TimmyZDesign

It would be nice if we could transform or rotate edgeloops in the retopo room. If we could rotate an edgeloop and it would stay snapped to the mesh, that would be the best. For example, the edgeloops that run around the knees and elbows sometimes need to be rotated to allow for better deformation when animating. I have been using the brush tool to move the edges to the desired positions, but this is tedious and time-consuming. Rotating an entire edgeloop at once while it stays snapped to the voxel mesh would be wonderful!

I watched the AFX 2011 demo reel on Youtube. Impressive! I agree that 3D-Coat and Zbrush work very well together. I send my models back and forth between these apps often. Lately though I have been spending more and more time in 3D-Coat because it is improving so much and so quickly!

Please add a menu option to reset all settings to default (for ALL settings in 3D-Coat). This would reset all Shaders to default, all tool options, all brush settings, all customization settings, all preferences, etc. This way we don't have to manually delete the 3D-Coat folders (options.xml etc.) and reinstall the software. Additionally we can properly test the new software betas because the tools will have the settings that Andrew intends them to have (in order to function optimally). Zbrush has this feature: "initialize Zbrush". It would be nice if 3D-Coat had this feature as well.

Yes! I would LOVE a smear tool! I have often had the problem of trying to blend colors together while painting on a model in the paint room. Usually I can't get a good result in 3D-Coat, so I have to send it to Photoshop, work on it there for a while (usually adding a few layers), and then send it back to 3D-Coat. it would be very nice if I could just smear it nicely in 3D-Coat and skip the Photoshop step.

Yes I can also confirm that the GL version is very good right now! (version 3.7.11). I do not experience the bumpiness with this version. There is a small amount of lag with slow brush strokes however. But in general the GL version is very nice for sculpting right now! If I use the DX version, I get a lot of bumpiness in various brushes in surface mode (especially the Draw brush).

Left is pen. Right is mouse. (I am using Wacom Cintiq 12 WX. Wacom Tablet driver 6.2.0w5)

I tested 3.7.11 CUDA DX64. I use Wacom Cintiq 12WX tablet to sculpt. In voxel mode: Grow brush working very well. Excellent results! In surface mode: ExtrudeClay also working excellent! Works practically identical to Grow brush in voxel mode. Also GeneralBrush default settings works well, but not excellent. All other brushes in both modes still have strange bumpy behavior. Perhaps worse behavior than previous versions.

The workaround that I have come up with for this problem is to give myself a pretty big pen tip offset in the Wacom preferences panel. You can set the offset when you do the "calibration". At first I thought a big offset would be too weird to work with, but after only about 10 minutes using it I got used to it. It's kind of like using a pen with an invisible tip or something, but it feels very natural to me now. The offset is about a half inch, and that distance seems to be optimal for me.

Feature request: An "initialize 3D-Coat" button that will restore all default settings. Zbrush has this feature. It's nice to be able to reset everything without deleting folders and reinstalling the software. I guess I should repost this in the Feature Request section of the forum, or perhaps mention it in the Beta thread?

Basically Virtual Mirror Mode is useful because it allows you to work exclusively on one side of your mesh while viewing a virtual preview for the other side. It is a nondestructive method of working, which I really like. It also allows you to snap the edges of polygons along the symmetry line using "mirror snapping". It is a nondestructive method of working, allowing for quick and easy changes to symmetrical models. I prefer to always leave it on during retopo, but it does have one slightly annoying bug: It doesn't work with the strokes tool. The workaround is to turn symmetry off temporarily and delete the unwanted faces it has created. This isn't a big deal, but I will report this bug when I get around to it. FYI, here are two threads about this same exact topic that will probably answer any other questions you might have: http://3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=9674&st=0&p=74468&hl=+virtual%20+mirror&fromsearch=1entry74468 and: http://3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=9673&st=0&p=74485&hl=+virtual%20+mirror&fromsearch=1entry74485

I have heard of some tablet PCs having Wacom pressure sensitivity built into them, but the pressure sensitivity has never exceeded 256 levels so far. I hypothesize that the technology required for more than 256 levels is still too big/heavy to fit sensibly into a tablet PC, or perhaps Wacom is not yet willing to give up the patent rights for their manufacture. I have also heard some artists say that 256 levels is enough, and they happily use Zbrush and other 3D sculpting software on their tablet PCs. Personally I feel that 1024 levels is the minimum to get decent results. Despite the existence of tablet PCs with pressure sensitivity, the 3D processing power of desktops still greatly exceeds tablet PCs, and because this kind of processing power is so important to 3D artists, a desktop with a standalone Cintiq is still the best choice in the end.

It looks to me like you are not putting the right file name in the "mesh to receive projected textures" field in the Texture Baking Tool window. You need to put the file name of your low poly mesh in there. Right now it says "BakeRetopoMesh.obj" and I don't think that is the one you want.

