AbnRanger

Exactly...I forgot to mention in the previous post, that it sounds like you tried to go LOW poly on the output, and I found that to bog things down....but if you use the default settings or higher, you'd be surprised how fast it is...and no crashes. If you are having crashes, don't just throw it out there that the feature is useless, buggy and crash prone...unless you're willing to demonstrate it with a video capture of the steps you took to get all these problems. Please, show us....maybe Andrew will see it and try to fix the problem, if you haven't already sent your bug report in.And as far as adding extra programmers...that's a goal, certainly. But how can the application grow sufficiently in order for that to be financially feasible if you have forum members making bogus complaints in front of prospective customers? How would you like it if former clients came in and started making fallacious statements about you in front of a key client? Think about it...

Wow...Where do I start? First of all, you certainly take a lot of shots at the application with vague generalities like "Painting is buggy and slow"...."Voxels are slow"....If you have a bug...freakin report it. Don't slam the application if you haven't done what you can to help. There is a direct e-mail to Andrew (support@3d-coat.com)....why lodge a complaint here if you haven't bothered using the help at your disposal? I found a number of bugs in the Retopo room a few months ago...reporting them to Andrew, with video captures of the problem and copies of the files got results pretty quick. It's now far more stable than it was. If everyone experiencing a bug would take those steps, this application would be and can be exceptionally stable. What's more is, I bought 3DC to replace Deep Paint 3D and it has never let me down in that regard. I haven't experienced this "slowness" that you speak about and I use 4k maps pretty often. Care to show us a screen (video) capture of this "Slowness" you speak about? Could it use some multi-resolution goodness? Sure...but it isn't slow, either. Maybe you'll find Mudbox better with it's whopping five blending modes (finally got layer blending modes in version 2011). Secondly, with all the recent work Andrew did in Voxel Sculpting, it is NOT slow! It may not yet be quite as fast as ZB or MB overall, but it is very fast nonetheless...if used correctly, and with a relatively new system. What do you want to do in voxels that is slow? Move tool or Pose tool? Use the tools then, that Andrew has put in your hands...some have been there for a while now. Use Surface mode and/or Multi-Resoltion. Use Cache to Disk on the layers you're not actively working on. As for the Auto-retopology feature....it IS big. No hype needed. It does a LOT of retopo tasks AS IS that would take me hours doing them all manually. Is it perfect? Well...the better question is, "Is it a finished product?" There's your answer. Why not wait until Andrew has had a legitimate chance to iron all the the wrinkles out, before you start casting stones?

Cool Beans, Javis. Thanks a bunch. If I could throw one request that I think will benefit a lot of folks, is covering the Texture Baking Tool in some depth. It's really a key feature in 3DC that I think a lot of new users don't realize it's there at their disposal and what it can do.

Yeah, I have a friend who just bought a MAC seat today, and the poor guy has 16GB's of RAM and can only use 3GB's of it until a 64bit MAC version comes forward.Andrew would it be possible to issue those who bought MAC versions, a dual platform license temporarily (their choice of Linux or Windows) until a 64bit MAC version is available? It doesn't make sense to me that they should be forced to pay an additional fee to run 3DC on Bootcamp, simply because the MAC version is handicapped still (at 32bit). My apologies for mistaking your words. It sounded like a wholesale rebuke of the effort Andrew has made here.

Yeah....things bog down when memory runs low. When you hit the E Key (brings up the E-panel...same as if you hover over the pen in the upper left hand part of the screen), make sure to have one of the first few brushes selected, because what you really are doing is painting an area you want to copy...some of the other brush modes don't work (I wish we could use the freeform tool or splines to select areas we want). I need to ask Andrew about enabling those, soon.Yes, I think I remember speaking with you at the show. Good to see you participating here on the forum.

But the thing is, it's 2 different people using the same tool. Leigh Bamforth did the video, and he's likely been in closer contact with Andrew, to help test and give feedback, as most of his models have been used in the testing.Just because one person's topology doesn't look quite right to you, doesn't mean the feature is "far from useful" as you claimed.

Well, for a feature that really is still in Beta stage, and when you compare it to what was available previously, it's pretty remarkable. There are tons of things I can use this on and be totally happy with the results. It was never intended to be a final solution for everything. It was a parameterized (evenly spaced polys) solution that is tons more useful than the previous arbitrary method. It gets you pretty damn close to what you want, with some tweaking left to do, and the user can direct the edgeflow. Saying that it is far from usable is a major stretch...and a pessimistic one at that. I'm glad to have something that gets me pretty close, even if it's not not perfect, nor finished.It's like cursing the Taxi driver cause he didn't get out and walk you to the door...

