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TimmyZDesign

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Everything posted by TimmyZDesign

  1. Here is a tutorial (with pictures) showing my workflow for bringing a polypaint object from Zbrush into 3D-Coat, making retopo and UVs, baking the polypaint onto the retopo, and finally exporting it all back out of 3D-Coat. Of course there are other ways to do it, but this workflow works best for me in most cases. Step 1: I am in Zbrush and I just finished polypainting my model. I didn't bake it down to any UVs yet: Here you can see the model is very high poly and subdivided to millions of polygons: Here you can see the polypaint on the high poly mesh: So now I export the OBJ out of Zbrush with the polypaint info stored in the OBJ: Step 2: Now I open 3D-Coat and simply close the initial workflow choices pop-up. Then I go straight to the Sculpt Room. Step 3: While I am in the Sculpt Room I go to the File menu and choose to import the OBJ that I just exported out of Zbrush earlier: Now the OBJ is in 3D-Coat: If I turn on Wireframe in 3D-Coat, I can see that the poly count is still very high: Step 4: Now I go to the Retopo Room: Step 5: In the Retopo Room I import the low poly version of my mesh. My low poly version already has UVs. The low poly mesh is imported and sits directly on top of the high poly mesh. The UV seams are bright green lines: If you don't have a low poly version of your mesh yet, then make one with the retopo tools in the Retopo Room: After making your retopo mesh, then make the UVs with the UV tools in the Retopo Room: Step 6: Now I Bake the polypaint onto the UVs of the Retopo mesh. I go to the Bake menu and choose "Bake with a normal map": Step 7: Now I go to the Paint Room to see how the baking turned out: I can see that my textures were created and put onto layers in the Layers Panel: When I look at the mesh however, I see that it looks strange. It looks strange because I can still see the high poly mesh underneath the low poly mesh: I need to go to the View menu and turn OFF "Show Voxels in the Paint Room": Now it looks ok. I only see the low poly mesh in the viewport now. I can see the polypaint was baked onto it. Hmmm, maybe it doesn't look very high res...that's because I chose 2048 for the texture size, and all of my UVs are on one tile. Maybe I will redo the bake in the future and increase the texture res, or use multiple tiles, but for now this will do. If I turn on Wireframe in the Paint Room (View menu), then I can see the low poly wireframe of my mesh: Step 8: For now I am done with texturing, so I will send the low poly OBJ out of 3D-Coat with its textures by going to the File menu and choosing "Export Object and Textures": The End.
  2. Yeah I think video tutorials are always the best because they show all the little detail steps that can't really be covered clearly in written instructions. So, I'm glad you were able to achieve what you wanted from those videos. Sometimes however I've noticed that some users on this forum just want a quick written explanation instead of a video series, so I figured I'd provide you with that in addition to the videos Carlosan provided you. That way you can use whichever best suits you. I think maybe one of the main things you missed with my written instructions was: In the beginning you need to import the high poly model into the Sculpt Room. If you actually go to the Sculpt Room first, then import there, then the model will be imported into the Sculpt Room. However, once imported, you can see it in the Paint Room too because 3D-Coat will let you vertex paint (polypaint) just like in Zbrush if you want. Therefore you will see both the high poly in the Paint Room and also in the Sculpt Room at the same time. This can be confusing for new users because it is not clear that your low poly with UVs isn't actually in the Paint Room until you send it there by Baking it, but strangely you can already see your high poly model sitting in the Paint Room! In fact, I think this is actually one of the drawbacks of 3D-Coat because an imported model will sometimes only exist in one room, while it doesn't exist in any other room, but other times it exists in multiple rooms at the same time, depending on what you are doing. This makes 3D-Coat different from most other 3D apps, because once you import a model into most other 3D apps, then that model is available to you at all times (in all "rooms") no matter what you are doing with it. Hopefully that makes my instructions more clear to you. In any case I'm glad you figured out what you needed! Best wishes!
  3. First import the high poly with polypaint from Zbrush into the Sculpt Room using the "import for vertex painting" option. Then go to the Retopo Room and import the low poly there. (So then you will actually have the two different versions of the model occupying the same space). You can however only edit the low poly version in the Retopo Room. If you don't yet have a low poly version, then use the manual retopo tools in the Retopo Room toolbar to make one. Then make your UVs on the low poly. There is a full set of UV tools in the Retopo Room toolbar, but they are context sensitive so some might not be available at first. Alternatively you can Autoretopo and AutoUV, but oftentimes good useable results are difficult to achieve. Then from the Retopo Room choose to bake your vertex paint (a.k.a. polypaint) to the low poly and that's how you will send it to the Paint Room. There are various bake options in the Retopo Room's menu, but you most likely want to do a "per pixel paint" option. Then your low poly model will finally be in the Paint Room. Go to the View menu and turn off "show voxels in the paint room" to see only the low poly version with the polypaint baked onto it. Lastly go to the Paint Room File menu to Export Model to send your model out of 3D-Coat with its texture maps.
  4. One way to work might be to have a sphere in your scene, and then every time you wanted to move your construction plane, you could use a right-click (using the right-click constrain option) on the appropriate part of the sphere to get your construction plane angled the way you want. I haven't tried it yet (just brainstorming here), but it might work, or maybe it would be too inaccurate and tedious. Worth a try though...
