Paint Effects is a component of Maya used to quickly and easily paint brush strokes and particle effects on a 2D canvas or on or between 3D geometry.
You can use Paint Effects as a traditional paint program to paint images on a canvas, or to paint repeatable textures that you can apply to geometry in your scenes.
Paint Effects goes beyond traditional painting—you can paint entire particle effects on your canvas or scene with a single brush stroke. On a 2D canvas a single brush stroke can produce complex images, for example trees or flowers. In your scene, that same brush stroke produces these entities three-dimensionally. Imagine being able to paint an orchard in your scene where the painted trees exist as objects that your characters can move around. You can also apply dynamic forces to the effects you paint in your scenes and animate the display and movement of the effects. For example, you can make plants grow, make long hair blow in the wind, or make a river flow.
Choose from one of the many preset brushes and paint realistic effects like plants, hair, fire, feathers, oil paints, pastels, and watercolors, or blend the preset brushes to create custom effects. Create your own brushes by setting shading, illumination, shadow, glow, tube, gap, and flow animation attributes or by modifying the attributes for the preset brushes.
You can get immediate high-quality feedback by rendering brush strokes while you paint. Paint Effects strokes render seamlessly with the rest of your scene during a post process in the final render.
Access Paint Effects from the Modeling menu set in the Generate menu.