Digital777

The human mind creates images, it's the same as when you look at clouds and think there is faces or shapes etc. I can sort of see a forum smiley in a few of them though.

Thanks haikalle, i just downloaded and will test the new version, the new videos that show the workflow are useful also.

Well since nobody answered me before about the snapping feature i guess i will just have to download the new version and try it. I haven't noticed much of what i have requested added yet but hopefully those will get added and the releases seem to have lots of cool things anyway so i am happy, the new clone tool sounds like it will be very useful. The new version seems like another quality update.

Nice thanks for the new release

So i am wondering how does the Shift snapping work in ZB? What does it actually do, does it rotate to the closest side or center the view or something? I am asking because i requested some snapping features here - http://www.3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=6722 but i am guessing it is different though.

@haikalle - That happened just with the default settings that are there as soon as you add it to blender, all i did was set the path to the object and exchange folder. The scale change was done in blender with it's shortcut (s key i think), I think i looked in the command prompt window also and it seemed fine so i just guessed you had to keep the model at the same scale but i guess not. By the way with the model does it matter where you load it from to start with? By this i mean is it better to load it in blender or 3DC first or should either be ok?

These are really great Spiraloid, you also have some good ideas/suggestions for 3DC also.

One thing i noticed last time i used this was if i scaled down the model in blender then export to 3dc and if i re-imported from 3dc after and back to blender it had 2 models at different sizes. Is the Modifiers option needed for this or is that different? when i think think of modifiers i think the blender effects but scale and rotations etc is a standard thing so different?

JamesE has very good points but i also agree with you Greg. Basically NC has made things very difficult for themselves by going off to make the iphone apps, it is understandable they might want to have other projects and as i said before developers are not robots but they could have kept the community posted about what was going on. By not doing this they have annoyed people that are only interested in silo and will now maybe be looking for or are already using other programs instead. I think though that the community could be more happy that they are back to releasing updates. Some software doesn't even have a forum or wiki so what they have is actually better than some already but i agree that communication with users adds more to a programs value but like many when i buy a program i buy it because it is good and not to talk to the developers, that is just added value. Right now the way i have seen things some people are more than happy to get negative as soon as a new beta is released, while i understand why and agree to a point it's not exactly going to inspire the developers to communicate back so as JamesE says even if they just keep making updates that is much better than them just giving up on silo. Hopefully now though it seems they have finished with the iphone projects so they will get back to developing silo more.

Yeah your right, actually i just remembered that it was listed in a thread in the SDK forum in a post about app links. Andrew says - In general we have in pipeline Max, Maya, LW, Blender, Houdini, XSI, C4D, ZBrush, Rhino, Messiah, list may be expanded.

For 3dm i noticed this on the Rhino site - http://www.opennurbs.org The openNURBS Toolkit consists of the source code for a library that reads and writes .3DM files used by Rhino and over 250 other applications. In addition, the toolkit provides NURBS evaluation and other simple geometry tools. So it's more of the file format but if that was added i am guessing it would make a app link much simpler as well as being useful also.

Maybe they read the 3DC forums then, i am guessing Zbrush and other apps developers will also. If so it's probably because of your first post, i am someone that is happy they are developing silo again so i guess you will be waiting 7 months to laugh at me. I purchased silo because it was a quality modeling app, even though it has some bugs i still have this opinion. At one time it was considered the best app by many people also so hopefully they will be able to get it back to having that status again.

This is great news, thanks for the info. By the sounds of things development was stopped due to them making a game. I can see how some would be annoyed but having developed software myself i know that it's sometimes hard to work on projects if you are a small development team. People request many things and software can have many bugs to fix but at the same time developers are not robots and have other interests and real lives to live. Hopefully there will be a V2 SDK soon also as this would allow new addons and a 3DC app-link which would be great. It must be hard when you have a community annoyed that there has been no updates for a while but i am happy the developers are making silo again and hopefully this time will continue to.

Haikalle i was wrong before, it is working now Sorry i had not watched the new video fully, i didn't watch it at first because i had seen the previous videos you made and thought it was the same as those. Basically the main thing needed was to set the extra things in blender like relative paths, GLSL and setting to textured view etc but it works now.

Edit - I thought i had found a bug with the app link but i got it working now so i have edited this post.

On this computer it doesn't work still (E drive is default) but i am starting to think that is actually due to 3DC maybe. I know this was the cause of it not showing in blender but you fixed that and it shows fine in blender always now. In 3DC i never see the app link menu though, i am just guessing here but even though 3DC is installed and working fine i am thinking it might use C drive as the default place to look for the app link exchange folder?

That is a very interesting technology/algorithm, i am sure this will be used in films and TV soon also. Now actors won't have to work out or loose weight for a movie part and TV shows, they will just make it look like they are in shape with effects instead.

