The model's Paint tab paints its textures on the model itself. The paint shows on the model as you work, and Save texture writes it into the project in the texture's own format.
It works for every game. What decides is the texture: a part can be painted when it draws a texture read from one of the client's files.
To paint a texture flat, with whole-image tools, see The texture editor.
Painting
- Open the model and go to the Paint tab.
- Left-drag on the model. The brush paints whichever texture is under the cursor.
Shift + drag pans, right-drag looks around and the mouse wheel zooms, so you can turn the model between strokes. You can paint at any frame of the animation; a stroke pauses it.
The list at the top picks what you paint: The texture under the cursor, or one texture of the model, which then takes every stroke. Each entry says how many parts draw that texture and whether it has unsaved paint. Under it are the texture's file, its format, and whether you are painting the client's own copy or the project's.
A stroke that crosses a seam in the texture lifts the brush and puts it down again on the other side, so it does not smear across the gap. A whole stroke is one undo step.
Tools
| tool | does |
|---|---|
| Brush | paints with the brush color |
| Eyedropper | click the model to take the color under the cursor, alpha included |
| Clone | Alt + click to set a source point, then paint a copy of what is around it |
| Fill | fills the area of like color around the point you click |
Clone copies within one texture. The distance from the source to where you start painting holds for every stroke until the next Alt + click.
Fill takes a Tolerance for how close a color must be to be filled. Stay inside the UV island clicked keeps it to the one piece of the texture under the cursor, so it does not run into the neighbouring pieces laid out beside it.
Brush settings
- Size (radius) is in pixels of the texture, from 0.5 to 256. Switch on Size in screen pixels to size it on screen instead, from 1 to 300.
- Hardness, Flow, Spacing and Opacity set the brush's edge, how much each dab lays down, how far apart the dabs are, and the most a stroke can cover.
- The blend mode list: Normal, Multiply, Screen, Overlay, Add, Darken, Lighten, Alpha only, Erase and Replace.
- Colour: a swatch, a hex field (
#RRGGBBAA), a row of preset colors and a slider for each of red, green, blue and alpha. - Channels: lock R, G, B or A to keep the brush off that channel. Locking A keeps a texture's transparency as it is.
Saving
Under History:
- Undo and Redo step through the strokes, and say how many there are. Ctrl + Z and Ctrl + Y (or Ctrl + Shift + Z) do the same while the Paint tab is in front.
- Save texture writes the texture into the project's client files, in its own format and size. An RF Online texture with a locked header stays locked. The model reloads with it, and Install puts it in the game.
- Revert deletes the project's copy and your unsaved strokes, so the client's own texture is used again.
The tab lists any other texture with unsaved paint. When a texture is shared, the tab says how many parts of this model draw it and which other open models read it; every model that reads the file changes once it is saved.
Glow masks (RF Online)
An RF Online item or monster with a glow draws its glow layer over the mesh where the alpha of the mesh's own texture lets it. Painting that alpha decides where the glow shows.
- Open the item or monster and go to the Paint tab. Under Glow mask, choose Paint glow mask.
- Pick Glow or No glow, and paint with the brush or Fill. The glow updates on the model as you paint.
- Save as usual, then choose Back to colour painting.
No glow keeps the surface drawn: it writes the lowest alpha the game still draws, not none.
- A texture whose format keeps little or no graded alpha is saved with a format that does, and the tab warns you first. A JPEG or BMP texture keeps no alpha and cannot hold a mask.
- A model with no glow is offered Add glow…. Then turn on the new glow's layer and pick its texture on the Effects tab, and come back to paint its mask. See Editing effects and glow.
Limits
- Saving a compressed texture compresses the whole picture again, so pixels you did not paint can shift very slightly. A texture you have not painted is saved exactly as it was.
- These cannot be painted on the model: a texture inside an RF Online texture set, a cube map, a paletted texture, and a picture the game builds in memory (World of Kung Fu faces, static props). The tab names the reason while the cursor is over such a part. The texture editor paints a texture set's members, and a paletted texture once it has a new format.
- A brush wider than a thin piece of the texture can paint into the pieces laid out beside it. Fill with Stay inside the UV island clicked does not.
- Painting slows down on models above roughly 50,000 triangles.
- Unsaved strokes belong to the model tab and are lost when it closes.
- A painted glow mask has been checked in Studio's own preview, not yet in a game client.