WillBellJr

I agree about not requiring 3DC to beat ZBrush at its own game. Granted, I'm only an indie making games and don't have the drop-dead requirements of a professional production haus, but I'd prefer to see 3DC have its own feature set that works well for what it does. I tend to agree 3DC should focus mostly on Voxels since 3DC was first at making them popular. Though I also agree with what's been said about the poly sculpting needing some updates. Frankly I feel the poly sculpting and voxel rooms should be folded into one Sculpting room where you can just choose which one you're working on (or both if possible) using the same tools. If Andrew can eventually get 3DC to match ZB in polygon performance fine, but I'd be just as happy in the mid-range 1-8 million for my needs. Anyone who needs what ZB can do already has it, why waste energy trying to match it - 3DC needs its own niche and needs to hella good at whatever it does. The way I see it: Get 3DC down to three rooms - Sculpt, Poly, Paint. Let me sculpt - using imported base meshes OR starting with a voxel - let me use the same tools for both. (Having differing tools for voxel and scuplt is confusing and makes learning (and remembering) the app harder. This IMO, is 3DC's bread and budder; this has to work the best for peeps to take it seriously. If sculpting with Voxels way better than with polygons, then scrap the poly sculpting and make absolutely solid turning everything into a voxel - imported base meshes should be >faithfully< converted to a voxel object and in the end after voxel sculpting, let me get my object back out as a decent polygon model. Let me build / edit a polygon model OR retopo imported models using the same tools for both. (This is why I had said earlier that I'd like to be able to create polygon models in 3DC, the majority of the toolset is already there with retopo...) Let me paint, generate maps and export - this is pretty much there. -Will

I guess that would be okay also but it seems like it would be more work for him to keep track of all the supported modelers or having requests for each and every new modeler that comes along. I would think that the gui and code used for the retopo room would be reusable for a poly room that just lets you edit at the polygon level directly? Reusing that code should give Andrew a good head start on adding a polygon editing toolset. I already love the editing capabilities of the retopo tools as it is - adding extrude, bevel, smooth shift etc., operations would be all that's needed. Hell, the remaining poly deformation operations are already seen in the voxel room's parametric primitives - having similar at the polygon level would round out the polygon editing toolset. Hopefully the gui and code from that could be reused as well... -Will

Hmmm, just thinking out loud but being able to use the retopo room to draw things like area selections that could be ported back to the voxel room (I guess as freeze selections) is a thought after reading all this - actually sounds like a cool idea to me! My prob with voxels is I still think in terms of polys or NURBS; making selections, extruding, beveling etc. Voxels makes it really easy to jam shapes together and create by base forms but I'm having probs learning now how to detail the objects I have in hand - extruding out a coupla rings around a cylinder is a good example (I was working on a engine turbine)... Brushing is too imprecise at for me at the moment, especially for my hard surface models. -Will PS - Thinking further, I guess I could have added a parametric cylinder, scaled it up to match the turbine and then gooped the two voxels together but having some way to extrude out a selection would have followed the existing shape better and in one operation.

At this point, I'm ready for 3DC to have a full polygon editing toolset. It feels like I can do everything else BUT extrude some polys, make minor changes etc. Frankly I wish 3DC had a poly modeler as good as or better than Silo or something similar to the Polyboost toolset enjoyed by Max users. If I could poly OR voxel up a model, then retopo (for voxels), UV it and finally paint / export - what else would I need? 3DC would be my 1-stop shop for my art path into the Unity game engine that I'm using for my game development. At times I also wish I could use my DarkTree Textures for procedural texturing within 3DC but Andrew would have to look at Darksim's Symbiont SDK (Skyler and the other guys over there are very helpful actually) to learn how to wire it in to 3DC's rendering. -Will

Hopefully Andrew will make this a priority soon. -Will

Yes, thanks! -Will

I was looking to do similar myself the other evening. I think I remember watching a video which said to use Copy? or similar which showed painting on top of a voxel object and then when hiding the voxel, a copy of what was painted on was left. Of course here we're looking for more control with using splines. Being shown how to extrude out or bevel rings around a cylinder would answer the questions I had the other evening... -Will

Okay duhoid, I forgot to switch to the Object tab and try deleting from there! I believe I'm straight now - thanks! -Will

Hi folks, I wanted to spend some time this weekend and really come to grips with 3DC, especially with all the new features of v3.2 and all. I've created a nice Voxel object and I've saved a .3B file with just that object before doing anything else. I've started testing polygon exports of the voxel object, quad to painting etc. I'm at the point where I want to start over and delete the polygon and retopo objects - basically get back to a clean slate (with just the voxel) without having to reload the entire scene. How do you clear out all the polygon objects while keeping the voxel? I've tried deleting layers, clusters etc., but 3DC won't let me? I thought perhaps it wasn't really necessary for me to do that, so I tried doing another quad to paint and instead of replacing the existing poly object, it appears to have added a 2nd layer / polygon object which is not what I wanted. Is what I'm trying to do possible or should I just simply reload the .3B and start from there? Any pointers appreciated! -Will

