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To be clear, I know how to select a UV island in 3d mode and paint just on it. But there are times when I want to paint directly in the UV layout itself (2d view). But sometimes the islands in UV unwrap are really close and can easily cross paint.

For example, the eye unwrap may be next to the body unwrap and if I do a broad stroke across the body it can easily bleed into the eye unwrap. In 3d view you can select an island and only paint in THAT island. I want to know how to do so in the UV Paint 2d view.

Image below is an example (not mine), I am talking about trying to paint in the right side window on only one uv island at a time without bleeding outside of it.

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2 Answers 2

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There is not an option or method to painting to restricting paint in the 2d UV/Image editor as it is in the 3d view. For this reason, it is much easier to use the face selection masking in the 3d view with the use of the L key to select the linked island faces, and then paint in your solid color there.

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(This is the main reason I got into making my early versions of EZ Draw addon that was originally the Artist Paint Panel addon - I had worked out a way to use curves converted to mesh and project to uv through the camera view on an image plane to use as a masking object. Spirou4D spent a lot of work fixing my mistakes and we got a working grease pencil mask as well, and this was my work around for not being able to mask or limit paint in the 2d view.)

I can recommend that you look at the Options tab and the Fill tool - turn up the fill tool to full strength and turn off the Occlude, Cull and Normal so that your brush will go all the way through the mesh. Use the Face Selection masking and drop in the base colors where you want, and then after you can then turn the occlude and other options back on so that you can go back to regular projection.

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After you do, you can come back to paint with textures and brush masks/mask tool painting to rework those areas, and I think you might be able to save a copy of the flat colors as an ID image for use in the compositor, though I haven't done much experimentation with that.

Also: Select a single face in the area you want to paint in 3d view, and then press Shift+Numpad7 to align to top view and then you can quickly set your paint view without too much trouble. enter image description here

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  • $\begingroup$ The problem I have found with painting in the 3d view is I find I spend WAY more time painting > turning > painting > turning to get the parts the projection painting misses which is all over the place. Its not very efficient tbh. $\endgroup$
    – William Garrison
    Feb 5, 2018 at 16:25
  • $\begingroup$ Ah, let me edit to give you a workflow for that. $\endgroup$
    – Craig D Jones
    Feb 5, 2018 at 16:32
  • $\begingroup$ I edited further to also mention the way I quickly align for painting in 3d view. I made a few videos about stuff like this but using addons. $\endgroup$
    – Craig D Jones
    Feb 5, 2018 at 17:17
  • $\begingroup$ Thank you for your help and in depth comments. I tried to replicate the best I could, from work, what happens that slows me down. The blue in the yellow illustrates what I constantly have to paint > turn > paint > turn to fix. You dont get that issue in 2d. I love the 3d paint, I am just new to it. (added the pic to the top) $\endgroup$
    – William Garrison
    Feb 5, 2018 at 17:30
  • $\begingroup$ In the 2D editor, you can use the Fill tool set to a very low fill thresh hold with full strength, and you can see there that you can affect a fill in a connected color range based on this fill thresh hold. Catch is that you need to paint these areas first with a hard brush or paint them in the 3d view, or get them from material color assignment. I will include a link to the video I made with the EZ Paint and EZ Draw use, though it isn't official addon. youtu.be/IzZmE1JudpM $\endgroup$
    – Craig D Jones
    Feb 5, 2018 at 18:02
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You want to paint on a flat surface-- you've indicated in your comments to Jones that you don't want to spend a lot of time rotating around your mesh.

One way to do this is to change your mesh. This is much easier with GN (implemented after you originally asked!):

enter image description here

I'm using a geometry nodes modifier to flatten the mesh to its UVMap coordinates and to hide all but one island. Now, if I adopt a top-down view, painting in the 3D window is the same as painting in the 2D window. Because everything is contained in a non-destructive GN modifier, I can keep this modifier around on an asset, I can mute or delete the modifier when I'm done, and I can easily add it to some other mesh that I'd like to paint.

"Bleed" still works to control margins.

Here's a file to save you some time:

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