bobmaker

Hi Richard, I'm also a physical modelmaker delving into the world of 3D. I looked at a few 3d programs with great frustration. Everyone was going on how great Zbrush was, but for me it was a nightmare. I tried and abandoned it several times. I then found 3dCoat and took to it like a dream! (I'm still very much a beginner but it seems to make sense to me) Have you seen this idea? http://fab.cba.mit.edu/classes/863.12/people/hendranata.erioseto/images/week6_moulding+casting/4_week6.jpg Rapid prototype a mould for your mould! Brilliant! I hope it will be possible to generate complex split lines in 3dCoat...another days work! All the best in your 3dCoat adventure, Rob, Ireland.

Hi Gary, Again thanks for your answer. I've been away a few days but am just getting back to this now. As you suggest, I will google a few of those phrases. I wasn't aware they would be common to different 3d programs. Thanks for your help. Now deeper into the soup of the CG world...

I was just watching a few PBR tutorials and I'm finding myself, as ever, out of the picture... In the first few minutes of the tuts, I come up against words that mean nothing to me. So as ever I appreciate everyone's patients as I leave the real world and try to comprehend the world of CGI. I have so many questions I don't know where to start... Is creating a new smart material the (simplest) way of getting an image file( ie: jpeg,png etc) onto a model? What is the meaning of ambient occlusion and what is it used for? What is the meaning of curvature map and what is that used for? I'll leave it at that for now! Please remember I have not used a 3d modeling software before I am a newbie newbie, but enthusiastic to learn. Thanks!

Superb Gary Dave that did the trick! I'm delighted. Does exactly what I need. I used stamp mode, A note that I needed to change to "cube mapping" rather than "from camera". Many thanks.

Thank you so much Gary Dave for that excellent reply, I really appreciate the time you have taken. It has cleared up a lot of confusion I had. I will watch those tuts later this evening. It does raise a question which, I think, is where part of my confusion comes from. I see the advantage of retopo-ing models for game assets as it reduces their file size but I need to use 3dC for rapid prototyping where many triangles/quads are an advantage(within reason) So in my case where I'm stuck now, I need to do a presentation rendering with an approximation of what the final object will look like. The character in question has to have yellow and black stripy trousers. I will paint that with real paint onto the actual real-world object once it is 3d printed/machined out. So I just need to place a stripy jpeg (which I drew already in inkscape)on the cylindrical legs. Any way to avoid the UVing etc. Can it be applied like a shader onto the layer?

I'm a new user of 3dC and of CG modeling too so please be patient while I ask a very basic question... Can someone go through the steps to wrap an existing bitmap image around a voxel object I have created... I have seen tuts on... image maps, smart materials, ptex, ppp, textures, alphas, texture baking, shaders, bump maps etc etc. but I seem to be missing some vital information. I have a voxel cylinder and I want to put stripes on it from a jpeg that is stripey. I'm not even sure what I should be calling this. Is it UV mapping or texturing or something else??

Hi all, From the title you can probably guess what I'm up to here. I am finding pose tool to be amazing but a bit frustrating too. Say I have a cylinder and I want to bend it into a U. (there is a question already in the forum like this but it didn't really get solved IMO) I need: control over the area affected by the distortion, a type of hierarchy, to approximate how it would be in the real world. maintain volume of distorted section. Voxels are amazing! Just like the real world only without limitations. It does seem with some tools, this idea is forgotten. I would love the development team to consider this idea when creating tools... "If I had a piece of modeling clay in my hand, how would I shape it?" Is this not the philosophy of voxels in the first place? In the meantime I can use a curve to bend an imported object. So finally getting to my question... Can I draw a spline and create a curve from that?

Hi everyone, Greetings from the Republic of Ireland! I've been playing with 3DC for the past 29.9days...having a ball. Well done to all the development and support teams. It is a really approachable piece of software for us real world people. After a few sessions with ZBrush I was pulling my hair out. 3DC has been a real pleasure. I have a few questions and suggestions, so I'll head on over and start...