3D-Coat 3.7 updates thread

[philnolan3d]

I'm well aware of that, Phil. What I'm doing here is reporting bugs, redundancies and inconsistencies. The latter two of which, can cause serious confusion to new and existing users alike.

I'm just helping olut with additional info.

[digman]

I not really a shader maker but I made these two shaders to help with not having flat shade at the moment in polypainting. I don't think these will be necessary for long but use them if you want.

"Flat shader" shows more small details in the paintroom but has just a touch of shine to it.

"Flatter shader" is closer to flat shade in the paintroom but hides some of the small details.

Running DX mode

Set primary light to 50 or your perference

Set ambient light to 10 or your perference

Picture is of the default shader (left side of picture) Flatter shader, (right side of picture)

I normally would not run my primary light that low but it works better for the two new shaders and is closer to what you see in the palette is what you get on the mesh. Flat shader renders somewhat better than flatter shader...

Test them out and if you like them" by all means use them.

Drop the two folders under My Documents / 3D-CoatV3 / Shaders /Custom folder for windows users or at least XP users.

Yeah the paint job is crummy but was just to show the difference...

Edit:

I put a picture up of a flat shader render. 3 Default grey color lights

Shader.zip

[space]

The paint room problem remains with the fresh install

The objects only disappear when beta tools are activated.

I filled a Mantis report and made a screencast: http://screencast.com/t/yVvmsFLsVH

--------

Thanks for the shaders digman. I think they are very helpful

[Javis]

Another poly painting bug, Connective/Volume based painting doesn't work correctly with multiple volumes.

[Javis]

Another poly painting bug, the fill tool only works with the selected volume (meaning you must go back to the vox room and use the voxtree, since the voxtree doesn't show up in the paint room), while the brush & airbrush work on all volumes regardless of selection.

[Tser]

I not really a shader maker but I made these two shaders to help with not having flat shade at the moment in polypainting. I don't think these will be necessary for long but use them if you want. "Flat shader" shows more small details in the paintroom but has just a touch of shine to it. "Flatter shader" is closer to flat shade in the paintroom but hides some of the small details. Running DX mode Set primary light to 50 or your perference Set ambient light to 10 or your perference Picture is of the default shader (left side of picture) Flatter shader, (right side of picture) I normally would not run my primary light that low but it works better for the two new shaders and is closer to what you see in the palette is what you get on the mesh. Flat shader renders somewhat better than flatter shader... Test them out and if you like them" by all means use them. Drop the two folders under My Documents / 3D-CoatV3 / Shaders /Custom folder for windows users or at least XP users. Yeah the paint job is crummy but was just to show the difference... Edit: I put a picture up of a flat shader render. 3 Default grey color lights

Tried your shaders, but in Linux, when you Autopo to MV you end up with what looks like multiplied or inverted colors, the default shader doesn't do this.

T.

[digman]

Tried your shaders, but in Linux, when you Autopo to MV you end up with what looks like multiplied or inverted colors, the default shader doesn't do this.

T.

Remember, I'm not a experienced shader maker as quoted. This was used under windows. I ran a few test on my linux OGL version and like a number of shaders that are in 3DCoat they turn green when merging. My shader was no exception. This might be related to my video card, linux version. I do not know if it is a bug . I have not posted a bug report about it.

Make sure you turn off showvoxelsinpaintroom under the view tab in the paint room other wise your bake version will overlay the voxel model and cause gliches.

The displacement map, shader and colors are put on one layer when microvert merging or it seems too which also screws up the colors in my linux verison. Normal map merging respects your layers and will add a few others. You can turn off the shader layer or adjust it's color.

Windows DX version has no problem microvert merging and keeping the shader correctly and added colors plus no problems with normal map merging.

I think we need now for microvert merging to separate the shader , added colors and displacement map on different layers in the paint room when baking the polypaint work.

Polypainting is a new major feature in the current Beta with some bugs and other adjustments that Andrew is working out.

[Zeddicus]

Try checking the Depth Limit box in the E-Panel. That should fix it. As for it being in the wrong place if you do want it that's probably the perspective. If you try switching to orthographic mode with the cube icon in the upper right or 5 on your num pad you should see the shape cut straight through to the other side.

That's what I figured as well, but it kept happening in ortho view which is the mode I normally work in. Now it's working fine today lol. Could just be user error I suppose, but I distinctly remember turning my gird back on to make sure I was in ortho. Then again my memory is starting to fail me. Whatever the case, thanks for taking the time to answer. Much appreciated.

