The.Great.ESCape
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Posts posted by The.Great.ESCape
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That's the problem with tiling "intentionally obvious" patterns and cube-mapping on organic models. So far it appears I can get a clean asymmetrical result or a smudged mirrored result. I lean towards the clean result, but I'd rather have both if possible. The mirroring also seems to only work when brushing on, and is ignored if filling using surface materials... at least that's how it has been working for me.
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56 minutes ago, Carlosan said:
Hi
Could you share the SM to take a look ?
After further experimentation, I have realized that it will mirror... just not with UV-Mapping. I was trying to use UV-Mapping for continuity's sake, but it doesn't look too shabby with cube mapping except for looking smudged where the projection angles overlap.
Here's a very simple lace material I was playing with. Not much to it, but it looks good for what I was using it on.
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Is there a way to apply a smart Material Symmetrically? I've tried searching and haven't found anything particularly helpful. The reason I am asking is because I have made my own patterned smart materials to texture some clothing and I would like it to mirror across X in some cases, but while I can brush symmetrically it's not mirroring the pattern just the brush strokes. So, the projection remains the same. If it's not currently possible; I'm sure there are many other applications in which such functionality would be useful.
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Pressing shift when painting with the paint brush applies a blur effect which has a similar result sometimes... The smear/smudge type tools used for blending usually do blur, but they also usually have the ability to drag color along the brush's path while blurring. The amount of color being dragged is usually also adjustable by a strength setting.. There is a smudge tool in 3DC, but it's more like a nudge/liquefy tool as it does not actually blend.... basically localized brush radius image warping tools (think Power Goo). I would love to see something similar to PS Mixer brushes and the infamous finger blender added to 3DC's texturing arsenal. I've yet to see any 3D paint package with a similar tool... though maybe Mari or something has it. I have not tried all that are currently available.
I may stand corrected as I have read that Blacksmith 3d has smear/smudge tools that can blend across UV seams. I have not tried it personally....I would be curious if anyone has it and can comment on it's implementation in that program and whether they have found it useful or not. Perhaps it would make a good example.
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Not getting an answer may happen for a whole bunch of reasons, lack of interest is just one of the options.
I think what you ask for makes perfect sense - polygroups gave a great lot of additional control for items which are physically one mesh.
The same feature as established in Zbrush gives users control about visibility, masking (freezing), one also can limit effects like paint, procedural
modifiers or hair to defined sub-sections of single items. Existing polygroups can also be helpful in quad remeshing and may end up as UV-Islands.
My guess is that quite a few people haven't thought much about that concept, some illustrations probably would help.
Yes, polygroups basically do for sections of a single mesh what the Voxtree does for multi-mesh objects.
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I duno if related, but...
0001501: Converts existing model into a set of separate surfaces (panels) with thickness.
http://3d-coat.com/mantis/view.php?id=1501
In Zbrush Panel Loops are possible in conjunction with polygroups as well as other surface modifiers. There are a lot of tricks that use polygroups in zbrush. I am sure that 3D-coat could develop some new tricks itself to apply with the use of polygroups. Polygroups help to zero in and work on only the sections of the surface you want to with the ability to recall and isolate those sections at any time. Panel loops in specific allow greater flexibility in some ways than the current voxlayer/voxextrude capabilities in 3D-coat. The ability to simultaneously polish only the extrudruded/extracted surface allows for some rather easy ways to quickly create complicated smooth hard surface objects from less than perfect base shapes. It's a little difficult to convey all the possible advantages of adding polygroups to anyone that has not used them in their workflow though.
0001446: To add more primitives or surface objects with a non destructive workflow
http://3d-coat.com/mantis/view.php?id=1446
This is very much related to my off topic bit.
Thank you for pointing me to the threads, so that I could add my 2 cents
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I suppose someone might as well remove this thread given the seeming lack of interest.
