To 3D paint in Procreate, import an OBJ or USDZ model that has a UV map, open it from the Gallery, tap a mesh until it flashes blue, and paint directly on it with an Apple Pencil. Work on your own layers so the original textures stay untouched, and use material brushes to control color, roughness, and metallic values. When the texture is done, set up lighting in Lighting Studio and export the result as a model, image, or video.

What You Need Before You Start

3D painting requires Procreate 5.2 or later on a compatible iPad (iPad 5th generation and newer, excluding iPad mini 4 and iPad Air 2). An Apple Pencil makes it much easier, but a finger-painting mode exists.

The one hard requirement is on the model side. Procreate imports .obj and .usdz files, and the model must carry a UV map: a flattened 2D version of the model's surface that acts as the canvas you paint on. Without UVs, Procreate won't let you paint.

For motion designers and 3D artists, this is familiar territory. It's the same UV layout you'd use for a texture in Cinema 4D or Blender, just painted on a tablet.

Step 1: Get a Model Into Procreate

You have two options.

Use the built-in model pack. Open any canvas, tap Actions, go to the Help tab, and choose Download Model Pack. After the download finishes, the models appear in your Gallery. This is the fastest way to learn the interface before you bring in your own assets.

Import your own model. Export an OBJ or USDZ from your sculpting or modeling app and import it into Procreate. If you see an error saying the model has missing UVs, go back to your 3D software and unwrap it first. One tutorial that sculpts on iPad in Nomad Sculpt uses an auto-unwrap tool for this step before exporting.

Check the UV quality

A model that imports successfully isn't necessarily good to paint on. Models downloaded from the internet were often built for rendering, not texturing, so you may find gaps, missing pieces, or overlapping UV islands. Overlaps are the worst offender: paint applied to one area shows up somewhere else. If strokes land in unexpected places, fix the UVs in your DCC app rather than fighting the canvas.

Step 2: Learn the Gestures

Painting in 3D looks like 2D painting, but navigation changes.

• Paint, smudge, erase: Use the Apple Pencil as you normally would.
• Rotate: Drag one finger across the model.
• Move and zoom: Use two fingers to pan and pinch.
• Select a mesh: Tap a part of the model. It flashes blue to show it's the active area.

If paint doesn't appear, you probably haven't selected the mesh. Tap the area until it flashes blue, then paint again.

Painting without an Apple Pencil

Go to Actions → Prefs → Gesture Controls → General and enable "Enable 3D painting with a finger." In this mode, rotate the model by holding the Modify button (the square between the sidebar sliders) with one finger while dragging with another.

Step 3: Paint Color, Roughness, and Metallic

Procreate's 3D painting isn't limited to color. You can paint three kinds of maps:

• Color for the base look.
• Roughness to control how matte or glossy a surface is.
• Metallic to mark which areas behave like metal.

Brushes in the Materials set can lay down all three. Custom brushes can do the same if you configure the Materials options in Brush Studio.

To paint a single map, open the Layers panel, tap the arrow next to a mesh, then tap the cube icon. This reveals separate color, roughness, and metallic maps. Select one and you paint only that channel.

Roughness and metallic maps read the grayscale value of your brush, and hue is ignored. Darker values reduce the effect, and brighter values increase it. If you've authored roughness or metalness maps in Substance, Blender, or Photoshop, the logic will feel identical.

Step 4: Work Non-Destructively With Layers

A 3D model opens with at least one Base Layer. Painting directly on it modifies that layer. The safer approach is to create your own layers above it, which leaves the base layer unaffected and lets you move, edit, recolor, or delete elements freely.

In the Layers panel, each model is organized into texture sets containing meshes and layers. You can break a layer down into its individual materials to work only on color, metallic, or roughness.

A practical layer structure:

1. Base Layer left untouched as a fallback.
2. A "base color" layer for large flat areas.
3. A "detail" layer for wear, stains, and illustration.
4. Separate roughness and metallic layers for material variation.

Step 5: Use 2D Texture View and Paint Through Mesh

Two toggles under Actions → 3D solve most awkward painting situations.

Edit 2D texture unwraps the object into its flat texture map. Painting on it works like normal 2D painting, which makes it ideal for blocking in large areas of base color and adding fine detail. The map can look abstract, but it's often the fastest way to cover big surfaces evenly. Toggle it off to return to the 3D view.

Paint through mesh makes your strokes ignore any unselected meshes. Use it when another part of the model blocks the area you want to reach, such as the inside of a collar or a surface hidden behind a protruding piece. Toggle it off to return to standard 3D painting.

