

It’s going to be an uphill battle if you do not enjoy node-based texturing. I know it has the capability to do some amazing things. To be quite frank, I think Maya could improve the texturing process in their application significantly. The things I want to do seem easier to achieve in other applications. There are still elements in the hypershade editor that I have never really messed with, and simply don’t want to. My students are able to do some basic things, but the more advanced stuff seems to be quite difficult for them. Your first option is to probably use Maya as a texturing application as well. Consider checking out the software that I recommend here. Some may be just as good of options, depending on what you are creating.

That being said, I want to look at a few options you might have to choose from. It serves as an additional option for users in place of the texturing system already built into Maya.

Substance Painter is considered the industry standard for 3D painting models. Their texturing ability is less than what they are capable of producing in a 3D modeling application such as Maya. You really want the detail of your model to shine. When you have a beautiful model completed, the last thing you want to do is throw ugly textures onto it.
