3dCoatWannabe

If you've downloaded the beta from http://www.3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=6634, I think there's a recent issue with Open GL so the DX is recommended. I expect this will change in the future, if it hasn't already (I may have missed a post saying it had changed). I believe the version of CUDA is important also, maybe this is outlined in the FAQ? I don't believe 3D Coat runs with the latest CUDA (as they keep making massive changes to CUDA) and I haven't updated CUDA in well over a year or so, so I've lost track of which version I have installed. But, I've been running the 'With CUDA 64 bit' in DX mode (from the 3D COAT 3.5 updates thread) as of late.

Thanks! This info should go into an FAQ, as I've been trying to re-size objects to 'life-size' (assuming the 1 meter per grid size I saw in another recent post) immediately after merging.

Wouldn't you have to take into account the zoom factor the viewport is set to? If each grid corresponds to about 1 meter, what size should the merged object be in reference to those 1 meter grids?

Making much more progress now. However, when I create the 'shirt' on the model, my shirt is a solid object (made from the body), whereas yours is the outer layer of the body (extruded a bit) with a hollow inside. I've seem a few tutorials on making shirts in UV, but I'm unclear on how you made your 'thin' shirt in the Voxel room? BTW - I sent you a private msg on NewTek's forum (as I don't seem to be able to in this one). Thanks!

Thanks Phil I did find this other method which worked, and would give you full control over which side. http://www.3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=3284&view=findpost&p=25580 But, your idea on marking the side is a good one!

I had a hand in another layer and merged it onto a body layer that had symmetry (onto left hand, the right side of the viewport). Only the single hand showed up. Is there a way to merge where both arms would get a hand, or to tell the layer to re-calculate symmetry from one half or the other.

Yes, I quite understand. I just hope the limits get relaxed, as if the links didn't be come invalid, we'd have a wealth of uploads. Thanks for the biped!!

While on the subject of curves, when I am in rotate mode and have a green cone, sometimes it is right in the way of seeing what I'm trying to rotate. For example, if I am trying to create a flat hand, I can't really see the hand part rotate if the large part of the green cone is at the end of the hand pointing towards the arm. It's also slightly difficult to see 'inside' the curve's red transparent sphere. Would be nice to be able to be able to make it a bit more transparent at times (so that I can see the angle of the flat part of the hand connected to the arm better).

Yes, I was hoping for a library of complete curve rigs to make human, animal and cartoon shapes. Those would be very helpful to get started quickly. A DNA spline would also be rather cool. I didn't see your human character. You 'Lucy' upload expired. I hope that 3d-coat.com will create an upload section, as almost all of the really cool uploads have expired, and HD space is so cheap nowadays. BTW - while on the subject of curves, 3D-Coat might warn you if you have curves that have not been 'applied' when closing. I didn't realize that I couldn't start on building something with curves, save the .3b file, and resume work on it later.

I'm totally unfamiliar with ZBrush and Mudbox. Do they have this capability? If not, and as all the modeling and compositing (Fusion, Nuke, etc.) programs as well as Photoshop work natively in linear (and the compositors all want linear assets to work with), maybe this would be a feature that could be used to leapfrog over ZB/Mudbox? Any of the painting & blending tools in 3D Coat would work better in linear. That podcast in my first link really does a good job out outlining why.

As I'll be using assets created in 3D Coat with Lightwave and Eyeon's Fusion (which both work best with linear images), is there a way to work in linear color space with 3D Coat? BTW - this is a VERY useful podcast if you don't understand the advantages of a linear workflow and why working in this mode yields superior results. http://www.fxguide.com/fxpodcasts/Compositing_in_Linear/

I notice that curves can be saved and loaded. It would be great for beginners to have a small library of different curve shapes. This would be distinct from the OBJ polygonal models that are merged, as curves would provide more flexibility. Then, it would be possible to choose a cartoon shape, an animal or a human shape, with all the curves completed - and modify that shape (by using the curve tools) to make a new one to then model and refine using the other 3D Coat tools. This would also make a great sales tutorial for 3D Coat, with the instructor loading a few curves form a library, and quickly creating a number of cool objects form these curves. A great sales tool for 3D Coat! I expect a curve viewer or at least a thumbnail would be required, but ... maybe not, as 'cartoon character'. 'human character', 'dog', etc. would be very descriptive and would require no changes to 3D Coat.

