3D-Coat 3.1 updates thread

[Psmith]

Speaking about the production of "content" - I'd like to address this topic, if I may. 3D-Coat currently does have excellent tools that have been aimed at producing "content". But, as some of the users so humorously put it, the large portion of the content that ends up being produced with applications like 3D-Coat tends to fall into the category of elven/orc/alien hybrid muscle man Siren Amazon Beauty Queens with warts and veins and pores, or something. I've been watching the parade of images flow by over there at ZBrush Central since 2002 - the diversity of "content" has only grown narrower over the years. My eyes simply can't abide any more of this sort of "content". Nor can they abide any more close up head sculptures of aging men who have led very hard lives.

If there was any way of validating such a survey of users, I would think that the findings of such a survey would truthfully indicate that the majority of users of both ZBrush and 3D-Coat would fall into the category of "CG wannabes". And, why does the variety of 3D "content" made with applications like 3D-Coat hold to these very narrow lines? Because CG wannabes think that this is what "the industry" and their peers want more of.

Of course, both applications have their supply of "professionals" which use both applications for the production of hyper-real elven/orc/alien hybrid muscle man Siren Amazon Beauty Queens, but, I would venture they are in the minority of purchasing users.

I honestly don't see much of a future for "professional" 3D "content" production applications that provide sets of hyper-real sculpture making tools. Eventually, everybody is going to grow weary of seeing turntables of hyper-real sculptures - regardless of the genre these pieces strive to emulate. The phrase "What is it all for?" comes to mind.

I make this case simply to show that there are other, far more entertaining uses that software like 3D-Coat can be employed for. I think many users would spend their money to investigate some of these more rewarding avenues, like that of animation and story telling. And, somebody is going to have to change the tide that is moving the swarms of CG wannabes with software purchasing dollars. I think that Pilgway could directly benefit by this slight change in focus, as well.

Greg Smith

[philnolan3d]

I'm actually working on something much more "normal" right now.

[Paint Guy]

Speaking about the production of "content" - I'd like to address this topic, if I may. 3D-Coat currently does have excellent tools that have been aimed at producing "content". But, as some of the users so humorously put it, the large portion of the content that ends up being produced with applications like 3D-Coat tends to fall into the category of elven/orc/alien hybrid muscle man Siren Amazon Beauty Queens with warts and veins and pores, or something. I've been watching the parade of images flow by over there at ZBrush Central since 2002 - the diversity of "content" has only grown narrower over the years.

Greg Smith

Greg, IMO it's unfortunate that you feel you need to criticize the industry and new (wannabees as you put it) and established users in this way. The reason you see so many users creating the characters you are so critical of is due to the fact that the billion dollar film and games industry is largely (rightly or wrongly) made up of these types of fantasy characters. To get a job within this industry, as many aspiring young artist's are trying to do, you need to have work that is similar in genre, thus the as you would put it "narrow" range of content.

If there was any way of validating such a survey of users, I would think that the findings of such a survey would truthfully indicate that the majority of users of both ZBrush and 3D-Coat would fall into the category of "CG wannabes". And, why does the variety of 3D "content" made with applications like 3D-Coat hold to these very narrow lines? Because CG wannabes think that this is what "the industry" and their peers want more of.

Of course, both applications have their supply of "professionals" which use both applications for the production of hyper-real elven/orc/alien hybrid muscle man Siren Amazon Beauty Queens, but, I would venture they are in the minority of purchasing users.

I honestly don't see much of a future for "professional" 3D "content" production applications that provide sets of hyper-real sculpture making tools. Eventually, everybody is going to grow weary of seeing turntables of hyper-real sculptures - regardless of the genre these pieces strive to emulate. The phrase "What is it all for?" comes to mind.

I make this case simply to show that there are other, far more entertaining uses that software like 3D-Coat can be employed for. I think many users would spend their money to investigate some of these more rewarding avenues, like that of animation and story telling. And, somebody is going to have to change the tide that is moving the swarms of CG wannabes with software purchasing dollars. I think that Pilgway could directly benefit by this slight change in focus, as well.

My eyes simply can't abide any more of this sort of "content". Nor can they abide any more close up head sculptures of aging men who have led very hard lives.

Greg Smith

Then don't. If you don't like the content you are seeing then no one's stopping you from creating something different, but just because it's not your cup of tea don't be so critical and intolerant of other aspiring "wannabees" who are trying to break into the games and film industry.

