Importing Into the Painting Room

The primary way to import assets into the Painting Room is through the Opening Dialog and its sub-options.
In order to Paint some textures, 1 of 2 conditions must be met:

1. A model with topology and UVs created in 3DCoat has been successfully Baked into the Painting Room (which can’t happen without a UV Map).
2. A model created externally, which has been UV Mapped, is imported into 3DCoat for texturing using one of the Painting Methods (which automatically places any existing UV Maps and Textures into the UV Room and the Painting Room). The model can have Multiple UV tiles; see below.

In this context, the Texture Menu becomes available, also, in the Main Menu Panel.
As described in the “Importing Into the UV Room” section the options available in this menu allow you to import existing texture assets into the Painting Room for further modification.

With the middle column select, pick one of these OBJ files you can see in the menu from the screenshot below.
Or select the file menu and click on File→Import→Model for per pixel painting, then choose “sample.obj” file (it is in the Sample folder).

Upon importing an object, you will be prompted with the following image.
There are many options you will see in this prompt.

Import Object for Per Pixel Painting

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Normal Map Software Preset:

There is a setting called “Normal Calculation Method” in the “Input/Output” menu of “Preferences”. Depending on the content of the bake, you may need to change the settings here.

Initial subdivision: Set the initial subdivision of the object for a smoother look (if needed).
UV-mapping type: Keep the original UV or choose Auto-mapping.
UV-set smoothing: This option works only if you subdivide the model during import.

Z-up coordinate system Z-up based coordinate system for compatibility with Rhino, 3DS-Max, and other applications with Z-axis up.
Import Multiple UV tiles as UV sets Import separate UV tiles as separate UV sets.
Triangulate: Triangulate a mesh to avoid UV glitches.
Weld Vertices Weld separate vertices that are at the same point in space.
Invert Normals
Lock Normals Don’t recalculate normals, use normals directly from the object file. If you subdivide mesh, this option will be ignored.
Don’t Snap Subdivision Vertices to Surface: This option helps to avoid snapping of the subdivided mesh to the surface of the high-poly mesh. It makes the Layer0 mesh very smooth. In this case, all displacement (normal maps) will be placed on higher layers. This option is very helpful if you export a low poly mesh and displacement map.
No Center Snap: 3DCoat tries to move a bound box of the model to the origin of the scene by default. Check this box if you want to import the model as is, without any centering. Turn OFF to avoid all models appearing off center.
Set sharp edges (split normals) over UV seams:
Auto smoothing groups: This option allows the creation of smoothing groups automatically. By specifying the value in the “Maximum angle” option responsible for the maximal angle between faces when the edge becomes sharp, it is necessary to activate the Auto smoothing groups option. To use this option, turn the Auto smoothing groups on.

If you see this warning popup at import, problem happens often if model have random or incorrect UV set.

So such models should be loaded with Auto-mapping and then get UV set correction.

Sometimes the UVset is tiled or some verts are outside 0-1 uv space, also the problem seems to happen when you have another UV channels that are not properly unwrapped.

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Treat Retopo Objects as Painting Objects: In this mode, each material of the object will be treated as a separate UV set (separate texture) regardless of the initial UV sets.
If you deselect “Treat Retopo Objects as Painting Objects, your painting Objects or retopo object layers be converted to surface materials, and you only now will have one painting object with several surface materials.
Rename your Painting object as a combination name of all the retopo object layers.

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UV-set name: Enter UV-set name.
Texture width: Set texture width.
Texture height: Set texture height.
• Note: If your video card has less than 2GB of Vram, you should avoid textures larger than 2000 x 2000.

Import Object for Microvertex Painting

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MicroVertex Painting (Displacement)
You will see a number of options that you can specify upon importing your object.

Millions of Polygons: This is responsible for mesh resolution, the number of millions of polygons after mesh smoothing during the loading. This amount should be greater than the number of pixels on the texture. These polygons are used to create the normal map on the fly.
Display Mesh Resolution (Polygons): The mesh consists of two levels of detail: carcass mesh (mid-poly mesh) and high-resolution mesh. Usually, you will see mid-poly mesh in the viewport with a normal map created using high-poly mesh.
Smooth Object: You can also “smooth” the object while opening the file. For this case, let’s tick “Smooth object”.
Mapping Type: Specify what texture coordinates should be used during the editing process.
By default, the UV-mapping type is “Keep UV”. For this option of course, you must have a pre-existing UV-mapped mesh that remains as it was. If you want, you can change it.

• Keep UV: Keep UV Coordinates: Choose this option only when the entire model is mapped without overlaps.
• UV Sub-Patch Smoothing: The type of smoothing that will be applied to UV islands.

1. No Smoothing: UV-sub patches will not be smoothed.
2. Smooth, Keep Edges:
3. Full UV Set Smoothing: The UV set will be completely smoothed.
4. Smooth But Keep Corners: Smooth the UV-set and even out the boundaries, but keep the corners unsmoothed.

• Keep Clusters (Islands): Choose this option if your model has overlaps in UV mapping. This will move clusters, so they do not overlap. When the texture is exported, it will be saved using the original UV coordinates. If a mapping conflict is detected, more painted pixels will be preferred.
• Auto Smoothing Groups: The “Auto smoothing groups” option allows the creation of smoothing groups automatically. By specifying the value in the “Max. angle” option responsible for the maximal angle between faces when the edge becomes sharp, activating the “Auto smoothing groups” option is necessary. This option provides automatic UV mapping. While the result is usually satisfactory, unmapped or complex convex shapes should be mapped manually.

Invert Normals: Check this option if you want to invert the normals of the model.
Weld Vertices:
Z-up coordinate system:
No Center Snap:
Preserve Positions: With the help of “Preserve positions” options, you can specify the initial vertex positions to be saved, compensating their shift when smoothing by extra pressure.
Ignore Smoothing Groups: This allows you to import meshes without normal information. The model will be smoothed after the import in this case.

UV Set Name, Texture Width & Height are the same for per-pixel painting.

Import Image as Mesh

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Provides a comprehensive set of options for importing your model into Painting Room, making it ready for Vertex Painting.
The options provided in the opening dialog allow for some preliminary texturing using image maps as a basis for final Bump, Stencil, and Color texture maps (available for export and use within 3rd party applications).

Create Mesh from Image

Heightmap landscape for game engines: This tutorial shows how to create a mesh from a black and white height map & color texture if you have it, retopo it and paint on textures, colors and, fine bump details, etc. By Psionic Games.

Tutorials

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This video begins a general overview of a common workflow where a 3DCoat user imports a poly mesh generated from a CAD application, inspects and/or edits the mesh and UV’s, then proceeds to texture paint the model with Smart Materials.
After the texture painting stage, the objective is to export the model from 3DCoat for the purposes of rendering the model.

Import Object to Merge: This quick video demonstrates the steps to Import an object to merge into a current scene rather than into a new scene. We get questions about it, thus the video—base model courtesy of Fellipe Beckman.

Import to Microvertex Options Notes: This video mentions some quick and important notes about importing a model into the Painting Room using the MicroVertex (displacement map in-depth channel) option.