RabenWulf

I agree, but I dont know where to being trying to find a fix for it...thus reaching out to the community. I greatly appreciate the time you have given to try and find a solution though.

Been playing around with it for awhile, tried everything I can think of (while still being new to 3d coat).. Don't think its something on the wacom side of things (again other apps no issues). Some settings possibly in 3d coat... but if they exist I havent found it yet. One would think even with the default settings (fresh install) would fix it... As for OS, its Win 8.1 (<3 classic shell). All nvidia drivers have been updated, even clean install. Global settings originally gave me some UI issues but they fixed themselves once I put them on default. Issue seems even more noticeable on my surface pro (file wise). I'm all out of ideas... Cant use 3d coat like this. (happens with ptex painting as well, might be tied to the brush or internal color range?)

I have a feeling that substances are the emerging standard for the PBR workflow and well, just how engines work dynamically with textures and shaders. I believe Allegorithmic went forward with this intent and have far more to gain with substances becoming an industry wide standard as opposed keeping it strictly inside of Painter/Designer.

Also the displays probably make a difference in seeing the effect as well. Currently using a cintiq 20wsx and a LG 32LB5600. Cant help but feel that its something in 3d coat which is causing that effect. I'd hate to have to drop it for another painting app (since few are worth using for hand painted textures). Add: its entirely done in 3d coat. 3d model was sculpted in 3d coat as well, autotopo and then painted. I have krita set up as the external editor but I havent gotten to that stage where I am going to use it.

Here's the link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6C-cBuP60GjOG5waEQ3bFpTSzA/view?usp=sharing

Nah its fine, nothing work related... lets see if the attach file option works. Export straight out of 3DC. Add: ok that didnt work...brb finding a file host.

Yeah just got what you meant. Its exporting as 8bit for some reason.... Is there a place to set the bit dept in 3d coat like we do with PS? Im hesitant to think its a driver issue due to all my other software being fine. The odd thing is its viewable like that in the viewport, even before it exports as seen with the default cube. ADD: If I send it to an external editor from 3dcoat (Krita) and paint on the layers there... the issue is not present.

I'm a bit confused by what there is to check via photoshop. The exports out of 3d coat has the same look as it is in the viewport. Same with photoshop. Add: Wait do you mean see what its info is according to PS? If I export as a tga/png from 3dcoat its saying 8bit in PS. That may be it...

Here's the exported textures in Marmoset TB2 I only have this issue with 3d coat and what comes out of it. I can blend just find in Krita, Modo..ect

Hmm I believe its defaulting to 24 bit judging by the export info.. Going off the defaults from 3d Coat. I have no idea where I can check the bits inside of 3dc.

Yep, happens on both OpenGL and DX, cuda and no cuda.

Yep New>PerPixel Painting>Default Cub>Paint and adjust light values from light to dark.

Its at 2048x2048 currently, but the same happens at 4096x4096. Its just an imported low poly mesh, direct to PP painting.

I am currently having an issue I have noticed with 3d coat prior but never quite found a solution for...I'm hoping someone has dealt with this before and knows how to get cleaner textures from 3d coat. So whats happening is this: The textures have this grainy and compressed look to them... Its almost as if the brush cant paint a wide range of colors to make up for the blending... Is there a solution to this or what am I doing wrong in 3d coat to cause this poor color range?

@AbnRanger, You are exactly right in your idea of what is a priority. Usability, stability, performance, these should be some of the most important areas of development...and for obvious reasons. There's nothing wrong with wanting more features of course, though often times they are asked based on assumption improvement or need...they should still be mentioned of course but some things are either not as great as they sound or just not as important as some other areas of improvement. Fill layers are a minor convenience in Painter.. in a way, 3DC already has them by importing existing maps... which is part of the need Painter fills. If you want to import a diffuse map for example, in painter you do so via the fill layer. Its just a universal application of one or more channels. Masking and sublayers with modifiers have a far more immediate usage... Anyways, you are entirely right on pushing for fixes over most new features, though there are exceptions obviously...and few buy updates for fixes sadly.

Solved: Nvidia 3d settings was doing something globally that only affected 3d Coat. Restoring settings to default fixed all issues with the UI rendering.

There should be a mix of both understanding of how software works internally but also not try to be restricted by it, otherwise the needs will not necessitate change. Knowing the wants is just as important as finding out how best to accomplish it given the limitations and whether or not the limitations can be removed for that particular goal/milestone. So in this case, if someone says Zbrush in regards to masking... (and its not just zbrush its a handful of applications, including blender) that paint temporary masks on a surface. If someone says Substance Painter or Photoshop, they are referring to an example in which layers (vector or rasterized) have masking layers attached or the ability to attach sub layers for specific modifiers. If we didnt give use cases that can be found in other software (easily found and observed in action) then it would be harder to convey the desired effect much less where most current software come from. Each design generally pulls from previous designs... that layer stack in 3d Coat with its new, duplicate, delete, move up and down row... that behavior is photoshop. Just like Blender's modifier stack pulls from 3DS Max. It would be bad feedback to avoid mentioning any software in which usage is observed and tested to work. When you try to keep reinventing the wheel, you will more often than not make the software either worse or less accessible. Its all about objectivity and critical thought, not sentiment.

