Best free (or cheap) software for editing textures?

christopher-2607496

Hello!

I have some old models. The actual model and rigging is great, but the textures definitely show their age. I've been fiddling around with the textures in Photoshop but to be honest I think it would work better if I could just toss the texture maps completely and create a new one from scratch. In a similar vein, I have some other resources that I'd love to re-skin but I just don't know how.

I have Hexagon and Blender but I was hoping there's something out there where I can sort of just paint on the model directly, if you get my idea. Is there something like this that you would suggest?

Thanks!

Richard Haseltine

Both Hexagon and Blender do have support for painting directly on the model, though in Hexagon's case it isn't true projection painting so seams are still an issue. Beyond those I think you have to look at non-free options - Substance Painter and Mari both have "indiie" versions, available through Steam, though you would need to look carefully at the limitations (and hardware requirements).

pwiecek

GIMP is the free photo editor.
Inkscape is the free vector graphics package.

Jack238

I know what is free but cheap can be open to debate. I have gotten real good results with Blacksmith 3D. It does texture painting in 3D and it does morphing too. I know at one time there are a "trial"version that allowed for everything but saving or exporting the results.

As with most programs some like it and some don't. It took me some time to get really good results but now I can work with it quickly and accurately. I also know that they have sales quite often so that would be the time to buy. The manual for it has been redone lately and that is a plus. If you can check it out for free, then, at least, you can come away with what you are looking for in a program.

jpb06t

Blender texture painting is continuosly improved so I'd advise you to stick to Blender. B.t.w., Ptex is arriving for Blender.

Harry Dresden

I have to agree with Jack_238. When it comes to Daz content the only tool you want to use for realtime texture painting is Blacksmith 3D. Why? Because it's the only one I know of that actually imports and exports Daz models correctly. See Daz does not comply to the actual .obj standards when exporting models as they use layered UV mapping which is not supported by Mari and other similar 3D painting software. Which makes our lives much easier inside DS but makes life difficult in other apps. There are ways around this but it's a real pain in the whuzzit as you basically end up reordering the object's UV space and splitting the layers to all fit nicely on one giant sheet. Which is just too much work to bother with. Trust me.

So yeah, get Blacksmith 3D and have fun.

P.S. - If it's clothing you're looking to repaint then you have a lot more choices as it's mostly only character models that use layered UV maps.

jestmart

Blender and I suspect many other 3D modeling programs can handle layered UV mapping once you take the time to learn the program.

StratDragon

For textures I use Photoshop, not free, but GIMP is getting a huge and deserved following lately, I would check it out.

for UVMapping Blender has a first class UV Mapper but going into it without gathering tutorial and wiki reading might make it very confusing.

Before I went to Bender I used UVMapper Classic; which works on Mac/Win, it's free.
http://www.uvmapper.com/downloads.html