I use a Cintiq 12WX (smallest version). In my opinion it's the best way to do 3D sculpting and 3D animation. I used the Intuos 3 and 4 for a long time before I got the Cintiq and I believe that you can get the same results with either an Intuos or a Cintiq, but the Cintiq is just faster and more comfortable. The only drawback to using the Cintiq 12WX is that the screen is pretty small, so your work area is therefore pretty small. After a while you get used to it though, and I have also customized the interface in all of my software to compensate. I put most of my palettes/panels on my other 21 inch monitor, and leave the Cintiq screen for drawing or sculpting. Unfortunately not all of my software allows me to work this way though. For example, 3D-Coat requires you to have all palettes and panels inside the master window, so the entire window pretty much has to be on the Cintiq. I wish Andrew would change the interface so that we could tear off windows and put them on any monitor we choose, but this request has been turned down multiple times on this forum. Perhaps making such an interface is very difficult to do, but it works that way in Maya and Photoshop, so it is not impossible. Maybe someday Andrew will do it....

One time I thought I ended up with a black model in the paint room, but actually it just looked black because my ambient light and my primary light were just turned down very low. Once I turned those lights up everything was fine. Maybe that is the same problem you are having?

When you import your mesh you need to choose File>>Import>>Import mesh for voxelizing. Then use the scale gizmo that appears to scale up your mesh to the size you want. The bigger the size, the more detail you will get, and also you will get a higher voxel count. After your mesh has been imported as voxels, you can then use the Carve tool in the voxel room to cut parts of your mesh off. The Carve tool must be set to "invert tool action" (found in the options at the top of the voxel room) if you want to use it to cut off parts of your mesh.

Have you tried right-clicking on the voxel layer and selecting "to global space"? This seems to reset things for me when I am having those kinds of problems.

Personally I think the greatest thing about 3D-Coat is being able to get so much good work done without using the brushes at all. Using the Carve tool ("invert" switched on, and spline mode selected in the E panel) allows you to easily shave away parts of your model. Right-clicking on voxel layers gives you the option to seamlessly "merge" or "subtract" parts from your original mesh. If you think about building your mesh primarily with these tools, instead of building it up with brushes, then you have understood the true power of voxels. For example, instead of using a brush to sculpt a nose on your model, just make an nose-shaped object and glue it onto the face. In many cases a nose created in this way will look much better than a nose you have laboriously sculpted with brushes. In addition, if you build most of your mesh in this way, then the brushes are only needed for touch-up and smoothing stuff out along the way. That being said, I do realize that having brush tools (in addition to the other great tools) is necessary, and some people would like to simply stick with using brushes to build most of their sculpture. Therefore, I suggest that the 3D-Coat developers work on creating a brush which is identical to the Clay Buildup brush in Zbrush. That brush is the best brush I have ever encountered in any sculpting application. I have tweaked some brushes in 3D-Coat to be similar to the Zbrush Clay Buildup brush, but they are not quite as good. Also, a brush like the Knife brush in Mudbox would be nice. I have tried using the Pinch, CreaseClay, or Grow brush with a pointy alpha, but a dedicated Knife brush would still be better.

Sorry for such a late reply, but I just wanted to say thank-you! That is the solution I needed, and I have been using it for a while now!

Wow, thank-you herve_bis! That's exactly what I wanted to know!

Hi johnnycore, You probably already knew this, but you can hide stuff in voxel mode first and then switch to surface mode (and it stays hidden). Of course having to switch from surface mode to voxel mode just to hide stuff is a little annoying, but it works. Additionally I think there is no hide tool in surface mode because it would only hide the surface and not the voxels underneath the surface, so I guess it makes sense that you have to do it in voxel mode (...although Andrew could probably figure out a way around this I suppose...) Happy sculpting! -Tim Z.

Hello! I've been exporting my 3D-Coat sculpts as dense quads quite often lately so that I can work with them in Zbrush, and I noticed that there is a help pop-up explanation that says, "Export quads-only raw voxels mesh. The drawback is that it may be not always manifold." The strange grammar aside, I was just wondering what "manifold" means. Does it mean that the exported mesh will not be symmetrical? When I work on the mesh in Zbrush, symmetry seems to work fine so far, so I'm not sure what this "drawback" really is. Does anybody know? Thanks! -Tim Z.

Hello! I am using 3.7.01 Windows 64 bit with CUDA. I really like the new: remove stretching live clay crease Starting to love using surface mode! However, I am also experiencing the slow down after using 3D-Coat for a while. Restarting fixes it, but restarting often is annoying. Also noticed that if I export OBJ from Maya, import to 3D-Coat, edit as voxels, retopo, then export new OBJ, when import back to Maya OBJ position is slightly off (even though I chose "remember position" when I imported to 3D-Coat). A bunch of bugs, but overall 3D-Coat is great, and it is getting better all the time!

Thank you Andrew! I turned off auto smoothing groups and changed around some of the UV edges and managed to get a much better result. There was however still one really bad seam near the sharpest edge of the object that I could not get rid of. I had to actually make the edge thicker in the voxel room and then add some faces to it in the Retopo room in order to make it go away. It seems that sharp-edged objects don't work too well with normal maps, or at least the ones that are generated in 3D-Coat. I will keep this in mind as I finish off this project. Thank-you again for your help! -Tim Z.

I just sent you a download link to the scene file (it is 106MB). Thank-you for taking the time to look at this!

Hello Farsthary! I don't understand what the Tool Options "Refine Steps, Detail, and Smoothing" do. Also, there is "Collision action, Merge action" etc. When I change these settings, I don't really see how the tool is behaving differently, and if I do see a small change, I don't understand really what is going on. Maybe could you explain what these things do, or could somebody perhaps make a video tutorial showing what these options do? Thank You! -Tim Z.