Have to be honest, it took a while and quite a few read-overs before I even started to get the grasp of what all that stuff is and what you guys are talking about. Baking seems like an awesome feature, and I can see alot of possibilities taking advantage of it. Let me see if I get this straight though...

Baking means applying a proceedural texture to a UVMapped object, and then having the program/utility/plug-in extract that "shading" as an actual texture map, that could then be applied to the object to mimic/imitate the proceedural texture?!? This texture map could also be further edited or postworked to enhance its visual quality I suppose, thats just too awesome, Im all new to this...

However =P

What I want to be able to do is this, let me explain again =)

If you are familiar w/ the clone/rumber stamp tool in Photoshop, I am looking to do something like that, as if the align feature is checked off. Lets say in Carrara I want to paint the Daz Troll. I set up the figure and paint brush to begin to paint. I click on the image to open the 3D paint brush presets, I now access all of Carraras shader presets as well as the paint brush presets. I choose the Complex Green 2 shader to paint on the Troll. Over his skin surface, as I paint (and hold down the mouse button) the brush paints a continuous stream of the proceedural shader over the surface, seamlessly... I could then export the figure and the mapsOf course you would expect that it works on uvmapped objects, but if it could work on unmapped/organic objects, that would be nice too, but asking for far too much as I now understand...

I dont suppose there exists a program that CAN do what Im asking?!? Allows you to paint on 3D mapped/unmapped objects w/ proceedurals?!?

But again, thanks for the response guys =)

There are 3 kinds of people in the world. Those that can count, and those that can't..