Silas Merlin

Saved camera positions do not work in transformations mode : instead of moving the camera they move the object.

When using N key object transform with 3d mouse, I am not entirely sure, but the rotation seems to happen at 0 height under the initial location of the object, so to speak. (the spot where geometry was first drawn on a given layer relative to world origin). Which is kind of okay, I guess. If you want to change that, you need to right click > transform. When you do this, the center of rotation becomes the center mass. You can then (sort of) grab the gizmo holding shift to change the position of the gizmo relative to the object and thereby change the point the object will rotate around. Kind of okay still, except for two things : -as soon as you mouse over the gizmo, it vanished. Is that expected behaviour ? -The arrows on the gizmo are no longer double sided, which means that if you want to move it up for example, you can't go very far because as soon are you reach the menus, you can no longer click to release. (which was already a problem in 4.9) -the "click to place" option which existed long ago has not reappeared yet. Now, when utin objects transfomations with the primitives tool, everything seems fine (as far as I can tell now). However, if, instead, you choose the import tool, then there are problems. -it seems impossible to change the point around which the rotation occurs. -"move only gizmo" has no effect (except when grabbing it with mouse) Luckily, it is possible to select custom objects in the sculpt models panel with the primitives tool. However, when clicking on an object in the panel with another tool active, you are taken to the import tool, not the primitives tool. On another note, I notice that holding CTRL with the Flatten tool has no effect, which is really wrong, because the flatten tool needs to work both ways like it does in 4.9 : Not only do you need both for flattening, but also it is actually a very powerful sculpting tool in itself.

In my test the other day, I found that autopo seemed to work very well in 2021, and I think for the first time ever, I saw the extra density by masking work. However, I masked the area with the freeze tool prior to launching autopo.

I was wondering if something like this would be feasible ? To explain, let's use an example : -make wings with symmetry -set a sculpt layer to not be affected by symmetry -Pose (bend) the wings on this layer (each wing has a different shape now, they are no longer symmetrical) -continue working on the details on another regular layer, with symmetry, thus affecting both wings despite their differences. maybe this is already possible with instances, not sure ? Does this possibility exist in other software ?

I have a possible feature request. What if, with pure voxel tools, there was a dropdown menu at top of screen for SHIFT+smooth similar to surface mode tools. Except the options would be as follows : -Voxel smooth -Surface mode smooth

Of course there are no uv's on the sculpt mesh. Let me try to clarify my question.... Please read carefully : -Go to sculpt room -File menu > "import mesh for voxelization" -select mesh on disk with properly assigned texture -tick : "import w/o voxelization -apply >mesh is imported with colour data baked from texture now, let's start over in a fresh scene, and subdivide before apply : -Go to sculpt room -File menu > "import mesh for voxelization" -select mesh on disk with properly assigned texture -tick : "import w/o voxelization -click "subdivide" button -apply >mesh is imported without vertex colour (no baking from textures). In the past I was told that the reason for this is that 3d-Coat is unable to retain uv-map when subdividing, therefore the colour data can no longer be baked to vertex colour after subdivision in the import menu. However, when you import the same mesh in the paint space instead of the sculpt space, you are given the option to subdivide the model while retaining the uv map (you can import the original texture from the textures menu in the paint room and it will work fine on the subdivided model) Hence my question : 3d-Coat being perfectly capable of subdividing a uv-mapped mesh properly, why does it not do so in the sculpt space for the purpose of transfering more data from textures to vertex colour ?

It works like in 4.9

I just realized from the talk here that 3d-Coat is perfectly capable of subdividing a model while keeping the uv's at import in the paint room. So, why is it not capable of doing the same thing in the sculpt room ? (If you subdivide model in the import tool options, the textures are not baked to vertices (import w/o voxelization ticked))

This is very sad. rotate around camera origin is really cool : Untitled.mp4

It happens whenever there there is something on two layers, whether voxels or surface or both also with any shader I updated nvidia driver, restarted : still the same.

Untitled.mp4 Anyone else having this issue with B52 ?

Factures are interesting, but I don't know what they are for ? I mean, you can't bake them to low poly from retopo room. "something" gets baked, but not the same thing you see on the vertexture. I have no idea how they can exported or if any other software supports them ? My guess is that it is only for making renders inside 3d-Coat ? the render room looks great in the videos but I can't figure out how to use the nodes. the scene was mainly a test for my own pleasure, to see what was possible to do with web videos and google earth as source. and to test editing a scene of over 200 kilometers (the width of Greece) in 3d Coat (not to scale and only the meteor have detail). EDIT: Ah! I guess one could bake them to lowpoly area by area by using the projector feature. I do that for light baking : -make a render at screen resolution (save view with CTRL+up in case you move camera by accident) -import render as stencil -select stencil, hit "reset" -set projector from stencil -(save file in case of crash), then "fill layer with projection" -in paint room paint in white on new layer with rectangle and "igrnore back faces", repeat rectangle until all the area is covered in white -hide this mask layer -set clip mask on projection layer using mask

Testing the "rotate around camera origin" in B50 with the same scene I tested the feature when it came out on 4.9 FPS seems much more steady, and the navigation works just fine. Scene is made of 34,865,199 triangles with vertex colours. Note steady 59 FPS bottom left of screen : It feels a lot more steady than in 4.9. I tested navigation in this same scene last year in 4.9 : https://youtu.be/2ErcYvJUCfo

