alvordr

On a positive note, hard to beat quick renders like this:

Is there a way to toggle the panorama off in the background, but still use it for lighting?

Rendering a shot from the render room seems to cause a double-image result...two copies of the image overlaid and off-set. It's also not storing Alpha channel. I'm also finding that sometimes it doesn't let me rotate the model with the mouse in real-time render, unless I grab onto the rotate icon at the top right. These seem like easy things to catch before throwing out to the community.

Andrew, could it be the size of the panoramas? Those are likely big files being loaded into memory. If they're not loading on-demand, rather than pre-loaded, that might cause the slowdowns. I have to admit, I've been feeling a lot less apt to bother 3D modeling as much for a while now, but the lighting and rendering is making me more excited to get back to it. It's odd, because I can already do this in other software, but it's nice to see the direction this might take 3DC.

Don, I agree. I just loaded a 28 Million Tri object and it took longer than usual. However, it still loaded in about 2 min.

The render room lighting is very nice: If you want, I can test it here.

I brought this up before, but it would be great to be able to rotate the light vertically, as we used to, instead of just horizontally.

Hey, Andrew. Great work on the Render Room! I'm happy to see it getting some love. It's probably one of the lowest priorities I see for the program, but it is a significant jump from where it was. It would be helpful to have a toggle that allows for showing of the sculpt vs the painted and/or retopo'd mesh in the render room. You can do this, but it seems to require hiding all of the layers to show just the sculpt. I did notice slower load times, as well. Having said that, it wasn't horrible...but I did just upgrade to an SSD. I did notice that rotating the scene around is more laggy than normal. It's not as smooth.

Wow. The size of the beta is now at over 1/2 Gb. That's a big jump from before.

If he didn't then I'm apparently not using 3DC as much as I was...I've been using ZB a lot the last couple of months. It just seemed that 10% was not as destructive as I remember it being.

Perhaps your using the usual LC? I'm using Voxel mode. What I see is that the smooth was too strong for my taste and now it's more gradual, for me.

If smooth seems to harsh for some, at this point, consider increasing the resolution of the mesh once or twice. That's always been the case, but now it's a lot better. I still think that at 7k polys smooth shouldn't be quite so abrupt, but this is definitely better than it was.

I actually mean symmetry plane, not axis...sry...was up late when I started this thread. I needed to align an part of an object with the symmetry plane, as it was off-center.

I'm using 4.5b12 and when I rotate, no matter whether or not I have Leave rotated axis, I still can't get an object to spin but leave the axis where it was...trying to get a part of the model to line up with the axis. I know I haven't used 3DC in a while, but I didn't think I was gone that long.

Smooth does seem more gradual now. I'm liking that...closer to what ZBrush offers.

Beat me to it!

I may not be the biggest fan of Mantis and don't feel that it's the most effective way of organizing feedback and improvements, but I will say this...despite my opinions about it, Andrew and crew do a really good job of listening, overall to their community. It's one of the main reasons I love 3DC.

Super news! Good job, man!

I find it hard to push on to the finish line with projects like these, sometimes, as they are very involving and I get bored with them, but you carried on. Well done!

Yeah, I hear ya. That's part of the reason I stopped reporting there. I care enough to report issues, but I also care enough about my own time not to keep doing it over and over and also inputting the same, unchanged info each time. I know that Andrew and his team are working hard, so I have no complaints there, at all. I don't think the feedback system (mantis) is worthwhile. Forums are much more desirable, but then still don't capture the necessary info a developer needs. Having a built-in system would be pretty simple as the system info and versioning is already captured during installation and can be just as easily updated when you need to report an error. It could even be a stand-alone little app in the directory, for when you have crashes. All I require is a textbox to put feedback into. Everything else is either redundant and/or time-consuming from a user perspective. I'm happy to test things. Reporting could be easier.

Not a small tweak, but could be added later. I think I'm not alone in feeling Mantis is cumbersome compared a built-in feedback system, which is basically an in-app form to provide feature requests and non-crashing bug reports. That's a lot to ask, but I figured I would throw it in there. It's much better if you don't have to go to another app, log in, setup all the details for a report, etc....when most of that could be automated to get the specs, version data, etc., and the user simply inputs their feedback in a textbox. Just a thought. It's also a feature many programs like this don't offer...so boom!...extra coolness points! ...ducking behind the chair now, waiting for rocks to be thrown.

I have to say, I have tried to get excited about PBR and waiting in the background to see how people react. I downloaded a few recent updates, but just can't get into it. I love the idea of getting more realistic results on the fly, but I find it too cumbersome to simply pick up. Maybe I'm not being fair and need to spend more time with it, which will undoubtedly make it more useful and fun for me, but I'm just not there. What I think would help is improving the UI and process of the PBR functionality. That may be considered for a later time or not all, but it's my hope that we can get something in place that doesn't require going through more than a few videos to really pick up. Plus, I do realize this is in it's infant stages and still in beta. For what it's worth, I do think the concept is great, and I'm hoping that this is all just me. It's hard to go from Cheetah3D's implementation of materials to Max, Maya, Mudbox, ZBrush, or 3D Coat, etc. and not feel that everything else is just lacking...granted there's no good painting ability in Cheetah3D and it's not an apples to apples comparison. I'm striving to come up with feedback that's more concrete to give some idea of how to progress, but I'm struggling with that, too....it's like I can't put my finger on some of this, without overhauling the whole system, which I know is neither realistic or desirable. If I can be more clear about it, in the future, I'll list some ideas to be considered.

I knew concentrating on materials like this would open up a can of worms. If we're going for render-ready shots, then this puts the render room into the queue for multiple light setups. This is why I feel it's better to let the best of breed do those things. My concern with the material setup from before 4.5 was that it didn't lend itself to useful flexibility without being overly complicated. Cheetah3D has the best material system I've seen...super simple, super powerful, visually-driven UI...it's similar to how Unreal and Maya do it, but better.

LOL, I let my site go for a bit, meaning no more hosting, so most of my images on this thread won't show up. I may repost them, but for now, I'll simply start using my Artstation link in my signature.

I had not even heard of HitFilm, until now. Thanks.