3D-Coat 3.5 updates thread

[digman]

Ok, I tested both CleanSurface and CleanUpMemory.

Results are postive on the stretching issue using just the "Move Tool" brush

CleanUpMemory, Outwardly you do not notice any change in the mesh when using so it would an internal routine to help with the problem.

CleanSurface, you can see some change like the the polys get relaxed and it appears that some are added to the mesh. Andrew would have to confirm this.

If I do get bumps due to stretched polys this is what I do so far.

I will run cleansurface and then cleanupmemory.

I can now smooth out the bumpy surface or if I continue to use the move tool, the little bumps work themselves out in most cases.

I would run both features,ever once in while just to keep this moving along.

The picture is of a doodle, that I took from 250,000 polygons to 1.450.000 million using the move tool only without much trouble... very smooth, very fast so I am liking very much how the move tool works in conjunction with remove stretching

Also the pinching brush in surface works very well with remove stretching...

We got voxels, LiveClay in development and now the remove stretching (aka "remeshing")also in development.

I see new workflows for me coming down the tube. Voxels for bulk work, surface for medium work, and LiveClay for all the fine details

Great work and many thanks to both Andrew and Raul...

[farsthary]

Many thanks to artist

when you show your artwork is a big pushing toward motivation for us!

Aha, thanks for that. So the workflow is similar to dynamesh where you use Live clay to sculpt out your basic shapes and forms and then use voxels for fine detailing? Or is fine detailing not an issue for Live clay?

LiveClay has no issue for fine detailing, in fact it was it's main reason to be

Are there tools that need to be "in voxels" to work with the advances we've seen in liveclay?

Yes, there are tools that will always be tied to the voxel technology and are unique on his own, I like voxels as much as I like polygons, both have advantages and disadvantages (in voxels you have the great toothbrush, muscle, etc) I think the main strength of 3DC is to combine the best of both worlds: Surface (Polygons) and Voxels in a way that the competence is trying to get there now :P

what I agree is on perform a more unifying process in the surface mode itself and eventually we will get there and RemoveStretching is the first step toward that, is a pure LC feature that has being hooked into pre-existing tools, in a similar way more LC features can be fused with them

Cheers

[simmsimaging]

Many thanks to artist

when you show your artwork is a big pushing toward motivation for us!

Great work on the new features.!

I'm more of a lighting/render/materials guy so I don't have much to show in the way of modeling (always used 3DC just for texturing) but I'm really loving the voxel/LiveClay workflow for creating liquids. Here's a current one I'm working on for a chocolate splash/swirl. Just pulled it all out of a cube primitive and really didn't take that long. Some other fluids that need to be thinner/finer might be more difficult with Voxels/LC but I haven't tried yet. This mesh is around 10 million tris and would need more to get a lot finer than it is now.

Anyway, I've been using Zbrush for this a lot lately and even with dynamesh there are issues for me with getting fine enough detail (due to the res cap in dynamesh). In many ways it's easier to get what I want with 3DC these days, which is a great thing IMO.

That said, I'm all for simplifying the UI and various pipelines possible with 3DC. It's a bit chaotic in there

/b

[XRA]

I agree that there might be some redundancy in the voxel and surface tools, but I would not want to lose the voxel + surface workflow. I really like being able to switch to surface mode and make changes, hit enter, and have it update the voxels, same with liveClay. I guess I still treat liveClay carefully, it seems like overkill to be sculpting 100% with it and ignoring the voxel mode.

Rather than strip out features I'd much rather have clearer communication of how brushes differ to other brushes, and more control over adjusting the brushes. It would be nice if each brush were just built from smaller components, and the user could see the components and insert/remove other behavior to create more custom brushes. The brushes feel a bit "hardcoded" in a way currently.

Anyway, not demands.. just my opinion on it from where I'm at with learning, I'm still trying to keep up with all the latest improvements that continually get added to this tool!

[digman]

After working for awhile with remove stretching activated the mesh broken apart.

The picture shows the result.

I used clean surface, close surface holes and clean up memory in that order and then the mesh broke apart.

Tools I was using with remove stretching turned on. I could not tell you really any order I was using them as I was having more fun than testing. I did not keep a track of the order.

Surface tools

Move, Clay and Mud2.

LC tools.

Inflate with merge, real time activation turned on.