[firemind]

waiting for the osx build of 03c

[Tser]

Andrew, is it possible to have the autopo and or merge to MV paint produce separate layers, one for colour and one for the shader and one for the displacement, because I would like to keep just the displacement on its own layer and also be able to just modify the vertex painting without effecting the original shader colour.

T.

[Javis]

In the same idea: "hide but current" doesn't work in paint room and you also need to bring voxtree into the room for that purpose (alt+click on eye icon)

And you can't sample color from another volume, you have to select it and the sampled color doesn't carry to the other volume, each volume has it's own color sample.

I also noticed this.

[simmsimaging]

I've been out of the loop a bit lately and am just seeing all these posts about voxel painting. I'm wondering if this is supposed to replace the other two painting methods, or are those still slated for the improvements we were discussing not long ago, and that Andrew acknowledged needed some love?

/b

[philnolan3d]

It can't replace the current paint room since A. it is the current paint room and B. that would remove all painting on poly models like game objects.

[simmsimaging]

It can't replace the current paint room since A. it is the current paint room and B. that would remove all painting on poly models like game objects.

Yeah, I didnt ask if it would replace the paint room, but rather if this is intended to be the 'fix' for the other methods within it, or not. It's not clear to me how this is intended to slot into the current workflows, or slot into the path of development for painting in 3DC. It's an interesting function, and I will certainly check it out, but my concern is that we end up with a 3rd semi-finished paint system rather than 1 finished one. I'm all for whichever works, as long as there is one that fully works, if you know what I mean.

/b

[philnolan3d]

Ah yes, sorry I missunderstood.

[simmsimaging]

Ah yes, sorry I missunderstood.

No worries

Had a quick play and it does seem very promising. It seems more responsive with high res brushes and large brush sizes than the other paint methods, and the lack of UV hassles is nice for sure. I'm a bit iffy on always having to voxelize models to paint though - as that process always seems lossy to me (in terms of sharp details). Perhaps that's just a matter of learning the process better, but the docs are not very extensive and it's not clear to me how to really tweak that process.

Anyway, it's cool, but had a few questions if someone wouldn't mind explaining a couple of things:

1) how do I increase the res of the painting - by increasing the voxel res *before* going to surface mode?

2) how do you get the painting out of there and into a texture map and model you can render in, say, Max and Vray?

Thanks in advance

/b

[philnolan3d]

Lack of UVs is a mixed blessing. There are benefits but also downsides like not being able to work on it in 2D (including the link to Photoshop). You can increase res even better with the LiveClay tools, then it's exactly where you need it. To export it you still need to retopo, uv, and merge to the Paint room from the Retopo menu. It's really just the same as before when merging with one of the shaders.

[haikalle]

The main problem with ptex is that 3d render softwares dosen't yet support it. Like 3d studio max if I understand it right, there is no ptex support in max. so I can imagine that it's hard to see the potential

of Ptex. But there is already many renderer that supports it and results are more freeing that limiting experience.

[artman]

When viewed against the ability to paint in both 3D and 2D mode (regular painting), Voxel Painting will lose it's shininess before long.

I completely disagree with you.

Andrew spent like what ....2 weeks ??adding this so what is the problem here?

Anyway,what bad does it do to you??

Does it hurts you?I mean you already have a MB license so you can paint with uvs at the speed you require.

Is vertex painting hurting you or something?

Frankly Don, you seem to be the only one here that thinks vertex painting is just another new shiny toy..

If Andrew could increase speed significantly right now he would do it...if he doesnt is probably like he said, because it would require a very long time of dedicated work and would only result in a barely noticable performance increase.

Programming is like art,sometimes you need to wait until inspiration come....

Ptex required the model to be displaced,thus needing a very accurate topology to match the hires

as we all came to know it is pretty hard to get artifact free displaced mesh in 3DCoat ,

especially when thin areas are involved.

Vertex painting is much better than Ptex in that regard,

I mean its much more straightfoward and since we can increase res locally using LC

we get more or less the same flexibility as Ptex..

Anyway we get your point..you think vertex painting is just another new feature.Ok.Alright.

No need to say it a thousand times...we get it.

