Jax_Cavalera

Well stepping into the future further and I figured I would update or add more here. Mixamo now offer us the ability to do 1 free character rig per week or month or something and it does a reasonably good job. The trick here would be that all you need to do is produce rigs that match a bunch of your 3D coat characters so each time you get a new rig it can be re-applied to other 3D models inside of Blender. I believe there is a tutorial out there that shows how to do this as well. It's not a great fix but I mean if you despise rigging like I do then this is always an option for those who don't wanna pay up the big dollars Mixamo Fuse are asking. There was another software being developed called Boner3D but that got canned so the creator advised me and the actual functionality contrary to what is in the online media does not work inside of the game engine that they are also responsible for so that's a shame because it was a really amazing piece of software being developed. Might be a while before any other viable 3D auto-rigging / semi-auto rigging software comes out. The only reason why I feel that Andrew would produce a superb rigging toolkit is because when you look at how well the Automatic Retopo tools are now and consider that rigging would be using a lot of the same toolsets to calculate weight maps as well as the placement of bones with only a few additional guides required to identify key points in a structure. Considering all of this, it may not be as big a job as has been previously thought now days and with hat functionality.. the only market competitor that comes close is Mixamo.. and they are asking $1500 per year for the privilege of using it. I don't believe that actual animation would be something that 3D Coat needs to get into as there are a LOT of 3rd party tools for the actual animating but to prepare your models for easy import to animating software or game engines that use animation re-targeting would be advantageous and definitely something more worth while to consider now than ever before. I guess the ability to still pose a character is one thing that might be helpful to include just so that you can test to make sure that your character is going to animate as anticipated but timeline based animation system would be going overboard a fair distance I would think.

Haha yeah it really threw me when I first made the transition but since getting use to the toolsets I do feel a lt more confident now and it is my go-to for sculpting work.

No worries, Glad it could help.

Just wanting to get the word out there that I've recently produced an animation kit that lets you create re-targetable Humanoid (Biped) animations inside of blender using Inverse Kinematics and easily convert them into Forward Kinematics on a Mecanim ready humanoid Avatar. Depending on which engine you are working with, other engines also allow retargeting animations so it isn't strictly speaking limited to use with Unity, however it is designed for Unity as the primary engine with respect to compatibility. It's currently being offered at a 50% off discount from the standard $30 price by entering the promo code FIRST2WEEKS, but this expires on the 17th October 2013 so I'm just putting the word out here before the discount period runs out for anyone who may want to grab it cheap. For more information, please feel free to check it out over at the Unity forums : http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/203298-Mecanim-Humanoid-Animation-Kit

I'm just wanting to see if there already exists a tool or set of tools that will allow for precision hard surface modelling inside of 3D Coat? Something similiar to Sketch-up would be great, not sure if I have overlooked this somehow along the way so am asking here before I go and make a feature request for such a toolset in case it already exists. I found that working with Blender for hard surface is good, but lacks some critical points : - Units aren't always value based but are at times a scale factor which makes it very difficult to keep things precise. - There is no visual snapping so to get any Hard Surface object modeled, it requires a lot of extra work in re-typing various values for surface heights or lengths etc. Useful things Blender offered, Box surface rendering, non-destructive smooth surface modifiers. (using this combination anything that I was able to create had a ready-made smooth version and a retopo version good to bake which is a big time-saver.. sadly everythign that was created did not have 100% precision to it like a sketchup model has) there is another software that executes Cad very well .. Form-Z. Does 3D Coat have any tools that provide a workaround or similar toolset to this as well where you can add 2D plane shapes onto the surface of another shape and extrude outwards etc..? Hope this makes sense what I'm asking about.

From what I've been told, a rigging system is in Andrew's thoughts but is not a pressing addition that will come any time soon. A great alternative is something like Blender. If you have a bit of cash then there are some even better alternatives you can look into as well.