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Given the advances in 3D-Coat's surface mode, it might deserve it's own dedicated tab at this point. This would be a great time to consider adding some sort of polygroup feature as well. Boolean results could then form a polygroup which could be used for special polygroup based editing (i.e. perform smoothing, extrusion, inset, hide/show, freeze (useful for both painting and sculpting), or convert to UV). Splines would be another great way to create polygroups. The ability to merge auto generated polygroups would be good as well. Polygroups could also aid in auto-retopo's ability to create more precise edge loops in desirable areas with the right algorythms I would imagine. Layers are great are great for organizing different objects grouped together. Polygroups are great logically separating and organizing different sections of each object's surface. I know they haven't really been implemented yet due to the voxel centric concept of 3D-Coat, but with the surface features coming into their own lately, I thought it might be worth revisiting the idea.
I'm loving how smooth the surface mode boolean results are with lower memory usage than voxel mode. I just think we can leverage those for even more advantages.
Off topic, but would be awesome if we had a room for operations similar to what Groboto/Mesh Fusion do. It looks to me like you are using similar methods at the seams at any rate. The ability to be able to change the position of any object used for boolean operations after the fact is pretty awesome for creating different variations. Even with Mesh Fusion retopo is often needed, so the triangle mesh in 3D coat wouldn't really even make it that much worse.. I imagine something like that would probably mean a major upgrade though. Still, it would be pretty cool.
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YES!!!! ABSOLUTELY! this would be a very welcome and needed feature.
Also, I would VERY much like to be able to use more than one symmetry plane at a time.
+1
Definitely agree. Would be great for painting too, not just geometry.
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doesn't holding down shift do exactly this? just boost the strength up.
Pressing shift when painting with the paint brush applies a blur effect which has a similar result sometimes... The smear/smudge type tools used for blending usually do blur, but they also usually have the ability to drag color along the brush's path while blurring. The amount of color being dragged is usually also adjustable by a strength setting.. There is a smudge tool in 3DC, but it's more like a nudge/liquefy tool as it does not actually blend.... basically localized brush radius image warping tools (think Power Goo). I would love to see something similar to PS Mixer brushes and the infamous finger blender added to 3DC's texturing arsenal. I've yet to see any 3D paint package with a similar tool... though maybe Mari or something has it. I have not tried all that are currently available.
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I'll happily add my support for a smear/smudge tool. I use those types of brushes a lot when painting in 2D
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I can send from ZB 4r6 to 3DC 4. Getting anything back into ZB is problematic though... normals/visible faces get inverted and it's not smart enough to automatically choose compatible image formats for textures or get them get them back into ZB properly. Ideally the applinks would automatically filter out incompatible options when sending assets back to "original application" even if that means having the user selecting what application before sending it back. I've had limited success getting models back in, but I've yet to successfully send results from using PTex back to ZB which would be very nice to be able to do since ZB is yet to adopt PTex. These apps would be very complimentary if they communicated easily. As is have to export and flip some things around to get something back into ZB.
Then again I am not an expert and maybe I am missing a setting. If someone else has things working it would be awesome to get a point in the right direction.
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You would have to ask Andrew. The technique I think you're suggesting sounds like being in Voxel Mode, but it going into a form of Surface Mode, selecting what you want, and then converting it back to Voxel Mode.
More or less... except that converting back would only be necessary if sculpting the ghosted portion were desired... else the original portion could just be re-joined after sculpting the non-ghosted portion.
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So, would it be possible to use a ghosted mesh proxy of the surface of hidden voxels? I was thinking of that as a possible sculpting toggle for voxel mode anyhow. A mesh is normally the end result anyhow and voxel mode looks chunkier and less consistent than mesh at lower resolutions. could even use the live clay algorithm for self healing to keep it possible to punch holes and fuse on the fly. Unfortunately, I have a feeling that maintaining a constant mesh proxy would be even more resource intensive, but for a temorarily ghosted portion it might be practical. The program already flits about converting between surface and voxel mode after all, and voxel models can be sliced and diced easily enough so it would simply hide the voxels and treat the hidden voxels as a separate model and then convert just that portion to surface mode ghosted so that you can get the desired visual feedback. Might not be absolutely perfect, but it should be doable, and provide the desired visual feedback.
