3dCoatWannabe

As long as I don't lose anything in the process, that's ok, but ... maybe 3D Coat needs a few of the basic tools for repairing ngon issues? 1. What will that do to the UV map that has been created for the head I'm working on? I understand that UV maps have a one to one correspondence with points in the mesh. How do I then 'fix' the UV map (as there will be less points), or must I re-create it from scratch? It is for a head, so some work went in to it. 2. On a somewhat related question, if I have a mesh that does NOT have a UV, could I just import it into the Reotop room, and then setup a UV map for it? Would that be the way I'd start the process? I haven't created a UV in 3D Coat before. It's one thing to say in the manual: The UV tools for the Retopo room have been expanded to include every UV tool from the UV room in 3D-Coat. You can find infor- mation on each of the UV tools inside the Retopo room in the UV section of this manual. And yet another to give a workflow where I'd know which UV tools to use (from Retopo room, from UV room) and where to start the process of creating a UV for my mesh? 3D Coat obviously has the power to do all of this, but sometimes for a new user, it's a bit confusing to know where to start, the workflow to move from one room to the next (or use the same tools in two rooms like Retopo and UV rooms). Thanks!

I used your technique, and can see the ngons that are highlighted in these images. I know that there are some points where the ngons join together that are very slightly off (from fixing the problem in Lightwave). In Lightwave, I believe I merged the points together as there should really be a single point where the polys join. What is the best way to fix this in 3D Coat? BTW - in this case, I could find them easily. Is there a way to make the selection centered and visible if they are hidden somewhere?

Is there a way to select polys with greater than 4 vertices in the retopo room? This could come in quite handy for fixing issues? It would also be handy to be able to select: 1 vertices 2 vertices 3 vertices 4 vertices >4 vertices An interface like the following works well in Lightwave:

I've finally gotten to the point where I 'almost' understand a 10th of how 3D Coat works beneath the surface when I 'Export Model'. It seems that every object in the Paint room gets exported as a layer, and possibly as a separate surface and a separate UV? If I hide all the retopo layers except one, I can use Retopo->Merge Patch (ppp or mv) to create a Paint room object for just that retopo layer. (it would be great if there were a command to do this for separate retopo layer) I ?think? that each object gets it's own UV. I certainly want each object to get it's own surface. I'm not designing for games (which is probably different), but for animating characters in Lightwave, MotionBuilder and maybe 3ds. 1. How can I combine several UVs into one to be shared among several Paint room objects? Having a separate UV for the face or complex object may make sense, but when there are a lot of small object, I'm not sure this is a good idea (but I'd like some feedback). 2. What are some general rules for the texture sizes and all the options one can select in Export Model? I can look up what a field does. I'm more interested in why? What are 'best practices'? What works in real life with animated characters? What kind of settings will prevent problems at a later stage of animation? BTW - a video tutorial talking about what is going on beneath the surface, how 3D Coat works internally, where it's getting the mesh, etc. to export for 'Export Model' would probably help new users to 3D Coat, as I was certainly confused. I'm probably am still holding onto some incorrect assumptions. Some workflow tutorials, that talk in general terms about what is going on as some very simple objects are moved from room to room or exported would be very handy! Thanks!

I'm probably missing what you are saying, but I've been going over something similar with Andrew, and found that "Merge Patch" will create a separate object and separate UV (I'm a bit unclear on the UV) if I hide all the retopo layers except the one I want to export to paint. Then, I can use Export Model and end up with separate layers, UVs, surfaces, etc. It's a bit of a pain if there are many retopo layers, and I've suggested he add a "Merge Patch Each Retop Group Separately" for PPP and also for MV that would create a unique object in paint room for each retopo group. But, as I'm very new to this, I'm sure there is a better workflow solution than my idea? BTW - if Andrew and his staff could create some workflow videos, this would probably be very useful for new 3D Coat users, as it's taken me a while to have even the semblance of clue as to how 3D Coat is working internally and why. And I'm still probably confused about a lot of it.

I created morphs for a microvertex head. I had previously been trying to use PPP. I now see the morph in 3D Coat and can make it disappear by clicking on the visibility icon (which doesnt' work in PPP, but only with MV). I made the morph layer 'horns' invisible (as shown in the tutorial), exported the morphs in a Lightwave LWO, but they don't show up in Lightwave like the connectivity tutorial? I show my steps in this 1920 x 1080 video: What am I doing wrong? The instructions seem very simple. Thanks!

