Bloodsong

Too Long Don't Read:================================================================== i was doodling around in my 4.5.19 DX 64 bit (the one that's been working best with my hardware/software/wetware) this morning, then thought, hey, i should download the latest version and see how much it has improved! i installed 4.5.38 in parallel (as usual), popped in a medium-res sphere, and did what i normally do: turn on x symmetry, use the grow tool to grow out a 'muzzle' and a 'skull,' then grab a huge move tool and yank things around to shape a monster head. and it is NOT what i am used to...! the move tool keeps tearing the voxels and leaving artifacts, crashing into other voxels, leaving some voxels behind... =================================================================================== so, image: TOP: 3D Coat 4.5.38 DX 64; med res voxel sphere, grow tool, and move tool w/ X symmetry. result: tearing and artifacts. BOTTOM: 3D Coat 4.5.19 DX 64; med res voxel sphere, grow tool, move tool w/ X symmetry. result: smoooooooth! now, i checked the settings of the tools in the two versions. the move degree was 53 instead of 73. and then the move tool seemed to have a different brush tip, so i changed it to the default bell curve. is there some setting i'm missing? i looked in the preferences under Brushing. i thought maybe there was a setting in symmetry, because there appeared to be overlapping interference in the brush radius across the symmetry line, but i didn't find anything about adjustments near the symmetry plane. the resolution is the same (i think??); the number of tris is nearly the same in both examples. just... WHA!?!??!?!?!!! help!

hey hey, that is AWESOME! and yeah, after screwing with the object some more, i found some asymmetries and errors. (which is weird, i was pretty sure the new cuts i made while working in the retopo room were applying to both sides -- i SAW them! -- but when i opened the obj file, some were missing...) ANYway! BUT! lol! it's not that i appreciate all your hard work, but how did you do that? i need to learn so i can do that for all my models. did you make a tutorial or um... something? maybe? or just some clues? i marked the seams okay, i think. but after that, the unwrapping options all totally lost me. and then... was there uvmap massaging somehow? :/ i need to be better at this. thanks so much!!

okay, yes it is me, the annoying one again. trying to uvmap always gives me a headache. i have created this frog. i have retopo'd this frog into a nice mesh. (this is new for me in 3d coat, yay!) i have marked where i want the seams. to whit: 1: i want the main head and body and limbs of the frog laid out like a bearskin rug. split up the belly, folded out, and viewed from the spine. 2: i need to see both sides of the hands/feet, so the edge seams of those are marked. 3: i want the inner mouth and tongue to be separate, so those are cut out with seams marked around the edges. the tongue also has a seam up the bottom/back where it can be split. can i achieve this with 3d coat? can you tell me how? because what i get is... 1: a splodge of the frog with one leg attached, viewed and stretched at some diagonal angle. 2: one palm and one foot bottom off on their own. and one leg off on its own. 3: i don't know where the mouth and tongue are, i think they're attached to the splodge. 4: this i can't explain at all... there is one separate rectangular island, it appears to be the right half of the belly. why this is cut out from everything else is anybody's guess. ps: i did all the seam marking (and retopo editing) with symmetry turned on. did that mess something up? pps: beware my mad trackball drawing skillz on image two, how i hope/imagine/want the uvmap to look. (yes, i know, there will be some distortion. in the industry where i work, some distortion is acceptable if the map has fewer seams and is easy for humans to read.) i tried all the tutorials i could find. but they were all really just... mark seams, press button, accept a buncha islands of various shapes. i need... some more control :/ thanks guys!

haha, okay, but... show pop-ups: tool presets is this huge panel with um... all the tools in it. how do i only show the 'quick access' part? ::pokes around some more:: OH! no no no no no! tool PRESETS, not tool PALETTE! duhr. sorry. never mind me! ...wait... this is full of stuff. :/ how do i clear it out? i want the empty one where i put MY stuff in it. argh! aha! CLEAR ALL! boom! i will just shut up now... THANKS!

see, i told you i couldn't remember what the heck to call it. AWESOME! thank you!

i'm a doofus :X i installed 3d coat on a new machine, (4.5.19) and... i can't remember how to put a tool on the quick user custom thingy? AND i can't remember the exact name of the custom palette quick tool thingy, so i can't find it in the 3d coat manual. a clue? a hint? please. you know what i mean? i used to have a little floating palette with my most-used tools/settings. and i would click on those to grab my tools, instead of scrolling through the list on the left for them. oh, while i'm here... BONUS question! how do i get rid of the neutral zone borders on the workspace? the things that are there so if the model is zoomed in and there's no 'empty' space in your view, they are treated as empty space so you can click and move the camera instead of sculpting? i don't use those, and they make me nuts. i got rid of it in my older version somehow... thanks a bunch!

