Sandro Borg

A painted version of the zombie alien thingy.

Thanks Beatkitano for your feedback,I hadn't thought of that. But I don't know if it would make that much difference to me. I also use a 3dconnexion device,so if I wanted to rotate/move the object while I sculpted ,surely I can use it for that function. Watching the Mudbox/Wacom Touch demo, I would be happy if that level of interaction was available to 3DCoat.

This is a zombie alien thingy I was working on earlier this summer. Since then I've rigged it in Lightwave with Rhiggit - I'm still working on that. Rhiggit is initially quick to set up,but I've been using this model to spend more time learning all it's features,and get some practice animating. I will post some animations once I'm happy where it's going.

This one is a rework of a character I posted earlier in this thread,making use of the liveclay tools,which were not available when I first modeled it.

I am also seriously considering getting one of these very soon, but it would very much depend on whether 3DCoat supports it. I found this video that shows it being used with Mudbox. It would be awesome if we could have this kind of interaction with 3DCoat. I know Andrew is busy,but is this something that's possible or planned for the future?

I haven't updated my WIP for a while,so it's time I showed what I've been up to since I last posted. This is something I started this week,modelled in 3D Coat,just starting doodling with some curves kept going until I ended up with this. Didn't use any refs to start with,I like to work from scratch.3DCoat is very good for this approach,the voxel model lets me keep pushing and pulling until I find a form I'm happy with,and the liveclay tools in surface mode are fantastic for detailing. This model is currently about 3 million tris. Anyway,I call him RHINOSAUR. I hope you like it.

Very cool. Great work in this thread,always enjoy your creature designs. The hard surface/space craft designs are excellent too.

Excellent work Marupura. Love your style of characters. These videos are inspiring and informative. Really appreciate you posting these ,and look forward to seeing more.

Awesome work. Love watching your videos. Thanks for posting.

Excellent work Ken. You can never have enough digital aliens - keep them coming. How many polygons did you use to get such a fine level of detail? Looking forward to seeing how you texture it.

Funny you should mention that digman,cos that's exactly what I've been thinking about this evening. I think I've gone as far as I can for now with this model in it's present incarnation. I need to redo parts of the retopo mesh too,there are some (hidden) errors and as Leigh pointed out,the joints could be optimised for animation. The UVs also need reworking,I've learnt lots during the course of this project (especially with the feedback from you guys),so this area could also be optimised. I need to use higher resolution maps.I'd really like to go to town on the detail when viewed up close.The current ones are far too low resolution, can't get much more detail out of them. Also,I want to experiment with the different options for merging , PTEX, PPP as well as Microvertex to see what works best,after looking at all your methods I'm willing to give them a try. Anyway,time to load him into Lightwave. I upgraded to Rhiggit Pro this xmas and I haven't had a chance to use it yet,so this would be perfect oppertunity to do so. If the rigging goes well,I can simply replace this older model with the reworked one.

Some quick renders showing various views.

I vote for The Creatures - PLEASE! I'd particularly like to see your process of UV and painting/texturing one of these critters. Not enough info out there on this subject when you consider it's obviously one of 3DCoat's strengths. Personally,I'd like to see how you get high detail textures/displacements on a low poly mesh suitable for animation. Good to see you posting lots of work up here again.

Cheers Leigh, Good tip regarding retopo joints - I will definately bear that in mind next time on the next model I retopo. I am in the sculpt room now reshaping his head - he will definately be more evil next time you see him! Thank you for your input. MUCH appreciated.

LJB, AbnRanger - thanks for the tip,I'll have to try it out. However,is it possible to save the mesh out at the original low resolution when mergeing to PTEX? It always ended up subdividing the low res mesh. Low res mesh is important to me as I do characters for animating in Lightwave. This is the problem I had initally,and why I've since stuck to Mircrovertex. I agree that PPP is straightforward to use,but it doesn't quite give me the results I'm after,ie displacements. I've used MV on a lot of models,none quite as detailed as this one,and never really had any problems. But still,Ii'm prepared to give PTEX a go if I can get a workable workflow between Lightwave,and not having to deal with UV's is definately a plus. Cheers.

Almost done painting/texturing. I'll post up some renders when I'm finished.

UV mapping completed. I reverted back to an earlier version and tried UV mapping before mergeing to microvertex.Unfortunately it gave me way to many surface errors to deal with ,so I've gone back to my method of automatic retopo while merging into MV,then manually clean up the UVs. I'm sure this is mostly to do with my inexperience of UV mapping and how 3DCoat's UV mapping tools work. I'll have to spend some more time studying this area,but for the time being,this will suffice.

Last update for this evening. A quick Lightwave VPR to check everything's fine. I plan to start UV first thing tomorrow,then on with the painting/texturing/detailing.

A quick update. I retopologised the shoulder Pods,and successfully merged both pieces into MicroVertex along with the body,in seperate layers. Time to add UVs. A question. I usually merge first,creating automatic Uv,then once merge I clear these and then create my own UVs Is this right? Or should I create UV first and then merge into MicroVertex? Thanks in advance.

I'm glad I purchased all your Kurv 3DCoat training videos when they were still available,they are invaluable.I've been rewatching the retopo ones alot recently while doing my model. It's a shame they aren't available anymore. Also sorry to hear you have not been well - wishing you a speedy recovery. Keep up the great work.

Here's a screengrab from Layout with the VPR preview render,just to check that everythings ok. I'm quite happy with that,so time to move on...

Thank you all for your suggestions - I tried them all,but to no avail. I figured it must be something to do with the voxel sculpt,reverted back to a previous version I'd saved,readjusted the retopo mesh and success! No more crazy stretching. We live and learn. I will keep all your suggestions and comments in mind in future should these issues arise again. Cheers.

Thank you for your comments guys,much appreciated. LiveClay is making a huge difference in what I feel I can acheive with this program. It is very stable in it's current build,I'm excited to see how it develops. Most of my sculpting is done in surface mode,especially rapid2 tool,gradually increasing resolution by using resample,then finish off finer details using liveclay tools @LJB , yes I agree about the pose. I worked very closely to the original reference pics and model. I intended to rig this character,so I wanted a fairly neutral pose. However,I've just upgraded to Rhiggit Pro for Lightwave,which allows you to set up the rig in any position,not just the standard T pose,which will be very useful,so I'll be trying that out soon. I've just created a retopo mesh for this model,but I'm having trouble getting it into microvertex as you can see from the screengrabs.NormalMap mode works absolutely fine. Very frustrating. I must be doing something wrong,though I haven't come across this problem in ages. If anyone can shed any light on this... Anyway,back to work. Thank you all again for your encouragement.

i like that a lot. excellent work

Hi everybody. Happy New Year all! Here's a personal project I've been working on the last few days,the Vamore from Guyver (anime/manga series). Completely sculpted in 3DCoat using voxels/surfacemode/liveclay.Model is currently approx 3 million polygons. I want to move on to retopo soon,I'm just seeing how far in detail I can go in sculpt mode. Comments and feedback welcome.