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New user saying hi


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  • Advanced Member

Hi, I'm just getting started with 3d Coat, as per the title, hah hi. I've got a lot of CG experience mostly in FX but I've been more of a generalist for the past year. I've been working on a side project of making a game, and I wanted to do more elaborate models faster. I'm a pretty good hard surface modeler in maya, and an ok organic. I just like hard surface more, so I generally just mess around with that. I've learned Mudbox, and while that was cool, it lacks so many tools for hard surface I found it more useful for just texturing. Thats what lead me to 3d Coat. The selection and straight line tools I saw in the tinker example. So I've comitted to learning it. I put in a request for the company to buy it, and I might have to get it for home too, we'll see. I have 27 days left on the free trial, both at work and home.

Anyway, doing the tutorials, checking out the tools... likin' it.

-Dave

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  • Advanced Member

Its nice that even a new-user-hi messages gets responses. So my issues right now. I've watched tutorial videos and noticed most of them use very few tools and their definitions seems to be a little gray. So I go to the docs. There are 2 sets of docs online (very old) and PDF. I can see they they are both could use help. The online docs could benefit from someone updating them with the PDF material then opening it up to advanced users to edit the WIKI. Its a nice way to spread the task around, since docs are always a pain to keep maintained.

Some tools I think are broken or do the exact same thing as each other. My impression is a few voxel sculpting tools could be concatenated into fewer more versatile tools. I'll make a video and post it with some suggestions and points. I'll post them here then post a few in feature requests even tho they are not requests to add features are much as clean up the voxel sculpting tools.

merge carve & extrude into one tool

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ke5MnyoIajQ&feature=youtu.be

I guess I can't post more links to these videos? um, I'll try in the next post.

merge build and grow, and the difference with airbrush

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03zlQjpKDuA&feature=youtu.be

is the clay tool broken?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MR_yfnT3OU&feature=youtu.be

how smoothing tool should work (answer like the shift smoothing tool)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbwIoa_Yzwc&feature=youtu.be

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Clay tool seem to be then even more like the grow, build airbrush tools. Even tho workflow wise with the spacebar its just as easy to switch tools, but learning and application comprehension (feeling like you know it) I feel like fewest tools that do the most. Airbrush is really just an additive method, and like photoshop it could be a check box. When there are few tools with options people use the tool all the time, then see the options vs trying out clay not getting its difference and never touching it again. As an artist you pick and choose tools and then eventually forget about ones you never found useful.

I see the additive difference between carve and extrude, just not sure when it would be useful to have the carve.

Thanks a lot for the thoughtful response!

...and tried to delete the post but can't seem to find it (probably not allowed to now) at any rate I did comment for it to be removed with a link back here.

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Hi!

Took care of your duplicate post.

Thanks for recording the videos! Like beat said, we're going through the UI, tools and more, streamlining as much as possible, etc. for the eminent release of v4. This type of thing really helps, so keep 'em coming. :)

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Agreed that brush descriptions are currently sketchy.

David ,try carve and extrude with different e-panel settings such as the rectangle over existing detail below, or pull the carve tool along the form and pull out from the form. You'll see other differences.

Try using grow in stamp mode to fill a hole , try doing that with the build tool . Try creating a hole/indent then using the smooth facility of the the grow - now try the same thing with the build tool.Try using build on an empty over layer to an existing voxel layer - then try using the grow tool. The grow tool will add voxels based on the layer below in an empty layer. In other words some of the tools are additive also.

You could merge the airbrush and build together then allow user control similar to ZBrush's picker for orientation modes, to normals , or to camera. At the moment build is to camera, airbrush to normals. Both are useful and can have different parameters set. That said It would be good to see a normal orientation or camera orientation cntrl added per tool regardless.

What seem a little like subtle differences at first become subtle gems, but that's merely my opinion and I know there seems to be a push to simplify and I wonder if the baby will be thrown at with the bath water in attempting this? I've looked at this topic long and hard and always come to this conclusion - that the simplification of tools for new user expectation may and probably will be to the detriment/ functionality loss of the experienced user.

Surely assigning your own preferred toolset is the best route ?

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  • Advanced Member

took me a while to do all those tests, and I see some differences clearly and others match up to what I'm feeling about concatenating brushes.

I see the difference between carve and extrude over details with the e-menu. however that could be a check box. The real question is workflow and learning. Does it make you faster at art creation and is it easier to learn? Easier to learn = more users, faster workflow = happier artists and more Sr level artist adopting the tool. The spacebar is a big step in the right direction, but needs more refinement (of course this is an early or first implementation of it)

Next video talking about the brushes

http://youtu.be/f2p7HEocG8w

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What seem a little like subtle differences at first become subtle gems, but that's merely my opinion and I know there seems to be a push to simplify and I wonder if the baby will be thrown at with the bath water in attempting this? I've looked at this topic long and hard and always come to this conclusion - that the simplification of tools for new user expectation may and probably will be to the detriment/ functionality loss of the experienced user.

this is a great point. I'm thinking make all brushes on euqal ground, like share attrs that can be shared, and take a servey of what's there and figure out what functions define a brush and what functions can be integrated together. Whats still grey to me as a new user is what are the really key differences. Once the differences are defined, it makes it a whole lot easier to take about them.