Step 6: Light the Model in Lighting Studio

Open Actions → 3D → Edit Lighting. Inside Lighting Studio you can:

• Drag a finger to rotate the camera.
• Tap a light to adjust its color and brightness.
• Drag lights around in real time and add more with the Add Light button.
• Open the Environment menu to turn off the visible environment (its lighting effect still reaches the model), change exposure, or choose a preset.

Use this to check how your roughness and metallic choices read under different lighting, not just to make a pretty export. A texture that looks right under one light can fall apart under another, so test with at least two setups before committing.

Step 7: Preview in AR and Export

View in AR (Actions → 3D → View in AR) places your painted object on a real surface through the iPad camera. Procreate asks for camera permission the first time. Note that AR uses ambient lighting from the camera, not your Lighting Studio setup, so the result will look different from your studio preview.

For export, use Share to output a model, an image, or a video, in a range of formats. Choose based on where the asset is going next: the model if you need the painted textures on geometry in another application, an image for stills or look reference, and a video for a quick turntable preview.

Troubleshooting Common Problems

• "Missing UVs" error on import: Unwrap the model in your 3D software and re-export.
• Nothing happens when you paint: Tap the mesh until it flashes blue.
• Paint appears in the wrong place: Check for overlapping UV islands.
• Can't reach a surface: Enable Paint through mesh or paint on the 2D texture.
• Material looks flat: Check that you're painting on the roughness or metallic map, not just color.
• Rotation is awkward without a Pencil: Use the Modify button method, or turn on the iPadOS Single Touch Gestures Companion.

Where Procreate Fits in a Motion Pipeline

Procreate is a texturing tool, not a renderer or compositor. It's well suited to hand-painted textures, stylized props, and quick look development, but you'll usually finish the work elsewhere: rendering in Cinema 4D or Blender, then compositing in After Effects or Nuke.

That gap is where Styleframe can be useful. It's an AI video and motion tool. The point is to keep your existing pipeline, not replace it. Procreate handles the painted texture, your 3D app handles the render, and Styleframe can add stylization or motion where it saves time.

Final Tips

• Check the UVs before you paint anything. It saves more time than any brush setting.
• Paint on your own layers instead of the Base Layer.
• Split color, roughness, and metallic work across separate maps.
• Use the 2D texture view for large fills.
• Test your lighting setups before you export, and don't rely on AR as a lighting reference.

Once you've worked through the model pack once, the same process applies to your own assets: unwrap, import, select a mesh, paint on layers, light, and export.

To 3D paint in Procreate, import an OBJ or USDZ model that has a UV map, open it from the Gallery, tap a mesh until it flashes blue, and paint directly on it with an Apple Pencil. Work on your own layers so the original textures stay untouched, and use material brushes to control color, roughness, and metallic values. When the texture is done, set up lighting in Lighting Studio and export the result as a model, image, or video.

What You Need Before You Start

3D painting requires Procreate 5.2 or later on a compatible iPad (iPad 5th generation and newer, excluding iPad mini 4 and iPad Air 2). An Apple Pencil makes it much easier, but a finger-painting mode exists.

The one hard requirement is on the model side. Procreate imports .obj and .usdz files, and the model must carry a UV map: a flattened 2D version of the model's surface that acts as the canvas you paint on. Without UVs, Procreate won't let you paint.

For motion designers and 3D artists, this is familiar territory. It's the same UV layout you'd use for a texture in Cinema 4D or Blender, just painted on a tablet.

Step 1: Get a Model Into Procreate

You have two options.

Use the built-in model pack. Open any canvas, tap Actions, go to the Help tab, and choose Download Model Pack. After the download finishes, the models appear in your Gallery. This is the fastest way to learn the interface before you bring in your own assets.

Import your own model. Export an OBJ or USDZ from your sculpting or modeling app and import it into Procreate. If you see an error saying the model has missing UVs, go back to your 3D software and unwrap it first. One tutorial that sculpts on iPad in Nomad Sculpt uses an auto-unwrap tool for this step before exporting.

Check the UV quality

A model that imports successfully isn't necessarily good to paint on. Models downloaded from the internet were often built for rendering, not texturing, so you may find gaps, missing pieces, or overlapping UV islands. Overlaps are the worst offender: paint applied to one area shows up somewhere else. If strokes land in unexpected places, fix the UVs in your DCC app rather than fighting the canvas.

Step 2: Learn the Gestures

Painting in 3D looks like 2D painting, but navigation changes.

• Paint, smudge, erase: Use the Apple Pencil as you normally would.
• Rotate: Drag one finger across the model.
• Move and zoom: Use two fingers to pan and pinch.
• Select a mesh: Tap a part of the model. It flashes blue to show it's the active area.

If paint doesn't appear, you probably haven't selected the mesh. Tap the area until it flashes blue, then paint again.

