efflux

This is actually my favourite but all your work is cool.

Thanks. Here is something else I've been working on. It's a mannequin to use as a sculpting base. All parts are separate layers. I decided to limit it's structure to very basic shapes, using just primitives and simple curves. The grey parts can be subtracted but I don't want to model a skeleton, just a guide to maybe skin with other curves or build muscles. It's an eight head proportion but there is no ideal. Everyone is different. Only very tall people are eight heads. It's a good starting point. Having said that, I haven't tried to sculpt over it yet. I thought it would be very cool if we could save curves. Then we could have a collection of quick building blocks to create basic clean forms. I wish we could do this.

Here is my first 3D Coat sculpt. In fact my first serious 3D model of any kind. I've mostly been working with procedural landscape apps. I've worked with polygon modelling but it never appealed to me. I've been studying anatomy so this sculpt is made up with no reference. I intended to take it further. Some things need tweaked but I'm quite happy with it as is. I may just tweak this slightly and move to something else. My computer is slow so I can't get into a lot of detail. I intend to upgrade my system to quad core (Linux). I bought a licence for 3D Coat v2 and just tried to upgrade to v3 Linux but there is some kind of payment problem. I'll find out what is wrong and sort that. This is created with the demo.

AWESOME! Thanks. Will be testing straight away. I haven't upgrade to V3 yet. My computer is a bit slow but I'm moving house so don't want to buy a new one. I will be doing so soon. Quad core 64 bit Linux system. I promise I'll be getting into this app more. Keep up this awesome work.

I think it might be cool if the letters were the same dripping material that is on the ball and related to the ball as if one was dripping from the other, somehow. However, personally I would be inclined to lose the ball. All you'd need would be some nice splattered style green lettering in the same looking material as the goo on the ball. I think if you found some nice lettering of some sort that would be enough and very simple. What I think is that this app should not have anything that looks too serious. Some of those other logos for say ZBrush look too stylish for 3D Coat. It should be kept almost child like because this is how easy the app is to use.

Great. Love this app. Still works on Linux Wine.

Cool work. Very mean looking expression.

The work you are doing is very cool. It should inspire lots of people to try 3D Coat.

I've been working in Blender for a few days. Just went to Modo. It's unbearable in comparison! No way does Modo have as good a UI as Blender. You can reconfigure Blender's UI as you work without thinking about it. Lux have tried with Modo. The trouble is they have tried to do everything. Tried to please everyone. This doesn't work. The developers must decide on a simple direction that is not going to please everyone. Silo, Wings 3D, Blender and 3D Coat (even although it's presently a bit of a work in progress) are examples of apps that all have simple systems of working that do not create UI traffic jams. Blender has some issues but it's a complex app so not so easy to solve those problems. Other similar full blown 3D apps apps have had nothing done to them to solve their UI mess. I have faith in what has been suggested for 3D coat. I think it will end up having a very clear and simple UI.

Apps like Maya, Max, XSI etc are very bad in my opinion. Buttons absolutely everywhere. So maybe you can customize a lot of these apps but how quick and easy is that anyway? Why on earth does an app need buttons to create primitives for example or any tools for that matter. I know what extrude does. I don't need an icon to tell me that. If it has any option then I can deal with that after calling the tool up via key command. Everything can be in menus with key commands added. Then you learn the command. It's very simple. I don't get all this ridiculous UI glut in apps.

As for Blender's UI, the only real issue with it is the fact that it allows you to have horizontal areas to contain various boxes similar to the one I posted a screen shot of. These small boxes all collapse to a bar as is indicated with the little arrow symbol. The trouble with this is that the boxes have to be of a fixed size to tidily fit horizontally. Whereas vertically they could be any height. Because these boxes are all the same size it means that there is a limited amount of space for related controls. This is messy since obviously some functions need more controls. There are some plans to possibly change this but Blenders UI is totally configurable by the user. It is so easy to configure that the way you work is to generally configure the UI as you work. Each project is just configured individually. I think that's the way most people work with it.

There is a different version of the Blender UI without the beveled corners but the beveled corners version is actually simpler on the eye. It doesn't have gradations. If 3D Coat ends up more like Silo then that seems good to me. I don't use Silo because for other reasons I was not keen on it but it seems they have tried to keep the UI as minimal as possible.

In this forum under feature requests I mentioned something else that I'm not keen on. It depends on what kind of editing you are doing but one thing I don't like, mainly when you are doing some detailed work, is the way at the mouse pointer you see a transparent preview of the brush shape which does disappear when you start painting but I'd rather not see that most of the time. It obscures and distracts. I would prefer that this could be turned off and I would also prefer that all the visual feedback disappears when you start a painting stroke but at present you still see the radius. Although some of those ideas are cool and give you more comprehensive info about the brush than other apps do, it can be too much. Best of all would be in you had full customizable control of these things.

I like the single sliders that can be called up at the mouse though. Just having visual feedback from that rather than reading numbers is good and then it just disappears after you move it so it can be big without getting in the way.