[Ghostdog]

{snip snip}

I make this case simply to show that there are other, far more entertaining uses that software like 3D-Coat can be employed for. I think many users would spend their money to investigate some of these more rewarding avenues, like that of animation and story telling. And, somebody is going to have to change the tide that is moving the swarms of CG wannabes with software purchasing dollars. I think that Pilgway could directly benefit by this slight change in focus, as well.

Greg Smith

Hi Greg, I think I know the feeling and have been guilty at times myself of being a little bored of game style renders. Different courses for different horses as they say.

http://www.3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=3526

http://www.3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=3386 Voxels to real sculpture http://www.3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?act...ost&id=4597

As a more abstract style artist, I have had great fun producing a real live mini-sculpture direct from a voxel sculpt and it was very rewarding. I'd recommend it to anyone to give it a go as for just $25 you can make your own desk-toy out of your sculpts. Sometimes I have questioned myself about posting images to galleries here as I didn't think that they really belonged here, but the community has still left some nice comments on them anyway.

There will always be more images in the galleries here on themes such as games characters, head busts etc. What can we as a mini community do to foster a better environment for us abstract artists? Would a separate forum gallery help?

I'm not so sure. I think more comments, and critiques would encourage others.

I came close last week to deciding to stop uploading... not really sure why but maybe I'm over it. I hope so.

[Ondrej Svadlena]

I make this case simply to show that there are other, far more entertaining uses that software like 3D-Coat can be employed for. I think many users would spend their money to investigate some of these more rewarding avenues, like that of animation and story telling. And, somebody is going to have to change the tide that is moving the swarms of CG wannabes with software purchasing dollars. I think that Pilgway could directly benefit by this slight change in focus, as well.

Greg Smith

Very well said. I just met a 50+ year old feature film director last week and we had a nice chat about 3D. We talked about all the technical hurdles involved in CG and then he told me: "But I heard about this cool Ukrainian software..."

I think a lot of traditional artists interested in 3D will be jumping on the 3DC train seeing the amount of freedom and the absence of polygon-related technicalities that the voxel approach provides. I myself got into 3DC because of the voxel sculpting (...and what I do with voxels would be nearly impossible with any other app). The other modules are nice "bonuses" but not that interesting to me. On the other hand there are people here that have been around since the early 3D Brush days, so it might get hard for Andrew to decide which new or existing features have higher priority.

Greg, IMO it's unfortunate that you feel you need to criticize the industry and new (wannabees as you put it) and established users in this way. The reason you see so many users creating the characters you are so critical of is due to the fact that the billion dollar film and games industry is largely (rightly or wrongly) made up of these types of fantasy characters. To get a job within this industry, as many aspiring young artist's are trying to do, you need to have work that is similar in genre, thus the as you would put it "narrow" range of content.

If you don't like the content you are seeing then no one's stopping you from creating something different, but just because it's not your cup of tea don't be so critical and intolerant of other aspiring "wannabees" who are trying to break into the games and film industry.

Partly true but not the whole story... Again, I've had numerous discussions about this with other film directors and a lot of them told me they have a really tough time finding 3D "artists" that are creative and produce original work. A lot of people are fed up with the absolute lack of originality displayed by 99.99% of people showing their stuff on the net. Another director from London told me they have spent two weeks looking through the portfolios on CGTalk, looking for a 3D artist with a personal style and original ideas. In vain. There IS a demand for those people too. Modelling Hobbits in armor to get a job at Weta is a bit simplistic, and those poor chaps that have to look at all those showreels, that all look the same, must have a hard time not falling asleep. I myself am very critical of that cheesy 3D stuff. It also depends on which community you find yourself in. On CGTalk it might all be "awesome and cool, and look at the amout of detail! And those wrinkles and pores!" but from an outside perspective (film-makers, artists, musicians...) it's mostly regarded as cheesy soulless crap. Sorry if that sounds rude but that's the way it is outside the CG bubble.

Back to the topic. I just feel I have to step in (because I really care about where 3DCoat is going) when I see that some people request Z-Brush/Mudbox-like features and tools to create those fantasy creatures. "The brushes don't feel right", "The brush feel in ZB/MB is much better"... Really? I think the sculpting in 3DC is great and reminds me of the old days when I modeled with clay. Instead of wasting time with imitating some polypushing tools I'd much more prefer to see Andrew push the boundaries of what is possible to achieve today. I'm not saying 3DC should imitate Maya's FBIK and muscle system. I'm saying it would be nice to see voxels come to life in the near future and in their own way (maybe V4 ).

