Ghostdog

Sounds a great deal to me, good pricing and the prize is a good sweetener. I've owned the Intuos4 Small for a few months now and have been really happy with how well it functions - easy to learn too and it soon becomes second-nature.

Playing with 'form'

btw, don't forget to send an email about the 50% off offer @ launch.

Appreciate healthy-skepticism Phil. Good to see an appropriate response. Didn't dig too much but couldn't see any pricing info.... have seen some so called 'photo-modelers' with "What-the???!!!" price tags.

I had the most success by ignoring 3DC's native STL export and working with .OBJ instead. I knew I would be taking the model into Blender (just to use the very handy script that runs & calculates your models cost. awesome!) Quads & density etc: I have probably spent much more time experimenting with the quadrangulation & optimize-on-export tools than I'd care to admit. Unfortunately it's difficult to give tips on as it is completely dependent on your needs. Also it helps to know the limitations of the rapid-prototype base material used. My two tests used a 2mm minimum thickness, so every shape & curve had to be within tolerants just to ensure strength. My tests aren't good for showing off detail but if you search for Jake's Scrimshaw skull you'll see a brilliant little sculpt! It seems a pity to say that so far most of our experiences are trial and error based, but if that journey still gets you to the destination, so be it

http://www.3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=4168&view=findpost&p=32684 http://www.3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=3386&view=findpost&p=26562 http://www.3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=4342&view=findpost&p=33721 Hi Warren, some of us have made a few posts about 3DCoat and 3d printing via Shapeways.com I'm not sure if your requirements differ. You did receive a reply to your original post from the software author within 15mins of posting. You're right, this is a friendly forum. Cheers & good luck, Robbie

Tested site on 3G mobile broadband service at max 5-bars connection speed. Main page took about a minute to load, I'll try again later once home. It took me a while to find the gallery. You should show off more than tucking it away under a Community link! Gallery = your showcase of the best images users have made. Site was friendly to netbook screens. I personally prefer more white in page designs. Don't want to too negative but after the little flash applet finally loaded I was surprised to see it was just higher res images of the thumbs below. Perhaps should have a mixture of feature & gallery styles in the applet? Good luck Robbie Update - tested at home and first-time load took 30secs so I must've had a poor connection earlier.

Nice one Jake will keep my beady eye on things Did you get my link the other day to the full-colour printing update at Shapeways? I wanna see one of yours in colour Sheesh I've not created anything in 3DCoat this week, curse you real-life!

Friends, Romans, Countrymen! I am pleased to have seen an update in 3d printing technologies, now we can add full colour printing to the list of features. If I arrange any voxel sculpts to be test printed you'll see an update to this thread, and please feel free to also post your own here also. Yay! http://www.shapeways.com/materials/fullcolor Sincerely, Robbie

Chris this is a good point. Development must consider two types of users with regards to any functionality introduced, it doesn't matter if it is related to the GUI or not, both are equal. Type 1: Existing user. How do they behave with the current system or functionality? If this enhancement, change or addition is similar in any way at all to another tool, that user will assume it works the same. They are relying on prior program learnings and knowledge. Type 2. New User. Perhaps needing two subsections? Sub1 = those who do not read the manual and guess they way through. They will expect the tool to work similar to software they already know. If all else fails they may expect it to "work just like Photoshop" Sub section 2 is those who read the manual, they may still apply prior learnings from other tools! It is natural and efficient to expect different tools to behave in a similar ways! Chris makes a good point that if ignored is dangerous! Imagine this: BMW invents the worlds fastest car that goes 0 - 100mph in 2 secs flat, they also decide to put the accelerator pedal in the middle because it looks cool having it illuminated by the other speed-sensitive pedals. What is going to happen? Consider the user always. Always expect them to know less than you. Never write the software documentation once. If the code changes so should the documentation. However, 3dCoat must be given credit for a fantastic change in Documentation layout & UI in the version changes between 2 & 3. It always needs more improvement though. It does not matter how many tools are in your toolbox if you forget how to open it. I care about this software. Robbie

Used puters since the days 386's needed math's co-processors purchased as optional upgrades and I've been the owner of my first ever ATI card for the past few months, all other cards Nvidia. I currently have an ATI 4850 in a Dell i7 920 and I have no complaints at all. Use 3dCoat, Vue 8 Infinite, Carrara 7 Pro, Quicktime Pro, FXHome, all the usual 2d editors etc. The only thing is I do not use a compositor like mentioned above, and I also do not game with the machine. I have had one bluescreen crash in about 5months. No other issues, glitches other than the (I'm half-kidding here) Usual 3dCoat new installation gremlins. Your experience may vary of course, theres millions of variables that come into play here. Group Hugs everybody

I am still learning how to get a good depth pass from Vue but I know it's much quicker using Photoshop. There are some stunning images on Richards site! It's my birthday today so might just treat myself woohoo Jake - cheers mate, yes I'd given an earlier version of Groboto a good trial. It was pretty good but I thought to myself it might make me too 'lazy' if you know what I mean? Oops forgot to say my re-render is obviously attached. Looks better,no?

