James Thornton

If you don't mind, p.m. or email me when it's available. Thanks

FYI, when I click on the link to buy, it says "Fatal Error!" lol ; ) Scary. Might want to contact kurv though. I'd like to give them some money, but they're dying on me!

Thanks! I like how it just drops it into a new layer.

I think you're talking about polys ^here^ but... Random question, is there a way to decrease voxel resolution? I think I read about a way some time ago that decreased the resolution, but you lost the higher res for good. Could've been seeing things again though.

No problem ; ) Just keep experimenting with different approaches and you'll find what works best for you. I would continue to try different settings in quadrangulation as well. I've only used it a few times, but I've never had a mesh blow up like that. Aside from n gons and random edgeflow, it's generally worked really good. Maybe it's the nature of the beast, dunno. Haven't tried it on a mesh like yours, only a couple heads. Good luck and keep at it! You'll figure it out ; )

Depends on the workflow. For me, having clean geometry when possible is good because I often manipulate the mesh outside of 3d Coat. There are automatic options though. Decimation is great, but only in certain situations for me. Quadrangulation is cool, but you'll still need to clean it up using the retopology tools, as it produces ngons, etc. Still mostly automatic and quicker than doing it by hand. I would really dig in and study those some more to figure out how to make them work for you. My guess is quadrangulation will eventually make it click-of-a-button as it develops. Remember that how hard an object is to retopo isn't dependent on how hi res the mesh is, but rather how complex. For instance, if you have wires and everything going all over the place on a low res mesh, you will not want to retopo! Yet if you just have a simple, super hi res shape, it's easy. You just block out the cage w/ edge loops and subdivide, viola. Here is an example of a test mesh I made to study workflows where you won't want to retopo. The voxels are simply exported as an obj, decimated in ZBrush, and rendered in modo. It's the first time I've tried decimation, and look forward to experimenting with 3d Coat's in house option asap. So take note that you have to look at your sculpt, and decide what meshing option is the path of least resistance for your workflow. In this case, I think even quadrangulation would have made my computer explode! Either that or I would have lost a ton of detail. What I learned is to keep the voxel objects that will need different meshing approaches in separate layers. Then you can export them separately and bring them back together.

The retopo tools are a breeze, use em! Strokes tool is your new best friend if you have a tablet. It's the best way to get clean meshes out of voxels. That is, if the mesh isn't too complex to retopo of course. In your first example I would start drawing out retopo in two groups, one for the box, and one for the blob. Make them both as low res as possible, with as many even quads as possible. Resort to triangles and poles before ngons. The tools will make it faster than you think. The reason I suggest doing these in separate groups is because they are of different detail. With 3d Coat's retopo, when you subdivide, the poly's vacuum to the voxels. This allows you to only have to focus on your basic edge flow while making a super low poly cage. Then just let 3d Coat do all the work ; ) Although it takes some effort, don't think that you have to actually lay it all out point by point. So you could do an extra simple mesh over the box part, and a tad more complex mesh over the blob. Then subdivide the box mesh until it's of similar density to the blob. From there just select the mesh of one group, copy it into the other, and connect the two. Even in one group you can build onto areas separately and connect them, but they will subdivide together. At first, the voxel > poly thing was tricky, but I quickly learned that there are more than enough tools to make them compatible with any work flow.

Very clean and sharp. I look forward to seeing the detailed version!

Nice, thanks for sharing! I gotta learn how to leverage the tools like that.

Thanks for the tips! Should have a chance to get back at it during Thanksgiving break. I want to fully study this software if time allows, so I appreciate the advice.

