wailingmonkey

wow...38 alphas...when do we hit the Beta stage? :lol:

or is it the lack of hands and feet? Just having some fun WIP-ing. :lol:

It's a cute story, but it is also your opinion. As buga stated, 3dsmax's core hasn't been re-written at least since version 3 (and even then users were crying for a re-write since it was evident that the discreet/autodesk practice was to just add/buy 'plug-ins' developed by other small companies to solve their functionality omissions) which was well over 4 years ago---something like 1996-7? Also, the fact that 1 man (Andrew) is coding 3d-coat at his blistering pace flys directly in the face of your 'truisms' relating to code-writing and applications vs. games. There are many other examples of software applications that break your paradigm as well (nevercenter -> 2 guys, 2 years core rewrite, for example). If you are merely talking about full-blown DCC packages, those not yet eaten up by Autodesk are dwindling... The reality is Autodesk is a hugely capitalized company that can buy out it's competitors and at the same time remove their technology as a threat -- and choose whether or not to re-employ it at their will. Their track record for 'improving' their own creations as a result of their acquisitions is pretty poor (there are hundreds of posts flying around that attest to this in direct response to their latest XSI buyout -- the cgtalk news thread, for example). They are not really a 'rule' for how software is created, but they are monopolizing their own slice of the industry ... which frankly, sucks on a variety of levels as it inhibits progression and limits consumer choice (which snowballs into all kinds of things like file formats, pipelines, education, job opportunity limitations via specific software 'knowledge', etc. --- shall we look to Microsoft to see how this is effectively managed?). In an altruistic world, I'd like to believe they will improve that which they buy out. But sadly, their actions speak more towards corporate gain than true desire to excel their industry towards betterment (or the enhancement of their consumer's ability to better do their job via Autodesk's tools).

Using 'smooth' with 'build selected. I was unable to undo...had to shut 3DC down both times it happened. But again, this seemed to be directly related to 1+ hours of working (with my old laptop's Nvidia 7800Go video card)

Only used 'build' (and smooth), some 'fill', and very little 'move' (voxel)...but none of the surface tools were used. I upped the resolution 1 time after the forms were mainly laid down...perhaps that had some effect?

I agree...and with the 'first click' flatten option if possible.

was working with alpha32 today and ran into some 'exploding'...seemed to happen after a long period of time (happened twice after about 1.5hrs) working in 3dC and it also temporarily locked up my system. No crash, tho, and since I had autosave on I just went back to that version, but it seems to be a memory leak? I also got tearing when using voxel 'move' then re-working the sculpt with smooth...

thanks for the kind words, guys. here's another with alpha32 (liking the tools much better!...this one went up 1 resolution to 650,000-ish) cheers.

thanks Andrew, I'd forgotten about the direct layer editing by right-clicking on the layer name... (doh) It seems I can basically get what I want by importing a texture to the layer, right-clicking the layer, choosing 'Color to Specular', and then 'Make transparent' (if anyone else wonders). cheers.

Hi Andrew, I seem to recall some talk of something like this, but can't find the threads relating. Basically, I was doing some work today and exported out a displacement of my sculpt. I brought it back in over the top of some color-filled layers and an Ambient Occlusion layer and played with some of the layer effect options. None of my other layers had specular on them and I was thinking it would be great to be able to import a greyscale image (such as the displacement image) onto a special 'specular' layer as a starting base for final export of unique and specific specular texture layers for our models. It might be even cooler to allow for any layer to act as specular only (thinking of metalic specularity and colored specularity). So maybe it's a special checkbox in the layer properties to 'act as specular only' or something? Anyhow, I don't know how feasible it is under your current coding structure, but perhaps this may be something to consider for version 3.0?

handy...thanks for spreading the werd, ghib. (btw, dunno if you know, but you can load .abr folders directly into 3dC without doing the conversion process... on another note, I downloaded the free ABR viewer and it's pretty handy as a standalone if one doesn't want to load/view .abr's into Photoshop just to see how they look )

I don't believe I was prompted to save, and the error message was different than messages I'd gotten in the past (sorry, should have taken a screenshot). I was a little irritated at loosing what I'd done so I was madly searching to save it out and sadly not thinking about screenshots. Anyhow, if I can duplicate it I'll do better at giving you more to go on...but again, glad to hear you've worked up some means to recover crashed files (other than periodic auto-saves).

rendermon - yep, I notice this too when trying to sculpt out an ear from the side of the head. The area at the top of where the ear seperates from the skull is really difficult to get the spacing but still have it smooth (my solution was to use the voxel 'move' to shift the underlying surface around...seemed to work for the most part). I also agree that a dedicated smoothing tool in addition to holding 'shift' would be a welcome addition...especially if we are soon to be able to edit tool profiles based upon a new curve editor (as has been discussed on the interface threads and many requests about pen alpha control in the earlier days of 3dbrush).

