Digital777

Thanks for another great update.

I noticed the holes while sculpting bug is now fixed which is good although i haven't installed the latest beta yet, still using beta b and need to update. I was just wondering though were the paint tools in voxel mode and surface mode distortion bugs ever fixed? I posted with screens in this thread here - http://www.3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=6634&view=findpost&p=52648 The paint mode bug was quite nasty because it seemed to brake many of the tools and brushes also. I think it happens randomly maybe after using the preset options because i remember using those and then realizing they don't work well in voxel mode as they are mainly designed for paint mode. This could maybe have been the cause because i enabled it to save all the data in the presets and it might make it think it's still paint mode although i deleted them later and it happened but it might have been stored somewhere. I recently posted my thoughts on the preset system with suggestions here by the way - http://www.3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=6722&view=findpost&p=52493 I don't like the current version much but that's mainly because i recently realized they only work well with paint mode and are not really designed for voxels. I know other users were requesting this recently so there might be plans already but out of my many GUI suggestions that is probably the biggest thing i think needs to be done at the moment.

Suggestion/Idea - With the merge tool even if it's a cube as the default shape and you are using a camera view like Front or Left the pen will rotate near the edges and other merged object edges even if they are flat. This tool really needs a option like 'Don't Rotate With Edges' as a tick box for the On pen mode. When you merge with transform it's fine though but it would be nice to have this type of control for pen mode as it is much faster to use. You might have noticed i have already said about a very similar idea above however this is different as it's not to snap to a angle but rather just avoid the default 'follow the surface' style rotation the tool uses, both of these requests would allow much nicer control with the merge tool though and would be great to have. Off-topic Forum Suggestion - The Tutorials forum here is great but all the sticky posts are a bit much. They are useful to have but i think instead there should be a index post listing the most useful topics (basically the current sticky posts) and then maybe 1 or 2 of the most important like helpful video tutorial series. Maybe it is just me but even though most of these are helpful half a page of pinned topics seems a bit over the top in my opinion so a index topic would be a nice solution and make things more organized.

Yeah i am confused also it seems to be a texture and rendering app. It looks quite good but there is already apps that do similar stuff and now quality open source rendering apps like Lux so it will have to be something quite special if it has a high price tag. So according to the LightWave store it's currently $895.00 so it will be around either $2685-$3580 for a new app that will probably be full of bugs when the public/company's starts testing it as new products usually do, if that is the intro price considering that and you can get Lux render free and Thea for about €158.54 i guess they are not aiming at the general 3d market but only game and animation studios.

Thanks everyone, it's good to know that the wiki adjustments were helpful The app-link is really great, i am looking forward to when they add it to the official blender build.

You have done the wiki page very well already, there was a few typos like Rememeber which should be Remember, also dosen't which should be doesn't. It might not need it but some possible adjustments could be - Press the "Save as Default" button. You should now see a new 3D-Coat Applink panel under the Scene tab. --- There are some very helpful video tutorials at the end of this document. Make sure that you watch them if you are trying the Applink for the first time. --- Export Obj = If this is on it will export your model every time you press "export". If this is off then it only exports your model if it doesn't find the object. Also if you only set a folder into the object path then the script exports the model and automatically adds the name of the object into "object path". --- No Import File = If this is on then the script doesn't write a import.txt text file. You can use this option when you don't want to take your models into 3D-Coat and just want to quickly find and update all the textures that are linked into the object. --- Remember Position = If this is off then when you export objects into 3D-Coat they will be placed into origin. If this is on then the object location in blender is stored and the object is placed at the same location in 3D-Coat. --- Auto Smooth = Automatically smooth the object Bring Textures = If this is on then it will find any new textures and bring them into your active material. If you turn this option off then it will not bring any textures, it will just reload the image textures you already have. ------------ It was simple enough to understand the wiki page already though so even if you just correct the typos it is good. I might have made errors myself (Someone please check it and also feel free to make adjustments to my changes also) but this might be helpful or a good starting point if you want to make adjustments.

