wailingmonkey

-Layers: I'm guessing you mean Layers in the sense of how they currently work in 'Paint' mode?...create a layer, go into 'Sculpt', change carcass, back into 'Paint' and you've got a kinda "morph" layer...I agree this is needed in the 'Voxel' area, since right now you can only have volume/object layers. -Masking: Agreed, wholeheartedly. -10X greater speed, and 'fine details': Seem to be connected, since you can currently achieve fine details, but you need to be working in the 6-20million voxel/triangle range to get it. Currently, best workflow with the tools as they are now seems to be Voxel->Retopo->UV->Paint (to get fine details of both surface normals and diffuse textures) -Background image panes (planes?) Not sure what you mean, as 3dioot says, they're already *thankfully* in there now. (Camera->Background->Choose ref image) I would also add that 'Pose' tool needs more love to be truly valuable (on the level that Zbrush currently has) and more predictable. Masking would enhance this ability, but it's 'clunky' to get precision right now with the Pose tools at hand.

in regard to 'sculpt' mode, it can be quite a bonus when you've got to really move the carcass around for large form changes, yet still retain your detail work you've put on in 'paint' mode. the example image below shows a cube filled with the hexagon pattern, then taken into 'sculpt' mode and 'moved'. I then switched back into 'paint' mode, but there was quite a bit of tearing around the area that got moved from the surface. I went back into 'sculpt' mode and smoothed that area, took it back into 'paint' mode, and smoothed the remaining stretched polygons (with color disabled, so I was only affecting the underlying polys and not the colored fill pattern). there's no really clean way you could have extruded that far off the surface in 'paint' mode without getting a bunch of jagged edging...

actually, I bought version 2 of Zbrush, got version 3.0 and 3.1 for free, and will now get version 4 for free as well. I think some Zbrushers have had free upgrades since version 1.55.... in regard to 3dc, I bought in Dec. '07 (thinking Andrew would keep upping the price...it was $75 1 month before I bought it, but I bought in December for $95...and then Andrew dropped the price back down to $85 for quite some time thereafter), have been a part of the 17 free updates to 2.0, the 94(?) alpha updates to get to version 3, and now I will have to put up an additional $80 to upgrade at this point. For me, at least, I've got no problem with this, as version 2 -> version 3 is a huuuge leap in functionality and polish. Well worth it for me at the $80 increase, and I would have paid $200 had I not already owned it. my .02, onnit...

just a shot in the dark, but maybe try doing a batch on some to a different format (.tif .bmp .tga ?) and see if they are able to import via a pre-existing folder with the different format.....might save you a bit of time, if so.

I agree, guys...but he said "I can do this in zBrush." so he evidently already has it, hence my long-winded wall of text.

Silo->3d-Coat path is my workflow for the most part, and it's quite effective for me thusfar. If you are fine with a more limited sculpt capability (but still higher than Silo's 1-2million polys) in terms of brush tools within 3d-Coat and focus on using the 'Sculpt' room for forms and shape control, then using the 'Paint' room for your high-level detail, you won't be disappointed. 3d-Coat certainly doesn't have the sculpting toolset Zbrush has yet (nor the feel of polish with the brushes). Nice thing is that you can work back and forth between 'Paint' and 'Sculpt' if/when you need to without incurring too much warping of your detail (say, for instance, you wanted to adjust a sleeve that's got a woven detail already applied to it). Also, you can fully erase out your detail if you need to without having to think about creating a prior morph-target (or go through special dances with layers ala Zbrush). Things like 'Draw with Splines' and all of the other 'Paint' tools are also additional icing on the cake (lots of goodies that folks forget like being able to hover your 'Pen' over an area and ctrl-c whatever is underneath and ctrl-v it somewhere else). I like to have at least 4mil polys when micropainting and keep to 4096 or 2048 for textures (which can be dropped in size later). Filesize when saving a .3b 'project' file can be quite large. In terms of the process of creating the normal or displacement map, you are doing it as you sculpt, so it's fast to export the texture files out (or bake them down to your lowpoly)...it's not like you have to wait for the normals to be created in the fashion Zbrush does with Zmapper or via the Tool->Displacement panel. I haven't tried to push my polycounts with micropainting any further than 6mil so far. With voxels, I can still work on 24mil objects (up to version RC 3.00.3...haven't upgraded yet) but large brushes and navigation are pretty slow (Andrew has potentially fixed this with 3.00.4 or 3.00.5 but I haven't been able to check yet). My system specs are in my sig. Hope it's of some help.

not a bug, but questionable behavior... 3.00.03 DX Cuda 64-bit: - occlusion calculation takes over my machine (see sig) and basically gives no memory to alt->tab to other windows (programs) that may be running...this would probably be off-putting for most users to not be able to switch to the 3dc forum whilst waiting for the occlusion to do its thing. * (also, perhaps after v3 launches 'for real', maybe you can consider adding occlusion calculation that is similar to XSI in that it offers complete hemisphere lighting around the object...if I run 140 lights and smooth 40 times, I still end up with the 'bottom' much darker than the 'top' of my objects, which means I've generally got to go into the texture and edit it so both top and bottom are evenly shaded) * The object below (simply imported a sample cube) was 4 mil micropolys and 4096 texture size...it locked my machine up for 15 minutes while calculating.... P.S. as THARSO states, quadrangulation doesn't work for me either.

3.00.01 DX Cuda 64-bit: Retopo Tools - create a topology from voxel sculpt - export topology object and create a UV set in an outside program - import mesh back into 'Retopo' room with new UVs - 'split rings' anywhere - UV-set is blown away (so if you try to merge, you'll get invisible object) .

