Rygaard

A bit different the way to have a thumbnail. This happens because 3D-Coat takes the photo of the object to the Models palette through Z- (negative) to Z + (positive). So, we all have models with thumbnails on their backs. I particularly do not spin the model because I think when I import the same model into the scene through the models palette, my model will not come imported as I would like, so I would have to rotate the model again on the Y axis to continue on my project. Instead of rotating the model on th Y axis with the transform tool, I like name the layer of the model for something very specific and then save it in the Model Palette. So the moment I hover over the object in the Models palette, the name will appear and I can confidently choose what I want to work with. Just a simple tip. I hope in the future that will change. Good luck in your work!

Hey everyone, I quickly did the following tests: 1- I tried to import a file in EXR format (dragging from the windows explorer folder) and 3D-Coat closed (crash!) And asked to save the project. - In the "Open texture" option of the Alphas palette there is no option of choosing the EXR extension to open. So, for me to try to open the EXR, I drag the file from the folder into 3D-Coat and for me the program closes (crash!) At the same time. 2- In the other test, I tried to use the Edit The 16-bit Tif option and the problem of opening the alpha continues. An error message and when the external editor opens, there is no alpha, but the document appears with black background. 3- When you try to delete alphas from the Alphas palette, using the Delete Alpha option, 3D-Coat will momentarily delete, because when you exit the program and return, the alphas you deleted will return. For me to permanently delete an alpha that I do not want anymore, I go to the \ textures \ patterns \ directory and delete it directly, that way when I exit the program and the alpha is actually deleted. 4- When I use the Save to PSD / TIF option, saving the TIF option, the saved file can not be opened. When I went to check in Gimp happens the same error of test (2) IMAGE above. An error message appears and the document with black background appears. What exactly were the fixes related to Alphas? I will still try to discover and test.

In order for you to have a thumbnail facing forward as you want, before sending an obj to the Models palette, you need to rotate the model 180 degrees on the Y axis (that is, for you the model will be on its back) with the Transform Tool. After you've rotated your object or character, then you can send it to the Models palette.

I've been doing a lot of testing on alphas (textures) in 3D-Coat. I'd like to explain better about the MidValue function. I think a function like MidValue would be very important and essential to control the influence of Alpha on the surface of the mesh and the appearance of the square border around the Alpha. Through the image below, I try to explain how the influence of alpha (inflates in or out = Which is not a good thing ) or medium = Ideal Situation) on the surface of the mesh works and how it would be useful for 3D-Coat users to control how the alpha will behave in surface of the mesh. I've created a topic related to my tests with Alphas for anyone who wants to see: thank you

I did another test. From a flat geometry I sculpt textures and then in 3D-Coat I saved the OBJ and created an alpha from the OBJ. The problem is that 3D-Coat created me an alpha that when I apply on the mesh surface there are 2 problems: 1) A square border appears around the alpha. 2) Since the purpose is to detail the surface of the mesh, when I apply the alpha happens a very large deformation into the surface. For detailing, the ideal would only be to deform the mesh surface as in the image bellow the left. In the image of the left, which does not have the square border around the alpha and the deformation happened only on the surface of the mesh without pushing in the detailing was acquired through the ZBrush. The same flat geometry that I sculpted and generated an OBJ in 3D-Coat, I imported into ZBrush and through the tool MRGBZGrabber I captured the Depth information and the program generated the 16-bit alpha. With this alpha created by ZBrush, I imported this Alpha into 3D-Coat and I applied it in the geometry the same way I applied the alpha created by 3D-Coat in the image on the right. Without changing any Brush settings on 3D-Coat. I would like to know how I can only deform the surface without the square border around and without delving into the geometry as in the image above the left? I tried to use the gray (127-127-127) around but I could not do it right. If I use falloff a lot of the alpha detail will disappear and still keeps the border around. The word Top will disappear completely, as you can see in the image bellow. I'm attaching the test alphas .RAR... NOTE: It looks like alpha saved in 3D-Coat (save to PDF / TIF) in TIF format gives an error when I tried to open here. I do not know if the reason would be for 3D-Coat to try to save the TIF format in 16-bits. Maybe it's a possible bug. test2_alpha_from_obj.rar alpha created by zbrush.tif

I know, I just wondered if 3D-Coat will keep the 16 bits or whether it will transform the alpha into 8 bits. thank you.