Idea - The Voxel mode Fill tool is useful but maybe it could have some other options to customize the way it works a bit more. Even in the manual it says it sometimes needs high settings to work so a good option would be a drop down menu with low and high intensity so there is no need to boost the depth amount really high. Another would be some way to make it raise with a sharp result instead of smoothing things maybe so it will pinch the edges of the cavities while it raises. Even if you set smoothing to 0% it still does it so something like this could be used for hard surface sculpting also. Idea - For the voxel mode smooth tool it would be very useful to have some option so it only smooths near the edges. This would be useful because if you do something like merge and add a cube without giving it a higher poly count it gives a distorted edge, this can be made to look much nicer if you use a smooth with a low value set but the problem is it also softens un-wanted parts like the corners more also. Basically i am thinking this would give results something like when you crease corners/edges with smooth shapes so if it was a cube for example rather than ending up more like a sphere/rounded cube it's still a sharp cube shape just smoothed nicely on the edges. This would also be great for hard surface sculpting and higher resolution work. Idea - For Voxel modes Plane tool i find working with it annoying because of the way it works. It would be nice to have a option to make it work more like Surface modes Chisel tool so the brush rotates with the surfaces edge as that tool is much simpler to work with. Then you could still also use the current method and just easily switch from the menu. Idea - The voxel Hide tool does not seem effected by Masks, this would be a very useful feature though if you wanted to hide only a certain shape or have a very clean edge etc.

I am not sure if you looked into the bugs from the other day but i have had some of them again and took screenshots - Voxel mode with paint mode icons - Broken results in surface mode like Artman had which seems un-fixable with smooth etc once it happens until you go back to voxel mode - I will be posting various new ideas and a few bugs in my forum threads later today also. I don't think those are to do with the beta though which is why i won't post those here. Edit - The new ideas/suggestions and bugs are now posted - http://www.3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=6722&view=findpost&p=52652 http://www.3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=6259&view=findpost&p=52651

Ok, thanks Andrew

This is great news, congrats haikalle

Nice, do the bug fixes include what i just posted (#287) above? When i got the paint mode icons the only way to fix it was close and re-start the app as it broke other things also like the results of the selected brush and current voxel mode etc.

I just wrote this in my ideas thread before reading this, slightly more advanced than just brush settings - http://www.3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=6722&view=findpost&p=52493 it needs to be done as soon as possible in my opinion, i have no idea why 3DC doesn't already have a decent preset system for voxel mode in place as it is badly needed. If there was one i will probably make my own library just like i have for brushes and merge objects etc. We could share presets on the forum also just like brushes but currently there is not much point for voxel presets, for paint mode it seems ok though but it could still be much better. Updates to the preset system would be really amazing though, i could see it being a big part of things in the future also if it was done well and maybe there could even be a default library.

Suggestion - The Preset system needs to be updated to work for voxel mode also. From looking at the stored information it's designed for paint mode only. It needs to store all of the voxel settings or things that would be useful like pen/mouse switches, locking, Interpolate value, brush/draw mode used, brush settings, which voxel tool was used etc. It also needs a folder system for good organization. I don't like the current voxel preset system much because it basically isn't fully done it seem and in my opinion this should be updated as soon as possible. When using most other apps the preset system is a big part of a quick and simple workflow so a update would be great. If this was added it would make things much nicer for my workflow and probably save me loads of time also rather than constantly adjusting things, i know other feel the same also as there has been a few posts about this before but hopefully it will be added some time as it would be very useful.

Note that this was with 3.5.04A (Cuda) (DX) on windows XP but i will post anyway and re-download as it seems there has been a quick update now - In Voxel mode sometimes when using the airbrush with Interpolate and the diamond/pyramid brush if i move it over areas that are already detailed the display glitches and you can see transparent bits. This happens more when zoomed in close and they will go away if you draw over that area again or switch to another tool like Smooth and click on them. If i start a new project and do the same thing with the same brush settingas it would not always happen though. I often get this type of thing when sculpting on a cube which is angled to see the other sides and then drawing over the edge of one face. I can repeat this, it's just a visual glitch though and if i rotate the camera they often go after. Also for some reason i am sometimes getting Paint modes icons and materials when i am using voxel mode. ----- The new surface tools are great by the way. It would be great to have a few options to adjust these like you can with a few of the other surface tools. For scratches maybe line amount and variation controls then for Mud maybe a few grain modes, grain size so you could have larger lumps and other variation controls so you could also use this for other terrain surface styles. By the way i just updated both my forum threads - http://www.3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=6722&view=findpost&p=52493 http://www.3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=6259&view=findpost&p=52490

