Henry Townshend

Is this kind of texture display normal? I have simple jeans smart material applied for testing, and the texture is moired/aliased, unusable for visual estimation once tiled more. I bring this texture into Marmoset view port or Substance Painter, and it displays properly. Does 3D Coat have no proper Texture Filtering? I am surprised. Or am I doing something wrong? I have "linear filtering" enabled, but I guess it is of course not bilinear or trilinear or even anisotropic. This kind of display makes it impossible to estimate results targeting offline renders and game engines using texture filtering. Hope I am overlooking something. Or could it be that 3D Coat is simply not using Mip Maps?

Wow, that is freaking awesome! I would not have remotely known that this is already possible! Such a powerful feature yet not obvious, agree. Already felt sad that sprite brushes are not a thing in 3D Coat, as I enjoy them a lot in Marmoset. But what do you know? As so often in 3D Coat, it is already there, probably forever, and even more flexible and convenient... @MagnusL @Carlosan In conjunction with the sequence / rotating feature it has all the other "ordinary" paint features as opactiy, hardness, jitter, contrast e.t.c Where would I edit the brush tip contrast in 3D Coat ? I can't seem to find any place in 3D Coat where I could edit the alpha itself? Did you find anything on that? I would love to alter the contrast of the brush tip as in Marmoset. I see no such option in the Brush Options Panel. (I would not want to go into Photoshop for it, but rather be able to tweak it directly in Coat)

Hello all! Jus wanted to report that with recent version 2022.50, for me, removing points from Smart Retopo Quadrangulation mode stopped working when using tablet pen for double clicking. With prior version 49 it works. 2022-11-18 10-12-32.mp4

+1

Ok, I figured it out. It does not work in all cases. It only works when auto snapping is turned off: 2022-08-18 20-34-50.mp4 Of course you most of the time wanna have this turned on during retopo. @Gorbatovsky Could this be an oversight? Or am I misunderstanding something?

You are right. It indeed works. I guess what confused me was that with uneven loop edge ring sides, it offsets the center accordingly: 2022-08-18 18-40-25.mp4 But great! Thank you and thanks again @Gorbatovsky!

I had this occasionally as well in the past. I never could figure out where it came from really. Do you by any chance have another app open that hosts a high poly mesh? Sometimes I feel the switching is directly tied to the hardware/CPU power. With my new comp, it got much faster, I occasionally still notice it, but it is less than 2 seconds and does not bother me. Whats your hardware specs? And jeah, I also feel with newer versions it got better. Not sure if I am just imagining it though.

@Gorbatovsky At least for me in .41, this still does not seem to work.

Hello and thanks to everyone involved in the work put into the Blender Applink. It is working great overall and is a delight to use. I have two questions/suggestions about it: 1. From a Game Art perspective, as someone who constantly back/forth low poly retopo meshes as well as high poly surface meshes to bake from between 3D Coat and Blender: Would it be possible to have the "Auto Smooth" option deactivated by default when sending any mesh from 3D Coat to Blender? It is always active after import and it causes in most cases unwanted shading on objects anyways. It is kind of a bit tedious and time consuming having to disable it every single time after sending an object over. I looked in the Scene Properties if there is an option to already do so, but it seems there is none? (See attached pics 1+2) Furthermore, I am not 100% sure, but it seems that sharp edges set inside 3D Coat during retopo are not transferred to Blender via Applink, which is unfortunate, as I like to set Hard Edges and UV splits simultanously during retopo, but I have to redo them in Blender cause they seem to get lost after sending to Blender... or do I need to use a function somewhere like "apply sharp" or something before sending the retopo mesh to Blender? I could not find anything till now. 2. Every time I go "File-> Export Retopo/Poly Mesh to Blender", a file system dialogue opens and asks me to choose a location to export the mesh to. I feel this step is not only unneccesary but tedious, as I most likely won't ever need to store the file on my system, cause I just want to back/forth it during work. Is there something I might be missing in the setup or this intended? If not, it would be nice to not be asked every time to store the mesh on disk, cause this is exactly what one tries to avoid when using an Applink: Import/Export. When using Jose Consecos inofficial Blender<->ZBrush bridge from Github, there is no such thing as export dialogues and meshes just go back and forth without interrupting user flow. 3D Coats Applink is able to transport a lot more data back and forth than the GoB ZBrush bridge though, like entire shader networks, which is honestly breathtaking. So maybe there is a reason for it having to store the mesh inside the file system with this kind of data, but I don't see one for just sending a retopo mesh part of just a few kilobytes. It would help the flow if it would just get stored in memory and the user would not be asked to store it temporarily on disk. Maybe there is a step I am missing, I often read you have to set up the "Exchange" folder. But it seems that this is automatically set up in newer versions (If I am not mistaking) (Please see attached pic 3)

Referring to my question from before: Is there maybe a "Shear" operation already inside 3D Coat? This is something very helpful for fine distortion of retopo parts, but also of course important for a modeling tool set in general. Please see the video above to see what I mean. If not yet there, maybe this could be build into the "Select/Transform" Tool as an option "Shear" and then with respective checkboxes "X" or "Y" , like in the Align Vertices Tool, where you also can choose your axis. And as stated, reference is in Blender where you can call the shear operation with "SHIFT+CTRL+ALT+S" , then hit either "X" or "Y" depending on which direction you wanna shear.