[Andrew Shpagin]

What was the reason "remove stretching" was created? What is its role in the bigger picture?

95% for Move tool. Also usual surface tools are still faster a lot than LC tools because they don't modify topology dynamically.

So they are better in some cases when you need speed rather then level of details.

Of course all this requires UI cleanup, it is obvious.

So we plan to do custom brush that can be cloned and modified.

What now done can be rather called "technological preview".

If you have clear idea how UI should look, I will gladly accept.

[polyxo]

If you have clear idea how UI should look, I will gladly accept.

Hello Andrew,

the visual representation of the GUI is very important, no question. I very much graphically pleasing GUI's.

But I believe it just the cosmetic side of things.

The main conceptual work should happen one or two levels deeper.

Please do not take this as an offense but one can feel that a clear overall Vision by it Makers

of how this Program should work, feel and look in say 2 years is missing. It seems you are too involved

with all other Labour-Intensive tasks and Support.

With features such as Autopo or LiveClay gets visible that you guys are fabulously capable programmers and

Workflow-Inventors. It is evident to anyone that you are very serious Bug-Chasers and spend

a lot of time for Detaiil-Improvements. But to me it seems equally evident that a great amout of questions remain unanswered:

Is our our primary focus user-friendlyness?

Or do we want to expose as many Tools and Tweak-Options as even the nerdiest Pro could desire?

Do we want to try both?

What could trying both mean in Detail? How can we create a clean looking and greatly usable first experience which still allows drilling down to give ultimate fine-tuning options?

How can we leave some room in here for future developments so that the program doesn't look cluttered again in version 4.5?

Should we guide our users by offering a sequential Work-Concept?

This at least is what the current Room-Structure suggests...

Also Sculptris has this Linearity. One has to decide: Yes, I'm finished with Sculpting, I now start Painting.

Results of this Linearity are Sculptris's ease of use and small learning curve, but it is at the same time the cause

for it's limitation: One can not do any large changes in a late state of a project.

Or do we want to get truly nonlinear?

Let users freely do whatever they like and in any thinkable sequence?

Import existing Geometry or start from Scratch. Start painting right away, tune Material apearance by rendering,

do UV's or Ptex later? Allow best as possible re-use of existing Paint/UV Information after doing great geometry changes

late in the process. This is underlying idea in Zbrush. This very much puts existing Room-Concept into question.

Do we risk removing some obsolete or redundant functionality/brushes for the sake of simplification at the cost that some users will cry?

(people will cry - regardless of what you'll do...) Do we even go further and abolish the extremely well hidden Sub-Room of the Voxel-Workspace

and truly integrate Voxels and Polygons? Even in a way that Users don't have to think much about the Geometry-Paradigms any more?

Again a Zbrush strategy... How could such work?

How do we improve Feedback given by the Software?

At what point of the overall process am I now?

Is this 97% of Preprocessing stage 1 or 97% of the whole requested Process?

In other words - is there time left to go to the Coffee-Machine?

How does the user get feedback in terms of "your Input registered, thank you" ?

Just change the Navigation Scheme from one to another - one doesn't any Clue if it worked out or not.

Or increase Ptex resolution. Again - no feedback when it is done...

How many Popup windows do we show and in what way?

How do we deal with with Popups in Processes where we want to comunicate some kind of Wizard

structure(such as in Autopo). How could the same thing happen in a less obstructive way?

How can Widgets be improved, both functionality wise and in terms of being less obstuctive?

Do they scale or not, 2D or 3D Lines or Mesh Representation, coloured or not. Currently a mess.

How do we improve the feeling of "Snappiness" for each and any tool? How do we get rid of any delay?

That's extremely crucial too for the User-Experience. Darn waiting for Layers to be switched on and off...

The list could go on but I have to run now.

I only want to express that one could easily spend a month or more just thinking about optimizations of Tools implementation.

A month without even opening a Graphics Program. In the past there were a couple of Guys already who offered solving

software-architectural problems with Photoshop. Such would just be Skinning, nothing more. Hopefully it is understood that

useful solutions can't be anywhere near that easy.

[haikalle]

I think that it would be better to create new thread for UI

[Digital777]

For a new GUI i also suggest making updates to the important things now rather than changing them later. I am of course talking about the Preset and Resource systems -

http://3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=7912&st=240&p=68499entry68499

http://3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=7912&st=240&p=68516entry68516

I have seen lots of requests for updates to these now, to me these 2 things are probably my main dislikes of 3DC's GUI as they don't allow for a good workflow but these should really both be key features.

