Tip: Symmetrical Texture Painting

by David Ward

In this Blender 2.5 tip, I show you a technique to paint symmetrically (both sides at the same time) on a model using multiple UV maps, one being “folded” in half to achieve the dual mapping of the coordinates, and baking the symmetry to a regularly unwrapped UV map.

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Discussion

17 Responses to “Tip: Symmetrical Texture Painting”
  1. YoungApprentice
    Posts: 11

    First comment!

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    1
     Apr 21, 2011 at 9:36 pm
  2. Erasme Beck
    Posts: 2

    Hi Jonathan!
    When you created a new UV texture, it didn’t copy the first UVTex so you had to unwrap it again.
    If you want to copy the first UVTex, create the new one in object mode.
    Cheers.

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    2
     Apr 22, 2011 at 12:05 am
  3. mr. Bubble
    Posts: 4

    Too bad symmetry doesn’t work with normal map, I mean overlapping UV’s doesn’t work correctly with normal map in blender

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    3
     Apr 22, 2011 at 2:40 am
    • John D Smith II
      Posts: 234

      I’m not sure you need it to… If you’re using a texture for bump or sculpting, just complete it and bake it to full size first, THEN Bake the normals or bake it to a low poly.

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      3.1
       Apr 22, 2011 at 11:18 am
  4. Davide Dozza (Bologna - Italy)
    Posts: 2

    A little hint…

    (at 3:50) to duplicate the channel texture, you must pass in “object mode” and add channel.

    In this way the texture channel is duplicated.

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    4
     Apr 22, 2011 at 6:41 am
    • DoubleD from Italy
      Posts: 3

      mmm… the “UV Texture channel”, obviously…

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      4.1
       Apr 22, 2011 at 12:03 pm
  5. John D Smith II
    Posts: 234

    Nice tutorial! This is a great addition to all the other great texturing and painting tuts you guys have done. I mainly use highly developed procedurals and vertex painting, but I may be changing over to some hand painting now. I vaguely remember seeing someone flip the UVs that way for something, but it never again occurred to me to use it for texture painting and this tip comes at a perfect time to really stick in my head and cap off a lot of unused texturing knowledge for me. Not being able to control symmetry had really put me off of a great way to texture paint. Thanks for the tip and timing Jonathan! An elegant solution.

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    5
     Apr 22, 2011 at 10:53 am
  6. John D Smith II
    Posts: 234

    OK I just had an idea for any Developers, Coders, or Influencial’s who like this idea. Some people have Tablet’s… I’m guessing most don’t.(Me) We can use the height of the mouse to emulate pen pressure, but that’s horrible! How can you get fine control with that?? BUT! I have a solution- A hot key that does two things at once. First, holding it down makes the ink flow, so if you drag the mouse around it will draw just like holding a right-click. Secondly, it assign’s the level of pressure to the mouse wheel which you can now use with your freed index finger. I will try to implement this on my own because I want it badly. If I have any success, I’ll let every one know!

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    6
     Apr 22, 2011 at 11:53 am
    • mark
      Posts: 2

      this… may be a good idea!

      I already have a cheap tablet input, but I’d love to tell friends who don’t have a tablet about this hack!

      not sure you’re gonna get the appropriate attention for it buried in this comments section though.

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      6.1
       Feb 13, 2013 at 3:54 pm
  7. bob
    Posts: 40

    does this work for 2.56 beta?

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    7
     Apr 23, 2011 at 8:06 am
  8. Beau Dreier Gligoor
    Posts: 37

    Thanks! Helpful!

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    8
     Apr 26, 2011 at 9:14 am
  9. Deejay
    Posts: 1

    I apprecitae you taking to time to contribute That’s very helpful.

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    9
     Dec 14, 2011 at 1:12 am
  10. Mac
    Posts: 1

    You’re a lifesaver, thank you for this wonderful tutorial!

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    10
     Dec 22, 2012 at 5:03 pm

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