AbnRanger

Cool Beans...make sure to put a link to that in your signature, so folks in other threads can find your stuff quick and easy like..

When you have more than one card, there is very little spacing between them and thus extremely little airflow, so you will definitely want to get a case that has lots of fans to keep plenty of air flowing through it.This is the one I bought around Christmas time, and it was $79 bucks at Fry's: http://www.newegg.com/Product/NewProduct.aspx?Item=N82E16811129058 http://www.frys.com/catreq/-1590 This is the card...and it too has software that lets you tweak/overclock your card...to perform well above the stock 285GTX. http://www.frys.com/product/6092488?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG It would perhaps be a good card for your normal display, and then if you really want to use one of the Fermi cards later, you can put that in your second PCI E slot and designate that for your GPU renderer. Plus, you should be able to swap the cards as your primary display card from within Windows display settings. This might be another to consider, as it has MUCH superior cooling to all the stock cooling you see on 90% of the same cards, and costs the same: http://www.newegg.com/Product/NewProduct.aspx?Item=N82E16814127428

Link? I don't think there is any good way around having a good card taking up two spaces...they really need a fat heatsink and large fan. The best ones to buy are the ones that have the aftermarket coolers on them. MSI is one brand that does this alot. I bought a Galaxy 275GTX...and they are another brand that really tricks out their cards with highend aftermarket coolers. It lets you get a nice overclock without breaking a sweat.If you have a Frys electronics store nearby, I would go check it out...the model I bought, you can't find online...and I really like it. Plus, Frys is like having a NewEgg store location to shop at.

It looks fine, but I never was a fan of having to export objects out to a stand alone renderer, especially when it's not clear if you can render animations. I recently upgraded finalRender R3, which has a new Interactive render...but it's totally unusable as it crashes all the time. Not sure what to make of all these stand alones.

Actually...I wish there was an option in the "File" menu to print out the map chart...so, even after you make a bunch of changes, you can print the chart out as a quick reference card/sheet. 3ds Max does this, and it's a handy feature to have.

I guess I didn't clarify what I was referring to....just maybe 5-10 minutes or so to point out some of the changes that have occurred since you first made it, and cite an example where a new tool may be used (without going into a lengthy demonstration of any kind); not trying to redo whole segments of the original. That's why I stated an "amendment"...sort of like Dan Ablan does with some of his Signature Series DVD's.

Could I make a suggestion or request about this DVD? Would it be possible to make a brief amendment video, explaining some of the differences in the toolset since this dvd was made, and how it may affect someone trying to follow along...as well as perhaps a different approach to a given method? Some examples might be, covering the "depth" in the E-Panel for a cutting operation (instead of going all the way through an object)...and perhaps showing how free form primitives might be the quickest way to tackle a given shape that you worked on in the original tutorials...also, show how to best blend between two freeform primitives, etc, etc.This way the DVD is somewhat brought up to date...and perhaps also make it available as a separate download for those that have already purchased the dvd.

I made very modest changes after the initial merge, and before I went much further, I tried to snap the mesh....unsuccessfully. It just doesn't work...not usable at all. You can see what happens when I hit "Subdivide." I looked in the manual for any details or options and there are none. Just a basic tool description, and I have yet to see any video tutorials on this. In fact, if I was able to do this effectively, I was going to immediately thereafter make a tutorial on "Bringing a low-mid poly character in and snapping the mesh to the voxel sculpt, as a base for retopologizing the finished model."To me, that is the closest thing to a traditional ZB or Mudbox workflow, and I'm surprised more attention hasn't been given to it, both on the development side (so the snapping is cleaner and more accurate...instead of leaving a rat's nest to clean up), and on the training side.

...or maybe not.

It was a response to Andrew's mention of adding it as a separate plugin, or making it free to current license owners.

I understand. I personally haven't experienced that much lag when painting. It may have a lot to do with how much horsepower you have under the hood of your PC. I'm sure it could stand to get some attention, for sure, and in keeping with that idea, I'd like to see Andrew add someone to his team to develop the Geometry based sculpting (Sculpt Room) to the point where they are very close to the tools in the Voxel Room. It's more time consuming to import a model into Voxels and then have to retopologize. Voxel Clay sculpting is great if you want to start there, or if you don't want to have to be concered about polygonal topology and such, but the Sculpting Room needs some love too, as many models I'd rather just avoid Voxels altogether.

Well, you can collapse the different tool categories, to save space. I think One plan might be to have the Voxel Tools disappear when in surface mode...and vice versa when you switch back to volume/voxel mode...so that you are in a completely context-sensitive layout. As far as node-based materials...I disagree, for now. That is the job of a full featured 3D Application...not a 3D painting/Sculpting. I'd much rather time be spent refining and fixing what is already in the program. It seems that it's a bit enticing to keep adding features, but long wait times is something that needs to be addressed well ahead of snazzy new additions. When speed across the application is on par with Mudbox and ZBrush as well as the brushes and toolset being polished and stable...that's when we should be talking about what features may or may not be good to add.

