3D Coat for Games

[Imajus]

Hey guys, I'm an experienced game artist checking out the trial version of 3D Coat. I am trying to make some indie games in my free time and am shopping for software. I've been using 3ds max and zbrush for years, but I'm thinking about picking up 3dcoat because it's cheaper and seems pretty powerful. One thing I am kind of stumped on is how I might start making a next gen game asset or character in 3dcoat. Traditionally for a character or object I would model a base in 3ds max then import into zbrush for sculpting then back into max and so on. I've watched some videos on 3dcoat and have yet to find one covering the topic of starting a voxel sculpt from scratch. Can you import a base mesh into 3dcoat? Bascially I'd like to know if it's possible to start a voxel sculpt from scratch, retopo it, unwrap it, bake, and paint all in 3dcoat. It looks like I can from what I've seen, just can't seem to figure it out on my own yet. Like how was this guy made: http://www.3d-coat.com/screenshots/g2data/albums/3dcoat2/stink_LJB.jpg or this guy: http://www.3d-coat.com/screenshots/g2data/albums/voxel/male_clothing.jpg or better yet can I do this all in 3dcoat: http://www.3d-coat.com/screenshots/g2data/albums/3dcoat2/PresentationShotV3_Guedin.jpg

appreciate any help, thanks!

[Jake_H]

Hi

Short answer YES

See Gregs - vid -

I have used 3DCoat with Maya to make characters from a voxel base, for a commercial products. These voxel bases were then retopologised in 3D coat, Uvs created in 3DCoat (tweaked in Maya), the voxel surface (normal map) details were baked onto the game mesh (along with some vox material/shaders as a starting point for textures),the poly geo was then painted/textured in 3DCoat along with some tweaking in photoshop -

Unfortuantly the work done is under NDA - yay ! So Ia cant show it.

Some cool game centric features in 3DCoat

Support for PS layers in painting mode.

AO baking works ( its a fake AO but if you put in enough lights it looks fine).

TEXTURE BLEED - this is a great help if working double in game res (Both on colour,norm ...etc... maps).

I do also use a 3DCoat>Zbrush>3DCoat workflow on occasion too (the PSD layer support is winner)

Sorry I hadnt seen gregs vids - edit

Edited August 26, 2010 by Jake_H

[Greg]

Hi!

I did a video series that covers a lot of what you're asking about. I'm the first to admit that the way I do things may not be the correct way, but the videos could hopefully help. The character I make in the videos is just for fun, so don't expect anything close to the pictures you linked to.

Anyhow, please check them out if you like, and either way I hope you enjoy 3D Coat. I think it's a great program.

Greg

Oh.. here's the link:

http://vimeo.com/gregwhedon/videos

Note that 3D Coat has added some cool features since I did the videos, but the things I show are still valid. There may be easier ways to do them now though.

Hey guys, I'm an experienced game artist checking out the trial version of 3D Coat. I am trying to make some indie games in my free time and am shopping for software. I've been using 3ds max and zbrush for years, but I'm thinking about picking up 3dcoat because it's cheaper and seems pretty powerful. One thing I am kind of stumped on is how I might start making a next gen game asset or character in 3dcoat. Traditionally for a character or object I would model a base in 3ds max then import into zbrush for sculpting then back into max and so on. I've watched some videos on 3dcoat and have yet to find one covering the topic of starting a voxel sculpt from scratch. Can you import a base mesh into 3dcoat? Bascially I'd like to know if it's possible to start a voxel sculpt from scratch, retopo it, unwrap it, bake, and paint all in 3dcoat. It looks like I can from what I've seen, just can't seem to figure it out on my own yet. Like how was this guy made: http://www.3d-coat.com/screenshots/g2data/albums/3dcoat2/stink_LJB.jpg or this guy: http://www.3d-coat.com/screenshots/g2data/albums/voxel/male_clothing.jpg or better yet can I do this all in 3dcoat: http://www.3d-coat.com/screenshots/g2data/albums/3dcoat2/PresentationShotV3_Guedin.jpg

appreciate any help, thanks!

