3D coat for buildings?

[olahaldor]

I'm thinking of getting 3D coat, but I'm not sure yet. I see 3D coat being used for all kinds of stuff, except structures and buildings. Has anyone used 3D coat for buildings yet? I'm exporting my models from LightWave to the game-engine which X-Plane uses. I need better control of the UV map than what LW can do.

I guess I'd like to see practical examples. A video tutorial if possible.

[Psmith]

Depending upon which form of architectural rendering you will be aiming for, 3D-Coat may offer some solutions - although the trouble lies, not in sculpting a structure, but in creating topology for it, after the fact.

AUTOPO is not designed primarily to create topology for hard surfaced models - but rather, organic ones.

So, architectural construction is possible, but only if you are prepared to do a lot of work in the Retopo Room, manually.

You might want to consider constructing your building models elsewhere, and using 3D-Coat to produce better UV's - then merge the model into the Paint Room for adding textures - then exporting the finished product.

Greg Smith

[cowcrusher]

I'm thinking of getting 3D coat, but I'm not sure yet. I see 3D coat being used for all kinds of stuff, except structures and buildings. Has anyone used 3D coat for buildings yet? I'm exporting my models from LightWave to the game-engine which X-Plane uses. I need better control of the UV map than what LW can do.

I guess I'd like to see practical examples. A video tutorial if possible.

I'm currently experimenting with different approaches to set building using 3D Coat. So far, here's what I'm finding to be the best workflow: block out all the set pieces in 3D using simple primitives (cubes, cylinders, etc) in your 3D program of choice (I use Maya and Cinema4D). Import them into 3DC and begin building up around them with structural detail. Use the initial primitive models as Retopo objects then project the high res voxels to the low res model as a normal/texture map. So far the results are great for objects that are midground to background. Closeup props need a little more attention to detail. Since you're going for an intended game-engine, this method might work well for you, as the low poly objects are required, but you should be able to compensate with creative normal mapping.

Philip Klevestav has some great information on doing something similar using Max and ZBrush, and the exact same principles can be used with 3DC.

http://www.philipk.net/tutorials/materials/materials.html

[olahaldor]

Thank you for replying guys. I'm using LightWave 3D with LWCAD for the buildings, and thought I'd use 3D Coat for UV unwrapping and painting the textures.

Just to get into this (totally) new world of painting instead of applying surfaces to polygons, I tried with something super simple. The UV looks fine after some work and unwrap, but when I start to paint the brick texture is screwing up.

Got anything to give me a kick in the right direction?

Edit

Guess I'm a little trigger happy. Poked around a little and found "Apply UV-set." - that did the trick.