User Guide
Build small things. Paint them. Put them in your game.
Start with painting, jump into modeling, or get a finished model ready for a turntable export.
Welcome
Easy Paint 3D is a powerful low-poly modeling and painting tool that feels fun and natural to use. You can start building straight away, without spending months or years learning your way around. Make a little game prop, give it some colour, and see how it looks spinning around.
It is designed for non-technical artists, programmers making their own assets, and professional artists who want results fast. Bring in a model or make one in Assembly Mode, paint it with a palette, and add decals for the finishing touches. The usual palette workflow needs no big UV-unwrapping session.
What can I make?
- Painted props: colour faces, fill regions, use symmetry, and share a small palette across a whole set.
- New meshes: use primitives and library parts, draw outlines, or build organic shapes and voxel constructions.
- Small details: paint decals, wrap fill decals around surfaces, or draw a little image in the built-in editor.
- A finished presentation: choose lighting and a background, then export a turntable video or transparent sprites.
This guide covers the everyday bits. You do not need to learn every tool before making your first crate.
Install & find your files
Install Easy Paint 3D and launch it. The app puts its starter palettes, models, decals, and mesh library into your user folder.
The folder button between Home and Help opens that folder. On Windows it is normally %APPDATA%\easypaint3d, or C:\Users\YourName\AppData\Roaming\easypaint3d. In settings, user:// is shorthand for this location.
You can choose custom palette and decal folders in the app. Keep your own files there rather than inside the program's installation folder.
The included LICENSE.txt is also in the user folder. Click the version number or expiry date on the welcome screen to open it in your default text viewer.
Running the app
Use the Windows 64-bit build on Windows 10 or later, with an up-to-date graphics driver. Keep models reasonably light while you get a feel for your machine.
If the view gets sluggish, try fewer lighting effects in Visual Settings, or switch to Work Mode while editing. Some lighting effects depend on the active renderer.
Your first few minutes
- Load an included model with Load, import a mesh from the GLB Gallery using its button at the bottom of the screen, or switch to Assembly Mode with the hammer button.
- Right-drag to orbit, use the wheel to zoom, and middle-drag to pan.
- Press F to frame what you are working on.
- Pick a colour and paint, or choose a primitive and start shaping it.
- Use Save As to give the project its own GLB file.
The welcome screen and Tutorials window are there when you need them. In Options you can choose whether they appear at startup.
Finding your way around
- Top bar: undo/redo, view controls, tools for the current room, the Paint/Assembly switch, Load, and Save As. Hover an icon for its name.
- Upper left: your palette in Paint Mode, or the mesh library in Assembly Mode.
- Lower-left tabs: Shortcuts, Options, Visual Settings, and the current painting or modeling controls.
- Bottom buttons: handy shortcuts, including the online GLB Gallery when you want a mesh to start with.
- Outliner: select and organise objects, hide or lock them, and right-click for object actions.
- Floating windows: tutorials, references, and lighting controls can be moved out of your way.
The coloured circles in Assembly's Tool tab show your current mode. The small mouse symbol marks the step back. The ? button opens help for that mode.
Three easy starting points
Grab a mesh from the GLB Gallery
Need something to paint? Click the GLB Gallery button at the bottom of the screen to open the online gallery. Browse the meshes, pick one you like, and import it into Easy Paint 3D. Choose a palette and make it your own, then use Save As to keep your version.
Paint something you already have
Load a low-poly GLB, choose a palette, and block in the main colours. Add decals for signs, eyes, scratches, or trim. Check it under your chosen lighting, then save.
Make something from scratch
Open Assembly Mode, add a cube or library part, and adjust its proportions. Enter Free Modeling for local changes. Switch back to Paint Mode for colour and decals.
Painting & fills
Click a palette swatch, then click or drag over the model to paint faces. The triangle/quad toggle controls whether you paint individual triangles or their paired faces. Hold V over the model to pick an existing colour.
Double-click fills a region using the mode selected in the top bar. Colour Tolerant Fill follows similar colours; Fill By Angle is useful for a flat panel or a gently changing surface. Try a small tolerance first if the fill is spreading too far.
Shift + double-click fills an object. Ctrl + Z is always worth keeping nearby.
Rectangle & lasso painting
Choose Rectangle or Lasso in the top bar, then hold Ctrl and drag around the area you want to fill. This is handy for blocking out a band of colour without clicking every face.