Untitled.mp4 Yes. Here in video : -Ears vox layer selected -showing rotation mode around pick point -I move left with 3d mouse -while moving left I press N : you see the ears move towards the right -I press N again and camera resumes moving towards the left

yes but it's not just rotation : move up is move down and move left is move right, etc...

now I am able to use my Spacenavigator for navigation using the old API, however, it did not work "out of the box". for some strange reason, tweaking the horizontal pan modulator just wouldn't work (horizontal pan would work on a direction that was fixed in 3d space, not relative to the position of the camera).... Until I decided to try to disable that direction altogether. to do that, I set "horizontal Pan Modulator" to Zero. of course, 3d-Coat did not accept zero as a value. well, it appeared to, until I reopened preferences and it showed the value as 1. This seemed to reset something that was wrong. Bottom line, now it works. Too bad I did not find this workaround at the time the beta started. However, I have a new problem when I press N, everything is inversed. left is right, right is left, up is down, same for rotation, etc would it be possible to have an additional checkbox for "invert 3d mouse" just for the N object manipulation mode ? Thank you.

looking into unwrapping, nothing seems to have changed in 2021 in that respect ? UV room and Retopo room are still separate. Right click menu is still useless and extremely annoying, moreover it seems you can now drag the commands in it (without intending to), so next itme you open it it way be completely reordered... Retopo room still does not have the cluster tool which would be useful for working with very high poly meshes to unwrap, it works so well in combination with uv path. Placing a cluster is still as difficult: The tool will mark a seam instead if you do not carefully place cursor at the center of a polygon. It is a problem because the reason to use clusters in the first place (I think) is that you are dealing with a large mesh and the regular tools "mark seams" and "edge loops" are just too laggy to be of any practical use (with a large mesh). once a cluster has been placed, the dot is still hidden under the mesh, making it impossible to see where you placed it, without hiding the retopo layer. It is still impossible to remove a cluster by clicking on it again despite what the tooltip says. There is still no uv preview for clusters or hybrid cluster + seams Mark seams and edge loops tool will still select polygons when you click at the center of a polygon by mistake. why ? in UV room the above "method" still seems to be the only way to select part of the mesh, but it is so random, how to use it ? why has there never been a proper select tool in the UV room ? In Retopo room, when I select polygons with the select tool, I still have to switch to another tool (edge loops or mark seams) to get the relevant "Invert selection" tool, and the "clear selected" tool is hidden at the bottom of the "selected" section of the left tool bar with a different icon from the simple cross of "Clear" which does appear at the top along with "invert" when a uv tool is active. Ok so now you want to say, "but, but, some of those things are conveniently placed in the right click menu ?" the thing is that I don't want to have anything to do with that right click menu because it is so annoying, it appears so often when I don't want it at all, I am trying to do something esle. which should be easy to understand, since so many of the retopo tools rely heavily on right click ??! right clicking on a vertex with "points to polygons" tool, still snaps the vertex to the mesh in "on plane" mode, when "auto snap" is turned off. "on plane" still relies heavily on RMB. could someone at last please explain how we are supposed to use "on plane" under these conditions ? I could never quite figure it out. It sort of works in a predictable way with add/split tool. I guess it is a bit redundant now that there is a proper modeling room with dedicated tool, but still, I'd like to know. Thank you. EDIT : this is testing with B49, I did not see the new B50 until just now, and eager to test it with old 3dConnexion approach, thank you so much.

It is quite different from anything we had insofar as this adds the ability to draw in 3d space without moving the view. previously the 2d painting tools were exactly that : 2d. Yes you could paint in 3d space with them by rotating the view at the same time. for example Sphere tool + navigation with 3d mouse. I am unsure of the advantages of the trace mode over this for myself, but seeing in videos that people tend to work while the view is static, even when using a 3d mouse, I would say this trace mode is indeed quite an interesting new feature. (I repeat : it gives the ability to draw in three dimensions while the view remains static) EDIT : Sorry the video is really awkward. I see now I should have used transformation without gizmo which gives much more control. I hope someone will do just that to demonstrate the capabilities better. Untitled.mp4 d

Exact name of the device is SpaceNavigator I believe it is the very first model. By the way, the very first time I saw a mention of 3d-Coat was on the 3dConnexion website at the time, looking through the list of software supporting the 3d mouse. That's when I downloaded the trial and was instantly hooked. Today, 3d-Coat is not listed on their website anymore SUPRISING UPDATE on testing it with 2021 Beta B49 : When I press the N key (pose mode or simply manipulating object), the 3d mouse works correctly (controls are no longer inverted). (however, settings in 3dx properties still have no effect)

I went back to version 3DxWare64_v10-6-4_r3119 just now to test. With this driver I can move in space except in "rotate around camera origin" mode. Apart from that, navigation seems to be working, but it is too difficult to test if it looses track of pick point because all the controls are reversed and I can't change that : No options in the 3dc control panel have any effect. For example if I do this : with the above settings, nothing should move/rotate, yet it still does, same as before, and inversed. Speed, custom buttons don't work either.

nothing has any effect, neither in this panel, nor the main one, nor the buttons settings.

I don't have all those settings for some reason. only "speed"

Very difficult to test anything because all directions are inversed. yesterday on first install of B49 I could at least move in space. reinstalled today and now I can only rotate the view. None of the settings in 3dx properties seem to have any effect. speed, buttons, advanced properties... and "lock horizon" does not appear anywhere. Model : 3dx-600028 (Spacenavigator) Firmware : 4.31