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Chipp Walters Hard Surface Speed Modeling


chippwalters
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Hi Everyone,

This thread will stand as  update on my continuous journey to work between every know modeler, renderer and video pipeline workflow. :-)

I've been giving 3D Coat and pretty good workout lately. I certainly am no expert, but I have figured out a few things.
Here's what I've created in the last couple days. The larger model took a bit over 4 hours. I think I can do a similar (but better) in under 3 hours easy. This is a marked improvement to my SketchUp and MoI 3D speed concept modeling. I expect this model would take me a couple days in MoI and even longer in SU (due to radiuses).

Here's the first test techbox, then the second:

techboxA.jpg

 

techboxb.jpg

There is considerable artifacting in some areas-- I'm still learning. I know I can get the artifacting much better, so I'm not too worried.

Here are the PROs for working first in 3D Coat:

1. You can create unimaginable shapes and iterate extremely quickly. These designs are much harder to conceptualize in poly or nurbs modelers.
2. FAST and forgiving. Like working in a 3D version of Photoshop
3. Renders pretty good in KeyShot and Octane

CONs

1. I don't know if you can RETOPO the more complex one at all. I suspect if you try, all the speed gains you will then lose.
2. You can PBR texture it, but you can't export with the textures UNLESS you RETOPO (at least that's my understanding)-- kinda sux because the PBR textures are truly stunning.
3. HUGE file sizes. The more complex one was 8 million polys. The other around 4 million. Ouch! That's why they're unable to be UV mapped for PBR.
4. Other than 3D printing they can't be used for CAD or really anywhere else unless you figure out how to RETOPO.
5. Can only be rendered with textures and decals in 3D Coat and KeyShot AFAIK. Perhaps Instant Light, too. Trying to learn that one more but it's a strange program with unfortunately a very strange non-standard interface (I think they need to hire a UX and GUI designer).

For those interested, here are some videos of the journey so far:

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by chippwalters
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I've been experiencing many interruptions of Chip's excellent tutorial (you're never too old to learn).  Did it originate on the Youtube server (my speed was 38) or with my EVGA 960 video card that often fails and recovers? It's drivers are up to date but it occurred on earlier drivers also.  

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I've been experiencing many interruptions of Chip's excellent tutorial (you're never too old to learn).  Did it originate on the Youtube server (my speed was 38) or with my EVGA 960 video card that often fails and recovers? It's drivers are up to date but it occurred on earlier drivers also.  

I uploaded it onto the YouTube server after editing it from Camtasia. It's probably the longest video I've ever done at just over an hour. Sorry it took so long but I wanted to be sure and cover all the details.

If you get a chance, try and go to fast.com and there you can check out your download speeds.

It could be that you're on a cable modem and because everybody is home for the holidays the allocated bandwidth is less than normal.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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I'm very new to 3Dcoat as well.  I agree with your pro's and con's thus far.  I have no way of knowing how voxels are created under the hood but it seems to me that 3Dcoat could have a much higher resolution and fidelity of voxels if it was only considering the outside of a surface?  For instance a large square cube being scaled up in the sculpt room would have an under the hood or user specified depth of voxels of say 2 to 10.  This would allow booleans etc. to work in voxel mode but also not allocate precious resources to interior model's areas where it need not be calculated.

Thanks Chipp.  Just found your youtube movies and will be watching soon.  I'm a Moi user as well and Maya as my main general purpose app.

 

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Hi there,
If I'm not wrong the "surface mode" precisely allow you to work on a hollow model.
Compared to voxel mode (uniform density), you can locally increase density with tools like "live clay" and work
on details without increasing the whole model density.

You can switch to surface mode by clicking "V" in the Voxtree.

Hope it help!

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