Good idea, Phil. I always thought it was a bit of a PITA to have to always go to the menu to do that....I was just glad to have the functionality.

It's hard to tell exactly why the symmetry started out off-center. Try this...right click on the voxel layer you're working on, and click "To Global Space." That usually will do the trick. You can hit the "S" key to bring up the Symmetry options popup, and click "Reset Symmetry Plane." Another trick/workaround I do when the gizmo is not centered on the object, is with the layer selected click "space density copy" icon at the bottom of the Vox Tree panel. Then, holding the shift key down (to merge to another layer)drag the original layer to the newly created one. That will usually get the gizmo and symmetry plane lined up. There was supposed to be some work done on it in this recent build (just released today, Andrew said Mac and Linux would be available soon). It doesn't happen often, but when I do have symmetry plane issues, I try going through those steps. Make sure to go to the 3.3 updates thread and download the latest build from the first page in the thread (if you haven't already done so). As for the toolbar on the left hand side, you will see a small arrow at the lower left, that toggles the visibility of that toolbar. There should be something in the "View" or "Windows" menu that restores it as well.

Thanks Andrew...coming along nicely.

Looks like Andrew is working on something to address the issue... # If you will export low poly mesh with this option 3D-Coat will "sharpen" mesh in so way that in your 3D-package you will get... about 14 hours ago via TweetDeck... # same model as mid-poly in 3D-Coat after subdivision with Catmull-Clark. about 14 hours ago via TweetDeck # It is absolutely important if you want to get displacement and low poly mesh as result. about 14 hours ago via TweetDeck # If you will export displacement and low poly mesh, import in your package, subdivide mesh, apply displacement and get same result as in 3DC. about 14 hours ago via TweetDeck # It looks like there are too many options for newbies. Looks like making "Export wizard" is inavoidable thing. about 14 hours ago via TweetDeck # I have add new very important option to export setting "Perform coarsing". It is inverse to subdivision. about 14 hours ago via TweetDeck

...just released. http://www.thepixelhive.com/wrapit It's a Retopology plugin for 3ds Max, and there are some pretty unique features there...some that I would like to see in 3D Coat. One main thing about this plugin is that it is greatly extended by Max's modeling toolset. That's I think the Retopo tools should be more extensive than they currently are. Here are a few suggestions. 1) The ability to Dot Loop/Ring (for very fast Poly Reduction of Auto Retopo-ed models) 2) Extrude edges/edgeloops by holding down the SHIFT key 3) Have a "Transform" tool that let's you use all the selection methods and applies a Transform gizmo to your selection. Where this will come in handy is when you import a given mesh into both the voxel room and retopo, then make large scale changes. This will let you turn off snapping temporarily and model/tweak the part of the mesh surrounding the changes. That's not an easy task, currently. Retopology tools are essentially modeling tools, and there is no reason not to extend them as much as is practical. I understand the goal is not to try and build another modeling application, but the fact of the matter is that this toolset already is a small-scale modeler. It doesn't need a lot of the tools a normal modeling app has (such as a deformation cage or primitives, etc), but it DOES need as many of the selection and geometry tweaking tools as possible, in my opinion. Beveling and extruding are among those.

Sure thing...Stas and Oleg may post some more later, but those show what the booth looked like and how busy it could get at times.

Here are a couple....Javis on the left, Oleg on the right, in the first one. In the 2nd, Andrew on the left, and Stas on the right. The 3rd is the 3 Amigos. .The 2nd to last one, Stas and Oleg are busted by the Fun Police.

Hold the tab key to move the symmetry plane, and when you want to merge the layers together you can select the faces of one, select the layer you want to merge them to and click the "Move selected faces to current layer" icon in the retopo layers panel

Place them on separate Retopo layers...with the head using one axis and the body with the other. That's what I would try first.

Looks like they are making some decent progress. I noticed there was a SpacePilot Pro box beneath the camera, when watching Rob's presentation...then looked at the LW page and it appears to be supported in Layout and CORE, but not modeler. Strange. I think it's smart to upgrade the legacy (from 9.6 to 10) sufficiently so that people aren't having to wait for CORE to be completed, to get some of those features (inside the main application). I also think it's about time they did away with the funky default UI colors. Sure you could change them in the past, but the default is the face new users and outsiders see. I think bringing in Rob Powers to run the show was the best move Newtek could have made. I'm curious how updated Modeler is (for v10). I might go ahead and buy a seat again (sold my previous copy) soon. Bundling 3D Coat with it could help sell some seats (like the Vue 5 bundle did a few years ago). Don't know if that's in the works or not, but the blend between a LW and Photoshop style UI would go over big with past and present LW users. I personally think they should license a copy of 3D Coat with each seat, but put their own stamp on it...maybe rename it, tweak the UI to match LW 10's, as well as let their developers make any integration modifications they need. It would be the first time a major 3D application had that much power to sculpt and paint right out of the box. We'll see how it shakes out.