[Zeddicus]

In the grand scheme of things, I think it's a lot like Ptex was...seemed to have a lot of potential, but in every day workflows, not a lot of value. I just never find myself using Ptex as it's too limiting, and the UV layout process in 3D Coat is so fast

I agree that Ptex isn't very useful right now, but I'm positive it will become so in the near future. Next to 64-bit, I believe ptex is one of the features most asked for over a ZB Central. Ptex has a lot going for it beyond just being a time saver, and with Mudbox becoming so tightly integrated with Autodesk's other products, adding full ptex support to them becomes a no brainer. Maya already supports the ability to preview it in the viewport, and 3ds Max has the stripes plugin (a bit buggy and underdeveloped, but it works). I suspect everything will support it natively within a year or two. Hopefully that's not just wishful thinking on my part. I can also see why people who prefer to work in 2D won't care for it, but projection painting is becoming so good that not being able to work on flattened textures isn't all that big of a loss IMHO, and with a program like 3D Coat it's still useful if you like creating stencils and compositing. In fact painting is what finally sold me on 3DC in the end. I also think that some form of automatic localized flattening might be feasible. Then it's just a matter of sending that to a 2D editor and back. I'm no programmer though, so I don't know what the limits might be to this. I know there is a Mudbox video showing something along these lines already (using Photoshop) and the process looked fine to me. I also agree about refinement though, which is something we can never have too much of lol.

PS: I discovered what film the t-rex example on the official ptex site is from. It was

, and by happenstance I caught it over the weekend. Funniest part of the movie by far and had me in stitches lmao.

Edit:

Vertex painting is much better than Ptex in that regard, I mean its much more straightfoward and since we can increase res locally using LC we get more or less the same flexibility as Ptex

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Ptex can handle that just fine too.

[artman]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Ptex can handle that just fine too.

Read back my sentence.

Vertex painting is much better than Ptex in that regard, I mean its much more straightfoward and since we can increase res locally using LC

we get more or less the same flexibility as Ptex

Its pretty obvious that Im implying Ptex can do that too.

My point was that Ptex require displacing a lower res topology and its very hard to achieve good displacemnt in 3Dcoat unless topology is has absolutly no tricky areas.This is why vertex painting is much straightfoward...you can paint right away,without a projected carcass mesh.

[artman]

I weighed in before, that long standing requests/complaints about issues in 3D Coat have gone ignored in favor of this. And you and I both know it's been more than 2 weeks and it's only gotten started. After trying it out...my opinion still reflects that sentiment. It's cool, but it doesn't give me any real benefit over what I could do before. Everybody's all giddy about getting a cool new toy and all, but at the end of the day, it is what it is. Another Ptex.

And you know what? It does bother me. It bothers me to have to keep asking, and asking, and asking for the performance issues to get the attention it needs. Being able to paint/sculpt with a moderately large brush without it sputtering...on a $2000 desktop isn't so much to ask, is it? What does it say when Andrew replies to our concerns with the response that there is nothing wrong with the Fill tool...it only takes a 1.5 minutes (?). There's a MAJOR disconnect here. And when folks keep asking for this and that before the major problems get addressed, it just compounds the frustration. A good example is multi-threading. People kept asking for stuff like Ptex when you had this gaping freakin hole in the Voxel Room switching between Volume and Surface mode. I had it take overnight and still not finish!!! I was mad as hell about that. If me and XFS had not fussed OVER AND OVER about it, you'd still have that problem...because Andrew was VERY reluctant to do the Multi-threading work.

Yes, I had to be a pain in the bum, but on rare occasion that is exactly what is needed to get the most glaring issues addressed. Like Multi-threading, CUDA being updated and utilized fully throughout the app will benefit EVERYBODY...ALL THE TIME! Do you understand where I'm coming from now? Why sell CUDA as a feature of 3D Coat if you're going to just let it rot on the vine? It was added around CUDA 1.x which has since grown to 4.1. None of the new developments in CUDA have since been utilized, because it hasn't been re-compiled to utilize them. Andrew stated well over a year ago,after the work on the brush engine, that it wasn't updated yet. A lot of us here have wasted $$$ on hardware (such as NVidia cards JUST for CUDA) in order to get more juice out of the application. When that hardware doesn't even get fully utilized by the software then yeah, it does bother me.

You ask why I don't just use something else? I have invested a lot of time in 3D Coat...both in use and bug reporting, etc, the SpacePilot support (hate to use an application that doesn't), and most importantly I much prefer to stay in one application instead of bouncing around. So, to me, it's worth having to kick up a fuss here once every few years and wrestle with the bugs from time to time. But if this pattern of ignoring what's most important in favor of what's flashy, continues, I suppose I'll have to move on...like many of the regulars on here have.