The toolbar options control whether hidden/back faces are included and whether a face must be fully inside the outline. If you only want the front of your model, leave back faces out.
With a decal selected, the same tools can create a Fill Decal.
Palettes & editing colours
The palette is the small texture behind your painted colours. Switching palettes can give the same model a very different look, so try a few before committing to a mood.
Change a swatch
Right-click a swatch and choose Modify Color. Adjust it in the picker and watch the parts using that swatch update. This changes the shared colour, rather than repainting just one face.
Make a gradient
Select your starting paint colour, then right-click the destination swatch and choose Set As Gradient End. The palette colours between the two become a gradient. Useful for a tidy little light-to-dark ramp.
The arrows under the palette switch palettes; the UV button shows how faces use the texture. The palette editor button opens Fast Palette Studio for designing and saving palettes. Custom palette folders are set in Options.
Make a palette from an image
- Drop a PNG or JPEG onto the palette panel.
- Choose Use as Palette to use the image itself, scaled for the palette workflow.
- Or choose a palette size and click Create Palette from Image to extract colours from it.
The result is saved in your palettes folder. Concept art, a photo of autumn leaves, or a favourite colour study can be a good starting point.
Paint symmetry
The X, Y, and Z buttons at the bottom of the view mirror painting across the chosen axes. Use one or combine them, and check the visible symmetry planes before painting.
Symmetry helps with colours and decal painting. It uses the model's position relative to the planes, so an off-centre or uneven model may need manual cleanup.
To mirror the actual shape while modeling, use the Mirror modifier in Object Mode.
IdentiPaint & repeated parts
Turn on IdentiPaint to paint matching mesh parts together. Think train wheels, fence posts, or a row of identical buttons: paint one and the matching parts follow.
Assembly instances also share geometry. If a copy needs its own changes, use Make Unique from the Outliner's right-click menu before editing it independently.
Place & adjust decals
Decals add images on top of painted surfaces: eyes, labels, little bolts, patches of dirt. Open the Decals tab and choose an image, then paint it onto the model. Choose a palette colour again to return to colour painting.
Drop an image into the Decals browser to add it to that folder. The browser also has controls for visibility, highlighting, and decal erasing.
Tweak a placed decal
Right-click a placed decal to enter Decal Adjustment. A short middle-click or tap of Space while hovering it works too; drag with the mouse buttons to move the camera instead. Use the gizmo and panel to move, rotate, scale, flip, change opacity, or choose a blend mode. Tap Space to leave adjustment mode.
Use the layer controls when decals overlap. Copy a decal or its layer stack when you want the same detail elsewhere. For a one-off image, use single placement; for a repeating pattern, use repeat.
Fill decals & wrapping textures
A regular decal works well as a sticker. A Fill Decal covers a region with one adjustable texture treatment: handy for brickwork, cloth, bark, or a large gradient.
With a decal selected, double-click to fill using the current fill mode, or use a Ctrl-drag rectangle or lasso. Then enter Decal Adjustment to tune the result.
For curved surfaces, try the Mapping choices: Planar, Cylinder, Sphere, or Cube. Cylinder is a good starting point for a barrel; Sphere for a ball. Adjust the axis and texture scale if the pattern looks stretched.
Drag a different image from the Decals browser onto an existing decal or fill decal to replace its texture. No need to rebuild the whole detail just to try another pattern.
Make decals: gradients, text, shapes & noise
Click New Decal in the Decals browser and choose a starting point:
- Linear Gradient: soft colour transitions, shading bands, or a bit of glow.
- Text Decal: signs, labels, numbers, and tiny warnings for suspicious machinery.
- Shape: simple graphic marks without opening another drawing app.
- Noise: clouds, grain, or cell-like patterns. Change the type, scale, and colour map; Randomize tries a different seed.
- Create Image: draw your own small image from scratch.
Preview the result, give it a name, and create it. It appears in the current decal folder, ready to paint. Keep texture sizes modest unless the detail really needs more pixels.
The little image editor
New Decal → Create Image opens a blank image. Pick a name and a size from 8 × 8 to 128 × 128. For an existing image up to 128 × 128, right-click its browser thumbnail and choose Edit Decal or Duplicate Decal.
Use Brush, Eraser, Line, Square, Circle, and Fill to draw. Layers keep parts separate; Move repositions the selected layer, and Stamp copies a rectangular patch for reuse.
