Jump to content
3DCoat Forums

Can't get rid of lumpiness!


Recommended Posts

  • Member

Hi all! First time posting, and I am a newbie to 3D, so please be gentle.
I am having a bit of trouble with the sculpting aspect of 3D Coat. For the most part, everything is great. But it seems like there is a certain sort of lumpiness that I cannot seem to get rid of. I've seen other users with this problem but have not found a solution that works for me.

A good example is the attached image where I show the lower lip of a cartoon horse I am sculpting. It's sort of... well, lumpy. It's pretty high res, enough that I feel I should be able to smooth it out properly. Using the smooth tool seems to end up flattening out the lip without actually smoothing out the uneveness of the surface itself. The clean tool with reduce seems to help more than other things,  but I still can't get it to be really smooth, and I also create a low res surface. I've also tried checking 'Accurate Smoothing' and 'Cuda smooth boost' but it doesn't seem to make a lot of difference. I've tried liveclay tools and remove stretching and tangent smooth and everything I can think of, but my problem persists.

Any help on this issue would be greatly appreciated. I really want my high res models to look good as I'd like to ultimately 3D print them, but I can't seem to figure out how to smooth properly.lumphorse.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Member

Could you show another picture at a different angle and after pressing "W"? To show the polys.

1) In sculpting one of the biggest newbie mistakes is to get the resolution high too fast.
The more geometry/polygons/voxels the harder to make big changes.

2) An idea would be to work with the freezing option to freeze one part and then strongly smooth another

3) you could also change the light/shadow to be more intense. helps while modeling because you can see your own changes better.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Member

ell, I have been trying to sculpt at the lowest resolution I can, usually until the details starting showing up as rough/jagged/triangular. At that point I assumed subdividing would allow for a smoother surface, but often times the smoothing tool actually results in weird, lumpy aberrations.

I do want to model from beginning to end in 3D coat, but I suppose I'm not sure what the best workflow is in terms of making good-looking hi-resolution models. My limited experience in modeling before 3D coat was with ZBrush, where I'd sculpt in dynamesh, use ZRemesher to auto retopo the mesh, and then subdivide and project details from the base mesh until I got something that balanced smoothness and detail. That would become my new base mesh. Could I somehow use a similar strategy with 3D-coat's autotop feature?

I'd love to hear some strategies from folks who do modeling entirely in 3D coat. I've looked through a lot of tutorials but it seems that most people start with a base mesh from an external program, or don't show you how to get from a blob of voxels to a smooth high resolution model. Perhaps someone knows of some tutorial videos of that nature.

lumphorse02.png

lumpyhorse03.png

lumpyhorse04.png

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Use voxel mode to sculpt rough shapes (dynamesh equivalent) -try not to exceed 2M polys-

Surface mode for details and LiveClay mode for fine details.

Always use to mask areas where you need details.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Reputable Contributor

It looks like you have 3 different objects on 3 different layers, from all the images except the last one. It's really hard to tell. Voxels let you merge separate objects together very well, but they need to be on the same layer. Surface mode is really good at the intermediate to high resolution detail work, and it also does really well with subtractive boolean or cutting operations. Reason is, that Raul, the developer who worked on LiveClay tools, enabled a dynamic tessellation routine to be run on the edges of a cut, so they are super crisp...even on a low poly object.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Member

@ryivhnn Interesting. I am indeed using a tablet and will keep that in mind.

@Carlosan and @AbnRanger.I am aware of the basic sculpting workflow, and have followed the pattern of roughing the shapes out in voxels, and then switching over to surface mode and using liveclay tools for the finer details. Actually, the reason the wireframe in the last image has different densities is because I attempted to use liveclay tools when I could not smooth the lumpy surface through normal surface tools. Also AbnRanger, that last picture is the same shot as the one above it, in wireframe mode. It's two objects on two layers: the face and a half-disk for the teeth.

So after lots of fussing and experimenting. I found a couple things that might be helpful.

Resampling the whole model at a slightly lower poly count than the current one seems to do a good job of smoothing the whole mesh without destroying as much detail as 'Smooth all'. However, it still doesn't give it that cartoony plastic sort of smooth I'm looking for. The surface still retains some lumps.

What might be even better, is the reconstruct tool, which I tried on the lower lip with detail = 0.7 and the modification set to 'expand'. This seems to have worked better than anything else for smoothing out my hi poly model. I've attached a picture of the results. You can see the surface of the lower lip/chin is super smooth now, without all that cellulite-looking roughness.

lumpyhorse06.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Reputable Contributor

Daniel, could you PM me and perhaps leave a link where I can access a copy of the scene or at least the troublesome part? I'll take a lot at it and see what the problem is. Before you do, in Surface mode try and use the POWERFUL SMOOTHING option in your SHIFT and CTRL + SHIFT menu, at the top of the UI. It decimates/optimizes the geometry while smoothing, so it's a really good option for trouble areas.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...