I hope so. This would be fantastic because I can not get good results in detailing. Carlosan, this alpha that you imported and tested, does it still have 16 bits or does 3D-Coat convert the alpha to 8 bits?

Hey Everyone! I would like to share with you my progress so far. In this project, the result will be a 3D impression of this sculpture. I would very much like to detail this sculpture with alphas / stencils and get a very realistic result, but in my tests, with a simple cube, I have not been able to obtain good detail results on the geometry surface until now (usually the result is a pixallated and dry effect). I hope I can figure out a way to have a good quality of detail. Thank you.

Thank you very much for the settings. For you to have an artistic result, unfortunately or fortunately, in my opinion, you need to know the technical part of the program, otherwise you will not get the result you expect from the artistic point of view. I agree with you! You are completely correct my friend that the programs are different, but they share several characteristics in common. When I made the comparison between ZB and 3D-Coat, I did not understand (even though they are different programs) because in ZBrush I have good results without having to worry about any technical part? In ZB, I only get the Standard brush with drag stroke, I import the Alpha (which shows 16bits), with brush intensity of 25 (default) and in the end I have the result that I would expect with quality. I know this alpha is old, but even though it's not an alpha I'd use on my sculptures, you can get good results without the pixallated and dry effect inside the ZB. I tried doing the same in 3D-Coat, but unfortunately so far I'm not getting a good result. Honestly, I do not know what I'm doing to not have good results. In 3D-Coat, I can make sculptures at a high level, but when I get to detail my characters with the alphas, I can not get results that I would expect to have. I would like very much to obtain excellent quality details within 3D-Coat and to be able to share with all the potential of 3D-Coat.

Hi @Carlosan Thanks again for the return and for doing the test with the Cube that I attached. The cube as I told was made in ZBrush, subdivided into 5 times and as a result 500,000 polygons (within Zbrush) and 1 million within 3D-Coat (the same cube imported). I exported this same cube to Obj and imported into 3D-Coat. Thank you for alerting me about the scale or size of the cube in 3D-Coat. I thought that in Surface mode the size of the geometry would not influence the quality of Alphas and Stencils within 3D-Coat. To be honest with you, I've never bothered to scale the size of a geometry within ZBrush, because regardless of the size of the geometry the quality of Alphas in the carving and detailing will always be good. I did not really know that it mattered the scale of the geometry within Surface Mode in 3D-Coat. --> First Important Doubt: Can you tell me about when you import a 16-bit TIF alpha into 3D-Coat, will this alpha remain 16 bits? Because when I choose the Edit Ext. Editor option, it automatically opens Gimp 2.10.8 and when I check the bits it has, Gimp shows me that they are 8-bits and not more 16-bits. Does this mean that even though it is 16-bit in Tif format, will 3D-Coat automatically convert alpha to 8 bits when importing into 3D-Coat? --> Second Important Doubt: When I choose the Edit the 16-Bit TIF option, Gimp opens automatically, and an alert message appears with the empty alpha (dark square) as the image above I posted? This is normal? Because I can not do anything with this option because of the error that appears to me. --> Very important: Please could you share the settings you made to get the alpha result of the image? . What scale of the cube did you redimension? . Did you further subdivide the cube? . Did you apply Smooth to the cube? . Which brush was used? Draw, Gum or some LiveClay Brush? . What are Brush settings? Depth? Falloff? Remove Stretching? or something else? Please, Could You answer me on the first and second doubts and on the various questions of the very important above. I would like to learn about how to get alpha with quality, because in my test I have not been able to have the same quality. For me alphas is a mesh with pixalated result on the surface. My result with the scaled cube and some configurations without using smooth or subdivided the cube: Thank you very much for your attention