Thanks for the great ideas!! I really do need to learn the basics of drawing, as I have had zero training (and probably have zero aptitude also, unfortunately. We shall see). It's one thing to read the manuals and watch the videos on curves, and yet another to understand how to use them properly. Knowing to create a new curve rather than just dragging on the flat hand to continue a curve is very useful to know. I've been designing databases and software to run businesses, and am hoping to transition into something a bit more fun. This was my first attempt at using Fusion (YouTube compression really kills it as there's a lot of motion) and I want to change that around a bit and use more interesting camera moves - and then have a video of that girl singing opera (which she does rather well), appear on the video behind the stage as a way to transition into a new set.The camera will move in towards the video screen, until it is now completely inside the new set, with a green screened opera girl singing Nessun dorma. This horned helmet character who will be poking her with a spear or doing something amusing, etc. It may take me a while, but if I keep at it, I should eventually be able to produce something worthy, at least, I hope so. If I fail at creating characters, or need more professional ones than whatever skill level I can attain, I assume I could hire you to create them for me? If you could create a 'spot on' Elmer Fudd, I expect you could create anything.

Well, compared to what you created, I'm a bit ashamed to post, but ... Due to copyright, I'm not actually trying to create an Elmer Fudd, and probably don't have the skill or talent to create that face at the moment, so I'm going after a more generic model that will hopefully improve as I spend more time with 3D Coat - and will be easy to animate with Motion Capture and Motion Builder tweaking. The hands have been a show stopper at the moment. In your video, the fingers appear rather quickly. I think you flatten out the hand, but ... it's really going to take me some practice to be able to produce even a cartoon hands that look 'correct'. I'm in the process of trying to get up to speed on curves, and definitely need a few more hours before I'm really comfortable. So, I've abandoned the model for a bit to just play with curves until they become 'second nature'. I wish there were a repository of Curves for hands, feet, etc. Would be very useful for those of us who are less talented (this is obviously my first attempt at creating any characters). BTW - Is there a way, in curves, to increase the width of the entire tube (instead of just one end)?

There's a ZB/MB thread on NewTek, where 3D Coat was mentioned favorably (apparently, ZB has a lot of nasty UV issues). http://www.newtek.com/forums/showthread.php?t=117522 If a ZB/MB user decided to try the 3D Coat demo after reading that thread, and got the horrible result above, he'd give up. The smooth version should be the default, trying to match what the ZB/MB folks actually do well. Having an option for the current 'rough' mode, sounds like a good idea also. I also get a lot of artifacts when carving off the end of an object by drawing a rectangle and holding control - and when importing Lightwave objects with lots of curves. I'd definitely vote for smoothness as the default.

The download links have all expired. Could you re-upload? BTW - Andrew, for files like this that would have universal appeal, there should be some way to upload them to a file repository within 3d-coat.com, as I've tried to download a number of very cool files lately that have all expired, some posted within the last month.

Yes, that worked well for the beard. I've downloaded all your YouTube videos and have found them very useful. Thanks!

After I get the multi-layer character completed, to move it over to Lightwave/MotionBuilder for animation, do I retopologize all the layers together, or do I retopologize each layer? This is my first try at actually creating my own character (I've purchased characters previously), so I'm definitely interested in any and all tips on making the integration of 3D Coat generated characters and the animation software easier. Thanks!

Yes, those crashes were me. I guess I'll try the latest 14E and kill off Options.xml. BTW - any chance of being able to move windows outside 3D Coat's main window, like with Photoshop? That would really free up a lot of space for me, to be able to put them on a 2nd monitor.

