Imhotep397

Another thing that speeds ZBrush a bit terms of allowing the sculpting to interact smoothly with the rendering is the fact that they have their own software based display system. A lot of the performance humps other developers might hit they can push through, because they can "change the rules" so to speak from the core level when necessary. That was a big advantage for them with this new development aside from the straight mesh manipulating algorithms.

There is a collaborative activity going on at CGHub with the topic of creating a Ganesha inspired sculpt. Just another way you can show-off your 3D-Coat skills. Check it out here (bottom of page): Ganesha Jam

Hmmmm....I wonder if 3D-Coat should go open source and sell support, plug-ins etc.? ZBrush seems like it will for win the horse awards over the long run. Sculptris is free and I believe it will remain that way for Pixologic to use for testing future "DynaMesh" advancements before integrating them into ZBrush. R2 is just undeniably jaw dropping and since they've already pre-announced Z5 as being 64-bit that's already a another feather in their cap people will be willing to wait for. "Dynamesh" is in all likelihood adaptive tessellation, but with minimal tri creation that ZBrush converts to quads in-process. Z5 is just going to be a beast. I only wish they would integrate industry standard manipulator tools (move, rotate, scale), add utility for saving masks, bezier style curve handles and the option for industry standard Maya style scene navigation.

There's a 3D activity or two I'd like you to participate in if you have the time. The "Twisted Sherlock Jam" is on. There have been changes in that 3D Jam, as a monthly challenge, has been suspended for the time being. However, at this point you can still submit artwork for the already announced Jams and Collaborative Activity without time constraints. This also means if you'd like to submit work on the Challenge #9 Iron Fist thread you can. The link to the main thread with all of the information and the "God of Sands" collaborative activity is below, please consider joining CGHub if you haven't already and participate in some the activities that are going on over there especially 3D Jams (lol). **Note - Once you're in the 3D Jam thread I would suggest you go to the "INSTRUCTIONS" sub-thread first. Link Below: 3D-Jam at CGHub God of Sands - Collaborative Activity

Watching this video all the way to the end you can also see he's pretty experienced with developing sketching in 3D with CAD like precision and methods, so I suspect it can't be too long before he implements something like this in either MeshMixer or ShapeShop 3D. http://papervideos.s3.amazonaws.com/DrawingSGA09.mov

Uh...3D-Coat developed at a pretty feverish pace to jump into the third position in the market behind ZBrush and MudBox, maybe fourth if Blender sculptors are as many as I think and 3D-Coat did it in less than two years I believe. Don't be so naive as to believe it's impossible for another group of people to do the same thing. It was less than a year ago that MeshMixer was a novelty app that allowed people to automagically blend different meshes together with usable looking smooth transition. Now not only have they improved the mesh mixing and the UI for mesh mixing significantly, they also added sculpting tools and they're doing it with adaptive tessellation techniques which most DCC developers outside of games are just now starting to explore. The biggest drawbacks at this point are not necessarily the sculpting precision (something that is user dependent), but the precision of marking lines/ selections etc and low resolution of meshes. Even with the limited selection of brushes now anyone looking at the demo videos and seeing the wires adaptively tessellate, very cleanly, under brush stress can see that the brush engine foundation is strong. It's not going to take them very long to exponentially increase the number of brushes they have. Ryan Schmidt is also working on ShapeShop3D where you can already see the beginning of marking line/selection line smoothness interpolation. It all depends on the level of development that goes into this app of the next year and beyond that will determine everything, but it has a lot going for it.

Correct, it's better than Sculptris as Sculptris can't intuitively blend separate meshes. MeshMixer might be pushing 3DCoat before too long if they develop any kind of retopo tools.

Whether this is useful for 3DCoat users kind of depends on whether: A.)3DCoat and Softimage actually make compatible vector map profiles so that the functionality of transferring readable data from one app to the other would be there. and B.)AutoDesk makes available a viable pathway for the transfer of vector displacement maps in a "transfer format" like their FBX file format or openly accepts a generic Vector displacement image map file from any application. The reason I mention all of this is because vector displacement map generation, as a technology, is apparently fairly old. I believe Maya, as an application and mental ray as a renderer have recognized vector displacement maps for quite a while (possibly Lightwave has too, but I'm not sure how long.) I think it goes as far back as 2004 or maybe even earlier. In both cases (Maya, mental ray) vector map based displacement was in the code, but none of the stuff was accessible via the interface. Essentially it was there for studios with lots of coders and/or third party developers. Luxology was the first company to actually build a GUI front end to create/edit vector based displacement in Modo for user controlled sculpting purposes. Modo vector displacement sculpting happened around the time when MudBox just started their closed Beta program, well before Skymatter was acquired by AD and well before they developed vector displacement techniques for sculpting in the software. The macro view of this is that there are four or more companies that have had vector displacement mapping integrated into their software for between 3 to 7 years and there still is not a standard way to reliably move vector displacement maps between the apps that already have this functionality as far as I know. The conspiracy theorist in me says that it's intentionally this way, because software devs don't want people using apps other than theirs. On the other hand it may just be a situation where because vector displacement is just now being used in a more visible medium like sculpting maybe now more effort will be made to facilitate transferring vector displacement images in the same kind of way normal maps are. We'll have to wait and see. I won't lie, personally I don't think it's going to happen, because AD is really only interested in getting vector displacement maps from Mudbox into their other apps.