Yes, if you're not concerned with optimized topology for animation or have to stick to a strict polygon budget for a game engine, save yourself the stress and just work with your medium to high-res models. The only concern then would be memory resources for your final scenes. -Will

Thanks for a what looks like a wonderful update! I can't wait to try out the changes! -Will

I have to say great work Andrew, you are the fastest programmer on the planet as far as I'm concerned! -Will

I'll definitely give them a further try then cause I'm currently still looking for a UV mapper I can bond with! -Will

That's definitely true, you should always consider your existing power supply when considering a GPU upgrade as well. With an over taxed power supply, your system may seem fine until 6 minutes into a render and then it crashes leaving you scratching your head as to what's wrong... As far as drive speed, having done lots of video editing in my day, all of my desktop systems have had a 2-drive RAID 0 setup which I typically assign as the [F:] (Fast) drive. I can't see spending more for a >7200 rpm drive w/lesser capacity than what's currently available. I've never had any of my RAID 0 setups fail on me either - as long as you keep your drives dust free and well cooled/ventilated, they're usually good for the fashionable life of the drive. (I need to upgrade my two 160 gig'ers to 500g or 1tb! 160-gig drives were in fashion when I put that RAID together...) I was going to get a GTX285 w/2gigs but decided to wait for a bit for a newer card but since I do most of my gaming now on the XBox, I don't really need the hottest card for gaming, especially if it's not going to do much for my graphics apps. I might just get that '285 for now and be done with it... -Will

You may want to look at the reviews at Newegg.com and see what comparisions you can find there. As far as $600 for ZBrush, or a graphics card, considering how ZBrush upgrades have been since I bought in a v2, your $600 may go way further with ZBrush than with hardware which will most likely be outdated in another year or so... -Will

Yes, I can see being able to edit a voxel using curves to shape and mask would be hella nice but what does that have to do with NURBS surfaces? You can do this kinda thing with cage deformers to a degree. I can see perhaps importing a >hard-surface< NURBS model to a Voxel that looks exactly the same - without any softness or rounded corners and things. Perhaps, Andrew, you can explain further your vision for adding NURBS support? -Will

Well I'm not sure about curves - he said Surfaces and I'm assuming also closed surfaces (solids). There's not much you can do with a NURBS curve unless you're going to generate a surface or solid from it. I don't believe Andrew is talking NURBS surface creation (yet)... Back in the day (I guess before MoI) I used to also wish my applications could directly import and work with NURBS surfaces. My Rhino (v2) exports were so ugly and required so much rework that I dropped using it for my model creation (even though I LOVED the simplicity of forms creation using NURBS modeling) Once MoI came out with its hella clean polygon exporter I was once again able to add NURBS modeling into my art path. Thing is, now I don't have a need any longer for direct 3DM import?? As a Rhino user, hell yea, I could see the advantage of being able to import a .3DM into 3DC (CLEANLY) and work it from there. (But didn't I hear they're trying to improve their polygon exporter for the next version??) As a MoI user, I'm not sure? MoI's >lo-poly< OBJ exports are so clean, (provided the app can handle ngons), I don't thirst for direct .3DM import any longer? Sure, it's still hard for me to get MoIs into ZBrush (unless I forego ngons and up the quad/tri quantity really high to maintain the smoothness) - so I can see an advantage to 3DC being able to import the .3DM as NURBS as a competitor (at the moment) to ZBrush, but other than that?... Looking at the videos that I was pointed to, I see NURBS modeling and sculpting of NURBS objects - I can do this now with an OBJ export from MoI?? Perhaps I'm still missing (as a MoI user) the desire for direct NURBS import here?? Again, T-Spines I can see because they are the best of both worlds - plus you'd also be able to export your t-s objects as polygons OR NURBS... -Will

Okay, I see - yall talking the other way around - exporting 3DC forms as NURBS objects - interesting... I use NURBS mostly for hard surface objects - I'm not sure what I'd do with a Vox'd asteroid shape exported as NURBS?? (I've used 3DC recently to create asteroids for my game which I then exported into Unity.) I'm not sure what I would do with an asteroid (or other softbody shape) in MoI?? Typically from MoI I export into Cinema 4D for animation and then export into Unity (polygons). I guess what I'm saying is I'm not sure what I'd do with a NURB'ed Vox?? On the other hand, I'd really love to have them t-splines in 3DC! I'm definitely interested in seeing how you folks would like to use a 3DC based NURBS toolset... -Will