Zoom with the wheel and pan with middle-drag or Space + drag. Hold V over the canvas or a reference image to pick a colour.
Keep a reference beside your model
Drop an image onto an uncovered part of the 3D viewport to open the floating Reference Image window. Move or resize it, zoom with the wheel, and pan with middle-drag or Space + drag.
Hold V over the reference to sample a colour. In Paint Mode, this changes the selected palette swatch and any parts of your model using it. In the image editor, it sets your drawing colour. Keep some concept art here while you block out a model.
Minimise it when you need the space. Options → Show Reference Image brings the loaded reference back. An Easy Paint GLB remembers its reference path, but the image stays a separate file, so keep it with your project when moving between computers.
Assembly Mode: the four steps
Less clutter. More creating. Assembly Mode uses context-sensitive modeling: the controls adapt to your current stage and selection, showing the tools and settings that apply while keeping unrelated buttons out of the way. Select an object, edge, face, or vertex and the relevant options appear when you need them. Spend less time searching through menus and more time shaping your ideas, with a clear workspace that makes each next step easier to find.
Click the hammer on the top bar to enter Assembly Mode. The palette button takes you back to painting. The highlighted circle in the Tool tab tells you where you are:
| Mode | What you do here |
|---|---|
| Scene | Add objects, draw shapes, and start special constructions. |
| Object | Move, rotate, scale, organise, and add modifiers to whole objects. |
| Free Modeling | Grab a face, edge, or vertex and change the shape directly. |
| Components | Select several faces, edges, or vertices and edit them together. |
Click an object to select it, then click the selected object to enter Free Modeling. Click a component to enter Components. A short right-click or Esc goes back; right-drag still orbits the camera. An active tool may cancel its preview first.
The floating ? has help for the current mode. You can learn this one step at a time.
Primitives & the mesh library
In Scene mode, choose a Cube, Plane, Sphere, or Cylinder. Set its dimensions and segments, then Confirm. More segments give you more geometry to shape, but you can start simple.
The mesh library contains reusable parts organised into folders. Drag a part into the scene and place it. The refresh button picks up new files, and the folder button opens the library directory.
The main folder includes circular, square, and hexagonal miniature bases, plus a Capsule and Donut. These are library meshes for now. Useful when your character needs somewhere to stand, or your spaceship needs one more ring.
To keep a part you made, right-click its object in the Outliner and choose Add to Mesh Library.
Draw a shape: loft, revolve or sweep
In Scene mode, hold Shift while orbiting to a fixed front, side, or top view. Click the grid to place outline points; drag points to adjust them. Right-click or Backspace removes the last point.
- Closed outline: click the first point to close it and create a face. Use Free Modeling to pull it into a solid shape.
- Revolve: draw a side profile on one side of the axis and align its endpoints. When the guide appears, choose Revolve Object or double-click the last point. Good for pots and bottles.
- Sweep: draw an open path and choose Create Sweep, or double-click its open endpoint. Adjust width, sides, caps, and smoothing for pipes, cables, or trim.
A sweep can also use a custom cross-section drawn in a fixed view during its preview. Confirm when it looks right; Esc cancels the preview and returns to the line.
Organic shapes, voxels & lights
Organic shapes
Choose the organic tool under Special Objects. Click to add joints, select a joint to grow a branch from it, and drag joints to change the shape. The wheel sizes joints while placing them. Think trees, horns, tentacles, or a creature's basic body.
Right-click pauses placement so you can inspect and adjust it. Click a joint or empty space to resume. Use Blend, Roundness, and Detail to find the shape you want, then Confirm. F frames a hovered or selected joint.
Voxel Construct
Choose a block brush and click or drag to build. Right-click switches Build/Erase, and Shift-click erases. Roll the mouse wheel over the construction to rotate the current brush; R rotates it too. V-click picks a placed block's shape and rotation. Confirm turns the construction into an ordinary editable mesh.
Lights
The Light option places a point light in the scene. Use it for a doorway, a campfire, or whatever your scene needs; select it to adjust its settings.
Move & organise objects
In Object mode, drag an object or use the gizmo to move, rotate, and scale it. Shift-click adds or removes objects from the selection. Hold Shift over a scale handle for uniform scaling.
The Outliner helps with selecting small or hidden objects and organising groups. In the Outliner, Transform Hierarchy controls whether children move with the parent. Transform Pivot moves the pivot without moving the geometry; Center Pivot and Move to Base help place it.
