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3D-Coat 3.5 updates thread


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Agreed Beat

The appropriate way to eliminate-erase a part of a volume in dynamic tessellation world is to reduce it first, then smooth or anything else.

Same goes when some artifacts may occur building some mesh. Reduce and LC again. In any case, remesh is the right world.

Having always voxels as alternative, I'm a little confused.

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One thing I have noticed is that LiveClay + reduce tools breaks the mesh. You are not able to see it in 3d-coat, but if

you export -> export object you can see that there is quite a few extra verts. But I'm sure that this all is taking care in

the end.

Have to say that Cutoff tool is fantastic. working really nicely :)

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One thing I have noticed is that LiveClay + reduce tools breaks the mesh. You are not able to see it in 3d-coat, but if

you export -> export object you can see that there is quite a few extra verts. But I'm sure that this all is taking care in

the end.

Have to say that Cutoff tool is fantastic. working really nicely :)

Speaking of which...can we just call it "Boolean?" That is its function and it's immediately clear to everyone what it does. Sometimes I think we are over-complicating things for the user, just for the sake of being different. We won't call a stencil a stencil or a stamp a stamp. It has to be named differently than in other applications. Masks are what you paint to hide or reveal a portion of a layer...and as such can be manipulated or deleted. So, by the standard definition of masks (in other CG applications), we do not have MASKS in 3D Coat. We have STENCILS, and they should be named as such.

Stamps are just that...taking an image and STAMPING/PROJECTING it onto the object. Calling it Materials instead just confuses what it does, to anyone new to 3D Coat. To compound the problem, you already have a popup called Materials that does something entirely different.

I can understand why renaming would make sense for a major tool (ie, Curves tool is essentially the equivalent to ZSpheres in ZB), but common tools across applications should be standardized as much as possible, in my opinion. We all use multiple apps and being FORCED to relearn the naming convention for common tools...just to be different...makes it harder on everyone, in the final analysis.

Renaming "Smooth Stroke" to "Interpolate" is a good example of this. Hiding AutoRetopo, a MAJOR feature in 3D Coat, in the right-click menu of the Vox Tree is a good example of tools not being placed in the most logical locations. Anyone evaluating 3D Coat would expect to find AUTO RETOPO in the....that's right...the RETOPO room. No? People who aren't even aware that you can do Booleans in Surface mode, will suddenly discover it simply by seeing the button labeled properly.

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+1 AbnRanger

3DCoat, blender, zbrush have something common. Makes you feel completely idiot. Then geniuses came to save you. Nice. Reminds me something.

(in blender case, nobody comes to save you, this is the goal. LOL)

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Absolutely agree...

The software is AMAZINGLY feature rich - but understanding the logic around what gets baked to what, and how to manipulate things - is really a bit hap-hazard. I'm completely sure it's just a matter of features evolving, but at some point - someone has to go over and through the interface and make it right... I don't mean make up a new GUI... I mean a re-organization/restructuring of the "rooms".... seriously why are there rooms anyway? look at maya, it has menu-sets but everything is accessed within the same room.

.... one small caveat, I don't think Cut-Off should be called boolean... a boolean is an intersection of two objects, so no it wouldn't make immediate sense to me looking at a tool called boolean that it was a FAST CUTTING tool... however

if it doesn't work with the brushes (X the brushes out, so you immediately understand it's intended for uses with the polygon tools) and perhaps call it FAST CUT, or BOOLEAN CUT... because it doesn't seem to be worth anything special when used as an additive tool.

ramble... sorry... my $0.02, for what it's worth.

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Speaking of which...can we just call it "Boolean?" That is its function and it's immediately clear to everyone what it does.

No, sorry that's not a Boolean Operation.

Boolean Operations by definition need several existing Volumes.

With CutOff you are trimming a Volume with a Curve you are drawing in Realtime.

Also it can only cut away and does none of the numerous other other things Boolean Operations can be used for.

Using the Word Boolean in that Context was plain wrong, trust the Nurbs-Guy. Just once.

You are saying that 3DCoat over-complicates things in some places. I would say that is correct but would not rename this tool-

Instead I would remove it.

We already have Action-Inversion with Ctrl - why do we need a separate Command for already existing functionality?

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Still about liveclay: please add a slight relax to reduce brush. Right now when you've got a pinched pole (lots of poly on a little bump) when you reduce to make the surface smoother it doesn't show. You've to reduce, then smooth. With a small relax (like it does on sculptris) it would eliminate the need to smooth afterward.

