L'Ancien Regime

The micro vertex techique requires a lot more delicacy to lay down, and attention to layering but in many ways it gives superior results. The lowest layers should be hand painted for broad color effects then the displacement no more than 13% at the very most while the simultaneous color layers should be around 56% or so depending on the base photographic stencils you're using. With the Per Pixel approach you' almost need to go double that, particularly in the displacement. This is just a crude test but sort of a valid example

I was reading the wiki on these two systems and I was wondering if there was any way to take advantage of both; say to go in and paint in Micro Vertex and then after to load the entire project as Per Pixel and go in and add details with the the latter system, thereby getting the benefit of both their advantages. The wiki indicated that it wasn't possible but maybe somebody out there knows to the contrary.

So I've been using Per Pixel and it's really difficult to work with. The colors and textures between the different angled photos are very hard to match. I took a break from it to think this through and I just tried the micro vertex painting system instead and it just goes on a lot faster and easier. The Per Pixel seems to create a dryer more porous looking bone while the first one seems to have more of a living bone look and when I get into painting muscles attached to bones I think they'll work much better with the micro vertex approach

Thanks for this. I particularly liked your vase; it's seamless alright and that's what I'm struggling with always in these kinds of projects because if the original photos aren't all lit identically with at least a 2 point softbox setup and maybe a third point reflective card to even the light out so there's no shadows or color bleeds from the surroundings, creating that seamless continuous texture. You definitely don't want a key light for this kind of project. The need for authentic scientific validity in this far outweighs any artistic fun so it's a bit stressful to try to get it right. In 3D Coat there's masks but essentially the layer system in the paint room works as freeze layers or masks so that as you said you can produce one continuous texture. But you're right about one thing; 3D coat is the best program for this kind of work.

I've tended in the past to not take advantage of all the tools in 3D Coat, just jumping in and going for results. Too many tools to learn can sort of lead to an overload when you stack it on top of a project. But this time I've gone about trying to master the paint room. I've learned a lot in the last week or two but I'm only scratching the surface of the available tools. I'm going to have to figure out the freeze tools for example. Any of you have any favorite tools in your workflow you'd care to recommend? When you're doing complex textures 360 on an object it's important to have each angle shot assigned a matching layer to keep track of your work so you can go back and make adjustments and corrections without going crazy. I inserted separate tool bars on the interface for depth gloss and color; dealing with them on the top bar menu was driving me crazy. In particular the depth seems to want to set itself to 100 with each new texture or alteration. Keeping layers locked down was an important part of my new organized work regimen. About half the work is in photoshop, just making the photographic texture materials useable in the paint room. You have to get rid of shadows, and color bleeds from various sources, paint out the specular reflections to turn your source photo into an even texture. And I used to be critical of the amount of time Andrew invested in his own render engine but now I'm finding it indespensible. It's incredibly fast and gives very forgiving results. I'm just flicking back and forth constantly. Stuff that looks grotesque in the paint room can turn out surprisingly nice in the render room.

It's not working for me in 4.9.65 and frankly it's sort of dissatisfying even with shadows off in that I can only move the light from side to side and not position it any angle I want. Hopefully in the 5.0+ versions we'll have a better lighting system for the sculpt room.

Learning this again for the third time and once again, digman to the rescue.

Yeah I've been criticized hard for doing that here but see, I vastly prefer working in 3d Coat to working in Zbrush....I'm a big fan of Andrew's so I figure if we do this once and awhile when necessary it help's 3D Coat to be even better than it is now.

Move Topological is best move. Thanks for the posts Werner_Z.

Actually I want to say that what is really needed is better documentation on everything leading to a clarification of potential workflows. Creating workflows is very individualistic and creative in itself in any complex software and I'd really like to have SideFX Houdini quality documentation on all functions and workflows. https://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini/ The comparative weakness of 3d Coat's manual/documentation is my biggest criticism of a program I'm very attached to.

I'm using 2 x 4k monitors and the current interface on a 4k screen seems antiquated and crude compared to other DCCs out there right now. I'm not going to say what should be done to improve that; I'll leave that to the ergonomics experts. 3d Coat workflow is already better than ZBrush despite the obvious advantages in many areas of Zbrush. I'd like to see the workflow clarified, made more obvious and straightforward an direct.

No I found posts on a Houdini forum from him in 2003 so he's been in on it for a long time. He's a master though. I wish I had his skills at procedural modeling.

Well he definitely didn't get those skills in one year. Judging from his posts on Houdini boards he's been a Houdini guy since at least 2003. That's a lot of hours...

