Henry Townshend

This is not a "feature" "request". It's the basics of how symmetry should work in any software. The Transform Tool disregarding Symmetry is highly illogical and a long standing problem for for me as well. The pose tool is absolutely fantastic, but we don't always wanna pose/deform an object, we rather wanna translate, rotate, or scale it without having to think of falloffs or having to lasso select the entire object first, or, temporarily set it to "Object" in the Pose Tool's dropdown menu. Furthermore, when Symmetry is active, the Transform gizmo should center to center of mass of the actual mirrored object on one side, not center inside the world center where its mirrored along anyways. Editing with symmetry on should consistently affect also the most basic operations, which are Transforms, first and foremost. Whenever someone rightfully brings this issue up I get the slight feeling as if this was treated as some kind of edge case, letting the OP seem odd, as if he would not understand core principles, so it seemingly not being 3D Coat's shortcomings for the reason of the post, but rather the users inexperience with it. While this can often be the case, it is not in this one. How does it help to hint OP to "Symm Copy" ? It doesn't solve the actual issue OP described. And it should indeed not be hard to understand unless one has a lack of understanding and experience using other 3D software. Using symm copy as a workaround for this is obviously too cumbersome. OP explained it very well. Only he demonstrated it on multiple objects, when in fact it should also already work on a single object the same way. This should be standard, not a "feature" to request. I love the Pose tool very much. It's versatility continues to awe me almost daily since I started using 3D Coat. But, I too want to able to simply transform objects with active symmetry using the Transform tool instead of the Pose tool. It works, yes, but it frequently interrupts my workflow, being used to Blender and ZBrush for years, I still always just assume it will work with Symmetry when switching to the Transform tool in 3D Coat, only to sadly see I need to first go to a different tool, the Pose tool, for a simple, quick symmetrical transformation. It's a huge interruption when you are used to working quickly with symmetry in other software. OP pointed out a glaring shortcoming in 3D Coats UX in regards to the Transform tool, one which should be addressed, not requested as feature. Attached quick gif from ZBrush to show how this is just naturally working once symmetry is enabled with the "X" key:

I like to report that using a shortcut on "Switch to Render Room", meaning the Tab "Render Room" (I have it on "F8") frequently crashes 3D Coat for me. Either it hangs until it crashes, or it crashes immediately. There's no chance of getting work back once it happens. Using just the Tab by clicking on it never crashes on me. Only using a custom shortcut causes this for me.

Is there any chance that this may could be fixed? I do more and more sculpting work in 3D Coat and I would really love being able to use the Cloth Sim tool properly with custom geo! I think the tool is great, despite lack of self collision. However, using "Pick Volume" seems not really possible. It creates a second, overlapping mesh, instead of using the currently selected object on the current layer. It keeps the original in place and simply copies the decimated one over it. Still not sure if I'm doing something wrong. But according to the tool tip of "Pick Volume" this is not the expected result? 2023-04-21 20-22-34.mp4

2023.07 -> Color Picker fixed! Thousand Thanks to the developers!!! No re-install or deleting prefs needed.

I also have this problem!!! I thought I was doing something wrong! It really shouldn't be this way right? I forgot how I worked around it (something with applying and then put on different layer or something) but it makes the cloth tool super inconvenient to use. (Awesome model btw)

Thanks for the reply @AbnRanger! I meanwhile did this and for me 06 still contains this problem. However, I'm aware that there are probably more high prio things than a broken Color Picker display. I jus patiently wait and work with 03 in the meantime. Thanks @Oleg_Shapo, I am looking forward!

Yes, still broken for me. Not sure what's going on. .

Hey @Oleg_Shapo, I'm also on 23.05, my Color Picker appearance is still broken for me. Graphics driver up to date.

Another thing I like to request, less of a feature but more of an important fix of a long term oversight imho, is the lack of Mip Mapping in 3D Coat. For a texturing app, I find this very disturbing. Textures aggressively sharp out when viewing them at a distance in 3D Coat, making it hard to make proper estimations/look dev. I know I mentioned and demonstrated this already in multiple places here on the forums, and also wrote Andrew about it, but I recently noticed this again on a more simpler texturing work on my current piece I'm working on. Please observe how in Marmosets view port, the texture stays smooth at a distance (due to Mip Maps kicking in) and how in 3D Coats view port, the smooth lines on the arms, legs and teeth, get over-sharpened and jagged, making it not very pleasant to work with, and not being congruent with how these textures will look once they are exported to game engines or viewers, which use Mip Mapping by default. I jus like to make another call for this, as I love 3D Coats paint room, but this makes it hard for me to transition more work to it (among other things like the absence of B+W masks, of course). However this is so fundamental since almost 2 decades, there are no games or viewers not using Mip Mapping. This is a major oversight imho, and not competitive for a modern app anymore, especially not for a texturing app. I heard GPU Painting overhaul is on the way, maybe this could be an opportunity, as afair, it also speeds up rendering instead of slowing it down. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mipmap 2023-03-08 17-31-24.mp4