This is a fairly detailed tutorial that follows step by step the retopology techniques I use to produce a baked low poly garment. The garment was created using 3D Coat's cloth tool so if you would like to see a tutorial that covers how to make similar items of clothing, just let me know and I'll set one up. I use blender for it's powerful modifier to achieve a task that would normally take a VERY long time without it. The results could have been cleaned up a lot more and several extra extrusion steps / subdivides put in place to ensure that it was a more usable finished result, however I believe that the finished product would work well for most games. Well, I hope you all enjoy this tutorial, I wasn't able to locate any other tutorials that cover this workflow I demonstrate and thought it's something the community could really benefit from. Thanks, Jax n.b. The video will be live in 6 Hours Time as it runs for 50 Minutes and covers all the steps from start of retopology right through to a finished baked version of the pants.

The stroke and Autopo tools do not appear to like symmetry, I believe that turning on symmetry has been the primary cause of faults with the stroke tool especially, it produces multiple overlapping retopo objects.

it exports in obj and one other file format i forget at this second what but ... yes it's really cool software.... and wow it is expensive I can't locate that cheap 99 dollar price these days, I'd say that was way back when it first came out. it's now around 400 to 600 depending on if you go standard or pro..

I know we now have a cloth tool in 3D Coat, are there any tutorials in 3D Coat for using this tool to make clothes? I'm finding that after watching how snug the clothes fit on the character mesh in Marvelous Designer, trying to achieve a similar look for a pair of pants in 3D Coat has been quite a challenge. I find that at the top of the pants they either sit way too loose or they get stuck inside the mesh, if only there were a way to have the cloth snap to the mesh before the simulation process starts, it would provide way better results.. then again it could be difficult to do things like flared pants .. hmm If the new EPS Import starts to work, we can then start to build up our clothing designs in 2D just like they do in Marvelous Designer and then have the mesh stitching for vertices applied.. and THEN have the design fit onto the mesh. Actually if you could add in those rings like you can with the strokes took in the retopo room but only 1 at a time and upon dragging it in, you then set it's influence... well pretty much the same as the pose tool in the voxel room though you can't use that tool right now to modify the clothing mesh until after it's already created... well not so hard hmm NVM I think i just figured it out hahaha you build the mesh and get it to look as close as you can preferably with the cloth not intercepting with the mesh.. then just use pose after you export the cloth.. and you should be able to pose it so it fits all snug. Does anyone know if for a game character, the clothes are meant to be a Solid Mesh ..where they have no open faces, or should they be as is created with the cloth tool so if you see inside the mesh it looks invisible? I would have thought that the later was what you do, but perhaps in most games now days it's better to have it setup so that it's an actual solid mesh... I am not able to find an easy way to retopologise things like a T-Shirt or Vest ... open or closed.. either way .. open.. it just glitches since it's not a closed mesh.. closed, it has a very close inside surface to the outside surface... or do you simply bake a retopo mesh that wraps around the outside only and uses influence spheres to map occlusion depth where the neck, arms and waist holes are? I'm pretty clueless to a lot of this stuff and am trying to figure out how the more experienced users create clothing and retopologize it. I would prefer to use 3D Coat for this if possible as I do not have the funds to afford something like Marvelous Designer.

Has anyone tried to use Autopo or Strokes with things like a Vest or T-Shirt or a Hat? I've found it is producing some unpredictable results where it creates multiple retopo meshes all inside eachother, it could just be a wrong setting I'm not sure.. it looks like Autopo and Strokes are only good for solid objects and not ones that have an outside and inside surface to them such as a vest.

