Wednesday 28 April 2021

Paint 3D (Windows 10)

👉PAINT 3D👈 -- this 3D program will open from this browser on a Windows 10 computer.


I really enjoy drawing the figure in Paint 3D!

Open Paint 3D from the browser
(in Windows 10)


Paint 3D is a powerful but easy-to-use 3D program:


One particular adjustment really makes a huge difference. By hitting "3" on the keyboard one will repeat the same 3D tool that he just used. Therefore I programmed one of the buttons on the Wacom stylus with "3," in order to continue using the last 3D tool.

 

PAINT 3D Animations

I posted all the Zoom model drawings I did this year in Paint 3D, as animations created mostly in Paint 3D, on the YouTube playlist below:

Playlist of figures
created in Paint 3D


3D BUILDER

Paint 3D is even more powerful when used with 3D Builder, which is the companion 3D software that also comes bundled with Windows 10 -- check out these 3D Builder tutorials.  


Open 3D Builder from the "Start Menu,"
it is hidden under the "Windows Accessories" folder


**2D to 3D**
3D Builder will 
extrude 2D images into 3D objects



**REDUCING the Byte Size**
in 3D Builder

DECIMATING:  One can decimate the figures drawn in Paint 3D using 3D Builder, in order to reduce the file size.  Export the figure from Paint 3D in the native file format --  .3MF -- then import that file into 3D Builder.  

3MF
is the native 3D format of Paint 3D and 3D Builder


NOTE:  Exporting in GLB format from Paint 3D, then importing that GLB file into 3D Builder does NOT decimate the file nearly a well as transferring files with the 3MF format between the programs.


After decimating in 3D Builder -- Edit/Simplify/Reduction Level -- export the figure as a GLB file.  Lite GLB files are easy to share online, and are also necessary for creating experiences in Augmented Reality.  I have reduced some 3D figures down to as low as 90 KB.



AUGMENTED REALITY

I want to show my lite Paint 3D figures in the sculpture garden in front of the Albuquerque Museum, and have done that with Augmented Reality.

My figure in the sculpture garden
 in front of the Albuquerque Museum


April 13, 2021
This AR Code
opens the Adobe Aero Mobile app
to view a specific figure
(when installed on the latest iPhones)


John Tollett was able to use the Adobe Aero app
to view the ugly figure I created in Monster Mash
on his iPhone



PAINT 3D
 Drawings

Below are examples of the drawings I have made this year in Paint 3D, using a Wacom tablet.  These figures are all drawn from live model seasons on Zoom.


Animated in Paint 3D as well


April 27, 2021
Download drawings from April 27



Download drawings from April 2021



April 13, 2021
Download drawings from April 13



March 30, 2021
Download drawings from March 30



March 23, 2021
Download drawings from March 23



March 16, 2021
Download  gesture drawings from March 16
 and Download the longer poses


March 9, 2021
Download drawings from March 9



March 2, 2021
Download drawings from March 2



February 23, 2021
Download drawings from February 23


January 5, 2021
I started using Paint 3D
during the first drawing session of 2021



BLENDER

BLENDER and Paint 3D are even more powerful together.



Blender is a robust free 3D program which I have blogged about before. The figures drawn in Paint 3D can be imported into BLENDER in the GLB format, to be further manipulated and animated in a 3D environment.  

March 9, 2021
3D figures further manipulated in Blender
(Webp format)


While Blender is harder to learn than Paint 3D, there are a lot of great YouTube tutorials that hold your hand and explain the features.  I am keeping a list of all those Blender Tutorials referred to in my blog posts.


Other Free 3D Programs

  • An artist can also manipulate the Paint 3D figures online in SculptGL, if he first converts the GLB files into OBJ or STL files for import, either in Blender or in an online program like AnyConv.
  • Houndini Apprentice is free to download, but apparently very difficult to learn, though there are also YouTube tutorials.  I believe Estaban Diacono made his fabulous animated GIFs in Houdini.
  • "T Shaped" figures in OBJ format can be animated in Mixamo online (sign up required)
  • Unity, the game engine software, is also free to download
  • 3D Scanning apps



EXHIBITING ONLINE
Interactively

It is not easy to display your Paint 3D figures online in the browser, where the viewer can move and interact with them. The best way is to upload the 3D figures to a special website like Sketchfab, p3d.in or Google Poly, and embed that figure in your blog or website.

