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Contours New Blender Addon


jcue
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This is similar to using the Strokes Tool and the Transform Tool in 3D-Coat, but this Blender implementation is a lot better! I hope Andrew watches this!

 

I'm starting to really like Blender. I battled with the viewport navigation for a while, but I finally figured out how to make it behave like Maya, but still keep all of the Blender shortcut keys. Once I overcame that hurdle, learning it has been going quite well.

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Is like the maya equivalent ? :huh:

 

And why a Blender addon isnt free ?

The Contour Retopology tool is available today from the CG Cookie shop for $31.50!

 

Too much for a cylinder warp, i think

 

The implementation is amazing, but a little 3DC tweak can achieve the same.

 

I hope to see LIVE UPDATE in any 3DC tools soon...

to need to press apply, enter, preview...

and wait to see how the software think and implement the changes...

just to press undo and do the process again until get the right result...

is time consuming, is true.

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  • 1 month later...
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This is similar to using the Strokes Tool and the Transform Tool in 3D-Coat, but this Blender implementation is a lot better! I hope Andrew watches this!

 

I'm starting to really like Blender. I battled with the viewport navigation for a while, but I finally figured out how to make it behave like Maya, but still keep all of the Blender shortcut keys. Once I overcame that hurdle, learning it has been going quite well.

 

Please tell, how did you get Maya Nav but keep Blender short cuts? In prefs there are two option boxs that appear to be for this purpose.But they do not appear to work separately.I kept the one over the shortcut list to Blender and changed the left hand one over the nav tools to Maya but the nav buttons on the mouse did not change.

Edited by stusutcliffe
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@Stu: Unfortunately you have to change very specific User Preferences (don't use the Maya preset).

 

Go to the File menu, then choose User Preferences. In the panel that opens up, here are the settings that you need to change:

 

TimmyZBlenderSettings_01.JPG

TimmyZBlenderSettings_02.JPG

TimmyZBlenderSettings_03.JPG

 

I hope that gives you the navigation that you want! Good luck with Blender! It is actually quite nice.

 

There are great beginner tutorials here (including the basics of setting up Cycles nodes for rendering):

http://cgcookie.com/blender/cgc-courses/blender-basics-introduction-for-beginners/

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These days when you ask for donations you get nothing. 

So, these people found a way, not really nice way to ask for some money. 

You can still download it for free. 

II can understand them, though.

We have to realize one thing only. Blender foundation needs the money. 

To use blender, to vote it as the best 3d app, etc etc without paying, donating some money isn't the best. 

When I first met 3dcoat, I decided to pay for it, in a few days. I considered it rather as a donation to a wonderful developer than buying a consumer product. 

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I found I was trying to use Blender nav and keys all the time,so something was sinking in.

So you've decided to just go with the Blender nav instead of Maya nav? I guess I showed you my Maya nav settings too late! LOL!

 

No worries, I'm thinking of posting those same images at Blender Artists anyways. I'm guessing somebody doing a Google search for the same thing will happily find it there.

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No you didnt at all waste your time! Carrara uses Maya nav so I will change it . I have gone off using cycles for the moment, but blender render looks good, very similar to carrara render ( sorry ,crossing threads here!) If I can export a Carrara scene /model with textures to Blender ,that would be good. I dont think Blender imports FBX, but it does 3ds,Maybe just exporting an obj will do it.......Godamit, I think I am confusing myself now.

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I just noticed this addon when doing some research on Blender's retopo capabilities that I started after reading L'Ancien Regime's post on impressive BSurfaces here: http://3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=15575. :o

This contour retopo looks far more superior to 3DC's stroke tool. The live preview, ability to rotate strokes, surface continuity detection(!) and, most importantly - it looks very robust. When using strokes tool I always encounter a lot of problems with holes in a mesh it generates (even with 2000% density!) that requires from me to redo the strokes (trial & error) or use other tools to fill the gaps. Or, what's even worse, when dealing with a mesh that has some thickness (clothes, armour, etc.), strokes and resulting vertices tend to end up on the inner side of it. It takes a LOT of time to repair the retopo mesh afterwards.

If Blender didn't have such a... "unique" GUI I would switch to it overnight for retopo jobs.

---

Hm... I tried to purchase the tool, but the Buy Now link on CGCookie seems to be broken. Is the addon still in development or did they threw in their towel? I hope not.

