Rygaard

@haikalle Thank you for your opinion! I know what I did would not be ideal in a workflow. You have complete reason about the details or add another mesh with better topology! But I did not worry about that. It was my intention to demonstrate that in a real project with this freedom, you have an easier way in relation to the flow of the mesh for all the necessary program features that you would need at the moment. I worried much more about demonstrating that I have no difficulties or problems performing any kind of technique, even being in the worst case scenario that I put myself in. I purposely pulled to the extreme, in a very exaggerated way, what I could do and if I would have some sort of problem in this kind of approach. In no time, I wasted time, everything behaved as I wished and it was very quick to be done. Of course, in the ideal scenario, shortly after I finished the sculpture using Dynamic tessellation, I would quickly create a retopology of that mesh and I would follow my project with the mesh with a good topology. Afterwards, I reproject the details from one mesh to the other, and add the Multi-Resolution in this good mesh to improve the sculpture. At this point, I would have the choice to further detail using Multi-Res or I could create and paint a detail texture map (including the texture projection technique) and I would apply this texture map using the Displacement Modifier in a non-destructive way. Total control between physical sculpture (muli-resolution) and detailing paint of the texture map (Painting + Displacement Modifier). Then I could accomplish a correct way to texture map painting Diffuse (albedo) and all other types of texture map for the project. In this project, I would have complete control of everything and if I needed to change anything I could in a very easy way. You could in a real scenario, import a mesh with UVs and use Multi-Resolution to get on with your project. In another scenario, if you wanted to directly add MultiResolution to a Sphere, you could start your project from scratch and follow it normally. Honestly, I have total efficiency of my project in a very intuitive and easy way. Because I had this unique mesh, I had everything the program could offer me in my favor. Regardless of the choice of process that I will follow. One important thing to be said is that in 3D-Coat I could accomplish many things from what I did, but at a certain point in my project, I would be stuck and have to address something to move on. Honestly, I would have to perform " some work around" that are not intuitive for an artist to follow through with the project. For this, a new user or even a user who has more experience in the program would have to have a complete knowledge of how 3D-Coat works. The problem is that sometimes things are not so simple to understand. I also love the way that 3D-Coat works, but I do not have the interactivity that I would expect to have between the Rooms. I would have to create a different type of mesh to have access to a certain Room functionality. Just one example: Maybe, have the possibility of a new Room called Modeling. This would mean yet another program within 3D-Coat that might present the same problems that currently exist. Maybe this Room would communicate with the Retopo Room and maybe with the Paint Room, but it would not communicate directly with the Sculpt Room. What I mean is that currently you can not use the Retopo Room tools in the mesh that is in the Sculpt Room. So that a Sculpt Room mesh can be used in the Retopo Room, only if you carry out an Autopo or process of mesh retopology to create another mesh.

Sorry, I forgot the process ... here it is:

I quickly did a small project of a face on Blender: Dynamic Tessellation + Multi-Resolution. My goal was to demonstrate to you the benefits we would have if 3D-Coat had only a single mesh for all Rooms. My concern was to mix techniques simulating the Rooms of the 3D-Coat. In this project I did not worry about the workflow and I did not worry about the look of the face because I know it is bad, but I did worry about the ease of techniques, control and maintenance of the project. I could use different types of workflow and I have enough knowledge for this, but my biggest focus was on the freedom I had during the creative process. But if it was a real workflow, I would have the chance to do anything in my favor as well. Many things I have done in this demonstration, I have notion, that were forced and exaggerated, but it is to show the potentiality of things.

I had already thought about suggesting this, and frankly, I do not remember commenting anywhere. But from what I know and I informed myself about it, unfortunately the nodes system for Smart Materials would not be possible to do in 3D-Coat. I do not know if this has anything to do with the structure or architecture that was made in 3D-Coat. It would be great and fantastic to have Nodes on Smart Materials ... and I agree with you. I will try to ask again if it would be possible to implement this in 3D-Coat and have a more concrete answer, I'll let you know.

I know the quad system is different. What I meant is that part 1 that you explained would be just another mode in the Sculpt Room system. This means that there would be 3 separate meshes as if they were 3 different Rooms. This means that there would be another mode with more brushes and functionalities for that specific mode, which is why I spoke in redundancy. I understand that Voxels is a completely different system of quads and tris. However, I think quads and tris are not that different so there is a need to create another mode for quads. Understood? Blender, ZBrush, Mudbox, Maya, Silo, Mode, SculptGL, and all other programs treat the mesh as if it were a single mesh without dividing their working system into Tris and Quads. No matter if you are going to use quads or not. If you use dynamic tessellation (tris) and then convert that mesh to quads there is no break in the system. An example is... when you use the command to triangulate a quad mesh and then if you want to use the other command to turn tris into quads. I do not know if I'm getting it right, but what I mean by the essence is that the mesh structure will serve both quads and tris. But if it is to work the quads system in 3D-Coat be that way as you explained, by me okay. Nothing against. I just wish that being the way you suggested it or being the way I suggested, the most important thing is that in the end there was only a single mesh between all the Rooms so we could have the freedom to do any kind of technique at any time in the process and that all the tools and functionalities existing in 3D-Coat could be used in this unique mesh making 3D-Coat a very powerful workflow. Note: 3D-Coat is already powerful, but it would become even more powerful.

