AbnRanger

I'm sure it uses the card that is displaying the application. You could still have a 2nd card running a 2nd monitor, but I am not aware that 3DC is yet capable of utilizing multiple CUDA cards.I think we can easily confuse dual card use for renderers and realtime modeling, sculpting work. They work differently, so it might not be nearly as efficient as you would think. Renderers can simply assign buckets or frames, but for sculpting...communicating between 2 cards might actually be slower.

Yeah...it doesn't matter how many revisions you make to the scene file if the layer is no longer there. Autosave has no bearing, either, on an object/layer that you save out to a .3b file and then DELETE/REMOVE from the Vox Tree (to simplify your tree and scene, in order to further conserve resources). Voxel Sculpting needs this type of "Subtools" capability and workflow, as it's the most RAM dependent application I know.

This is where a thumbnail for .3b files would come in really handy. This way the user could point to a project folder for the models/objects pallet and there is your 3DC version of ZB's subtools (I think that's how they work, anyway) ....all elements saved to a .3b file can be seen as thumbnails in the pallet....just drag and drop your objects from the pallet when you want them (dragging them would by default trigger the merge command). I think Andrew is already halfway there with the current object/model previews.

I recently noticed that the ERASE tool in the Paint room is not multi-threaded and can be very, very slow...unlike the regular paint and airbrush. Is that still on the slate for your multi-threading efforts? The painting speed is very good since you multi-threaded it, but the erase tool needs some of that action, too. A few other questions/requests for upcoming releases: 1) Can we have the option to save a voxel layer straight to a .3b (native 3D Coat file) format from the right-click and "file" menu? That way we can quickly dump components off to individual 3D Coat files that can also be quickly re-merged at the same res and cache state that they were in, in original file. This would be especially helpful for 32bit version of 3DC or anyone using laptops. Caching helps a good deal, but there are still times where it would be better to dump the whole layer to a .3b file 2) Could we get a toolbar icon (inside the 3DC UI) for the Applinks we may be using? That is how GoZ is accessed in ZBrush, I believe...and it's quicker to access than having to constantly go through the file menu. 3) Is there any way we could get thumbnail previews of .3b files (basically a tiny snapshot of the viewport at the point where it was last saved)? That would be SO helpful, as I save several versions of my work on any given project. It's tough to determine just what state it's in without some visual reference (thumbnail). 3ds Max has that feature and I think a lot of 3DC users would welcome that ability. Thanks Andrew.

It doesn't matter how much RAM you have on your machine, the current MAC version is still 32 and thus can only utilize 4GB max. I don't know if that is the source of your problem, but I have a file or two that crashes the program whenever I try to open it. I assume it got corrupted somehow. Other files open fine.

I noticed that the BRUSH tool in the Retopo Room, is now "BRUSHES"...why is that (plural)? Typo, maybe?

Pretty impressive...so is there native instancing, now, in LW 10?

Nice sculpting job. I use to love to draw horses when I was growing up.

Just a little more work....mostly the head/face. I narrowed his shoulders a bit. Just trying to get the overall look and proportions down before spending a lot of time on detail that I may have to end up re-doing

Thanks. Regarding the FPS, I hadn't noticed...maybe having shadows on, or being in the render room, has something to do with it.

Good tips, Leigh. I'll definitely make some more adjustments along those lines. I intentionally deviated from my original sketch as I wanted to actually flesh out the look more during the sculpting process. Some artists can get a clear picture of what they want and sketch it out clearly. I don't think I have that gift. Instead of just thin, stick-like limbs, I thought it might work better to give him just a little hint of muscle thickness in some key areas (like the thighs...if he is going to be walking more like a quadruped), the back, where he is usually hunched over. But I think I'll take your advice and make the shoulders more narrow.It's a little tempting to give him a slightly mean look or snarl and it's easy to go overboard with the folds and wrinkles, just to try and get more detail in the face. I'll have to go back to the drawing board a bit in that area. His character is a bit menacing in the cartoon. He tries to eat Bilbo, and goes into a fury when he realizes that the ring has been stolen. I'm afraid if I make him too docile and non-threatening, it will take his character too far in the other direction. Trying to find a good balance here...maybe I'll keep the snarl as a morph target when he's animated, but keep the base a little less threatening, as you mentioned. Thanks...to be honest, I don't quite understand the comments about the smoothing. I thought that is what everyone does...generally try to smooth as you go and maintain hard edges/creases only where it's needed. Maybe I'm putting too much emphasis on that in the early stages. As for that LOTR cartoon....I thought perhaps there was a shift in production to use posterized live action elements in order to meet dealines or something. There is too much contrast from the cartoon elements and the live action ones. Seems Peter Jackson used that cartoon almost as his own moving storyboard.