Thanks guys - I have some great ideas now I decided to render the initial image at 3000px which I'd normally never do, hoping to reuse parts of the intial as assets in a scaled down version. (These are the slightly blurred ones bottom left corner) Looking at it now I think rendering so large caused me to underestimate the blur needed to get a good DOF. I might try another smaller image with DOF within render (renderer used here was Vue 8 ) I like the idea of the background instead turning into a downward spiraling, almost Saxophone type of tunnel - but with the same texture. It'd be nice to achieve a feeling of immense plunging depth below the close-up viruses Will be massive render times with DOF added but I think worth it

Thanks Taros! It's silly but once again my self-critical nature almost resulted in tossing away the idea & image. *slaps self*

I'm not satisfied with the background & composition but I do like the 'Voxel-Virus' that began as an exercise in poly-reduction optimisation. Cheers, Robbie

I was fortunate enough to score 25% discount on a Dell i7 920 with 8GB, ATI 4850. It has been a pleasant experience, having custom built 3 boxes prior and having the odd self-inflicted hardware accidents. People snort at Dell, but the Warranty is at least on paper, outstanding value. Going from a dual-core 1.66hz laptop with 2GB ram, I can tell you that the difference with 3DCoat is better than you can possibly imagine I spent a month considering custin builds, with SSD and the usual bells & whistles but when I spotted Online Dell let me add a 10% & 15% discount together I went for it.

http://shapeways.com/blog/archives/332-Interview-with-Qi-Pan-about-his-Webcam-3D-scanner-proForma.html An interview with the researcher - a great read.

Hi Artman, this is a great tip and addition to my workflow. Any guesses why I couldn't get extrusion to work at all ? I tried extrusion with Ctrl on both B-splines and drawn contour. Tested on different primitives and layers and E-panel tool types but only "cutting" would ever result. I did set border to Plane as instructed. One possible cause is I use windows Sticky-keys or a mapped mouse-button for my control-key press as I only have one arm. Thanks, Robbie

http://mi.eng.cam.ac.uk/~qp202/my_papers/BMVC09/

Just joined Robbie

In an effort to confess myself out of constant bad habits in 3DC I thought Id share to see if the public humiliation (and fun factor) makes me improve. Painting I overpaint and tweak to the point of 2 or 3 hours solid painting & touch-ups before actually rendering! I render in Carrara and Vue (both now support normal maps so thats nice) I then notice the overall effect of global illumination or whatever radiosity or render technique used makes the result entirely different to the previously pleasing 3DC display Reference Images. I leave them in my head and almost never use them within 3DC. Im more an abstract artist so can get away with this a bit more than others Voxels Oversculpting and not leaving the finer details for the real power of normal or displacement mapping Not using the flexibility of layers to build my model in steps. Pivot-point Never fixing the pivot point if it gets off centre. Optimisation strategy - not deciding at the start where and how to apply the balance of detail versus optimisation

Understand your toolkit enough to sculpt within the voxel room a test object you would like to paint. Click Voxtree (lower right panel) Right click the Volume1 layer, assuming you have renamed nothing Select Quadrangulate and Paint for Per Pixel Painting & follow the prompts. You are then in the painting room. Paint your object and text by exporting File->Export->Export Model. Select low/mid and generate texture, normal & displacement maps. Import into your renderer and assign the normal and any other maps the renderer didn't natively import Get used to this basic process, then get better at it, then try some other ways. Your challenge is to create me a smiley face with a raised eyebrow and export & render & save in the WIP thread. The time I just spent typing this for you should equal the time to complete the challenge. Or forget that and take your own journey...

http://www.3d-coat.com/video_tutorial.html Try "Getting Started with 3D-Coat" and then work your way through the rest at your convenience, refer to the manual and keep asking questions

This thread has many well thought out and presented responses, but why (rhetorical question) am I left thinking we are not making progress? What can we do to improve the thread before it transforms into some 20 page + monster. Is it time to vote on topic A, before moving on to Topic B? Any ideas people? And just opinion, please think once or twice before labelling something silly. Constructive criticism is easier to digest. I almost gave up on the thread at the overuse of "this is SILLY" and other such stuff. Just my opinionated opinion.

If the room concepts can be changed as suggested I would be curious to know what other efficiency gains could be made. Imagining as Amber suggests that I make my own power-user "Sculpt" UI, is it really realistic at all that it could be possible to gain a few FPS or other brush-speed improvements? The complexity of making a freely customisable interface (of course giving newbies some 'free' presets) sounds good - but at what cost in complexity and code? We are seeing Blender 2.5 mentioned several times in this thread already - you do realise that the project is using the power of multiple developers. Things work slightly differently in a commercial development. Choices have to be made, juggled and prioritised. What is best for us all? Unfortunately the answer often comes as hindsight.