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AbnRanger

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Everything posted by AbnRanger

  1. Just to add to Digman's explanation. The SculptTREE panel indicates it is effectively a Hiearchy panel, much like the Outliner panel in Maya or 3ds Max. The LAYER panel is just like Photoshop's Layer panel. It stores paint information, as well as Sculpt/Depth information. We often say "layer" in reference to an object in the SculptTree panel, because it's the most descriptive name for it, because calling it an OBJECT would not be totally accurate, since you can have multiple objects on the same "Layer." So, I guess you would consider it an OBJECT LAYER.
  2. The Tweak Room is deprecated/legacy, meaning it won't be further developed as it has long been planned to remove from the app. I have asked Andrew to merge PAINT Objects with RETOPO/MODELING meshes, so that users can work with the same low poly models in the Paint and Retopo/Modeling workspaces. Right now, they are completely separate meshes. You can copy Paint Meshes to the Retopo/Modeling workspace > make edits to the mesh > go to BAKE menu > choose UPDATE PAINT MESH w/ RETOPO MESH. Yes, that is a work-around, but merging of the two mesh types is obviously a major undertaking, so it may be a long time before we see the merger...even though Andrew (Owner/Chief Developer) knows it would be beneficial.
  3. In general, when a software vendor has a sale listed for a specific period only, we have to act (make the purchase) within that time period in order to receive the discount. It's like Black Friday or Christmas/Holiday season sales. We have to buy within that window of time. I am not sure if a sale will be extended to you at the end of your trial period or not. Perhaps Oleg can chime in on that?
  4. It's very simple. When you buy a (perpetual) license, you get not only the latest version available (to download) at the time of purchase, but 12 months of free updates. After that 12 months expires, you cannot expect the company to issue you a refund because you found a bug. My latest paid update to Modo is v12. They are now on 17. I cannot use 12 today and complain to the Foundry that I found a bug in v12 and thus they owe me a free copy of the current version (17). That is absurd. I can point to other applications (Camtasia, ZBrush, etc.) and make the same claim, but they will politely tell me that support for past versions lasts only as long as the stated length of free updates. On ZBrush 2022, if I find an issue today and contact Pixologic, they will tell me to upgrade to their latest version because I am no longer entitled to free updates. Pilgway has not misled or cheated you. They are good people and would not cheat anyone, even if they legally could. And regarding the Academic programs listed, I am not sure what your point is, exactly, but why would or could someone from North America sue Pilgway, when Pilgway only lists the institutions that have SENT THEM EDUCATION LICENSE REQUESTS? They don't have to list 3DCoat (or any other software) on their curriculum, for it to used in any given 3D course. As an example, look at the Art Department page (under Game Art/Animation) for California State-Fullerton, here: Bachelor of Fine Arts in Art - Department of Visual Arts | CSUF (fullerton.edu) It doesn't mention ANY specific software. So, how does Pilgway know that 3DCoat is taught there? Because an instructor from that institution sent them an official request for multiple education licenses. Again, you have accused the good folks at Pilgway of lying/misleading and cheating you. They wouldn't and haven't.
  5. What about it? I was addressing your comments about Pilgway allegedly misleading/cheating you, somehow. If you don't like how something functions, contact support (support@pilgway.com) and try to make it easy and clear what your problems are with it, as it helps them diagnose and understand the important details of the problem more quickly. Maybe a screen recording or at least a screen grab + detailed explanation how to reproduce it. The following is a link to a series that covers at least one of the new spline-based modeling tools, among some other newer modeling tools. EDIT: The developer of the Retopo/Modeling tools has a number of videos, demonstrating many if not most of his tools. They are in Russian, but you can play subtitles in your preferred language on the Youtube videos (click the Gear icon > Subtitles > Auto-Translate > select your preferred language. There will probably be some more English video tutorials about the Modeling tools, soon. 3DCoat Modeling tool "Unify of Surfaces" (youtube.com)
  6. You are missing the point. There is a broader pool of training content for Blender, Maya, 3ds Max, Modo, C4D, ZBrush, Substance, etc. from 3RD PARTY RESOURCES. Blender foundation gets DONATIONS to continue it's development...from the community and also from larger corporations. That business model is not one that can work for most software applications. Furthermore, whether Blender is opensource or not, is not relevant to this discussion. You have asserted that Pilgway has somehow cheated you and is not providing training content to your personal standards, despite the fact that there are hundreds of tutorials on their Youtube Channel. Painting tool tutorials are in the PAINT tools playlist. Sculpting tools videos are in the Sculpting tools playlist, and so on. If you want to know more about a given subject or task, search in the playlist associated with it. You can also look to 3rd party resources. Have you looked through the playlists on Anton Tenitsky's Youtube Channel? There are scores and scores of 3DCoat tutorials there, plus he is a partner of Pilgway in this area. Here is another good 3rd party resource: 3D Coat for Concept Art Tutorial - Voxel Sculpting (youtube.com)
  7. It doesn't matter. I was merely using Blender as an example that ALL software has a more robust 3rd party pool of training resources, than what the company itself can provide.
