mercy

Not bad. Genuine Russian software tech!

Looks really nice. Good job Andrew!

Good Job on the new baking feature! Smoking the competition once it is stamped "perfect" by the users here. Possibly the two functions are interrelated in the code of 3DC.

It might be a good idea to create a voting system here on the forum about the most important request a game or CGI developer uses in their pipeline every day/week. Get the three most requested functions from Mantis. Create choices A, B, C and people can vote and see the immediate results, how many users want A or B or C feature. Then it might be sensible to realize the one request that gets the most vote. The request doesn't have to be a "new feature". Rather a heavily used function in creating CGI in everyday work that is not currently in 3D-Coat or not working the way users would like and people have to go to other software to finish their models.

The one from Zbrush "while freely rotating the model press SHIFT-key snap into view angles" function annoyed the HELL out of me, but thanks to Andrew I could reconfigure the navigation and now i am using Mudbox-style. Very nice function of 3D-Coat!

See what is Andrew doing? Making a familiar work environment so Photoshop users feel at home in 3D-Coat. Very important for seamless workflow.

3d-Coat-V4-BETA11-32: starting.. The application or DLL c:\Program Files\3D-Coat-V4\tbbmalloc.dll is not a valid Windows image. Please check this against your installation diskette. On replacing tbbmalloc.dll from an earlier beta package: The application or DLL c:\Program Files\3D-Coat-V4\tbb.dll is not a valid Windows image. Please check this against your installation diskette. tbb.dll and tbbmalloc.dll are probably not 32-bit windows versions In 3d-Coat-V4-BETA11-32. 3d-Coat-V4-BETA10-32 had no such error message. Replacing both DLL-s from earlier beta packages solves the problem.

If Andrew can reproduce the super speed of 3d-Coat-V4-BETA6, its a win.

Good idea! Set up a voting system here on the forum. Every major game developer - especially Kickstarter projects - use voting system nowadays. There are the WebDesigner - Andrew Zakolukin, and programming - Vladimir Popelnukh who can accomplish this. Then after you vote, display the result so you can see what EVERYONE wants, how many people like the new names of commands, menus, windows, 3DC-operations, etc..

That's the main point. I would ask Andrew if the menus, pop-ups are all hardcoded - in the main source code - or he uses some XML or some script to compile the menu windows with all pop-ups and tabs into the source code. Then I would ask Andrew to give me a version of 3D-Coat with the hopefully external User Interface [uI]-configuration files that I can compile into 3DC and freely modify all menu texts windows tabs, their position and order of appearance. I would upload the UI-test version of 3D-Coat here that would only serve to everyone agree on one GOOD interface version with proper naming not the functionality of the tools. Then once ALL agree the new UI is a much better arrangement and naming, send it back to Andrew to integrate the new UI into the newest version of 3DC.

Maybe create and English.xml and pass it around until everyone is satisfied with the modifications, then send it to Andrew? Also bugfixing is more important than a MAJOR UI overhaul. But the latter has to be done sometime in the near future to make 3D-Coat more MAINSTREAM and artist-friendly. Peope probably LIKE using new programs with familiar tool-names. Like using the SAME names as are used in Modo, Mudbox, Zbrush, Max, Maya, C4D etc.. The new names - auto retopo, projection painting, vertex painting, etc.. - are in the public consciousness. It's a big business-management error not to use them.

Andrew made a good decision creating MODdable xml files.

Currently 3D-Coat bakes the nicest Displacement map compared to the latest Mudbox and any 3DSMax versions. If the baking task is a lowpoly mesh and its separate highest level hipoly sculpted counterpart. Max is really disappointing, since it has only "Height Map" and it looks ridiculous. Mudbox can import the highest poly count mesh from the three, but it puts pitch black areas on the disp. map, which appear in Max as shallow craters on renders. 3D-Coat displacement map renders fine in Max.

That was fast!