What's the best way to draw a beard, hopefully on another layer than the face? If I use 2D Paint in Voxels while on another layer, it doesn't follow the form of the face (that doesn't exist on the layer I'm painting). I thought of cloning the face layer, but then if I draw on the clone layer, the cloned face will be there when I've finished drawing the beard, so I won't have a beard on its own layer. Thanks!

I just had my first 3D Coat crash. I'm using 3.5.14A CUDA DX64 on Win7. I saved several revisions as I was working, and then I made some changes to 3D Coat's layout (moving the popup windows around). I saved my workspace and the layouts to my Win7 documents area (at least the folder that contains 'my documents'). I made a new folder named 3D Coat Layouts (would be great if 3D Coat could default to someplace on Win7 that it can actually write to, as the Layout folder it first tried didnt' have permissions). I closed 3D Coat, and when I opened it again, I tried to open my saved revisions for the last few hours work. One after another, 3D Coat crashed on each revision. Then, I noticed that my layout was back to the old layout. I restored my workspace and layout from the ones I just saved. Then, I could open my 3D Coat file revisions. I believe this is related to my changing and saving the workspace and layouts, as I've never had a 3D Coat crash before this, and this was the first time I've changed and saved these. I can see in the bug report I submitted, lines like this: Can't load image file "Shaders/CustomSampler8.dds" After restoring my layout and workspace, I can close 3d Coat and it works perfectly. BTW - a thought occurred to me. How many are using ECC RAM on their boxes? Without ECC RAM, there's no way of knowing if a 3D Coat crash is due to bad memory, or to 3D Coat. I use ECC RAM, and even my RAID has ECC RAM. Maybe part of 3D Coat's diagnostics could include a memory tester that could be run overnight (or one could be recommended), as I'm sure sporadic crashes are frustrating, and this would help to eliminate one possible cause to some degree? ---- I did a "New' and 'continue' to discard my changes. Now I'm back to crashing when I try to open my saved files (that opened just a few minutes ago, so I know they are ok). Should I install the 14E version (this is 14A)? Is there some config I should delete?

not sure if this is the correct answer, but there's a background image you can set here: http://www.3dcoat.com/wiki/index.php/9.5_Preferences You can use photos for textures. Found a YouTube video on that:

This was useful for learning about merging, especially for objects with negative space and how to use the merged objects. http://javisjones.com/products-services/videotraining/video0006/

I wasn't clear in what I wanted to accomplish. I'd like to be able to use the 'Line' mode of Pose to be able to draw a line that is straight but goes along the y axis (up/down perpendicular to the x) to draw a gradient. If I use the 'Line' mode, click and drag a line, I'll get a nice gradient, but it won't be exactly perpendicular, so the Pose tool's effects will not be 'perfect'. If I click and then use the Shift key (I was shifting, and then clicking, which is of course wrong, Thanks!), I'll get a perfectly straight line that is perpendicular, but ... I don't get a gradient, it is solid red, just as if I'd used a rectangle to select the area. I saw the 'select with pen' demonstrated in the 3D Coat videos, but it was used for painting on a gradient and doesn't seem to respect the shift key like the 'Line' mode does. I follow you up until 'center cube with grid'. Do you mean center it by hand? Is there a center command? I searched the PDF for one.

Do you know if this feature would work with just the puck? Is there some hot key in 3D Coat to perform this Lock function without the 3dConnexion (definitely seems useful, hello Andrew???) On the Mac, you can use these drivers to support 'unsupported' apps with the 3dConnexion: http://www.orderedbytes.com I only wish these were available on Win7, as they are light years ahead of anything available on the PC (my main platform, of course). It's a nodal programming system for the human interface devices. On the PC, you may have some success using http://www.autohotkey.com/ with the 3dConnexion. Scan through their forums, as I don't own a 3dConnexion.