I think the number one priority should be the long wait/calculation times in many voxel operations. You can have the fastest brush speed in the world, but what good does that ultimately do if you have to go grab a cup of coffee and may be some lunch waiting for excessive calculation times. It's the No. 1 workflow killer in the 3DC. Until that is tackled, I'm not sure we need more wiz-bang features like Ptex and such. The program has come a long way in such a short period of time, but some glaring issues still remain. Those need to be nailed down once and for all, or all the features in the world matter little. Just my 2 cents worth.

Yeah...sometimes that is the best answer to give, as you will have more detailed info than someone having to type out an explanation. Plus, you have the WIKI available right at the top of your screen, so the answer is easily accessible.

There were some recent changes that allow you to set the depth for the cutting

It would be especially nice if some of the calculation (long wait times when doing some voxel operations, such as merge or switch from surface to voxels) load could be sent to a second GPU to help crunch those numbers. Don't know if Andrew can do that or not....but right now, a beefy single GPU is doing pretty well. I just wish something could be done about the excessive wait times.

If you do a search on this forum for "Graphic Card" you will find this sort of discussion already covered at some length....but the short of it is, no...most every CG application out there utilizes only one card/ GPU. So, if you have an SLI or dual-GPU, it won't help at all. It's best to just get the best single GPU you can afford. A GTX 275 (overclocked a bit using software it ships with...it can outperform the 285 and save you $100+) is what I recently bought, and very happy with. I wouldn't shell out the cash for the top model as the newer generation NVidia is due out soon.

UV layout/Unwrapping is generally the last step before doing textures, as that is the step needed to make sure you have a good, even distribution of pixels when your maps are applied to the model. Auto-UV mapping may work for very primitive shaped objects, but 95% of the time, you want to set them up manually. You'll run into all kinds of issues (stretching, seams...you may want to have islands joined, etc.), if you don't. One of the most tedious aspects of UV layout/Unwrapping is selecting all your seams....if it's a relatively complex model, like a character. There is nothing faster than 3DC for this task. With the Shift Key held down you can select entire edge loops in a single click. If you want to select a specific portion of an edgeloop instead, you can click the edge where you want to start, click the one where you want to end and hit Shift to select all in between. Check out this video tutorial, for a little more explanation, and the one following that is not 3DC, but you can observe where the seams are being placed, and study it to see where and perhaps why they chose to place them where they did. This is a really efficient Unwrapping plugin I have for 3ds Max, that uses the same flattening method 3DC does. The difference for me is seam selection isn't as fast and efficient as 3DC's, nor are the relaxing methods as simple and efficient as those in 3DC. http://www.raylightgames.com/xrayunwrap/xrayunwrap.htm Video tutorials http://www.raylightgames.com/xrayunwrap/video.htm

No...UV's just interpret 3D coordinates into 2 dimensional maps, so anytime you go to painting, it is going on an image map (including depth channel that gets exported as Normal and Bump maps). Before you go to painting it, you need to add UV's, if you didn't do them in the host program. Last fall Andrew did a major overhaul of the UV tools, and you would be hard pressed to find a better solution, IMHO. I don't do UV Unwrapping in 3ds Max anymore, as they are much faster and easier done in 3DC.

Yeah, one was supposed to be in the works (Dwayne Ferguson/Wolf), but he said the same thing. By the time it could be published, it would be out of date. It's best to just grab a cup of coffee and go through the manual or Wiki (on this site), and all the videos available

What do your UV's look like? If they are good to go, then Sub D'ing should be fine

Nope...I bought 3DC right after v3 was released. And I primarily bought it as a 3D Painting replacement for Deep Paint 3D (which is essentially dead as they aren't supporting it). It was well worth it just for that...and now, the UV layout tools make it even more so. That's not even mentioning Voxel Clay sculpting and such. So...you're trying to compare it to ZBrush based on sculpting, but that's not an accurate comparison. 3DC is first a 3D Painting application...and in that capacity, is heads and shoulders above ZB and MB. Therefore, your comment about the price difference is only relative to less than half of the toolset.

BodyPaint was expensive as a standalone. They incorporated it within the C4D, and that forces you buy the base version whether you want it or not...Deep Paint is what I used...they have all but abandoned it...never had any video tutorials. And it no longer works with Vista or Win 7.You may not think 3DC is worth it, but ZBrush is $600: http://www.pixologic.com/store/ And Mudbox is $750 If you need a serious 3D Painting application that has top shelf UV layout tools and approaches ZB and MB in sculpting ability...3DC is a heck of a deal at half the price of ZB.

Andrew stated when v3 was released that as more features were added the price would correspond. Since then, a ton of features and improvements were added...so with those and PTex, an extra $15 is more than worth it, for those that have yet to purchase the application. If you're going to throw a fit over $15, then maybe you should be looking elsewhere. Maybe Blender is your cup of tea. There are standalone UV editing applications that cost more than 3DC:http://www.polygonal-design.fr/e_unfold/ccov.php There are 3D Painting applications that cost 2-3 times more: http://www.maxonshop.com/us/ps/code=BP-N-4&act=gpage https://store.righthemisphere.com/categories/entertainment-bundle http://www.righthemisphere.com/products/dp3d/Deep3D_UV/index.html

Looks like a "Johnny come lately" to me...don't see what it does that 3DC does not.