Wizardkiss

A tip for any newcomers from Allegorithmic: buy or borrow a 3d mouse and try painting with it. You won't want to go back. Example:

It could be a great opportunity for 3D Coat if they took advantage of it by reaching out to disgruntled Allegorithmic customers and promoting to them the advantages 3D Coat has to offer, such as not requiring a subscription, having painting and sculpting in the same package, 3d mouse support, and so forth. If I was the owner of the company I would be furiously preparing some sort of "come over to 3D Coat" sale to get out today and strike while the iron is hot.

THIS, please. If I had one wish for a UI improvement this would be the thing I would most wish for.

Here is a blog entry posted today with more details on how Allegorithmic did their port to Hybrid Apps: https://www.allegorithmic.com/blog/substance-painter-oculus-rift-prototype

It's using a new feature of Oculus announced yesterday called Hybrid Apps, which is a system of some sort that will make it easier for developers to port 3D desktop apps into VR space. So, the developer doesn't have to remake the whole app and UI for VR, they can just sort of hook up the viewport of the app to the Oculus system and it will take care of the rest (that's how I understand it anyway, I'm probably over simplifying it). Sculpting is one of the most compelling use cases for VR so supporting this might be a good way to open 3D Coat up to a lot of new potential customers.

Just to balance things out a little, I am highly pleased with the development of this program and am amazed by the fact that it is done by such a small number of people. I recently revisited ZBrush for a few days and it gave me a renewed appreciation for how much better it is to be a 3D Coat user. Having said that, I do agree that some simplification of the rooms workflow and modernization of the UI would probably improve the overall perception of the app, and help new users to be successful with it.

Maybe the upcoming VR version of 3D Coat that has been mentioned will be the impetus for a UI reorganization.

It has been mentioned in a few places, such as this interview, that Pilgway has some sort of VR project in development. I'd love to see some tech previews or hear more details about it, such as for example whether it will be a separate VR-only app or a VR mode built into the full 3D-Coat.

Poly-modeling tools inside 3D Coat would be the greatest thing ever. That would make 3D Coat a complete content creation pipeline. I would say having it be a high priority rather than a side project would make a lot of sense.

I'm retired. I use 3D tools mostly for making game assets as a hobby. I would think good workflows for basic quick-start videos would be ones like the three you described above with the first one being the most obviously beneficial. Making a couple to specifically address working with the Unity and Unreal game engines would probably be a savvy thing to do as well.

I understand what you're saying, but I didn't ask for a video showing every possible workflow in one video (that would be kind of crazy wouldn't it? ). What I run into a lot is people saying "I tried 3D Coat, and made something in the voxel room, but then I couldn't figure out what to do with it from there." I was looking for a quick video I could point them towards to get them going. If anyone from Pilgway sees this, I would suggest it would be a good thing from a marketing standpoint to have available an up-to-date quick-start video, or several different ones for a few different workflows, showing how to complete a simple asset from start to finish similar to the video I posted above. Lots of apps have something like this so it isn't really an off the wall idea. People trying a demo won't usually have the patience to spend hours watching video after video trying to piece together how an app works. If there isn't anything to get them up and running with the app quickly you'll lose a lot of customers.

Thanks for the video links but none of those show making an asset from start to finish. I did find one on my own (below) which is fairly close to what I was asking for. He shows making a complete asset from start to finish in 12 minutes. Unfortunately it's very old though. It would be nice to have something newer to show people.

I frequently encounter people who are interested in 3D Coat but after trying the demo they don't really understand the full workflow of the app. The problem is I've never come across a short video I can show them that provides a "quick-start" overview of the full process of how to take an asset from creation to export. There are lots of videos that show how to sculpt things, or paint things, or that show how to use specific tools, but what I've never come across is a single video that shows the full workflow of creating a complete asset for export to another app from start to finish. I'm talking about a video, or short series, that illustrates the full process of moving a simple asset through the stages of sculpting, retopo, unwrapping, painting and export (which is usually going to be to the Unity or Unreal game engines). Please note that I'm looking for a succinct video, or short series, that I can just pop up and show someone, that demonstrates an overview of the complete process with a simple asset. Not a long multi-part series with hours of somebody sculpting or painting or going over every feature in the app. Does anyone know of a video like that?