One other major benefit of 3D-Coat doing something like the "Dare to Share" event is that in addition to getting all of the free press and a significantly larger user base even though it would put strain on support it would also have the effect of getting users to demand better interoperability between 3DCoat and other full pipeline tools.

From what I've seen thus far 3DCoat definitely could use more modeling tools just because there are a multitude of things that can be modeled exponentially faster than they can be sculpted. Usually these are things that show up in multi-object mesh items like characters with equipment and things that can be modeled almost instantly with a good set of control curves. No I'm not talking about spline tools being added to 3DCoat rather just the most efficient curve based shaping tools that generate polygonal geometry. Trying to move multi-object mesh items between packages just to model something like a pocket, eyelets on a boot, a hood of the car or something like that is like crossing a molten lava river of pain the width of the Nile. Additionally regardless of what many people say it almost always makes sense to either start off with well thought out topology or to stop usually mid way through a complex model and retopologize just to get the most out of the sculpting stage. I can see that Polygon modeling is going to be a major step which is good with the addition of Raul, but hopefully not at the cost of voxels. Voxel based sculpting in 3D Coat seems every bit as ingenious as Pixols and Zshperes. Update: Just saw Raul's "LiveClay" video (http://www.box.net/shared/17cfycvi1y) this looks pretty amazing as well. I guess my question with this is that generally I only work with all quad meshes, since I know that "LiveClat" triangulates to get the high level of local detail that it does I would have to convert the mesh objects anyway so what's the advantage over voxel sculpting?

This looks interesting, but it doesn't really offer a great improvement over what's available right now as far as I can see. It would be nice, as far as being able to convert the defined skeleton they would be having you construct in modeling into a real bones skeleton with automatically assigned weight painting for the mesh in whatever main app you might be using, but I suspect Pixologic is working on that for the next version of ZBrush. (Probably one of the main reasons for them creating the GoZ exchange format)

Thanks Phil. Yup that kind of dongle was exactly the type thing I talking about. I gotta try to pick up a USB stick before I can install anyway I think that will probably be the most convenient way for me since I'll have two licenses running on separate comps. With every big company going electronic with distribution, manuals etc. I'm kind of hoping dongles make a comeback just to give end users something physical to go along with their software purchases, but maybe that's just me. All of this "Digital Only" sentiment really has gotten annoying to me, because I've definitely been thinking "Are we really going the 'Equilibrium' route? Are we really going to get down to visiting a friend and recognizing that we all live in the same four white walls and a computer terminal type society? Really?" but that's a whole nother topic.

I haven't checked my mail, for those of you that already have it set up how does the whole dongle thing work? I remember a while back taking a FormZ class and we got a physical dongle, like a short maybe 2 inch USB cord with an electronic box/device of some kind and without that the app wouldn't run. (I wish I'd tried to keep learning that app) I'm gathering from the bits and pieces of what I'm hear that a similar principle is applied, but you have to buy your own USB flash drive and put the license key file and put it on that and the flash drive acts like a hardware dongle? If this is the case are there any caveats I should know about to avoid pratfalls in this part of the process?

I always disliked bullies... Anyway anyone who has a business degree or has taken business level courses from professors that are actual successful business people and not just academics would know that: A.) Trying to work from a position of limiting sales is a losers position in a small turbulent market. (You're not exactly selling Wheat worldwide here) B.) It would be foolish to compare today's 3D application market with the market that ZBrush entered back in the 90's or the one Mudbox entered even a couple of years ago when ZBrush was still it's sloppy, but only 800 lb. Gorilla competitor. Different game, different rules.

AD has a locked in user base with 98% of their product and that market is generally studios with 10 or more people. 3D-Coat's target is individual users with the idea of having that translate into more large studio seat licenses down the road. The potential problem with 3D-Coat gaining wider market acceptance is actually this obstacle of AD entrenched software users. Many people that work at studios that are modelers already own a personal copy of ZBrush or MudBox or both, so unless they can get their company to buy them a 3D-Coat license a lot of them will be hesitant to drop another $100-$350 on more digital sculpting software. That's basically why AD doesn't have to change their pricing. The way I see it is that 3D-Coat has to basically get enough individual users on their side to create a cacophony of voices requesting 3D-Coat at work for Pilgway to be prosperous long term trying to tread water in the "Hobbyist"/"Prosumer" market alone seems like it would be a painful long term option. How you get as many licenses in the hands of as many users as quickly as possible is an open debate. However, as I recall 3D-Brush was initially free and it being free was what got it quickly in the hands of a lot of people that started proselytizing the benefits of the application all over the CG corners internet. Sculptris also went the same route...to me it's a little too late to start claiming "Oh...we're too good to be reducing our prices." Certainly 3D-Coat could equal and surpass other competing apps functionality, but as I mentioned before there's always the possibility of new players entering the fray and if you, as a company, don't have significant numbers of entrenched users you will feel the heat first and most deeply. Also, with AD and others sizable cash stores and vast resources it's likely they can copy whatever new feature is added to keep their customers happy eventually.