[Imajus]

Thanks guys. I've been playing with it for the past few hours and am digging it so far. Since I want to make my game legitimately I'll probably have a blender > 3dcoat workflow. I definitely like it better than blender's sculpting.

Also I don't know how I missed your videos greg, I searched vimeo earlier and only found some sculpting demos and retopo tuts. Thanks for making them from what I've seen it should give me a good idea how to jump in. And the pictures were just a few I found on the 3dcoat site's gallery to illustrate what I was asking.

[Greg]

I'm still learning more about the program all the time myself. I think the blender/3d-coat workflow is a good choice, and there are lots of great blender users here too. I enjoyed making the videos, but was really glad to finish them! lol. Glad you're enjoying them.

Greg

Thanks guys. I've been playing with it for the past few hours and am digging it so far. Since I want to make my game legitimately I'll probably have a blender > 3dcoat workflow. I definitely like it better than blender's sculpting.

Also I don't know how I missed your videos greg, I searched vimeo earlier and only found some sculpting demos and retopo tuts. Thanks for making them from what I've seen it should give me a good idea how to jump in. And the pictures were just a few I found on the 3dcoat site's gallery to illustrate what I was asking.

[MaDDoX]

Even if just for "coating" (texturing) 3DCoat has features that easily rival that of its most expensive counterparts. Mudbox 2011 for instance still got no proper "color smudge" brush, while 3DCoat even has nifty inflate/deflate brushes. Bear in mind that texturing speed used to be very bad with big brushes but this is being improved over time. A few hints:

- Always paint on a subdivided model, don't do it in the low res (cage) model or else the brush accuracy will suffer. Just don't subdivide the model too much, for obvious performance reasons, generally the third or fourth subdivision rez option works fine.

- Don't trust too much the 'soft stroke' option, even with large settings it doesn't smooth lines half as good as the zbrush 'lazy mouse' equivalent option.

- Play with the airbrush, try tiling some textures with it and "feel" how it works. It's great

[philnolan3d]

- Always paint on a subdivided model, don't do it in the low res (cage) model or else the brush accuracy will suffer. Just don't subdivide the model too much, for obvious performance reasons, generally the third or fourth subdivision rez option works fine.

Just to clarify, you are referring to Micro-vertex mode right? In per pixel mode I've had no problem at all working with non-subdivided models.

[Steez]

Just to clarify, you are referring to Micro-vertex mode right? In per pixel mode I've had no problem at all working with non-subdivided models.

i'm a games artist at thq and i'm loving the per-pixel painting directly onto my low-poly meshes. so far, so good, but i've only been using 3d coat seriously for about 2 weeks. still plenty to learn.

[philnolan3d]

That's cool to hear, I know one other game studio who uses 3DC in a big way, sadly due to their autodesk contracts I've been asked not to say their name.

[Imajus]

The only drawback I've experienced so far is I'm having trouble getting that polished look I can get while sculpting with zbrush, but that might be just adjusting to the tools. Other than that I'm loving it.

[Cireva]

AO baking works ( its a fake AO but if you put in enough lights it looks fine).

How does that work?

[AbnRanger]

How does that work?

Under the Texture Menu (in the Menu Bar), you choose Calculate Occlusion. The popup will have a parameter slider that will allow you to add more lights

[Cireva]

Under the Texture Menu (in the Menu Bar), you choose Calculate Occlusion. The popup will have a parameter slider that will allow you to add more lights

thx

[dirtrobot]

The only drawback I've experienced so far is I'm having trouble getting that polished look I can get while sculpting with zbrush, but that might be just adjusting to the tools. Other than that I'm loving it.

This has been my issue with the voxel/surface sculpting as well. It's either too soft or it feels like I'm working with chunky peanut butter. I will happily admit I may not be doing things correctly but the more I look at 3dcoat's output by other users, I notice things are generally pretty soft. I really hope Andrew finishes polishing the sculpting aspect of the software because this will make it what I consider a 'full solution' product. Right now it is, like zbrush is in its own way, a 'part of the solution'.