How can you tell me what I stated was not true...were you involved? It's a very logical conclusion to make. Install new driver...driver is now bad, giving error messages. How do you know that ATI is NOT getting a ton of complaints about this particular driver. Again, you don't have to like my comments, but I stand behind them. When I was having trouble with the ATI 4850 over a year ago, I waited for months, installing subsequent new drivers and I still couldn't use Combustion properly. I contacted ATI's support about it and never got a response back. So, I went out and bought an NVidia card, installed it along with it's latest drivers and BAM....problem fixed. Combustion and everything else worked perfectly. So, you can't tell me I'm just making things up, and that there has to be some unexplained excuse. The reality is, based on my experience, is that ATI's drivers flat out are problematic. One fact for you here...they have supposedly offered AVIVO (their free video compression utility, similar to NVidia's Badaboom), but in my experience it has nearly taken an act of Congress to find it many times. It seems they offer it, then pull it cause there are ISSUEs...you know the imaginary issues you are taling about here.Never once have I had to dig around to find a solution to a bad driver or issue with NVidia. There may have been issues with a select few, but none that I've encountered. I'm not being a fanboy...prior to the 4850, I usually bought ATI's. But I'm simply relaying my own recent experience. And please, spare me the tech lectures. I know what I'm talking about. I've been building my own PC's for 2 decades now.

Another small update

Yeah...there just isn't anything that rivals 3DC in 3D Painting right now. Mari may have it's own advantages, but with the recent multi-threading speedup, painting has gotten so fast that Mari is just an afterthought to me. In Mudbox 2011, you still have to paint Specularity, Color, and Depth/bump, on their own separate layers...one at a time. In 3DC you can paint all three channels at once or any combination of them at any time and on any layer. Also, the depth channel in the Paint room is what makes 3DC's painting so versatile. Instead of just painting bump maps, it's realtime Image-based (normal or displacement map) sculpting, and it works a treat when you use it in conjunction with Voxel sculpting. You CAN get uber-fine details in Voxels (the Surface mode is there for that very purpose) if and when you need it. Much of that is predicated on how much RAM your system has. 8GB of RAM will let you get around 40 million polygons without having to cache layers and such. I cache anyway. But if you have more RAM, you can push that limit even higher. The multi-Res feature is something you're going to want to use all the time. It really speeds up some of the tasks immensely.

I pointed out back to back problems with different cards...and each time it was simply the drivers. You don't have to like it, but that is the reality of it. When you update drivers and it tells you that you have to restart your PC for the drivers to take effect and then you immediately start getting error messages upon every bootup, you can't blame that on anything but the software/drivers.

Thanks for the comments thus far. As for the creature look. That is pretty much what I was leaning toward. The Gollum character in LOTR was terrific, but in a more stylized version of the Hobbit, I think it helps sell the story if he looks more like a Hobbit transformed into a hideous creature (by the evil in the ring) instead of a Hobbit on crack. If you notice in the original Hobbit cartoon (see the 5:55 point in the following youtube video), he is more of a reptile/creature. As for the large hands and feet, I was leaning toward the exaggerated proportions you normally might see in a cartoon or animation. I didn't want to do a knock off from the LOTR series. I'll scale his thumb down some more. It's a tough choice to make. I did a different version of his head where he looks more menacing, and I really don't want that. Otherwise he looks more like a Goblin. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SGLvAFW2YU&feature=related

Just a rough start...trying to shoot somewhere between Gollum from the old Hobbit cartoon and the LOTR trilogy.

When Newtek first unveiled CORE there was no mention of a LW 10 while CORE was being developed. That's what I'm talking about...those that initially bought in over a year ago and didn't see CORE ever released as was communicated.

