Bob Morane

This free tutorial may already help you. If you want more tutorials on Hard Surface, Javis Jones has two series on sale on his site EDIT : About the Videos from Javis Jones. The "Kitbashing" series is mostly about building models from scratch using parts and primitives and cutting shapes. Not exactly what you are up to but you might find ideas to add details too. The "Retopo for Hard Surface" included in the Hard Surface compendium with the Kitbashing videos probably gives the best way to auto-retopo hard surfaces, but i'm not really happy with the result anyway. It's a limitation of the Autopo engine and not an issue with the training but don't place too high hopes being able to keep all your details when you autopo hard surfaces after seeing this video. I don't know what's in the Atlas Armor set but there is a $10 coupon until the end of the month if you register on his site.

Yep. Normals are pointing inward wich means what you see from outside is the back of the faces. I'm not sure 3DCoat can paint on those back faces and some rendering applications can't use them anyway. I reversed them to test and the outside can be worked, but of course the back faces are now towards the inside and you won't be able to paint inside. If you just plan to use the inside, just don't worry of the black outside. If however you want to use both you really want to give some thickness to your walls so you have faces pointing inside in the inside, faces pointing outside on the outside and back faces in the thickness of the wall.

Hi. It would be easier to find what's going on if we had access to the obj. First thing that comes to my mind when i see strange shading is bad normals orientation. I wish there was a way to visualize and change them in DCoat retopo room. EDIT : BTW you should post images as .jpg, tiff images don't show in my browser so i had to download them.

For sculpting, yes, it's not a big deal. However it doesn't work in either painting modes and that's more annoying since those smaller details could be better added when painting the texture (at least when you are badly limited in your voxel resolution like i am ) Speaking of this, there is no way to make 3DCoat use more than 2 gb of memory in a 32 bit OS is there? I have 3GB plus 4 GB of pagefile. My pagefile is always completely free and my OS doesn't use more than 500 mb, less if i switch on some optimisation, but 3DCOat only uses about 2gb and quickly falls short if i want to increase resolution to add small details. I know some 32 bits applications use something called Large Address Awareness to use more than 2 gb but i never really understood the subtelties of that feature.

Actually, i do see several benefits. And Andrew doesn't need to completely avoid public betas either. I would imagine something like an "alpha" testing phase followed by a public beta. Why? Beta is beta, but in french "beta" also means slightly dumb, and everybody is "beta" to some extand. When we see some new shiney feature (did you notice the recent tweats about svg import...), we want to test it ASAP. Then we go download the newest build, forget it's a beta, stumble on bugs and go complain on the forum or simply post bug reports. Then some new user comes, sees how many bugs there is, doesn't even know they were reported for beta versions and start spreading the word that 3DCoat is an "unfinished" application Experienced users are more likeley to know when something is a real bug or when they did something wrong. Having them filter the releases would help spot bugs more efficiently, meaning less troubles for Andrew to figure things out, and more time for him to fix bugs and implement new features. It would help deciding when a new version is ready to be tagged stable. First phase filters out bugs and tests new features internally. Then when enough new features and bug fixes are added together, and the internal testers don't notice any showstopper bug, a public beta is released. When most bugs found by the users are fixed it becomes a stable version. That's how most software evolve, and while i'm happy to know several new features have been added since i bought 3DCoat not long ago, i wouldn't mind waiting longer between version if i know they will come without major issues (there will always be small bugs) Just my 2 cents on the subject.

Just checked it. It acts exactly like the carve tool except for the airbrush flow. It doesn't use the recesses either. In case someone wants to test it, the brushes i showed are the first in the OT_Mech_Details pack. In order OT_flat01_raised, OT_flat01_ground and OT_flat01_flush. I'm using the latest beta build 3.5.12A. Actually, since they can be used in Voxel Surface, not being able to use them in Voxel volume is only an inconveniance, but not being able to use them in Per Pixel (for normal map creation) or Micro Vertex means it's absolutely required to voxellize a model to use them. And currently i have a model i just can't voxellize