I'm regularly checking out the most famous What are Your working on? ongoing forum thread (2009..2010..2011..2012) on Polycount and we saw awesome WIP artworks posted there by known game-industry veterans and freelance artists made with 3D-Coat.

Plus C4D has a surprisingly nice and fast Advanced Renderer (GI). It seems the scene render for my recent product looks best in C4D. I did the XSI and Max scenes as well (fast Mental Ray setups), but C4D looks best so far. Surprise!

Please do explain. Can't wait to read your blog.

The best method was screen-cast from Modo, i think. MARI or Photoshop-warp is exemplary. The model also needs to be visible while projection painting and a non-tiled smaller mask is perfect for this. The artist needs to rotate and position the model, get his bearings by also looking directly at the model (not through the transparent mask) To feel the model, to determine, where the model needs more painting. Zbrush has at least a projection brush-visibility radius, like Photoshop-CS5-Clone brush, it shows the mask to be painted only under the brush, the rest of the model is visible and the artist can determine where he wants more painting. If a mask covers the entire model, transparency or not, the artist isn't in full control cannot see as a sculptor sees the form, and is hindered in artistic freedom by the mask, i think. Andrew is not Superman. If he could clone himself and 12 Andrews were working parallel on 3D-Coat, new features were raining from the sky. But there are good chances his wife wouldn't like to cook for 12 men. Andrew has done his best with 3D-Coat.

MARI has even the Photoshop---Edit---Transform---Warp function: The mask image is stretched onto a 3x3 mesh grid, you brush-pull-warp the mesh, the image responds precisely to this deform. I also posted the idea here already. 3D-Coat could be market-leader in texturing, by combining these specific powers of Modo, MARI and Photoshop. The Topo move brush code could be used it just needs a mask image and paint projection.

Zbrush developer is planning QRemesher. Can draw guide lines on the mesh and a new algorithm = retopo + decimate combined should create a new lower poly mesh where the topology is following the guide lines. 3D-Coat could be better by: Edge loop curve guide: Draw these on the mesh and 3D-Coat decimates + auto-retopos the hipoly model, creating a new target mesh according to the number of Decimate% I entered, like Zbrush, but has clean edge loops where I have drawn the guides. Best for clean edges not only for organic-sculpture but also for mechanical models! This should be the future of retopo + decimate combined. Note that I'm talking about a hipoly mesh of 1.000.000 polygons, decimated+retopoed by 3D-Coat's new super-algorithm to 300.000 QUAD polygons that HAS clean edge loops, where i have drawn the Edge loop curve guides.

Andrew New Ghost mode could allow us to see the Boolean result here: as we move the second ghosted object, always see the Boolean-result, because its transparent: No Ghost mode: I have to move the second object or turn off its visibility to see if the boolean result is looking good or not:

Andrew: Ghost mode could be useful for booleans. 1. Object_A_fully visible - Object_B_Ghosted (B extracted from A ) 2. TANSFORM: when I move Object_B or Object_A I can see the result of boolean on Object_A_surface through Object_B_Ghosted

I imported a midpoly model for PPP, set texture size to 4096. Drew 4 yellow lines where aliasing could be clearly seen at 100% res. Export Diffuse. Opened the TGA in photoshop. Resized the image with bicubic (best smooth for gradients) or bicubic smoother (best for enlargements) to 2048 x 2048. Aliasing disappeared at 100%. My target resolution was 2048x2048.

Top excellent work, Andrew!! Very good results. You made it!!! This means clean industry advantage over: Mudbox 2012SP3: its photo paint is slow as hell on my GTX280, Mudbox clone distorts textures with weak projection code and does not recognize CUDA cards 1GB RAM, despite workaround environment variables set) Zbrush 4R2b: its "spotlight" 3D texture paint CANNOT paint onto lowpoly!! MARI:the best painting tool currently requires super-expensive PC with LOTS of RAM!

Andrew, Excellent work on the new clone tool! New hope! Could you please put paint from a photo onto a model and show the cloned result and the original photopaint beside each other?