I know you had good intentions in your proposal for a third category. With all respect... But don't you think it would be redundant even if it was another type of mesh? And that possibly people would be confused and would even continue with the problem of communication between all the Rooms? Would not Surface Mode be able to handle quads or tris? It may seem like I'm being radical, but when I talked about a single mesh within 3D-Coat, this would unify all the Rooms in your favor, regardless of the mesh being quads, tris and voxels, you could have any kind of workflow and techniques in your favor. You could sculpt, model, create or modify Uvs, create and use texture maps (per pixer painting, microvertex painting and ptex painting), you could do any task at any time without any kind of problems. If you need to change anything you could .... Would not that be ideal? Because I see people wanting to unify a few Rooms, but will continue with the same problem of workflow and confusion among users. And in the future when they realize, they will say: why not unify with the other Room too .... I'll use Blender as an example. You can do anything inside Blender because there is only one mesh. The entire system, all the features and tools are available to you! Exactly everything in the program is for you to use any way you want! In my humble opinion, regardless of whether it's Blender or any other program, the program that works like this becomes a powerful program where creation, maintenance, changes, and the way you're going to drive your project just depends on you.

The way you're talking about, it seems like everyone is making serious attacks, offending and destroying 3D-Coat (as you already said), as if people were saying that 3D-Coat does not work or that 3D-Coat is the worst program in the world. That's not it! This never existed or happened! We all know that 3D-Coat is fantastic, it's no accident that 3D-Coat is my number one program! I love 3D-Coat! If I come from the ZBrush world, what is the point? You did not answer any questions I asked and with all the respect I have for you, you just did the famous "attack" tactic to defend the things. If things are working well for you is enough and that's it. I do not think there's any need for it all. Please, no conflicts! We have to be impartial in running any program...without being passionate to the point of not seeing things. If something could improve, why not test? And verify that there really was some improvement in the workflow... why not think about and maybe a possible change? I believe that the Conform is more intended for Voxels, since the Voxels is another type of system or another type of Animal. So that's fine, now it makes sense to use Conform in the 3D-Coat scenario in the Voxel world. I would prefer to work directly in the mesh and have all the benefits, without problems and without loss of performance. But if you like to work using Conform and then go to the Retopo Room to be able to snap, that's fine! It is your taste and your preference of work. About the Quad and Multi-Resolution system if there was such a system inside the 3D-Coat I would use it for sure and I would be very happy! It is a powerful system that has a positive side as well as a negative side. Therefore, if it existed use it wisely! It would be another great implementation that I could use as part of my workflow, where I could be benefited from all the good things this system would provide for me. Best of all, I could create a Quad based mesh in 3D-Coat (or import the mesh base created by another program that might or may not have UVs) and work on this Multi-Resolution system with no problems at all. I doubt if you had such a system on 3D-Coat users would not use or complain! In my opinion, surely users would use in production, or not? I'm not defending ZBrush! But if ZBrush implemented Dynamesh and Sculptris Pro, congratulations to them, that does not mean that their Subdivision Levels system was bad. Pixologic has provided users with more ways for artists to work. That way, artists could have the best of both worlds and if users wanted they could mix both systems. If that sucks, why all these programs: ZBrush, Blender, Mudbox, SculptGL (web free program), MeshMolder (free program) and other programs have the system of Multi-Resolution and Dynamic Tessellation in their systems? I've never heard of artists and studios complaining about this system. I just watch them speak good things! Why are some of these programs considered standards? In my opinion, the more tools and features you have available in your hands as options to choose how you will work or mix techniques will never be something negative. I want to make my position very clear and my opinion. I am not at any time destroying 3D-Coat through my opinions, I respect everyone in the community, I respect and I am a fan and I greatly admire the work of Andrew and his developers. As best as possible, I will always want to help 3D-Coat, because it is my favorite program and for this I will always want to give my CONSTRUCTIVE opinions because I want to see 3D-Coat on top of the world. I am in favor of a free system (unique mesh by all Rooms) that you can choose any tool and functionality within the program and do your job choosing any type of technique available. All unified, simple, intuitive, easy to use, fast, fluid and with complete control. Everything in 3D-Coat would work as it always did, just add a unique mesh to the system.

