Mystical

I've been dying for some new UI improvements. Simple things like being able to label layers via a color would be really nice. Other small things like not having true multi monitor support and being able to undock panels outside of the main window.

Unzipped it jumped up to roughly 877mb from the 200mb compressed (original is 9GB). When I open the file it looks like the textures on several of the models was still missing the same as the compressed version.

! I think I've found a critical file save error in 4.8.28 If I open up one of my larger project files created in a previous version of 3D Coat (like 9GB 3b file) everything appears ok (models, normal maps, textures etc). However once I 'save as' the file and the saving is complete (I waited until the 'don't close' message at the top disappeared) when reopening the file many of the models in the paint room have no textures, normal maps, and all other layers associated with those models are just white rending the project file broken pretty much. It compressed the 9GB file down to 190mb roughly, that seems like a huge amount of compression for a file that had a lot of textures, it seems like it purged a lot of it by accident. Good thing I did not overwrite my original. This means if I try to do any work though in 4.8.28 and save the file and try to reopen it loses a lot of the data. There must be a problem with the compression on larger 3b files as I saved a smaller one (like a 260 mb file) and when I reopened it everything was ok. I noticed on the larger file the saving progress freaks out as well: As a side note when it was saving I didn't do any work, I just let 3D Coat sit until it completed saving.

3B scenes being zipped by default is really awesome. I manually would zip them in packs when I finished projects but may not have to do that anymore which is cool.

I have several 9GB files I saved in 4.8.22, the oldest version I still have of 3D Coat on my pc is 4.8.19 and they did load for me. Granted they take a few mins to load but that has always been the case with large 3b files for me, but the file loads and looks as expected.

Simple things like being able to undock panels (true multi monitor support) and possibly being able to label our layers in the paint room via a color (similar to how photoshop can) would go a long way for me with the UI. I don't know if the new sculpt layer feature of grouping layers/putting them folders works for paint room but would be super cool if they could too. I currently have 3D Coat stretched across 2 monitors and it works ok but I then can't put any extra panels on my 3rd monitor to the far left which is unfortunate wasted space. I'd pay for the program again just for a multi-monitor update that is how bad I want it lol With all that said 3D Coat is still amazing and I'm always loving the beta builds. I already chose it over Substance painter for the simple fact 3D Coat has become my one stop shop for almost all of my workflow minus the modeling phase now. UI in Substance painter since their last big update is very clean though. I don't feel too lost in 3D Coat since I know what tools I want and where they are but I can't speak for new users which I could understand getting lost so much easier. I'd always be for a 3D Coat UI refresh/reshuffle for sure.

Have the layer selected you want its material replaced. Then select the smart material you want and right click on it. If you choose the option 'refill layer' that should only refill the areas you panted on that layer replacing it with that material. I use this option a lot for different color schemes on my models quite often.

Ok After trying this out it definitely works. I wish I knew this settings like 1.5 years ago when I started using 3D Coat. Having it set in preferences to Interpolated Color (which I have always had it set to) and then when baking the normals the option Auto Smoothing checked fixes any stretched textures I saw on my same model previously when it was baked without the option. I am so glad it was just a setting, I always thought it was something wrong with my models (despite them having clean topology and perfect bakes).

I will have to test this option out. I sometimes see the stretching you talk about on some of my models. Its usually minor unimportant areas users would never see in a game but still annoys me when it appears.

Are the beta files downloading slow for anyone else? Ever since v14 my download speeds to get the files take and hour+ where it used to take just 5 mins before.

Will these flip options come to the paint room for Brush Options in the future? Currently there is only the random flip X and Random flip Y options. Would be nice to be able to flip a brush right away with a toggle option.

Think I've found a bug with the strips in latest version. If I use the vertex lines paint tool in the paint room to paint some strip normals on my object that normal detail becomes destroyed once I start painting with any other normal detail. For example I paint a strip then I go to the stamp tool to place a normal map detail the strips (even if painted on a different layer) becomes destroyed. Only way I've found to prevent it is having to save my file after every strip I make. If I use any other tool to paint normal detail it messes up the strips for some reason.