I don't know that this is a good idea. If the user just wants to minimize the polycount while maintaining as much of the shape as possible, FORCING the Reduce tool to relax as well, can be counter productive. Maybe have a checkbox option in the Tool Options to enable it to do this.

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No, sorry that's not a Boolean Operation.

Boolean Operations by definition need several existing Volumes.

With CutOff you are trimming a Volume with a Curve you are drawing in Realtime.

Also it can only cut away and does none of the numerous other other things Boolean Operations can be used for.

Using the Word Boolean in that Context was plain wrong, trust the Nurbs-Guy. Just once.

You are saying that 3DCoat over-complicates things in some places. I would say that is correct but would not rename this tool-

Instead I would remove it.

We already have Action-Inversion with Ctrl - why do we need a separate Command for already existing functionality?

That makes sense...I just remember Andrew calling it Booleans in Surface mode, and to me, that seems easier to grasp. But I agree, just removing it altogether and allowing the Inverted checkbox or CTRL key to enable it, would simplify and standardize things within the application.
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You are saying that 3DCoat over-complicates things in some places. I would say that is correct but would not rename this tool-

Instead I would remove it.

We already have Action-Inversion with Ctrl - why do we need a separate Command for already existing functionality?

Very good idea. Should work very well. I think that there is lot of good tips by users how to simplify UI, we just need to collect

them to somewhere where Andrew and Raul can see them.

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That makes sense...I just remember Andrew calling it Booleans in Surface mode, and to me, that seems easier to grasp. But I agree, just removing it altogether and allowing the Inverted checkbox or CTRL key to enable it, would simplify and standardize things within the application.

Maybe Andrew called it this way because it does a Boolean Difference-Operation under the Hood.

So that he in fact needs to create an extrusion from the Curve first and to subtract it from the existing item (both not exposed to the User).

But that's just speculation...

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I just noticed something odd. In the past I would sculpt something in voxels, retopo, move to painting room, then once I'm satisfied that it's OK I would delete all of the voxel layers and save an incremental file so that it would be a smaller file and use less RAM. I just did this with my current project and even with all of the voxel layers deleted the file size is the same 730MB. It does use a lot less RAM though.

Edit: Something else odd. My space bar pop up has stopped working. Even after I restarted 3DC.

Edit 2: after restarting PC space bar works again, maybe it was unrelated.

Edit 3: Nope, lost it again.

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I've been having problems exporting to obj, but maybe I'm doing something wrong. Just going into voxel mode and using the various tools, then trying export to obj. I usually use the 50% reduction and then the export starts. Gets to 90 - 98% and stalls -- program not responding.

I checked the memory usage and the total system is only using about 2.4gb of my 4gb and 3DC using around 900mb. The cpu is around 50% (one core) and stays there. I left on attempt go overnight and it was still at 50% cpu and 98% complete, and this was around 800,000 poly count (50% reduced.)

Tried this with 3.5.19A and it exported successfully in about 5 seconds.

Is this something with the .23 beta or is there something in my workflow I'm missing (been away from 3D-Coat for a couple years)?

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Mac and Linux postponed at least to tomorrow, there are some problems that should be fixed. Win version will be updated too, there are some problems too - undo in LC and crash on voxel simplification in some cases. Fixing it now. If you see something critical to fix until tomorrow, drop it there.

where?

Because a major bug found on OSX build. 32bit disp_map tiff is broken. Probably wrong extension as preview.app of OSX still opens it but converts it to 8 bit. MB or Ps can't open the map. 16 bit .tiff still works though.

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Speaking of which...can we just call it "Boolean?" That is its function and it's immediately clear to everyone what it does. Sometimes I think we are over-complicating things for the user, just for the sake of being different. We won't call a stencil a stencil or a stamp a stamp. It has to be named differently than in other applications. Masks are what you paint to hide or reveal a portion of a layer...and as such can be manipulated or deleted. So, by the standard definition of masks (in other CG applications), we do not have MASKS in 3D Coat. We have STENCILS, and they should be named as such.

Stamps are just that...taking an image and STAMPING/PROJECTING it onto the object. Calling it Materials instead just confuses what it does, to anyone new to 3D Coat. To compound the problem, you already have a popup called Materials that does something entirely different.

I can understand why renaming would make sense for a major tool (ie, Curves tool is essentially the equivalent to ZSpheres in ZB), but common tools across applications should be standardized as much as possible, in my opinion. We all use multiple apps and being FORCED to relearn the naming convention for common tools...just to be different...makes it harder on everyone, in the final analysis.