Edited by ajz3d
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I just noticed this addon when doing some research on Blender's retopo capabilities that I started after reading L'Ancien Regime's post on impressive BSurfaces here: http://3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=15575. :o

This contour retopo looks far more superior to 3DC's stroke tool. The live preview, ability to rotate strokes, surface continuity detection(!) and, most importantly - it looks very robust. When using strokes tool I always encounter a lot of problems with holes in a mesh it generates (even with 2000% density!) that requires from me to redo the strokes (trial & error) or use other tools to fill the gaps. Or, what's even worse, when dealing with a mesh that has some thickness (clothes, armour, etc.), strokes and resulting vertices tend to end up on the inner side of it. It takes a LOT of time to repair the retopo mesh afterwards.

If Blender didn't have such a... "unique" GUI I would switch to it overnight for retopo jobs.

---

Hm... I tried to purchase the tool, but the Buy Now link on CGCookie seems to be broken. Is the addon still in development or did they threw in their towel? I hope not.

I don't have nearly the trouble you do with the Strokes tool...but yeah, I'd like to see Andrew take a few notes and see if he can't improve the tool accordingly. That's one thing about Blender that is a bit of a turnoff, aside from the reliance on learning so many dang hotkeys. Since many of the coolest features/tools are done by non-paid/part time developers...those tools can often go unfinished. I think that is what happened with the sculpting tools in Blender.

 

Because they weren't paying Raul, or at least not much...if anything...he got hired away. Fortunately for us. Then the guy who stepped in after that, publicly voiced his own displeasure with the development (no pay or very, very little). Imagine what it would be like it they would get off the EU government teet, and switch to a fully viable, commercial app?

 

I think it's come of age enough, that it easily could/should do so. More studios and artists would take it seriously. The very thing that makes it so appealing, is largely the very thing that keeps the Hobbyist label tattooed on it's forehead.

Edited by AbnRanger
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I think that is what happened with the sculpting tools in Blender.

 

Really? 

Blender sculpting became a really powerful tool after Raul.

Nicholas Bishop developed the dynamic topology tool. 

Nicholas also left blender for another job. 

Anthonis Riakiotakis fixed some issues and dyn-topo became a really serious sculpting tool. 

Blender foundation hired Antonis for the 2014-2015. 

He's a very skilled developer and a very good friend. 

Let's not forget that blender sculpting supports:

A dyntopo system (like LC) up to 1-2 M only faces. (for the moment)

Not that bad because blender provides an excellent re-topology mode

And jump to a multi-res sculpting environment up to 40-80 millions faces per single mesh. 

You need a lot of RAM for this one but it is OK. 

Bake from multi-res (n-maps, displacements) is the best way, after all. 

Combine all the above with the excellent, yet simple and effective sculpting brushes of blender and…

You may have a competitor of zbrush for free. LOL 

 

Though I own zbrush (and 3dc of course), blender became my basic sculpting app, recently. 

 

Start donating then. 

On the other hand, to have the basic developer in your home, working and sculpting together, talking on the behavior of the brushes, trying to fix possible issues or bugs…

A dream came true. 

:)

The very thing that makes it so appealing, is largely the very thing that keeps the Hobbyist label tattooed on it's forehead.

 

It is not about hobbyists and professionals 

It is about art. 

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These days when you ask for donations you get nothing. 

So, these people found a way, not really nice way to ask for some money. 

You can still download it for free. 

II can understand them, though.

We have to realize one thing only. Blender foundation needs the money. 

To use blender, to vote it as the best 3d app, etc etc without paying, donating some money isn't the best. 

When I first met 3dcoat, I decided to pay for it, in a few days. I considered it rather as a donation to a wonderful developer than buying a consumer product. 

I don't pay for much but I made sure to pay Andrew for his excellent work, because I want help him do the next big idea he gets.

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It can have all the features in the world, but as a free/Opensource app, I just don't see the industry viewing it as a serious production toolset. It will continue to appeal largely to hobbyists, who don't do CG for a living.

 

If they got off the (EU) government nipple, and decided to switch to a commercial model (maybe keep a free/EDU version with some limitations), they'd soon be viewed as a legit option...and not an ongoing experiment in OpenSource viability.  It's a stigma they will never shed as long as it remains Opensource. Furthermore, if more studios and artists did take it seriously, that would just make it harder for commercial developers to make an honest living. If they are struggling because they have to compete with FREE, then that puts some bright developers out of work. I think Blender has hurt both Lightwave and Modo to some degree.