I understand your position and respect your opinion. I hope you do not misunderstand me for everything I'll say. We all know that 3d-Coat is fantastic, a unique program that has great qualities, just as there are flaws. This is normal in all programs, including ZBrush in relation to the interface or something else. No one is making comments that are not constructive. But you're acting completely passionate about 3d-Coat, to the point that you do not want to see or not accept that there are some things that are not good about how 3d-Coat works. If you listen to the opinions of all the people in the 3d world, you would go crazy, because the great majority would say that ZBrush is the number one program of any production, that ZBrush is practically perfect and many other opinions. Imagine when you heard what these people would say about the 3d-coat. Just because I love 3D-Coat, because I know of the capability of 3d-Coat and because I can not understand that 3d-Coat is seen just as a program that complements the work done by ZBrush, I created the topic to help , give my opinion and register comments from other artists on how they feel about the 3d-Coat workflow and if possible give suggestions to improve the program. So if there were concrete reasons why such changes would improve 3D-Coat, Andrew could reflect, see if it really made any difference and make decisions. Honestly, All the things I've said and demonstrated about a free workflow would make 3d-Coat much better. You can use only a single mesh that could be altered and manipulated directly by all Rooms without any problems using all the tools and features of all the Rooms of the program to your advantage in this unique mesh. Is bad? You have other types of methods that could help you in some project with the use of quads with subdivisions. Is bad? With this unique mesh the possibility of important functionalities to be implemented in 3D-Coat. Is bad? You would not be forced to use a feature or tool you did not like. But they would be there for you whenever you wanted. If you could choose between the current operation of 3D-Coat or the operation of a single mesh that can be worked by all Rooms (any tool), in which you could do any type of technique (including having mesh UVs) such as modeling , sculpt, paint, texture maps and etc ... all this in this same mesh. In all honesty, please answer me, would you choose which of the 2 operations to do your job? I understand you want to defend 3D-Coat. But, I think you exaggerated things. You say that the Conform functionality between the retopo mesh and the High-Res mesh is a good workflow and that has practically no problems, there you are already exaggerating. I understand that this functionality is useful and smart, but can you dispute Conform with a unique mesh that you could change and manipulate directly? Do you think it's normal for 3D-Coat to have practically a different kind of mesh for each Room? How often will you have to teach or explain to users why a mesh appears in a particular Room and is not present in the other Rooms? Is the communication between the Rooms fluent? In my opinion, a single mesh would solve thousands of problems within 3D-Coat and the workflow would become much simpler, easier, intuitive, unified and better. The only thing I hope is that all of us together can make 3d-coat better!

I was thinking about the workflow of 3D-Coat. Everything that exists in 3D-Coat could work the same way. Because I think there are great advantages of the current operation of 3D-Coat, where the artist can choose a certain task to be executed. In reality 3D-Coat are several programs in one. The problem is the flow of the mesh between all these programs (Rooms), where each program (Room), sees only its own mesh. But what could be done to be able to exist a unique mesh that could be manipulated by all the Rooms and thus having all the benefits of the program in favor of the artist? This unique mesh could be the mesh that is present in the Surface Mode (Live Clay, Remove Stretching) and with the possible implementation of a mesh in quads (the more alternatives given to the artist is better, is not it? ). On Surface Mode, this mesh (tris or quads) could support UVs and could have all the benefits I said when I demonstrated in Blender: . UV Support System . Vertex Group System . Modifiers System (non destructive or destructive if you wish): - Multi-Resolution and others modifiers that have important functionalities. If the user converted to Voxels, since it is a completely different system, the UVs and other benefits would apply in the mesh before being converted to Voxels and so would continue the system as all users know about Voxels and at any time the user could go back for Surface Mode. One important thing I'd really like is that if it were possible somehow I could transform it into Voxels without loss of detail or that in this conversion I did not need billions of polygons to keep the details made in Surface Mode. Thus, the mesh that is in Surface Mode could be worked directly in the Retopo Room that would allow the use of modeling and retopology tools. In the Retopo Room, all functions would be used normally, including the functionalities of the tools of opening of UVs, realization of Bakes and etc. The use of all Autopo functionality would work in the same way, but with some adaptation, in which the user could choose to generate a new mesh (leaving the original mesh intact) or the same mesh automatically modified with the new topology ( of course, for this process the user should duplicate the mesh to be able to reproject the details in the new topology). This Surface Mode mesh could be worked normally in the Paint Room with all its functions and tools. If the artist chooses to paint directly on the Vertex (polypainting) he could. If the user wished, he could choose among all the methods that exist in 3D-Coat: PerPixel Painting, MicroVertex Painting, Ptex painting and etc and so the user would create a texture map to be painted in real time in the sculpted mesh. If the user wished to re-sculpt the mesh physically, no problem! He would go back to Surface Mode, restart the sculpturing process with all the brushes and features, and the user would not miss anything that was done in the Paint Room because UVs and Texture Maps would not be lost. The most interesting thing about this single mesh scheme would be the following: If the artist imported a mesh in the Paint Room and chose a task such as Per Pixel Painting or Microvertex Painting, he would go through the setup process normally as everything is done in 3D-Coat and he would begin to accomplish his task, but at any moment, he could go to Surface Mode and he could sculpt the mesh directly with the brushes. The artist being satisfied with what was done in Surface Mode, he would return to the Paint Room without problems and would return to painting in the texture map (per pixel painting, microtexture painting, ptex painting). And if for some reason the artist needed to change the Uvs or create new Uvs, he would have no problems! He would go to the Retopo / UV Room and he would do what needed to be done and then he would go back to the Painting Room. There would be no problems with the workflow, because the workflow would never be broken or frozen. Another example, if the artist imported a quads based on Surface Mode, he could (if implemented) use MultiResolution and work on the mesh he imported. All Rooms would be available to the artist to do any technique he needed in this mesh. Everything in 3D-Coat would work as it always did, nothing would be lost, it would be a matter of adaptation. But with this unique mesh adaptation, the 3D-Coat workflow would be completely fluid and free throughout the program. It would completely unify the entire system and this would bring numerous opportunities for powerful implementations for 3D-Coat.

