mocaw

I look at it this way- even if 3 has only slight improvements to the painting aspects of the program it's still going to be the best 3D painting application for the money. Besides- I think Andrew has stated that MANY of the requests and features he has planned for the painting side of things are relatively trivial to implement compared to those of the voxel sculpting. So these will be in the final build. Voxels are important in that it allows 3DC more press and a wider user base. Voxel sculpting will allow 3DC to be compared more, and rightfully so, to other similar applications (zbrush and bodypaint come to mind). They are needed for 3DC to be increasingly seen as a professional application on the move. So while I totally agree that the painting features need to be worked on- since they are why so many of us originally came to 3DC in the first place, I think taking a step back and looking at the long term shows that sculpting AND painting and texture work should go hand in hand. Let's put it this way- is anyone here going to leave 3DC for XYZ because 3.x has somewhat improved painting/texturing and now voxels?

I found this site through the LW boards where there is a discussion on 3DC vs. zbrush: http://www.mupromo.com/ http://www.newtek.com/forums/showthread.ph...5055&page=3 This has to be some kind of scam right? Maybe I'm wrong... Just giving the 3DC folks a heads up as the software is already more than reasonably priced AND I want pilway to get the profits- not some cons.

In vista, using the alpha50 build of the 64-bit DX version with a wacom intous3 I think I've found a bug... Sometimes it seems with certain brushes it stops taking the depth of the brush into account and instead uses the smooth options depth! It's kind of random but I'll try and narrow it down when I get more time... Very impressed with the quadrangulation tools so far! Oh, and the regular triangulated exported meshes do amazingly well when put under extreme amounts of point reduction in XSI! This must be because the vertexes are spaced so evenly?! VERY happy with these tools! Thank you Andrew! Just don't forget what makes 3DC so great in the first place...all the painting tools! And yes the exclamation marks are needed!

I totally agree with the rest of your post- but I just wanted to point out that most publicly traded companies (unlike Pilgway and Newtek) can't talk about a product unless they plan to release it that quarter- even closed door tech demos can sometimes be an issue. At least this is what I've been told by large companies...but then again...who trusts large publicly traded companies these days? Besides a few touches to the web site, UI, and demos, I think the Pilgway team should continue as they are for now since it seems to be working really well. I just can't see this thing NOT continuing to snowballing through word of mouth etc. with little effort by the Pilgway team. Is this not the easiest program to recommend to people based on price or functionality?! So easy to "evangelize" it! Keep up the good work Andrew- your dedicated work ethics and mental flexibility are an inspiration to us all!

Cuda helps my system...but I have a $40 card! I've noticed that with it enabled, while I can more easily carve out things in a higher amount of voxels, the responsiveness of my cursor goes down in terms of visual feedback. Does this make any sense? It seems to help for texturing quite a bit too, but maybe that's not cuda related? In other words- I'm able to do a lot higher voxel count with better interaction with the model (including screen moves), but the cursor is kind of jumpy even when the results are not. I can see why a lot of people with nice systems would seem put off- but from my very elementary understanding of how voxels work and are processed there are underlying reasons why GPUs are better for processing them then current CPUs. While not the reason- think of it as if you wished to play a game (realtime app) without a video card or GPU like functions. Can you imagine how slow it would be? This argument will likely change in the future, but for now...well it looks like GPUs process certain data MUCH faster than Intel or AMD CPUs. I'm sure if John Carmak or the like was on here they could go into greater detail as could Andrew- but I'd rather have him spend the time on the program then trying to explain the "magic" behind it. Personally I think it's great to only have to buy a 150-400 dollar video card to increase my performance instead of trashing my whole system and starting over. My current cores, when outside XSI and not rendering, sit idle far too often as is. I'm not saying that upgrading to new CPU's is a waste of money- far from it, just that this might be one instance where resistance is futile since voxels, from my understanding, are very different in how they are effectively processed.

Should I disable areo in Vista? Will it help? Problem is...XSI NEEDS it in vista to work correctly in some instances... I'll give it a try and see if there is any improvement in speed...

But tasty- like Sushi or smoked salmon locks! OK...so 43 is/was buggly...I'll move on to testing with 44 then...but cuda was letting me work so fast...and in higher count for voxel...

I seem to have an issue with alpha 43 build in terms of textures when importing objects. No mater what size of texture map I choose it seems like the texture is locked at working in 512x512 or even lower. When I go to export the texture, it shows as the size I asked for in the import dialog, but even if the image is 4k it still looks like it was painted in a much lower resolution. Any suggestions? This is the same in the 64 bit versions of OpenGL and DS... If I go into the 2.x build it's still working as expected and is fine... Update: Tried the 44 simple alpha version and this version does not have the issue- textures are looking like the respective resolutions I've chosen. Is this a Cuda thing issue?

