WillBellJr

I don't see Substance as a competitor for 3DC - and I'd also love to have Substance textures in 3DC. Substance Painter is an excellent kit, but I can still do Voxel work, Retopo, UV and additional Paint etc., in 3DC, so it would be a while, if ever that I would start thinking about choosing one over the other. -Will

I'm just praying that Andrew bites the bullet and creates a "Poly" Tab. 3DC is so close to being a great polygon modeler when you look at the topo tools - adding a bit more and putting that into a Polys tab would really make 3DC a one-stop-shop for me. I'd love to see Andrew's spin on poly modeling; if 3DC could ever become like, or surpass say modeling in Silo, that would be perfect! -Will

Agreed, thanks for your help, Carlosan! -Will

Okay good, thanks for the confirmation! I guess now I'm wondering if this is "by design" or if it's a bug and should be reported? -Will

Okay I think I found it, originally I preferred to have orthographic frame renders so I had clicked the Ortho/Perspective button. Now when I put the view to Perspective, it renders FINE, if I set it to Orthographic, then it flashes but does nothing. This so far is repeatable for me - I'm not sure if there's anything else that causes the problem, but this is definitely repeatable for me! I want to thank you so much for sticking this out with me - your patience and time is really appreciated! As a benefit, I got to see a nice video of a sword / axe being created - I had wanted to create a spear matching a 2D one I had a reference image to, a coupla months back, and with my meager talents, I totally failed, seeing the video above has me wanting to attempt it again! Thanks to everyone who responded! -Will

Okay followup - I figured I'd follow my own suggestion. I created a medium sized sphere, I didn't add any shaders or anything else, I selected the Move tool, stretched it 3-times in different places, went immediately to the render room selected Render Frames, went to the front view and the render worked. So far I'm at the point where the render is working - I've added back the "rock" shader, did a couple more push/pulls, and now I'm trying to see how or where I break the Render functionality. I'll report back if I can find something solid. Of first note, I noticed if I select either the Top or Bottom view and hit the Render button, I get the same symptom - it flashes for a single render with nothing added into the output folder! If I select any other view before I click Render, it renders fine. So somehow I'm thinking that internally the "render camera" got hosed on me somehow which caused what I showed in my video, even though I was select Front each and every time... -Will

Not when I can't get it to render AT ALL! That's the least of my problems. When I finish shaping my asteroids, they're usually off balance from the center, so I move the pivot to center mass, then I translate it back to 0,0,0 - then I go to the render tab, and yes, I also select rotate around world center but as I've said - at that point the turntable doesn't render for me. Can you try doing the same - grab the medium sized sphere, add the "rock looking" shader to it and just add a coupla lumps here and there to your fancy, and see if it renders okay for you? -Will PS - At this point it would be nice if Andrew chimed in - do I need to email my probs to the link posted at the top of this forum for him to take notice of all this?

Okay this is what I'm experiencing... When I start a new scene, drop in the Base Human object, center it, go immediately to the Render room, setup the 512x512 render window, click render frames, set the frame count to 36 and click the Render button, it works fine, no problems! However for some reason, if I drop in a sphere, push / pull etc., and create a nice looking rock, set the pivot to center mass, move the rock to 0,0,0 and then setup the same 512x512 render, when I click the Render button, same effn thing - it flashes for 1 frame, nothing is even created in the >default< output folder. I had thought perhaps my original scene had got corrupt somehow, which would have been okay but now it seems I can't even stretch a sphere a coupla times and get it to render properly GRRR! -Will

Hi, thanks for your video as well - welp, obviously either I'm doing something wrong, you saw my steps in the video I uploaded, OR there's something wrong about BOTH my installation at home, and the fresh one I installed at work yesterday. What version of the program are you using, I grabbed the latest version off the site, reinstalled it at home, even refreshed the DirectX install, which didn't seem to need to do anything. I eventually was able to get the [Render] button turntable to work (somehow), but it was still doing the reverse game on me. I'll attempt to do what you just did by grabbing the default human object and just working with that. I really wish I could figure out what the heck is WRONG on my end... Thanks folks! -Will