This topic is not a topic created by a developer who is asking for help to change something. I created this topic so that Andrew can take knowledge about how the 3D-Coat is seen by users of 3D-Coat and other users of other programs in relation to the workflow or anything else . If the comments on the topic are constructive and positive by letting him realize that it is important to implement or change something on 3D-Coat, it will be at his criterion. Therefore he will develop the program in the best way. Our role is simply to show him the things that happen and why there could be some change. If you think you can do something positive, please do. You had a good idea, share with us 3D-Coat videos on Youtube!

It's true Andrew is always busy and I understand! But my intention was not to point out only elements of Interface. The topic I created was directed towards a better workflow for us artists within the 3D-Coat. In case Andrew and the developers listen to what we are talking about and they realize that they could develop 3D-Coat in this sense of the free workflow, then of course it will be necessary to change the 3D-Coat interface a bit. I understand everything you talk about 3D-Coat, but I do not honestly understand your arguments practically against a possible implementation of Subdivision Levels. It would be just another good thing for all of us, that even you would use when you needed it, if you wished. If the current 3D-Coat Sculpt Layers accepts dynamic tessellation, even though I do not understand programming much, I think 3D-Coat Sculpt Layers could also support quads. My biggest emphasis on everything I'm talking about is just that you can do everything you want to do in a single mesh. If you have seen my demos, you can certainly realize all the benefits and what I could accomplish within Blender. Including, I over exaggerated and I could mix methods like Dynamic Tesselation, Multi-Resolution, Uvs aperture, Real-time texture map painting that would be similar to Per Pixel or Microvertex. I could use modeling tools similar to what exists in the Retopo Room, the mesh having UVs with it and a world of techniques that we could all benefit from. With all this it would open space for implementations of something similar to the Vertex Group with weight influences on the vertices, Modifiers, non-destructive techniques and many other things because of the use of a single mesh. The point is not just the Multi-Resolution (subdivision levels), the goal is something much bigger. It would be the workflow without confusion, controlled and free by the artist. You talked about the users planning the project and so using the features and tools accordingly. However, there are many times that even if you correctly plan a project, things change. You will never be fully under the command of a project. In my opinion 3D-Coat is excellent, but the current workflow of 3D-Coat can not leave an artist stuck in previous plans or during the work and get submitted the tools and functionalities.

I think there are many people who would like a better interface and this comes from many years. Today, all programs recognize that it is necessary to have a user-friendly interface, intelligently interactive according to the tool and even giving you opportunities to choose features that could perform a certain task according to what you are doing at the moment . Interfaces that besides being beautiful, these interfaces offer complete customization for users like Menus, PopUps, Palettes, Brushes, complete change of where all things stay in the interface (nothing is stuck) and many other things. An example interface that developers have realized must be changed and improved: Blender was horrible until version 2.4, in version 2.5 it seemed like another program and in the current version 2.8 the developers felt that it was necessary to redo everything and they did a great job so far. One thing I do not understand is the way of designing, usability and organization of the features and tools within the 3D-Coat menus and palettes. I think it could be redone in a better way. In my opinion, the developers are not afraid, the problem is that to redo the interface will need to occupy a lot of time that is precious to them in developing features and tools that are essential and important to the artists. For many years, artists have been asking for features and tools that are only now being implemented in 3D-Coat. If developers do not listen to this request from their users, the program will be left behind and users will switch to other competing programs because that's the truth! The market practically dictates the rules, whether you like it or not. As well, without forgetting that the developers need to solve the problems of errors and bugs. Depending on the size of the 3D-Coat developer team, the time spent improving the interface becomes small or virtually zero at the moment. Perhaps with the help of the community working on the interfaces, menus, popups and etc .... and presenting everything well elaborated and explained to the developers can make some difference.

