Painting & Interface, MechaPaint

MADE BY ARTISTS, FOR ARTISTS

Software that works the way your hands do

MechaPaint was built by people who paint for a living, which is why it doesn't ask you to learn a new way of thinking. Nothing here is named after the code that implements it. Every tool does the obvious thing, immediately, and the interface gets out of the way so you can keep looking at your model instead of at menus.

Layers that behave

A full layer stack per submesh: paint on layers, adjust opacity, merge, hide, recolor, and import an image straight into any layer. It works the way Photoshop taught you it should, because that muscle memory is worth something.

Your original is always safe

Everything you paint lands on layers above the texture you imported, and the file on disk is never touched. Experiment as recklessly as you want; the model you started with is still sitting there underneath, untouched.

Tools you recognize

Brush, bucket, eraser, eyedropper, line, stamp, clone. Named plainly and behaving the way they do everywhere else. Pressure-sensitive pen support with per-user calibration is built in, and a plain mouse works great too.

Paste and go

Copy any image and press Ctrl or Cmd+V to drop it in as a floating reference. Drag a model or a texture straight off your desktop onto the window. No import wizard, no asset database, no fuss.

Fast on purpose

Models load in seconds, strokes land with no lag, and the things you do constantly are one key away. Speed isn't a spec sheet item here, it's the difference between trying an idea and talking yourself out of it.

Move around naturally

Orbit, pan, and zoom with the mouse. A view cube in the corner snaps you head-on to any face. Lock the camera when a stroke really matters. Some tools even keep track of where the camera was when you used them, so you can jump right back in later.

PAINT ON ANIMATION

Paint it while it's moving

Bring in an animated model and paint directly on it mid-animation. Scrub to any frame, stop on the pose you care about, and put paint on the surface exactly as it will be when the character is actually moving. Textures distort when a mesh deforms, and this is the only honest way to see what that distortion is doing to your work.

Catch stretching before it ships

A logo that looks perfect on the T-pose can smear across a shoulder the moment the arm comes down. Paint on the pose where it breaks, fix it there, and know it holds through the whole cycle.

Paint the pose that matters

Faces, folds, joints, and anything on a bending surface read completely differently in motion. Scrub to the frame the audience will actually see and work on that, not on a mannequin standing at attention.

Lock a pose and work

Hold the model on any frame and paint on it like a static mesh, with every brush, stamp, and fill available. Release it and the animation picks up where it left off, with your paint riding along.

Everything you paint goes into the same texture map as always, so it exports and drops into your engine exactly like any other MechaPaint job.

TOOLSET

A focused, production-minded kit

Not a thousand features. The ones you reach for, done properly.

Painting

Pressure-sensitive brush with calibration, response curves, smoothing, and clean tapered strokes
Line tool, polygon fill, region fill, eraser with live footprint preview
Eyedropper with before and after color preview
Image stamps with rotation, follow-stroke, and jitter
Photoshop ABR brush sets import directly, and any PNG or JPEG can become a brush
Text on the surface, using any font installed on your machine

Surface tools

3D clone stamp: sample anywhere on the mesh, paint it anywhere else
X and Z symmetry with true mirrored reflection, plus a mirror brush for selective symmetrizing
Whole-layer symmetrize for fixing asymmetric damage
Projection painting from reference images
Ambient occlusion, lighting, dirt, and edge-wear bakes
Painting on animated meshes, scrub to any frame and paint the pose

Workflow

Full layer stack per submesh: hide, fill, merge, recolor, import into any layer
Non-destructive throughout, your imported textures and source files are never modified
Clipboard paste drops any image in as a floating reference
Projects: save, reopen, and update working sessions
Mesh Diagnostics for when something is wrong and nothing will tell you what