Save your texture at any time while you work by saving the scene or clicking the Save Textures button in the File Textures section of the Tool Settings editor.
When Maya creates the textures, it names the new textures based on the current scene, shape, and attribute names, and places them in a subdirectory of the current project’s 3dPaintTextures directory.
Example
Scene name: myPaintScene
Shape names: ballShape, planeShape
Attributes: color, transparency
Resulting texture names:
projectdirectory\3dPaintTextures\myPaintScene\ballShape_color.iff projectdirectory\3dPaintTextures\myPaintScene\ballShape_transparency.iff projectdirectory\3dPaintTextures\myPaintScene\planeShape_color.iff projectdirectory\3dPaintTextures\myPaintScene\planeShape_transparency.iff
.iff is the default file format.
- A bump map attribute displays as normalCamera in the scene name.
- If the original textures were not a power of 2 in each dimension (such as 512 x 512, 256 x 128), Maya resizes the copies to the nearest power of 2. This makes the 3D Paint Tool more efficient.
- If you change the shape or scene name, for example by renaming a surface, or by saving the scene as a new name, the next time you enter the 3D Paint Tool, the textures are copied to the new name.
You can define how Maya saves files textures created with the 3D Paint Tool when you save a scene. Before saving, choose the options you want in the 3D Paint Texture Options section of the Save Scene As Options (File > Save Scen As > 
).
Update and save textures automatically after each stroke
You can update the texture automatically after each stroke, and you can save it automatically after each stroke.
You can update the texture automatically after each stroke by turning on the Update on Stroke option in the File Textures section of the Tool Settings editor. Turn this option on when IPR rendering. As you release the mouse (or stylus) at the end of each stroke, the texture updates and the IPR render refreshes to reflect your changes. When this option is on, you must save your scene for the updates to the file texture to be saved permanently.
You can use the 3D Paint Tool while High Quality Rendering is turned on; this enables you to preview attributes such as bump and transparency while painting them, however you cannot see the stroke itself while it is being painted, since the texture is updated only at the end of each stroke.
To save each stroke to the file texture you are editing, turn on Save Texture on Stroke. The changes remain even if you do not save the scene. When this option is off (the default), you must save your scene for changes to the file texture to take effect.