 

What if you owned a "Mom & Pop" shop in your hometown, and some competitor moved in, down the street...selling the same product for practically nothing (they subsisted on government handouts/subsidies)? You'd be outraged. Blender is that company...competing with legitimate businesses, while using mostly free labor and hard-working people's tax dollars. I bet Brad at Modo, and Rob at Lightwave 3D GRoup would voice similar disdain for such practices. It's time for the Blender Foundation to quit being such a govt. leech. It's like an adult stuck in a baby stroller and feeding of momma's milk. Yeah...I said that...cause it's right. It could compete and thrive on it's own, but they simply refuse to.

 

What's worse, Michalis, is that you come here repeatedly, extolling Blender's superior capability over 3D Coat in the very things 3DC specializes in. You do realize you are using Andrew's own website...which he pays to host and maintain....to virtually take food off his table? There are lots of people here trying 3D Coat, and happen to see your Blender propaganda. Think about it for a minute. I was talking with Andrew the other day, and heard his kid say "Pappa, Pappa." It would bother me to be trying to sell those folks on a free application to do what 3D Coat does, instead...knowing my efforts either directly or indirectly effected those little ones....because it does.

Edited by AbnRanger
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AbnRanger that's a suprising post from you considering I see some of your post saying you want to switch to blender from 3dmax.

But its an agreeable post. :D

I've clashed with pure blender users all over the net whenever they start pretending that blender is a good "plugin" or companion for xyz software but in reality its just saying use blender its capable, its better, its free.

I don't believe there's a future with blender either. Imagine clients knowing that you made the project with free software. Lol.

The first thing they will do is ask for the lowest possible rate. It might be a stigma or not but I see freelance work posted that's blender related and the pay is super low compared to other software. "Hey since you didn't spend for the software and you're doing this for art sake and to increase your portfolio, etc, would you want to work on a cool indie project but I don't have much budget....like 50usd for a character model" :D

Lightwave and modo have this stigma of lower pay grade, too, sometimes.

But anyway I don't see any job posting from studios at cgworld for blender experience either for full time positions. We've never hired one either we rather hire a lwver even if we're a max house.

There is zero for hire in a market that's probably second to the US in cg work produced. Lightwave fares better with atleast 5 job posts, modo with 1, c4d and softimage at 3, 50 job posts for max, maya in a given month. Zero for blender can anyone believe that!

No there is no future in blender unless one likes to be a starving, financially challenged artist. Have to learn the big boy software unfortunately since its too entrenched in the industry.

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AbnRanger that's a suprising post from you considering I see some of your post saying you want to switch to blender from 3dmax.

But its an agreeable post. :D

I've clashed with pure blender users all over the net whenever they start pretending that blender is a good "plugin" or companion for xyz software but in reality its just saying use blender its capable, its better, its free.

I don't believe there's a future with blender either. Imagine clients knowing that you made the project with free software. Lol.

The first thing they will do is ask for the lowest possible rate. It might be a stigma or not but I see freelance work posted that's blender related and the pay is super low compared to other software. "Hey since you didn't spend for the software and you're doing this for art sake and to increase your portfolio, etc, would you want to work on a cool indie project but I don't have much budget....like 50usd for a character model" :D

Lightwave and modo have this stigma of lower pay grade, too, sometimes.

But anyway I don't see any job posting from studios at cgworld for blender experience either for full time positions. We've never hired one either we rather hire a lwver even if we're a max house.

There is zero for hire in a market that's probably second to the US in cg work produced. Lightwave fares better with atleast 5 job posts, modo with 1, c4d and softimage at 3, 50 job posts for max, maya in a given month. Zero for blender can anyone believe that!

No there is no future in blender unless one likes to be a starving, financially challenged artist. Have to learn the big boy software unfortunately since its too entrenched in the industry.

Well, to be honest....I've been rather conflicted about it, until recently. I had a good long talk with Digman about this very topic, and he's a big Blender advocate. I really like what Blender offers, but beyond the the UI and heavy reliance on hotkeys (and strange ones at that) for everything...this issue, of it being free...leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Because they've snookered thousands of hours of development time/expertise from gullible coders/programmers...or otherwise paid others with some poor soul's hard earned tax money.

 

In my own personal estimation, Blender is just slightly more ethical than using crack/pirated software. Both hurt the individual, hard working programmer/developer, who deserves an honest wage for an honest hours work. It hurts developers who get suckered into doing free work for the Blender Foundation, and it hurts those who work for companies like Luxology/Foundry and Newtek/LW3D Group.