Another important thing to talk about is the 3D-Coat interface. I like the idea of palettes, but honestly, it would be good to rethink a better interface that would also allow complete user customization (menus, popups, palettes, brushes, etc.) and also improve the palettes themselves since when they are floating on the screen, the user can not place a palette inside this floating palette. My interface becomes polluted because I leave it in a logical way for my work. I need to have frequent access to brushes, presets, alphas, brush options, models, curves and so on. And at the same time I'm checking the settings of these palettes. I wish I could have a better interface. The Preset palette that I love becomes inefficient in relation to how presets are shown. One preset per line occupying a huge space in the palette or if the user wants a list of names (I do not like it that way). I do not know what the new system of brushes and alphas will look like, but I think these individual palettes could continue as a way of showing things or by the palette being viewed by the shortcut key. However, it could have a new palette with a better design, logically and efficiently unifying the features of the brush, alphas, stencils, strips. I know someone could tell me that I could put in a palette the various other palettes inside it to save space. But like I said, I use it very often and so I would have to keep changing palettes all the time to access what I need. And that would be annoying. I know I can access by shortcut keys, but I keep checking and accessing all the time so I do not waste any time I leave all the palettes I need open. I've changed the size of the Sculpt Layer palette, making it wider because the size of the Depth Opacity Slide is too small for you to drag the slide. Honestly I think the 3D-coat slide is not very good. Even though I increase the width of the palette because of the positioning and size of the Opacity Depth slide in the palette, the slide is still small in width making it difficult to drag the slide efficiently. And depending on the amount of polygons dragging the slide becomes painful. Since Andrew implemented the Proxy Slider palette, I put it under the VoxTree palette and honestly I do not have problems that way, but could be a good idea to put the proxy slider bellow the VoxTree by default in the interface. One thing you did not think of, and I would even suggest this to Andrew, is if Andrew makes the Proxy slide work in a way that the user could freely choose any value (decimal numbers) through the slide and not just the values pre-defined jumps on the slide from 2x to 4x and etc, ie with the separate palette you can leave it wider and you can have more precision. As I already said, I think the slides do not let you have too much precision when you drag. You could have a way to press the Shift key while dragging the slide to change the values precisely. Please do not get me wrong, but I think putting just the Proxy Slider under VoxTree will not make the workflow of all of us better. I do not know if you saw and read about the things that I explained and demonstrated. Don't you think we would have a workflow with multiple options because of a single mesh and thus making our work more efficient and free? Or do you prefer the current 3D-Coat way?

I liked your love letter! And I agree with you about Andrew's ability and what he can do. I do not know Andrew personally, but I have a deep respect and admiration for his work. Just look at 3D-Coat and contemplate a masterpiece! I already commented this, but I will speak again here: "For me 3d-coat looks like it's the most rare and gorgeous rough diamond in the world! If 3D-Coat is stoned it will become close to perfection!" I would very much like @Andrew Shpagin to start observing the opinions of the artists who use 3D-Coat and try to see if there is any consistency in everything we talk about here. I believe that all the artists that are manifesting themselves, exposing their experiences and suggestions here, only have good intentions for 3D-Coat to be even better than it already is! I do not think anyone has the intention of complicating or making negative reviews. The criticisms are just constructive and well intentioned! It is very important that everyone participate, because the moment is now to present suggestions, experiences and tell the reasons why 3D-Coat could change in relation to its operation - workflow. Only then will Andrew realize and know what people think about 3D-Coat. I believe this is the most important thing that exists for the development of any program and any company would be grateful to know how your product is in front of people. I think the longer it takes for something to be done, the harder it will become to change something, if that is the right path.

Please do not look at the model. Its ugly! I just want to demonstrate to all of you the potentiality of a free workflow. I want to show the second example of this kind of free workflow. Look how interesting this workflow I did in Blender, but I think this can also be done in Mudbox (I'm not sure). 1) I used Dynatopo to block the character (dynamic tessellation). This is equivalent to I use in surface mode: Live Clays Brushes and Remove Stretching in Brushes. 2) Then I made the opening of UVs (smart UVs) even with this whole mesh of triangles because of Dynatopo's dynamic tessellation. 3) I added the MultiResolution modifier to reshape this mesh made by the dynatopo, but now I will have control of subdivision levels. 4) Since I have UVs, I created a Bump type texture map or it could be of type Displacement. This allowed me to apply detailing using Paint in real time. This process would be similar in 3d-coat to what we call Per-Pixel Painting and Microvertex Painting. I know, you should ask what kind of workflow is this? What I did was an exaggeration, I showed that I can use multiple workflow processes in the same single mesh. I was able to mix Dynatopo, MultiResolution and Paint in Texture Map in real time. If I wanted I could at any time perform mesh modeling using Knife, extrude, bevel and etc tools, I could use vertex groups in conjunction with specific modifiers for a particular deformation, and I could have used other types of modifiers in a non-destructive way. After all, I could create a mesh with a better topology and reproject all the details in it or perform another type of technique. Do you realize that the artist has total control of everything? The artist is free to do anything and will not get stuck in any workflow. Imagine you can do the same things inside the powerful 3D-Coat. You can use all the functionality and tools that exist in 3D-Coat the way you want in the same mesh and without limits for anything. Of course, to do everything I did in Blender we would have to have a single mesh, and the implementation of the following functionalities: vertex group with weight influence on the vertices and the different types of modifiers. This is a dream...