  8. It looks like Andrew removed it from the HELP menu. Why? I don't know. It stopped working for me for the past few years and I reported it to Andrew. Perhaps they thought it wasn't worth fixing and continuing when Windows now has a built-in screen capture tool?
  9. Additionally, there are hundreds of tutorials on the 3DCoat Youtube Channel (they are separated into Playlists by Category), alone. 3DCoat - YouTube You can also do a search on the channel itself, by a tool name or task and see videos you may have never noticed, otherwise. There are hundreds of tools in 3DCoat and Pilgway is a small company, thus it is not possible to cover every tool with each new version. New tutorials are added for new features on an on-going basis. Nevertheless, up to date tutorials for every software title is most often covered by 3rd party resources. Blender is a great example. Most of the tutorials you see about it, online, is from 3rd party resources. Anton Tenitsky is a great 3rd party resource and has a ton of training videos on his channel as well as courses on Gumroad. Anton Tenitsky - YouTube There are too many resources to list hear, but two of the newest Introductory courses are: https://artstn.co/m/a7LNy This course is sometimes on sale (for as low as $12.99 USD), on Udemy, but the regular price is $69...so, you may want to check the website once in a while to see if it is back on sale, if you are interested: Complete Guide to 3D Coat | Udemy
  10. One thing you omitted is the fact that you get a 30 free trial to assess if 3DCoat is worth purchasing or not. When you make a purchase, you are essentially confirming that it indeed is. Thus, if you subsequently find fault with the program, as a consumer, you should take responsibility for your purchasing decisions. I found myself in a similar situation with Camtasia 2023...whether it was worth my upgrading or not. I paid for the upgrade and later found a serious performance issue, but it was too late, then. Like ALL software companies, software sales are final. It is up to the customer...including me, to be sure that I use their trial period, to properly evaluate the software, FIRST. If I fail to do that, and then make the purchase, it is too late. All I can do is report the issues I found to support. That is how the world works. If you purchase a perpetual license of 3DCoat/Textura, you get 12 months of free updates, period. It doesn't matter if a new version came out shortly after you bought it. You get that new version automatically, because it falls within that 12 month period. So, Pilgway did not mislead or cheat you in any way, and therefore had no reason to provide a refund, to be frank and honest. I have to send bug reports from time to time to TechSmith for Camtasia, so no software is immune from bugs. If you experience a bug, report it. Andrew prioritizes bug-fixing over features and will stop what he is working on, to fix a reported bug.
  11. Painting with large Brush sizes has been a problem for 3DCoat for years. With small to medium brush sizes, the performance has always been quite good. However, even 10 years later, and on hardware that is 4-5 times faster, this problem STILL exists, regarding large brush sizes. This indicates to me that there is some kind of fundamental bottleneck in the code, that prevents 3DCoat from painting beyond a certain number of pixels. None of 3DCoat's competitors have this problem, so it is not a problem with today's hardware not being able to paint on a 4k-8k map with a large brush. The paint brush engine perhaps needs a complete rewrite because it struggles where other competitors don't even break a sweat. Perhaps it is the old legacy code in the Paint workspace, that is the same one in the Tweak and UV room? They cannot handle dense meshes very well and I have to wonder if painting pixels (on UV maps) suffers from the same limitations. When painting on Rygaard's Rhino model (about 10mill polys) in the Sculpt workspace (designed to work well with large meshes), using a large brush, the performance seems relatively good. https://app.screencast.com/aM5oGfUL8VTW8
  12. Also, when you click on the UPDATES MANAGER, make sure to click the latest build in the upper left hand corner > then click the "Install 3DCoat 2024.xx" button to the right of that. The latest version isn't always automatically selected, so it is important to make sure that INSTALL 3DCOAT XXXX button is displaying the latest one. If it is not, then click the latest one at the top of the list on the left, as I previously mentioned.
  13. I had the same problem. Try this...close 3DCoat > open MY DOCUMENTS/3DCOAT/USER PREFS/ROOMS >delete or temporarily rename the CUSTOM ROOMS folder. There was/is something in the Custom Rooms configs that makes it not appear. Hopefully that will get fixed in the next build.
  14. I had a similar problem a few years ago, and I was very frustrated as well. Since this problem was not happening on Andrew's (Owner/Chief Developer) side, I knew there was something on my system that was causing it. I made sure to update my video card drivers and then I made sure to put the 3DCoat.exe (in the Install directory, ie. Program Files/3DCoat 202X/3DCoat.exe) on the Windows Firewall and my Anti-Virus exception list. It turns out that the Anti-Virus app I had (Avast) was the cause of the crashes. It never blocked 3DCoat before, but for some reason, it started to this time. After I put 3DCoat on the Exception/Allow list, the problem was gone. If that doesn't help, send one of your scene files to support via the HELP Menu > send support@pilgway.com an email explaining the situation and remind them that you already sent them your work file. I would put CONSTANT CRASHES in your email title, so Andrew can see that it is an urgent matter and respond ASAP.