 

Ton can try to justify it all day long, but when an app like Blender can start hurting commercial Software developers like those previously mentioned, then it's high time they get off Government Welfare. I can guarantee you, they wouldn't be able to do that here in America. Business laws here would not allow it.

 

I've decided to stick with Max for a while...use what I have and rent month to month if I feel I need 2014+. I don't like AD brass, but I like Blender Foundation even less. Thea Render does what I want (allows me to leverage my NVidia card to render, in GPU mode), in Max...so, I'm happy for now. Will keep my eye on Modo, and LW, though. If LW gets unified, and has gets better mesh handling/deformation in modeler....and fixes their SpacePilot issues, then I may make the leap back to LW....for the 2nd time. :D

 

Really curious to see what Modo 801 will look like.

Edited by AbnRanger
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In my own personal estimation, Blender is just slightly more ethical than using crack/pirated software. Both hurt the individual, hard working programmer/developer, who deserves an honest wage for an honest hours work. It hurts developers who get suckered into doing free work for the Blender Foundation, and it hurts those who work for companies like Luxology/Foundry and Newtek/LW3D Group.

 

What? 

Are you serious? 

Stopping this debate, right here. 

 

Good luck to all. 

And, happy new year 

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I noticed a lot of blender posts on this forum, but i assumed they where being posted because they showed off features that could be easily (relatively) implemented in 3d coat, since its all open source.

 

i.e. idea's for andrew to consider for upcoming releases.

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I noticed a lot of blender posts on this forum, but i assumed they where being posted because they showed off features that could be easily (relatively) implemented in 3d coat, since its all open source.

 

i.e. idea's for andrew to consider for upcoming releases.

Well put.

 

Andrew could implement a lot of cool Blender stuff and improve on it. I'd love to see BSurfaces appear in 3d Coat as the preliminary to Pixar Open SubD in 3d coat.

And Blender doesn't have Voxels...there's not competition here. 3d Coat is essential.

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Well put.

 

Andrew could implement a lot of cool Blender stuff and improve on it. I'd love to see BSurfaces appear in 3d Coat as the preliminary to Pixar Open SubD in 3d coat.

And Blender doesn't have Voxels...there's not competition here. 3d Coat is essential.

You wouldn't know that, listening to Michalis' Blender propaganda. That's all he comes here for...to sell folks on how much better he thinks Blender is, at Sculpting than 3D Coat. There's no comparison, from what I see. I'd easily choose to sculpt in Mudbox before I'd do so in Blender, and I'd rather sculpt in 3D Coat than Mudbox.

 

 

What? 

Are you serious? 

Stopping this debate, right here. 

 

Good luck to all. 

And, happy new year

 

Absolutely serious.

Edited by AbnRanger
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You wouldn't know that, listening to Michalis' Blender propaganda. That's all he comes here for...to sell folks on how much better he thinks Blender is, at Sculpting than 3D Coat.

Not really directing anything to Michalis but the modo steam forums was full of blender users who wanted modo steam for free. Its totally ridiculous! The software has not even had a week since launch and here comes blender users suggesting not to buy at all and go download blender. Its pretty damaging to the developers who work hard to try and live selling software.

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Not really directing anything to Michalis but the modo steam forums was full of blender users who wanted modo steam for free. Its totally ridiculous! The software has not even had a week since launch and here comes blender users suggesting not to buy at all and go download blender. Its pretty damaging to the developers who work hard to try and live selling software.

No kidding. This is EXACTLY what Michalis does here. That's all he comes over here for. It's a low class maneuver, in my book. I bet if you asked either Rob Powers (LW 3D Group) or Brad Peebler (Modo), candidly, if they felt Blender has hurt their sales in one measure or another, over the past 4-5yrs, they'd say "Yes" without hesitation. Those lost sales directly translate into lost development resources...potential paid work for some bright programmer, that's not happening.

 

I had been recently pondering the switch...thinking how much of a "value" it was...and such. But this matter always kept coming up. It's kind of like that warning you see, when you watch a DVD/Bluray disc...."Piracy is not a victimless crime." It's not a crime, certainly, to use OpenSource software...but it DOES have it's victims. It's taking food off the table for someone. No telling how much food Michalis has taken from Andrew's table, coming here and persistently extolling the virtue of sculpting and texture painting in Blender, over 3D Coat. That's crossing the line, in my book.

Edited by AbnRanger
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