if Oren-Nayar is selected in the Algorithm dropdown list. Contrast Provides contrast for the result of the diffuse sample color. Zero causes no effect, 0.
554 • CHAPTER 23 Glare Works with Specular Intensity by using the edge falloff (multiplied by the Falloff scalar)) to change the intensity of the specular reflection. This can be used to add a glare to the surface when a light is reflecting more on an edge or specular effects to reduce the specular reflection when a light causes a reflection closer to the edge. Appropriate values run between 0% - 200%. Size Sets the size of the specular reflection. Appropriate value range for size is 0.001% 200%.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 555 Planar A flat XY planar projection. AutoPlanar Automatically projects on a plane parallel to the current normal. Shrink Wrap A spherical projection for scaling direction, but uses a separate algorithm for projecting the scratches. Radial Creates a radial scratch pattern originating at the center of a plane that is parallel to the current normal. Radial Pattern Creates a multi-origin radial scratch pattern that is parallel to the current normal.
556 • CHAPTER 23 Anisotropic Scratch Attributes Amplitude Scales the effect of the scratch of the specular highlights. The higher the value the more scratched the speculars will look. The appropriate range is 0% - 100%. Scale Scales the scratch pattern itself. This applies to all scratch algorithms. Length Defines the scratch length in the space of the scratch pattern. Smoother milled surfaces would use a higher scratch length and rougher surfaces would use smaller values.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 557 Posterizer The Posterizer shader is really a filter that is used to adjust another shader or image. It allows you to adjust the number of levels per color channel of the texture for posterization effects. Levels Number of levels of color, between zero and maximum intensity. Filter Width Adjusts the softness of the posterization by widening and smoothing the edges between levels. Texture The texture group at the bottom of the dialog is a standard BodyPaint 3D texture channel.
558 • CHAPTER 23 Projector Projector allows you to alter the projection of a shader or image. This is useful for having different mappings in separate channels of a material especially when used in conjunction with other shaders such as NUKEI or Fusion. Texture The texture group at the top of the dialog is a standard BodyPaint 3D texture channel. This is the source image or shader to be projected. You can bring in and project any image or 2D shader available to BodyPaint 3D.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 559 Position X, Y, Z Offset of the 3D texture space. Length X, Y Scaling of the 2D texture in UV. Size X, Y, Z Scaling of the 3D texture space. Tiles X, Y Tiling of the 2D texture in UV. Rotation H, P, B Orientation of the 3D texture space. Tile If enabled the 2D texture will tile in UV the number of times specified in the Tiles parameter. Seamless If tiling is enabled then enabling Seamless causes the tiles to be mirrored so that they tile seamlessly.
560 • CHAPTER 23 Proximal Proximal allows you to select an object in the scene and the shader will calculate the luminance based on how close that object’s axis (or each single point — see below) is to the surface of the object being shaded. Effector Search Type the name of the object in the Object manager you want to Proximal to find. Proximal will use all objects with the chosen name in the current document. Object Name of the object that will be used to calculate Proximal.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 561 Polygon Radius Is similar to Use Vertices except it uses the center of each polygon and makes the maximum distance (End Distance at 100%) the radius of the polygon. This helps with the problem of vertices being spread unevenly and gaps happening when an object passes through another. Falloff Function Falloff function to be used to calculate the Proximal intensity. Linear Intensity is 100% of the Intensity value at Start Distance, 0% at End Distance and falls off linearly in between.
562 • CHAPTER 23 Start Distance The distance at which the object causes 100% luminance. End Distance The distance at which the object no longer affects the surface luminance. A value of 100% means 100 m. However, when using Polygon Radius the percentage value is the same as the polygon radius, which of course can be different for each polygon. Blend Mode Allows for different possibilities when blending each sampled point together.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 563 Tiles Tiles is a channel shader used to generate tiles and patterns. Grout Color Color between the tiles. Tile Color 1, 2, 3 The colors to be used for tiles. Pattern This is the pattern type. (Later in this chapter you will find pictures of each pattern type.) Grout Width Grout width as a percentage of the tile. Bevel Width Width of the tile bevel as a percentage of the tile inside the grout.
564 • CHAPTER 23 Randomize Color If activated the tile color becomes a random mix of the three tile colors. Orientation Orientation of the tile pattern in U or V. Global Scale Scaling of the tile pattern. U Scale Scaling in the U direction. V Scale Scaling in the V direction. Radial Scale Scaling radially for the patterns that are radial types of patterns such as radial lines etc. Delta Delta is a scaling factor to use in sampling the texture for evaluating the slope to be used in the bump channel.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 565 Types of Tile Pattern Brick 1 Brick 2 Circles 1 Circles 2 Circles 3 Hexagons Lines 1 Lines 2 Parquet Planks Radial Lines 1 Radial Lines 2 Rings 1 Rings 2 Sawtooth 1 Sawtooth 2 Scales 1 Scales 2 Spiral 1 Spiral 2 Squares Triangles 1 Triangles 2 Triangles 3 Waves 1 Waves 2 Weave
566 • CHAPTER 23 BANJI BANJI was created to fill a couple of different needs in texturing. First BANJI allows the rendering of translucent lighting from the back side of a surface complete with shadows. The other main use of BANJI is the creation of good refractive, transparent materials such as glass. Diffuse page BANJI has separate diffuse color and illumination settings for both the front surface and the volume of an object to allow for translucency and backlighting effects.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 567 Algorithm Specifies which illumination model BANJI will use. The drop-down list provides for two choices including Internal which is the standard Lambertian model and the Oren-Nayar model which provides for a roughness variable allowing the user to go from simple surfaces (0% Roughness, identical to Lambertian), to complex rough surfaces (100%+ Roughness which provides a surface like linen or dirt).
568 • CHAPTER 23 Illumination Scales the Diffuse Color to produce attenuation in the illumination of the surface (this simply means it makes the color darker when the value is close to zero and brighter when the value is closer to 100% or above). If you are using the Oren-Nayar illumination algorithm you may want to bump up the illumination about 10% to 20% because it renders darker usually. Appropriate values are between 0% and 200%. Shadow Opacity This parameter is used to scale the shadow opacity.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 569 Glare Works with Specular Intensity by using the edge falloff (multiplied by the Falloff scalar)) to change the intensity of the specular reflection. This can be used to add a glare to the surface when a light is reflecting more on an edge or specular effects to reduce the specular reflection when a light causes a reflection closer to the edge. Appropriate values run between 0% - 200%. Size Sets the size of the specular reflection. Appropriate value range for Size is 0.001% 200%.