Hello. I've just found the Brush Pack by Oliver Thornton in the exchange forum and tested them. I noticed something. Some of those brushes have recessed areas (like a screw in a hole). Those don't appear to work in any mode but Voxel Surface. I tested them in Voxel mode, in Per Pixel Painting and Micro Vertex Painting. The recessed areas are only used by the "gum" tool in Voxel Surface mode. Here is a screenshot. First row on the cube shows the profile of the brush, second row was done with voxel sculpt "carve" tool. Third one was done with "gum" in Voxel Surface mode. You can see that the third brush (totally recessed) didn't apply any sculpt in voxel mode. It doesn't paint anything either in Per Pixel or Micro Vertex. First one is half recessed and only the raised part is used in Voxel, Per Pixel and Micro Vertex mode. I have posted this here because i don't know if it's a bug or a feature request. Is it supposed to be work this way or should other modes also use the recessed parts of brushes? Oh, BTW, speaking of Oliver Thornton packs. There is a larger pack in the download section of the main site, but i can't add it to 3DCoat. If i select add extension from the file menu nothing is added. I can't unzip it either unlike other packs. I tried downloading it half a dozen times so it's not my download that corrupted it (i was able to download Tinkers objects without troubles). Maybe the file on the server got corrupted.

Or maybe some limitation set for EU. It wouldn't be the first time some online market would prevent EU people from accessing some items Cheapest one i see is $100. Oh well, i might put this on my "save for" list, but probably not before i have upgraded the rest of my hardware. 3DCoat really makes me notice the limitations of my 32bit machine's RAM

It doesn't sound insane, it sounds like a triplicated information http://www.3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=7611 http://www.3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=7627

Hmm, i just noticed i've had the pull down menus disappear. I was able to bring it back by clicking and dragging in the top bar a few times at a few different places. Looks like the bar sometimes goes left or right if the screen is not large enough to hold it entirely. I wish i could split it in two rows.

What the ...

Looks like i'm just talking to myself here OK, considering this thread has been here for some time and nobody answered, i guess there is no way to visualize and correct normals in 3DCoat. Looks like a feature request. As for the multi UV sets and retopo. Well, they do laod bu do not show because only one set is shown at a time. However it's possible to switch between sets by selecting one of the UV tools. I finally found it myself. The strange UV was caused by bad topology with overlapping faces. I also learned this : when something strange happens while UVmapping, check your topology. Hopefully this will help someone.

I think you misunderstood him. To me, the main point of his post was to try end tell "hey people, stop arguing over this pointless discussion, only Andrew can decide what to do of his software". That's why he stated, maybe a bit roughly "end of thread". That's how i understood it, and it's with this final word that i will quit this discussion before we start thrwoing voxel dishes at each other

I think you need to use several UV sets. There is a menu to add UV sets on the top bar of the UV room. Next to it is a menu where you can choose to move selected UV-islands to other sets. But I'm still trying to find my way in those multi-UVs myself so i will watch with interest the answers that long-term users can give.

I sure am not an economist so only have a surface view of the matter, but for what it's worth i've seen quite often comments suggesting software X must be better than soft Y just because it has a higher price . This operation is quite unusual too, so maybe if Messiah gets great success others will recycle the idea. Also there is a difference between low priced and free open source. It's impossible to compare to blender. Huh, what does that actually mean in english? Woh. I didn't knew this. True that's quite unusual to get free upgrades. Very nice of them. Still quite expansive to buy first however, at least for non-professionals, while 3DCoat is already affordable (especially with educational version open to anyone for non profit use. Yeah, if 3DCoat is just going to be a toy, it's only $99. Less than 2 videoagmes and you'll probably have fun longer EDIT (cross posting is evil!) I think it's mostly true on short term view. How much of those 1000 poeple would have bought the application anyway during the next year after they saved some money for it? How much people will still buy it for the next year after the sale? This brings quick cash but reduces long term income. At least that's what i read from people selling digital content. Even if it's not limited like material products are. Then, i don't think quick cash is the goal of the "dare to share" campaign. PMG is actually paying us to advertise their product and the way they are paying is by offering their product for nearly nothing. They even managed to make an advertising campaing that will bring some cash by itself Does 3DCoat need such an advertising? I'm not sure. I never heard of Messiah before this operation started. I've read of 3DCoat numerous times. People are talking about it in nearly every 3D related corner of the web, even the completely hobbiest areas of the "Poserverse" (where most of the people that would be attracted by such an operation reside). Finally, there is a risk with sales. Again taking the example of the Poserverse from where i'm coming (actually it was DAZ Studio and not Poser but they are similar). DAZ, one of the biggest content providers is well known for doing sales, and good ones. So what are most people doing, they are waiting for sales to buy! That's great for buyers and for DAZ, but not always that great for the people actually doing the work to create the content that DAZ sells! And of course, it's impossible to compare a small company selling and developping software to the 3D Content supermarket that DAZ is. Sure their way of doing business with continuous sales works for them, but it definitely wouldn't work for 3DCoat as it would be like actually permanently reducing the price of the software.