I don't know. I think they were there earlier today? Very odd?

I've spent a lot of time testing this, and I'm more confused than when I started, and I don't have a workflow where I can take a complex multi-layer voxel 3D Coat model into Lightwave. What I need is to be able to retopologize the layers into groups (which is what 3D Coat does). And when I export, to take these perfectly retopologized groups and, for each group that is visible, to create a new layer in an LWO file. Each UV map created would also be exported as distinct UV maps, each Voxel layer would export as a new surface and pull in the surfacing set up in the paint room, and optionally any morpsh setup in the Sculpt room. What it currently does is very different than this, and seems to differ drastically in some random fashion. One one 300MB+ 3D Coat file, the File->Export Model to LWO generated a 300MB+ LWO file (which was certainly not the retopologized mesh). Almost exactly the same 3D Coat file with some changes, still 300MB+, generated a 300KB (KB, not MB) LWO file. And I haven't a clue as to why. In one export I got all the UVs merged together in one map (useless), and in another I got 2 UV maps (good). In all of them, it ignored whether I had a retopo group visible (bad), and it would always create ONE layer in the LWO file (bad). I cannot make sense of how to create a workable 3D Coat to Lightwave workflow. Which is frustrating, as it seems very, very close to working perfectly, sometimes. The VERY strangest thing, is I did some testing with a very simple head and body model I created (all auto retopologized). It exported from the File->Export Model and created two layers (PERFECT - one for each RetopoGroup), two UVs, two surfaces, just PERFECT. I'm looking at the mesh in Lightwave and in the Retopo room, and they are THE SAME. HOWEVER, I just tried moving the vertices in a few places in the retopologized body in 3D Coat before I exported, and it did NOT export my changed, mesh, but must have retopologized it again, which is NOT what I want. Why can't it use the perfectly good, already existing retopologized mesh? So, I KNOW 3D Coat can give me exactly what I need, I just probably don't understand how to get it, the proper workflow to get there. What obvious things am I overlooking? Thanks!

I followed abnRanger's advice and was able to paint a beard without problems. I was mistaken about it not following the form of the object I was painting on. If you paint on one layer, you don't want it to affect another layer. I'm unclear on your problem with merging.

I see several groups in the Retopology room in a model I purchased (actually, this is one version of the model, and may not have been intended to be used like this at all, but I'm perplexed on a few things I see) I can also see objects in the UV Preview window (but absolutely nothing in the UV room, it is empty and the UV preview is empty and there's nothing in the upper left UV room combo drop down). In the Retopo room, I don't see all of the objects in the UV Preview (like the head). If I export to LWO from the retopology room's left hand 'Export' menu, I get a single layer with the character (instead of multiple layers), and one giant UV that looks like it contains everything, but all on top of one another. I'm confused as to why they don't show up in 3D Coat, as it certainly looks like everything is set up properly - and how to get them out to Lightwave as separate UVs? I've tried changing the visibility of the groups (before I export) but this doesn't affect what gets exported. I tried exporting from the File menu to LWO, accepted the defaults, and 3D Coat 17A crashed (it's a large file, but I've got 24GB RAM). I tried to simplify things, and created a 'model' of just a sphere and a 'body' in 3DCoat, and auto-retopologized the head for MV and the body for PPP. I see the 'head' in the UV room, but NOT the body. I reported this on Mantis along with my test file. In the Retopo room, I see head and body groups, but just a yellow rectangle around the edges of the UV Preview. If I export this to LWO from the retopo room's left hand 'export' menu, I also get a single layer, but I don't get any UVs at all? I can export to LWO from the file menu for this model (no crashing here), and get two layers and the UV maps. The UV maps look exactly as expected, and the shaders I selected for the head and body show up. I could create a morph for the MV head, but what I see in 3D Coat is confusing (as outlined above). So, I'm getting some confusing results (what I see in 3D Coat is not what I expected, and exporting from Retopo doesn't create Lightwave layers for each retopo group), and just trying to come up with a workflow for use with 3D Coat create models to be used in Lightwave. If I'm to use the export from Retopo menu (instead of the file menu export), I really need a way to have it break up the retopo groups into layers, and some way that I can create UVs for each layer (instead of having them all on top of each other), so maybe the File->Export to LWO is the 'best' way (but I can't test that with the large model as 3D Coat crashes). There are a lot of settings in the export dialogs that I can't search for the the PDF manual. It would be great if there were a few real-world walk through videos showing very simple multi-layer models and how to take them out to Lightwave, deal with UV map issues (best practices for use with Lightwave) and all the kinds of issues that typically come up? I'm no doubt making this much harder than it should be, as I don't understand the best way to use 3D Coat, or why I can't see certain things in 3D Coat (like some missing UVs) that show up in Lightwave.

