Weird Issue with Photoshop CS6 Extended

[Guilliaume]

I am having scaling issues with my 3D model in Photoshop CS6 Extended. Pixels are not scaling in size when I zoom in or out with my camera. I do not mean the pixels I am looking at, but I mean the pixels of my tools that I am drawing with. For example, if I select my Pencil tool and set it to 5 pixels and draw a line, then when I zoom in closer to my model and draw with the same 5 pixel pencil the line I should see should be bigger and it should match my other line, but it doesn't. The new line is smaller.

I figure that my tools are just drawing at the pixel size for my current camera view, but how do I fix that? If I want a consistent line, but have to move in for a closer look, how do I guarentee that? I have been looking online all day and cannot find the answer. Please help...

[Chosen Few]

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Guilliaume wrote:

I figure that my tools are just drawing at the pixel size for my current camera view, but how do I fix that?

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Your assumption is correct.  You're way over-thinking the solution, though.  Remember, Photoshop is still Photoshop, whether you're painting in 3D or not.  If you were working in 2D, the brush would appear to get larger when you zoom in on the document, right?  Well, it still does that when you're painting in 3D.  Photoshop's navigator doesn't know or care what a 3D model is.  So, zoom in using the nagivation pane, or the ctrl+ and ctrl- hotkeys, just like you would with any other Photoshop image, and it will behave exactly as you'd expect.

When you zoom with the 3D camera tool, all you do is make the model appear larger or smaller within the document.  The object is displayed bigger or smaller, but the document itself remains at the same magnification, which is why the brush remains the same size on-screen.  Make sense?   

 

This is how it works in most 3D paint programs, by the way.  The brush size is part of the UI, and is not married to the model size.  As you continue to do more 3D painting, you'll find that this is a very, very, very important thing.  If it didn't do that, you'd have lots of problems that you haven't yet anticipated. 

Photoshop gives you the best of both worlds, since it provides both a 2D and a 3D interface at the same time.  It's got its share of weaknesses compared to true 3D painters like Zbrush and Mudbox, but this is one area where it shines.

 

[Guilliaume]

Thank you for your reply. It helps a lot. I also figured out how to manipulate my perspective to match a line I drew and that helps as well.

[Dilbert Dilweg]

Use the little box in the middle of the xyz manipulator and you wont get all the blurriness. Just click the box and  move mou8se forward and backward for in and out

 

[Guilliaume]

If you zoom in either with the camera or by scaling the object, you get the problem I started this post over: your lines are not consistent. A 5 pixel line from a farther perspective is bigger than a 5 pixel line at a closer perspective even though both lines were drawn at 5 pixels.

[Dilbert Dilweg]

I see what you are saying.. I misunderstood

[Chosen Few]

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Guilliaume wrote:

A 5 pixel line from a farther perspective is bigger than a 5 pixel line at a closer perspective even though both lines were drawn at 5 pixels.

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Just to make sure you understand what's going on, it's 5 on-screen pixels, just like when you paint in any other Photoshop document.  The fact that a 3D model happens to be receiving the paint, instead of an ordinary Photoshop layer, doesn't change that. 

The size of the brush as measured in on-screen pixels has nothing to do with how many texels (texture pixels) the paint ends up occupying on the model.  The arrangement of the texels is governed by the model's UV map.  What might be 5 texels wide in one spot could be 10 or 20 or 50 or 500 textels wide in some other spot, even if both spots appear to be the same size on the model.  The whole point of painting in 3D is not to have to worry about that.

This is why it's so important that brush size not be linked to the model's display size.  If it were actually measured in texels, the brush would have to change size and shape as you move it across the model, to maintain a direct relationship with the UV layout of each and every spot.  Imagine how useless that would be. 

Again, the purpose of painting in 3D is not to have to care so much about how friendly or unfriendly the UV mapping is. Otherwise, you'd constantly have to distort, counter-distort, and resize things as you go, just like when you paint in 2D on the UV texture canvas.

As I said before, once you get used to painting in 3D, you'll start to appreciate why the brush behaves the way it does.  It works the same way in all 3D paint programs.

[Guilliaume]

Ah,  I have no problem with why it behaves that way, I just wanted a way to make my lines consistent. What I was trying to do, for example, was draw ribs around a shirt and I wanted to make sure that each rib was the same size, but when I'd change my perspective or viewing angle the brush size I had (5 pixels) wouldn't match. I was just looking to a solution for that, not complianing about it.