Nemoid_

AbnRanger , you're correct about Nt change in marketing. At firt it seemed iike Newtek was going to quite drop Lw classic, and give CORE a more development focus, but at the end they noticed it was a great error to drop classic Lw. So, when Powers got aboard, they actualòly changed strategy. Though, even when Jay Roth was at the helm of development,they were working on something called LWHC wich was classic Lw with CORE connecion (not hub). So, when Powers arrived they simply switched from LwHC to Lw 10, because its always classic Lw aniway, and development got further, adding technologies like VPR into classic Lw however. At the end marketing was updated to Lw 10 with CORE technology rather than Lightwave CORE alone. This being said, Lw CORE was NEVER marketed as an app to immediately substitute Lw classic it was always intended to give that to users as an add on, to use coupled to Lw, hopefully with some more interesting tools that those of Lw classic. This was the reason of why LwHC existed yet. But, CORE development got slow, even because of the Roth/Powers affair. Seems to me like something was wrong on how Roth decided to handle CORE/Lw development and that's my personal opinion on why Powers took his place. Lw is actually a capable tool, in good hands. it is fast in many areas because of the workflows: modelling, and shading , but also lighting and rendering are pretty caplable. Lw main problem is in being old fashioned in some area, like rigging/animation and CA, and in some modelling tools too, especially now that there are apps like Modo and Silo, and, most important, problem is having an old structure, being actually 3 apps (modeler, Layout and hub communicating together, no nodal structure, no modifier stack/history, not very open SDK..) Nt thought to give a future to Lw with CORE which is a total revrite from scratch to solve those structure issues and have a modern app. BTW this doesn't mean you cannot use classic Lw and make wonderful jobs. For example Menithings, is making an entire feature movie with Lw alone, now , while they made Battle for Terra with Lw and Maya. They dropped Maya now and they're using Lw alone. But, Meni is a very very experienced and talented Lw artist. Right now, Maya or 3ds Max give users mainly more deepness, more complete tools and job opportunities compared to what Lw can offer, while Lw can give them speedness and an overall understanding of what 3D is in general. That's why there are lots of general 3D artist using Lw.

This is what i call a good result !!!! Autoretopo is gonna rock.

Maybe Andrew focuses too much on new technologies to implement, to make 3D Coat more attractive, and i can understand these reasons. However, as i said if he puts some effort on solving 3D Coat bugs and provide an even faster workflows this will give to the app even more value than most innovations. 3D Coat is innovative yet. It has voxels technology which is great, good manual retopo tools and upcoming autoretopo to help doing this job even better, painting layers with fusion methods, ptex and more. if all this will be optimized to give users an even more pleasant experience with what's already there, the app will be welcomed very well among pros and studios. That's what makes the difference in sellings too. Look at Mari. comes from developing fro WETA , everyone wants it even if they dunno if it will be so gret (I hope so btw)

interesting ! i agree about hard edge detecting and drawing. also a workflow i would adopt is o choose a lower polycount, even when retopoing characters. probably algorithm will do its job better, and if you need to edit the flow somewhere you wouldn't get mad. the rest can be done quickly adding manually more edge rows. i think artists will waste less time this way. i also think tke less point you start with the straighter some lines forcely will get. However , i'll wait the enhanced implementation Andrew will put after siggraph. I am sure it will end to be cool. @Tinker : you're way too harsh. not a good attitude into a forum. if you don't like what you see remember its a w.i.p. and this is a beta. p.s. advice for Andrew, after autoretopo, i would stop adding brand new features for something like 1 month, and instead try to empower 3D Coat making it smoother in performance, brush experience, workflows just to streamline workflows even more. this way no one could say its somewhat behind ZBrush. this work IMHO will benefit 3D Coat greatly 3D Coat has very nice things yet ebven in its UI which is more understandable than ZBrush one, so things can't go wrong at all. p.s. 2 i've seen Newtek is going towards preproduction market. They have connection with virtual camera producers aa well (Intersense) this market will be a huge one. since 3D Coat connects so well with Lightwave, could be part of this process and it will be widely adopted in many studios. for Avatar pre pro they used many softwares, but primarily they used LW and Motionbuilder. So, i'd look for a tighter connection with those 2 apps first for sure.

Found this: http://vimeo.com/13652970 i think the results are pretty cool. Maybe some little editing especially for faces could be required, but you surely gain a lot of time for organics. for inorganic works i dunno, making the base in traditional 3d apps helps a lot for precision, but even there, if it does a good job, can be useful for props.