Sketchfab

Sculpture Garden -- 210309 by krrrl on Sketchfab



April 20, 2021
p3d.in


Google Poly will cease to exist at the end of June, 2021, however I have uploaded some of my figure drawings there anyhow:

View on Google Poly



Windows VIDEO EDITOR

Windows Video Editor also comes with Windows 10, and is easy to use for creating a larger video from a bunch of smaller Paint 3D and Blender animations.

Windows Video Editor


Videos merged and edited into a compilation
in Windows Video Editor


OBS (Open Broadcast Software) is great for capturing video from the monitor.  "File/Settings/Hotkeys" to choose the keyboard shortcuts to start recording and stop recording.



3D PRINTING
and Milling

I also 3D Printed my Paint 3D figures at Quelab hackerspace, though I have not pushed it much yet.

3D printing at Quelab


The small 3D print
in front of the Slic3r screen


Back in 2015 we created a collaborative sculpture at Metalphysic in Tucson.  Daniel Hornung first freely translated one of my drawings into a digital object -- see the interactive final project  (plus  link to download OBJ file for download).Then it was milled out about 3 feet tall in Styrofoam (thank you Anthony Bayne), and painted by Ed Muren III.


Milling the Styrofoam sculpture
at Metalphysic in Tucson


Digital to sculpture collaboration with Daniel Hornung,
next to Stephanie Anne 


I would love to make a life size sculpture from a Paint 3D drawing.


Previous sculpture posts:


HOLOGRAMS

This summer we should be able to view my Paint 3D figures on hologram displays:
Looking Glass Hologram Display


*****


Downloadable GLB figures since the beginning of this year:



CONCLUSION

I LOVE drawing in Paint 3D, despite what Jazza says.  I think he is wrong to compare Paint 3D to MS Paint, which is like trying to make apple pie with oranges (btw, the old MS Paint also opens from the browser).

I want to draw my figures in 3D, and then push them through every method possible -- animation, augmented reality, Virtual Reality headsets, holograms, 3D printing -- even 3D projection mapping on large buildings.  Paint 3D really opens that process up.

Laptop/Tablet
Furthermore I would like to find a tablet laptop that allows me to draw with a stylus in Paint 3D, for when we go back to live life drawing sessions.  The Lenovo Yoga looks like it might sit well in my lap while running Windows 10.  The Microsoft Surface  seems like a pricier option.  All I really want is to be able to draw the model in Paint 3D; I can export those drawings to a more powerful computer for further editing.



Ultimately I would like to create a sculpture that one can control with their smart phones.

Sculpture controlled by smartphone



DOWNLOADs

Apparently Microsoft will no longer bundle the 3D art software with newer versions of Windows.  

However 3D Viewer, Paint 3D, and 3D Builder should still be available for download for free at the Microsoft store.

***

I took me years to even discover Paint 3D on my Windows computer, though I was aggressively looking for free 3D software.  Moreover I could not find any good art examples created in Paint 3D, though I think this is a really powerful art program.   I suspect that Microsoft did not properly advertise and promote the program, which is why it perhaps failed to catch on.   Apparently Microsoft is no longer updating Paint 3D.  Moreover Paint 3D Remix, for sharing 3D projects, was retired a year before I discovered the program.

Likewise Google is no longer supporting Tilt Brush.  Moreover they are taking down Google Poly at the end of June, 2021.😟

The good news is that there is a new big digital art gallery opening in Santa Fe on April 30, 2021 -- Art Vault.

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April 27, 2021

The Tuesday Night drawing group of Santa Fe drew together online using Zoom, because of the Covid 19 quarantine.

Figures drawn, colored and animated
in Paint 3D


Drawings from April 27th

 
DRAWINGS

The first drawings were done in Paint 3D, and the last ones from "L" were drawn in Blender.  

A


B


C


D


E


F


G


H


I


J


K



L


M



N


O


P


Q



Holly Grimm drew the same model in Dada NYC.


VARIATIONS

John Tollett's drawing of the same model -- which I grafted on my drawing of the same pose:

grafted on my "drawing"
of the same pose


John Tollett wrapped figure "P" in a transparent texture using Adobe Dimension:


AI variation on "A"


Deep Dream Generator
Another AI variation on "A"
hanging in a gallery somewhere


I "dragged and dropped" a picture into Paint 3D, and applied it to the 3D model as a "sticker," to give color and texture to figure "K."

Figure "K" with texture


Download this animation of figure "A"
210427_A_animation.GLB (1.42 MB)


YouTube tutorial: BASICS OF ANIMATION - Blender 2.8 - Part 3 - Bones & Armature
Blender Manual:  Animation  (in order to export all the animations in a GLB file)

Now if I could just get Google's DeepMind to get AI to teach it how to walk on it's own.