Thanks Andrew, the latest build seems great so far and faster also. By the way you have probably seen my older 'various bugs' thread which had ideas also but have i decided to make a new thread for my ideas and suggestions here - http://www.3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=6722

I have another thread that had both bug reports and ideas - http://www.3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=6259&st=0 The topic title was 'Various Bugs' even though it had ideas however so i have decided to just open a new thread here for ideas and suggestions to make things less confusing. Be sure to check that other thread though because it has many good ideas and also bugs and glitches that need to be fixed still. Anyway here is some new ideas/suggestions i have that people will hopefully like - Suggestion - If you change colors in Preferences like for the Grid Color etc it should update the view as soon as you hit apply. Currently you have to press Apply, then Ok and then move the view or click for it to update. This makes it slightly annoying to create a custom theme because your constantly going in and out of the Edit menu and Preferences options. Suggestion - We currently have the 'Edit in ext. editor' option in the right click menu for Brushes this would be nice for Materials and Masks also. For materials you have the edit dialog which is good and you can find the path but it would be nice to have a 'Edit in ext. editor' sub menu for Depth, Color and Specular textures. Suggestion - For Sketch tool if you have images loaded and change to another tool the References image panel stays which i guess is so you can use references still. There is Show/Hide options for these but no actual Remove/Clear images button which would be useful if you decided to cancel. It's not really important but a 'Remove ref images' button would be nice, i guess it would help save a bit of memory usage also. I am also thinking the close button would be better as a standard icon next to the Pin icon for the Reference images dialog so you could just move that to the top and replace it's position with a new Remove all button. Suggestion - When you add a Primitive object as soon as you press Apply you see the next shape if you are going to add one. It overlaps though and just doesn't look very nice if you move the mouse around over it. What i think 3DC should do is just check if you have actually done anything and give a nicer preview until it starts to be re-positioned again. Basically it looks glitchy/buggy even though it will work fine but it would be nice to update this. Idea - Merge Tool Angle Snap/lock for the 'On pen' option. The idea would be when you are in that mode if you are on a corner the pen rotates to match the angle but you would hold down a key and it ignores that and snaps/rounds to the nearest 90 degree rotation. This could also be done for 45 degree or set amounts maybe. This would be very useful say if you wanted to have details along a tube at the same angle. The best way to do this i find is if you are wanting to do it on a main angle set the camera view to top etc then use the 2d grid with snap, even using this method it will rotate the pen though You could of course use the Transform tool or adjust the Yaw and Pitch etc to position each however this would be a much faster and nicer way to work. Suggestion - You can use the keyboard keys 9 and 0 to rotate the pens but is no reset shortcut so you have to go to the pen options again, maybe 8 would be be good to quickly reset the rotation. It would also be nice to have a 45 degree rotate so you hold Ctrl and press 9 or 0 and it rotates in a 45 degree step. Idea - The Sketch tool can load in various image formats but how about allowing vectors also. This could be very good for scaling and still having sharp edges as this is what vectors do best. They could follow the same type of rule but just use a solid white/black area then the transparent color would count as the outer area. Vectors would be nice for other things like masking areas etc although for the sketch tool a much better and faster workflow would be direct in app editing. Suggestion - I have never really liked the way the menus go so fast if you roll out of it's area. What some apps do is add a bit extra to the area so if you scroll down too fast out of it's area by mistake it doesn't go right away. Either that or allow the delay time to be adjusted so you can set it higher and quickly scroll back over the area so it doesn't close. I think i asked about this once and there was a option/suggestion but i cannot find it anywhere now so i guess not.

This would be cool, i don't own Octane but i like the idea of links to realistic rendering apps. Some other free render apps that would be good are - Freestyle (Non-Photorealistic, Cartoon and drawings style etc) - http://freestyle.sourceforge.net LuxRender (Popular realistic renders, has various app plugins already) - http://www.luxrender.net Sunflow (Not as updated as others but still a very nice render, java based) - http://sunflow.sourceforge.net POV-Ray (Has been a round for a while, nice renders) - http://www.povray.org Blender has direct render support for most of these to render with i think so i think 3DC could also do this. If not direct rendering then exporters to the formats they use would be great. By the way with app links it should be easy now for developers to make them so you could maybe ask on the Octane forums or contact them. Hopefully the rendering app developers will start to add support for 3DC and make plugins/app links, this would be great.

Thanks haikalle

Asking pro artists what they think the program needs or if they think it has problems that can be improved is a good idea. Everyone should have a say and good ideas are always good ideas but pro artists create art that most other people want to do also so if they can think of some great ideas everyone benefits from it so i wouldn't even mind if that took priority over other things. Spiraloid makes amazing art and seems to have a great workflow so i am sure he will have some cool ideas for 3DC. Maybe Andrew could start asking big name artists/game creators if they have any suggestions also.

Nice it looks like there is a new forum section dedicated to applinks - http://www.3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showforum=60 Yeah same here i think it's great also. I think V1 has a SDK though, i actually still use V1 with a custom layout still as i have V2 beta installed but it is still buggy. I noticed they have a iphone app now so the company is still staying around which is good, hopefully they will get focus back to silo and also make a V2 SDK.

Yeah although they didn't do that timescale part well in my opinion. I mean if she was traveling for years she would have to eat, drink and sleep for years also, forgetting years of your life just isn't realistic. I think though if it been a bit longer with more explanations to things that happened it would have worked much better.

Yeah it's definitely down to the user skills also, they have a lot of stuff on the forum that is no where near the quality of the featured posts but when people visit they instantly see those. I was looking at there site today and most of those featured posts use other apps like maya, rendering apps or compositing tricks to get much nicer results so having apps good artists use doesn't always mean everyone will be able to instantly make amazing things at the same quality level. But yeah i agree with what others say, 3d apps will always have some fancy looking images in the gallery's but it would be much better to demo the apps first because it's all down to user choice and workflow. Zbrush sadly seems to have no interest in offering a demo though even though it would no doubt help them with sales, last time i checked it was still for 3.1 or something so old and without the newer features to test.