Thank you very much for replying and giving me the manual link. In fact, I had read this manual before. I always try to look for answers to my questions or possible errors before creating a new topic that could be a duplicate of another topic. In my opinion the process of creating a new alpha (Color, Height / Depth, Glossiness & Erase Mask) is a bit confusing and I need to adapt to that. I'm used to dealing with alpha in Krita / Gimp / Photoshop (making adjustments and turning to gray) and then importing for example programs like ZBrush (when I used only ZBrush) or Blender. For users it is very practical and easy to create a new alpha or texture without worrying about anything because the programs already create for the user alpha automatically. 3D-Coat gives me this option to automatically create a new alpha by opening a new texture or dragging that texture from the folder (windows explorer) into 3D-Coat, giving me the option to choose Create a New Alpha. And this way, by creating the alpha automatically for the user. Sorry for anything, but please, if possible, could you answer the 4 questions above? This is very important because I would like to detail my characters with quality through Alphas and Stencils. This topic may also help many other users in the future. Thank you very much

Some help, please: 1) Please, someone could tell me if what I said above are possible errors or bugs regarding the functions of alphas (right button / options)? 2) How could I have the same quality of the 16-bit alpha of ZBrush inside 3D-Coat? 3) Am I doing something wrong importing a 16-bit alpha in Tif format inside 3D-Coat? 4) I tried importing 16-bits alpha in EXR format, but 3D-Coat does not recognize the format EXR when I hit the Open Texture button. And when I drag the EXR from the folder into 3D-Coat, a message appears to choose what I like to do, I choose the Create New Alpha option, and 3D-Coat locks and closes the program unexpectedly, generating a critical error.

Hey everyone, I wish I could use a 16-bit alpha in 3D-Coat. Before importing the 16bits alpha to 3D-Coat, I checked it and it really is 16 bits. Remembering that I saved this alpha in Tif format. So I created a cube of 500,000 polygons inside the Zbrush and exported the obj. I imported this cube into 3D-Coat. I used the same alpha in ZBrush and 3D-Coat. The result of this alpha in ZBrush is better than the result made within 3D-Coat as you can see in the image. Does importing the alpha (even if in tif) into 3D-Coat, will the program automatically convert the 16-bit alpha into 8-Bits? I can not understand this difference that is happening in the picture. I believe there is an error or bug happening in 3D-Coat when I right-click the alpha, a menu appears with options, when I choose "edit in Ext. Editor", I realize that the alpha is no longer 16 bits and yes 8 bits in the external editor. And when I choose the "Edit the 16-bit Tif" option a reading error occurs and instead of the alpha appears (no alpha) a dark square. I have already tested on Gimp 2.10.8, Krita 4.1.7, Photoshop CS2 and it always happens the same thing. Please, I would like to know what I could do to actually have a 16-bit alpha inside 3D-Coat? I'm attaching the cube and the alpha. Thank you alpha_and_cube500k.rar

I think over time implementations will be made about the interface and its functions. In my opinion, the most important at the moment, are the functions and tools that are essential and important to make a difference in our work.

I had already thought about it! Since then, I've been thinking of this possibility of doing something similar to what you said about speedsculpture / timelapse, videos with tips, "making of" and more varied subjects about 3D-Coat. I would need to organize better about this youtube channel idea (I confess to you that I do not understand much about this youtube world). Soon, I'll be creating an artistic page on facebook and other media so people can communicate with me. We could talk better about this by PM and if you are interested and if you want we could see the possibility of creating a kind of presentation collaboration or videos together. Could this be a good idea to show the potential of 3D-Coat? For this and all other good ideas that may come up about it, if you are interested in talking to me, please contact me. I think good things can happen!