I think that the the areas in need of most development are often the areas that Andrew calculates will boost the community the most in both number of users and quality of products being produced by these users. (if I had to take a wild stab in the dark this would be the thing that drives me if it weren't a direct translation of most popular as voted by the existing community)

Just an update here, I've tried to use the Default layer and change every other layer except the normals to Standard Blend. When I turn Ambient Occlusion's layer to Standard Blend the texture becomes a Grey Fill with no texture details I have painted showing up. When I have Ambient Occlusion set to Overlay it looks almost spot on to the colour that I've painted yet only when i have Volume 17 layer hidden.. if Volume 17 is showing, and set to Standard Blend .. the character looks like it has an odd Shine to it let me show in 3 pictures attached. Any tips for this are appreciated... thought I had this sorted EDIT : It appears that the Volume 17 Layer contains Specular information to do with the shine of the mesh.. not sure what blend mode it needs to display properly as it is currently masking out my texture layer.

I'm not exactly sure where the bug is yet but same problem here, it doesn't like to retopo a mesh that has any self intersections from sculptris. It produces invisible or no retopology and did not allow me to scale up the ref mesh prior to retopo. Looks to be that the fix for self intersections on sculptris meshes is not working as it keeps saying I need to fix them after I use the remove self intersections command. Hmm if it happens consistently with a few other meshes I'll put in an official bug report that identifies this as a specific action = reaction every time problem.

Congratulations on getting the release completed and pushing through the tougher times. The work you do is greatly appreciated by all of your users and I'm sure that we all would love to help ease this burden when times are tough if we can. Thank you for the new release and for the work you have been doing on the EPS content, I was not aware that things had become so intense in your personal arena and am glad that you have taken on board a positive attitude. Keep up the great work and I hope that you never have to feel like your community are not here to support you if you ever ask for our help.

I think that a poorly managed project will always fall to pieces when the number of active participants increases. The key to utilizing the power of numbers is good management and infrastructure. Not doing something for fear of what may happen if it's executed poorly doesn't strike me as the right attitude to have if we do have confidence in Andrew and the staff that are developing 3D Coat.

I thought originally 3D Coat was primarily a texturing tool and was never originally a modelling / sculpting software package but over time has been developing towards providing that 1-stop-shop for all things 3D. I've got no problems either with adding in the layered detail feature I was more saying that if you can already achieve this result using existing tools then is this feature more important than adding in brand new functionality that will bring 3D Coat closer to becoming a true 1-stop-shop? Perhaps it would be good to hear from the developers what their current goals are for 3D Coat's future. To hear if they are wanting to keep it locked in as a 3D model/sculpt and texture software package or if they are wanting to extend it's functionality out beyond this to reach a larger user demographic. At least then we as the general public of users would know what areas are a waste of time to discuss for future 3D Coat features and which areas are totally on the cards.

Ahh gotcha so it's basically Zbrush's way of creating layered normals/bumpmaps... Except that instead of using virtual depth it uses 3d mesh layers. I am pretty sure I've seen the ability in 3D Coat to perform CSG subtracts to create the same visual look as achieved... the only problem being that it's not reversable by deleting an object as it's a permanent change it makes. Yeah I think something like this could be neat to have... is it necessary to create detail .. probably not. I mean the level of detail you could create with it is unlimited ... as in you could go from just a small scratch mark on a surface.. to adding an entirely new limb on another layer.. but if you were adding a new limb.. why not just use a new object layer? and if it's just a small scratch.. why not use a normals or bumpmap layer?