Renaming "Smooth Stroke" to "Interpolate" is a good example of this. Hiding AutoRetopo, a MAJOR feature in 3D Coat, in the right-click menu of the Vox Tree is a good example of tools not being placed in the most logical locations. Anyone evaluating 3D Coat would expect to find AUTO RETOPO in the....that's right...the RETOPO room. No? People who aren't even aware that you can do Booleans in Surface mode, will suddenly discover it simply by seeing the button labeled properly.

+1000 AbnRanger. I totally agree. why complicate simple things? This statement is true of many tools and actions in 3dcoat. Why? :(

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+1000 AbnRanger. I totally agree. why complicate simple things? This statement is true of many tools and actions in 3dcoat. Why? :(

I believe you can be very sure that Andrew tries to make things as simple as possible!

The Poles we are moving between here is being mostly self explanatory and being very feature-rich and suitable for all sorts of work-conditions.

We all ask for both which makes finding an Optimum a difficult task.

Inapropriate naming of some items may be a factor, I even think it is one of the smaller things to look after.

By far most of what appears worth being improved imo has to do with new Workflows getting hooked up into a GUI and Architecture which originally

wasn't designed for these Tasks. With LiveClay are now at the Edge of new possible workflows which get limited by the existing Room Structure.

Or just look at Autopo: As cool as the feature is: Would you call the current process with its many modal popups anywhere near to elegant?

To me it appears that there's not enough Development-TIme left to constantly work on consistant access for Basic Controls and slim

GUI implementations of new stuff.

To me it would make limited sense to try fixing Usability Barriers simply by listening to User-Imput - the outcome would again be a patchwork

of several different Logical Clusters. Imo at some point a small group of Expert Users from different Industries with great experience

also in other Sculpting Apps and also Photoshop (for the Painting-Features) should sit down with Andrew and a proven GUI-Designer

and cook up something entirely new.

Looking at the Voxel Part of the Application I often find painful that most suggestions on usability improvements come from people with

(apart from 3DC) exclusive SubD-Background. Often, for instance thinking of Transform-Widgets I'd rather find that Controls and Widgets

inspired by Nurbs-Solid and Surface Modeling were more adequate to create and manipulate Voxel-Objects.

I'm by no means saying that Nurbs are any better than Subd's but all sorts of beautiful Widgets which have their logical foundation on the fact that on can

manipulate Objects and Faces, Edges and Vertices as Subobjects are deemed to fail miserably in a volumetric context.

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Everything was running fine until I tried the 3.5.23 [beta]... At first I thought it was that I had just set the tool improperly but after uninstalling the beta and reinstalling 3.5.19 I realized that the Voxel Airbrush tool stopped working under 3.5.23.

Could someone please double check this.. I'm very new to the application and may just have done something wrong.

Version: WIN7 64bit w/CDUA

(Being also new to the forums I had posted this elsewhere, deleted that post already)

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Everything was running fine until I tried the 3.5.23 [beta]... At first I thought it was that I had just set the tool improperly but after uninstalling the beta and reinstalling 3.5.19 I realized that the Voxel Airbrush tool stopped working under 3.5.23.

Could someone please double check this.. I'm very new to the application and may just have done something wrong.

Version: WIN7 64bit w/CDUA

(Being also new to the forums I had posted this elsewhere, deleted that post already)

I couldn't get anything out of the airbrush either. I used to make use of it all the time whenever using custom brushes or materials along with the Stamp tool. It hasn't worked since 3.5.22

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Well I was just using the Voxel airbrush tool so it's work8ing fine here. DX 64 Cuda

I just unsintalled and reinstalled 3.5.23.. Airbrush isn't working on my rig. Win 7 64 bit w/CUDA.

Could it have something to do with the version of graphic's card or driver?

NVIDIA GTX460 with the latest drivers.

OK: I'm getting weird results now.

When I try to use the Voxel Airbrush on the basic initial sphere, nothing happens until I get to the visual horizon of the sphere.

Then the 'extrusion' occurs radiating from the center of the shape. It's driving me crazy....

Here's what I'm getting when I try to use the Voxel airbrush...

http://vimeo.com/27266623

Edited by bolivar
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Updated to 3.5.23A, changes:

- correctes undo and export in LiveClay

- normal work of airbrush and other tools

- updated LC

Win only. Linux&Mac sent to compilation, expected soon.

3.5.23 had too many problems, I hope 3.5.23A will work better.

btw, Raul is there in Ukraine, lives in my flat, things will go better :)

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