I understand your feeling and your frustration, because I already felt that way. It will be almost a year ago that I created the topic "Users, @Andrew Shpagin and developers of 3D-Coat .... Being sincere ... What do you think?" and I created this topic shortly after seeing the release of the version of ZBrush 2018 when they implemented their Live Clay Brushes. At the time I was extremely frustrated, sad and disillusioned every time I was only observing year after year the essential and important tools and functions that an artist needs to be released by ZBrush and did not see the same process being performed inside 3D-Coat (mainly in the area of sculpture). And I observed that many of these functions launched by ZBrush were similar to functions that already existed within 3D-Coat. I understand that the ZBrush team was already in the market developing and specializing in the area of sculpture before 3D-Coat and that because they also have a lot of people developing within Pixologic. Please do not understand that I am making excuses for the 3D-Coat team, I am not defending the developers of 3D-Coat, but we have to recognize that 3D-Coat is a complex program, which is actually several programs in 1 and has a smaller team of programmers than Pixologic in the development of the program. Actually, this kind of subject is very delicate to be commented on, because we 3D-Coat users do not see things as they are and we would like to have important tools and functions for yesterday. In my honest opinion, 3d-Coat developers could review all the functions and tools that the program already has in order to be able to improve and implement new important functions for each one while at the same time stabilizing each tool and function of the program. I would not like to go into that, but the interface of the program and its related functions would also need to be reformulated. And of course, without stopping to develop the important things that are currently being developed in the program as Sculpt Layers and etc. I already left a little of the subject of the topic, but that's okay. Good opinions are always welcome to help improve the program. @Andrew Shpagin , is developing the new system of Brushes, as well as Sculpt Layers and other important things. Therefore, I am quite excited to know that many good things are coming soon. Even though Andrew and his team of developers are busy, I hope they do not mind caring about what I suggested in this thread because these suggestions are very important to the work of an artist who uses 3D-Coat for sculpt characters, objects, and scenarios. I hope you help to strengthen the idea so that we can have in addition to these suggestions that I described in the topic, like several others. Please, do not lose your hope of seeing good things only in several years! Let us hope that good things will happen soon and not for several years afterwards.

Hey everyone, I would like to share about my latest sculpture! It is still at work in progress. Soon, I will post the final version! Thank you