Maybe a similar sort of workaround could lead to the development of something similar to ZB polygroups as well...
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Basically, It'd be nice to have the ability to add reference images at any angle not just dead on X,Y and z. Like 3/4 or imperfect 3/4 shots. When you have it all lined up in the viewport the way you want then you can lock it so that it rotates with the model and store with the correct camera view with it to sculpt from as well, so you can just jump to the stored view with reference image.
I'm thinking it should be possible to just load in an image so that it's always facing the camera semi-transparent until you get the model all rotated and scaled to match, as well as any 2D scaling/translation necessary with the image. when it's the way you want it, then you just store that view and name it. At that point it should also be possible to rotate with the model just like the regular axis reference images.
Unless I missed this feature, if it's already there, appologies, and I'd love to be pointed in the right direction.
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I would like that, too. It has to do with the volume that would have to be ghosted for voxels. In Surface Mode, you only have to mask a paper-thin surface, just like ZBrush, but in Voxel Mode, you have to mask a section of a volume.
So, would it be possible to use a ghosted mesh proxy of the surface of hidden voxels? I was thinking of that as a possible sculpting toggle for voxel mode anyhow. A mesh is normally the end result anyhow and voxel mode looks chunkier and less consistent than mesh at lower resolutions. could even use the live clay algorithm for self healing to keep it possible to punch holes and fuse on the fly. Unfortunately, I have a feeling that maintaining a constant mesh proxy would be even more resource intensive, but for a temorarily ghosted portion it might be practical. The program already flits about converting between surface and voxel mode after all, and voxel models can be sliced and diced easily enough so it would simply hide the voxels and treat the hidden voxels as a separate model and then convert just that portion to surface mode ghosted so that you can get the desired visual feedback. Might not be absolutely perfect, but it should be doable, and provide the desired visual feedback.
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All issues I have had with Win 8 and Wacom were solved when I unchecked the "Use Windows Ink" check box under the latest Win 8 tablet properties. I am using an Intuos 5
Yep, It works with the latest driver release.. So make sure you have the latest driver first.
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I unfortunately have the combination of wacom intuos 4 and 5 plus windows8 pro x64. It works, I'm old hat at working through various wacom issues, but for now, with this combination, you can have pressure sensitivity and an annoying click and drag issue, or you can have no click and drag issue at the cost of pressure sensitivity. Some apps that have Wacom tightly integrated do not have this issue... i.e. ZB/ Photoshop. In many apps click and drag delay is a major issue.
Windows8 Pro native touch/pen input system conflicts with portions of the wacom drivers, so far as I know there is no complete workaround or fix as yet though. I just thought I'd share that tidbit in case there are other Win8 Pro/Wacom users that are frustrated to try and save them slamming their head into a wall. If pressure sensitivity is not that important to you, and the Click and drag delay is driving you insane. Use the wacom configuration utility to change the tip function to emulate a left mouse click. The click and drag delay will vanish, but so too the pressure sensitivity.
I had hoped the issue would be solved by now, but Wacom apparently just can't find a way to make all options work as intended in Win8 Pro, and Microsoft doesn't seem to be doing anything to help the situation.
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Mike:
The closest I've gotten to "success" with hard surface, rectilinear objects, is to place guide strokes very close to the hard surface edge, (on both sides), which produces a rectangular grid of quadrangles, fairly close to these edges and, also, across all surfaces.
Spherical objects are best "guided" by placing "all the way through" guides, in a rectilinear fashion - the sphere is then treated like a "spherized" cube, (ala Blender).
But, AUTOPO has not really been engineered with hard surfaces in mind.