As a ZB and 3DC userI wasn't offended by the original image showing stretched polygons in ZB vs. voxels in 3DC, but I do agree that the new images illustrate the differences better. If only all developers could be as polite and honest as Andrew...ah what a dream!

Windows Vista Premium 64-bit SP-1 P820 Older Dual core 2.8Ghz 4GB DDR2 677 RAM PCIe x 16 ASUS GeForce 8400 GS w/512MB dedicated RAM (but I guess it can go further if it needs to "share" memory- up to 2047MB) I'm using DX10 BTW... Two SATA 7200rpm HD 41.2GB free on C and 129GB free on other main drive. I was also using my 4x5 Intous 3...not sure if that means anything! Sorry if this is too much or too little info! Thank you! I know my video card is a low powered cheap one...but until I had 3DC...believe it or not...this was over kill for me! How much does video card performance effect voxeling in 3DC? Right now I'm of the understanding that getting a higher performing "Cuda" card would effect redraw/lag when voxeling, where as the amount of video RAM would effect how high res your voxel model can get? I know these things are some what interdependent...but is that the gist of it? I'm sure it effects it more than one would think since voxels seem to be processed so well by current GPUs...

Also...when I hit undo...sometimes my model disappears! The brush seems to think it's still there...but it's gone...even when I reload!

What am I doing wrong? This "voxel freak out" happens when ever I use the move tool with a brush that has a lot of points. It makes the voxel count go crazy and has crashed my computer several times (as it runs out of ram and then the never ending page file of death starts). I'm only dragging once- not re-clicking. Seems to happen on smaller brush sizes... On a side note- yeah I agree that things in 3DC could be a little more "artist simulation friendly" in a sense...but I think saying that zbrush and Mudbox are the benchmark is kind of odd to me as they, while better in feel for sculpting, still don't feel "natural" by any stretch of the imagination. I also think this voxel tech is VERY cool as it's enabling us to do all sorts of modeling thats VERY hard to do otherwise, at least at the same rate. Anyway- what about this voxel freak out thing? Any tips? It's happening on the GL and DX 64bit versions...

On a totally off the top of my head, pie in the sky idea... What if the user could enact a mode called "base sculpt" where, as they formed the Macro parts of the new model 3DC remembered the direction they "brushed" and used that as the U or V coordinates. So say you're making a cow. Start in Macro mode, make the "main" parts in a basic sense- Head, torso area, legs, tail, ears, and horns. Anything that will later be detailed. Then enter detailed mode- there you'd add say the eyes, a fur like texture, hoofs, etc. 3DC is no longer taking into account your strokes for the base mesh- these are details that will only show up used as displacement, normal maps etc. in the future. You finish your cow model. When you go to re-toplologize the model half of your work is already done- as while you were working in base model mode 3DC was able to create base parts based on your base strokes. Now all you need to do is stitch them together and add more detail to the base mesh where needed. Base parts can also be assigned a default UV unwrapping as well- either in U or V, with a user assigned point(s) in world space from which rays are cast to choose the nearest U or V edge to act as the UV seam. On our cow, maybe one point at the ground level between each set of legs would be best. Select V as the direction, based on the base mesh stroke directions, and we have a fairly good start to UVs. (Just REALLY dreaming here- not sure if it's wouldn't just be faster to do it the tried and true way either) Next- you can divide the new base mesh a few times, and using a shrink wrap brush, move the base mesh points in or out towards the slightly more detailed areas (like the hoofs and inside of ears etc.). You should be left with a fairly good model for export with a nice mesh flow that needs little if any correction. Maybe there's a small glimmer of a good idea in there somewhere...

At worst the brick map method should be looked into, and if not hard to implement, added- as the use of larger studios and those using renderman compliant render engines would be a HUGE publicity gain for 3DC IMHO. Besides...it would give me another excuse to get 3Delight!

WOW! So it's already 90% of the way there! Now all that would be needed is the ability to set parameters for what order you select them in (like beginning middle end of stroke etc.). This, hands down, has to be one of the BEST software experiences of my life! I've been pluging your application when and where I can- which is easy to do given the features, price, and support! Thank you!

Well you theoretically you could right if you had an insanely dense mesh...but I think you make the point clear with your video!