I came close last week to deciding to stop uploading... not really sure why but maybe I'm over it. I hope so.

The more diversity shown here, the better. Hope to see more of your work soon! I also feel the 3DCoat family is much more open-minded than other CG-related communities.

Ondrej

[kay_Eva]

Omgosh I'm using 'cool Ukrainian softare'

I'm hip!

[Andrew Shpagin]

Updated to 3.1.06 (Linux build - coming soon)

Changes:

- possibility twist with SHIFT in rotate mode in curve tool.

- Symmetry snapping in vox curve tool improved - point will not be able to pass symmetry plane.

- Possibility to apply symmetry to curves to be able to break symmetry in posing afterwards.

- fixed: export displacement of all layers was creating new layer that was producing instability in the future.

- fixed: Smoothing was not activated with SHIFT in clone/magnify/change color tools in DP/MV.

- Improvements in Textures->Adjustments : Gamma correction, not faceted preview. Preview will also respect invisible layers and linked layers.

- fixed: after quadrangulate scale of previous merge was missed.

[philnolan3d]

Sweet!

Edit:

- Possibility to apply symmetry to curves to be able to break symmetry in posing afterwards.

Where is this? I can't find it.

[Andrew Shpagin]

Sweet!

Edit:

Where is this? I can't find it.

Just enable symmetry in curves, then disable. You will be asked.

[philnolan3d]

Oh OK I see, that works very well. Thank you. I expected to find a button, but I guess this makes sense.

[mwgrafx]

Speaking about the production of "content" - I'd like to address this topic, if I may. 3D-Coat currently does have excellent tools that have been aimed at producing "content". But, as some of the users so humorously put it, the large portion of the content that ends up being produced with applications like 3D-Coat tends to fall into the category of elven/orc/alien hybrid muscle man Siren Amazon Beauty Queens with warts and veins and pores, or something. I've been watching the parade of images flow by over there at ZBrush Central since 2002 - the diversity of "content" has only grown narrower over the years. My eyes simply can't abide any more of this sort of "content". Nor can they abide any more close up head sculptures of aging men who have led very hard lives.

If there was any way of validating such a survey of users, I would think that the findings of such a survey would truthfully indicate that the majority of users of both ZBrush and 3D-Coat would fall into the category of "CG wannabes". And, why does the variety of 3D "content" made with applications like 3D-Coat hold to these very narrow lines? Because CG wannabes think that this is what "the industry" and their peers want more of.

Of course, both applications have their supply of "professionals" which use both applications for the production of hyper-real elven/orc/alien hybrid muscle man Siren Amazon Beauty Queens, but, I would venture they are in the minority of purchasing users.

I honestly don't see much of a future for "professional" 3D "content" production applications that provide sets of hyper-real sculpture making tools. Eventually, everybody is going to grow weary of seeing turntables of hyper-real sculptures - regardless of the genre these pieces strive to emulate. The phrase "What is it all for?" comes to mind.

I make this case simply to show that there are other, far more entertaining uses that software like 3D-Coat can be employed for. I think many users would spend their money to investigate some of these more rewarding avenues, like that of animation and story telling. And, somebody is going to have to change the tide that is moving the swarms of CG wannabes with software purchasing dollars. I think that Pilgway could directly benefit by this slight change in focus, as well.

Greg Smith

I dont under stand this nor do I believe this belongs in the updates thread. It should belong in the off topic thread. 3dcoat was orginally made to cater to game development, and that is what they create. It is a billion dollar business so there is a market. I could comment more on it but dont want to waste anymore space in this thread.

Andrew I think your doing a wonderful job with your application. I've never been more jazzed about an application.

[Andrew Shpagin]

Linux build uploaded too.

[ghib]

Wow, take a 2 week holiday come back and there have been a few updates. Time to try the latest version on my last day off.

mwgrafx - I agree with you AND PSmith, this does belongs in the off-topic.

[haikalle]

I agree. I'm well pleased to see how 3d-coat has devellopped. It's very depth program. You really have take time and explore it before it fully opens to you. There is so much to see. This is like a journey, happy one.