@gbball I agree with you! You presented great points in your comment! I thank you for sharing your experience with us! I think it's a very important issue for 3D-Coat developers to reflect on. And if the developers think that we artists have any reason, please do the right things. Because in various situations (as they were presented by everyone here that are commenting) I was also completely confused and stuck in the workflow at some point. If something is possible to do in 3D-Coat, and you take time to discover what can be done and then do, it becomes complex and frustrating. Here in the community, there are artists working in various areas of the 3D world. I have no doubt, that the feeling of all is somewhat similar. Because you will arrive at a point in your process you will be frustrated. Every project is required to have small, large or radical changes. In 3D-Coat you have a workflow that looks like the installation of a program, where you keep pressing the Next button until the end of the installation. What if something happens that I need to change? The point is not to show what 3D-Coat is capable of doing. We know that! 3D-Coat I love you! The point is to show what 3D-Coat could do to become the program that any artist would like to use for the complete and diversified workflow that the program would allow the artist to use in the best possible way. The artist knowing that he can at any time carry out any kind of technique with his unique mesh, this means a free, creative and efficient workflow. There are users who still ask themselves: Why does the mesh appear in a certain Room and not appear in the other Room? Some people may argue that it is the way 3D-Coat works. So I ask: Does it work to what extent? Is it efficient? Does it make you do anything in the mesh, anytime you want? I can continue to ask questions ... but I think in some things the way 3D-Coat works is good! What I keep talking about workflow is not something radical for developers to throw in the ****** all the work they've done! That's not it! Please do not interpret this way! When I speak in the free workflow as I demonstrated in Blender is so that there are adaptations of the code in favor of this workflow that would offer many advantages to the artists. It is not only in relation to Multi Resolution, I speak as a whole in the program. Please, put an end to the confusion and workflow complications! A single mesh for the whole system! After that, the various adaptations and implementations could happen in 3D-Coat, if the developers realized if this was correct.

@Emi I totally agree with you! It is a question of knowing what will be best for a given workflow. If you will have a mesh with topology defined or if you will do the retopology afterwards. In 3D-Coat there is the Proxy mode that allows the user to reduce the amount of polygons and then you can easily pose the character. I have described the entire Blender MultiResolution process which is equivalent to ZBrush. So you may notice that I was able to create Vertex Groups (I could if I wanted to have weight influence on the vertices) and I used Modifiers that transform the mesh in a destructive or non-destructive way. Influencing the whole mesh or just pieces of it. I could use modeling tools (cut, extrude, bevel and etc). I was able to use texture maps benefiting me from Uvs with the Displacement modifier. I did everything in the mesh I would like to do and I used various techniques. I could use more modifiers later, I could reproject details in another mesh ... I have complete freedom of workflow and techniques. If I wanted to use non-destructive and interactive Boolean operations I could. I could do anything, anytime, and the best I could benefit from both worlds (Multi Resolution and Dynatopo). In the end, it would be enough to make retopology or to reproject details. One very important thing, with vertex groups with weight influence on the vertices, I could do a quick rig and pose my character. In my opinion, this makes Blender more powerful than ZBrush. Did you notice? And hey, I'm not crazy! If 3D-Coat allowed a free workflow, allowing to work with a single mesh, implement Vertex Groups with vertex weight influence, several types of Modifiers and other functionalities. Surely if 3D-Coat could do everything I did in Blender to demonstrate to you, 3D-Coat is sure to become the industry standard program. The freedom of any workflow, whether Voxels, LiveClays, brushes with Remove Stretching and Multi Resolution, modeling, modifiers, vertex groups and etc would make 3D-Coat a power without comparisons.

In relation to the system of subdivision levels I find very powerful. I do not know if you use Blender, but if you do a quick test, you can do the following in your workflow: - Open UVs (with Uvs in geometry, you will have benefits in your favor.) You will be able to have several techniques in your creative process, this will only be possible if there are functionalities in your favor. - Choose the Multi-Resolution modifier (it would be the equivalent of the ZBrush subdivision level system). - You can sculpt and have in your favor all levels of subdivision that keeps any kind of detail you have made. - You can at any time, if necessary or for any reason, you can perform modeling through whatever traditional tools like: Knife (Cut), extrude, bevel, inset, merge and etc. That means you do not get stuck with the same topology. You can change the mesh in your favor. As well as the use of vertex groups and modifiers. - The UVs that were already made in the geometry will support as much as possible all the mesh changes made by the modeling tools of the program I mentioned above. Of course, when you add new polygons as in the Extrude operation, UVs will no longer be correct. The only job you have is to make the appropriate seams on the UVs just on that Island or piece of the mesh and run the UNWRAP only in that region. Okay, you quickly get the correct UVs back on again. - You can re-sculpt before fixing the UVs or after repairing the Uvs. The job of sculpting will not be interrupted in any moment, it means that you do not have in any moment break of workflow. - Whatever you wish to do, any technique is at your disposal without any problems, including techniques related to texture maps. If you want to use modifiers (displacement, simple deform and etc) you can! The only limitation is if you choose a modifier that stays after MultiResolution, Blender will not allow it because of MultiResolution, but that's no problem! Just apply the modifier and the mesh will normally receive modifier modifications in MultiResolution. If you want any non destructive modifier you can! You only need to put the modifier before MultiResolution. - The only problem, which is not really a problem, but how the process works is that the artist has to subdivide the mesh as a whole and if you want more details you have to subdivide the mesh into millions of polygons. I did a quick test where I stressed the mesh and made radical modifications in the character. I did not intend to make a beautiful sculpture! Please see the imagem below: I agree that with LiveClay, Remove Stretching and voxels is a completely different and powerful process! I love it so much! But it has its negative points as in any type of process chosen by an artist. Please do not misunderstand me, but what I'm talking about is that every process, regardless of anything, has both good and bad points. In my opinion, the important thing is for the artist to have a choice of what he will do, to choose the best workflow that would be the most correct at that moment. You have freedom in your workflow is very important regardless if you like more of one process than the other. I agree that with the implementation of Sculpt Layer was something very important and essential. It was extremely urgent that 3D-Coat have Sculpt Layers in its system. This was a win for all! Congratulations to Andrew, because again 3D-Coat is being unique and pioneer in allowing Sculpt Layers to accept Dynamic Thessalation and so on. There are unique features and tools in 3D-Coat that make any artist to have an exceptional quality in their work.