Messiah looks good I agree, though if I had the choice between Messiah and iClone.. I would choose iClone hands down every time. So a partnership between an external 3rd party is a great option, I mean we have this now with Blender and the Applink setup.. the only downside would be that.. well.. Blender has that interface which is so counter intuitive to the average user it really pushes people away. I wouldn't exactly call the ability to rig bones a Wild request, to me it seems more practical to work within the confines of a single application where all the interface controls remain uniform than it is to navigate away into another software package with different support staff, different control setups and a different community / vibe as well as a different compatibility etc.. Right now anyone can do and has to do these tasks in external applications. Back in the day people couldn't do dynamic tessellation modelling inside of 3D Coat .. over time it's expanded with functionality and has been rewarded with a stronger user-base for this. I think more than anything else, people want to see these features included and THEN refined. Also I think people DO NOT want a feature that is broken or doesn't perform at all so features like bone rigging aren't something that anyone would really expect half done but at least included.. we would want it so that it is a usable feature for it's purpose and function before it's added to the software package. I agree there are other areas that need work before new features like bone rigging and animation are introduced. That being said, the Pose tool is not a substitute for the ability to pose a rig with an IK bone rig or even an FK rig. I know that's pretty obvious based on how limited and irreversible any adjustments are using the pose tool compared to any form of rigged bone infrastructure. The time it costs to try and modify poses with the pose tool for some form of still frame animation is not something I would be using it for.. kinda like using a spoon to dig out a swimming pool instead of an excavator. The pose tool like every feature does have it's place, and without it.. getting a mesh into the correct pose so it can be rigged up would not be an easy task to achieve but for frequent pose shifts.. you would be better off posing the mesh once then rigging it and then posing with a rig. I'm not really following the importance of needing to blend multiple layers, perhaps I just have not had any real need for this kind of feature. If I had multiple mesh elements I wanted to create, can't I simply have them as individual objects and mold them so they sit within each other or wrap around each other easily and perform CSG Subtract functions to ensure no mesh clipping occurs between object surfaces. Is there an example of a situation where you could only achieve the desired result using the blending of multiple layers?

I agree, the only difficulty there would be that to afford another developer, 3D Coat would either have to increase it's sales, use a different market tactic for increased profits or increase the price to purchase. Out of these, my preference would be on increasing sales and the use of additional alternative marketing strategies. such as : 1. a subscription license alternative : smaller fee to use and it lasts till your paid subscription runs out unless you purchase extensions (this is being done in a lot of software packages now days.. However... most software packages make the mistake of making this the ONLY way to purchase their software which is a deal breaker for me though for a lot of people, a cheaper subscription method might be just what they are looking for.. 2. Cut some license deals with other software manufacturers like Unity or UDK as 2 examples where by they provide a discount on their licenses to 3D Coat users and in exchange, 3D Coat would provide a custom applink to UDK or Unity to modify the mesh of characters or rig (if/when this is added) on the fly. By providing direct connectivity like this, it will encourage more people to use the engines that have this support as well as encourage more users of those platforms to choose 3D Coat as their preferred asset creation suite. 3. Introduce a Sales Recruitment Discount scheme where by each sale that takes place via an existing member's personal link will push the purchase of 3D Coat down by a fraction of a percent or if they are feeling really generous by a few percent per sale... so if you can reach a lot of people then you can be marketing 3D Coat to others so they buy it before you do and when it comes to you buying it.. you can get it even cheaper so everyone wins. It could also be used to make the cost of your next upgrade even cheaper as well. 4. Hold publicly announced competitions using platforms such as Steam to advertise for you : Steam gets to "give away" 1 3D Coat Pro license to the winner of the competition so that makes Steam look good to its users and they would likely promote this comp heavily as well. Comp might be to create a replica of a certain 3D Scene in X amount of time documenting a summary of steps via a youtube video as proof that 3D Coat was the only software used exclusively to re-create the scene with a finished upload perhaps as well. Each competition would rely on users taking full advantage of the awesome features 3D Coat offers so this would get even more people to move from bloated over priced software to 3D Coat as well. Also, if the time-frame and complexity of the scene needed to be created (unless you were quite skilled with 3D Coat already).. would require more than the minimum trial period allows, this would encourage Educational License sales of the product at the cost of 1 copy of the pro license to 3D Coat and a lot of extra advertising for 3D Coat would be taking place as well. These are just some rough ideas I have come up with again on the spot so would likely need some refining to work well but could really help boost sales and thus encourage further, faster development of 3D Coat for everyone.

