LoL, was just messin with ya. Anyway's, the ability to import the physical model into photoshop is a geat idea. Too bad that it's difficult to do. Puts maya paint to shame.

I tried painting a 3D model in photoshop and it was bad... really awkward navigation, which should be top priority when painting directly on the surface. Could have been that I wasn't used to it, but it didn't feel right.

You need to be in the 3D part of photoshop and it need to be in a format that photoshop can understand obj or fbx, better still get mudbox or zbrush............dave

http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs71/f/20...ss-d4n6dhx.png
Made the female version of the Zriganz alien species. Inspired by sharks and beta fish. A bit too dark but then again so are betas.

bahahaha THX I know you were joshin mate LOL.

As dave said and I think I posted...you need to export the mesh as an obj or similar.

quote [You can import OBJ, U3D, KMZ, DAE, and 3DS formats straight into CS3 and above. Again they are not too good as yet...I dont have CS5, that may have improved heaps.]

As I pointed out )no dave you are right, painful in PS)..it is very difficult to paint the 3D in PS. As dave has found out the nav tools suck...and my laptop wouldnt process so when I spun it around..it locked up. Yes THX if it was more intuitive and easier toolset it would be fantastic...especially for things like seams etc which ALWAYS appear. I believe the UV mapping in Maya is not good for joining things like lines across a fuselage or similar. UV a cube for me...then produce 3 lines on the UV one on each sector in PS and get them to line up perfectly..then if you do, do 3 diagonals...and tell me how you fare???

cheers bullet

Diagonals you say bullet? I would auto map, sew them together in the UV editor, export to photoshop.

Silverfeather, try using a lighter color to give your fish creatures a bit more depth. Here is a quick example I did using your fish.

I think we may be overloading this thread....perhaps silver you should make a thread with your 2D questions and only post the finished products in here? THX I will PM you man..

cheers bullet

I've always thought this thread should be its own forum section. Lots of people do 2D stuff on the side, which is fantastic, and there should be more room for discussion, questions and critique. And I honestly don't think it would detract from a "maya" forum to have a small section for all kinds of 2D. There's plenty of other software stuff going round anyway.

I would be in favor of that also.

Bullet, your right, I think we are overloading this thread a bit.

Me too, I tend to do a bit of 3d and a bit of 2d everyday, but apart from DeviantArt I don't really have anywhere else to discuss or show 2d art.

After spending the morning playing with Dyna and Fibremesh in Z, I decided to attempt drawing a horse, as I haven't ever tried before, here are the results, sketch, and colour version (quick painting in PS), drawing took about 10 minutes, colour about 5.

not bad dango.....straight from the brain or replicated??

cheers bullet

Cheers Bullet,
It's just a sketch from a photo, I wish I could draw a horse from memory! lol

Nice one Dango! keep practicing and sooner or later you will be able to do it from memory.

Here is a dog sketch I did a long time ago. Cant remember exactly when ( guess I should have put a date on it ). It's still not finished believe it or not. It stared out as just a doodle, but as time went by, I kept adding more and more to it till I got burnt out on it. This is probably as far as it's ever going to get, enjoy.

Meh, i'm giving up on 2D, only using it as a reference for later on. They just don't end up exactly they way i want them to be. I want some kind of extremely dark color with some burning color effects (not flames, color burn, something like that).
I really would rather just stick to 3D.

Don't give it up, or you could possibly regret it some day in the future. Even texturing a 3D model requires you to know how to do a little bit of 2D.

Im with THX...the more you do NOW and make mistakes etc WILL help you later silver!! as THX has pointed out...to make GOOD 3D you have to have some knowledge of 2D apps and the way you apply them. Give a gift but dont give in. Nice Dog THX!!! pencil or tablet?

cheers bullet

Horses arent that hard really dango....once you have done 1 head at least....fairly simple.

cheers bullet

But doesn't 3D already add depth to the textures you paint? Bump mapping also adds depth. I just don't know how to create depth in 2D and for the alien fish, I wanted some kind of burning colors, not shiny/light.
I wanted them similar to the Betta fish's aspect, which is quite dark.
http://acvarism.ro/wp-content/galler...8191213502.jpg

Not my fish btw.

@Silverfeather: Texturing doesn't add depth do a 3D model (depth has to be modeled ), and neither does bump mapping. All Bump mapping does is create a surface appearance, which could either look rough or smooth. How rough or smooth it looks you have to control through your materials attributes.