Ctrl + C, then Ctrl + V, creates an instance. Use Make Unique if a copy should stop sharing its mesh.
The small white centre of the rotation gizmo resets the selection to zero world rotation. Shift-click it to restore the imported orientation instead.
Free Modeling: grab & shape
- Face: drag to push or pull it; Ctrl-drag extrudes; Shift-drag insets.
- Edge: drag to slide it. Hold Ctrl to create a polygon from an edge; the bright orange cue shows that action is ready. Drag toward another edge to bridge a gap.
- Vertex: drag a corner to change the outline.
Hover an edge and press B for a bevel preview. Move sideways to set its width, use the wheel for segments, and click to apply. One segment gives a simple chamfer; more make a rounded edge.
Hold L over an edge for a loop cut, adjust the number of cuts with the wheel, and click to apply. Hold K to place a knife start point, then click a second point to cut across the visible surface.
Use Esc to cancel a preview if it is heading somewhere strange. Undo works after applying it, too.
Edit a selection of components
Click a face, edge, or vertex to enter Components mode. Shift-click adds or removes items; Shift-drag brush-selects the current component type. Double-click a face for connected coplanar faces, or an edge's middle/end area for a ring/loop.
Use the gizmo to transform the selection. Selection Falloff lets nearby geometry join in more gently. Flatten, Smooth, and Bevel help shape an area; flattening changes positions rather than merging edges into one.
Contextual tools appear when a selection supports them: Close Hole for a closed open-edge boundary, Flip Selected Faces for reversed faces, and Detach as New Object for a group of faces.
Delete dissolves selected interior edges while preserving the surface. Open borders are protected. Check what is selected before deleting: face and vertex operations do different jobs.
Mirror & shell
Mirror
In Object mode, open Mirror under Modifiers and enable it. Choose the plane and editable side. The plane is local to the object, and Plane Offset moves it relative to the pivot.
Weld Distance helps join nearby seam vertices. Keep seam on plane keeps that centre line tidy; Show Mirror Plane controls the guide's visibility. Edit your chosen half and the other half follows.
Close only closes the settings. Commit keeps the visible mirrored geometry and removes the live modifier.
Shell
Use Shell to give a surface thickness. Adjust the preview and apply it when it looks right. It is useful for turning a thin surface into something that reads as a solid object.
Grid snap & inference guides
Use the grid controls at the top of Assembly Mode to choose snapping and grid settings. Fixed views and a sensible grid size make drawing and lining things up much easier.
Pause over a suitable edge or vertex to acquire an inference guide. The circular fill indicator shows the wait. Once created, guides help align objects and components; you can drag an object by an edge or corner toward them.
New guides are not created during an active modeling drag. Existing ones stay available for snapping. Click Remove Guides beside Grid Options to clear them, or untick Use Inference Guides in the grid settings to switch the feature off.
Small mesh edits while painting
You do not always need a full modeling session just to add a painted stripe.
- Hover a face and press E to subdivide it for more paint detail.
- Use R in Paint Mode to change a triangle split's direction.
- With wireframes visible, hover an interior edge and press Delete to dissolve its painting boundary.
Undo an experiment with Ctrl + Z. For larger changes, switch to Free Modeling.
Visual Settings: set the mood
Open Visual Settings to work on the look of the view. Start with lighting and background; the smaller effects can wait.
- Background: choose sky and ground colours. The lock links them for a solid background; unlink them for separate colours.
- Lighting: choose a preset and adjust strength and shadows. Rotate the lighting with the floating control, or hold Ctrl + Shift and move the mouse.
- HDRI Environment: adds environment lighting and reflections. Try power and tint before reaching for more complicated effects.
- Adjustments: colour mode, brightness, contrast, saturation, and roughness tune the presentation. Reset brings that section back to its defaults.
- Extra atmosphere: floor, ambient occlusion, indirect lighting, fog, and post-processing can finish a shot. They also cost performance, so use what the scene needs.
Work Mode
Press L in Paint Mode for a flat, unlit work preview when you want to judge the actual painted colours. Press it again to return to your beauty lighting. Handy when a shadow is making you repaint something that was already fine.
Turntables, sprites & screenshots
Preview the spin
Use the lighting widget's play button or Shift + Tab to preview a turntable with the interface visible. The speed slider changes the rotation speed; negative values reverse it. Press Tab for the clean presentation/export view.