  15. I posted in this thread because the UI work is relevant to 3DCoat 2024 development, since this is what Andrew is currently working on (the UI/Layer Masking). Pertaining to the placement of parameters in the UI...specifically in the Toolbar...I am okay with, because 3DCoat's UI layout is patterned after Photoshop, unlike ZBrush's. Personally, I would never want to use ZBrush's UI as an example of what to do. It's very foreign in terms of Industry Standard UI organization. Features, yes. UI, no. I would rather follow conventions from Photoshop, Blender, 3ds Max and Maya.
  16. I made a mock up in Photoshop, of the Retopo Workspace, but also small proposed changes in the layout. 1) The Workspace tabs are located along the MENU bar, just to the right of the Menus, as it is in Blender...to maximize/consolidate UI space 2) Only one bar (Toolbar) for parameters. Having a toolbar with half of one above it, in the Menu Bar, makes the UI look crowded and clunky 3) For the Modeling/Retopo Room, there should be industry standardized SELECTION and TRANSFORM icons. No more should they be mixed in with the Tools themselves (so, I removed them from the Tool Panel in this mockup). That adds to the confusion of many new or trial (period) users, and adds to the complaints about the UI, and especially the modeling/retopo tools. I placed the Transform (all modes like the default transform tool/gizmo), Move, Rotate, Scale icons to the Toolbar, next to SELECT (Grouped with SELECT PATH) and Sub-Object + Object mode icons. I think most new users could now have a basic understanding of how Selection and Transform operations work, right away, with these icons. Do you guys agree or have any further suggestions?
  17. Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. In fact, I was going to submit a name change to the FREEZE tool in the Paint and Sculpt Workspaces. Perhaps FREEZE/SELECT tool and there should be an icon at the bottom of the LAYER panel, to "Store Current Selection as a Layer Mask." That is how the layer mask icon in Photoshop works. If you already have a selection made and click that icon, Photoshop will create a layer mask from it. If you have no selection and click on the icon, it just creates a blank layer mask. I hope that is how it will work in 3DCoat. For Vertex Paint, masks should still work the same, but of course the layer won't show a UV map thumbnail. Perhaps, for Vertex Paint/VerTexture the mask thumbnail should be all white if it is blank and all black if a freeze/selection is stored on the layer?
  18. Can you try to open the app and test an empty scene with something from the Splash Screen? If it doesn't crash, then it points to the file possibly being corrupted. In which case, you should send the file to support@pilgway.com, so they can try to test it on their end and see what the problem is. If it crashes even with a simple test scene/object from the splash screen, then there is something corrupted with the install or an xml file in the MY DOCUMENTS/3DCOAT directory. If that is the case, give that directory a temporary name and Install 3DCoat again > launch the app. It will create a new folder in that directory. If it stops crashing after that, then yes, it was either the install or a bad file.
  19. I got the same thing. Could not make masks work at all, especially not how it is done in Photoshop.
  20. Please send this request to support@pilgway.com or AndrewShpagin@gmail.com, because others have requested this before, and the more requests there are for a given feature, the more priority it gets. I sent Andrew a request to incorporate Auto HotPie Menus into 3DCoat (if possible). He hasn't answered back, but that is because he is working on the UI in other areas. The UI is the major focus, now, for the release of 3DCoat 2024, so now is as good a time as any to send such a request. GitHub - dumbeau/AutoHotPie: Radial menus in Windows, aka PIE MENYOOS!
  21. Fantastic News! I hope they will be compatible with Photoshop Masks, also. Please enable MULTI-LAYER selection (to be able to hide/unhide, delete or move to a Folder, together), as it can be a real pain in the but and super slow/inefficient, trying to DELETE or UNHIDE, etc. one layer at a time + having to wait for each layer to process the command, which can sometimes take several seconds. This would also include Multi-layer selection of other panels such as PAINT OBJECTS, SURFACE (UV) MATERIALS, and RETOPO/MODEL mesh layers (Poly Groups). We can Multi-Select in the Sculpt Room (Sculpt Tree panel), but nowhere else. This is needed in other areas if for no other reason, but for the sake of application consistency. Adjustment layers (ala Photoshop)...to go along with Layer Masks...would make the Paint Room additions a real treat!
  22. There is a very good reason why they are in separate folders. The POLY MODELS pallet is dedicated for use in the RETOPO or MODELING workspaces, and thus they are generally LOW POLYGON, QUAD Meshes. The SCULPT models on the contrary, are dedicated for SCULPT (Very High Polygon and Triangulated meshes) Objects. It makes no logical sense, then, to mix them together). I prefer they stay the way they are because there was some good, logical thought behind it.
  23. One reason why the options for Painting /Textures are there is because you can now paint directly in the Sculpt Workspace, thus options for Baking AO and Curvature definitely need to be available there.
  24. You can ALT + LMB click the Visibility (hide/unhide) icon of the Mesh/Object/Paint layer, to isolate it. Repeating this a second time toggles out of isolation mode.
  25. When you installed the latest version, did you get a pop-up asking for the license file location? Whenever you have a licensing issue, the very best course of action is to send Sales@Pilgway.com an email, so that they can help you directly.
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