570 • CHAPTER 23 Edge Opacity This causes the edges of an object that points further away from the camera to be more opaque. 0% creates no effect while values greater than zero add to the edge opacity. Transparency Attributes Index Of Refraction The refractive index for the material. Internal Reflection Allows refracted rays to reflect when appropriate. Solid Object Makes the object a completely dense object instead of one surface.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 571 Falloff Mixes the results of the Reflection Color x Intensity and Reflection Edge Color x Edge Intensity. Smaller values provide for more Reflection Color while larger values provide more Reflection Edge Color. The appropriate range is 0% - 500%. Reflection Depth Attenuation Causes reflections to fall off based on how many times a ray has been reflected off of other surfaces.
572 • CHAPTER 23 Attributes tab Intensity Scales the Environment Color before it is mixed with the Glare and Environment Edge Color result to create the final environment color sample that will be used to attenuate the environment sample provided by the Environment Texture texture group. Appropriate values are 0% - 200%.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 573 Samples Defines how many samples will be taken by the convolution. If you enter 1, no convolution will occur. The value should be similar to your Blur radius value. The appropriate range is 2 - 50. Jitter Defines the maximum random offset per sample of the convolution function. This rids the blurred environment of the stepping effect when you can see multiple images layered. The appropriate range is 0% - 100%.
574 • CHAPTER 23 Ambient page R, G, B, Brightness Defines the base ambient color used to attenuate (multiply by) the scene ambient color provided by BodyPaint 3D. You must have an Environment object active in your scene for this to affect your surface at all. Intensity Scales the Ambient Color before it is mixed with the Edge Intensity result to create the final ambient color sample that will be used to attenuate the ambient sample taken by BodyPaint 3D internally. Appropriate values are 0% - 100%.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 575 Roughness page Used to add bump or grit to the material. Roughness tab Function The noise function utilized to calculate the bump and the grit. You can review the noise types very easily in the 2D or 3D Noise channel shaders to get a feel for what they are. Experimentation is very necessary. Octaves Defines the number of octaves utilized by the noise function defined within the Function drop-down list.
576 • CHAPTER 23 Hard Bump Utilizes an implicit algorithm to calculate the bump, producing more realistic dented surfaces. Often used when creating steel doors with anisotropic highlights to create large dents. Absolute Whether or not to fold the noise about its mid level by taking the absolute value of it. Delta Delta is a scaling factor to use in sampling the texture for evaluating slope to be used in evaluating the bump.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 577 Roughness Intensity Mixes between the grit sample and Vector (1) to allow varying degrees of grit (think of it as an opacity control for grit). If the grit value is less than or equal to the Low Clip value it becomes 0 (Grit Color). If the grit value is greater than or equal to the High Clip value it becomes 1 (the surface color).
578 • CHAPTER 23 Radial Pattern Creates a multi-origin radial scratch pattern that is parallel to the current normal. Projection Scale Scales the scratch algorithms that have an actual pattern (Radial Pattern is the only current algorithm of this type to which scale applies). Anisotropic Specular Roughness X Roughness Scales the specular highlights in the X direction defined by the Scratch Projection algorithm. The appropriate range is 0.1% to 10,000%.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 579 Affect Channel These check boxes specify which specular channels will be affected by the anisotropic scratches. Illumination page These settings only have an effect if you are using the BodyPaint 3D module with CINEMA 4D. Use this channel to control aspects of material illumination. Here, you can switch on/off radiosity and caustics for the material (both are enabled by default). Global Illumination Generate When the option is enabled, the material will generate radiosity.
580 • CHAPTER 23 Sample Radius In order to calculate the brightness of the caustics effect, photons within a certain distance of the pixel to be rendered are interpolated to calculate the brightness. The Sample Radius defines this distance. Sample Radius = 1; individual photons can be seen as points of light because they are not interpolated together. Samples This defines the maximum number of photons within the Sample Radius that are used for calculating the effect.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 581 BANZI BANZI was created for the generation of volume rendered woods and allows for endless variation on the types of woods you can simulate. Wood page Wood Color Gradient Colorizes the ring and grain function. Experimentation is required to fully understand and use this control. Wood Attributes Ring Intensity Reduces or increases the prominence of the annual rings. While the parameter can go negative, its useful values are between 50% and 150%.
582 • CHAPTER 23 Ring Turbulence Stirs the annual rings so they may have a more natural look. Turbulence Scale — simply scales the noise used for the ring turbulence. Core Variance Disturbs the origin of the rings so it looks as if the tree the wood came from did not grow perfectly straight. Radial Variance Causes the rings to become non-symmetrical around their origin. Trees rarely grow perfectly circular rings because they are rarely perfectly round.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 583 Diffuse page Diffuse Color R, G, B, Brightness Sets the diffuse color used to tint the surface. Diffuse Attributes Algorithm Specifies which illumination model BANZI will use.
584 • CHAPTER 23 Contrast Provides contrast for the result of the diffuse sample color. Zero causes no effect, 0.0% - 100% causes standard contrast, above 100% causes a wrap contrast (the values that go above 100% wrap around to 0% again, utilized to create the Candy materials), negative values provide an inverse contrast that simulates materials that seem luminescent such as Silver. Appropriate values are -500% to 500%.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 585 Falloff Utilized to vary the falloff of the center of the object to the edge to affect the Glare intensity. Smaller values cause the specular reflection to reflect the Intensity value more while larger values make the surface use the Glare scalar more. Experimentation is required to fully understand this parameter. Contrast Provides contrast for the result of the specular sample color. Implements a standard contrast function. Appropriate values are 0% - 100%.
586 • CHAPTER 23 Color tab Reflection Color The controls in this group define the base color used to attenuate the reflection sample in tandem with the reflection Intensity parameter. Utilizes the Falloff parameter to mix with Reflection Edge Color. Reflection Edge Color The controls in this group define the edge color used to attenuate the reflection sample in tandem with the reflection Edge Intensity parameter. Utilizes the Falloff parameter to mix with Reflection Color.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 587 Attributes tab Intensity Scales the Environment Color before it is mixed with the Glare and Environment Edge Color result to create the final environment color sample that will be used to attenuate the environment sample provided by the Environment Texture texture group. Appropriate values are 0% - 200%.
588 • CHAPTER 23 Samples Defines how many samples will be taken by the convolution. If you enter 1, no convolution will occur. The value should be similar to your Blur radius value. The appropriate range is 2 - 50. Jitter Defines the maximum random offset per sample of the convolution function. This rids the blurred environment of the stepping effect when you can see multiple images layered. The appropriate range is 0% - 100%.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 589 Ambient Color R, G, B, Brightness Defines the base ambient color used to attenuate (multiply by) the scene ambient color provided by BodyPaint 3D. You must have an Environment object active in your scene for this to affect your surface at all. Ambient Attributes Intensity Scales the Ambient Color before it is mixed with the Edge Intensity result to create the final ambient color sample that will be used to attenuate the ambient sample taken by BodyPaint 3D internally.