OK but isn't what you are suggesting what is essentially described in the original idea that has no visual sliders. Here is Blender's transform properties box. This just appears as a floating window anywhere you want it to be and gives you info on the selected object. The arrows on either side of the value increase or decrease it by 1 step. Clicking on the text highlights it for editing. If you click on the text and drag to the sides without declicking, it scrolls through values. If you drag vertical it scrolls through values but slower. To my mind this is exactly all that is needed. There are actually discussion going on about adding sliders to Blender but this would visually and functionally complicate the whole simplicity of the way every single value in Blender is edited.

So this begs the question as to why does it work this way? Anyone used to a 2D editing app is going to open a colour picker from the colour box on the right.

OK thanks. Issue is solved. It all works as expected if I open but the colour picker popup from view menu. I was opening the colour picker from the colour boxes on the right.

OK. Do I have a Linux issue here because I notice it's telling me I can choose primary and secondary colours with either LMB or RMB?

philnolan3d. I can have the color picker open but I can't change the colour of the brush without actually clicking OK or hitting enter. I'm not saying this is a huge deal but I have to keep opening and closing the colour picker. I'm on Linux here so for example if I open Gimp and use the colour picker then the colour of the brush simply updates instantly as I move around the colour picker making constant changes to the colour very quick and easy.

Just another point about sliders. For a slider to be effective it needs to be large at least to be able to effectively grab a slider control and drag it or you then need other key commands to make smaller incremental changes. In the view - popups menu we have some sliders that popup if you assign a keyboard command like one for radius. Those are quite effective and large sliders same as the ones presently at the top of the UI. Smaller ones in the brush editor panel would be less effective unless an actual larger slider appeared. This is my reason for not being keen on that idea.

Highlighting the name instead of a checkbox is OK. Less UI clutter. I didn't think of that when I looked at your picture. The only possible issues I can think of is different UI colours making it less obvious i.e. text possibly not so easy to see and then some functions will not have any sliders or any data input except just a button. Would we want all this text to be grayed out or do they still retain buttons? It could be an oversimplification but maybe an original one? In the first UI plan the falloff area looks like wasted UI. I like the idea of the space wasted by buttons being used for smaller previews of falloff curves. That seems good. I notice colour at the control for specularity for example in your new idea. That's interesting. I'm not sure how all the brush controls are being laid out in the new version but at present it's a bit messy. Talking about colour. We currently have a colour palette which is cool but why can't we have the color picker open all the time if we want and choose colours from there. At present you have to select a colour then press OK. Otherwise it does not update the colours in the box on the right (the way it would do in other 2D image editors). This is bad news in my opinion. After all this is essentially a painting app as well as everything else it does. If you could have the colour picker open at the IMG tab for example then you could constantly choose colors from a picture. That would be useful. I think a lot of UI standards that people are used to, have way too much UI (icons, buttons and sliders everywhere) but as people get used to certain simpler concepts it isn't be so hard for them to find things straight away. The fact that 3D Coat has tons of popup help info means people could learn this stuff fast anyway. By the way, I'm currently running 3D Coat on Linux so if anything I say is not correct please let me know in case running under Wine has any issues.

Another thing. What is happening to that bar at the top that presently has sliders? I largely ignore that. I'd rather have more work space. I have only been using 3D Coat for about 3 days by the way, in case I miss anything but it is already incredibly easy to use. I'm still testing the demo but it's almost certain I will be purchasing a license.

I have Modo and to tell you the truth I'm actually not too keen on it but I don't use Maya so can't comment on those things. I do however think that sliders in those boxes are unnecessary. The solution that is being proposed is good. It is Blender like and that is cool. Blender's UI actually has some very good aspects despite what people say. However, sliders are good in the appropriate place especially where values are constantly manipulated like in a painting program. Presumably we will still have popups to gain access to some sliders. We don't want any wasted space in the boxes or elsewhere in the UI. Also, the most common parameters to want to quickly alter can be done by key command and mouse anyway. Best to keep everything as simple as possible but still have different ways of entering data - The most appropriate and uncluttered way for each UI method.

OK, this keeps happening with the volumetric sculpting. The only solution is reinstalling. I get the error below. I'm guessing it is an Open GL problem although it's all quite complex I suppose since 3D Coat is running under Wine. I have NVidia's own Linux drivers installed. the card is a Quadro FX. The issue happens when (for example) I choose another Open GL shader but has happened at other times as well: 15.11.2008 14:03 Ubuntu:CRASH!!! Version:3D-COAT 3-00-ALPHA-40(GL) Memory status: OK pointers: 26136 Work time: 0 m 9s TotalPhys: 2014 -> 2014 Mb AvailPhys: 1665 -> 1607 Mb TotalPageFile: 2609 -> 2609 Mb AvailPageFile: 382 -> 440 Mb TotalVirtual: 4095 -> 4095 Mb AvailVirtual: 4095 -> 4095 Mb Video: X11 Windowing System nproc: 2 (1)object: () vert: 0 poly: 0 rt:256x256 undo: (0) tool: VOX_SCULPT_TOOL 7D95C513 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 .PDB file missed of stack failed

A reinstall fixed this issue but I will keep all error messages.