AbnRanger

I have been a big AMD fan, especially since they came out with the Ryzen series CPU's, but in my personal experience, I found that AMD is still crippled a bit by 3DCoat's usage of INTEL THREAD BUILDING BLOCKS LIBRARY for it's Multi-threading. I made some comparison videos years ago highlighting the difference, and recently noticed the very same difference. The Intel TBB library currently used in 3DCoat identifies Non-Intel CPU's and makes them take the long, unoptimized, inefficient way....making AMD CPU's seem inferior to Intel CPU's. Intel lost a major lawsuit about this dirty practice and I am not aware of the solution that was agreed upon. On a ThreadRipper 1950X (1st Gen ThreadRipper), performance using the new sculpting brush engine was very inconsistent. I did weeks worth of tests, because I did not want to have to purchase a new CPU and Motherboard (and CPU cooler as well), just to get the most out of 3DCoat. Nevertheless, I knew this was a glaring problem. Some days, the performance would be bad enough to report to Andrew. Other days, for some unknown reason, the performance would be outstanding and virtually impossible to discern the difference between 3DCoat and ZBrush in side by side comparisons. Zbrush is obviously the Gold Standard in this area and there were times where 3DCoat was every bit as smooth and responsive as it is in ZBrush. I tested on someone's new AMD laptop (AMD Ryzen 7 4800H 8-core/16 thread CPU) and it was super smooth and crisp in terms of performance. So, I decided to switch the CPU and Motherboard out for an Intel i9 10850k (basically a 10900k that didn't test as well as the best 10900k chips), and sure enough, the performance improvement over the ThreadRipper is very noticable. I say all of this as a means to give a "heads up" to anyone looking to build a new system or make a CPU w/Motherboard upgrade soon. The last generation of AMD CPU's may have overcome this limitation with new instruction sets (mandated by the court, for Intel to correct this issue?), and MUCH higher IPC performance than the first generation of Ryzen CPU's...so, if you have a Ryzen 3xxx or 2nd Gen ThreadRipper CPU, the problem may not be as noticeable as in previous generations. The laptop with an AMD 4800H APU was stellar, so there is hope that this is no longer an issue with the latest generation of AMD CPU's.

Patience, please. There is a feature like this already in the works, in 2021, called the Spine tool. I was going to try and record a video tutorial of it, but there were a few issues for the developer to address first, It's called the SPINE tool, and it extrudes along a path, with controls to change the scale along points in the path.

Leigh, could you come up with a Character Sculpting series, in 3DCoat, and offer it on a site like Gumroad? If you make a trailer for the series, Pilgway will share/promote it on the 3DCoat Youtube Channel

Tweak Room is a legacy workspace that will probably get deprecated (removed) in 3DC 2021. Andrew has been planning on removing it for a few years, now.

This sounds like your Anti-Virus software may be flagging/blocking 3DCoat. I have had this happen in the past. Turn your AV and Firewall off while installing it and see if that helps. If it does, make sure to add the install directory of 3DCoat to your EXCEPTIONS list of both your Firewall and AV apps. It's a good practice to do this with all your frequently used apps, as well.

If you need more confirmation, feel free to contact sales@3dcoat.com, where Stas will help answer whatever questions you may have.

When I have issues with Cavity Painting, it is usually a matter of having to bake a new Curvature and/or Ambient Occlusion map. Give that a try and see if it helps.

It's my understanding that the "Rent to Own" option is for a new license (no more Pro or Amateur versions), not for upgrades. We should expect the upgrade from V3 or V4 to 2021 will be close to the upgrade cost between major versions in the past (ie., V3, V4). The annual upgrade price (ie. 2021 to 2022) will probably be roughly half that. Pilgway is a very fair company. That much one can count on.

Rent to Own is a common English term, this coming from a US citizen, native English speaker, all my life. Is it normally associated with household commodities? Sure, but it accurately describes what is being offered. I may not particularly like the phrase, but I personally cannot think of a better alternative. People understand exactly what is being offered. VRay, a premiere render engine, has RENTAL licenses, as do many other software vendors. Therefore, there is nothing wrong with the phrase being used to describe payments to own a perpetual license.

It won't matter when, now that you would be within the window of the 2021 Professional license offered as a free upgrade, for current purchases of V4.

You have to pay annual upgrade costs for nearly all software you own, to one degree or another. Yes, ZBrush and Blender are exceptions, but with ZBrush, the focus is primarily on Sculpting alone and the upfront, lump sum cost is much more than 3DCoat. So, even if there were an annual upgrade (maintenance) cost of let's say $75, it would take several years to reach that $900 upfront cost in ZBrush, not factoring in the Painting, UV layout and Retopo toolsets. A more accurate comparison would be between 3DCoat vs ZBrush + Substance Painter (which has a maintenance of $150 per year, IIRC).

It's $100USD off the regular price. It's been that way for years, during Black Friday and Christmas deals.

There is no subscription model, just a new Rent to Own OPTION (certain number of monthly payments rather than on lump sum cost upfront)...again, it is an OPTION. Perpetual licenses will still be the main license model. There is a 10% discount on the Amateur license for the Black Friday deal....however, when 2021 is released, there will be no future versions of the Amateur license, as it has been a terrible business model for Pilgway (too many professionals buying it for retopo, UV's and Voxel modeling/sculpting only, where it had no limitations; only few Paint-related limits). There will only be a Professional license and an Apprentice version (that is much more scaled back on features than the current Amateur license....much like ZBrush core is). Anyone with an Amateur license will be given a short window to upgrade to Professional with a very enticing offer of about 50-60% off the normal upgrade rate. Pilgway added a lot of development help in the past 2-3yrs and they needed to adjust their business model accordingly, so they can not only keep the help they have, but have the ability to bring in additional help where it may be needed.

I don't think the staff has yet determined it, because of all the preparation for it. Lot's a major new features, a new website, purchase options (like a rent to own policy, and end of the Amateur version, etc.) and even a Texture Paint (Paint, UV and Render Room) only version. A GPU brush engine is an example of features being polished. Hopefully before the end of the year, I think.

Perhaps this tool can be linked to the Tool Options panel, and let the User customize the hotkeys with the different tools they may normally use? It should have a RESET to default button, too, I think.