Thanks Andrew for quick linux update. Testing now...

[Bancho]

- possibility twist with SHIFT in rotate mode in curve tool.

Is this talking about the Curve-Tool in Vox?

When I use rotate mode, the green arrow is appear, without SHIFT-Key.

I can't twist the curve.

3.1.06(DX)

WinXP Pro sp2 32bit

Dual-Xeon3G HT

3G Ram

RadeonX1950

___________________________________________

3DC-page(Japanese)

The latest information of 3DC.(Japanese)

[Andrew Shpagin]

Is this talking about the Curve-Tool in Vox?

When I use rotate mode, the green arrow is appear, without SHIFT-Key.

I can't twist the curve.

Really, it was missed. I re-uploaded packages to solve the issue.

(but Linux build)

[Ratchet]

@Psmith :

Yeah , game industry is a lot formatted that way : orks , elves etc ... but there are original ones : Mass Effect characters : not muscles : buit lot more armors !

And new elves are better than previous ones !

And there are perhaps lot of people targetting a place in video game indutrsy in big companies like EA ? that's perhaps you'll see cuh characters

just to show their skills to do standard high quality characters.

But there are people using it for illustration , or cartoons.

For my part it will not be orcs or elves, but Toon oriented world and characters and for a precise goal : try to produce a cool game as fun as Ratchet And Clank series with original ideas.

And i know some people that do 3D at spare time, from time to time, it can pass soem week where they don't touch 3D at all and some that prefer to travel the week end and discover new places.

(I do same some weeks)

I just thinks you watched too much 3D , don't be so objective about 3D users and seriously : TAKE A BREAK !

SHUT DOWN THE COMPUTER FOR SOME DAYS !

[Ratchet]

Back to 3D Coat

The new flatten tool is top notch : hard surfaces are easy now.

It is possible to use it to falatten along a curve and keeping an orientation plane constant (45° for example ) ?

(to give hard edges to an roughlty done armor piece )

[Bancho]

Thank you!

I can twisting a curve.

___________________________________________

3DC-page(Japanese)

The latest information of 3DC.(Japanese)

[wailingmonkey]

meee tooo!

(retopo nightmare, but still...)

[David Walters]

Symettry plane snapping is great, thanks Andrew!

[Taros]

Symettry plane snapping is great, thanks Andrew!

Yes. But curvepoints on the center-position should not be copied. I mean the ones directly on the mirror axis. They should be "just" connected, if this is possible.

[philnolan3d]

When I used apply symmetry for my "curve character" the points that made up the head were doubled up but not for the torso. So maybe you just have to make sure they're really snapped good along that center lines, then it won't mirror them.

[David Walters]

I also found playing with the hardness button helped in this case - around shoulders, etc. HTH

[Taros]

When I used apply symmetry for my "curve character" the points that made up the head were doubled up but not for the torso. So maybe you just have to make sure they're really snapped good along that center lines, then it won't mirror them.

Ah, ok. I will check this. Thanx.

[kay_Eva]

I agree. I'm well pleased to see how 3d-coat has devellopped. It's very depth program. You really have take time and explore it before it fully opens to you. There is so much to see. This is like a journey, happy one.

Thanks Andrew for quick linux update. Testing now...

I agree with that. Andrew adds features more quickly than I can figure them out.

[Reactor]

Just a quick question- was the drag-drop issue resolved in any of the updates? I realise it's a difficult one to diagnose... I'm more curious at this point.

[philnolan3d]

Still doesn't seem to work here in 3.1.06. At least not the "image from the web" aspect. I just tried it now as I'm typing.

[Andrew Shpagin]

What about Drag&drop - please check next steps because on all available PC all works just excellent.

- Try something simple - like this dog image - http://www.hoax-slayer.com/images/worlds-strongest-dog.jpg and try to drag&drop. Will it work?

- Try different browsers - does it fail on all browsers?

[Taros]

What about Drag&drop - please check next steps because on all available PC all works just excellent.

- Try something simple - like this dog image - http://www.hoax-slayer.com/images/worlds-strongest-dog.jpg and try to drag&drop. Will it work?

- Try different browsers - does it fail on all browsers?

Tried in Firefox 3.x. I see just a white image.

Moved the image from the browser to my desktop. Tried to drag and drop from my desktop, then it worked.