I do not think anyone can deny how much Blender is becoming powerful. I started learning 3D with Maya, I used Silo, then 3DS-Max, I went through Modo and now I use Blender. Blender does everything I need without owing anything to anyone Now, I do not know about big projects in the matter of stability and speed of Blender Render compared to the big ones like Maya, 3DS-Max that are used in the industry. In the version of Zbrush R8 or 2018, I was able to identify some things inspired by Blender features. It might not, but if I was not mistaken there was something similar to the Boolean process among several objects in a non-destructive way similar to Blender's Boolean modifier. I'm not talking about the boolean live function. Soon my friends, you can note there, you will see in the ZBrush system modifiers similar to what exists in Blender, 3DS-Max and other 3D programs. I think it's important that developers look with a lot of affection at Blender because great inspirations could be made. Please forgive me for citing Blender so many times, but it is the program I use today and I have some knowledge. But I believe that other programs also have similar functionalities.

I do not know if it would be a complex task for developers. I do not think so, because there are features with a greater degree of difficulty within 3D-Coat. I believe this is a matter of code adaptation. So it's important to say exactly how the bug happened so developers can fix it. But a big problem happens when users report possible bugs or bugs. It is that sometimes, these errors or bugs do not happen frequently, but that does not mean that the error does not exist. Therefore, it becomes difficult to repair it when the developers are going to take the test through the steps that the user reported a particular error or bug and on their computer this error does not happen.

Congratulations on your work! I liked very much! Keep posting and sharing with us this beautiful project!

There are still many things I do not understand in 3D-Coat, but this is not because I do not make an effort to learn. And it is because things are confusing and even become questionable why they function in this way. Sometimes become difficult and freeze your worflow. Example: You will want to use Displacement Map in order to physically apply and deform the surface of the mesh. For this you have to use Microvertex Painting and choose through the File / Export menu - 3 or 4 types of mesh resolution. So 3D-Coat will apply the displacement map physically in the mesh. After that, you will have to test by exporting different resolutions and then you will import through these surface different resolution meshes to be able to choose which of these resolutions would be ideal for your work. Would not it be more practical an option that the artist could preview the displacement map, choose the displacement strengh before applying to the mesh surface? Just as it works and happens with the Noise Tool of Surface mode? Did you realize how complicated and confusing things become? The funniest thing is that I hated blender, especially in versions 2.4! Today, Blender is completely changed from everything! Workflow is getting better and easier for people to use. In my opinion, it still has some confusing things, but they are easy to learn. You can do everything in Blender: Modeling, Sculpt, Uvs, Painting, using various type of modifiers, Vertex groups with influence of weight, non-destructive systems, several types of techniques to solve any kind of problem and best of all is freedom of work. You have a free workflow.

Many thanks @gbball, my intention is just to help and make all the artists of 3D-Coat to express themselves and to give their best opinion so that some change, if it is correct, happens. I also agree with you! I love working on 3D-Coat, but unfortunately we have flaws and problems. 3D-Coat is fantastic and unique in many things! Unfortunately, many features and tools essential and important to artists are not present in 3D-Coat. Everything you said is important and there would be many other things that could easily be added to that list. I have separated only 5 functions which in my opinion are essential and important to the system of brushes and alphas. In fact it was very difficult to choose only these 5 functions, because we have others that are important as well as the Topological Brush that you said. But for the beginning you have Plane OFFset (imbed), Sample Bias (midvalue), Size, Adjust, Curves (FallOff) would be great. I'd like to have added the Topological brush, but I did not want to make things complicated by asking or suggesting so many things at the same time. I try as hard as possible to explain as best I can, demonstrate and argue why the features, tools and workflow would only bring benefits to us artists and to 3D-Coat. To solve many problems and confusions, I am in favor of a single mesh, a free workflow between all the Rooms which would allow us a whole system in our favor.