Okay, I know I'm not crazy - I made a quick video: http://www.willbelljr.net/public/3d-coat/BadTableAnimation.mp4 You can see where I've set a custom size, I created the Front, Left, Back and Right views (which I had also saved as 3Bs previously before recording the video), and then the associated camera shortcuts. As you can also see, I have Render Frames selected, my target folders is the same as the source file(s) (which now as I type I"m wondering if it's a problem which I will explain in just a minute). So as per your suggestion, when I click just the Render button, only the ONE view renders, and yes, Render Frames is checked! Finally you can see what I get when I select Render Animation - the table starts off great but right at the last leg of the animation, it spins backwards - Grrrr! Now I have to say when I FIRST setup my (techsmith) recorder and did a test run for myself, when I only clicked the Render button, it actually DID create multiple frames! The asteroid was spinning off center for some reason, in and out of the 256x256 box I have setup, but it did at least create multiple frames! I haven't been able to reproduce that again besides that first time?? At first I thought that perhaps having SnagIt open loaded up some codecs or some such which help 3DC in some way to get the Render button to work properly. But now I'm remembering that I had originally had the render folder specified as a different folder from where the .3b files are located - I'm wondering if having those files stored in the SAME folder as where the frames are deposited is somehow confusing 3DC, that's the ONLY thing I can think of that's different where the Render button work compared to now where all the files are in and generated in the same folder. I'll go change the render target folder now to test if that makes any difference. I really do appreciate your help on this but, at this point, if I can't get it going after tonight I'll have to generate my sprite frames in another app just to move forward with this. (Unfortunately I'll have to retopo / UV and all that other stuff whereas this would have been so simple for creating a variety of asteroid sprites for my testing... -Will

Thanks so much for the detailed steps, Carlosan. Are you saving out the 3B files after changing to each view? I see you have said "Render, (no render animation)..." ?? If I just click the render button it only renders ONE view? If I click render animation (without saving any 3b files), nothing happens. If I save the 3Bs for each view, I get the same issues with the animation reversing. I guess when I get home tonight I'll record a video of exactly what I'm doing and you'll get to see what I get afterwards - I had really hoped following your steps would have solved my issue (the step about setting the camera to rotate around the world center was very helpful - thanks for that one!) -Will

Hi Carlosan, I had never used camera presets before, but after having probs getting this to work, I tried using the camera presets as well - again started from the Front view (snapped the camera), left view (snapped) (back, right views snapped) ran the animation configured to use the camera snaps - same issue, right after rendering the right view, the objects reverses direction, speeds up back to the initial (front) position. Here at work, I've attempted the same - with the same results - rotation reversal at the last step of the animation, next I'll try using the camera preset as well. What so sad is I could use the renders as is, no need to retopo, UV etc., just convert the frames into sprites and get going with what I'm trying to test - sigh... -Will

Well thanks for at least responding, the main question for me is HOW are you setting up the animations? Like I had mentioned, I changed to an Orthographic view (Front), centered my rock within a 512x512 window and saved the first .3b scene. Then holding down shift, I'd rotate to the Left view, save the .3b scene for that one, (then Back and Right views) netting me 4-scene files. Setting the frames count to 36, I'd start the animation and everything goes great up until it gets past the Right view render. If I specify "Close Animation" AND/OR a 5th scene (Front view again) to "close" the rotation, after rendering the frames for the Right view, it reverses the rotation, speeding up (to cover the remaining 9-frames) instead of continuing in the forward direction back to the Front view. I'll see if I can try the same here at work today, to see if I experience anything different. Thanks for your time! -Will

Wow folks, no suggestions or pointers at all on how to use the turntable rendering stuff huh? -Will

Hi folks, I was up last last nice simply trying to make some turnable animations of some asteroids I'm messing around with for a game. Being a 2D game, I figured, I could voxel together some nice looking astroid objects, render out a quick 36-frame turnable animation and use it for testing in an a quick 2D scene. I created a 512x512 custom sized render area and centered the "rock" within the window. Thinking it would be easy, I set the view to orthographic, and shift-rotated the rock to the Front view. I save the scene as "Frame00". Next shift-rotated the scene for the Left, Back, and Right views again saving the associated scenes. I checked Render Frame Sequence, specified 36 for the number of frames clocked Render Animation. After selecting the first saved file, and specifying again 36 for the number of frames, the program begins rendering the turnable. Everything goes great up to the last set of 9-frames - instead of continuing on to the last (Front) view again, the model reversed and quickly rotates backwards to the starting frame again??? I've even tried creating Camera Shortcuts and also turned on "Closed Spline" hoping it would complete the "circle". I realize that it's the interpolation of the rotation that is causing it to what?, take the shortest path back to the first frame, but then how are others creating these turntables? I tried rotating using 45-degree angles, which is painful compared to just shift-rotating to get the correctly locked views. What the HECK am I doing wrong - why can't I create a simple turntable? Any suggestions are appreciated! -Will

I'd just like to chime in and say CONGRATS to Andrew and everyone else involved! V4 is a great release - an instant upgrade for me! -Will

As per a discussion over at the MODO forums, on the Glorious-ness of the new V4 release, Substance Designer was mentioned - I had never thought about being able to use my Substances within 3DC before. Well I'm thinking about it now! I think it would be a hella nice capability to have a Substance player rendering Substance texturess onto my 3D-Coat models! I'ma add a suggestion over at the Allegorithmic suggestion site as well! -Will PS - It would be nice to get more use out of my Substances (and Substance Designer license) by having another 3D-app that supports it besides Unity! I hope this is taken under consideration!

