Magnum

Thanks for the replies. Sorry I have not responded, been tied up and did not realize I had not subscribed to the topic.As for posing, I doubt I would do too much posing. Think more of building a landscape and placing a real car or person in it. Or for that matter create a digital studio room where I can place 3D props and then have the model pre-posed and combine the picture and 3D. While I can take pictures of many items and place in as props, sometimes it is hard to find certain props in the area. Thanks for the info. I may be buy it before the end of the month, assuming I decide to go the route of 3D compositing.

I have been into Independent Game Design and played with 3D Coat a few years ago when it was first released. Due to a neck injury I no longer program or do a LOT of 3D design. I do photography as one of my new hobbies and plan to integrate more 3D objects/Effects into my photography. I don't need 3D Max, and have considered Blender even though I also have Rhino 3D which would probably work fine. I notice 3D Coat now has some modeling features. Just curious as I start reading the site/functions as with Game design, I am trying to think through a 3D/2D workflow. I currently only have CS6-2D. From those more experienced users of 3D Coat, would I be able to create basic 3D shapes or for that matter import (searching for info on that) oject files and integrate/paint and send over to CS6 Extended without the need of Blender or another 3D program? Blender is free so no big issue. Some of the things I want to do is, place a real object in a 3D environment, or place a 3D object (like a car) into a real environment. Any suggestions would be helpful, I have not downloaded 3D coat - yet. As i have some unfinished photo projects before I can start learning something new. In other words, I need someone to nudge me into buying 3D Coat:)

Thanks... I realized that after my second post....

I have a car model that I need to texture and I am starting to like 3DCoat. My model has the body and headlights as separate objects and I bring all objects into 3Dcoat and unwrap into one UV. The problem I have is I want to place a image of a headlight onto the the object or faces for the headlight but getting everything to unwrap to match the image is not working well. Would love some suggestions. Also, when I export the textures they are in separate PSD files. Can I combine them into one from 3Dcoat? And lastely, I have seen some game textures setup in a PSD file where the bottom layer is simply a solid color which can be changed and basically recolor the objects without having to re-render a new texture. What is the best way to output these PSD files to do this?

I am considering using 3D coat in my game pipeline. Very easy to use and I actually prefer the UVunwrap tools better than 3Dmax. What I have thought is a car model that has a curved headlight and I would like to place a texture in that area and stretch it so that it looks like the actual cars headlight and turn lights. What is the best way to get a template or align that headlight image on that surface in 3Dcoat so it will render on the texture correctly?