The Candy-floss Kid

Meshmixer is a sweet way to create the basis for a Landscape to be further modified in 3D Coat. Meshmixer 06 for Windows I believe has a default plane object to use as a starting point. http://meshmixer.com/

It would be very sweet if there was a "ghost hidden voxel" option to allow a user to create quick differential transitions of form between the surface of the visible voxels and the surface of the ghosted voxels. Without the ghosting option it's hard to define how far your pulling/sculpting etc the visible voxels in relation to the surface of what is being hidden. Masking techniques using the sf. fill tool to achieve similar results do not achieve the same quality at the extruded/ moved edges as sculpting between hidden and visible voxels and so a ghosted voxel option would be most welcome.

Cntrl should stay as is Cmd - should invoke right click but if it has to duplicate then it should stay the same i.e duplicate cntrl

Cutting away voxels in clay mode by holding Cntrl when using splines and selections etc works in symmetry mode but sadly being able cut away outside the selection by holding cntrl + shift does not. I'd love to see the cut outside selection also enabled when working in symmetry. version 3.5.19A

Love to be able to create custom brush palettes that could share both standard voxel mode brushes and surface voxel brushes in one menu - pressing brush choices would auto switch between modes - duplications between modes could be displayed with a marker "s" or a "v" for surface or voxel.

Ah ok - a little confusing - there's also a Param button up in the top menu bar for the tool. Changing the settings there zeros them out but not in the Param dialog that pops up automatically with the tool. Update: The Param button in the menu bar is only available for certain e panel strokes.

Is there a way to reset to default the numeric settings Voxel Tools > Planar Tool - PolyBasePoints > QuadBased? I've tried zeroing them out but I can't seem to change this input to change as they were at default. Many thanks

Been after this for a long time - a simple feature that would greatly increase the pleasure of working with 3D-Coat particularly when positioning voxel cuts.... Which is being able to reposition (laterally and vertically) an e panel selection/lasso mode on the fly by holding spacebar after drawing it out i.e rectangle selection> spacebar> move then apply

+1

So far the only major bug I have run into is a voxel destruction / artifact bug after undoing/apple z after using the pose tool. This is true whether undoing from the pose tool in surface mode or using the pose tool in normal voxel mode. NB: this becomes apparent after multiple undo stages not just a single undo See image attached. Aside from that so far this update is my favorite yet with great brush response. So happy to see a deform cage in the pose tool - it's a wonderful addition.

+! It would be wonderful particularly for cylindrical detailing with splines.

Yes - this would be a wonderful addition. I'm guessing along with spacing options the options for clones to follow surface would also be a highly useful part of such a feature. The present instance clones with axial symmetry is an amazing feature so this would be fantastic.

Ah, many thanks for that Phil, yes you are absolutely correct it is indeed as you say.

Many thanks Phil. Ah ok so it's a kind of shape based spline generated from a black and white jpeg that you can use to apply sculpting masks via s.f freeze and then apply surface sculpts through the mask with surface tools. As a spline it's operations are controlled by first positioning and transforming it then pressing the enter key - such as cookie cutting through forms or adding extrusions etc. Very useful indeed. Is there a way that the main shape can come in without the spline outer border that you know of Phil? I noticed however that you can delete the outer spline point by point which is useful when saving it for recall later.

Curious to what this new addition is in the e-panel , how to use it , how to create shapes etc? Many thanks

I've never tried this but.... in zbrush you can convert a texture map on a ztool tool to polypaint then using retopo functions - project detail onto a new topology mesh. The project feature (Tool>Projection) within ZBrush projects topological changes as well as polypaint information to the new topology mesh - then the polypaint info on the new topo mesh can be converted back to a uv texture. The issue would be that the projected detail would be the detail of your original mesh on your new topo modified mesh but perhaps these could be re-sculpted to suit the newly cut geometry - or perhaps modified by a copy of the geometry modified mesh using the projectall in subtools? In Topogun I believe you can also bake ZBrush polypaint detail from a hi-res Brush polypaint import on to newly created geometry. Just an idea or two and really the best I can suggest in the circumstances but perhaps there is some other technique with cheating vertex id's and u positions etc within other apps having modified geometry after uv's?

Append the high poly mesh as subtool to the low poly one - then subdivide the lower poly retopo mesh to the same/similar poly count > ProjectAll (zbrush4) Minor errors in the transfers can be corrected using ZProject brush as inthis tutorial. which also discusses the ProjectAll one subdivision level at a time method. Also found this:Using Project All causes artifacts Some projection-normalization code is only activated when PA Blur value is a factor of 8. This will change in the next ZBrush update but for now, simply set the PA Blur to a factor of 8 (i.e. 8,16,24,32,40....80,88,96 ) in order to get proper projection.

If you go to your application toolbar> Help > Check For Updates, that should tell you if you're using the latest version. The most stable/ solid version for the Mac in my opinion is 3.2.01 , doing as much as you can in that before proceeding to the latest version for required features may help your work flow for the time being. 3.5 and multi rez just seemed to choke ,hang or crash my mac so often that I went back for core stability. I'd be interested to hear from other Mac users on the latest build however.

Have you experimented with Groboto Use with ZBrush for further inspiration

You may find that using the sketch tool to extrude cubic shapes etc with a softness setting for edges may be a fix? Experiment with that and see if that does it for you. Using the hide tool in orthographic front view with for example a cubic marquee set to invert hidden and cutting out shapes from voxel forms can also give beveled edge fx but the sketch tool may be your best bet. This solution doesn't work quite so well because it will bevel the edges facing toward and away to the front axis of the cut/"hide" but not those running parallel with the direction of the "hide". Trying to bevel edges manually using the planar or scrape tool for can be a bit iffy for global bevels but can be fine for local bevel fx. And finally - the smooth all command will give you rounded edges globally albeit not an angled bevel.

There is. The quick dirty way is select > ngons > Multiply > Subdivide > Triple

Great video Eric. Many thanks for sharing.I often use the snake tool to make carved effects and found your video was very inspiring for the creation of controlled effects. Is there a curves dedicated thread area on the forum. There should be and this little gem of a video would be a must include.

Hi Rich, the edge of the lips marks the transitional planar directional change of the form. The light changing at this transitional edge creates the line of the lips. A tool I would recommend for this is strangely the Fill tool with cntrl held down to flatten the transitions. Make sure you create the edge by angling the model in the window to the direction you wish to create the transition. In sculptural terms 3D Coat is all about moving the angle of the form to the chisel rather than the chisel to the form as in real world sculpting. Other effective tools are the scrape tool as well as the flatten tool in surface mode to create these transitions. You should be able to lock these forms down also at low rez. I've attached a very quick example to demonstrate the Fill tool to mark the edges of the lips on a low rez mesh.This transition can be tightened/sharpened on a higher rez mesh as works proceeds. Cheers.

Oh Dear. Phil you were right. The pressure was defaulted to being set way down. Now it works. Many Thanks.