590 • CHAPTER 23 Delta Delta is a scaling factor to use in sampling the texture for evaluating slope to be used in evaluating the bump. This allows you to get very sharp bump with minute detail. Bump Clamping Low Clip defines the low boundary for the clip (no bump under this value). High Clip defines the high boundary for the clip (no bump over this value).
MATERIAL MANAGER • 591 Anisotrophy page Anisotropic Projection Scratch Projection The type of projection is used to define the anamorphic (disproportional) scaling of the specular highlights. It can also define the scratch direction to be used with the reflection and environment convolution groups. The projections are transformed by the Texture tag used to apply them to an object. Experimentation is absolutely required to understand these parameters. Planar A flat XY planar projection.
592 • CHAPTER 23 Anisotropic Specular Roughness X Roughness Scales the highlights in the X direction defined by the Scratch Projection algorithm. The appropriate range is 0.1% to 10,000%. If the X & Y roughness are the same the standard internal specular algorithm is used. Y Roughness Scales the highlights in the Y direction defined by the Scratch Projection algorithm. The appropriate range is 0.1% to 10,000%. If the X & Y roughness are the same, the standard internal specular algorithm is used.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 593 Illumination page These settings only have an effect if you are using the BodyPaint 3D module with CINEMA 4D. Use this page to control aspects of material illumination. Here, you can switch on/off radiosity and caustics for the material (both are switched on by default). Global Illumination Generate When the option is enabled, the material will generate radiosity. Use the input box to set the strength of the radiosity - you can enter values from 0 to 10,000%.
594 • CHAPTER 23 Samples This defines the maximum number of photons within the Sample Radius that are used for calculating the effect. For example, if you enter a value of 100, up to 100 photons will be evaluated - any photons beyond this number are ignored. Samples and Sample Radius both affect the quality of the effect. To summarize: more samples per sample radius means a more accurate image. Increasing the sample radius means more blur, but a longer render time also.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 595 CHEEN Gradients page Color Gradient Is used to alter the base color of the object based on the angle between the camera and the surface normal (the left side of the gradient is the edge of the object while the right side of the gradient is the center of the object). Opacity Gradient Causes the opacity of the object to change according to the angle between the camera and the surface normal. White is opaque while black knots are transparent.
596 • CHAPTER 23 Diffuse page Diffuse Color R, G, B, Brightness Sets the base diffuse color of the surface. Diffuse Attributes Algorithm Specifies which illumination model CHEEN will use.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 597 Contrast Provides contrast for the result of the diffuse sample color. Zero causes no effect, 0.0% - 100% causes standard contrast, above 100% causes a wrap contrast (the values that go above 100% wrap around to 0% again, utilized to create the Candy materials), negative values provide an inverse contrast that simulates materials that seem luminescent such as Silver. Appropriate values are -500% to 500%.
598 • CHAPTER 23 Falloff Utilized to vary the falloff of the center of the object to the edge to affect the Glare intensity. Smaller values cause the specular reflection to reflect the Intensity value more while larger values make the surface use the Glare scalar more. Contrast Provides contrast for the result of the specular sample color. Implements a standard contrast function. Appropriate values are 0% - 100%.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 599 Reflection page The reflection controlled in the two reflection tabs (Attributes and Color) are additive to the color of the surface. Attributes tab Intensity Scales the Reflection Color before it is mixed with the Edge Intensity and Reflection Edge Color result to create the final reflection color sample that will be used to attenuate the reflection sample taken by BodyPaint 3D internally. Appropriate values are 0% - 200%.
600 • CHAPTER 23 Reflection Color The controls in this group of parameters define the base color used to attenuate the reflection sample in tandem with the reflection Intensity parameter. Utilizes the Falloff parameter to mix with Reflection Edge Color. Reflection Edge Color The controls in this group of parameters define the edge color used to attenuate the reflection sample in tandem with the reflection Edge Intensity parameter. Utilizes the Falloff parameter to mix with Reflection Color.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 601 Glare Scales the Environment Edge Color before it is mixed with the Intensity and Environment Color result to create the final environment color sample that will be used to attenuate the reflection sample provided by the Environment Texture texture group. Appropriate values are 0% - 200%. Falloff Mixes the results of the Environment Color x Intensity and Environment Edge Color x Glare.
602 • CHAPTER 23 Color tab Environment Color The controls in this group of parameters define the base color used to attenuate the reflection sample in tandem with the reflection Intensity parameter. Utilizes the Falloff parameter to mix with Environment Edge Color. Environment Edge Color The controls in this group of parameters define the edge color used to attenuate the environment sample in tandem with the environment Glare parameter. Utilizes the Falloff parameter to mix with Environment Color.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 603 Ambient Attributes Intensity Scales the Ambient Color before it is mixed with the Edge Intensity result to create the final ambient color sample that will be used to attenuate the ambient sample taken by BodyPaint 3D internally. Appropriate values are 0% - 100%. Edge Intensity Mixes with Intensity to scale the Ambient Color to create the final ambient color sample that will be used to attenuate the ambient sample taken by BodyPaint 3D internally. Appropriate values are 0% - 100%.
604 • CHAPTER 23 Scale Scales the surface point used in the noise evaluation. Amplitude Scales the amplitude of the bump algorithm. The appropriate range is 0.0001% to 1,000%. Speed This feature only has an effect if you are using the BodyPaint 3D module with CINEMA 4D. Animation speed of the noise in percentage of cycles per second. Attenuation Defines how much the noise algorithm will reduce the detail of the noise when the surface is far away or facing away from the camera.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 605 Color tab Roughness Color The controls in this group of parameters set the color used as a base to attenuate (multiply by) the specular, diffuse, reflection, environment and ambient results. Negative values invert the grit application. The appropriate range is -200% - 200%, Roughness Intensity Mixes between the grit sample and Vector (1) to allow varying degrees of grit (think of it as an opacity control for grit).
606 • CHAPTER 23 Anisotrophy page Anisotropic Projection Scratch Projection The type of projection is used to define the anamorphic (disproportional) scaling of the specular highlights. It can also define the scratch direction to be used with the reflection and environment convolution groups. The projections are transformed by the Texture tag used to apply them to an object. Experimentation is absolutely required to understand these parameters. Planar A flat XY planar projection.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 607 Anisotropic Specular Roughness X Roughness Scales the highlights in the X direction defined by the Scratch Projection algorithm. The appropriate range is 0.1% to 10,000%. If the X & Y roughness are the same the standard internal specular algorithm is used. Y Roughness Scales the highlights in the Y direction defined by the Scratch Projection algorithm. The appropriate range is 0.1% to 10,000%. If the X & Y roughness are the same the standard internal specular algorithm is used.
