Has anyone on the forum had experience with Painter 3D. I know it is no longer made but was it any good? Does anyone know of a reasonable mesh painting program in the $200 US range? Thanks in advance. Ed

I'll sell you my copy of Painter 3D, with manual and everything. I hate it....

3d paint - Uggh! (somebody else's alpha that got included with metacreations products.) If you have about $400.00 body paint I think it's called appears to be pretty good. Up and coming - Tatoo - but not yet ready for prime time but available for free for non commercial use - I'll run it down later if you can't find the URL by google.(that's how I found it.) Some rave about Zbrush but I don't know what it does and am not sure how much it costs - I think someone mentioned it weighting in at around $500.00 - TJ

Attached Link: http://www.zbrush.com

ZBrush is the way to go. It's a 2D painter and 3D modeling program. Yes, you can paint your 3D models, too.

Attached Link: http://www.terabit.nildram.co.uk/tattoo/index.htm

Give this a try: http://www.terabit.nildram.co.uk/tattoo/index.htm

I couldn't even sell someone Painter 3D with good conscience. It's such a piece of junk, I will never install it again, I paid something like $150 for it when it can out. The worst program I've ever spent money on. I never successfully accompolished anything with it. Buggy doesn't even begin to describe it, it plain old doesn't work. Even with the patch, it was horrible. Do not under any circumstances buy painter 3D, save oyur money and buy Deep Paint 3D, it's hands down the best one out there..Unless you can afford Maya.

kaom, to be fair I think it works alot better on 512 megs of memory than it did on 64 megs that I had when I was trying to get it to work, but it's something I wish I could get the source to and straighten it out (for profit of course)- It had a potential that was never developed very well is all. Another couple of months or so of development by a couple of dedicated programmers and someone else to write a decent manual and it would have been something . . . but as it is I have to agree that I would not buy or sell it or recommend it in any way. . . . Thanks for the links guys! I'm gonna try Zbrush out to see if it will meet the need. - TJ

Thanks for all the replies and opinions. Sounds like Tattoo is easy to try! Thanks for the link Nicholas86. Ed

Well, here I go again. If you look at the Zbrush site for a while and really read up on what it can do, I think that for certain 3d artists, this is manna from heaven. There's really nothing out there that's in the same ballpark. The price for the Windows 2.0 version is $489, the Mac 2.0 version hasn't shipped yet, so you can pay $399 for 1.55 and they will give you 2.0 for free when it's released. I know that you were looking for an app in the $200 range but since someone else brought it up, I figured I'd add my 2. By the way, Z brush (as opposed to Bodypaint) is not just a 3d paint program, it also is a fantastic 3D sculpting tool. The attached image is a hand modeled in it.

I am ZBrush and Deep Paint 3D, and Painter 3D owner. ZBrush is ok but has 3d modeling with symmeterical is great part for character modeling. The paint on 3D is ok. I just got ZBrush 2 and I have not see new features yet. No time for it. Only thing I know that it have projector texture that would print on 3D models from 2d you draw on. I am not sure if it is still not able to paint directly on 3D models with alpha. Deep Paint 3D I know it is expensive and unreasonable. Great with paint tools and paint directly on 3D models with alpha. It has texture layers. Painter 3D is great for painting cartoons. If you want tattoo on body then I would choose ZBrush for projector print.

Attached Link: http://www.vizualds.com

You are welcome sailor_ed. Unless you have a lot of time on your hands I would skip Zbrush, its a nice program, but for the price its interface is still (even with the improvements in 2) a bit unwieldy, reminds me of blender! And its not the easiest texture creator. I will vouch for it being an excellent program, but I'd go with Bodypaint or one of the Deep Paint variants. Brian brian@vizualds.com http://www.vizualds.com

Reminds you of Blender!? No thanks! ;-)

Yes ZBrush need some improvements. Only thing it really need is surface transform and direct paint on 3D with alpha and symmeterical then it would consider a true ZBrush2

I hav'nt heard of that since MC's old days with it. I did'nt get a copy untill it went to Corel though. To tell you the truth when I finally got my hands on it and compared it to Poser3, Bryce3, and RDS5 I was'nt very impressed by it at all. UVMapper and Photoshop for me thanks!