Painting without an Apple Pencil

Go to Actions → Prefs → Gesture Controls → General and enable "Enable 3D painting with a finger." In this mode, rotate the model by holding the Modify button (the square between the sidebar sliders) with one finger while dragging with another.

Step 3: Paint Color, Roughness, and Metallic

Procreate's 3D painting isn't limited to color. You can paint three kinds of maps:

• Color for the base look.
• Roughness to control how matte or glossy a surface is.
• Metallic to mark which areas behave like metal.

Brushes in the Materials set can lay down all three. Custom brushes can do the same if you configure the Materials options in Brush Studio.

To paint a single map, open the Layers panel, tap the arrow next to a mesh, then tap the cube icon. This reveals separate color, roughness, and metallic maps. Select one and you paint only that channel.

Roughness and metallic maps read the grayscale value of your brush, and hue is ignored. Darker values reduce the effect, and brighter values increase it. If you've authored roughness or metalness maps in Substance, Blender, or Photoshop, the logic will feel identical.

Step 4: Work Non-Destructively With Layers

A 3D model opens with at least one Base Layer. Painting directly on it modifies that layer. The safer approach is to create your own layers above it, which leaves the base layer unaffected and lets you move, edit, recolor, or delete elements freely.

In the Layers panel, each model is organized into texture sets containing meshes and layers. You can break a layer down into its individual materials to work only on color, metallic, or roughness.

A practical layer structure:

1. Base Layer left untouched as a fallback.
2. A "base color" layer for large flat areas.
3. A "detail" layer for wear, stains, and illustration.
4. Separate roughness and metallic layers for material variation.

Step 5: Use 2D Texture View and Paint Through Mesh

Two toggles under Actions → 3D solve most awkward painting situations.

Edit 2D texture unwraps the object into its flat texture map. Painting on it works like normal 2D painting, which makes it ideal for blocking in large areas of base color and adding fine detail. The map can look abstract, but it's often the fastest way to cover big surfaces evenly. Toggle it off to return to the 3D view.

Paint through mesh makes your strokes ignore any unselected meshes. Use it when another part of the model blocks the area you want to reach, such as the inside of a collar or a surface hidden behind a protruding piece. Toggle it off to return to standard 3D painting.

Step 6: Light the Model in Lighting Studio

Open Actions → 3D → Edit Lighting. Inside Lighting Studio you can:

• Drag a finger to rotate the camera.
• Tap a light to adjust its color and brightness.
• Drag lights around in real time and add more with the Add Light button.
• Open the Environment menu to turn off the visible environment (its lighting effect still reaches the model), change exposure, or choose a preset.

Use this to check how your roughness and metallic choices read under different lighting, not just to make a pretty export. A texture that looks right under one light can fall apart under another, so test with at least two setups before committing.

Step 7: Preview in AR and Export

View in AR (Actions → 3D → View in AR) places your painted object on a real surface through the iPad camera. Procreate asks for camera permission the first time. Note that AR uses ambient lighting from the camera, not your Lighting Studio setup, so the result will look different from your studio preview.

For export, use Share to output a model, an image, or a video, in a range of formats. Choose based on where the asset is going next: the model if you need the painted textures on geometry in another application, an image for stills or look reference, and a video for a quick turntable preview.

Troubleshooting Common Problems

• "Missing UVs" error on import: Unwrap the model in your 3D software and re-export.
• Nothing happens when you paint: Tap the mesh until it flashes blue.
• Paint appears in the wrong place: Check for overlapping UV islands.
• Can't reach a surface: Enable Paint through mesh or paint on the 2D texture.
• Material looks flat: Check that you're painting on the roughness or metallic map, not just color.
• Rotation is awkward without a Pencil: Use the Modify button method, or turn on the iPadOS Single Touch Gestures Companion.

Where Procreate Fits in a Motion Pipeline

Procreate is a texturing tool, not a renderer or compositor. It's well suited to hand-painted textures, stylized props, and quick look development, but you'll usually finish the work elsewhere: rendering in Cinema 4D or Blender, then compositing in After Effects or Nuke.

That gap is where Styleframe can be useful. It's an AI video and motion tool. The point is to keep your existing pipeline, not replace it. Procreate handles the painted texture, your 3D app handles the render, and Styleframe can add stylization or motion where it saves time.

Final Tips

• Check the UVs before you paint anything. It saves more time than any brush setting.
• Paint on your own layers instead of the Base Layer.
• Split color, roughness, and metallic work across separate maps.
• Use the 2D texture view for large fills.
• Test your lighting setups before you export, and don't rely on AR as a lighting reference.

Once you've worked through the model pack once, the same process applies to your own assets: unwrap, import, select a mesh, paint on layers, light, and export.