hey guys, i am an idiot. i know, you knew that. i have this 'safe zone' rectangle boundary around the edge of my workspace. um, i thought it was some sort of render room thing, showing the area of the screen that was going to be rendered. (i was messing with trying to render a turntable one day.) but i'm in the voxel room and that rectangular bounding box is still there. worse, i have finally noticed... sometimes, when i try to grab a tool control (the gizmo, or the pose handles, or the handles on the background image placement thing), despite the fact that the tool control lights up as if i have grabbed it, when i move the mouse, it acts as if i've clicked on a blank area of the viewport and it TURNS the view instead of moving the control. i just figured out this ALWAYS happens when the control is outside this 'safe zone' bounding box! (yes, idiot here, see first statement.) can i get rid of this 'safe zone' thing? it is really irritating! i want to ALWAYS be able to grab the tool controls when i can see them on the screen. if i need to turn the view or whatever, i can hold the alt key!

heyas guys; 3DC V4.0.07B(gl) when i'm working in the voxel room, and use the expand brush, i set the depth strength to determine how high/fast i want the voxels to expand. then i brush across the model and i get a nice rising of the model's surface. when i'm in the tweak room, and i use the draw tool... i brush across the model, and the surface just shoots out to extremes at the slightest touch. and i have to set the strength down to nearly flat in order to control it. now... does it work like this for anyone else? if so, can i request that the strength of this thing be tempered a bit? um, or a lot, actually. :X (im using a poser mode, and poser is notorious for having its universe be microscopic compared to other 3d programs. if this is just a result of working on such a small scale, then you can ignore me.)

Numeric Input for FOV/Focal Length cf: http://3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=11629 http://3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=11013 as postulated by digman: "38 FOV seems to closer to human vision in 3DCoat. The higher you go from there the FOV depth lens distortion becomes greater. The lower you go the Depth FOV gets closer to an othro view." dopey me, i just figured out where they are seeing these FOV numbers. but there doesn't seem to be a way to be able to type on in, for example. i have just been working with doing (trying to do) morphs for poser, and all my noses are coming out honking huge. i've just figured out (duh) it must be the focal length of the camera in 3d coat. because you know, it looks FINE in 3dc. so i was thinking, being able to set the fov or focal length of the camera would be helpful.

What is the quickest, easiest, and most effective way to retopo this piece? it's basically a rectangle, bent, flared, and has some regular and irregular holes through it. RetopoThis.png preferably without having to draw every single vertex. (how do you get rid of those, btw?) or every single quad. i did hand-retopo one hole then duplicated it up the other holes, but then didn't know how to work it in with the flare at the bottom. i tried autopo with various settings (love the new crease settings and tangent smooth for the sharp-edged stuff), but no joy, there. and i tried drawing all the cross sections i wanted (strokes tool) and all the connecting lines, and the circles around the circular parts. but no joy on that, either. is there a fast/easy way to take all the crossing strokes and tell 3dc that i want to turn the grid i drew into polygons? :X

(sorry, i hate doing this, but i'm trying to save/follow this topic, and the button isn't working.) Thanks for the clear, concise instructions, Abn!

YES! oh oh ho! NOW i get it! thanks so much!!!

3DC v4.0.7B(gl) Windows XP3 okay... disregarding tiny details, such as i haven't shown the eyebrows/lashes in the retopo, and i haven't actually finished massaging the retopo into place... why does this retopo export as this obj? symmetry is on (X). i selected the retopo layer i was working on, and did file: export retopo mesh. i basically followed the tutorial vid, the one with the ant and the head, where imoprted meshes are used to glom onto the voxel retopo base. you transform the mesh to get it approximately the right dimensions, use the brush to move bits into place, then turn on autosnap to closest-along-normal and bump it into place with the smooth and brush tools. that actually went fairly well. and then it exports this asymmetrical monstrosity. also, it seems to have lost 6 vertices and 13 faces, which i kinda need. while i'm here.... this head mesh i'm using has several materials (skin, inner mouth, eyebrows, etc.). they come in under different retopo groups. is there a way i can work on several of these groups all at once, without having to merge them together? i can't seem to shift-select or ctrl-select several 'layers.' not even to export them all without merging them. i would really like to do that. :/ if i have to merge them, okay, but is there a way i can have them keep their materials? they blend all into one material when i merge them and export. why me? am i asking the impossible?

okay, i'll try that. here i thought voxels were 'sculpt anything without limitations! out of thin air! express freedom of a true 3d artist without worrying bout topology!' ;X okay, problem number two. now i get THIS: the smooth tool is now making little mush-marks in my 'clay' here. that, and it is MELTING the whole mesh. like if i keep smoothing, so those 'fingerprints' go away, my cheekbone will be sunken in by the time i'm done. all i want is to average the surface location of all the waves and bumps, not smush *everything* down. okay, let me try B7 again. that kept crashing when i tried to decimate, so i went back to B4. no, even with preserve surface on, it's still shrinking in the mesh. TANGENT SMOOTHING!!!!!!! okay, THAT'S what i want! i am edified, now. thanks guys!

oh, cool; thanks timmy! i seem to remember a 3dc video once where they showed changing the LOD by brushing over it or something (they were texturing a landscape), but lord knows which video that was. glad now i don't have to go find it. i don't have zbrush. actually, i've tried numerous times to use/learn zbrush, it just doesn't click for me. sculptris worked like a dream, but.... only up to a point. (like, the point where i wanted it to be actually useful for something.) so i guess i don't have to worry about that.