The one thing that has really got me excited (not counting the new Autopo coming because that is definitely an awesome thing don't get me wrong) however the thing that has me on the edge of my seat is the prospect that ... Bone Rigging is on the possible features for a future release card set.. Being able to generate bone rigs within 3D Coat would make this a 1 stop shop for game devs, and being able to animate these rigs would be even more cool. I'm picturing an Auto Rigging system where it does the following : You have a box area where you get a curves like tool pretty much the same thing as the curves tool from the voxel room except that you lay down directional curved cylinder shapes. Then when you have designated the start curve and all the extra curves out from that one curve, you click apply and it turns them into bones.. it's not too different to standard rigging but I think would be a lot faster. You could also toggle for each control node in the curve if it was to be "Curved" or "Straight".. for arms you may want curved and do 1 for the entire arm then it breaks this down into a number of straight bones when you click apply.. or it could simply be all Stiff Straight curves.. but being able to extrude new "bones" out like this would make it really quick. if you could then select groups of curves and create a sphere or box and assign them to it as a grouping.. it could calculate out auto IK based on default Humanoid ik rigging setups. I think the key that would make 3D Coat a smash hit though for rigging would be if you could Toggle IK / FK and the bones would remain in position.. but the controllers used to move the IK bones would turn off. You could then save keyframes using just FK bones but position them quickly using IK constraints and the exported file would only contain the rigged structures visible at the time of export so if IK was toggled Off.. your character would only have an FK rig and FK animations to go with it. File export format would be .Blend because it's fully compatible with Blender and Unity (and most indie developers would likely use Unity to get a quick prototype built so they are going to mostly be the ones buying 3D Coat off Steam which makes them a good candidate target) FBX could be the other file format for those with silver lined pockets and Autodesk products And yeah that to me would make 3D Coat a dream program.. I get a little confused going between Blender and 3D Coat due to them having diff interface controls .. not the end of the world just a matter of less import/export workflows and more of a 1 program for all thing. anyways can't wait for this to come into 3D Coat even if it's not executed the way I described, I mean I only came up with that as I was writing this article so I'm sure with a bit more thought someone could improve on that much more. btw.. what's wrong with the paint room at the moment? it looks to work good for me.

hmm is this a bug that needs reporting or is this generally ok with other users who work only with virtual symmetry until the very end of their retopo workflow before applying once to both sides?

Oh, Thanks Timmy. I thought that the pose tool was 3D Coat's alternative method of pre-testing animation stills without having to rig your character up yet. Didn't realise that the changes it made were able to be set as permanent... ahh that would really help to get a character into the T-Pose

Does anyone know if a Freeze type tool will be added to live clay or a way in which you can lasso around a select area and it ignores back areas. I'm specifically thinking of this for fingers and toes but I'm sure it would have other uses. ------------------- =========|| i finger || i << Selection area =========|| i ------------------- << Bottom of Selection.. Auto detects the back-face and ignores anything below this point you can set a buffer zone.. incase the finger or whatever has "folds or rough surface in it and also set the feather radius. ========================\\ BODY PART LOWER DOWN I was just thinking that if this type of tool existed as a quick way to space out fingers and things within live clay, it could be taking advantage of the tessellation so that there were a smoothing feather automatically applied as you make alterations saving the touch up work when using freeze with move in normal surface mode.

OH no sorry bout that .. that's just me trying to be comical about the situation What I ended up having to do was to create a webbing between each toe so that the bake would have something to go inside of and outside of between toes.. I originally had it setup where the toes had a flat square shape like a box around each of them.. but when I would bake.. they would always come out munted.. wasn't able to get that quite right with the node spheres as they were too close together and in some cases just refused to play nice. So... I then went for a box shape that encapsulated all toes with zero definition.. and this produced a lot of Black stuff where the inner and outer were clipping in the void between each toe on the reference mesh so finally as a last dash effort to get it to work I resorted to changing the ref. mesh so that it had solid mesh between them for the baking process.