Well the compatibility shader fixes one of the initial problems, which was that you could never get true black values displayed in the viewport. Its one part of the problem that he's addressed. Materials and how they work as opposed to the old method + spec vs gloss is the other.

Masking layers are great, especially if vector based but its not the best solution... I actually think Substance Painter hit on the best design approach, which was to have both masking channels attached to layers/groups + modifier sublayers (HSL..ect), as well as allow for temporary masking (basically paint a mask like you would in zbrush). Its a combo that hits just about every part of that particular workflow. Quick masking for sculpting and painting, layers for longer term post paint modification and modifier nodes (sublayers) to tweak parameters and create certain effects. Would be nice to see 3DCoat delve deep into that kind of workflow/mindset, even possibly have nodes or a texture/material/effects room (layer or node based), a bit like substance designer but more streamlined.

It was, but even cranked up it doesnt solve the problem. The entire UI outside of the viewport becomes blurry when any sculpting or painting occurs..

Big update, its not tied to the cintiq either. Happens with normal mouse click... interface is sharper, but not rendering right. Upon click via paint or sculpt, everything does a gradual blur. Here's a pic of whats happening:

It started happening today and I have no idea why. When I put any pressure on the cintiq pen while it "paints" (not navigation or menu selection), the entire UI starts to blur... the level of blur depends on the amount of pen pressure I use. I tried rolling back my PC, one day at a time back to when it was working fine. The problem has not gone away. Just a few minutes ago I just got a warning saying "instability error! Please save your work, dont overwrite.." ect Whats going on!?! This extremely weird. Note: other applications, both 2d and 3d do not show this same issue.

Considering I know a few of the pixologic guys and go to their events around town (Los Angeles), I can honestly say there really is no "slick marketing" campaign you refer to... unless you consider allowing some of the industries top artist to demo and give tutorials on how they work as "slick marketing". To me thats kind of what people want to see, its not hype its objective information about known artists and their workflow. As for animation, neither 3d Coat or Zbrush are geared towards animation, trying to paint on normal maps is never going to be the same as baking them out from a high poly sculpt. You also need to generate other kinds of maps for the best texturing results, this includes cavity, AO and curvature maps. Additionally, keep in mind the best normal maps you get are when you go with object space and then convert them to tangent space geared toward the engine in question. Zbrush's focus is to give you, the artist, the ability to pop out extremely high rez and high detailed models with low resource cost in a relively short amount of time. Neither it or 3d coat do weight painting, rigging and animating, though technically you can animate in Zbrush, I wouldnt say its really worth it outside of conceptualization (there was a demo awhile back in which a creature was lifting weights and breathing heavily to show off the morph animations). Regarding the trial or lack there of... Pixologic is an odd company, they are very..unique in how they do things and they could be making a lot more money if they chose to (especially by charging for every update) but they dont since money isnt really their primary focus. You can still get the trial for version 3.5 if you look for it, and with acquiring sculptris, which is given freely, that has taken the place of the demo. Its basically like "heres an intro to sculpting with the same kind of feel, zbrush goes 1000x further". Theres really not much competition either for them, even 3D Coat doesnt necessarily compete in my opinion. Zbrush is just the best application to get sculpts out and with as much detail as possible. It doesnt need to be anything else. Either way you are going out of both applications to prep a model for animation.

After spending a bit more time talking to the guys at Allegorithmic, there's a bit of info that is important to keep track of. That bit is that whats being done in Substance Painter is vector based. From this I do not believe they can ever get the same kind of painterly feel one would get with 3d coat, and why I woudlnt want 3d coat to give up that feeling to copy Painter on that aspect. I would better and more artistic painting ability over dynamic texture generation. Out of curiosity does he just work on one room at a time, or rather does each update focus around one particular aspect of 3DC? If so does this mean that other aspects of 3DC generally remain untouched, like sculpting...uvs..ect? Finally, just an opinion here though still new to 3D Coat, I would hope some focus could be used to refining and streamlining the UI bit (would be easier to sell as well). By this I mean general layout, polish, context sensitivity and unifaction of similar or common UI functions, sliders and over all presentation.

I think you missed my point, its not about the "resolution" of the screen, or necessarily about the ppi... but "real-estate" you mention. Going above 32 inches starts to be overkill when sitting that close is the point I am getting at. Of course everyone will have a different opinion, but generally you wouldnt need much more than that, even for a 1080p screen as the distance keeps you sit at keeps it nice and sharp. Naturally if one were to say put their tv further away then that makes more sense, but to just sit in front of it while on a desk... I dont think 40" and up is worth while. At that point its better to just get an ultra widescreen.