Paint Through

Paint Through has two modes:

• Paint through - you hover the image preview over the model and stamp it down onto the surface.

• Image clone - you hover the image next to the model, set a source point, and clone from that point.

The Image clone mode is like the normal Clone Stamp tool, but you have more control over the source image (you can resize, stretch, and rotate it).

To lock the model and paint buffer to the source image so that Mari automatically pans or scales the model relative to the image, check the Lock Object checkbox in the Paint Through toolbar.

You can also lock the source image proportions using the Image Scale button, so that any changes to scale are applied proportionately to both axes. If Image Scale is off, you can alter the image by different amounts on the vertical and horizontal axes.

As you paint through, you can switch images. By default, when you switch to another source image, Mari applies any transformations you've made to the last source image onto the new one. For example, if you have resized the source image onscreen, moved it around, or rotated it, the next source image appears the same. You can control this behavior through the Auto Reset option.

You can change the algorithm Mari uses to clone from a resized texture. Set this on the Painting palette, under Painter > Filter. Your options are:

• Nearest - preserves edge detail, but gives quite "blocky" textures.

• Bilinear - gives good results, but can produce square artifacts at extreme zoom. This is the default setting.

• Bicubic - provides more rounded results, slightly blurrier but without the square artifacts.

As with the Clone Stamp tool, you can adjust the color grade of your source image as you paint.

Tip:  See Clone Stamping for details of the Clone Stamp tool and using color grades.

Video:  Watch Using the Paint Through Tool to learn how to paint assets using images.
This video shows the workflow using Mari 3. Even though the Mari 4 workspace is different, the workflow remains the same. To have a look at the main UI differences, see Mari 3.3 vs 4.0.