Hello, Maybe, like so many things with this wonderful program, this feature is already in there and I just haven't seen it in the manual, but I would like to see a clip or animated brush, similar to what can be done in painter etc. OK- here is and explanation of what this does: it makes it so that when you "stroke" an area with your brush (pen) the alpha/object/color information is derived from a sequence of images instead of just one. If you threw in randomizing or other user based options this could be very powerful. Say you have a rock wall you're making. Wouldn't it be nice to have three sets of clips that are slightly different, and then paint a pen stroke with a bit of jitter and spacing and have them randomly selected!? How about having the start of a stoke be one clip, the middle another, and then the end the last clip/image? Or even have it based on pen pressure settings! So say at zero depth/height it paints with a brick clip, at a higher level (the top 20% of the brick clip) it switches to another clip- like a noisy one to make grit and cracks! So in the end it could be another default setting with sub-options for any pen. If it's not ticked it uses the first clip or user entered clip number (so if there are five the user could move a slider or enter say "3" and use clip/image 3). Once the "use multi image brush" is enabled it could then show the sub settings such as: Use stroke length Use stoke start and end Use pen pressure settings (then becomes reliant on those settings) Use under layer color Use direction of stroke Use velocity of stroke Randomize with color (uses the between two colors option to choose between clips) Randomize by opacity settings I'm sure there are many other settings that could be used. It would also be nice if users could create their own sets on the fly by just dragging, in order, pre-loaded brushes to a bin. Additionally- it would be VERY handy if certain clips could be defined to be used certain ways with splines like how it works in AI. So that you can have one for vertical strokes, one for each curve bend and one for another direction. Think of this like as if you were laying down a pipe texture- when it turns it uses a bent elbow image- when it's straight it uses a straight image. These wouldn't have to be new brushes of different than normal pens- it could simply be a rule that clip 1 is the horizontal straight, clip two is the first bend and so on. OK, enough of my long feature request. Loving the program! THanks, Gideon

Well...I guess if you have to paint on extremely low LOD there might be some cases made for using CS4 over XYZ...but personally I can't see them. Maybe if you coupled it with the renderer from NewTek and didn't already own a "real" 3D application it would be great...but not to me. I think a better comparison to 3DC is with bodypaint, but each has features that the other does not (at least for now- at the rate Andrew and crew are headed who knows what the future will bring). As an illustrator I find VERY little to like about the PS 3D features for the most part...but I've been dabbling in 3D for some time, so maybe I just don't get the demographic. Who is this for? Illustrators stuck in a time warp? I guess if you can't afford anything else then it's an appreciated bonus, but I'd rather learn blender first. But maybe my personal distaste for all things Adobe (sans indesign) is coming through. I use Illustrator quite a bit, but besides a few "new" tools (which I do use quite a bit) little seems to have changed in it since v8. Their rate of development is horrible IMHO. Typical of adobe, many things that could be good, stop at beta or version 1.0 (gradient mesh for example). There are so many "3D app" like tools that should be in illustrator...but alas they are not... No- I'll give people like Andrew my money while I still can- before Adobe and AD rule the world... In the end marketing rules the roost. Thing is Andrew is a few steps away from having one of the BEST personal, free, referral forms of advertising in the world of 3D. Once the sight is a little more "designer" friendly and there are a few more attractive demos things should pick up for him even more. How many software companies in general operate on this level anymore?! The feedback loop alone is worth the price of admission.

I figured this out RIGHT after posting! I need to start clicking on some radio buttons even if they are not in the PDF help and see what happens! Thanks again for a great program! Is there a user wiki with manual? I know you're busy programing with the strength and determination of 10 people so it might be a good idea to let the wonderful user base do this- I'll look around, I'm sure it's already there! Thanks, Gideon

I'm sure this has been requested before since it's such a standard PS thing, but the ability to clone from one layer to another would be great. I was just using your excellent mirroring parameter for the clone tool and wanted to put more info on another layer, so as to avoid accidentally going over my original work...but alas it is not so! Thanks again for the great program- bought it today as I finally have some time to play with it...and avoid Illustrator for a few hours! Thanks! Gideon

OK, maybe a stretch, but while everyone wants this to be a ZB or Mudbox killer app (which it looks like it could be in the future) I'd also like to add that since the texturing tools are so good 3DC is only a few steps away from giving us body paint like functionality in terms of mat painting etc. If camera data could be imported etc. then we'd be one step closer- and 3DC would gain a lot of people who are looking at BP AND 3DC. Throw in some mdd support for animated primitives and it gets even juicier! Just a thought... I really hope the texture tools keep getting refined along side the sculpting ones as these are what I'm most excited about in 3DC. Thank you for a great program!