I have a load of textures and brushes yet with 3DC's Resource system i haven't added many custom brushes because i find the process of adding content very slow and annoying. I also can't use sub folders which is a major disadvantage as i have a very organized texture/brush folder structure yet i am forced to change this to a very un-organized setup with a long listing of single folders if i add content to 3DC. The resource system really has to change in my opinion.

As for presets last time i tested them they didn't seem to help much, as it is not based around each tool separately i found i had to name the presets with the tool names so i could actually know what i made them for originally. I also found there was bugs in that for voxel tools it was saving them like they were for paint mode.

Ideally for a preset system for each separate tool you would have a visible drop-down list to quickly select a preset to use and manager to save to a single file or set and rename or edit etc. Then in a useful location it would have the files which we could share on the forum here and people could download them and simply place them in a folder to have the new presets ready to use.

[Digital777]

I was going to edit my post but it's not letting me for some reason but i was going to add -

Other than that i would say another thing needed is that switching to Surface/LiveClay is not very obvious, so since it will be a major feature there should probably be a more visible way to do it than clicking a tiny icon, new users probably won't be able to find it until they ask on the forum etc.

[Phizter]

I think that it would be better to create new thread for UI

Thats a very good idea. Maybe even a new sub forum under Resources & Development category.

[polyxo]

Thats a very good idea. Maybe even a new sub forum under Resources & Development category.

There's been tons of very long GUI Improvement threads already over the years.We don't need yet another one.

I think it is necessary to start taking the topic Software-Usability very serious and to devote quite a bit of Time for it.

Also Software-Architecture-Development (and that's what it actually is) really does not make sense as a collaborative

Forum Project.

[Digital777]

The current GUI is ok and useable but it could be much better and more organized, it also needs to aim at making things simple and quick to use. A good GUI should also use regular standards that other high end graphics software has. For example with 3DC's resource system it would be nice to just use a regular file tree structure with sub-folder listings rather than single folders and files needing to be manually added, in my opinion there is "no need to reinvent the wheel" as the saying goes.

I like decent customization options but that doesn't mean the GUI has to be complex really as a lot of that can be hidden in menus and tabs etc. For a new GUI template options would be good also, the way Adobe does it is a good example of that as they had different setups for different tasks. So while something like Photoshop has many uses people can select a Painting mode, Image editing mode or document making mode etc or just save and use any custom layouts they have. You can do this with 3DC now but there is not really a visible on screen way of switching the workspace in the way Adobe does it.

I don't know if Andrew has seen it but there was recently a thread about QT -

http://3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=8799

Maybe something like this could be used, big names/projects using it include Autodesk, The Foundry, DAZ Studio, Google Earth, Skype etc so it's very good and also has decent scripting options which would be good if 3DC were ever to get user scripting.

[Phizter]

There's been tons of very long GUI Improvement threads already over the years.We don't need yet another one.

I think it is necessary to start taking the topic Software-Usability very serious and to devote quite a bit of Time for it.

Also Software-Architecture-Development (and that's what it actually is) really does not make sense as a collaborative

Forum Project.

Hi Poloxyo, I think you are absolutely right when you say that it is time to focus on Software-Usability. To some extend I also agree that it makes no sense to do that as a collaborative forum Project. At some point someone will have to decide what goes and what stays, a democratic vote is not cutting it here. However Andy and Farsthary obviously need some input from the users. Until now they have gotten a lot of input via this community, but the input is not particular organised and my guess is that it is close to impossible to translate all of this input into useful data that can be used as a vehicle for the Software-Usability improvements.

A sub forum under the Resources & Development category might help in gathering all this information. But then again, maybe that too will just explode and become one big mess in no time.

But really, we should ask Andy and Farsthary how they prefer to get this input, after all they are the ones that are going to translate this into the most awesome User Interface ever.

[kay_Eva]

I hope Andrew listens to Farsthary and Haikalle when it comes to GUI - which brings me to my next point. Instead of a free for all discussion why don't we have a poll where we can "elect" a "GUI Commission" in order to help Andrew improve GUI. Having 5-6 people that we have confidence in work intensively on the GUI would be better than random thoughts flying all hither and thither.