  5. In addition to what AbnRanger said... Some tools in 3D-Coat let you create your own construction plane. For example the 2D-Paint tool has construction plane options in the Tool Options panel. Right now I am away from my computer, but there are three options there that I can remember. First, you can right-click on the surface of an existing 3D object in the scene, and then your brush strokes will be constrained to that 3D plane. You will see a viewport preview appear (a small reddish plane) which shows the construction plane that will be used. Second, you can choose to constrain your brush strokes to the camera view. Third, you can create a construction plane by picking three points in 3D space. Then, while drawing with the tool it will be constrained to the plane created by the three points. The drawback of this last method is I believe you have to create the points by clicking on existing 3D objects in the scene. The 2D Paint Tool is not the only tool that has these construction plane options. I believe the Plane Tool also has these options, and there are others. Of course these options are not exactly the same thing as having a movable permanent construction plane like in Modo or in Polybrush, but if you use them correctly, then you will get essentially the same results. Of course I think Andrew could and should add a permanent construction plane to 3D-Coat, since that would be an improvement over the current methods.
  6. Well, I think Andrew will start including it in the beta builds before the release of version 5. Also it will probably be hidden from the standard tools at first and we will have to turn on "show beta tools" to try it out. One of the things I love about 3D-Coat is all the early access to beta features before official release.
  7. One of the 3D-Coat developers (Farsthary) is working on this exact thing. He is calling it Quadfill or something like that and it should be included in 3D-Coat pretty soon.He is also making some other new retopo tools that are pretty cool. Check out the Farsthary development thread on these forums to find out more.
  8. Oh, I saw your other thread about the Sphere Tool. Maybe it is a graphics card problem for you. Try to install the latest drivers and see if that helps.
  9. Using Sphere Tool to make rectangles? Seems strange... How about 2D Paint or Blob instead? Or maybe make cube primitives with Primitives Tool and then use Cutoff to make the shapes you want?
  10. Yep AbnRanger's videos are awesome! Specifically at 10:45 in that video he places objects in the way you probably need.
  11. If the Axial Tool is not working well for you, try using radial symmetry instead.
  12. Digman is right of course, but if the video tutorial isn't enough, here are some step by step instructions: 1. Import your model to the Sculpt Room. 2. Sculpt your hi poly details. 3. Now go to the Retopo Room and import the low poly version of your model with UVs. Now you will have two versions of the model occupying the same 3D space (one is high poly and one is low poly). Some notes: You can only edit the high poly version topology in the Sculpt Room, and you can only edit the low poly version topology in the Retopo Room. You can also make or edit UVs on the low poly version in the Retopo Room if you want. Additionally, you will see that the high poly version is in the Paint Room, but the low poly version is not yet in the Paint Room. The reason that the high poly version is in both the Sculpt Room and Paint Room is because 3D-Coat supports vertex color painting, so you can paint the vertices of the high poly version if you want. If you don't want to see the high poly version in the Paint Room go to the View menu in the Paint Room and uncheck "show voxels in the paint room". 4. To send the low poly version to the Paint Room, first go to the Retopo Room, then go to the Bake menu, and choose a bake option. You can choose to bake a color map, a normal map, or displacement map, or whatever other option you want. To get a normal map, choose a Per Pixel Paint option. To get a displacement map, choose a Microvertex option. After you choose the option you want, 3D-Coat will bake the maps and finally send the low poly version to the Paint Room. The maps will be put onto layers in the Paint Room and you can see them on the model in the viewport and also in the 2D texture editor window. 5. You can continue to paint your model and when you are done, choose Export from the File menu to send the model and maps out of 3D-Coat.
  13. Now we have another one to add to the list! 1. 3D-Coat voxels with Tinker kitbash kit in the Models Panel. 2. Modo Mesh Fusion with Kitbash Kit in the Preset Browser. 3. Zbrush Dynamesh with kitbash kit in Lightbox 4. Blender Hard Ops with kitbash kit in Asset Management
  14. First import the high poly with polypaint from Zbrush into the Sculpt Room using the "import for vertex painting" option. Then go to the Retopo Room and import the low poly there. (So then you will actually have the two different versions of the model occupying the same space). You can however only edit the low poly version in the Retopo Room. Make your UVs on the low poly. There is a full set of UV tools in the Retopo Room toolbar, but they are context sensitive so some might not be available at first. Then from the Retopo Room choose to bake your vertex paint (a.k.a. polypaint) to the low poly and that's how you will send it to the Paint Room. There are various bake options in the Retopo Room's menu, but you most likely want to do a "per pixel paint" option. Then your low poly model will finally be in the Paint Room. Go to the View menu and turn off "show voxels in the paint room" to see only the low poly version with the polypaint baked onto it.
  15. Thanks ajz3d! I'm looking forward to it! ...But I still think the webmaster should update the design so that we don't need the Stylish plugin... Oh well, whatever. There are bigger problems to worry about!
  16. Hi Paulo! Thanks for the suggestion, but that old 3D-Coat theme doesn't look as good as the new design that Ajz3d suggested. It would be nice if Ajz3d's design would be the default theme instead of the bright white one that is currently default. Also, the default theme does not use the same colors as the rest of the 3dcoat.com website (the blue is different).I was just thinking that most new visitors to the forum won't know that they can change the theme. That's why the bright white theme should not be the default.
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