Hi Polyxo, I'm not sure what you're saying here? I'm advocating a polygon toolset simply because 3DC does already work with them as you mention however at the moment, it only manipulates what is imported, it doesn't really generate them using a direct polygon editing toolset. (Right now you can Vox or sculpt and then convert to polygons - not directly construct polygons.) The Retopo toolset already shows a great poly editing workflow that some dedicated modelers lack - I was voicing for an expansion of that existing toolset into something more complete for polygon creation and editing. As far as NURBS, I haven't yet read Andrew's Twitter on his plans for NURBS (Twitter is blocked on my job ) so I came here to see if it was reposted by him but I guess it wasn't - I'm going to read that after this post to see exactly what he said he was going to do. Being that I currently love MoI for my NURBS modeling, I wasn't looking for 3DC to try and compete as a NURBS modeler against MoI - I was sorta hoping that I could directly import my 3DMs (NURBS data, not poly) and use 3DC for what it's good at, painting and form sculpting / adding details etc. If Andrew wants to take on Rhino and MoI - more power to him, I'm certainly not trying to limit his creativity or programming prowess in any way. (Again, I haven't read yet his statement on what he plans for NURBS) Being that Silo and Hex has fallen off, I feel there is a gap for a mid-priced modeling app, which I think Andrew could fill nicely with 3DC based on what we've all seen him do up to now. I'd be all for a LWCAD type NURBS toolset as well that also lets you drop down to the polygon level for export. But for character modeling, there will always be the need for sub-division surfaces in one form or another. Now granted, if Andrew wants to do a T-Spline based implementation and forego the baby-steps of "simple" NURBS and SDS polygon modeling - then eff'n HELL YEAH!, that would be an AMAZING step for Andrew to take, and frankly would be as revolutionary as his implementation of Voxels! Frankly, a t-spline solution from Andrew (IMO) would be an achievement worthy of him considering his amazing skills at 3D graphics programming! However before I start dreaming of him adding in functions to fold space and time, let me go read what he actually said about NURBS and his plans for them! -Will PS - Okay I see that only "NURBS Support" was mentioned without further details... PPS - T-Spline reference: http://www.tsplines.com/products/what-are-t-splines.html

I use Lightwave, Cinema 4D, and Softimage - those apps (with the exception of perhaps the first release of CORE) are more than modeling apps. Modo isn't even a straight modeling app any more. Howver I mentioned Modo because it's >known for its modeling prowess<. Silo and Hexagon are strictly modeling apps - no rendering or animation. That's why I had said, it would be nice to see 3DC pickup the gauntlet for polygon modeling since both Silo and Hex have now fallen off and left a huge potential for a mid-cost modeling toolset. A Tab within 3DC that shows the same strengths displayed for retopo, dedicated to polygon modeling would be a nice round-off (IMO) for 3DC. In fact, I can see the Retopo tab simply becoming a "Polys" tab having similar toolsets / workflows from the 2 apps I mentioned along with some Andrew innovations as well. (Some polyboost like features would be nice also!) Hex has a nice workflow with its extrudes and I especially like its object and surfaces generation based off lines and curves. Silo of course just has one of the best polygon workflows out there to date but lacks the lines / curves toolset of Hexagon. -Will

And I was going to say I'm ready to see 3D Coat replace Silo 3D; - if the retopo is any indication of what Andrew can do with polygons, I can imagine him coming up with a decent polygon creation / editing toolkit for 3DC! Silo has stalled out, and Hexagon, who knows - the only other (commercial) place to look for polygon editing is Modo. In fact if Andrew could mimic some of the workflows and tools available in Hexagon and Silo, plus now with the mention of NURBS support, what more could you ask for from this application?? I think 3DC is going to be the app to watch (and companies to worry about) for a good amount of time to come! -Will

Yes, coming off a voxel object, you need to retopologize the object to get the polys managable upon export. You can do this either manually or automatically depending on what you're looking to accomplish. -Will

Congrats! My investment in 3DC has paid off since I'm now able to use within my games development pipeline! -Will

You shouldn't be on the v8x Alphas any longer - you should be using the 3.00.xx releases from this thread: http://www.3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=2683 I was doing that myself for a while... -Will

I'm trying to come to grips with learning the Voxel toolset. I've been using 3DC to make asteroids for my games - using Voxels and retopo is working out very well... (I know, I couldl prolly simply use a sphere and sculpting but where's the fun in that?? ) For some of the special asteroids in my game, I'd like for them to break up in pieces when hit but instead of just hiding the original and spawing up a bunch of random smaller 'roids, I'd prefer to build my asteroid into say 2-4 or so parts and then seperate them in-game to maintain the appearance of it being the same asteroid. As a test, I've created 2 Vox subobjects and shaped the individuals to form the whole asteroid. To export the 2 subobjects together I'm assuming I need to export the voxel scene? Previously I was simply exporting for pixel painting which would do the retopo for me and everything else. The one thing I'm wondering is, can Voxels be booleaned or in my case, I'd like to lose the parts of subobject2 that intersects with subobject1. This would give me the cracked or broken off edge that would result instead of the way I have it now - 2 rocks pushed together with #2 penetrating #1 by various degrees. I guess I could do this within another application (w/booleans etc.,) but I'm trying to get some use out of 3DC now as much as possible... Any tips or thoughts on how to do this with 3DC are appreciated! -Will EDIT: LOL, Right clicking on the 2nd subobject I see there was a subtract function - EXCELLENT, just what I needed. I see I need to make a copy of the sub first before I perform the subtraction. Next I have to see how I can export both objects (seperately) now for retopo...