608 • CHAPTER 23 Illumination page These settings only have an effect if you are using the BodyPaint 3D module with CINEMA 4D. Use this page to control aspects of material illumination. Here, you can switch on/off radiosity and caustics for the material (both are switched on by default). Global Illumination Generate When the option is enabled, the material will generate radiosity. Use the input box to set the strength of the radiosity - you can enter values from 0 to 10,000%.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 609 Samples This defines the maximum number of photons within the Sample Radius that are used for calculating the effect. For example, if you enter a value of 100, up to 100 photons will be evaluated - any photons beyond this number are ignored. Samples and Sample Radius both affect the quality of the effect. To summarize: more samples per sample radius means a more accurate image. Increasing the sample radius means more blur, but a longer render time also.
610 • CHAPTER 23 DANEL DANEL was conceived to allow users the ability to create surfaces that include metallic, gloss, painted, and anisotropic materials. Diffuse page Diffuse Color R, G, B, Brightness Sets the base diffuse color of the surface.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 611 Diffuse Attributes Algorithm Specifies which illumination model DANEL will use. The drop-down list provides for two choices including Internal which is the standard Lambertian model and the Oren-Nayar model which provides for a roughness variable allowing the user to go from simple surfaces (0 Roughness, identical to Lambertian), to complex rough surfaces (100% + Roughness which provides a surface like linen or dirt).
612 • CHAPTER 23 Specular Color R, G, B, Brightness Sets the base specular color for the specular component. Specular Attributes Intensity Scales the Specular Color to produce attenuation in the specular reflection of the surface (this simply means it makes the color darker when the value is close to zero and brighter when the value is closer to 100% or above). The appropriate range is 0% - 1,000%.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 613 Attributes tab Intensity Scales the Reflection Color before it is mixed with the Edge Intensity and Reflection Edge Color result to create the final reflection color sample that will be used to attenuate the reflection sample taken by BodyPaint 3D internally. Appropriate values are 0% - 200%.
614 • CHAPTER 23 Max If the distance of the reflected surface is greater than the Min distance and less than the Max distance then the reflection intensity of the sample will be attenuated by a value produced by retrieving the parameterized distance of the intercepted position relating to the Min and Max distances ((intercepted_Point - min_Point) / (max_Point - min_Point)). If the distance of the intercepted surface is greater than the Max parameter then the surface has 0% intensity.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 615 Color tab Reflection Color The controls in this group of parameters define the base color used to attenuate the reflection sample in tandem with the reflection Intensity parameter. Utilizes the Falloff parameter to mix with Reflection Edge Color. Reflection Edge Color The controls in this group of parameters define the edge color used to attenuate the reflection sample in tandem with the reflection Edge Intensity parameter.
616 • CHAPTER 23 Attributes tab Intensity Scales the Environment Color before it is mixed with the Glare and Environment Edge Color result to create the final environment color sample that will be used to attenuate the environment sample provided by the Environment Texture texture group. Appropriate values are 0% - 200%.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 617 Samples Defines how many samples will be taken by the convolution. If you enter 1, no convolution will occur. The value should be similar to your Blur radius value. The appropriate range is 2 - 50. Jitter Defines the maximum random offset per sample of the convolution function. This rids the blurred environment of the stepping effect when you can see multiple images layered. The appropriate range is 0% - 100%.
618 • CHAPTER 23 Ambient Color R, G, B, Brightness Defines the base ambient color used to attenuate (multiply by) the scene ambient color provided by BodyPaint 3D. You must have an Environment object active in your scene for this to affect your surface at all. Ambient Attributes Intensity Scales the Ambient Color before it is mixed with the Edge Intensity result to create the final ambient color sample that will be used to attenuate the ambient sample taken by BodyPaint 3D internally.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 619 Octaves Defines the number of octaves utilized by the noise function defined within the Function drop-down list. This field will only be active if the noise function being used utilizes more octaves than one. Octaves is similar to Detail in many other shaders. Scale Scales the surface point used in the noise evaluation. Amplitude Scales the amplitude of the bump algorithm. The appropriate range is 0.0001% to 1,000%.
620 • CHAPTER 23 Grit tab Grit Color The controls in this group of parameters set the color used as a base to attenuate (multiply by) the specular, diffuse, reflection, environment and ambient results. Negative values invert the grit application. The appropriate range is -200% - 200%, Grit Intensity Mixes between the grit sample and Vector (1) to allow varying degrees of grit (think of it as an opacity control for grit).
MATERIAL MANAGER • 621 Planar A flat XY planar projection. AutoPlanar Automatically projects on a plane parallel to the current normal. Shrink Wrap A spherical projection for scaling direction, but uses a separate algorithm for projecting the scratches. Radial Creates a radial scratch pattern originating at the center of a plane that is parallel to the current normal. Radial Pattern Creates a multi-origin radial scratch pattern that is parallel to the current normal.
622 • CHAPTER 23 Length Defines the scratch length in the space of the scratch pattern. Smoother milled surfaces would use a higher scratch length and rougher surfaces would use smaller values. The appropriate range is 1% - 1,000%. Attenuation Scales the amount of detail of the scratches based upon the samples, angle to the camera and the distance from the camera.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 623 Caustics Generate The material must be transparent and/or reflective in order to create a caustics effect. Use this option to enable the generation of caustics by the material. The input box defines the strength of the caustics generated. Receive The Receive option has no effect for volume caustics. This enables or disables the reception of surface caustics by the material. Use the input box to set the strength of the effect.
624 • CHAPTER 23 MABEL channel except Veining and Illumination is made up of two surfaces: Surface 1 and Each Surface 2. Choose which surface’s parameters are displayed using the drop-down list that is just above the channels list in the left part of the dialog. MABEL was conceived to allow users the ability to create marbled stone textures that generally consist of a body and a vein surface. Veining page The veining channel controls the size and mixing of the two vein surfaces.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 625 Octaves Octaves of fractal detail used in the stirring function. Stirring Amount of distortion applied to the veins. Size Size of the veins (Surface1) to the body (Surface 2). Scale The scale of the stirring noise function. Contrast Contrast applied to the veins to make them blend smoothly or separate distinctly. Variance This group of parameters contains attributes of a second noise to add variance to the blend of the veins and body caused by the veining function.
