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P3D v4 How to paint in PS channels

Tako_Kichi

Tako_Kichi

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I am trying to make a PBR texture for P3D v4.5 (specifically a 'metallic' one) and wanted to paint into each of the individual red, green and blue channels for the 'metallic' texture option but it will not let me paint in the individual channels. I have made layers for each channel and shaded them appropriately and my idea was to copy and paste into each respective channel as required much like I would do for the alpha channel. I normally make up the alpha as a diffuse layer and then copy and past it into the alpha channel and then hide the diffuse layer. No matter what I try I cannot paint or copy/paste anything into any of the individual channels.

I have tried Googling for the answer and some suggestions say to try 'splitting' the channels in the channel menu options to allow painting but that command is permanently greyed out for me and not accessible.

Any suggestions? I am using Photoshop CS4 and I have tried both an 8-bit image and a 16-bit image to no avail.
 
Hello...

The Metallic map is designated as the red channel for the P3D series. Metallic is a non-colored or painted map or texture. To google it, look under the term "channel packing". You shouldn't create a PBR texture without the other maps readily available [such as the Smoothness (opposite of Roughness) and the AO maps). There is a tutorial on how to "pack" the channels in the resource section: Here

The process is the same with the Metalness (metallic) map that is for the AO, just different channels. The section on how to 'pack' is at or towards the end of this tutorial.
 
Turn the both unused channels off, select the target channel by clicking on it and paste your content into it, as easy as that.
Live is easier though if you use a separate psd file as your target.
 

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Pyscen said:
Hello...

The Metallic map is designated as the red channel for the P3D series. Metallic is a non-colored or painted map or texture. To google it, look under the term "channel packing". You shouldn't create a PBR texture without the other maps readily available [such as the Smoothness (opposite of Roughness) and the AO maps). There is a tutorial on how to "pack" the channels in the resource section: Here

The process is the same with the Metalness (metallic) map that is for the AO, just different channels. The section on how to 'pack' is at or towards the end of this tutorial.
Click to expand...
I had downloaded that tutorial after searching for info on here for days but it didn't really help me at this stage as I was missing some basic understanding of the concept on my part (a bad case of 'Old dog, new tricks!') 🧐

However, your reference to a new term to me 'channel packing' got me up and running at the second hit on Google! The first video I watched made the light go off :idea: and I finally got an idea of what was required. Thank you for coming forward with the suggestion as at this point I was ready to put away my brushes and move on! I will do more research but I can feel some experimenting coming on after breakfast this morning! 👍
 
Mathias said:
Turn the both unused channels off, select the target channel by clicking on it and paste your content into it, as easy as that.
Live is easier though if you use a separate psd file as your target.
Click to expand...
Thanks for this Mathias, I was trying to do it all in the base diffuse texture and not creating a separate file as the 'target' which actually makes a lot of sense.

Thanks to Doug above I found this video on my second hit and it fits perfectly with your advice.


Thanks to the two of you I am finally seeing light at the end of this very dark tunnel and maybe I can now make some progress and eventually release all my old models (and possibly some new ones) as P3D native with PBR textures!
 
I spent all day playing with textures in PS CS4 and I think I've finally cracked how to make PBR textures for P3D V4.5! I chose Manfred Jahn's P3D version of his C-47 as the test bed as I knew the model was set up to accept the 'metallic' textures. I used a FSX texture as the source as it had both painted and bare metal surfaces and the bare metal of the FSX texture appeared more like silver painted metal. I knocked out the 'metallic' textures as required and fired up the sim and after a few back and forths to fix some issues I now have a former FSX texture set that looks amazing on a native P3D model!

Here's a few pictures of the result.
P3D_PBR_1.jpg
P3D_PBR_2.jpg
P3D_PBR_3.jpg


After almost giving up on this I am so happy with the results and can move forward from this point.

Thanks again for all the help guys!
👏
 
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