I'm not so sure about that. I'll have to check when I get my license, but it seems like the combination of muscle bones and the unique method of displacement map animation will get you to the same place without the heavy geometry and simulation of muscle systems. Their system of weight influencing vs. standard weight mapping already can help eliminate a lot of collapsing volume issues you get with standard weight mapping. http://www.usefulslug.com/files/Xerxestest5.mov (Doesn't look too toony to me and I haven't seen anyone do anything like it with CAT either.)

Another Plus about Pilgway running something like this is that it would most certainly encourage a lot of younger people that certainly wouldn't have the kind of money necessary to buy a license to get their foot in the door of learning 3D early.

It seems like there are a lot of apps trying to fill the editing hole between final render and production ready whether it's re-lighting, multi-pass compositing. It seems like especially on larger productions this need has developed to have more than bunch of loosely defined scripts for whatever side (2D or 3D) to get final editing/finishing/integration done. Out of that there's Katana for Nuke, a bunch of reLighting plug-ins for various compositing packages, lots of post processing applications for the unbiased renderers, apps like ReLight from the Bakery, Colimo from Motivo and now Clarisse. The problem I see now is that all of these apps have similar multi-pass functions, but not similar enough that they are interchangeable as yet. It will probably get interesting once there's one finishing app that has all of the tools necessary to complete any of the niche finishing tasks that all of these cater to separately. Right now it's like the Wild, Wild West but once there's one standard there will at least be a baseline UI that all the devs will follow and it will just be a matter refining the pixel tools instead of having every dev trying to completely re-invent the wheel completely. On Clarisse specifically. I think it's not in anyway (codewise) related to modo. I remember there being a build of blender, maybe a year or so ago that conformed the UI to looking a lot like modo and I think that's what Clarisse is based upon. Obviously I'm not absolutely sure, but the interface just has a similar feel to the one I saw in that vid. (wish someone in the know could confirm or deny this though.)

You don't have to buy what I'm saying all you have to do is look at a couple_scratch that ANY CG webforum to notice the Messiah:Studio event is the most talked activity, project on any forum and there's no forum where you can't see multiple people snatching up 1-4 licenses as quickly as possible and that's only the beginning of those people's relationship with pmG. Just as importantly...you're not Andrew.

You're a little overly dramatic. I never said 3DCoat should be given away for free or that an offer like this should somehow be open ended. I only pointed out blender to highlight the fact that prior to blender being free you would be hard pressed to find more than two or three people you knew working in CG that knew what blender was and that's not the case now. I wouldn't be surprised if blender has been used to create assets on a few occasions by various artists for commercial production at this point. I don't characterize the Dare to Share idea as a "desperate measure" which you're so eager to label it, sure there's a calculated risk but they've also built in compensating factors to temper some of that like future upgrades, plug-ins, training materials that are all for sale and Pilgway could do the same thing. The Messiah:Studio event, when it's all said and done, will have lasted for probably less than four weeks and the last time I checked there are fifty two of those in year which leaves plenty of time to sell licenses at regular price levels. The thing is there will eventually be and actually there is always the possibility of a hot "New Person" that could strike out on his/her own and release a good product or there could be some established company that releases a new killer feature/feature set that changes the way things are done and they attract loads of people in what is a limited size market to begin with. The companies with the most licenses have the most breathing room when major shifts happen so if 3DCoat license volumes aren't yet in a comfortable range it probably makes a lot of sense to get the app in as many hands as possible especially considering once people get used to software for a task they rarely if ever change. The fact that 3D-Coat is a solid application would only serve to help the company long term if there was an extreme bump in the numbers of users now anyway. Aside from that another company to look at could be Unity 3D, after taking on developing the Windows version of their software which wasn't designed to be cross platform they made the indie version free for all to download. The executives have re-iterated many times that making the basic app free was the best move they could have made and that they had the same kind of concerns every software developer has.

It was just a suggestion I never said 3D-Coat wasn't worth the asking price. I also didn't realize there would be so many negative Nancy type's here, I still think right now is an ideal time for something like this. There's the perfect storm of a bad economy, artists that are on the fence but looking, there are those that are interested but aren't going to spend $350 on a "Toy" especially in a bad economy and there are those that have trepidations about Andrew and his out front beliefs even people that share the same beliefs. Setting up a "Dare to Share" type event would burst that bubble on a lot of people and get the product in the hands of a lot more users. Low price kills products...yeah right, look at where Blender is now. Regardless of the fact that there are some that look at Blender as a hobbyist's toy there are quite a few pros looking and talking about it in professional online forums everyday and that was unheard of 5 years ago for free software.

I know Pilgway systems is trying to grow, but I do think this kind of event could give 3DCoat a longterm boost.