626 • CHAPTER 23 Diffuse page The Diffuse group applies to the currently selected surface in the surface combo box below the preview. Diffuse Color R, G, B, Brightness Sets the base diffuse color of the surface. Diffuse Attributes Algorithm Specifies which illumination model MABEL will use.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 627 Contrast Provides contrast for the result of the diffuse sample color. Zero causes no effect, 0.0% - 100% causes standard contrast, above 100% causes a wrap contrast (the values that go above 100% wrap around to 0% again, utilized to create the Candy materials), negative values provide an inverse contrast that simulates materials that seem luminescent such as Silver. Appropriate values are -500% to 500%.
628 • CHAPTER 23 Size Sets the size of the specular reflection. Appropriate value range for Size is 0.001% 200%. Falloff Utilized to vary the falloff of the center of the object to the edge to affect the Glare intensity. Smaller values cause the specular reflection to reflect the Intensity value more while larger values make the surface use the Glare scalar more. Experimentation is required to fully understand this parameter. Contrast Provides contrast for the result of the specular sample color.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 629 Color tab Reflection Color The controls in this group of parameters define the base color used to attenuate the reflection sample in tandem with the reflection Intensity parameter. Utilizes the Falloff parameter to mix with Reflection Edge Color. Reflection Edge Color The controls in this group of parameters define the edge color used to attenuate the reflection sample in tandem with the reflection Edge Intensity parameter.
630 • CHAPTER 23 Attributes tab Intensity Scales the Environment Color before it is mixed with the Glare and Environment Edge Color result to create the final environment color sample that will be used to attenuate the environment sample provided by the Environment Texture texture group. Appropriate values are 0% - 200%.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 631 Samples Defines how many samples will be taken by the convolution. If you enter 1, no convolution will occur. The value should be similar to your Blur radius value. The appropriate range is 2 - 50. Jitter Defines the maximum random offset per sample of the convolution function. This rids the blurred environment of the stepping effect when you can see multiple images layered. The appropriate range is 0% - 100%.
632 • CHAPTER 23 Ambient page Ambient Color R, G, B, Brightness Defines the base ambient color used to attenuate (multiply by) the scene ambient color provided by BodyPaint 3D. You must have an Environment object active in your scene for this to effect your surface at all. Ambient Attributes Intensity Scales the Ambient Color before it is mixed with the Edge Intensity result to create the final ambient color sample that will be used to attenuate the ambient sample taken by BodyPaint 3D internally.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 633 Roughness page Used to add bump or grit to the material. Roughness tab Function The noise function utilized to calculate the bump and the grit. You can review the noise types very easily in the 2D or 3D Noise channel shaders to get a feel for what they are. Experimentation is very necessary. Octaves Defines the number of octaves utilized by the noise function defined within the Function drop-down list.
634 • CHAPTER 23 Hard Bump Utilizes an implicit algorithm to calculate the bump, producing more realistic dented surfaces. Often used when creating steel doors with anisotropic highlights to create large dents. Absolute Whether or not to fold the noise about its mid level by taking the absolute value of it. Bump Clamping The noise is calculated in a range of 0% - 100%. These values clip that range to provide for bumps with plateaus (like certain stuccos).
MATERIAL MANAGER • 635 Anisotrophy page Anisotropic Projection Scratch Projection The type of projection is used to define the anamorphic (disproportional) scaling of the specular highlights. It can also define the scratch direction to be used with the reflection and environment convolution groups. The projections are transformed by the Texture tag used to apply them to an object. Experimentation is absolutely required to understand these parameters. Planar A flat XY planar projection.
636 • CHAPTER 23 Anisotropic Specular Roughness X Roughness Scales the highlights in the X direction defined by the Scratch Projection algorithm. The appropriate range is 0.1% to 10,000%. If the X & Y roughness are the same the standard internal specular algorithm is used. Y Roughness Scales the highlights in the Y direction defined by the Scratch Projection algorithm. The appropriate range is 0.1% to 10,000%. If the X & Y roughness are the same the standard internal specular algorithm is used.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 637 Illumination page These settings only have an effect if you are using the BodyPaint 3D module with CINEMA 4D. Use this page to control aspects of material illumination. Here, you can switch on/off radiosity and caustics for the material (both are switched on by default). Global Illumination Generate When the option is enabled, the material will generate radiosity. Use the input box to set the strength of the radiosity - you can enter values from 0 to 10,000%.
638 • CHAPTER 23 Samples This defines the maximum number of photons within the Sample Radius that are used for calculating the effect. For example, if you enter a value of 100, up to 100 photons will be evaluated - any photons beyond this number are ignored. Samples and Sample Radius both affect the quality of the effect. To summarize: more samples per sample radius means a more accurate image. Increasing the sample radius means more blur, but a longer render time also.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 639 NUKEI channel except Veining and Illumination is made up of two surfaces: Surface 1 and Each Surface 2. Choose which surface’s parameters are displayed using the drop-down list that is just above the channels list in the left part of the dialog. NUKEI was conceived to allow users the ability to create surfaces that include rusted and weathered materials that generally have two distinct surfaces with different attributes.
640 • CHAPTER 23 FUSER Texture Utilizes a standard BodyPaint 3D texture group for the Fusing of the two surfaces. Texture Transformation This group of parameters contains the settings of the texture projection. This should look very familiar as it is basically the same as the projection options available in BodyPaint 3D. Projection The projection type to use.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 641 Copy Tag Pressing the Copy Tag button causes the settings of the currently selected Texture tag in the Object manager to be copied into NUKEI’s parameters. This makes it easier for you to create a projection using Real Time Texture Mapping and then just copy it in to use in NUKEI. Attributes tab Falloff The falloff of the edge mix between Surface 1 and Surface 2.
642 • CHAPTER 23 1 Edging Width, 2 Edging Width The width of the edging around the interface between Surface 1 and Surface 2 that protrudes into Surface 1 and Surface 2. 1 Edging Bump Amplitude, 2 Edging Bump Amplitude The bumping of Surface 1 and Surface 2 around the interface between Surface 1 and Surface 2. Diffuse page The Diffuse channel applies to the currently selected surface in the surface combo box below the preview. Diffuse Color R, G, B, Brightness Sets the base diffuse color of the surface.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 643 Roughness Dictates how rough the Oren-Nayar illumination model will be. Zero is no roughness while 100% or greater is very rough. Experimentation is required to fully understand this parameter. This option is only available if Oren-Nayar is selected in the Algorithm dropdown list. Contrast Provides contrast for the result of the diffuse sample color. Zero causes no effect, 0.
