WillBellJr

...And yes, it will take time learning Blender - it always has! So much more training available, and a lot of it is much higher quality and focused compared to years ago; whole series of Beginner and other training is now available. Take that first step, start learning it, and enjoy yourself!

Interesting point of view considering after all of the v2.8 modifications, companies like Epic and others have started donating serious cash to further the work being done? They all must have felt felt something positive was being done, and I agree with them. -Will

Agreed, I've been waiting to see Andrew's spin on poly modeling for a long time now - props! -Will

^LOL, again, thanks guys! -Will

Thanks Digman, I didn't even realize I had a PM - never used it before, didn't even know it existed until I saw your reply here! Thanks so much for your help! -Will

Yes, those are the ones I downloaded, they had things that were "close", but way darker, definitely not the originals that were included back then. I guess I should just cobble together some rock images into a rocky tilable, or just Bitmap2Material up something I can use as a replacement, I just really like using those old ones while sculpting... That's really nice of you Michael, it's not that serious for me. I can spend the time and come up with something as a replaement. If you were to make some rock shaders / materials, I'd prefer it to be for the 3DC community, not just for me. I appreciate the offer though, really nice of you - thanks. Thanks Guys! -Will

Thanks, AbnRanger, downloaded the nature pack, but that (and the others) didn't have the ones I'm looking for, oh well... -Will

Don't believe I've ever uninstalled / reinstalled these updates before, but if that fixes it, so be it... As a side note, before 3DC "when PBR", there used to be 2 "rock" materials (they were "spotted gray & brown"), I no longer see those materials now - I used to use them when creating asteroids for my game. Is there a way to recover those, I used to depend on them a lot, for example: -Will

I was looking forward to the next update after .23 in the hopes that with the drag / drop of images to the various texture slots for smart materials would have had that issue with requiring the use of Alt-Tab for it to work to be eliminated since it was discovered to be what the problem was. Now when I attempt to drop an image over the Smart Material color slot Alt-Tab or not, the cursor remains an X and it appears drag / dorp is no longer supported at all?? What happened? -Will

Guys, I knew Voxels weren't slated to be tossed, I just wanted to mention that I use them exclusively. Actually I was going to say "I use Voxels the majority of the time so here's my VOTE for them not going away..." but opt'd to be lazy and type only what I typed. I knew (well assumed / hoped) that there weren't any plans to eliminate them. Perhaps I should have typed "TLDT; Please don't remove the full Voxels..." (TLDT - too lazy, didn't type) -Will

Please don't remove the full voxels, I rarely use Surface mode. -Will

Okay I'll try the Alt-Tab after posting here. I've NEVER had to "Alt-Tab" an application that was the target of a "drop" - that's not a standard practice for the Windows operating system. I'm glad however to see the issue has been revealed - great catch! -Will Okay Check! Drag image (from Explorer for this test), while still dragging, press [ALT-TAB], drop onto 3DC material editor - color slot, the image starts showing in the preview window over the model. Just eliminate the need to press Alt-Tab before dropping and this will all be a wonderful thing!

Okay I'm glad to see it's not just me! I can't explain the joy I felt when I got the Mantis notice in email that the drag & drop was implemented for the texture editor! Then I tried .22 and it didn't work (from Adobe Bridge, or explorer), when I was about to write, I saw .23 was released with a fix. Here I am today dropping from just Windows Explorer (Windows 8.1 Enterprise here at work, I have Win 10 Pro at home - x64 for both cases). I never run 3DC maximized since I like to see the icons on the left of my desktop. My main use case would be dropping from Adobe Bridge (ACDSee, or say Lightroom), but I was just testing with Explorer today, still no joy. It lets me "drop" everywhere (the icon changes when over the editor) but upon dropping nothing happens. It will be great when this works properly though! -Will

Agreed, it's important that 3DC can handle doing this for Unreal and other game engines. -Will

Yeah I've run across this one a lot while learning the Autotopo tools; typically I'm looking for a way to remove the drawn strokes to draw them over again. What I do now (when I remember) is to delete the strokes before I start the autotopo process. -Will

Hi, they're simply books I've purchased from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Cartooning-Essential-Techniques-Cartoons/dp/0823007146/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1435238204&sr=1-4&keywords=cartooning http://www.amazon.com/Big-Book-Cartooning-Bruce-Blitz/dp/0762409398/ref=sr_1_9?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1435238204&sr=1-9&keywords=cartooning http://www.amazon.com/Humongous-Book-Cartooning-Christopher-Hart/dp/082305036X/ref=sr_1_10?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1435238204&sr=1-10&keywords=cartooning Simply search for "cartooning" - they have a great selection of books for beginners! You can look inside them to get an idea of what they cover. -Will

I haven't tried yet, Greg - cartooning is a desire I haven't taken the time to explore or practice all that much yet. The Rat tutorial shows how easy it is to get a character going, so it makes me want to try based off of some of the characters in my various cartooning books. -Will