Hey, thanks for the tip! I learn more about this cool app every day. I suspect that getting good at converting poly meshes into voxels can come in handy for MUCH more than retopology. That's something I haven't tried. It's good to know even though I'm having a lot of success with polys. Transferring to voxels for retopo is something I will definitely experiment with. Sounds groovy. Might add a step, but might add some advantages as well. Definitely worth a look though. Cheers, James

No problem, and good luck! Here's another tip if you like using these apps together, but want to start off with voxels. Do your sculpt, starting at a lower res and gradually increasing. Jump into the retopo room. Use the tools to do a very basic, low res retopo w/ good edge flow. Initially, it won't retain the detail of the voxel sculpt due to low resolution. Export this base mesh. After you've done the low res retopo, you can subdivide it. The mesh will vacuum to the voxels (genius!). Use the brush tool, sometimes with shift to smooth to clean things up between each time you subdivide. Keep dividing until you have a mesh that represents the voxel sculpt. Export this as a hi res mesh. Import the base mesh and hi res mesh into the ZBrush tool palette. Append the hi res to the base mesh as a subtool. Under tool>subtool hit ProjectAll. This will project the hi res onto the base mesh with subdivisions! Now you can delete the hi res subtool. This, of course, is if you want to do detail in ZBrush. You can further detail the new mesh in 3d Coat as well, by sculpting the mesh, and through painting (sculpting) difference maps, even vector displacement! Just thought I'd share because I'm having a lot of fun with it ; )

Because retopologizing over a dense ZBrush sculpt in 3d Coat is ....s....l.....o.....w.... Even just a 3 mil mesh is sluggish. I've got some that are in the 20's that you can't even open. Meanwhile, even a mesh that's 250k is so smooth to retopo it could make you grin ear to ear. I can get away with something around 50k. My suggestion is if the ZBrush sculpt Ian is trying retopo is fairly dense, which is likely. So a great way to leverage the awesome tools of 3d Coat without slowing down the system is to export a lighter mesh that still holds the form. Exporting an obj from a middle ground subdivision level still retains plenty of shape to create the new base mesh. In this situation, projecting the details and generating the displacement/normal map in ZBrush makes the most sense. It's the path of least resistance. As is doing the retopo in 3d Coat. At the time, ZBrush retopo calls for tediously clicking each vert individually. So this is a great way to leverage each app when using them together.

You have to remember that to project the hi res details in ZBrush, all you need is a new base mesh that is representative of the main form in shape and scale. In other words, when creating this new base mesh in 3d Coat or ZBrush, you don't have to retopo over a 20 million poly sculpt. You can lower the resolution of the polys as long as it still holds the form. Not having skin pores and infinitely small detail in your reference mesh won't matter. That will allow you to leverage 3d Coat's awesome retopo tools if the mesh is too heavy for the normal import as a reference. It will also make everything more responsive. Once you have this new base mesh obj, you can open it in ZBrush and project the hi res details from the heavy mesh. Viola!

Thanks for the tips, I'll try them out asap. I agree with your diagnosis, it doesn't peak enough. That sharp crease is what I'm after. Pretty sure the main reason polygons pinch better is the topology actually crowds around the crease, while voxels remain even. However, it can badly distort topology. So voxel pinching could be much more useful. Especially once hi res voxels are more speedy to work with.

Thanks for the feedback. Since I don't animate, I may be able to use decimation for certain models instead of retopo. It's all about the path of least resistance. I'm on OSX, so I'll have to see how 3.2 sculpts on tris. The only reason I've been avoiding tris with ZBrush is because that's the word around the campfire. I haven't a clue what actual problems they cause. I know n-gons cause holes and poles cause weird pointy artifacts. Either way, thanks for the tips and keep choppin' out those cool designs.

Cocoa Pebbles are where it's at. Regarding the slayer sculpt, you got the wrong guy.... Although, if the work you're referring to is good enough, I'll be glad to pretend I did it for public recognition! (j/k) Must be a third James in the mix now. Common first name. I do hope to share some work soon, still learning this awesome toolset and neat ways to fit it into my usual workflow. Cheers, The coolest James Thornton in the world (tell your bro don't be mad, it's just how it is!)

