Prepare your model for the 3D Paint Tool

Before you begin painting, consider the following:

• Polygonal and subdivision surfaces must have non-overlapping UVs that fit within 0 to 1 in the texture space. In general, Automatic Mapping produces UVs that can be used for painting. For details, see Polygonal Modeling and Subdivision Surface Modeling (www.autodesk.com/maya-docs-archive ).
• NURBS models are usually made up of multiple patches, whereas polygonal models are often only made from a single mesh. When textures are assigned, each NURBS patch receives one texture, but by default a polygon receives only one texture for the entire mesh. This can result in insufficient texture resolution to get fine detail on a polygonal mesh. Increasing the texture size to the maximum results in slower performance, and may still not give sufficient resolution.

  One solution is to partition the model and assign several materials (for example, one for the head, one for the torso, one for the limbs). Each material on the mesh then receives its own texture. This has the added benefit of allowing you to work on part of the mesh at one time. You can also assign different size textures to different parts of the model if desired.

  Note: The 3D Paint Tool does not deal with non-manifold geometry correctly.

To assign material to part of a model

1. Select the part of the model to which you want to assign a material.
2. Open the Hypershade (Windows > Rendering Editors > Hypershade).
3. Right-click the material in Hypershade and select Assign Material to Selection.