Hello @Gorbatovsky! There is another implementation of Smooth CC. The one I was referring to is in Retopo Room. Please let me demonstrate. In the video you see, there is the option to Smooth CC. However, it is destructive. Once applied, it is permanent, which means I have to undo it immediately after to not have the mesh permanently be subdivided. However, a common workflow, available in Topo Gun and in Blender (via Shrinkwrap+Subdiv) is to only temporary enable Subdiv to preview your mesh, like @MJonathan described above. The great thing about this is, that if you have "Auto Snap" (Or Shrinkwrap modifer in Blender) enabled, your subdivided mesh immediately snaps to the underlying form. But, you want to just preview it, meaning not actually applying it to the mesh. This is pretty common, lets say, when retopo'ing a hand, you want to start simple, have the least loops count to encompass the form, and work towards a subdivided result in the end. For this, you need to preview your results during the process. This of course means you can only alter the existing verts once the preview is toggled on, not the additional verts that get added by the subdivision, as those need to be just "virtual" (jus like Virtual Mirror in 3D Coat! ). So maybe say what I like to request is a "Virtual Subdiv CC" during retopo process. And yes, Live Smooth would be close, but it doesn't work on Retopo Objects afaics. 2023-03-08 16-41-12.mp4

Not sure if this has already been asked, but in Retopo Room, could we have a non destructive Smooth Subdiv CC switch? So once subdivided and snapped to sculpt, we don't have to remember to always undo or have to live with the consequences : ) I sometimes retopo objects with only basic broad loops count, keeping subdiv in mind and occassionally hitting "Smooth(CC)" to see how it will look in the end. (That's a common workflow for instance in Topogun). Not being able to go back from this without having to hit undo directly is a bit interrupting and can cause stress once forgotten to undo and the devisions become permanent (yes, I already save incrementally, but still, needing to load some file from back then and worst case transfer parts, still not cool). So I like to request a "Toggle" for Smooth Catmull Clark, so a user can go back and forth, no-destructively, between base geo and snapped subdiv, enabling an accurate preview without actually applying the subdivision. This can be saved for the end, e.g. having a tool button "Apply SmoothCC".

It's a nice idea. However, I think users would not like to switch to Move tool explicitly just for this. As users during retopo need to use a lot of different tools where they freely can and need to move verts around (Add/Split, Points to Polygons, Quads, etc) I think having this CTRL key modifer globally for vertex sliding would be more beneficial. Otherwise users need to do a tool switch only for this basic tasks. What about selecting a vertex and hitting "G" twice to perform the slide? Jus adapting Blender way. But this would also include switching to Select tool first, so again, interrupting workflow. My personal preference would be the global modifer key. It would be much more efficient. Could be as soon as I drag a vertex around, hit CTRL afterwards to edge constraint it, with any tool you can freely drag vertices with (Quads, Split/Add, Points to Polys). That would fit best with 3D Coat's artistic and "hand's on" pleasent ways of doing this. But maybe this interferes with something I am not thinking about. But if not, it would be awesome!

Hey, jeah I'm aware of Machine Tools, I use it also, can't imagine using Blender without it ever again. But I did not know about Surface Slide, pretty interesting! However, as @MJonathanstated, Vertex Slide along edge is a pretty agnostic to specific modeling package. It is a global concept/function present in all of these packages, it is nothing special, nor anything that needs to do "better" or outperform the "competition" really. It is just a very basic feature. It does something entirely different also than Surface Slide. Vertex Slide is needed to alter vertex positions while keeping edge flows intact. While it is not always necessary to place vertices with mathematical precision, there are frequent cases where you don't wanna destroy already carefully layed out existing edge flow. This is jus one example, you basically can't slide that vertex vertically without destroying the vertical alignment of that edge: https://www.dropbox.com/s/rrixcm7uzzw79p9/2023-02-19 11-57-08.mp4?dl=0