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@BeatKitano great points. Also everyone please remember that I'm a new user so these suggestions and thoughts should be considered as that, I obviously lack some context. I just want to say I'm not saying it should be changed, I'm saying if we can define the brushes and their uses, then we could point out their differences and similarities. If some have only X difference such as a missing attr then it could be argued that it can be combined. I don't think combining brushes will make peoples art better, only new users understanding easier. If thats the solution there are many ways of teaching and demonstrating the differences. When I feel confident I understand them, I'd be happy to make videos and images in a doc.

here's a simpler example of change (that could annoy long time users so just an idea! hah) Grouping similar brushes

brushOrganisation1.jpg

not exactly this but the idea... also the 1 pixel line between types is intentional

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I noticed that you are using an older version of 3D Coat before the brush engine got an update. The brush strokes are more fluid now...

Link to newest beta with the changes and the new interface, that is still a work in progress. Your suggestions would need go with the new interface...

Also under preferences, select show beta tools to get the LC brushes to show up in surface mode... enable remove stretching for the regular surface brushes. top left corner of interface. In the new beta click on the the "V" by the vox tree tab to switch to surface mode. Surface mode is not voxels but true polygons... LiveClay brushes have dynamic tessalations like Sculptris... You might know this information already but just in case...

Edit: I forgot to mention in the new beta click the circle next to the captial "T" to change the how the brush icons appear, plus you can get the text icons back too. There is a on going positive discussion about the new inferface and suggestions have been flowing... :D

http://3d-coat.com/f...?showtopic=8887

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Oh YES! New interface is a big plus! I love the spacebar update. those quick selects, if they were a feature before I missed it, super handy.

we can move or re-start this thread somewhere else since its not really "new user says hi" and more discussing the details of the voxel sculpting brushes.

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  • Advanced Member

Hi David, with many of the tools the new user is in a "what's in a name?" scenario before they have a mental construct of these tool names per pragmatic function. Some of these key "umbrella" understandings could be better reinforced in the literature I feel.

I created a video some time ago on the concept of thinking of the tools by sculptural functional grouping albeit by comparison to ZBrush for ZBrush users coming to 3Dcoat.

A quick tour of some of the main sculpting brushes in 3D Coat.

A comparison is drawn with related brushes in ZBrush by functional methodology. For example, what are the brushes in 3D-Coat that are similar to ZBrush's Standard Brush (organic builder ) , Clay Buildup Brushes (planar builders) , Trim Dynamics (planar chiselers), Polish Brushes and Movers?

Having a mental map of tools by main function is helpful as most modeling tasks can be achieved with a basic toolset. If you have a familiarity with ZBrush but not yet 3D-Coat these comparisons may be of help in getting you up to speed with some of 3D-Coat's brushes by function.

https://vimeo.com/31297729

I think its more important to find and exemplify each brushes uniqueness

Of note when it comes to brushes their uniqueness can reside also in their smoothing / polishing modes and not merely their default positive or negative modes. The smoothing modes of 3DCoat are one of it's real gems - yet little is made of this.

Also your choice of brush parameter settings per brush and even best brush size may vary per task due to the resolution of your voxels.

As you have seen- add to this the permutations and behavioral changes per brush using different e-panel settings and you have a rather deep topic.

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What about a few different tools with a lot of different settings (which don't nullify each other and are all usefull) AND a preset system to offer specialized variations of those tools to avoid a 40+ tool list ?

Personally I just like to have a big box of different tools that I can grab and use as I need them. I guess a bunch of presets would be pretty much the same thing as that, as long as I didn't have to make all of the presets myself. It would be nice to have a big list of presets that came as defaults when you installed the software for the first time.

Also I wanted to thank The Candy Floss Kid for his great video about 3D-Coat's tools! There were a couple of things that you did there that I had never thought of doing before! Very useful! Big thanks!

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  • 4 weeks later...
  • Advanced Member

just bought my license! I've been telling everyone about it, and how great it is. Once I can prove the need(project dependent) I'm going to get work to buy me a copy there too. Anyway great software glad to be a user! I do have this little fear that version 4 will come out and I'll have bought a day before the cutoff for grace period free upgrade. hah, I guess we'll see.

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Welcome!

Yes, after almost 5 years of using 3DCoat, I find it still very user friendly and has grown very powerful. Not bad for one man and for several months Raul helped with LiveClay.

Has there been some bumps in the road, yes but I know of no software that does not have some bugs. Vue software had plenty in version 9 before version 10 came out. I looked at the long bug list they were fixing at that time.

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