There is an interesting development in this kind of auto topology, though, that's happening with the guys from Groboto. Their routines are excellent, and now nearly anything can be modeled by means of boolean functions, inside Groboto, (very cheap and intuitive to use). Using this pipeline, it now becomes possible to make hard surfaced objects over there and import them for texturing inside 3D-Coat.
Check it out: (make sure to read the "Mesh Structure" section).
Greg Smith
I have groboto, but I'm on windows , so it's missing features, and judging by their lack of any responses on their forum for some time now... I'm afraid I may never get that upgrade I already paid for... It's fun to play with, but without equal features to the Mac version.... it feels like I bought crippleware.... It does make nice meshes, but with the way its' interface works now, I can make similar looking models in 3D-coat or Z-brush more quickly even if it takes more planning. I also have issues trying to use Groboto with my Wacom tablet.
Nice vids by the way... I watched most of them some time ago before ever purchasing 3D-coat.
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One other thing I noticed is that QRemesher in 4R5 couldn't go below 1k, whereas ZRemesher in 4R6 could and works much faster. That's nice. However, even if I told it to take that hand model and go to .25 k (or 250 polys), it put it at 916 polys. That becomes a lot of guesswork to get the right poly count, and I wonder if it matters which model you're using in determining how accurate it will be.
Did a quick demo of my own, no guides on any app, all default settings, except for driving the polys to 1k.
ZBrush 4R6: ZRemesher yielded 1787 polys
ZBrush 4R5: QRemesher yielded 1072 polys
3D Coat: Autotopo yielded 1007 polys
Screenshots below. You can see that ZRemesher did the best with the flow in the palm, but horribly with the fingers (keeping in mind no guides on any of these). 3D Coat did better on the fingers (but about the same as QRemesher) and managed to hit the 1K mark more accurately. QRemesher was not bad either... None of the resulting edge flows (without guides, mind you) were great.
Of course, I'd rather do this by hand (ehem).
ZRemesher:
QRemesher:
Autotopo:
Did a quick demo of my own, no guides on any app, all default settings, except for driving the polys to 1k.
ZBrush 4R6: ZRemesher yielded 1787 polys
ZBrush 4R5: QRemesher yielded 1072 polys
3D Coat: Autotopo yielded 1007 polys
Screenshots below. You can see that ZRemesher did the best with the flow in the palm, but horribly with the fingers (keeping in mind no guides on any of these). 3D Coat did better on the fingers (but about the same as QRemesher) and managed to hit the 1K mark more accurately. QRemesher was not bad either... None of the resulting edge flows (without guides, mind you) were great.
Of course, I'd rather do this by hand (ehem).
ZRemesher:
QRemesher:
Autotopo:
One other thing I noticed is that QRemesher in 4R5 couldn't go below 1k, whereas ZRemesher in 4R6 could and works much faster. That's nice. However, even if I told it to take that hand model and go to .25 k (or 250 polys), it put it at 916 polys. That becomes a lot of guesswork to get the right poly count, and I wonder if it matters which model you're using in determining how accurate it will be.
This is a really cheesy work around and requires minimal re-sculpting in ZB, but if you are looking for edge loops for animation with the joints of the fingers and what not... you can snap a few thin tube bracelets around the joints... that will give enough difference for true edge loops to be formed where you need them... as such it's best to do the zremeshing before high detail. As it is now zremesher tends to create spirals without some finessing.
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Maybe this will help for starters. I did this one when I was running into the same problem.
I'm guessing you can open the surface room and import directly as mesh by default rather than worrying about it converting to voxel immediately. Only a guess... have to test the theory, but that would at least make sense to me... definitely trying to figure out 3DC myself... Getting some of the basics... by no means an expert though. Not even an expert in zbrush, but I'm much further down it's learning curve. The new ZB 4R6 release is pretty cool too. thanks for trying to answer a question of mine earlier. I mainly use ZB though and have Zapplink set up for that which means I don't have to do the whole obj export then import thing as it gets automated.... fun fun fun...I want to figure out the cloth simulator myself, but I haven't found a whole lot on that... yet. I'm tempted to get Marvelous Designer 2 for similar reasons.