RC v3.00.01 cuda DX 64-bit -- having alot of issues with spikes after re-topo on a voxel sculpt (trying to keep polys low...kinda the whole point) and merging into scene. These are the spikes that can be smoothed in 'Sculpt' mode, but return as soon as you switch back to 'Paint' mode. This is something that I posted about a long time ago (and I just re-did the model as a solution), but I don't think it will be acceptable to most new potential purchasers, so should probably be re-addressed. Anyhow, my attempts at overcoming them failed: - tried adding extra edge loops at problem areas (this is with the lowpoly retopo that got its UVs created outside of 3dc and re-imported) but spikes remain. - thought 'subdivide' would be a solution on my UV-d lowpoly, but it blows away the UVs. ...so here's the request... *Is it possible to retain the UV layout when subdividing (keeping island edges) so that we can minimize the chances of 'spikey' vertices in the merging process? My logic is that the UV shells will have the same outline (thus directly applicable to the lowpoly that gets spikes) but will transfer better due to fitting the sculpt much closer. This way we could just paint on the sub-divided mesh (once merged into the scene) that has the same UVs as the ideal lowpoly mesh (that's causing the spikey verts), then bake/export textures to use on the lowest poly mesh later.

alpha 87 Cuda DX 64-bit - it appears that the 'eraser' tool is only able to add depth (not erase) when used with DP mode and attempting to erase...in the picture below, the 'bumps' never get erased, but instead stay evident as height gets added. I was expecting normals data to be erased or returned to 127 127 255.

artman, to be honest, "voxel/quadrangulation/autommaping/merging" is not my workflow so I've not had problems yet ... but at some point it may be one workflow for me, so I'm glad you've come across the issues you bring up. I generally do "voxel/retopo/export-to-UVLayout/import-w-new-UVs/merge" and have had no real issues thusfar (except some early problems with resolution of lowpoly being too low and creating spikes which couldn't be fixed in the merged object to be painted...). I agree, tho, that people should be speaking up as we near release (as well as after release!).

it struck me as not something I would have expected (although it makes sense, since it's less time than actually making/keeping blog posts)... just an initial reaction on my part, and this comment: Cool! I love this "by the way feature". seemed out of character for you.... <shrugs> nothing but a misinterpretation on my end.

cool....like the mohawk, cuff-wrinkles, and overall 'thin-ness' of him. seems like an awfully silly choice of shirt to wear for a fighting match, tho. (or are those his walk-about gloves?)

you suprise me, Andrew...I wouldn't have guessed seeing you on Twitter (thought your admin account had been hacked there, for a second).

looks like their software produces voxel artifacts as well... (viewed the first 'tutorial') interesting stuff, tho

perhaps some stimulating ideas here for post-3.0 release directions: http://www.cs.tau.ac.il/~galran/papers/iWires/

indeed...nice one with the cap tool. (maybe it's just me, but retopology tools in general feel more forgiving...doesn't seem so tricky to move verts out on edges, etc. This is good!)

That works just fine...perhaps not intuitive the first time you want to do it, but all it takes is once... (nice that ctrl-z is working there now as well) About locking camera, it would probably be useful but I don't have an immediate need for it that I can think of right now (perhaps good for getting focal-length/camera distance and angle on a specific image plane....I just don't have a good reason to do it *yet*). Maybe others can chime-in on its utility to them....

Hi Andrew, A toggle to 'lock' the image planes so that we can't accidentally move/scale/rotate them was my main hope. (hadn't checked to see if all commands within the floating palette were 'hotkey-able', but I'd imagine that ability would enhance the workflow as well) As far as locking the camera, that may be a nice feature to add as well, but my workaround for that would be to just assign a custom camera view so that I could always return to it.

Andrew, really awesome job on implementing the reference planes!...very customizable and powerful! just 1 final request on them and they'll be perfect ....... (see pic) *EDIT* Thank you for also putting hotkeys back into the number pad along with the ortho toggle!

lc8b105, with your new administrator status, perhaps you can find some time to clean up this 212(and growing)-page thread that folks seem to want to continue having general debates over this or that hardware/software... not trying to be an assclown, but guys...can we have some respect for the point of this thread? <not directed at anyone in particular, as I am just as guilty in failing at times to put bugs/requests in their appropriate forums as well>

I gotcha...and I certainly didn't mean to make it sound like it wasn't worth the post, cause I'd like to see your suggestions implemented...sorry if it came out wrong.

Perhaps a quick way to add single 'capped-end' cylinders would be a potential solution. The user would choose this tool, select the number of sides and edge-rings they wanted, and draw the spline down the length of the chosen 'limb', which would be capped with triangles at the end (depending on the number of sides chosen). They could, of course, go back in and edit the topo as they saw fit (like putting quads on the end, or something). I'd imagine there's always a certain amount of built-in tedium native to retopo-ing trees manually, no matter how we slice it though...

i agree...it's there for custom maps in 'UV-mapping' type (U and V shift along with 'Angle of rotation') but it would be nice to have this control on preset fills. Andrew had spoken of adding more power (and procedurals 'engine' that user could really import/edit/create-custom) to the fill tool, but it took a back seat to voxel work, methinks. Lots of areas to really shine up still (brush curve editor, voxel-sculpting tools overall feel, freeze/masks in voxels, transpose needs love to really be as useful as Zbrush's, direct normal-map editing for imported maps when in 'Paint' room....list goes on, but perhaps most of this can be tackled with updates post-release)

alpha 83 CUDA DX: - scale is not 1:1 between brush-size in 3D view and 2D 'Texture editor' window (looks to be roughly around 1:1.5) *EDIT* It also appears that this bug (occlusion calculation): http://www.3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?sho...ost&p=19086 has not been squashed out of existence yet. .