kadu3d

Was just watching a podcast: making of a cover art for tomb raider -- 3DCoat was there!

What I see in this video is amazing: I ve never used 3DCoat for sculpting because of the "- lack of sharp edges". And also, because importing a geometry to voxels makes you loose your topology and details; (many of us are always reusing topology in our pipeline!). For a long time I was hoping to see a complete surface arsenal... One of the most exiting features would be to use this "unlimited resolution" for vector displacements and normal maps... By the way, its really similar to the PTEX approach in the sense that you can have more resolution in required areas, on the fly!!!

I strongly agree that voxel-surface tools/algorithms should also be available in surface panel/room.

I Think it would be a lot more logical/intuitive to state that the auto-RETOPO feature should be in the RETOPO room as a MERE TOOL!!!! It's better for ergonomics and for production -- converting an object to voxels and then retopologisin takes more time; more chances for error, and we always loose a bit of detail here and there. There should even be a sort of way to define a region (paint an alpha) where the auto-retopo should be applied -- imagine you retopologised the face full of details and you are now moving for the arm where the auto retopo does perform beautifully....then you retopologise manually the wrinkles on the palm of the hand but use auto retopo for the fingers...etc...hummmm that should be reely nice!!

Please how can I translate/rotate/scale the material with hotkeys? NEVER MIND: I figured out that the cursor needs to be away from the model...IN THIS CASE THE TIPS IN THE BOTTON OF THE SCREEN SHOULD POINT THAT OUT!!!!!

You are right, What I meant is: once you are in highres (for details) you just cant comeback to a lowres for broad stroaks. From this point on you are sculpting everything in highres... A good example is to sculpt Hair in (Zbrush/Mudbox). you start with a few strokes for the overall shape (lowres) and then go for a really highres for fine hair details, jump back to base mesh to sculpt it again...you are never "afraid" of subdiv the mesh one more time because you know you can cam back to the lowres or even delete the highres layer...In 3DCoat if do some fine hair detail every other adjustment has to be in that resolution (highres). That doesn't seem to be important at first because you can use broad strokes in highres. but the more you model -- you realise how important is to be in the "correct" resolution for every stroke (fine, broad)...

"up and down resolutions (ie Mudbox, ZB)" IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT, I'M STILL USING ZBRUSH BECAUSE OF THAT!!!! When sculpting everything in hires mode you loose a lot of time trying to clean/smooth the mesh. The hires should only be used for fine detail. One should be able to increase/decrease resolution easily for broad/fine strokes.... If you watch some videos of pro modelers working, you will see that they even delete the high res some times in order to get rid of unwanted details... Please Andrew you should address this issue the best way you can!! THANKS!

ABOUT THE PHOTOS: Beautiful wife, beautiful kids (of course, they look like their mother!), beautiful place... but there is some one missing!! Isnt it?

YEAHHHH!!! NO LIMITS IN THE 3DCOAT COMMUNITY!!!!!!

Man... you know how to please your clients!!! By the way, the new interface (alpha 86 +) is very well organized. Little things like arranging Import commands into submenus do make difference...

YEAH!! NEW GENERATION OF CODERS!! I think your kids should help develop 3DCOAT -- Maybe...As a beta tester! Put him in front of the computer and have him smashing the keyboard to see if 3DCOAT crashes or something!!

HAAARG Im having a hard time with the airbrush tool and a high value of spacing. Let me explain: When using the airbrush mode and a high value of spacing (more than 70%) the tool "kicks" a strong stamp, even if you press very softly the wacom pen... In the attached image you can see the airbrush mode (upper stroke) and the pen mode (lower stroke) Pen optios are the same (spacing at 95%) and I pressed the wacom pen very gently/softly the same way with both tools. Notice that with pen mode (lower stroke) you get a very nice soft round well distributed stroke, whereas with the airbrush mode (upper stroke) you get strong half sphere stamps without control of pressure... Working with spacing is very important for the artist -- otherwise all the pen alphas will seem to be "scratching" the surface