When snapping into one of the box plane positions (front, back, left, right, top, bottom) the vast majority of the time you're going to want to be in orthographic projection when in that view. Then when you go back into perspective view you're almost always going to want to be back into perspective projection. Most 3D apps do this for you, switching into orthographic or perspective projections automatically as described above, but in 3D Coat you have to manually toggle back and forth between orthographic and perspective every time. If you use the box plane positions a lot you might have to manually toggle back and forth hundreds of times in the course of a day's work. Would it make sense for 3D Coat to have an option to this automatically like most apps? Or maybe just make it work that way by default?

You can do this now, sort of, although it is hidden behind a somewhat cryptic name in the UI. From the camera pulldown above the viewport select "Custom Navigation" then from the fly-out select "3D-Coat_Arrows_FPS". Unfortunately it uses the middle mouse button with the arrow keys rather than the right mouse button with the WASD keys, which is what most people would likely prefer so as to be compatible with Unity and Unreal Engine. You can however change it with the "Customize Navigation" feature, although it's a bit complicated to set up. It would be a great thing to have the app come with an additional preset that used the right mouse button with the WASD keys and call it something like "WASD Game Engine Style" so people know what it is. (The above is based on version 4.1. It may be different in the new version which I haven't tried yet.)

I definitely miss this when using 3D Coat. Small things like this can make an enormous difference in the overall usability of an app.

Yes, I love that feature in modo.

Yes, this will be a great option to have. Thank you for addressing it.

I have thought about making a feature request for the same thing but didn't because I feared I would be called crazy for suggesting a sculpting app would benefit from such a camera mode. 3D Coat's voxel sculpting however makes it different from other sculpting apps. With the ability to move the camera this way you could easily do all sorts of unique things in 3D Coat, like hollowing out a cave shape from the inside, which would not be possible in any other app. It is something that would be mainly of interest to people wanting to use 3D Coat in the development of game terrain assets, but others could benefit from it too. I would suggest however that a 'fly' rather than a 'walk' mode, controlled by the WASD keys, would be the way to do it. Apps such as 3ds Max and Softimage have camera modes like this. If the makers of 3D Coat are willing to consider this please look at the 3ds Max or Softimage free trials for the proper way to do it (see attached image). As an example of the wrong way the way it was done in Blender is very poor.

I would consider the lack of radial symmetry the one single most glaringly obvious thing still missing in the workflow of 3d Coat compared to the other big sculpting apps. There is a separate thread about it here: http://www.3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=4256

I also would very much like it if zooming was one of the options available for the mouse wheel. In most other apps zooming is done with the mouse wheel so when I use 3D Coat I am constantly changing the pen radius when I don't intend to out of habit. There are other ways to change the pen radius so it would be very nice if we could use the mouse wheel to zoom. Another really nice option related to zooming, which is available in modo and a few other apps, is when you zoom it zooms to the location under the mouse pointer, rather then the center of the viewport. Once you've tried it you'll never want it work any other way.

I just bought 3D Coat a few days ago and the lack of radial symmetry is the main thing I notice missing in the workflow. This would be my top wish for a future upgrade.

Unity game engine has been using this voting service called User Voice to gather and measure user feedback. It's been very popular there. Maybe it would be good for here too. http://uservoice.com Here's the Unity feature voting as an example of how it works: http://feedback.unity3d.com/forums/15792-unity I just bought 3D Coat a few days ago and the most limiting missing feature to me is the lack of radial symmetry, so that would be my top wish for a future upgrade. Overall it looks like a great app and I'm very glad I bought it.