Lightwave modeler has this method: You fire up a tool, use it, then you drop it hitting spacebar or shortcut, and use another tool. Classic Lw has not sticky keys a la XSI, for example. Dunno about Rhino method.

about ZB UI personally i don't think its horrible. it is functional in many aspects, especially using a tablet. The main problem i see it's in workflows, that many times involve several passages, and if you forget one for a reason you found yourself lost. so many things could be way more straightforward and intuitive. some aspects of the workflow are caused from technology limitations (retopo, for example is handled through z spheres, so this is why you haver to draw one, and do that convoluted workflow) others are like that because they're not automated. they add the features on top to the ZB UI not enhancing the workflow in a less click one. Sculptris, which makes less things than ZB, demonstrated many things can be handled more elegantly, with a minimal UI and for these reasons many people liked it. Maybe Pixologic can learn something both from 3DCoat and Sculptris, and Mudbox too. don't see that happen in 4, tho. It could rather happen for 5.0 maybe.

You right I'sd surely not dismiss Blender because of its UI. it is a good app, and what they're cooking lately is great, especially compared to Lw feature wise. Actually, every app has its own UI , but there are things which became somewhat a standard. for example, even ctrl X, V, and C, could sound banal, but you have the same in windows an office, so its natural for a PC user to use these shortcuts to cut, paste and copy. ctrl z for undo, too. Actually Lw had to start to implement things that became a standard at least feature wise or people coming from other apps couldn't understand it at all: they added edges, materials following the Maya (and other apps )scheme, nodal shading, ortho cams, and so on to make Lw a bit more similar to other apps. another thing I always found is viewport navigation a la Maya is easier to get confortable with into a small timeframe. it also has no manipulators for modelling (another standard since ages) so ask an user coming from another app to understand why it has no manipulators in modeler. He'll probably reply you what app is this? LOL he's too used to manipulators. BTW, Lw is a good app as well, it has a good feeling, especially in modelling and its easier to grasp than Maya as a 3D app. also i like the textual UI. so as you can see there are things which are good, when they're efficient and other are needed standards to respect. Surely a clean UI and streamlined workflow helps a lot. Newtek understood that, and for CORE allowed alot of customizability for UI, and also introduced common standards, coming from other apps: construction plane from Modo, manipulators, edges, and i hope they will find some good inspiration in Maya timeline and animation system both graphically and feature wise, when animation will come.

wow Mari is going to be actually awesome, especially performance wise ! It has a very nice UI and features IMO. Also they sad ts mainly texturing, but that the future could bring other things. I think 3D Coat development should insist heavily onto performance speed, both in sculpting, voxels and painting.

It seems to be the perfect app for AD to buy, once it is ported in Windows

yeah he should just actually stop for awhile adding new things and focus into empower the app, to put sculpting at same speed of ZB at least. It would be a real benefit for the app. Just empower it, debug, refine existing toolset, and focus into sculpting/painting. Voxel are great, but to really have success the app can't make users wait for hours into a powerful machine.

well, if it is a last step of the process i see no real prob. We could model, texture, animate, then some app could transform all that in point clouds for game engine?

well in many pipelines you still have modelers and sculptors with ZB , Mudbox or whatever. In some case artists do both things. in the first case, its true. they give you a mid poly mesh and you have to sculpt/detail it. UV map can be provided at start or even later (don't forget ZB allows artists to paint models even without UVs and add it later and bake maps) however the most commont pipeline is mid poly mesh with unwrapped UVs, to detail/paint and bake maps. so, you have to be allowed to import model, sculpt /paint and bake. other processes, like retopo, mesh creation within ZB or other, are great exceptions even if they're adopted more and more when character artist is called to provide the whole work, sometimes from concept to animation ready character.so every artist in this case chooses the proces he's confortable with. Simply, 3D Coat has to be good for these needs.

well voxel technology is the one allowing wonders like for example trimming the mesh, good booleans, and model regardless from mesh resolutions, so it actually frees the user from limitations polygon sculpting has. so this is 3d coat main selling point. btw if polygon sculpting gets enhanced to the level of ZB it is even better and no one will complain for sure

Well, Mudbox overtakes it but only in powerful machines, i think, while Zb works well in less powerful machines and pixol serves the app for othe purposes than merely overriding Open GL... however, of 3DCoat reaches Mudbox level would be actually awesome.