You are completely correct regarding blender 2.8 workspace. That's exactly what I said about Layout or Menu Sets. The organization is similar to what we have in 3D-Coat in relation to Rooms. Exactly! That would provide us with only a single Room, a single Mesh, no mess and no confusions. A clean, fast, friendly interface workflow (with interface customization, menus and popups), a free flow of the same mesh can use all the 3d-coat tools available in the program (all Rooms) to your advantage. This is something very powerful and it would give us complete freedom and control of the workflow. Thanks for talking about it: topological grab .... I did not know it. I'll inform myself better about this so I can comment. I really like the Smooth tools in Surface Mode, but I've had several problems with using them. There was case when I used the Reduce, Decimate, Power Smooth that serious problems arose on the surface of my mesh. Like several holes with different sizes that appeared and also problems of mesh explosion (a vertex that is located on one side to bridge the other side of the mesh). There is also a certain problem with the performace of the brushes according to the resolution of their mesh. For me the worst thing that happens is when I need to transform my detailed mesh that is in the surface mode for voxels. I suffer a lot from this, because in addition to having this detail loss problem, my mesh gets extremely heavy, my pc slows down and performance drops because I have to use billions of polygons so I can keep the detailing that I I made it located on my sculpture. The artists who use the 3d-coat in the 3D printing process (collectibles) should have nightmares. Because you need to perform the Cuts and Keys almost at the end of the workflow, this stage uses a lot of Boolean operations. And everyone knows that in surface mode boolean operations are not effective, they can freeze the 3d-coat and even fail the operation after a long time calculating the Boolean operation. And there is the problem also of fixing the mesh with the problems of intersection, holes in the surface, meshes that may be floating in, problems of mesh explosion and other things like the concern of the mesh to be completely solid so that serious problems do not happen during the 3D printing. All this, to be done currently on the 3d-coat surface mode, in my opinion, is practically impossible. If you want to solve any problem you will be forced to convert your mesh into Voxels and that means you will have to use billions of polygons to keep the mesh detailing. It would be a dream to solve any problem that might occur in the surface mesh in Surface Mode itself.

Levels of subdivision may be an old concept, but we can not deny that it is efficient for the purpose that this type of method provides us. It's just another way of doing things, another kind of methodology that artists can or can not use according to the workflow they choose. In all working methods, there is the positive side, but there is also the negative side. In blender, using the MultiRes modifier (which is equivalent to subdivision levels), you can make your UVs, if you want for some reason to use the modeling tools even after subdividing your mesh and with UVs, you can. This means that the artist has the freedom if he wants to add cuts manually, make extrudes, insets and etc., that all these modifications will be accepted when you return to your sculpture process. One cool thing about this is that your UVs will try to respect these changes as much as possible on this system, but depending on the changes you've made, you're going to have to redo the UVs, but that's not a problem, because in reality you will only fix the errors. The conclusion of this is that you have another alternative and efficient creation, even though old is very powerful. You do not have a workflow break. And at worst, you can reproject every detail in the mesh. I particularly love this method as well. The use of Voxels and liveClay is another method I love, in which you can sculpt the mesh freely without worrying about the topology of the other method, and add details only in the places you want, making your entire process light and optimized if the artist knows what he is doing. A very controlled and efficient method, however far as I know, there is no possibility of you using UV's in this type of method. In my opinion, it would be interesting that UVs would automatically adapt to the process at the same time the artist was sculpting. I also do not know if something like that would be possible. As I already said I love this kind of method too, but after I sculpt, I will have to do the retopology process, UVs, if need be I will have to reproject the details in this new mesh and carry out the Bake process. Voxels is an excellent and fantastic method for me to create a base mesh so that I can sculpt with more control in the Surface Mode (where magic happens). But it allows us to switch between Voxels and Surface at any time as needed. However, the user should pay attention to detail loss when a surface mode mesh is converted to Voxels again. The modeling method is something else. You may or may not have a non-destructive system of your mesh. I think this type of modeling is mostly associated with the subdivision level method that supports modeling tools. Now with the implementation of Curves, which is very similar to NURBS (nurbs is an old system too, but you may realize that it is extremely powerful). This kind of non-destructive method is great and allows us to perform a more intuitive and complex modeling process in an easy way, and it would be even more interesting if some kind of communication with the other methods I mentioned above happened. In ZBrush, ZModeler is an interesting and intelligent system that massively uses the Polygroups system to perform modeling in a fast and efficient way. The success for ZModeler's modeling will depend on the artist. What I want to say is if the artist really knows how to use ZModeler's system, he will be happy. If he does not know this system will not be efficient and this person will be frustrated because you have to understand the system to succeed. I really like the kind of modeling of the Blender, 3DS-Max, and others programs, it's pretty much the kind of modeling presented in the Retopo Room. I feel that way, I have more control and it is more intuitive for me. This is not to say that this type of modeling is slow depending on the artist can be very fast, but for that in my opinion, the modeling tools could be smarter and with more options for the artist to perform while that polygon, edge or vertex is selected. Zbrush has been suffering from the interface for years, and many people complained about it. But in order to reduce this type of problem, ZBrush made it possible to customize the interface and to create menus that are also customized by users. I think the more methods and workflow possibilities that can be given to the artist is the better. And it would be even better if the artist could merge these methods to some extent.