by dendwaler » Tue Jan 26, 2010 1:20 am
This is how I did understand it.
It has some similarity with Z-brush.
A low poly object, can be cranked up to highres by subsurf.
Instead off UV mapping you can select in the Hires mesh the part you want to texture , it will be flattened out automatically if disired after selection.
Paint this flattened part and see the result in real time projected on the high poly mesh.
(Normally when you want to UV map a complex mesh, you have to carefully select the faces from the correct view point.
Usually from more then 1 view point! and you also have to use seams .)
Not with Ptex!
When finished painting, the high-poly textured part will be applied automatically on the lowpoly faces and displace/stretch the highres textures to the right proportions.
So you don't have to build a low and a high resolution object to achieve this. In the endresult the lowpoly object looks similar as the high-poly.
On the other hand when using this technic you can only do this from within your 3D application, as Blender is.
You cannot use for instance Photoshop or the Gimp to make and bake your textures at the same time.
Every advantage has its disadvantage