MAYA Complete In this lesson you will learn how to use 3D paint to paint over patched surfaces such as a face you would use for blendshape animation.

STEP ONE Download the project file:patchedFace.ma Select Window > Hypershade. In the Hypershade window, select Create > Materials > Blinn. Open the attribute editor and change the Color to White. Click drag a selection around the face to select all the patches. Right-Click on the Blinn in the Hypershade and select Assign Material to Selection.

STEP TWO Make sure the patches are still selected and Click on Lighting/Shading > Paint Textures Tool > options. In the Tool Settings window under the File Texture section click on Assign Textures. In the window that opens ensure that the Size X and Size Y are set to 256. Click Assign Textures. Select a color to paint on the model and begin painting on the model. When you are finished with the color select Save Textures from the Texture Paint options window. NOTE: You can use the hotkey b to change the size of the brush.

STEP THREE Select a new color for your brush in the option window. Paint on your model with the new brush. Click on Save Textures when you are finished painting with this color. NOTE: At any time if you make a mistake you can revert to the previously saved texture by selecting Reload Texture.

STEP FOUR Open the Hypershade window. Select the Blinn node and click on Show Up and Downstream Connections. Notice all the file textures that are mapped to the color channel of the Blinn. Maya automatically creates a file texture for each mapped channel on every patch surface.When painting over multiple surfaces, these separate file textures are fed into a switch node which keeps track of which file textures are assigned to which patch surface on your model. The switch node is then mapped into the color channel of your material.

CONCLUSION You have now learned how to apply Texture Paint over multiple surfaces. Keep in mind that Maya will automatically create the connections needed to treat the multiple files as one complete file texture.

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