Why don't you give us a better idea of where you're going with your own work by posting some samples of it, so we can see if 3D Coat would fulfill your needs. I really like 3D Coat's workflow and while every program has its vexations I've found Zbrush to be substantially more annoying to work in than 3D Coat. Zbrush is older and has a bigger user base so that there's a tendency to look at the work that's been done in it as proof of its superiority.

Sure wish I could find the download for Digman's tutorials. He had a really deep knowledge of some of the most arcane stuff buried deep inside 3dCoat. Anyone? Puhleeze?

I have a question though on using the shaping tools to lay out the black and white areas that become voxelized dimensional objects in Sketch Tool; they're the same shapes you use for Cut Off Tool, where they work fine. But in the context of the Sketch tool there's one important shape that doesn't work well at all; the Closed Spline goes wonky on you. When you try to use it by clicking the spline points within the Sketch Tool box it shoots right off to a point far from the target area and the Sketch Tool box refuses to allow any curve points to be placed inside it. It would be useful in the Sketch Tool context if we had access to drawing with this spline. And one other question; when Tenitsky has drawn a circle or square in Sketch Tool to the size and dimensions he desires, he can slide its location around the Sketch Tool box with some hot key or something before he has released his mouse button and formed the blob of voxels in the Sketch box. Any ideas on what that technique/hot key is?

Works great now. I foresee a lot of fun with this.

Well, I went back to version 9.38 and it works. Tenitsky's latest tutorial was made with 9.05 so we should be good to go. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0ByesnXO2ExYDREJkVHViV0ptX28 Take your pick, 9.38 or 9.39.

Thanks a lot Carlosan. Are there any versions that do work? I've uninstalled 9.52 and installed 9.54 and the problem remains the same. And thank you too sprayer. It's too bad because I've never liked the sketch tool before; I thought it was cheap and dumb but that Tenitsky tutorial shows it's new form off to good effect. It produces some very cool work now.

Thanks So, how do I change that so I can get going?

I'd just love to do this tutorial but I can't even get started with it because all Sketch will give me is three planes of cyrilic type. This is using 9.52. Clear current, fill current, doesn't work.

It's a lot easier than Blender's system that's for sure. Very nice find. Thanks.

http://www.cgchannel.com/2020/06/download-over-90000-free-ies-lighting-files-from-ies-library/ https://ieslibrary.com/en/home Why this? IES files describe how light from a lamp is distributed in a room. This data is provided by many manufacturers so that lighting designers can realistically simulate how a project will look when a specific light source is used. 3D artists also use this data to calculate their images more realistically. However, it is cumbersome to find the correct file using try and error, as the manufacturer does not necessarily include a visual example. Jürgen Furrer has launched IES Library, a new online library of IES files for use in architctural visualisation and illustration work. The site currently has over 90,000 IES files available to download for free, representing real-world lights from manufacturers like GE, Osram and Philips, each with a rendered preview of the light pattern it generates. Download IES files for real-world light fixtures for use in DCC and CAD software A global standard for photometric data, the IES file format encodes the intensity and spatial distribution of light emitted by real-world light fixtures. IES files are supported by most industrial design and visualisation software, including DCC applications like 3ds Max, Blender and Maya, either natively or through renderers like V-Ray and Arnold. Although IES files are freely available online, IES Library collects together data from many individual repositories, including those for a range of major lighting manufactuers, and eliminates duplicate records. Each file is presented with supporting information like wattage and bulb type, plus a standard render showing the lighting pattern it represents, generated automatically in Blender. Files can be filtered by manufacturer or by type: there are simple categories for downlights, uplights, flood lights and multi rays. New tagging and browsing features planned for the site Furrer is currently in the process of populating the library with data, and says that he has around 160,000 files to process in total. Future features planned for the site include a contextual tagging system, the option for usrs to rate individual files, and a Blender plugin to make it possible to browse files directly inside the software. Users have suggested making it possible to filter data by the type of fixture in which a light can be mounted. Availability and system requirements The IES files on IES Library are free to download, and are licensed for commercial use.

Martin Scorcese's Kundun, set in Tibet was actuallly filmed in Morocco. Lots of awesome matte painting shots in that movie http://www.vfxhq.com/1997/kundun.html There were lots of awesome matte shots in Scorcese's Gangs of New York too. The ending in particular was beautiful sequence of animated matte paintings of New York's Manhattan, from the 1860's to its pre 911 city scape.