As I said in my first post: "What obvious, stupid thing am I doing wrong?" Thanks! BTW - some tutorials where it just goes from 3D Coat to Lightwave would be appreciated, as I think most of my workflow will be like that. Would be great if the Lightwave appLink could bring in a 3D Coat file when the workflow was started from 3D Coat. And I'd really like to see a two way street with the Mudbox applink - which couldn't help but increase sales with Mudbox users!

I've got a model that has been retopologized, and has UVs. I intend to surface it and add some morphs. The retopologized mesh is already perfect. I don't want it 'Export mid-poly mesh' or 'export low-poly mesh', but export the mesh that is already exists. The Export menu seems to want to change things around. Is there a way do accomplish this? I'd hoped that the Lightwave appLink would handle this, but it only seems to deal with a roundtrip form Lightwave -> 3D Coat -> Lightwave, not with objects originating from 3D Coat. Is there a detailed tutorial on exporting to Lightwave?

I just tried dragging Elmer_Fudd_008PPP.3b to 3.5.17A (both DX and GL), told it to open a new scene and each time it crashed. I'd opened it with the previous version. Can you open that file on your box? I'll report the sculpt issue as a bug, as it should sculpt on the box.

I would also like to see 2nd monitor support for floating windows!

thanks for the great advice on fully using the power of the Sculpt room! However, even if I make my move change in sculpt, and then immediately go to the paint room, changing visibility or deleting the layer has no effect. Going to the paint room didn't 'apply' the changes to the layer. The changes have been made to the model. Thanks!

I've been trying to follow the 3D-Coat to Lightwave tutorial Instead of coming from Lightwave originally, I created a cube in 3D Coat, auto-retopologized using the 'AUTOPO for Per Pixel'. I accepted all the defaults, so I ended up with a UV map ... ready to paint or sculpt. From the sculpt room, I locked the object, created a new layer and tried to use the Move tool. Nothing happened. I unlocked the object, and then I could use the move tool, but ... the object was affected, NOT just the layer? I show the last steps here: I'm using V35-17A-CUDA64. What obvious, stupid thing am I doing wrong? Thanks!

Javis - I'm trying to create my first morph from a 3D Coat file (not exported from Lightwave). It has one 'object' and a number of layers already for head, body, etc. If I lock the objects, and create a new layer in the sculpt room, the move tool does nothing. If I unlock the object, the move tools moves the model while my new layer is selected, but ... when I turn off the layer or delete it, the 'move' changes are still there, I guess applied to the base model. I think I'm following your video closely, so I must be making some obvious 'beginner' mistake! Thanks!

I'd certainly like a two way street!!!

Looks like GREAT progress is being made in 3D Coat! After a conversation with a few folks in this thread http://www.3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=7925&pid=61199&st=0entry61199 , I'd like to see how many others need more of the Voxel tools in the Sculpt room? I need to create facial morphs, and at the moment, Mudbox is offering me a lot more power for creating morphs, which would not be the case if the Voxel tools existed in the Sculpt room. I'd rather stay completely with 3D Coat!

Yes, as I mentioned in my first post: "I've watched the 3D-Coat to Lightwave 'Connections with other apps' video LW-3DC Workflow SculptedMorphMaps.mp4" Your tutorial is excellent. However, compared to the Tutorial on facial animation with Mudbox (http://www.digitaltutors.com/09/training.php?cid=3&pid=363), 3D Coat is missing a lot of tools (that mostly already exist for voxels) in the Sculpt room. I can't claim to be a competent artist (a great artist could make do with less tools). But, as an incompetent artist, having those extra tools would make it a lot easier for me, so unless Andrew decides that adding to the the Sculpt room tools is a priority, I'll be learning/using Mudbox to create my morphs. I really hope he does this, for the reasons I've outlined in my previous posts. I certainly want 3D Coat to surpass the competition in every way, and am certainly not enjoying learning yet another tool (as the intro to Mudbox tutorial is about 4 hours long, Ahhh!)