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In surface mode, the Cutoff tool is actually using LiveClay technology to optimize the geometry along the edges of a boolean operation. It takes longer to calculate, if the model is dense....naturally, because it is not a matter of turning on/off voxels on a 3D grid and remeshing uniformly (voxel), it's essentially performing a decimation routine....leaving fewer polys in planar surfaces, yet more along sharp angles.
It will be nice to see some workflow vids with the new Live clay tools... I have ideas, but so far I am not as familiar with the 3DC interface as ZB... I'm one of the oddballs that started 3D in ZB. I'm not a 3D professional and sometimes some of the application specific terms that actually mean more or less the same thing slow me down a bit... I know that ZB is notorious for using non-standard naming, but that's what I am used to now... go figure. although they had a new release today (technically yesterday now I suppose) that I'm still figuring out the new features of as well. I'm liking their new trim tools better than the clip tools so far except for one... what I thought was an odd behavior and the fact that they don't work with symmetry mode... though that may change. I'm not exactly locked into one tool though... I've collected a few 3D odds and ends now... a little disappointed with my investment in groboto as development and forum replies seem to have died... Right now I mainly use my 3d models as reference for my more or less 2D art... that may change as my skill set seems to keep expanding though.
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Hi
Multishader still is not supported.
The request was added:
0001036: Multilayer shader support
http://3d-coat.com/mantis/view.php?id=1036
I hope to work with multishaders in a near future
If you like the idea, please add your comment there.
ty
Sounds like a good idea to me... perhaps 3DC could even implement it better than ZB. Since ZB only supports vertex painting... it's mesh density dependent. Unless you have a very high densite mesh, the line of demarcation is very noticeable, and you can forget about blending the two...hard transitions only.
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Hi
Time ago another user asked same question, here the link
http://3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=9822&hl=polygroups
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Because some users doesnt work with ZB, let me add 2 docs to illustrate the tool:
http://docs.pixologic.com/reference-guide/tool/polymesh/polygroups/
http://docs.pixologic.com/user-guide/3d-modeling/modeling-basics/polygroups/
Polygroups allow you to organize the mesh with visual grouping information.
Polygroups are one way to organize your mesh.
Another way is to use Subtools.
Where SubTools create separate pieces of geometry, Polygroups only create separate selection areas.
Your mesh is still one contiguous surface.
yes, with the newish slice and panel loops... polygroups can be used to good advantage with hard surface sculpting. Not to creating nice clean boundaries for texturing later, so long as the mesh is high enough resolution. I do like the fact that you can paint directly on maps from within 3DC... it's more of a WISIWIG approach if you need to render in an external application. With ZB you have to project the vertex painting onto a texture map, but then it's always slightly different after, and ZB doesn't support editing of the texture map directly. It would be cool if ZB polypainting supported PTEX as opposed to just straight vertex painting, but not yet apparently. There are definitey advantages in texturing and retopo with 3DC
Voxels do really nice booleans, but I can't get to a decent detail level with vovels on this laptop. It will be cool if LiveClay for voxels becomes a reality. Then maybe it would be time to look at implementing things similar to ZB's deformation and polygroup-like effects because the divisions could be cleaner without the res being so high it freezes my laptop.
Smart Materials and Symmetry?
in General 3DCoat
Posted
In any case, I have to take off for now... thank you for taking the time to respond to my inquiry. I definitely prefer low poly texturing in 3dcoat over Zbrush. The programs have some overlapping functionality, but also have different strengths and weaknesses depending on one's workflow/preferences. I do wish the applink would be resurrected, but that seems long deceased at this point. forgive the somewhat off topic rambling... will check back later.