Learning 3d-coat

[GCastro]

Hello 3d coaters...

I purchase 3d coat well over a year ago and never took the time to learn it, but i want to give it another go and really dedicate some time to it to see if it's for me.

I have just a few questions that I hope can get answered to help me get going.

From a quick glance in the tutorials page, the focus seems to be on retopology, uvmapping and voxels. The first thing i've tried to do though is go straight into the sculpt tab thinking it may be like zbrush. Right away i feel a bit lost and since there isn't much for sculpting in the tutorial section, i assume sculpting is kinda taking a back seat to voxel sculpting now? I wanted to have a sphere in the sculpting scene and just build out a simple head or something to start learning tools like i've done with zbrush, but i'm thinking i need to take a different approach. Any suggestions?

I was also considering getting the 3d coat videos by L.J. Bamforth, found on kurv studios website. Anyone have experience with these? The artist's work looks awesome, but i'm wondering if it's just an overview of his workflow? or if it's a 3d coat training like going over tools and what one does compared to others, etc...

I think what i'd like to find is a video of a mini project, starting from scratch, creating an asset and getting it into maya. That would be nice if it's available somewhere, but piecing it together from various training would be fine too.

I saw that there is a vimeo and youtube page, but again seem geared toward voxels and retopo. Maybe that is what i need utilize 3d coat for? Maybe i'm not getting how the workflow should be with 3dcoat? I'll give it another look.

Any advice on how to approach learning the 3d coat workflow is greatly appreciated.

-George

[Taurus]

in voxels click on primitives button or import mesh using merge > import

in 3DC you sculpt in voxels to create asset from scratch, if you have premade asset which needs detailing do it in paint mode (you can paint bump there),if you want to reshape your polys Zbrush/Blender is better

for voxels sculpt you would better buy Nvidia card with CUDA or it will be slow

after you sculpted you need to retopo the mesh to be usable

the you uv and paint

export

try Sculptris for first voxels easy to use, you can import the mesh to 3DC for retopo, so you don't have to deal with 3DC voxels if you dont want, Scultpris works fast without CUDA but 3DC voxels have much more options (but smooth works better in Sculptris - try both)

[GCastro]

in voxels click on primitives button or import mesh using merge > import

in 3DC you sculpt in voxels to create asset from scratch, if you have premade asset which needs detailing do it in paint mode (you can paint bump there),if you want to reshape your polys Zbrush/Blender is better

for voxels sculpt you would better buy Nvidia card with CUDA or it will be slow

after you sculpted you need to retopo the mesh to be usable

the you uv and paint

export

try Sculptris for first voxels easy to use, you can import the mesh to 3DC for retopo, so you don't have to deal with 3DC voxels if you dont want, Scultpris works fast without CUDA but 3DC voxels have much more options (but smooth works better in Sculptris - try both)

Thanks for the info. I didn't think i needed to mention that i'm on a mac, but i guess i should now. Can't try sculptris because it's pc only and i don't believe there's a graphics card with CUDA available for mac quite yet. Does this mean voxels is out of the question for me at the moment? And from the sound of it, no real need for the Sculpting tab, as one would really want to create using voxels and then retopo and paint. That's kinda what i'm gathering so far.

Thx again,

George

[AbnRanger]

Thanks for the info. I didn't think i needed to mention that i'm on a mac, but i guess i should now. Can't try sculptris because it's pc only and i don't believe there's a graphics card with CUDA available for mac quite yet. Does this mean voxels is out of the question for me at the moment? And from the sound of it, no real need for the Sculpting tab, as one would really want to create using voxels and then retopo and paint. That's kinda what i'm gathering so far.

Thx again,

George

You don't need to try Sculptris, and have to learn yet another program. Voxel Sculpting is the primary method for sculpting at this point, and it has plenty of tools to help you generate a base model to start sculpting from. Why learn another software when you have yet to learn the one you already own? The Sculpt Room as it is currently named, is a bit confusing as you would think that would be the main module for sculpting...period. But it is not. It is a legacy sculpt room/mode that is meant to work in conjunction with (not instead of) the image-based sculpting in the Paint Room. Essentially, what was available before Voxels came around.

You would make any large scale changes in the Sculpt Room, and take care of the smaller details in the Paint Room, painting live normal or displacement maps. It's very similar to how sculpting is done in Modo. Until the Mac version goes 64bit, you may still want to sculpt the high details in the Paint room, as Voxels do take up more RAM than geometry sculpting. You can use the new Cache to Disk feature to Cache layers you aren't actively working on, to keep the RAM consumption level much lower as you work....but having 64bit and more RAM will definitely let you push your models much further, if you want.

Try going through the tutorials in the Video Manual first, and yes, you'll get a lot of valuable info/tips from Leigh's tutorials.

[Taurus]

Sculptris is so easy to you don't have to learn it - use and go, 3DC voxels mode feels like a math lesson and you do need to learn how to use 3DC voxels and Sculptris alpha is free, until you want to make very complicated stuff in voxels Sculptris is better choice to jump into voxels.It's fast on computers without CUDA and smooth brush works really well but if you don't have PC 3DC voxels are by now your only choice.

[GCastro]

Thanks for the reply Don.

You've confirmed what i was assuming about sculpt room. hehe. It was confusing me a bit, but your reply does clear up a bit more now so that's great.

I'm going to move forward then and go through the video manual on vimeo and the videos on the tutorial page.

Thanks also for the info on voxels. Playing around in it did indeed choke my mac a bit, so I look forward to the 64bit to ease that. Thanks Taurus for the info as well. As interesting as sculptris may be, just not interested in it and like you said, not much for discussion since it's pc only right now. Thanks though.

-GC