644 • CHAPTER 23 Glare Works with Specular Intensity by using the edge falloff (multiplied by the Falloff scalar) to change the intensity of the specular reflection. This can be used to add a glare to the surface when a light is reflecting more on an edge or specular effects to reduce the specular reflection when a light causes a reflection closer to the edge. Appropriate values run between 0% - 200%. Size Sets the size of the specular reflection. Appropriate value range for Size is 0.001% 200%.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 645 Edge Intensity Scales the Reflection Edge Color before it is mixed with the Intensity and Reflection Color result to create the final reflection color sample that will be used to attenuate the reflection sample taken by BodyPaint 3D internally. Appropriate values are 0% - 200%. Falloff Mixes the results of the Reflection Color x Intensity and Reflection Edge Color x Edge Intensity.
646 • CHAPTER 23 Environment page Image tab Utilizes a standard BodyPaint 3D texture group to be used for the environment sample. Attributes tab Intensity Scales the Environment Color before it is mixed with the Glare and Environment Edge Color result to create the final environment color sample that will be used to attenuate the environment sample provided by the Environment Texture texture group. Appropriate values are 0% - 200%.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 647 Environment Convolution This group of parameters allows the blurring of environments when the Anisotrophy group is checked. It doesn’t support radial convolutions because very similar effects can be achieved by blurring the environment map (it is also much, much faster).
648 • CHAPTER 23 Environment Edge Color The controls in this group of parameters define the edge color used to attenuate the environment sample in tandem with the environment Glare parameter. Utilizes the Falloff parameter to mix with Environment Color. Ambient page Ambient Color R, G, B, Brightness Defines the base ambient color used to attenuate (multiply by) the scene ambient color provided by BodyPaint 3D.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 649 Roughness Used to add bump or grit to the material. Roughness tab Function The noise function utilized to calculate the bump and the grit. You can review the noise types very easily in the 2D or 3D Noise channel shaders to get a feel for what they are. Octaves Defines the number of octaves utilized by the noise function defined within the Function drop-down list. This field will only be active if the noise function being used utilizes more octaves than one.
650 • CHAPTER 23 Hard Bump Utilizes an implicit algorithm to calculate the bump, producing more realistic dented surfaces. Often used when creating steel doors with anisotropic highlights to create large dents. Absolute Whether or not to fold the noise about its mid level by taking the absolute value of it. Delta Delta is a scaling factor to use in sampling the texture for evaluating slope to be used in evaluating the bump.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 651 Grit Intensity Mixes between the grit sample and Vector (1) to allow varying degrees of grit (think of it as an opacity control for grit). If the grit value is less than or equal to the Low Clip value it becomes 0 (Grit Color). If the grit value is greater than or equal to the High Clip value it becomes 1 (the surface color).
652 • CHAPTER 23 Radial Pattern Creates a multi-origin radial scratch pattern that is parallel to current normal. Projection Scale Scales the scratch algorithms that have an actual pattern (Radial Pattern is the only current algorithm of this type to which scale applies). Anisotropic Specular Roughness X Roughness Scales the specular highlights in the X direction defined by the Scratch Projection algorithm. The appropriate range is 0.1% to 10,000%.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 653 Affect Channel These check boxes specify which specular channels will be affected by the anisotropic scratches. Alpha page Opacity The opacity for the surface. With Alpha you can layer NUKEI over other shaders and textures. Illumination page These settings only have an effect if you are using the BodyPaint 3D module with CINEMA 4D. Use this page to control aspects of material illumination.
654 • CHAPTER 23 Caustics Generate The material must be transparent and/or reflective in order to create a caustics effect. Use this option to enable the generation of caustics by the material. The input box defines the strength of the caustics generated. Receive The Receive option has no effect for volume caustics. This enables or disables the reception of surface caustics by the material. Use the input box to set the strength of the effect.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 655 Texture Mapping You can apply a texture to an object in the following ways: - Drag the desired material from the Material manager and drop it on to the name of the object in the Object manager. The texture settings will appear in the Attribute manager. The mouse pointer will change during this process to indicate the add state: - Select the object in the Object manager and select the material in the Material manager. In the Material manager, choose Function > Apply.
656 • CHAPTER 23 Tag Properties Material To choose which material the Texture tag uses, drag the desired material from the Object manager and drop it into this box. If multiple Texture tags are selected, the material will be applied to all of them. If you click the arrowhead that is to the right of the Material box, a menu opens: Clear Removes the Texture tag’s material. Show In Manager Shows the Texture tag’s material in the Material manager.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 657 Selection Selection enables you to use different materials on different parts of the same object. This is a convenient way to add, for example, labels to objects. First of all you need a Selection tag: - Select the object, select the Polygons tool and select the Live Selection tool. - Select several polygons (if you selected a primitive object, you must first convert it to polygons using Make Editable). - Choose Select Polygon > Set Selection to create a Polygon Selection tag.
658 • CHAPTER 23 Side (decal mapping) Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3 Figure 4 Suppose that you project a texture onto a tube with Flat mapping. If you move the camera around to look at the other side of the surface, you will still see the texture, but it will be the wrong way round. You can solve this problem by using a decal — a material that is projected on one side of the surface only.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 659 Offset, Length The Offset and Length settings define the position and size of the texture in the X and Y directions on the texture envelope. For example, if Length X and Length Y are both set to 100%, the texture covers the envelope completely. Tiles The Tiles values are the number of times the texture fits onto the texture envelope in the X and Y directions. Hold on a moment, isn’t that the same as changing the length? Yes, exactly.
660 • CHAPTER 23 If this option is enabled, the texture picture will be repeated endlessly on the surface. The effect becomes visible when you scale down the texture or when the texture geometry has not yet been fitted to the object using the Fit To Object command. Otherwise, the texture map fills the texture geometry once. If this option is disabled, the texture map will not be repeated on the surface. Any materials that are underneath will show through in the parts not covered by the texture tile.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 661 Figure 1: The texture has been moved about the texture envelope. Figure 2: The texture geometry itself has been moved. Figure 3: Texture geometry can be shown either as a texture grid or as a realtime texture. Types of mapping To choose how a material is placed onto a surface, set Projection to the desired mode. The modes available are demonstrated below and explained in the following pages. Spherical applied to a plane. Spherical applied to a cylinder.
662 • CHAPTER 23 UVW Mapping. Difference between flat and UVW. Shrink Wrapping. Spherical Spherical mapping projects the texture on to the object in a spherical form. Spherical projection is rarely suitable for flat objects. There is distortion with cylindrical objects also. Cylindrical This mapping type projects the texture on to the object in a cylindrical shape. Cylindrical projection is rarely suitable for flat objects. It also leads to distortion when used with spherical objects.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 663 UVW Mapping UV mapping is by far the most important mapping type in BodyPaint 3D -- it is the type of mapping that most of your objects should use. With BodyPaint 3D’s powerful UV editing tools, you’ll find that you can make your textures fit any shape of object. If an object has UVW coordinates, you can select them as the projection type. In this case, the texture geometry is fixed to the object surface and is subject to all subsequent movement and deformation applied to the object.
