Digital Painting Color Maps - Game Character Creation with Blender and Unity - page 137

hardness, and shape, among other things. In terms of the materiality of a medium, these
do little to simulate reality. While steps have been made in the latest versions to rectify
this failing, you may want to supplement Photoshop with another program if you want a
more realistic painting program.
GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) As Blender is the open source alternative
to Autodesk 3ds Max and Autodesk Maya, GIMP is the open source alternative to
Photoshop and is available on Windows, Mac, and Linux. Also like Photoshop, GIMP
has a bevy of painting features available to users for creating concept art. GIMP was the
primary digital painting program for many of the Blender Foundation's films, such as
Sintel . GIMP does not have as many features as Photoshop proper, however, and many
Photoshop users find the transition to GIMP difficult.
Users new to GIMP but familiar with Photoshop may want to try GIMPshop, an alterna-
tive version of GIMP whose interface is laid out like Photoshop. Another alternative for
artists is GIMP Paint Studio, an add-on for GIMP 2.6 that has more options for digital
painters (see Figure 6.3). David Revoy, a digital painter who has worked with the Blender
Foundation on multiple projects—including the Chaos and Evolutions training DVD and
on the upcoming Project Mango—regularly utilizes GIMP Paint Studio. Another valu-
able open source tool is Krita, which is quickly coming into its own in the Linux digital
artist community.
Corel Painter Corel Painter is another giant in the graphics industry for digital painting.
What sets Corel Painter apart is its ability to simulate the look of real paint. If you want
the look of oil, watercolor, pastels, or other media, this is the program for you.
Figure 6.2
A digital painting in
Photoshop