HAAARG Im having a hard time with the airbrush tool and a high value of spacing. Let me explain: When using the airbrush mode and a high value of spacing (more than 70%) the tool "kicks" a strong stamp, even if you press very softly the wacom pen... In the attached image you can see the airbrush mode (upper stroke) and the pen mode (lower stroke) Pen optios are the same (spacing at 95%) and I pressed the wacom pen very gently/softly the same way with both tools. Notice that with pen mode (lower stroke) you get a very nice soft round well distributed stroke, whereas with the airbrush mode (upper stroke) you get strong half sphere stamps without control of pressure... Working with spacing is very important for the artist -- otherwise all the pen alphas will seem to be "scratching" the surface OOPS SORRY FOR POSTING IN THE WRONG PLACE

I REALLY LIKED THIS INTERFACE IMPROVEMENT!!!

Serious, I meant no disrespect, I couldnt understand the grammar... I m from Brazil!

Sorry couldn't understand what you said...

Hey, Hey! don't take me wrong! I never said they were bad software!!! UVLayout Is AMAZING!!!! Its the Swiss army knife for UV's, Its the best UV software out there! I cant live without it!! (by the way, specially if you use it with ROADKILL a free UV system -- LSCM and ABF code taken from Blender) I prefer a lot more ZBrush than mudbox! Can anyone live without ZBrush!?!? I was talking about the interface/workflow not the power of the software/tool!! These are totally different things! And of course once you memorized/learned the software its exelent.... SORRY ABOUT THE INAPROPRIATE THEME IN THE FORUM.

I'm talking about the interface and in regard of ALL areas -- DYNAMICS, FLUIDS, CLOTH, MODDELING, TEXTURING, REND..............not just manipulating an object (hotkeys can be customized in any software). about the interface overhaul, if they need to doit its because it sucks...By the way I heard about it and I'm really exited, I REALLY want to be a Blender user/supporter!!

TOTALLY AGREE, Blender ergonomics is horrible. Sometimes engineers think that they don't need artists, that they can build a building without an architect, create a software without a designer...The results are softwares like Zbrush, UVLayout, Bender, MAX (I actually dont know how max is right now...) When the interface/ergonomics is bad - you need to memmorize a technic/workflow instead of understand it. There is no place for intuition, logistics, common sense... Its amazing but in Zbrush I always need to go to the tutorials to do smenthing I already done before! -- " Humm to retopologyse I need to go to the...humm...Oh.. RIG menu!" " to get the object in perspective I need to go to the display menu...no! Its in the DRAW menu!" -- As opposed to Mudbox which the interface is so logical that in the first experince with the software it seems you already know everything... This also reminds me of a time when Houdini had that awkward interface/workflow. I was trying to learn it and just gave up... But after release 9 (totaly reworked GUI), learning Houdini is just delicious...It seems like I already know 30% of the software! Maybe what I really want to say for this particular forum is that I totally support the investments in the new interface, its VERY good but there is still room for improvements!!! And the best thing is: Andrew listens to its clients; I remember asking for a feature and a few days later it was done! Good luck Andrew -- THE FASTEST CODER ON THE PLANET!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA... PERFECT!! Thats a funny comparison, I'll use it some day!

I really would like dual monitor support....

I was just pointing out that you can paint transparencies and etc... see the leaf image, in the right side of the screen capture you can see that I painted alpha and material: bum,color spec...( after erasing the layer zero gray color! -- dont delete the layer!!) I edited and posted a new topic "Transparency workflow in 3DC" maybe its a little easier to understand... Just follow the example and you will be able to paint transparency maps...