664 • CHAPTER 23 What is the structure of UVW coordinates? Imagine a grid divided into a U direction and a V direction (see Figure 1, below). The UV range starts at 0, 0 and ends at 1, 1. For an upright polygon, 0, 0 describes the top left; 0, 1 the bottom left; 1, 0 the top right and 1, 1 the bottom right. A texture is stretched out between these four coordinates (Figure 2). Figure 1. Figure 2.
MATERIAL MANAGER • 665 Shrink Wrapping With this projection type, the center of the texture is fixed to the north pole of a sphere and the rest of the texture is stretched over it. The advantage of this mapping type is that the texture meets itself at the south pole only. This avoids a seam running between the poles. Only a circular section of the texture is used, with the center of the circle corresponding to the center of the picture. The remainder of the picture is discarded.
666 • CHAPTER 23
24 Attribute Manager
ATTRIBUTE MANAGER • 669 24 Attribute Manager 5 1 3 2 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 4 Parameter group tabs. Lock/unlock Attribute manager. Open new Attribute manager (right icon). Selected parameter. Navigation buttons.. The Attribute manager gives you quick access to almost any parameter in BodyPaint 3D, including the parameters for object, tags, materials, shaders and nodes. Changes that you make in the Attribute manager are carried out in realtime in the viewport.
670 • CHAPTER 24 Editing parameters To edit a parameter in the Attribute manager, do one of the following: - Enter the new value into the parameter’s text box. - Next to the parameter’s text box you’ll find two arrowheads, one pointing up and the other pointing down. Drag these arrows up or down to increment/decrement the value. - Position the mouse pointer on the parameter’s text box and rotate the mouse wheel to increment/decrement the value.
ATTRIBUTE MANAGER • 671 - Click and hold down the mouse button and drag the pointer over the parameter groups that you want to activate. If there is not enough display space to show all parameters on-screen at the same time, scroll bars appear. To scroll the parameters, drag the scroll bars or drag from an empty part within the window. Drag from an empty part within the Attribute manager to scroll the parameters.
672 • CHAPTER 24 The Attribute manager’s context menu To access the Attribute manager’s context menu, right-click (Windows) or Commandclick (Mac OS) a parameter. User Interface This sub-menu appears when only one parameter is selected. Depending on the type of parameter, you are able to change its interface. For an existing parameter, you mostly have a choice between a numeric text box (Float), a slider (Float Slider — No Edit Field) or both (Float Slider). Normal text box for Subdivision Renderer.
ATTRIBUTE MANAGER • 673 Show Subchannels Some elements such as color fields can also be displayed numerically. Show Subchannels disabled. Show Subchannels enabled. Copy, Paste Use these commands to copy values between parameters. First select the parameters whose values you want to copy. Choose Copy. Now select the parameters that should receive the copied values and choose Paste. Paste Identical Suppose there are two cylinders in your scene.
674 • CHAPTER 24 To add a spline graph as user data, in the Attribute manager choose User Data > Add User Data and in the dialog that opens, set Data Type to Spline and click OK. The spline graph appears below the existing parameters. To load saved data, select the parameters that should receive the data and choose Load Data. Use your system’s file selector to choose the data file. Note that the saved data and the selected parameters must be of the same data type.
ATTRIBUTE MANAGER • 675 To lock the new Attribute manager to a specific object (or objects), in the Object manager select the desired object to load its settings into the new Attribute manager. Then, in the new Attribute manager, choose Lock Element. The new Attribute manager now displays the parameters of the object permanently, even when other objects are selected in the Object manager.
676 • CHAPTER 24 Edit Copy, Paste Use these commands to copy values between parameters. First select the parameters whose values you want to copy. Choose Copy. Now select the parameters that should receive the copied values and choose Paste. Select All Selects all parameters. Deselect All Deselects all parameters. User Data This feature is only of use if you are using the BodyPaint 3D module with CINEMA 4D. Please see the CINEMA 4D reference manual for details.
25 Picture Viewer
PICTURE VIEWER • 679 25 Picture Viewer With BodyPaint 3D, you can render your scene directly in the viewport or you can render it to the Picture Viewer. Rendering in the viewport is useful if all you need is a quick render to check how your scene is progressing. But if you want to actually save the rendered picture, you’ll need to render to the Picture Viewer instead. If you want to save the picture when rendering to the Picture Viewer, first set the save path in the render settings.
680 • CHAPTER 25 File Menu Open Opens an image file and displays the image in the Picture Viewer. All 2D image formats supported by BodyPaint 3D can be opened (see Appendix). Save Picture As Format, Options The list of file formats may vary depending on the QuickTime codecs installed. Specifies the file format for the picture. If the selected file format supports extra options, access these by clicking the Options button. Depth, DPI Some file formats support 16 bits per channel, i.e.
PICTURE VIEWER • 681 Stop Rendering You can also stop the rendering by pressing Esc. Aborts rendering. When you next render, the picture will be rendered from the beginning again. Close Closes the Picture Viewer. Edit Menu Copy Copies the image in the Picture Viewer to the clipboard. You can then paste the image into another application such as an image editor. Channels Menu Use this menu to control which image channels are shown in the Picture Viewer.
682 • CHAPTER 25 Alpha This option appears only if the image has an integrated alpha channel. If the option is enabled, the Picture Viewer displays the image’s alpha channel instead of the image itself.
PICTURE VIEWER • 683 Components Menu Red, Green, Blue BodyPaint 3D renders all images using the RGB color system. With these three options you can filter out the separate colors. This allows you to check the red separation of a render without needing to launch a separate image editor. Grayscale If you enable this option, the image will be displayed not in color but in grayscale.
26 Structure Manager
STRUCTURE MANAGER • 687 26 Structure Manager Data is shown only if the selected object is editable. To make a primitive editable, select the primitive and choose Make Editable. Like a spreadsheet, the Structure manager processes data directly within cells that are divided into rows and columns. You can edit data numerically for points (including spline points), polygons, UVW coordinates or vertex maps. The Structure manager shows the data for these items of the selected object.
688 • CHAPTER 26 Values in the cells can be edited directly, lines can be moved by means of drag-and-drop and cut, copy, paste are supported. Larger quantities of data can be processed rapidly, even if the object has a large number of points or polygons. The selection frame (a red frame around an active box) shows you which data you are working on; navigating around the table is thus very simple.