Workflow that is 'best' of course depends on the work you are doing or what just naturally works best for you once you learn the tools. This is my standard workflow for all my models (I primarily focus on low poly modeling with high poly baked normal maps on them):

Sounds like 4.8.06 is a bust. Probably best to roll back to .5 if you still have it. I usually keep the last beta 2 versions just in-case for scenarios like .6 is having.

In 4.8.05 when I render a single image I cannot seem to save it. The 'SaveResultAs' and 'Open Render Result' buttons don't seem to work when I click on them in the render tab.

I've not got a chance to paint something yet in 4.8. Gunna have to open one of my memory intensive projects I did in 4.7 and see the performance differences. Looking forward to that for sure.

I have a drop down list for my smart materials and do not see the special menu you speak of. All I see is the plus icon on the far right to add a new folder. I have a drop down list for my alpha tab too and that does have the arrow to adjust the preview sizes though. So might be a bug the smart materials are missing that when a drop down is present. Speaking of which 2 things about smart material UI: 1) It would be very nice to have the names for each smart material as a toggle option to show up under each material. I know this has been mentioned before, would still be greatly appreciated as an option. 2) Hovering over each material is like playing whack-a-mole sometimes. The tootip that appears to show a larger preview and the material name seems inconsistent on where it will appear on my screen. Sometimes it appears on the left side and other times when I hover over another material the preview is much lower in the middle of the screen.

Spent most of yesterday migrating all my resources over to v4.8, so far so good. I look forward to seeing some of the fixes from v4.7.

Yeah 3D coat will use up almost all of my 32 GB of ram. I primarily work in 2k and 1k but some of my scenes have a lot of models and the scenes themselves have well over 10+ layers. I'm considering upgrading to 64 GB;s of ram one day but for now if I manage it right I wont max my ram out but it does come close. Never thought I would use all 32 GB's of my ram but 3D Coat is getting my money's worth out of it for sure.

Thanks, looks like I have an option to post a new thread now. I'll definitely leave my ideas in the coming days. I'll give it a try next time I have some free time in 3D Coat for sure. Thanks.

For the smart material lists in the paint room the same issue occurs in the UV Room. It is basically a global issue for any room in 3d coat where your lists extends to the bottom of the screen. If you have many UV sets and want to rename one you are blocked if the list is too long. It will cut off at the bottom of the screen and you have no way to rename UV's. Only 'fix' is to delete your models which is not a good solution really. It is the same exact issue I had in the paint room that I posted earlier: If the list can simply be contained within the program's window space and we can scroll up and down the list that would resolve the issue I think. I do hope this bug can be fixed in a future build sooner rather than later. I feel it makes the current builds an unstable version since it blocks the user from editing certain files/names. In other words the user is limited to a certain amount of objects, smart materials, UV lists they can have until the program cannot see them in the drop down lists. On a side note: I can't post in the feature requests section but have a lot of ideas/quality of life ideas to make certain aspects of 3D Coat more user friendly. Is there a new place we can post our suggestions/ideas?

Found a bug in 4.7.36 in the paint room: When attempting to import external textures to a specific model if the drop down list to choose the model is too long the models on the bottom of the list cannot be clicked. Here is a screenshot showing the issue: Attempting to click the name with a mouse doesn't work which renders the import textures option essentially blocked. I think if the window is smaller and not as close to the bottom of the screen it would be easier to scroll and click. Possibly making the arrow keys and enter key to select an option would be nice as well. Only 'temporary' fix I found is I had to delete one of my other objects but that is an unfortunate workaround when I need them all in the same paint room.

Animated Smart ,materials would be pretty sweet. I have several shaders for things like water and ocean used for still images but to be able to make my material animate and then the user could export a sequences of their models' textures for animating textures would be pretty cool. This is probably next level stuff that technology has not gotten around to yet but I would definitely love to see it happen one day. I focus a lot in after effects making custom animated textures. The possibility of being able to apply those to a smart material would be pretty awesome.

Having names under the materials as an option would be really helpful. I create a lot of materials for things like dirt/grime/scratches etc and those materials are a lot harder to see in the preview than fully opaque materials. It usually comes down to me memorizing the order of my custom materials so I know which one is which without having to hover over each one to see the name again.

I use a virtual folder to put the entire 3D Coat library on another drive so my C drive does not get filled with it. I don't think 3D Coat has a built in way to move the folder to another location otherwise.