Andrew already said that updating cuda would result in such a small performance improvement that unless he told you you wouldn't notice....

Give it a break already.

Posting your opinion is ok...but posting about it a dozen times won't make it more clear to Andrew or us.

You think Vertex painting is useless....we don't.

Just for fun Hold a poll...Call it:Do you think vertex painting is another new flashy toy Yes? or No?

Results will speak for themselves.

[3DCNC]

I understand your views . The reason I like the direction 3Dcoat is taking, is because I want to create Characters without getting bogged down with technical stuff. I don't use 3dcoat for games or animations, but hoped to use its power to create files for 3d cutting on a cnc. It would be great to have software that you can jump into without having to learn about uv,retopography......I also love Zbrush, but found it a bit difficult to get into. It had more power than I needed, but also had a steep learning curve with its quirky interface.

Unlike everyone here, I like the different "rooms". It allows me to only see the tools I need for a particular task.

I use very expensive software to control my cnc which is not "perfect", I also get frustrated when bugs don't get resolved or "obvious" features are not implimented, but I have faith that 3dcoat is moving in the right direction. Its just difficult to keep everyone happy during development.

Watching 3dcoat develop is exciting, because its trying to follow its own path rather than playing catchup to the more established brands.

I have never found a perfect piece of software , that is why I use 4 different cnc cutting programs

Andrew and his team are amazing. thanks for keeping us up to date with 3dcoat development.

[artman]

Artman...I stated that my views on it had not really changed after trying it. You started in, so I suggest you give it a rest. Andrew felt the same way about Multi-threading. It had a much bigger impact than anyone expected. Assuming what benefit there would be by updating CUDA (from 1.x to 4.1) and utilizing it elsewhere in the application would be no different. It cannot be that miniscule, because both Mudbox and Mari use the graphics card, and neither have the lag 3D Coat currently has. He won't fully know until he's compiled the darn thing, so save your lectures, please.

Yeah you are probably more right than Andrew regarding Cuda matters....

[manticor]

No offence Abn

but there are plenty of decaffienated brands on the market that taste just as good as the real thing......

[mercy]

I would like to see in 3D-Coat:

1. multiple Voxel layers can be painted separately or together, exported as 3b or FBX or LWO, imported one by one.

2. can import into the main 3B file all separately painted voxel parts as layers to get all parts together

3. Once all my voxelpainted object parts are imported: BOOLEAN them or merge together selected layers with paint so that these layers keep paint AND sculpt detail: because I plan to do sculpted & painted details for retopo and normal/diffuse/etc -bake like this:

[manticor]

I think your wish will be resolved at the next update according to what andrew has already tweeted.Im waiting for the same thing.Its gonna be a very big milestone in the era of 3D graphics.

[michalis]

@mercy

You can do this with existed 3dcoat version. At least I was able, one and a half year ago. On a 32 bit build without cuda. And a rather more difficult subject than this.

I think that voxels direct painting (and sculpting) serves a slightly different need. To be able to 3d sketch directly without concept. If the concept is already clear, if a detailed reference exists, then a typical voxels/retopo/PPP can do the job perfectly.

[Gravin]

I know this will probably get shot down by most users who favor cuda or who have already invested in Nvida hardware but I think it might be a bit more benificial for Andrew to develop gpu acceleration for 3d-coat using opencl. I know this would mean more work for Andrew but if he could get an opencl build optomized for Nvidia cards first then work on adding optomization for AMD cards he would draw attention from a larger group of users.

[Gravin]

Personal comment: Yes, a larger group including ATI users complaining about poor performances in opencl... cause... no, nevermind.

We already have so much random crashes/import crashes, stroke issues with cuda, I can't imagine what it would be like if opencl were to be added now...

Yeah, I could see that being an issue, Ideally the implementation would be thourough and focused on just the one language, there is always room for improvement and growth with software development so having kinks here and there would be natural. I think you would get less intense opinions about the bugs and lack of functionality using a open platform since there would be fewer users who purchuse special hardware just to use gpu accelleration. I think that if Andrew is interested in addressing the issues with cuda it might make more sense to adopt OpenCl. I'm not a programmer though, and I understand that opencl is a bit more work in some instances, but it seems to offer the broadest support for different hardware.