I'll give that a try cause I see once I start adding the smaller parts, they still come in mushy compared to the larger pieces. I've been doing the auto merge to new layer but I can see manually creating the new layer and up'ing its resolution may be the better way to go... -Will

Wow, I didn't realize this thread had moved a bit beyond since I've last viewed it! I'm here today to ask this very question, I was surprised to see you've already addressed it, Phil! Oatmeal-ish Greebles! I just can't seem to reproduce the "joy" shown in the Spaceship video when I'm using the Merge tool?? I see him adding parts with what seems no concern as to the quality of the parts being placed? Everything seems edge sharp and square. But when I add stuff it's all soft and muddy; some of the smaller nurnies don't even hold their shape after they're dropped? I find myself dropping and up-rez'ing which from the video, shouldn't be necessary. One time I up'd the rez of a part and the program crashed cause I ran out of memory... Also when using the "On Pen" mode, it still drive me crazy trying to rotate the model in all kinds of different angles to get the parts facing in the direction I want?? Using the sliders in the options panel for roll, etc., works perfectly, but I then have to move my cursor away from where I want to place the object to adjust the sliders! There should be a way to assign a shortcut key to those orientation options so I can dial in the orientation I want for each part without having to move the mouse to the options panel or rotating the view around like crazy... -Will PS - Also when I click the Help menu, nothing happens - where's the latest manual to get that working again? PPS - Okay, after reading this thread, I see that you need to scale up the objects to increase the resolution. I installed the v3.5 trial on my work machine and yes, with larger objects (I scaled up the 1st part so it was around 2 million), I see the parts come in more crispy compared to what I was getting at home (I had clicked autoscale there a couple of times, I guess stuff was really small) I'm also noticing that clicking the Help menu, the PDF opens, I'm wondering now if my install at home is corrupted causing me the other problems I've been experiencing??

Thanks Phil, that was it! Split. I'm slowly getting the hang of it. -Will

Okay I appreciate the tips you folks have taken the time to provide to me! Just some quick questions about using Pen mode - when I have an object selected, and I'm moving it around a surface, the object nicely follows the normals / contours of the object. Sometimes however the object is rotated in a direction that doesn't match what I'd like. By going to the params dialog, I can slide the Yaw slider back and forth to adjust the rotation BUT doing this requires me to move the cursor away from where I'd like to place (and eyeball the rotation adjustment). Is there a keyboard shortcut or something that will let me rotate the object being placed in Pen mode without having to access the Params dialog?? I'm looking though the help Wiki but nothing yet... I could use transform but it's a slower process especially for small detail I'm dropping in different places. Thanks! -Will

Yes, great tip - thanks! Is (has) the manual been updated with the latest changes yet? I clicked Manual from the Help menu and nothing opened up this time. -Will

Yes I'll admit it, watching that new video of the spaceship being created with the nurnie set made me open up 3D-Coat again - being that I do a lot of spaceships for my games, I want to be able to create concepts with the same sense of exploration and freedom as shown in the video! (I'll worry about retopo later!) Unfortunately, like ZBrush, since I don't use this tool everyday, I have to reacquaint myself with it every time I open it again. It's unfortunate that in the video, it doesn't show what tools are being used, but admittedly, for a feature showcase video, you wouldn't want that. Hopefully a followup tutorial video on the same subject with more details will be made later... Anyway, I have the merge objects part down - selecting parts, placing, rotating etc. It's just how is he cutting away stuff by drawing lines, and how he draws a shape and then insets the part that has me stumped. What tool(s) is that being used to cut away, carve and inset stuff?? I tried cut & clone but unless I'm missing some modifiers, that's not doing it for me. At this point I'd just like to get comfortable with whatever tools are necessary to accomplish what's shown in the video... Any pointers and directions in the right path on this is very much appreciated! -Will

Congrats and I had to pop in and say I LOVE the nurnies toolkit! Also being a QuadPanels user, my jaw dropped seeing how easy the spaceship was constructed using 3D Coat! Of course with voxels, there's no concern for topology, just pure creativity - this video was an eye opener for me to see what I'm missing by not forcing myself to make 3DC a tool I use in my every day model building. Being a spaceship junkie, I will definitely try to become comfortable with using 3DC at least to the level shown in that video! I need to be creating my ships with freedom like that. (I'll worry about suffering the retopo pain later...) BRAVO on the new release and thanks again so much for the nurnie kit! -Will

Albeit late, I want to say congrats, Andrew to the new addition to your family! I'm glad everything turned out well and everyone is healthy and happy! Now time for the truth - I swear I thought this was a new post either about ZBrush v4 being released or v4 of 3D Coat LOL! -Will