gbball

This is a great idea! I've had very similar thoughts...check out this thread.

Thanks! I still think it's a strange choice for a program like this...especially if it's turned on by default. There are a few edge cases where it becomes counter productive.

@AndrewShpagin One thing I noticed in the new version is that when I am using certain dialogs, the 3d viewport dims...this is problematic because if I'm tweaking a material or doing hue/saturation/value adjustment, I can't see the result of my choices in realtime.

Thanks for the responses. I think one of the cool things about 3D Coat is the innovative solutions to different problems. In some cases the solutions weren't copies of other tools, but instead a new and sometimes better way of achieving a similar goal. So I think rather than us asking for @AndrewShpagin and the team to copy this programs solution or this other program's way of doing things, we could instead make arguments for how and why a particular adjustment or tweak would align with certain principles that guide the development of the software. For example...this request Aligns with this principle. I expect that 3D Coat will keep adding innovative new features. But I also think that the tool is a mature enough point that certain principles can be implemented to make the overall program more cohesive and easier to work with. With the new Core API, I wonder how much of this can be done aside from the main development team. @haikallewas doing some cool work to optimize tools in the retopo room at one point. I wonder if the current scripting functionality exposes that same level of power to the user. If given enough customization capabilities, we could develop advanced tools and optimize workflows ourselves.

As a longtime user of 3D Coat. I have been thrilled with the growth of the program and I'd like to use this thread as a way to share my thoughts and ideas on future development and overall 3D Coat design philosophies. Proposed Guiding Principles for 3D Coat. Optimized UI. Consistency of design. Organization of tools/rooms/menu options. Customizability. Extensibility. Stability. Performance. Innovation. Non-Destructive Workflow. Easy Management & Control of Complexity with Granularity. Optimized UI. What is the cost of an action in mouse movement and button presses? Wherever possible, repetitive tasks should be simplified into as few button presses as possible. Minimize clicks Reduce the need for popup menus where possible When this isn't possible, find a way to move quickly through the options and confirm choices. An object should own it's modifiers... For example...a curve should own it's modifiers, so if I duplicate a curve, there should be the a new set of modifiers on the duplicated curve. Consistency of design. What works in one room, should work in other rooms/windows For example, right mouse pop up options, Properties dialog Text and number field interfaces should all be the same...if some have a value scrubbing option, they all should. Organization of tools/rooms/menu options. Outliner with filters for each of different object types...Sculpt/curve/models/paint objects/etc...also the ability to parent one object type under another...making a curve the parent of a sculpt object. Customizability. Good - Really amazing navigation editor Bad - No hotkey editor window. Extensibility. Good - Core API addition Stability. Good - Keep fixing bugs Bad - Certain edge cases where tools don't behave as intended Bad - Some things break in new builds Performance. Good - The performance is already really solid Performance can always be improved. Move and Smooth on high poly sculpts with large brush size would be great. Innovation. Good - 3D Coat is one of the most innovative 3D tools. Non-Destructive Workflow. As much as possible, having mesh effects be tied to sculpt layers and modifiers would be optimal. Deeper integration of nodes would be good to see Easy Management & Control of Complexity with Granularity. Good - Being able to manipulate millions of verts using a brush...3D Coat does this and it's good. Bad - we don't have soft selection in retopo/model mode. Bad - we don't have comprehensive subdivision stepping...we kind of do, but the implementation is akward, because you have to switch between rooms - hence the Optimized UI principle. What does everyone else think? I think it can be easy to get lost in the trees and I think many of us use the program in different ways. But I'm sure there are some guiding principles that the community and developers can all get behind.

It might be a bug or an edge case that wasn't accounted for. Have you considered mapping your 2nd stylus button to MMB and then using Blender style CTRL + MMB for zoom, SHIFT + MMB for Pan and MMB alone for rotation? That seems like it could work because there are no conflicts with the alt button.

With some tools you might need to also hold alt with the other buttons you mentioned for navigation. That’s how it works with the default navigation style.

This great! Thanks for sharing Carlosan.

I agree with everything on this list. Unnecessary clicks are a workflow killer. Also real-time previews are always welcome! Even better, non-destructive workflows. Soft selection and transformation space/pivot location controls are absolute musts. A lot of these things have been mentioned before by many people. Some are likely more complex than others, but overall these are important quality of life improvements that will make other areas of 3DCoat as enjoyable to use as the sculpting and the painting. I'd also add repeat last action to the list.

Haikalle, had made some modifications to the Points and Faces tool in the retopo room a while back that was indicative of what would be possible with an advanced hotkeying system. It'd be nice if you could give the community to the tools to set things up in ways like this to really optimize workflows.

Can we get a hotkey manager Andrew? A central place to review all available hotkeyable options and current keybindings. Nvil has the best setup I've ever seen. The way you handle camera navigation controls is on the right track IMO. I'd be happy to go over what I'm talking about with you. But in general, NVIL is powerful because it allows you make complex functionalities by doing things like using any key as a pseudo modifier key along with LMB, MMB, RMB to make unique tool combinations. They call it streamline tools. They also have customizable pie menus.

@Andrew Shpagin Good change with the default IBL. Also glad to hear of Jama's involvement/consultation. With the shader advancements your making, any chance of getting some kind of better looking post process effect on the cavity setting to make them look smoother? Also, has the voxel smooth seen a performance enhancement? I didn't notice anything, but just checking if it's been done. Or maybe planned for. Thanks!

Yeah, I know there is a bunch of stuff in development. I wonder what the rollout will look like. But I've heard mention of an updated rending engine, and nodes are there, but no formal announcements about it really, so I imagine it's still in development. I believe I've heard talk of paint room integration, but I don't know what that will look like ultimately...whether it will be tied to smart materials, or something more robust, or both. But it looks like there are plans for the use of nodes in several areas of the program.

It would good if the Layer in the paint room could 'own' the node graph and be used for sculpt layers, pbr procedural textures and adjustments such as levels/hsl/colorbalance/blur/etc

This is actually a great idea...and could be integrated with the nodes implementation however that lands...in which case it would a nodes based adjustment or set of adjustments as opposed to just a layer. So to clarify to the OP, I don't think it exists currently, but it seems like there might be a pathway for a similar non-destructive workflow.

Yeah, good point. I'm hoping we'll see smoothing get some of the new brush engine treatment.

You can assign to hotkeys to different rooms. You can even stack the hotkey if you prefer that. So on mine I hit f5 to toggle between sculpt and render.

Another difference I noticed with the sphere tool in 3dcoat 2021. When I increase spacing it doesn't make separate stamps. Version 4.9 Version 2021

I got the 3d pattern/noise generators to work, but I couldn't figure out how to use for example tri-planar projection, and it' not clear how to transform the size of a texture.

But basically, from what I can tell, for shaders, you'll want to create the ouput nodes similar to what you'd have in Substance Designer...so your Albedo, Roughness, Displacement, Metalness, etc. and then you'll want to plug in black and white maps or work with variables to add colour.

Yeah, That looks like an image I posted. I've dabbled with it here and there, but I don't think it's fully ready for primetime yet. So I'm waiting for some documentation because it's not clear how it's supposed to be used at this point.

If possible, it would be good to be able to right click on any field and define the range in all sliders...or provide some other method for defining the range since everyone will want something different.

That's because RMB is used to change the plane position, so it can't be used for brush size adjustments.

Absolutely. I would argue that it's an important option for polymeshes in the model/retopo spaces as well as in the sculpting space.