Hey everyone! My intention in creating this topic is to be able to contribute to the improvement of the Brushes, Alphas, Stencils and Textures system for 3D-Coat. Since @Andrew Shpagin commented that he was developing a new system of Brushes, then who knows, this topic could help in some way and at the same time you can comment, enrich and further strengthen this subject that is of the extrem importance for all of us who are users of 3D-Coat. I have sculpted a lot in 3D-Coat which is a fantastic program, especially in Surface mode and I can tell you all in all sincerity that I really missed a lot of important tools and functions during my work and I believe most of you too. Please do not misunderstand me, but on several occasions, I was a bit discouraged by the lack of tools and functions in 3D-Coat and thus making me take my work to other programs to be able to move on with my work. I know it's healthy to have a workflow that involves other programs, but honestly taking your work to ZBrush to be able to perform certain functions is very frustrating. In my head it does not make sense to have to get a ZBrush license just to complete my work that I do with a lot of affection inside 3D-Coat. So with this feeling, I would like to suggest and share some suggestions that could make a big difference in our work related to this area. Actually, it would be a lot of suggestions, but I'm going to get caught up in what seems to me to be the essential and really make a difference in our work. --------------------- So, shall we start? ----- 1) Alpha and Textures for 16 Bits: --> VERY IMPORTANT! I believe one of the major important steps for 3D-Coat would be the program to accept to work with alphas, stencils and textures with 16 bits. This will help greatly in the process of sculpting and painting taking the program to a level of excellence and would prevent the surface of the mesh from becoming strange through alphas and textures of 8 bits. Please see a quick comparison of the same Cube created in ZBrush with 500 thousand polygons and then this cube was imported to 3D-Coat for the application of the same alphas that were used in ZBrush. In this test, you can see that in all examples in 3D-Coat (located to the right), the surface of the mesh showed more noises, pixallated effect and generated some imperfections in the geometry of the mesh (bad geometry). The reason for this is because 3D-Coat only works with alphas and 8 bit textures that limits the program in the definition and quality when applied to the surface of the mesh, since 8-bit grayscale images which contain 256 gray levels. In ZBrush examples (located on the left) you can see that the surface of the mesh has a better quality, it has an excellent smoothing definition (not having the pixelated effect) and does not generate a geometry with problems on its surface, since 16- bit images which contain over 65,000 gray levels. In my opinion, 3D-Coat switching from 8-bit to 16-bit would give users an incredible and spectacular detailing power (whether in the area of sculpture or in the painting area) similar or even better than what we find in ZBrush. ----- 2) New Alpha Pallete: (These functions, if implemented, could be part of the Paint Room as well. ) I think 3D-Coat could improve a lot in the area of alphas. This suggestion for a new Alpha-related palette would bring the user important and useful functions as well as an instant preview for the user to observe the changes that would be made to the alpha being manipulated. -- Features and Functions: . Flip H: It would flips the alpha left-to-right, making it a mirror-image of itself. . Flip V: It would flips the alpha top-to-bottom, making it a mirror-image of itself. . Tiles H: The H Tiles would tile the selected alpha along the horizontal access. The H Tiles could have a different value then the V Tiles to would create unique tileable alphas. . Tiles V: The V Tiles would tile the selected alpha along the vertical access. The V Tiles could have a different value then the H Tiles to would create unique tileable alphas. . Offset H: The Offset H would offset the image horizontally. . Offset V: The Offset V would offset the image vertically. . Distort Image: The distort image would be the same found in the Preview Options of Stencils and Smart Material. This would works similar to liquify brush of photoshop. . MidValue: (Very IMPORTANT feature) - Mid Value would set the zero displacement value. If would set to 1, then white would be considered zero displacement and all sculpting would push in on the model. If would set to 0, then black would be considered zero displacement and all sculpting would push out of the model. Setting Mid Value between 0 and 1 could allows you to sculpting in and out at the same time. . Surface: (Very IMPORTANT feature) - The Surface button mode would automatically defines the best middle gray value for your alpha. It would allows you to add details from the alpha to your sculpt without destroying details already on the surface. . Filters: Curves, Levels, Dodge, Burn, Threshold, Invert, Gaussian Blur, Motion Blur, Unsharp Mask, Noise e etc... The idea of the filters would be to completely refine the Alpha. You could choose how many filters were needed and these filters would appear in the order you choose in the list on the side. The user through the Eye button icon could or could not see the Filter, thus the filter would become active or not. The user could delete, duplicate and change the order of the filters in the list. Just as you could save and load the list with the filters and their respective properties that were previously configured. The user could create a new alpha from the list that would appear in the Alphas palette. And best of all is that this filter would be non-destructive, all properties and values would be permanent and would be changed at the time users wanted. ----- 3) Alpha Capture from sculpt: Capture Depth information in 16 Bits to create Alphas with ease. To make life easier for the user and further improve the creation of alphas within 3D-Coat, this new tool through a function similar to that of programs that capture the computer screen by dragging a rectangle, would be able to capture the information of the Depth of the geometry surface and could efficiently generate a 16 Bit Alpha of that surface of the sculpted mesh. This generated Alpha would automatically appear in the alphas palette. ---> Important New features for better Brushes control: ----- 4) Imbed and Gravity: - Imbed: (very IMPORTANT feature) The Brush Imbed would control the embed of selected brush. Brush Imbed would gives a brush a definite control on how a brush would interact with a surface. This would allow a slight deformation on the surface or a more extreme deformation on the surface. - Gravity: It would allows you to add gravity to your brush strokes, giving it a draping effect. Through an Orientation function, gravity could be oriented to the Z axis and thus change the direction of gravity. ----- 5) Topological area of influence function for the Move Tool and Pose Tool: (Very Important feature) When the user activates this option, the surface of the mesh would have a restricted degree of influence to perform the deformation of the mesh surface. Example: Close or open the eyelids (when moving the upper eyelid, the lower eyelid would not be moved) or the mouth (when moving the lower lip, the upper lip would not be moved) according to the area of influence of the brush configured through properties that would aid in the refinement of this function. Since 3D-Coat is not attached to a topology, I had thought the following solution to this problem would be the possibility of 3D-Coat using the Calculation of Curvature used in the Smart material system to be able to identify the surface of the model and thus 3D-Coat could have concrete information on how the program could restrict an area, even if that area is in contact with another area. ----- 6) Changes made to Proxy Slider could have compatibility in Sculpt Layers: At the moment, when the user works with models at any resolution in the Proxy Slider and returns to the normal model, all layers in the Sculpt Layers are lost. ----- 7) Clip Mask Layers on Sculpt Layers. (Very Important feature) This would be really important for detail control on the surface of the mesh in a non-destructive way. ----- 8. The Snake, Spike, ToothPaste and Muscles objects could have better compatibility in Surface Mode (so there are no problems stopping the program or at times not accepting the operation) and a very important thing, they could be compatible with Sculpt Layers. I've already emailed @Andrew Shpagin about all of these suggestions. There are many other functions and tools I could list here, but in my opinion, these suggestions explained above, would already give all artists who use 3D-Coat a huge improvement in the work. What do you think? Please help make it happen! Thank you