That is actually a VERY good idea. Glad you brought that up. Andrew would it be possible to have 2 separate modes? One is Paramaterized, as it is now (evenly-spaced polys) and one an Optimized mode, where a separate modified algorithm is used....a surface with flat or very low incidence angles get a greatly reduced number of edgeloops, and high incidence angles get more? Also, any surface with an 80-100 degree change in angle automatically gets 3 edgeloops at that apex (to preserve the hard edge, of course). An OPTIMIZED mode would obviously be ideal for animation and low-poly game assets, with the other for going into ZBrush or Mudbox for further work, as they like evenly spaced poly's.

There is also a section in this forum called "3DC Exchange Library" where you can download over 500mb's of Photoshop brushes (which need no conversion....3DC reads them natively)...there are boatloads of textures to download...which you will want to use as your stencil many times.In the "Pens" panel, you can click on the little folder icon and find the OBJpens folder if it's not there already. From there you would likely want to just pull up one OBJ at a time....as you use them. Because you can manipulate it's angle position, scale, etc....based on what you want at the time. You could copy all those obj models you have to that folder or just navigate to where they are located and select them. Same thing goes for wherever your Photoshop brushes are located. You can see the OBJpens in use here: http://www.youtube.com/user/Fugazi3D#p/u/18/StMgG5vdZ6g

It may not be as elaborate as that several thousand dollar application, but you already have spline and Bsplines in Voxels. Along with freeform primitives and the curves tool, you'd be amazed at what you can model and how fast you can do it, in 3DC.

Yes....Jing will be your friend on this forum, I promise you. Without some video capture and steps you took to get that (along with OS and build you are using), it is hard to know what the source of the problem is. Any time you have a potential bug, the more informed you can make Andrew about the problem, the better chances you have at getting a quick solution.I not too long ago, spent 3 days needlessly trying to figure out myself why I was having trouble getting rid of this normal map clipping. When I finally got it on video and sent Andrew the file, I got a resolution within 24hrs. It was a bug. And just coming on here telling about the problem wouldn't have helped much either. I feel stupid for not having done that early on. It is a bit of a pain to have to go through those steps, but just know....as busy as Andrew is, the more info you can feed him the better. Usually, if you send him a video replicating the problem, he immediately has an idea what is going wrong (if anything...sometimes it is just a matter of changing a parameter on the user end), and may decide to drop what he is doing and make a quick fix. That not only helps you find a solution, but it helps the whole userbase in the process. If we can get most everyone here doing that, it will make the application much more stable as a whole...as it allows Andrew to go straight to the root of the problem, instead of having to run a bunch of time-consuming tests to find where the problem lays.

Yes...generally, you can access your 3DConnexion control panel in the system tray (lower right corner of the screen, of course), and under the advanced settings tab, you can select to reverse any particular function you like, as well as the speed. Usually you will want to calibrate the model the first time you use it. That is where you set how the knob operates initially.If you got the SpacePilot, and I think the Explorer has some preset keys as well...you can set a host of keys for any type of work you are doing in an application, and just toggle through them when you go from one task to the other....like modeling, painting, retopo, etc. It really helps keep your hands off the keyboard for the most part.

Can you do a brief video screen capture of the problems in practice and send Andrew a copy of the file you're working on (I usually zip it and if it's too big to attach to an e-mail, then use something like Adrive.com to store it and then send a link to it).The more you can do to help Andrew go straight to the problem the quicker it will get resovled. Vague assertions that a tool is not working doesn't help a great deal, because oftentimes when he tries on his end, it works properly. However, if he sees it demonstrated by video, not only does it show how it's occurring, but he may be able to pick up on some small thing that points to the heart of the problem. For example....the Strokes tool. If it's having trouble when "snap to outer surface" as opposed to "snap to nearest"...he may be able to see that it's having trouble with thin objects or something. It's a bit of a hassle to have to go through these steps, but the result is worth it.

Yeah...what he said! I have no idea what he said... actually...but from reading the pretty pictures above, I concur that it is a major pain in the bumpkis having to do the workaround of creating a space copy and merge, just to get the gizmo center mass on the object. Please fixy.

Mudbox still has fairly recent hardware requirements, and that is what I meant. I have both programs as well, and I understand what you're saying...but I don't have ANY trouble smoothly navigating around in 3DC....so I don't know how much of a priority Andrew will place on the request when only a select few, such as yourself would benefit from it. He has bigger fish to fry at the moment.