Indeed, Andrew, I was using a freshly installed Alpha-v.30. I looked around for a savefile or a directory in either the UserData or main folders but couldn't see if there was a backup file. Also, all of my undo files got erased (I'm guessing this is by design after each shutdown of 3dC because I looked in there before 'ok-ing' out of the error dialog and it was 746mb worth of undos). I also looked at the crash logs to see if it had been logged, but came up with no notation of the crash. Upon re-start, no prompting to load crashed file (but I wasn't expecting it based on previous use with the alpha versions). <shrugs> Good to know you've added some implementation of crash recovery though ... perhaps I managed to crash it too hard somehow.

Save File at time of Crash (and Unexpected Crash Recovery File load option upon next startup) Was working for about 1 and 1/2 hours on a volume sculpt and suddenly a large section of triangles became invisible, I went to undo, and got a crash without a crash log file. Understandably, I should have been working with autosave on (I will from now on), but I've had so few crashes with 3dC that I hadn't enabled it (and I didn't want to fill up my harddrive with large files too quickly--laptops just don't seem to have enough space ). With XSI there is *usually* the ability to save the working file when a crash occurs, and if I recall correctly, it will also autosave the file and prompt the user the next time XSI is opened to load the auto-saved recovery file. Could something like this be added to 3dCoat? Thanks.

hmmm...you prefer this sticky-key as opposed to Silo's mmb+drag(up/down, or right/left) implementation? (I think I recognize your nickname as a Silo user as well, no?) Personally, I'd much prefer the Silo way of controlling size and depth with mmb+drag (which can easily be assigned to stylus as well) and had thought it was requested before (but maybe overlooked). Or are we talking about the same thing, but just offering the choice of how one assigns the sticky key to either keyboard or mouse/stylus buttons?

another handy ability is choosing 'Use random color between two' for color variation.

I'd also agree that a zsphere-rig-like capability with the 'dots' would work just fine (as long as it didn't shoot the sculpt off into z-space like zbrush's does ) And being able to save them would be handy as well... JamesH, are you envisioning the scale of the dots affecting how greatly they envelope the vox-sculpt as a means for finer control of the 'skeleton'?

Pinch Tool : When using pinch with 'ctrl', the pinching should be inverting into the sculpt and sucking the surrounding geometry in with it. (good for sharp wrinkles/creases)

here's a simple one for flexible hose type curves (or whatever else you can think of). cone_mirrored.zip

These are all very good points and will greatly help push release 3.0 into a much better position as a professional tool (and in most cases increase user-control over the creation process). I'd also like to add that soft stroke could use more attention in it's current form...it has a tendancy to 'jump' over the topology (from hills to valleys) and setting it all the way up to 20 doesn't really fully normalize (or smooth out) the jitters from the artist's hand. Perhaps figuring out a way to break out control over speed AND distance from stroke point might help, but I find that I want the higher settings to reflect greater normalization of my stroke (not just greater distance away from my stroke point) ... I am also looking forward to the previously discussed (in other threads) ability/interface to control the pen alpha curve profile for the falloff itself (although 3DArtist hadn't mentioned it).

spent some time with the vox-tools and ended up with this face from the default sphere... at this point it is kind of laborious to manipulate (move tool) areas once they are sculpted (much easier and more predictable with zbrush when moving the surface), but I expect that to improve as more refinement is made with each tool...especially since we're still in alpha. also, I had difficulty shaping protruded areas like the nose exactly as I wanted, mainly because it became trial and error going from building up the area to smoothing it to get the right profile, for instance...but again, still early times. it would be quite handy if the opposite of 'vox-pinch' sucked in and creased the area being effected. especially around the nostrils and for general wrinkle-creases... anyhow, cheers.

thanks Andrew and JamesH, the dependence on those MSVC .dll seems to have been the issue. I'm now able to see the .dae option (and consequently export, woohoo!)

just to make sure I could operate with .dae, I took my test object I gave you into Ultimate Unwrap 3d and saved it out as .dae ... and then re-imported it back into UU3d as .dae (and it retained all properties of its original .obj format) I'm outta ideas too, sadly ... hopefully others won't run into this problem if they need .dae <shrugs> *edit* Just installed the 2005 visual c++ redistributable and re-booted, but still no-go for both 2.10.10 or 3.0alpha18 .... pulldown option on export just shows .lwo and .obj

doesn't run with 2.10.10 either (and no-show in log.txt). no virus scanner when running 3dc, so that doesn't appear to be it either... I'll try it on my laptop with 3.0 alpha in a bit, but won't be able to check back in till later this evening. Seems really strange that it's not being picked up by Windows as an optional pulldown (since you can see I haven't bungled placing the .dll in the appropriate folder )