I tried the axe exercise after putting it off for a while, and found it to be by far the most frustrating experience I've ever had with Blender. It's like, even though I save my images and my file, every time I reload, there's always a problem: maps other than the base will always black regardless of blending mode, sometimes images don't load automatically and manually loading them does nothing, sometimes my paint slots will disappear, etc.
What's a better, more reliable alternative for texture painting? I know many recommend Substance, but the price is pretty steep, and isn't it mainly only for PBR? I hear good things about 3DCoat but yet to try it. Photoshop has always been good for me with 2D images, but I'm not sure how to utilize it for 3D.
How about UV-mapping the 3D Axe into 2D space and create flat-textures instead?
GIMP is a Photoshop like, totally free and open-source tool to create textures:
- https://www.gimp.org/
Basic 3D uvmapping to 2D texture exercise:
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2-FfB9kRmE
I answered with Gimp as a possible answer to this question you've asked here:
[...What's a better, more reliable alternative for texture painting?...]
Links to articles can help you to enhance your current Adobe 3D PhotoShop painting skills:
- https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/3d-painting-photoshop.html
- https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/3d-texture-editing.html
- https://assist-software.net/blog/hand-painting-3d-models-photoshop
And on Youtube you can also find a lot of tutorials on the 3D features in Adobe Photoshop:
Youtube Photoshop 3D painting tutorials
Substance painter, quixel suite or 3dcoat. Substance painter i can recommend, also quixel since those i have used. 3dcoat i know is powerful so can't go wrong there.
as for pbr, its just one workflow, you can use all above to create whatever you need. it just comes down what shaders you are using in your projects, and if you go for certain aesthetic.
I'd recommend Substance Painter as well.
When it comes to Blender's texture painting seeming unreliable, hopefully this course can help: https://cgcookie.com/course/understanding-blender-data
Substance Painter is all I use for texturing. Just seems more natural and it has a ton of flexibility and power for creating just about anything you want texturing wise. As far as just being for PBR, that's not true. It can be used for more stylized looks: https://www.allegorithmic.com/blog/stylized-artworks-made-substance
As far as using image editing programs, understand that texturing is really just a 2D image. You can use photoshop to paint on textures onto the UV maps, although I find this to be difficult to really image myself personally that's why I like 3d texturing programs. I get instant feedback on what I'm seeing in an actual 3d environment.
Yeah I'm definitely dumping the axe exercise. Absolutely hate the Blender painting workflow.
I guess I'll try learning Substance once I decide to purchase it. I'd like to hope I don't need designer for the full range of stylized aesthetics because building materials procedurally isn't my cup of tea (something I learned through Houdini tutorials).
I actually already have Quixel but it seems very heavily PBR-focused. I'll look into that more too.
Substance Painter is a stand alone program, Substance Designer is not needed for it.