[Psmith]

Dirt Robot:

What is not apparent about how 3d-Coat handles the production of fine detail is that voxels are only meant to take the model "so far". The very fine mesh displacement is actually produced in the Paint Room, and, to some extent, in the Sculpt Room.

The part of the process that is not apparent is that painting with depth is not only producing an automatic normal map and displacement map, your stroke and the material you choose is actually, in reality, displacing the topo mesh, itself. So, even if you do not export either a displacement map or a normal map, (after painting depth), the standard .obj file will reflect the depth that you have added with "Paint" in the form of real,actual mesh displacement. You can see this really well by subdividing your topo mesh to a high density, then painting on it with ordinary depth painting tools in the Paint Room. If you look at the mesh, (with projected wireframe), in the Sculpt Room you can see the physical displacement that has been added by the paint strokes and the material used.

Most of the renders that display intense micro detail, (as seen on ZBrush Central), are really the product of modeling with extremely high polygon counts, and these renders are, of necessity, only static, since it would be impractical to use such a dense mesh in an animation. A Zbrush produced, animated mesh would rely on standard displacement and normal maps on top of a relatively low resolution mesh to achieve a similar rendered result.

3D-Coat accomplishes the same super high resolution rendering in a 3-fold manner, (leaving out, for the moment, sculpting in the Sculpt Room): 1)Through "painting" actual mesh displacement. 2)Through "painting" a displacement map. 3)Through "painting" a normal map. When all of these are combined in a rendering program, the same very high resolution detail is attained. So, in a very real sense, "painting" in 3d-Coat is just a form of micro-fine sculpting.

Remember, also, that just the act of "Painting" automatically produces the corresponding displacement and normal maps. No muss, no fuss.

If you combine this actual displacement with a normal or displacement map, and then render the model, the rendered result will rival anything Zbrush or any other program can produce, detail-wise.

Greg Smith

[philnolan3d]

Yes, the painting tools are what made 3DC a zb/mb competitor before it even had voxels. When I first bought 3DC there were no voxels and I was still able to do the same level of work I had previously done in mudbox.

[dirtrobot]

Yes, the painting tools are what made 3DC a zb/mb competitor before it even had voxels. When I first bought 3DC there were no voxels and I was still able to do the same level of work I had previously done in mudbox.

Riiiiiiight, now I get it! Is there a good video/tutorial on taking voxels to paint/sculpt? Is (auto)retopo an intermediate step?

[philnolan3d]

I'm not sure if there's a video. But it will need to be retopologized. Auto-retopo being one way of doing that. From the retopo room you'll have to mark seams, then unwrap, then go to the Retopo menu and Merge Into Scene. I'm not positive but all of this is probably in Greg's video tutorial posted above.

[dirtrobot]

I'm not sure if there's a video. But it will need to be retopologized. Auto-retopo being one way of doing that. From the retopo room you'll have to mark seams, then unwrap, then go to the Retopo menu and Merge Into Scene. I'm not positive but all of this is probably in Greg's video tutorial posted above.

I'll check it out, thanks!

[Digital777]

I read (i think on the blender forum) ZBrush also uses some sort of display method which actually adds in more detail as it uses 2.5D and adds some effect. I don't know if that is true or not though but they were comparing sculpting and used the same brush and out of various apps ZB had the better display, if you exported the model and rendered with another app though i guess that would be the way to tell if it keeps the details.

3DC is great for sculpting now but the thing it needs more of though in my opinion is the hard-sculpting tools ZB and other grid based CAD style apps have -

http://www.3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=6403

I know a lot of people think of 3DC as a certain use like textures only etc more than general/any use app. One reason possibly due to the smoothed sculpting results it generally gets so if Andrew could edit/add tools and change that opinion people have i think just like PTEX and auto retopo it would get a lot of interest for the app because voxels are amazing to work with.