Export a turntable video
- Set your lighting, background, and framing.
- Enter the Tab view. If the export controls are missing, enable 2D Media Export Helper in Options.
- Choose MP4 in the export panel, set the crop format and frame rate, and frame the model inside the crop guide.
- Enable Loop for one complete revolution, then click Record MP4. Otherwise, stop recording when you have the footage you need.
The result is saved under user://export_turntables. Let the export finish before opening or moving the file.
Export sprites
Choose sprite/PNG mode in the same panel. Set the resolution and number of viewing angles, choose whether the background should be transparent, then use Export PNG. One angle gives a still; multiple angles give separate views around the model.
Quick captures
F12 saves a screenshot of the current view, including visible interface. Use the clean view first if you do not want the UI. Shift + F12 starts or stops a recording of the app while you work.
After a file is created, the little icon that drops down the right side opens its output folder. Handy when you have forgotten where you saved the thing you made ten seconds ago.
Load, Save As & export
Load opens GLB, GLTF, or OBJ models. Use the import dialog's merge option to add a model to the current scene. A fresh external model may receive palette colours per mesh; an Easy Paint GLB keeps its saved painting data.
Save As lets you choose a name and destination. GLB is the best choice for keeping an editable Easy Paint project. Use a new name for your first save if you want to keep the imported source untouched.
Ctrl + S, or Shift-clicking Save As, saves directly to the current file. The Save As tooltip shows which file that is. If you have not loaded or saved a model yet, use Save As first.
Sending the model to a game engine
Keep the regular GLB as your working copy. For a model with decals, the optional additional baked GLB and texture atlas combine the appearance for use elsewhere. Export Options control the bake scale and atlas size.
The _baked version is for delivery, not your main editing copy. OBJ is available for basic interchange, but GLB is the better fit for the app's hierarchy and editing data. Keep accompanying texture files with the export.
The shortcuts worth learning first
Keys depend on the current mode. These cover most day-to-day work; the in-app Shortcuts tab and ? help fill in the rest.
| Action | Shortcut |
|---|---|
| Undo / redo | Ctrl + Z / Ctrl + Y |
| Quick Save | Ctrl + S |
| Orbit / pan / zoom | Right-drag / middle-drag / wheel |
| Fixed camera view | Shift while orbiting |
| Frame target or selection | F |
| Pick a colour | Hold V |
| Marquee paint or decal fill | Ctrl + drag in Paint Mode |
| Adjust a placed decal | Right-click it, middle-click it, or tap Space over it |
| Go back / cancel preview | Right-click or Esc in modeling |
| Extrude / inset a face | Ctrl-drag / Shift-drag in modeling |
| Bevel / loop cut / knife | B / hold L / hold K in Free Modeling |
| Work Mode | L in Paint Mode |
| Clean turntable/export view | Tab |
| Turntable with UI | Shift + Tab |
| Screenshot / app recording | F12 / Shift + F12 |
| Online help / welcome screen | F1 / F2 |
A few useful habits
- Save a working GLB before a big change. A second version costs less than rebuilding a favourite mistake.
- Use Work Mode to judge colours, then beauty lighting to judge the finished look.
- Keep bevels and subdivisions where they help the silhouette or the painting.
- Duplicate a decal before editing it when you want several variations.
- When something will not paint or move, check the mode, open previews, and Outliner locks.
Quick fixes
I dropped an image and got the wrong thing.
Drop onto the palette for colours, into the Decals browser for a decal, or onto the uncovered viewport for a reference.
Why did other parts change colour too?
You may be editing a shared palette swatch, using IdentiPaint, or working with linked instances. Check those before repainting everything.
Why are guides pulling my movement around?
Clear them with Remove Guides beside Grid Options, or turn off Use Inference Guides.
How do I leave a tool?
Use its Confirm/Commit or Cancel control. In modeling, Esc or a short right-click cancels a preview or takes you back a mode. In Decal Adjustment, tap Space.
Where did my export go?
Click the temporary output icon on the right, or open the user folder from the bottom row. Keep your editable GLB separate from delivery copies and videos.
Help & tutorials
The Tutorials window has lessons for camera controls, painting, decals, and other workflows. In Assembly Mode, ? gives help for the current stage.
Say hello
Made something fun, got a question, or found a bug? We would like to hear about it. A screenshot or a short set of steps makes bug reports much easier to follow.