IMO, you're right... Supports tool could already been installed by default in the 3d-coat professional license. Just like any other tool or function. The main reason is that all other programs are "subprograms" of the professional version of 3D-Coat. Another important thing to remember and I do not know if this would have any influence, but when I do this supports.dat file, I have to put it in two different folders due to my installation (coat_data_path file) and honestly I do not know if I will have problems installing a newer version of 3D-Coat. I think every time when I install a newer version of the program, I will have to create the supports.dat file in the Documments / 3dcoatV8 folder. If I had not seen this topic (I thank the creator of this topic a lot, thank you @Omni-Moulage), I would never know that I could have the Supports tool in the 3D-Coat Professional license. Please @Andrew Shpagin and developers, as a matter of common sense, include all the tools and functions by default in the 3D-Coat Professional license. This way, it would prevent users from reporting to you program errors that users might have attempted to place files on the installation to obtain a tool or function from the program. By the way, there's a serious Crash ERROR going on with me. 3D-Coat is behaving strangely. When I try to open a splash screen on the surface and voxels mode or file already saved, 3D-Coat displays an instability warning message and a screen appears to save, then a Crash window appears and the 3d-coat closes.

Great! I put the supports.dat in both directories and the tool appeared. Thanks a lot for the help!

My 3D-Coat installation is based on the coat_data_path File. I tried putting the file that Andrew spoke in MyDocuments/3D-CoatV48/ but it did not work ... Could you instruct me better how can I proceed? Will I have to put the supports.dat that Andrew said in the Directory folder I wrote inside the coat_data_path? Or do I have to put the same file (supports.dat) in both places ( MyDocuments/3D-CoatV48/ ) and (the folder of coat_data_path)? thank you

Creating supports.dat will also work for users who have the Professional license of 3d-Coat like me? Or is this only for 3DC-Printing users? I tried to create this file, but as my version is Professional it did not work ...

Some time ago ( 2017-12-17 23:42 ) I had already added my vote on this task. I thought Andrew had implemented a function similar to Imbed within 3D-Coat during that period ... I reaffirmed my vote on Mantis and I will keep my hope of being able to count on this function one day in 3d-coat.

Hey everyone! I'm trying to use Curve Brush Pressure to try to control the influence of brush deformation on the surface of the mesh, but unfortunately it's not the same thing as the Imbed (ZBrush) or Plane Offset (Blender) function. I can not refine Brush's brushstrokes in the same way I did in the other shows I've talked about. I have also tried to control through the Edit Flatten Curve, but it is intended for another type of function. I used the Normal Sampling function in combination with the Curve Brush Pressure, but I could not have the effect I was wishing to simulate such an Imbed or Plane Offset function. One tip from my experiments is that if you want to have a little better control in Brush you have to use that combination I mentioned above, mostly by editing the Brush Pressure curve for something below the linear graph that comes standard in 3d-coat. Even making those changes, unfortunately, I could not find a function inside the 3d-coat that gave me the option to control my brushstrokes on the surface of the mesh. If anyone knows of a function like Imbed or Plane Offset inside the 3d-coat, please share it with everyone. I will continue to do my tests and if I find out I will share here with you all! thank you

@Carlosan Many thanks for informing me! I installed this new version and the tool is back! I was quickly using Reproject and I do not know if the inner preview and outer shell are working right ... I could not see if the preview is happening. Could you let me know if the preview of the tool is working as it should in your installation? thank you