Idea - Either add a new tool or update the current Snake and Spike tools to allow multi part loading with modes like 4 or 8 etc. So for example you select 4 multi part mode and you then load in 4 objects/tube parts. The difference now to the standard tool is rather than that object repeating loads of times you have much more variation to the tube/snake that you draw. A good example would be a sci-fi style pipe where you have a regular part, then a part with a vent, then a regular part with some bolts and then another with a slightly different air vent etc. Currently for this type of results you would need to just make a repeating regular part and then merge all the other parts in, this however would allow you to do it instantly and because of the way you would have 4 loaders it means you could quickly make new patterns also. This would be a really useful tool to have.

Nice this will be great

If anyone is interested in the applinks planned Andrew said this a while back - and recently - So quite a few should appear soon and i guess Modo will also be added to the list as it is quite popular. Modo or other app developers could also add it as there is info available here - http://www.3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=5596 That thread is still in the SDK forum btw so it might be better to move it to the new applink forum area.

Thanks, i don't own V-Ray but i am sure this would make anyone that has it very happy. This has given me the idea to try this applink with the freestyle version of blender to see if that works, it could have very cool results. By the way have you thought of trying to get this added to the main addons listing? That would be cool, it would mean we could then just download the latest blender builds and enable the addon making things even simpler and also more people would get to know about 3DC. I found this on the wiki if you are interested in doing this - http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Py/Sharing

This will be really great for painting and hopefully voxels also if that is done.

Here is some more ideas and suggestions. Suggestion - I don't always get how the scale works with this program, if i export something it is sometimes giant in other apps like blender on import. So a idea would be some sort of scale options for import and export maybe with presets for some of the popular apps so scale is not a extra step and it easily converts to any of the different units a app will use and make it simpler to transfer objects. Idea - How about a option to use auto-relaxed strokes for things like paint with drawn contour. By this i mean similar to the Muscle tool where the longer you have the mouse held before release it smooths to the surface, only it would do this with the points in the line etc. So basically this would allow you to get rounded shapes much simpler even if using a mouse which makes things more difficult to draw than if you were using a tablet. Idea - Sometimes when working with voxels you get left with grains and islands you don't want so you have to cut or hide them which can be annoying at times. So how about a voxel filter/threshold option that would give you a range control which you can adjust so it would remove any detected islands lower than the threshold you set. So what could be a possibly long task is done quickly as it basically just filters out what is unwanted or problems you might not have even noticed.

+1 vote That would be a really useful tool to have.

I found a bug - If i use the Export To > Blender option and select the location of the obj and overwrite it then it loads fine with the textures applied. It positions it slightly above the grid surface in blender though, if i click Import after on the applink options (in blender) the object lowers with the textures looking fine still. Now the part where you get a bug is if you now use the undo shortcut (Ctrl+Z) in blender as the textures will go but it will also sometimes distort the mesh. Other than the undo thing though the applink seems to work great now.

The axis snapping is very useful but after testing it is not what i was requesting as it's just for the view. I wanted it to snap rotation for the merge tool etc to align to the closest set degree. Basically what grid snapping is for positioning but for rotation and without the need of a grid. So annoying placements of objects with merge tool on rounded surfaces remains still because as far as i know if you don't position each it auto rotates with the surface, what i requested would avoid that but hopefully that will get added at some point.

I know that was why i asked as the tweet didn't explain what it does and i don't use zb so i have no idea. I wanted to know if it was the same thing as what i had requested in my ideas thread recently though. I still have no idea yet but i have downloaded the new version now and will test when i have have some time. Axis snap sounds like it will lock to the closest 90 degree which is what i wanted, 45 degrees would be very useful i suggested this in my thread also.

You didn't say anything like that before though just that you saw a face on the sun. So if you don't say what you mean you can't expect people to just know what you are thinking. So now it seems like the sun is going to erupt, that makes things a bit more interesting... Do you have a link or anything though, where are you reading about this? I just took a quick look on the nasa site and didn't find much about it.