STRUCTURE MANAGER • 689 File Menu New Line A new line is inserted into the table below the selection frame. If you are in the point mode (default), a new point is added to the object. This is created at the world origin (X=0, Y=0, Z=0). By entering suitable X, Y and Z coordinates, you can change the spatial position of the point. If you are in the polygon mode, New Line adds a new polygon to the object. The new polygon will not be visible yet, since it has not been allocated suitable points (see Mode).
690 • CHAPTER 26 The ASCII file must start with a header (the “Point X Y Z” in the example above) and each row must start with the point number. The values within each line may be separated with a TAB character, a comma, a semicolon or a combination of these. Each line must end with the ASCII LF (linefeed) character or the CR (carriage return) character, or a combination of both. Thus the ASCII file can be created on a Macintosh, Windows or Unix computer.
STRUCTURE MANAGER • 691 Edit Menu Undo, Redo Undo undoes the last change to the object’s structure. The previous values are restored to the cells. The undo level (i.e. how many changes are remembered) is set on the Document page of the preferences. Redo undoes (i.e. cancels) the last undo. The redo level is the same as the undo level set on the Document page of the preferences. Cut, Copy, Paste, Delete Cut removes the selected row(s) from the table and copies this to the clipboard.
692 • CHAPTER 26 Jump Home, Jump End Use these commands to move the selection frame to the first column of the first row (Jump Home) or last row (Jump End).
STRUCTURE MANAGER • 693 Mode Menu All modes operate independently of the tool that you are using in the viewport. For example, you can process points in the Structure manager while working on polygons in the viewport. If you want the elements selected in the Structure manager to be shown in the viewport also, you must change to the appropriate tool. For example, if points are shown in the Structure manager, select the points tool from the left toolbar.
27 Coordinate Manager
COORDINATE MANAGER • 697 27 Coordinate Manager You can set the position, scale and rotation of objects here, in the Coordinate manager, or in the new Attribute manager. The Coordinate manager allows you to manipulate objects numerically. It displays information relating to the tool you are using. For example, if you are using the move tool, the position, size and rotation values of the selected element are shown. Once you have made changes to the values, apply the changes by clicking on Apply.
Appendix
APPENDIX • 701 Formulae You can type in a formula for the Formula spline primitive and the Formula time curve. In fact, you can type in a formula wherever BodyPaint 3D accepts a value, e.g. in the Coordinate manager. This appendix lists all the units, operators functions and constants that you may use in your formulae. You may enter values using any of the units listed below (examples in brackets) - regardless of the basic units defined in the preferences (BodyPaint 3D will convert the units for you).
702 • APPENDIX The function parser has the most important arithmetic operators built in. You can combine operations freely, for example: 2km + exp(sin(4mm*pi)) / ((sin(14cm))^2 + (cos(14cm))^2).
APPENDIX • 703 Programming plugins The built-in XPresso node editor gives you extensive control over how BodyPaint 3D objects interact with one another. In addition to XPresso, BodyPaint 3D provides you with a powerful programming language that enables you to produce plugins that can extend the core functionality of BodyPaint 3D.
704 • APPENDIX COFFEE support Support for BodyPaint 3D/CINEMA 4D developers is available exclusively on MAXON Computer’s Plugin Café website: plugincafe.com. Here you will find, among other things, the SDK. This contains the COFFEE compiler and detailed descriptions of the programming language and the interface libraries. It is, of course, possible for commercial plugin manufacturers to keep their source code secret and proprietary.
APPENDIX • 705 IFF images are read only if they conform to the Commodore/Electronic Arts specifications. EHB, HAM-6 and HAM-8 modes are supported. TARGA Bit depths Compressors 24, 32 Uncompressed Only TGA-1 is supported. With QuickTime installed other variants are also imported. PICT Bit depths Compressors 4, 8, 16, 24, 32 Uncompressed RLE compressed With QuickTime installed all PICT variants are imported (if the QuickTime compressors are available).
706 • APPENDIX QuickTime Bit depths Color formats Various Various With QuickTime installed, all QuickTime formats are supported i.e. PNG, SGI and QuickTime image. B3D Bit depths Color formats 8, 24 n/a B3D is the native file format of the BodyPaint 3D module. Layers, layer masks and channels are supported. RLA, RPF Save your multi-pass files in RLA or RPF format if you want to post-edit in compositing programs like After Effects and Combustion. RPF is an extension of the older RLA format.
APPENDIX • 707 – Transparency (RPF only) Object transparency information. – Subpixel Weight Information on the color of subpixels. – Subpixel Mask Information that links subpixels to their objects. HDRI HDRI images are converted to RGB upon loading. Animation Formats AVI This format can be read and written only under Windows. Using QuickTime, AVI animations can also be used on the Macintosh, depending on the codec.
708 • APPENDIX LightWave Although BodyPaint 3D can convert LightWave files and scene descriptions completely (including PSD animations and bone structures), it is sometimes necessary to postedit light source settings and texture placements. UV coordinates are supported from LightWave version 6 and higher. 3D Studio Import The 3DS transparency texture is the exact opposite of the transparency mode in BodyPaint 3D.
APPENDIX • 709 QuickDraw3D Import – Light source and camera information cannot be read. – The following objects are ignored: Torus, TriMesh (new with QD3D v1.5); NURBS can cause problems in certain cases. – References (both internal and external) are not read. – UV coordinates are not read. – Textures are not read. QuickDraw3D Export QuickDraw 3D accepts only one UV coordinate per point. Therefore texture mapping may appear different after exporting in this format.
710 • APPENDIX – ASCII format. – All basic objects (cuboid, sphere, cone, cylinder). – Polygon objects of any size and number of vertices (n corners are triangulated). – Perspective cameras, light sources (direct, point, spot). – Material tags: ambient color, diffuse color, specular color, emissive color, shininess. – WWW Links are created as a BodyPaint 3D attribute (WWW tag). – WWW Inline Nodes are not supported. VRML 2.
APPENDIX • 711 – Files to be imported need to have the extension “.OBJ” because the file itself contains no information about its origin. OBJ files without this file name extension cannot be read by BodyPaint 3D. Wavefront OBJ Export – ASCII format. – Polygon objects; NURBS are converted to polygon objects, UV coordinates.
712 • APPENDIX Support What can you do when you are stuck and the manual does not appear to help? You may want to contact technical support. MAXON, and its distributors worldwide, will help you with any technical problems you encounter. So that we can help you as efficiently as possible, please keep in mind the following: Please contact us (or your local distributor) in writing if possible, preferably by email.
APPENDIX • 713 Please tell us which settings you used. Please tell us which programs you have running at the same time as BodyPaint 3D. If you are using Mac OS, please let us know which system extensions are loaded. Sometimes, another program or a system extension (Mac OS) may cause a problem indirectly. Please include details of your hardware configuration. “I have a Macintosh/PC” is of little help on its own.
