gbball

Tried it(3.5.06b) out last night, just for a quick sketch and so far it seems awesome! Move tool, brush options (new style or old style), Very quick and responsive overall so far. Gonna try out some of those newer features tonight. But overall it feels a lot nicer than before! Good stuff Andrew. -Gavin

Awesome! Thanks Andrew, I can't wait to try it out! -G

Great points Tser, the smooth brush in voxel mode is more like a melt brush...which is cool. But a smooth brush which maintains the large forms and just averages out the lumps on the surface would be great. Perhaps something which combines the function of the fill brush and the smooth brush would work. I'm still having trouble getting smooth curved surfaces at high density. Things still come out a bit lumpy. Could just be my skill level though! -G

Thanks Andrew, I'll try it out when I get home. Gotta say though, I'm impressed with the speed improvements so far. I would be cool to build and edit polygon meshes within the program...maybe a primitive creation room? I'll keep these kind of suggestions to the appropriate thread though! Please keep up the great work. God bless, Gavin

I'm just brainstorming at this point, but I have some more ideas which tie into this...I'll add some images later

Yeah, something like that would be excellent, a lot of the pieces already seem to be in the program...it's just a matter of whether they can work together

diagrams... these are just to illustrate the basic concept...I've gotten more ideas as I've been thinking about it more.

After using 3d-coat for several weeks, I've really been able to appreciate the power of Voxel sculpting...however, I feel that the technology it is not being used to it's full potential. There is a lot of comparison between 3D-coat and Zbrush, but the two programs are inherently different...kind of like Photoshop and Painter. I would say 3d-coat is more like Photoshop, while Zbrush is more like Painter. I think 3d-coat's strength would be in providing users more precision as opposed to simulating natural medium as Zbrush seems to do (can't really speak to this as I havnen't used Zbrush all that much, that's just the impression I get) Anyways, 3d-coat has what I believe to be a huge advantage with it's voxel sculpting system, especially in combination with many of the other tools already in the package, such as the retopo tools. To get to the point though...voxels would be better served if you could add geometry anywhere on your sculpture and edit it the way you would a polygon mesh... so essentially, you could add one or more vert, edge or face, anywhere on your sculpture in voxel mode...using the tools that already exist (box selector, free form selection tool or circle selector) to create 'geometry' on your voxel sculpt. It would be great if you could also use some of the stroke tools in the retopo room to create points, edges, edge loops, or faces...then use that geometry as a control cage to edit your voxel sculpture. Obviously since it is voxels, it wouldn't have to be a complete mesh...you would only have to have 'geometry' where you want specific details to be. It would be great to either use this 'geometry' to edit the sculpt with or without falloff if it is surrounded by the regular surface of your voxel sculpt in local or global space, and if it is a central polygon face within a patch of them, it would act similar to a what would happen in a regular polygon modelling package like Maya or Blender when you move it...again, with or without falloff. Further, it would be really nice if this dynamic(can't think of a better word) 'geometry' could also be 'pinned' in the sense that it would stay fixed and you could use your voxel or surface sculpting tools on the areas around it...at first, this would seem similar to the hide brush or freeze tool...the difference being...you could pin just a point or an edge...thereby creating very sharp, specific and precise details exactly where you want them to be. Lastly, what would be great would be if the dynamic 'geometry' could act as 'hints' for the automatic polygon cage that is generated over top of the voxel sculpt in a way where the 'edges' or 'faces' that you create would be preserved and the rest of the geometry would align itself accordingly. This would allow for relatively crisp models even at low voxel resolutions. Not sure how this would be or even if it could be implemented...maybe breaking the mesh up into patches along the surface of the voxels as opposed to a full skin...? These tools wouldn't probably be involved in everyone's workflow, but it would nice to have the option. The result would be getting the best of voxel sculpting and basemesh poly sculpting all combined into one great sculpting tool. Just my 2 cents...I have some images which illustrate this a bit more...but they're not on this computer...I'll post them later. God bless, Gavin

Thank you very much sir, that will come in very handy!

It's got to be possible to do this...Not sure how, but it would really cool! Especially if you could then automatically retopo and maintain the painting for export. Maybe in version 4... :) -G

One of the functions that I use all the time while painting in Photoshop, GIMP, or any other paint program is to use a sample colours off my image by pressing the alt key (Photoshop) or Ctrl key (Gimp) while using my brush or fill tool. This allows me to speed up my workflow dramatically because the eyedropper only shows up while I have the key held down...then I can left click where I want the colour to be sampled from. As soon as it updates, I let go of the key and I can resume painting or filling my selection with the new colour. This is a great, but simple feature to have and it is used by tons of digital artists that I know. Forgive me if it already exists in the program. Also, I realize that it probably couldn't be ALT, or even CTRL...but perhaps something else...or it could be user defined. If this already exists, can someone please let me know. If not, I'd be curious to see how many other people would be interested in this feature. Cheers, Gavin

Awesome stuff man... Keep it going. I'll keep watching your progress with this awesome program. Peace, G

Hey everyone, here is my latest 3D-Coat sculpt, it is supposed to be an alien...but my wife said it looks like an ape monster, so that's what it is I guess! I feel like I am getting a bit better at this. Still trying to achieve higher detail and better defined forms. I'll keep at it. C & C welcome.

some more progress

progress on an insect creature

Cool stuff man, I like the heads you are sculpting.

Hi Rich!

Very cool man!

Thanks a lot Bisse, yeah, it's all voxels...done 100 percent in 3d coat. I'm jumping back and forth between voxel mode and surface mode. The freeze (mask) tool in surface mode is great. Truthfully, I'm a bit surprised too at the level of detail I've been able to achieve. I think with some more brush options in surface mode it would be possible to do even more. I plan to take this guy all the way through to him being ready for animation. We'll see how it goes!

Rotation

More progress on big guy

New sculpt I did today off this concept progress Current

Awesome! Thanks Andrew.

Just a note...what I've been doing here is for the intent to rig and animate later on...that's why they are all standing up. Peace, Gavin

Change of direction... I revisited an older sculpt and used some of what I learned doing the muscle guy. I'll get back to the muscle guy, but I think I got a bit excited at the fact that I could add in details and I didn't build the forms properly. With this guy, based on a concept I did some time ago. I'll try to build it up stage by stage and not jump into the details. It also helps to have a design to work to. -G