I'm sure that a good artist could create facial morphs with the existing tools in 3D Coat, but ... I sculpt kind of like a dog writes poetry, so I'm going to need all the help I can get! Those other tools certainly looked useful and handy in the tutorial. From a marketing perspective, I do feel they are important, as users familiar with other programs will miss them and maybe base their purchasing decision on them. And the goal is to move everyone to 3D Coat (and keep the evil AD empire at bay), right? Maybe we should bring this up on the beta thread, and see if others feel the same way? The sculpt room just seems a bit bare to me? I'd really rather use 3D Coat and learn yet another tool. As to creating the morphs, the Digital Tutors Mudbox tutorial was very useful. I have a good grasp of how it all works. But, I'm confused on a few things. Instead of using Mudbox to move the eyebrows to match the expressions he create, he used Maya. Kind of nudged it into place like a caterpillar. And he also used Maya to move the teeth. I'm not sure why he didn't use Mudbox? My real concern right now is moving/opening/closing the entire mouth, along with the teeth (and moving the tongue) to create morphs for singing, as I think I understand the basic concepts of how to create the other facial morphs like happy, sad, angry, etc. - but I haven't seen the teeth, jaw movements, tongue movements demonstrated in a tutorial. The jaw especially has to move in a jointed fashion (I guess the Mudbox Joint tool will come in handy).

For the puck, can you use it efficiently with the same hand that uses the mouse, or must it be with the opposite hand from the mouse?

Yes, I'll have to agree it's a glaring deficiency right now. I just don't see a way around it. This has to give Mudbox or other sculpting tool users (I have zero direct experience with any) second thoughts when they look at 3D Coat or try to move to 3D Coat. Rich - I honestly don't think you can do it properly without those extra tools. You can do a few things, get maybe 50% of the way with 3D Coat, but moving the jaw down in a jointed fashion with out Pose (I think Pose works similarly to Mudbox's Joint, but it may be more powerful), etc. Would you be as excited about Voxels without all the cool tools? I guess I'm glad I own Mudbox, as it looks like I'll have to learn how to use it. --------------- While I'm on the subject, I can see one other thing I'd like to be able to do in 3D Coat. I purchased a model a while back that came with maybe 20 separate heads as the 'morphs'. I never knew exactly what to do with them in Lightwave, but I guess this is one of the 'standard' methods for creating morphs with some programs. It would be cool if I could suck them into 3D Coat, and have 3D Coat generate 'morphs' Layers from each of the heads (with just the changes from the base head), so that I could further create and refine my own morphs from the original ones. This would be something I could really use! And apparently, Maya works well with 3D Coat/Lightwave style morph layers, as the tutorial I watched was for Mudbox/Maya integration: http://www.digitaltutors.com/09/training.php?cid=3&pid=363 This could be a feature that would make it easier to use 3D Coat than other products, a reason to purchase (beyond the great retopology, voxels and other features 3D Coat already has)!

I'm going to be creating facial morphs to use in Lightwave. I watched a DigitalTutors Mudbox video on creating facial morphs, and they had pinch, bulge, joint, etc. available when creating morphs - and really used a whole lot more than those to create their facial morphs. I'm looking at the Sculpt room in 3.5.16D, and it seems to be missing a whole lot of useful tools that 3D Coat has in Voxels. As I'm figuring out my workflow for character creation, I think I'll spend a lot of time creating morphs. Am I missing something obvious (a better way to do it in 3D Coat), or is 3D Coat missing some important tools from the Sculpt room? I've watched the 3D-Coat to Lightwave 'Connections with other apps' video LW-3DC Workflow SculptedMorphMaps.mp4 Thanks!

For those using mice, is everyone using this with the opposite hand from the mouse (or is that just for the Space Navigator puck)? I gather that for the puck (what I'm considering purchasing, really no room for anything else), it's designed to stay in one place (and not slide), so I'm wondering if I could put it on the mouse pad tray along with my mouse? Or, is it really only useful when used with the mouse at the same time?