[PalSan]

I totally agree with polyxo

+100

[AbnRanger]

Without writing a novel for everyone to read, here is my take on the UI. Presets = YES. Consolidation of similar functioning tools = YES. Location of tools in the most logical place (ie. AutoPoly should had a button to initiate it within the Retopo Tool Panel)= YES. Total reorganization of the UI Layout = NO. Andrew only has a finite amount of time to develop features and stabilize the application. Diverting time and energy to such a massive undertaking would be counterproductive, IMO.

I actually prefer the 3DC UI over ZBrush's any day of the week.

[BurrMan]

What i think is good, you think is horrible. What you think is horrible, I really like! The Gui belongs to the developer.

[Tser]

I think a GUI based on Qt would be fantastic and easier to cross platform, but Andrew is one man and the existing GUI is O.K. to get the work done, if he had the resources of Autodesk then I would expect such a GUI but you have to be practical.

T.

[philnolan3d]

Remember, not only autodesk uses Qt, a lot of smaller companies do as well. I believe Unity is Qt. When it was around LightWave Core was also based on Qt. I suggested it to Andrew back when 3.0 was new, but he said his current ui could do all the same things. While it does do a lot of the same, I don't think it's as clean or fluid feeling.

[AbnRanger]

Maybe he can get the MAC/Linux guy to work on switching the whole UI to QT, that way he'll work his way out of a job. Oh wait....

Seriously though, the cross-platform capability would make life easier on Andrew, I think. This way, he'd not have to hear it from all the MAC users, waiting on their update.

[Digital777]

One of the biggest problem with 3DC is actually nothing to do with the program but more that there is less time available for the developers to work on things. So as AbnRanger says the cross platform part of QT could be a major advantage as it could maybe make building to multiple platforms much quicker.

An additional advantage is with things like QT is if new platforms appear in the future it is likely they would be added to QT so rather than needing to re-make the whole thing again you would save all that time. They would also allow the mobile platform so maybe 3DC could have a few simple tools like voxel model viewers or shortcut controllers etc, company's like Autodesk and Adobe do that type of thing with the iPhone for example.

Of course the down side to changing the GUI to QT is that it might take some time to get it all in place but even if that was the case with all the advantages it offers it might save a load of time in the grand scale of things so it's definitely worth considering at least.

[Digital777]

It's not my thread but i have also noticed this before and forgot to report it, Extrude and CutOff can sometimes result in artifacts when you use curve shapes -

http://3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=8821

[vivi]

It seems version 3.5.27As AUTOPO became very slow!!

Can someone confirm this?

Actually not, just the progressing window won't move or close... bug? Once I turn the viewport it updates

Edited October 31, 2011 by vivi

[Tser]

Us Linux guys would also like to try a more recent version...

[XRA]

64bit 27A non-cuda Surface tools are really slow for me, anyone else? Like, unusable slow... LiveClay works faster than any of the tools in Surface mode.

[arthurkilo]

64bit 27A non-cuda Surface tools are really slow for me, anyone else? Like, unusable slow... LiveClay works faster than any of the tools in Surface mode.

Same issue here with 27 and 27A,it is more of a complete freeze for a few seconds than a slowdown though.

[Digital777]

I testing with Cuda and notice this also, the LiveClay tools seem much faster. Recently there has been some posts saying that performance optimizations are on the way, hopefully these performance optimizations will apply to the regular Surface tools also.

http://twitter.com/Farsthary

"LC still have a lot of room for performance optimization, aggressive optimizations hasn't been done yet "

"I've made small performance gains in dynamic topology...."

"Speed improvement in CleanSurface and CloseSurfHoles"

Talking about the standard Surface tools i think a few of these that have 2 tools like Rapid, Scratches and Mud could be merged so they are each just a single tool but with a dialog where you can adjust a few options to change the way they work.

[Andrew Shpagin]

Linux build 3.5.27A uploaded. Mac build comes in hours.

[renderdemon]

About the Wacom problem I have(confirmed also with another computer and with my old wacom intuos 3), I have found that liveclay subdivides correctly the mesh,it simply doesn't draw the depth of the stroke,the surface seems as before the stroke but if you look with W key you see that the path of the stroke is subdivided correctly.

The CleanUpMemory command works really well,thanks.

EDIT:

On Linux my wacom works really good,no problem at all,so probably is something about vista.

Linux version is amazing !