Hi, BringItBack - I think it's totally cool that you're coming straight from Photoshop, in my case, I've been dabbling for years with 3D apps, but likewise, I've just started getting into sculpting. I've had 3D-Coat (and ZBrush) for years, but now since 3DC v4.5, I've really started using the app to where like you, I've followed the Rat tutorial, watched vids on YoutTube and have also become comfortable with sculpting and Retopo in 3DC. I'm slowly transitioning to understanding how to use 3DC's UV and paint tools. Just my opinion, but I'd think that directly painting on a high-poly model would be right at home for a Photoshop user? Either that or painting with PTex - that way you don't have to be concerned AT ALL with UVs which are such a time soaker; I can't wait till UVs are a thing of the past - not sure HOW that will happen, but I'll be grinning when it does... If your target is mostly illustration, and not export into other 3D apps or game engines, then again, I'd say look into PTex painting and/or vertex color painting (on large amounts of polygons). That IMO, would be the most Photoshop-like experience for you, on your 3D models, freeing you from having to bother with UVs. -Will PS - I will add however that I'm not sure about displacements (bumps / normals) being available with just vertex painting, since I have yet to try painting w/3DC myself? If bumps aren't possible (in fact I believe they are NOT with vertex coloring, I would hope with PTex?), then yeah, you'll have to deal with UVs to get the full paint experience - drats!

I'm still not all that familiar with the Tweak room so I didn't check that one. Great poll, nice to see the usage stats. -Will

Lol, while I absolutely agree, the title had me also thinking that I was going to see some rocks textured using Smart materials (see what I did there??) -Will

I'd like to say thanks for this tutorial as well! It pretty much got me going with sculpting, having never finished any kind of sculpt at all. I also have a desire to make cartoon characters, and this additionally showed how easy it is to get a character going (ahem), from scratch! I plan to take one of my How to draw cartoons books one day and sit down with 3DC and see how I make out reproducing some of them in 3D. One again, thanks for your series. -Will

Well, I guess your opinions stated here may have been some of the reason behind 'Alle's reluctance. But to me that's like Adobe saying they don't want their plugins compatible with COREL Draw because CD is a competitor and folks may not want to use Photoshop afterwards... IMO, Substance Designer is the crown jewel of Allegorithmic's suite of tools. Folks may or may not need or buy into Painter, BUT you will always have a need for Designer if you want to author your own Substances. Those Substances are then usable across UE4, Unity, MODO, Maya, and surely some others I have missed. I can't see how anyone that uses both 3DC and Substance tools see them as competitors? Sure, someone looking at 3DC and Painter may ask "which one should I get", but 3DC is a huge toolbox of functionality which includes sculpting, modeling (hopefully soon in a dedicated room) and UV editing and more. Painter is (currently) a painting app. The two IMO just aren't in competition because if someone IS also interested in 3DC's modeling aspects, then Painter is immediately eliminated anyway. If you want to compare the two just on painting alone, then you're carrying a bunch of potentially unused functionality going with 3DC, and then there's the cost factor - which one is less expensive? Painter? I don't remember off the top of my head. I would imagine Substance Indie suite is perhaps less than 3DC? Still however, your opinion would be a case for their concern. Then I guess there is 'Alle's unstated goals? Perhaps they want to be THE premier painting application topping even 3DC's painting features - if that's the case then, there ya go. That still shouldn't stop someone who uses 3DC to also want Designer (and their authored Substances to be usable in 3DC, so again, we've come full circle...) I hope that 'Alle reconsiders this - they should want their Substances to spread across the entire 3D graphics ecosystem by having as many hosts as possible. I will definitely put in my votes over at their User Voice board! -Will

This may have answered my questions as well since I have yet to try painting w/3DC, but was at least familiar with doing things the old way - thanks for this, off to check it out! -Will

Damn, I was REALLY hoping for this too! Admittedly I haven't tried painting in 3DC yet, but I certainly don't see 3DC and Painter as competitors! I'd continue buying both, especially as I love them both! 3DC is my all-around swiss army knife for voxel sculpting, retopo and UVing, where as Substances are usable in Unity, Unreal Engine, MODO and Maya. Being able to create Substances in Designer or Painter and also apply them to my modelsin 3DC would be so nice! I think a collaboration between the two would be wonderful; I can envision percentages off of Alle's tools when buying 3DC or vice versa, perhaps even the genius of Andrew and the guys over at 'Alle could come up with something unique together that puts some dings into ZBrush's domination... I mean you can paint in MODO and Maya, and they have Substance support? I hope this wasn't anything personal. It's just not fair! (stomps out like a crying kidd...) -Will

^Exactly, that's why I'm praying he takes the poly-editing plunge! (Heck, he has pretty much done a good part of it in the retopo room already...) -Will