Just because you choose to name an Alpha stage product a "program" doesn't make it so. It is what it is, and to pretend differently makes it even more laughable. It's a rewrite that is in its very early Alpha Stages...period. Open Alpha/Beta testing should be nothing more than icing on a cake...not presented as the cake itself.That's why I said those that invested in CORE last year should get LW 10 for free. I feel like they not only bought the silly spin Newtek put on it when they presented CORE (paying to take part in Alpha testing), but they didn't even deliver on their projected release date. Who should have to PAY for missed released dates? Why should those who got the short end of the stick have to pay yet again? As for missing target release dates...you're comparing apples to oranges. Since when did Pixologic charge anyone for upgrading?

So people who already HAD 9.6 paid for what when they UPGRADED with CORE? CORE....WAS slated to be released early Q1 of this year. Where is that now? Basically again...people were duped into paying for something Newtek was totally unprepared to deliver. They thought that CORE would be more of a full-fledged app and that the price would go up when released. "Pay now, save later" is the selling point?...it looks like "later" won't come for another 5-8yrs.

Phil...you badmouth other apps all the time, and we have a few deleted posts between us because of it. I'm convinced that many LW artists suffer from some sort of inferiority complex...it's like the application is hardwired to their psyche. It is what it is. A pretty good app that has it's share of issues...one of those being that it is still very long in the tooth, compared to what is available on the market. Newtek is well aware of that, and that is why they are doing all they can to rectify the issue (with CORE). The problem is that the competition isn't waiting, and many former users aren't/weren't willing to wait either. But, as I stated earlier, I think LW 10 may cause some of those users to come back. I hope that Newtek made LW 10 a free upgrade to everyone who bought into their promises of what CORE would be. It doesn't appear to me that they got what was promised. The initial presentation was that CORE was slated to be more of a full-featured replacement of LW (classic). What they got essentially amounted to having to pay to be on the CORE Alpha/Beta team. That's pretty raw on Newtek's part, and one reason I gave up on LW at that point. If they had offered some sort of bundle deal to upgrade (maybe Messiah or something), I might have considered it.

I just wanted to throw this little tidbit out there...ATI, don't do it. I bought a new i7 laptop this summer that came with a discreet ATI 5730. After recently updating the drivers, I can't even get the Catalyst Control Center to open (I get an error message every time I boot up). Not only that, but I have all kinds of weird, unpredictable behavior in 3DC (cursor sticking, weird behavior with the Curves tool, FFD primitives often lock control point movement along one axis only, etc.). As soon as I get home to my desktop (with an NVidia 275 GTX), everything works fine...on the same file, 3DC version (except with CUDA), and OS (Win7). I tried to re-install the latest....that didn't work. Tried un-install and re-install...no luck. Tried rolling the driver back...nothing. I had problems with the last ATI card I bought (it was a 4850). I couldn't even use Combustion, cause the ATI drivers made parts of the program inoperable. That was the whole reason I switched to NVidia. It seems in my experience in the last year or so, that ATI drivers just aren't up to snuff for CG applications, and comparitively, NVidia's are. The reason I brought this up here is that it's been common knowledge that ATI's OpenGL drivers are subpar. So, if you want to switch to GL with a recent ATI card, good luck with that. When gaming, you may get more bang for your buck with an ATI card, however, when working with CG applications, I am convinced that they are more trouble than they are worth.

+1

If you're going to stay within Poser, there was a cheap (if not free) plugin for Poser that did a really good job. Can't remember what the name was...but you can find it on their content site

Well...I don't know about that. There are a few places that use LW somewhere in the pipeline...even ILM, I think. But having a few seats among dozens or a few hundred doesn't give Newtek a lot to hang their hat on. They started the whole rebuild process back in 2005 and the model was to replace entire sections at a time. When they announced CORE, I thought it was something they had been working on the whole time. It turns out, that was not the case. They essentially scrapped the previous plans and started from scratch. Not that I disagree with that direction, just that it was very late to be doing so. That hurt them. CORE needed to be more of a real replacement...not a concept/alpha stage product. Again, I think bringing in Rob and putting some of the development into the legacy version of LW is the right way forward. I think Rob's interest in 3D Coat or perhaps more so in Andrew...was encouraging, but I wouldn't want to see 3DC bought out by anyone. Maybe offer 3DC in a bundle deal when LW 10 is offically released? It already looks like a module from LW, so it would be a natural fit. I also think it would help Andrew get 3D Coat's name further into the marketplace if he met Newtek halfway on a bundle deal (maybe Newtek could license it per seat at roughly the same cost as the current EDU version?). So, is there any difference in Modeler since 9.6, or is CORE what most LW users doing their modeling in?