That was my confusion as well at first. I always thought stencil projection should include color. But actually it does not in any software really. What you/we mean is "projection" painting. It is confusing in part of terms. As you probably saw by now, you can use this in 3D Coat suuuper easily, just create a new Smart Material and drag and drop a color image from your file explorer directly into your Albedo to have colored stencil, works even with non square images! And even automatically translates proper values from a single color image also for depth and gloss: https://www.dropbox.com/s/01ca4xfe01s2r80/2023-02-19 11-44-31.mp4?dl=0

@Gorbatovsky So as it turns out, I now noticed that using meters as units in Preferences, and setting scene scale to 50, indeed gives me 1:1 scale when sending retopo objects via applink to Blender and back. That was the reason why I set it like this. (For retopo objects it seems to work flawelessly, only with importing as voxel objects I get scale problems, even when using "Auto Scale" option in the importer dialouge) So these setting are in fact useful. Hopefully, Smart Retopo could work with any scene scale in future.

@Gorbatovsky Found the cause!!! It was not the meter unit in Preferences. I changed it back to cm, but it didn't solve the problem. But it gave me an idea: A while back working on this file, during voxel modeling, I changed my scene scale under "Geometry" in Sculpt room to "50", default is "1". I increased it to match better Blender scale when pushing objects back and forth via Applink (albeit it never quite 100% matched as expected, still could not figure out a 1:1 when working with Applink, sadly. Using OBJ export/import works perfectly though, hope at some poin Applink Scale back and forth could just work, would be a dream). Setting Scene Scale back to it's default of "1" solves the problem of Smart Retopo brush verts not merging. Finally I can shoot geo again without interruption! Thanks a ton for the quick and frequent support!

Thank you @Gorbatovsky! As always! Here is my most recent file, where I am in retopo phase: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ltlhuxzpala6eq0/Futurama_Bender_154.3b?dl=0 Have a nice day, too!

@Gorbatovsky I also found out that when I have vertices or edges selected with the select tool, I can not use my shortcut for "Relax" tool anymore. This is also new for me. Previously it worked like a charm and I could quickly relax selected areas this way, using my shortcut for Relax(SHIFT+CTRL+R). Now, once I have several vertices selected, the shortcut does nothing and I need to go into Space Bar Menu and hit Relax. Further subtracting from usual speed.

@Oleg_Shapo

Thanks @Oleg_Shapo. I know about constraining axis, it's great, works exactly like in Blender, even one keyboard hit less. I can move vertices in any tool without problems, unconstrained, or in world axis. However, what I am asking is something different, and very essential. If a user can already slide edges, he should also be able to slide a single vertex along an edge. There is a crucial difference between moving along a world axis constraint or in the direction of existing adjacent edges.

Hmm, unfotunately not for me. Not sure what I am doing differently. Out of ideas. I am staying inside the same object. Bummer, but thanks again! @Gorbatovsky I found another kind of "anomaly": When I select the Knife tool, all of my short cuts stop working and Space Bar menu also won't pop up, unless I select another tool from the left side bar.

@Gorbatovsky I'd have another question: Is it not possible to slide a single vertex inside the Retopo room? I can only see the Slide Edges tool, but does it have a vertex mode as well? Even with Move tool, there seem to be no way to slide a single vertex along an edge. This is what I mean (Blender, hit "G" twice). Could we have it also in Retopo Room in 3D Coat? If not already there (not 100%sure): https://www.dropbox.com/s/ucuuq4i5o3g3d2v/2023-02-18 14-12-03.mp4?dl=0

I see. But why can I move knots again after hitting undo one time, even with equal step disabled? https://www.dropbox.com/s/m4shomeyc2m3cs1/2023-02-18 13-31-10.mp4?dl=0 And I mean you can literally move the knots in any case, they jus won't update the geo... And however instant merge still doesn't work, detracting from the wonderful speed of the Smart Retopo brush. Now have to go in lasso select all affected verts and use Weld Tool to weld them together after the fact.

@Gorbatovsky Update Balls position is now also not reacting anymore. Only once I hit undo, the ball positions adjustments will update the proxy-topo again: https://www.dropbox.com/s/hez1iv4emojpehc/2023-02-18 11-15-12.mp4?dl=0

Thank you so much!!! @Gorbatovsky But still no change for me:/ https://www.dropbox.com/s/vfhmgt62oudsr8y/2023-02-18 10-59-32.mp4?dl=0 And huge thank you for 2023.01 ! E.g. Ability to now delete edges via delete key is much appreciated!