(THIS IS JUST A COPY AND PASTE FROM AN ANSWER OF A POST, I REALIZED THAT OTHER PEOPLE DIDNT KNOW ABOUT TRANSPARENCY IN 3DC) Basicaly the TRANSPARENCY map is the "LAYER 0" -- Just erase it! (tip:"export all layers colors" or "edit all layers in external editor"; in photoshop eraze "LAYER 0" content; "import all layers colors" or "sync layer with nexterna editor" back to 3DC.) Your object will display sort of transparent and every color you paint in any of the layers is considered the transparency map. Dont forget about some interesting layer attributes such as "LOCK LAYER TRANSPARENCY" and "MASK WITH LAYER..." plus actions such as "FREEZE PAINTED PIXELS" or "FREEZE TRANSPARENT PIXELS" under Layers menu; (you can tweak the brush transparency as well). Example: "ERASE" Layer zero; draw a few grass strokes (a grass material or maybe just a silhouette) and then "LOCK LAYER TRANSPARENCY", now every other spec/color stroke (in the same layer) will only affect the pre-painted grass. Plus you could use this layer as a mask for subsequent Layers -- this way the "Grass Layer" will be the transparency layer for all the others; don't forget to play with "FREEZE PAINTED PIXELS" or "FREEZE TRANSPARENT PIXELS"; (remember to export as a psd! Extract an alpha in photoshop or in Maya you just need to set the PSD file attribute "Use as alpha" to "transparency" ) (See Test Image attached) the leaf was panted with only one stroke (notice that there is a MASK texture and material: height,color and spec)

Basicaly the TRANSPARENCY map is the "LAYER 0" -- Just erase it! (tip:"export all layers colors" or "edit all layers in external editor"; in photoshop eraze "LAYER 0" content; "import all layers colors" or "sync layer with nexterna editor" back to 3DC.) Your object will display sort of transparent and every color you paint in any of the layers is considered the transparency map. Dont forget about some interesting layer attributes such as "LOCK LAYER TRANSPARENCY" and "MASK WITH LAYER..." plus actions such as "FREEZE PAINTED PIXELS" or "FREEZE TRANSPARENT PIXELS" under Layers menu. Example: "ERASE" Layer zero; draw a few grass strokes (a grass material or maybe just a silhouette) and then "LOCK LAYER TRANSPARENCY", now every other spec/color stroke (in the same layer) will only affect the pre-painted grass. Plus you could use this layer as a mask for subsequent Layers -- this way the "Grass Layer" will be the transparency layer for all the others; don't forget to play with "FREEZE PAINTED PIXELS" or "FREEZE TRANSPARENT PIXELS"; (remember to export as a psd!) (See Test Image attached) Depending on the material,the DIFFUSE is usually related to specular (or more physically accurate -- to reflection map). If the surface is more regular (very small scale) or wet the rays are scattered/reflected on a more ordered way -- these are the highlights/reflection. If the surface is more irregular (dusty for instance) the rays are scattered on more irregular/diffuse way. (There are some good articles about that on the internet) The diffuse map is kind of the inverted reflection/specular map and vice versa. you could use one map as the inverse mask for the other. Maybe you could use one layer as colorburn/ darken/ Lighten for other Layer for darkening etc...; you also have parameters for the pen pressure -- "more on bright collor" "less on bright collor" etc... BUM MAP OR DISPLACEMENT MAPS ARE JUST GRAY SCALE IMAGES!!!!IT DEPENDS ON HOW YOU USE IT!!!

Everyone knows you need a good topology to render/animate any object. Why paint the voxels if 3dcoat doesnt even have a native render? If you ask any pro on the market you will see that the basic workflow is always: model the shape (high poly,voxels), retopologyse, paint texture, render... You need to go to another software for a good proffessional render.... Could you explain yourself a little? "- You can't paint bump maps in 3DC - You can't paint specular, diffuse, transparency, maps together and export each channel seperatly" you mean in voxels right? because in poly thats the first thing I did when I opened 3DBRUSH first time.... Also I think many softwares today are beeing put on the market too early and are full of bugs. I hope Andrew takes as long as necessary to have a solid/robust software as an oficial VERSION 3... I'm curious: what area of 3d do you work with?