3D Print

I made a small print of figure "P" at Quelab on May 3rd:

I  used the Slic3r software
as seen on the screen,
to prepare the figure "P" for 3D printing


I "drew" the 3D figure in Blender.

The support material 
almost obscures the figure "P"


I imported the decimated ".GLB" file of figure "P" (28 KB) into Paint 3D, and exported it as a ".3mf" file.  That would import into the Slic3r software as a very  very tiny figure.  However after I enlarged the figure, Slic3r still would not generate G-Code (needed for printing).  I had to export an ".STL" file, and let Slic3r repair that file before importing it again.  Then everything worked and I could print it on the Delta Orion 3D printer.

Delta Orion 3D printer


I need to 3D print some molds that I can then cast with Gallium metal.


PAPER MODEL

I translated figure "L" into a 2D form, using the Paper Model add-on that comes bundled with the current version of Blender (2.92).  This software exports a PDF, which then can be printed out on paper, cut out, and folded back into 3D.  This was not a straight forward process, which ultimately amounts to decimating the figure drastically.  

The first of 3 pages
of figure "L" reduced to paper --
Download the whole PDF


Note that figure "L" was first drawn in Blender using the Skin Modifier:

I first had to download the figure as an STL file from Blender (the GLB file didn't work). Then I imported and  "simplified" the figure in 3D Builder (basically decimating it). I imported that 3D file into Blender again and tried to unfold it into 2D, using the Paper Model add-on, to export the result as a PDF.

However I kept getting these "zero-area faces" errors that would not let me export the paper model.  So to troubleshoot, I first eliminated some of the errors with "Edit mode/Mesh/Merge/By distance" command. I then went to "Edit mode/Mesh/Clean Up..." and tried a lot of those options.  That cleaned up most, but not all the "zero-area" artifacts.

Then I enabled the 3D Print Toolbox add-on in Blender and eliminated a few more of the "zero-area" flaws:

Ultimately however I had to export this result, open it up again in 3D Builder and simplify one more time and export the file. Then I opened that GLB file in Blender again (an STL file did not work), and the Paper Model add-on worked just fine. 

Download the files:

The result looks really difficult to fold.  Also there must be a way to also print the color texture also in the PDF.

The Pepakura Designer software from Japan does the same thing, though they charge a small fee.

***

Also from Japan is Comipo!, a software (paid) that allows people to make their own comics with 3D files (mostly manga), even allow custom 3D figures, perhaps like my figures in this blog post.

OTHER

TEXT-to-IMAGE

Aleph2Image is a new Google Colab program that produces an image after one enters text.  This is an AI (Artificial Intelligence) program that creates miracles, discovered from Gene Kogan's tweet (which Holly showed me).

I typed in "little toad pushing a stone across the street" and the program produced the image below in a half hour:

Text-to-Image
Created in Aleph2Image,
an online Google Colab demo program



WALK WALK WALK HOME
YouTube Art Installation

Walk Walk Walk Home is an interactive art piece on YouTube by Teamlab. After I created my own toad with Deep Dream Generator, I uploaded it and ten minutes later it was leading the parade: playlist.

I uploaded this toad
after creating it on Deep Dream Generator


My toad leading the Walk Walk Walk Home parade


ART VAULT
Gallery

On Friday, April 30th, I took the Rail Runner up to Santa Fe to check out the Art Vault Gallery on their first day:

I imagined my "A" figures out front of the Art Vault gallery
in Augmented Reality


Upon entering the gallery I was greeted by the "Tx Mirror" exhibit:

Tx Mirror
by Martin Reinhart and Virgil Widrich



CURRENTS 826
Gallery

I also saw the Fred Unterseher exhibit at the Currents 826 Gallery at the top of Canyon Road.  Fred often draws with us, and was a pioneer in holograms (which are hard to show in a photo).  Many of the works were created at the Light Foundry.


The hologram pendulum
was created by Fred Unterseher


HECHO A MANO 
Gallery

I bought a print by Gabriela Morac from Frank Rose at the Hecho a Mano gallery in Santa Fe, at the top of Canyon Road.

Frank Rose 
holds up the print by Oaxacan artist Gabriela Morac


We met Gabriela Morac 
in Oaxaca in 2019



***

Rex Barron posted a fine painting on Instagram.


Alephia أليفيا 2053 is a good YouTube animation movie.
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