I recommend that before you go any further with 3D, that you watch a video or read a tutorial on the texturing process. There are alot of things I can tell from your post that that you don't fully understand the whole process yet.


@ Bullet1968: The dog was done in pencil, and some of the textures were painted in photoshop cheers mate!

That's because I haven't reached that point yet. Maybe I am confusing depth with something else. What I understand by depth is 3D appearance.

Depth is any visual cue that tells your brain something is in front of another. Stereopsis is the one that "3D" movies use, but a much more important cue is simply occlusion (i.e. one object partly obscures another, therefore it is in front of it), and other things like light, shadows, and other tonal quality give you "depth" which is what you can use textures and other 2D for. Maybe that's not what anyone was talking about, but learning and using "2D" is I think very important for understanding 3D and art in general.

Yeah but I cannot understand lighting / shadowing in 2D, that's why I'm saying I probably should give up on that since I seem to just not understand how to shadow the characters I draw.

Your not going to understand it if you don't learn how to do it. Same thing applies to 3D. 2D and 3D go hand in hand. You really cant do one without the other in my honest opinion. Even the amazing folks who sculpt in Z-Brush or Mudbox with no reference have more than likely spent time doing 2D at some point.

I'll try but I don't know how to add depth while keeping the dark non-reflective aspect of those fish aliens. I'd make a separate thread just to not expand this one just talking about 2D but I don't know where. Maybe someone can help me achieve that effect I want, because I somehow have to use very dark but also burning colors in the picture.

This is somewhat close to how I'd like it to be. But it's a bit too dark.

I recommend that you forget about the color for right now, and focus on the anatomy instead. There are features on your Alien fish that don't translate very well because of the dark color scheme.

Do another concept with just line art only. Do it with pencil and paper and scan it, or take a cell phone pic or something, then post it here.

I don't have any scanners, so it will be blurry due to the phone (but I can make it sharper in Corel).
I will work on that tomorrow if I have time.
Though this one wasn't made on paper (unlike the other alien fish that looked like a bipedal shark). It was made on the pc for easier erasing if I'd make a mistake.

Here is some stuff I am working on, the one of them I am sure many of you will recognize, its Alex Alvarez's Fume. I wanted to give it my own little spin though, still trying to figure out how to do some of the stuff I want to.

Cool stuff mate! I really like the Alex Alvarez's Fume sketch.

Cool stuff Oz....keep it up mate...lots practice.

cheers bullet

thanks guys, I am hopping to actually get around to completing these soon. I think I am going to trace fix some issues on the last sketch, I dont like how the top of the jaw looks disconnected, and I am not a fan of how I did some of the shading, tried doing cross hatching for the skin and smooth for the bone...I think I should reverse that theory.

I shade evrything...and only use lines or hatching for small areas. You know how to shade properly??? with different graphites? and using a SLIGHTLY if at all damp finger to 'rub' the shades??

cheers bullet

yea, I actually have done quite a few shade studies, different shade ink, or graphite, these I did while I was working so I never had the proper tools. It was just an on the spot had a few hours to blow type of thing

Just thought I'd post something in this thread. This is one of the character concepts for a project I'm working on. Scanner broke so I had to use a camera.

Nice one Perfecto!

Very beastly Perfecto.....very nasty looking

cheers bullet

I likes :)

Here is a drawing i planned on making into full armor similar to Iron Man. I did end up modeling this in 3d too but I've been stumped on the chest part. Got the arms, hands legs feet sketched out too but not uploaded.

Originally in pen on a memo pad at my desk while i was waiting for my computer to be repaired by our infinitely incompetent IT department... had to transfer them to scan though.

cool td.....what stumped you in what way? design wise?

cheers bullet

Well i had the design in my head as being a very sleek, thin, recon style suit and everything i was designing was too big bulky for this design. I kept the designs for other uses but i have trouble with small and stealthy. Making is sleek and small usually lost most of the details i wanted as well. Although its been some months since i sketched something out i should try again.

I've been busy lately, but I drew the outline of those fish aliens I had before. I tried on paper but after 12 times of failing to make the snout properly, I ended up resorting to Corel + Mouse again -.-

So, how can I make the ones on this pic:
http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs71/f/20...ss-d4n6dhx.png
to look more like the one in the attachment? It's hard to get lighting effects while keeping a dark purble+red+blue color on it.