Bigger brushes on higher res meshes are very slow, and the smoothing only causes changes on a small scale. Smoothing a big area could take all day! This slower interaction defeats the freedom and philosophy of voxels. It takes you right back to planning. Which I'm used to, so this isn't that big of a deal for me. However, to really unleash the value of voxels, I feel it's going to be a must at some point. Right now the brushes are best suited for low to mid res sculpts at any brush size, or high res sculpting with much smaller brush sizes. Any improvements to the speed of bigger brushes (and the strength of smoothing) on denser meshes will be a major step in the right direction, as they are very important to the artistic process. I know that computer evolution is the biggest factor here, I'm just viewing this from the artist's stand point, and expressing what I find limiting about the brushes when realizing an idea. On another note, I would like a stronger pinch that creates a more noticeable sharpness. Otherwise, I'm absolutely in love with this toolset! Seriously, good freakin' work!

Very good! Go Thornton's!

Great work as always! I've enjoyed your ZBrushCentral thread, and this one also has some really clean designs! I'm interested in the 3dc > ZBrush workflow using decimation master. 3dc's retopology tools are great for making various densities of meshes that retain the voxel sculpt. I've been doing a low res retopo and exporting it as an obj. Then sub dividing it a bunch and using the retopo brush w/ smooth to clean it up. It vacuums to the voxels perfectly! I export again and append this hi res mesh to the low res in ZBrush, divide the low res the same amount and project all. Viola, subdivisions. I think you can also just use reconstruct subdiv, but haven't tried it. Those geometry levels adds control in ZBrush, get's the voxel detail in, and allows for a base mesh that modo can work with. I usually get rid of 1-2 of the lower levels because I need more density for the maps to render good in modo. Nevertheless, this has become a sweet way to include voxels in my workflow. Love it already, just bought it. After checking out your workflow, I've investigated exporting the voxels as an obj. Inspecting the mesh in modo, it's just a bunch of tris. Does decimation master clean this up at all or do you have to do retopo to get quads? Is there a way to export the voxel mesh as quads only? I prefer retopo w/ subdividing over quadrangulate, and don't know of another way. Retopo's easy, but you seem to have success with the Decimation Master. Any tips or are you just working with the triangles? Thanks for any feedback. -James *edit: I just found out that the new version of 3dc has a decimation feature built in for exporting! I also read that voxels only export as tris, so I guess you're just working with them maybe just for rendering.

Crazy ain't it! I just retopo'd a head bust, subdivided it a bunch, and was using the brush to even out the small polys using shift to smooth a bit. Then I found an area that could use a bit more wrinkle detail. So I jumped over to the voxel tab, added the wrinkles, jumped back to the retopo tab, brushed a couple times with smooth and BAM, wrinkles transferred. I'm tellin' ya, 3dc is going to be a key player in my work.

Oh man, I just keep finding more and more awesomeness! This is a sweet app!

I agree that the complete workflow should be put in bright lights, as I didn't realize that until you told me on ZBrushCentral. That should be described right in the voxel intro window. Most ZBrush and Mudbox users understand difference maps, so it will come natural after that. For marketing purposes, I think they should exaggerate the freedom of voxels. Some kind of time lapse where a crazy sculpt is derived from a small sphere would get a lot of poly modeler's attention. Then show how freakin' easy it is to retopo! Just today, I found out how easy it is to get the voxels transferred to a good mesh. I was previously using quadrangulate. I like how you can subdivide a bunch after a low poly retopo and it vacuums to the voxels pulling out detail. This will allow me to refine the volume in mid res voxel space where it's still speedy. Then I'll be able to export a fairly dense base mesh that retains the sculpt. At the time, I still prefer detailing with ZBrush and modo, and work with multi thousand poly base meshes, so that's key for me. It puts voxels right in the heart and soul of the workflow. To me, the major forms of sculpture are far more important than details.

I'm brand new to 3dc, but use ZBrush all the time. I'm diggin' it so far! It's not up to speed with ZBrush in many ways, but I didn't buy it to do the same things I do in ZBrush. I added it to the toolset because of what makes it different. (at an awesome price point, btw) Voxel sketching at low-med res leads to a lot of spontaneous creativity. The retopology tools are also fantastic. I'm sure as I study it, many more benefits will surface. For me, it's looking to be a great compliment to ZBrush and modo because of what makes it unique. I only share this because it's kind of a double edge sword for when you do get into marketing. Even guys like me who already have a sculpting app they love will still find the interesting tools in 3dc appealing and useful.