I LOVE the knife tool "Polygon" mode! Such a great option for cutting holes into your ngons in retopo mode! Just found it after trying with subtractive 3D Primitive cylinders, which are not optimal for the task, as they leave lots of unwanted faces behind and tend to cause quite some messy connections. This mode of the Knife tool is just awesome for the job, much quicker, and produces very nice results, really amazing: 2022-07-31 17-39-31.mp4

FANTASTIC! Again, thanks a ton! Can't wait to make use of it

Thanks for suggesting these steps! I would like to avoid these as I am used to "Merge at center" in Blender. The Cap tool in 3D Coat is however natively much quicker. Only that it is missing this functionality. If there was just an additional key to hold for it to detect the center of the Edge loop it is capping onto, like for instance by holding "SHIFT+CTRL" and click, or maybe a tool option checkbox "merge point at center" to automatically constrain the caps center vertex to the edge loops center, I'd be happy, as I find the Cap Tool much more convenient to use than manual extrusion and merging, which include a lot of extra steps. Not saying perfect cap centers are always necessary, but to keep things a bit more even and proportioned, this would be helpful. Your suggestion is definetly are a workaround though, but the procedure defeats a bit the existence of the cap tool I think, which is already there to quickly insert caps by bypassing these steps.

When working with the cap tool to cap a cylinder, is there maybe already a possibility to position the center vertex exactly in the center without having to eyeball it each time? If not, this would be a super handy addition to this already great tool.

Is there already a "shear" tool inside 3D Coat? I searched but I can not seem to find one. I assume that I might again don't know where or in which tool to look. Shear helps vertices to stay the same on two axis and only be rotated along one axis. In Blender it is called with "SHIFT+CTRL+ALT+S" and then by hitting either "X" or "Y" afterwards, you can constrain it to one of the current 2D view axis, and then drag your mouse to shear. Wonder if this doable also in 3D Coat? 2022-07-30 22-21-41.mp4

Hahaha! Wonderful! It is already there! Jus gotta know about it. Thanks for explaining! I never noticed this particular tool. Exactly what I was looking for. Amazing.

Did some more testing and added findings on this topic here: Also shot Andrew another email with the same text and demonstration video.

More non destruciveness in paint room /texturing: I would like to see: * black and white masking to control a layers and layer groups opacity, instead of invisible clip layers. Clip layers have no benefit and imho can be removed. -> Reference for this can simply be how it is implemented in photoshop Optimally, the masks can have their own build up stack that is tied to a layer or group layer, so that infinite complexity can be build-> Marmoset has this and beats Substance Painter out of the water, so I would use their implementation as a reference. Their powerful masking approach would suite 3D Coat very well. * real group icons (e.g. folders) instead of a dropdown triangle, would make groups more clear * non destructive adjustments like in photoshop, substance painter or marmoset. Could be either an "effect" tied to a layer, or a layer itself that can influence all layers below, or just anchored to a single one or a group below. Optimally you would be able to even copy paste or move an adjustment effect around from layer to layer or entire groups. -> current "Texture->Adjust" is great, but we need all the included adjustment options there to be non destructive. "Color Operations tool" is also great and super useful and unique, but not the same or sufficient to stay flexible to art direction changes. In particular "Levels", for any channel, is an adjustment effect that is cruically needed for texturing, but non existing in 3D Coat * real blend modes with same or a selection of similar modes that Color channel has (add, overlay, passthru, etc.) for rough/gloss and metallic, and emissive. Current layer blending panel is fine for broader adjustments, but user needs more control over exactly how rough and metal layers are blended together, in a same way as it is possible with color * AO, Opacity, Emissive, Curvature as true viewable channels instead of being tied to layer stack, so you can cycle through them and view them like any other channel like roughness, and don't necessarily need to keep a copy of them inside the layer stack->reference: substance painter, mixer, marmoset * the ability to mask layers by an ID map color selection is a crucial, fundamental missing feature every texturing app should have. Best orientation for this is Marmosets implementation. Would be sufficient if we can just bring in ID maps from external bakers and use the colors as non destrutive selections on layers. -> Marmoset has imo the best and flexible implementation of this, mixers is also a good reference * the ability to have smart material preview show the true texture resolution, not only a higher quality that will get blurred once applied * smart materials that can be truly attached to a layer, meaning "Fill Layers". So, even after applying a Smart Material, you should be able to adjust tiling(scale) and all the maps on the fly and see results in real time, without a refill. -> Reference for this to look at would be Substance Painter or Marmoset * an opacity "lock", with which you can control all channels of a layer simultaniously, meaning not having to go to every channel (color, rough, metal) to adjust the opacity, but adjust everything at once. This makes sense when thinking in terms of full "Material Blending" rather than per map blending. -> Reference for this would be Marmoset, they are the only ones who have this great addition. 3D Coats texturing toolset is breathtaking and unmatched for a hands on, "feeling like a painting" program experience, and I absolutely love that aspect. No other software feels this artistic and 3D Coat is ahead in a ton of aspects other software feels super rigid, lacking and restrictive in comparison. Even industry standards miss things 3D Coat has, like curves, selection tools, cloning, copy transform, incredible text tools, best and pain free resource managment... list goes on... Only thing is, the non destructive sides of things are lacking and make it difficult on some ends to be fully an option in todays day and age of quick, non destructive toolsets. If that will be handled via nodes tied to a layer or directly in the layer stack, or both, it is urgently needed. If you guys manage to get some of these contemporary functionalities and non destructive approaches into the app, it will significantly raise the competitiveness of Textura as an alternative to Substance Painter as well. All fhe best and thank you for your hard work.

Also, how would I go about merging this selected geometry into a single vert in center? I there a command for this maybe? The way I found is scaling them towards center with the gizmo so they have very little distance, then use the vertex weld tool. An instant command would be more convenient.

Is there a way to scale "individual origins" in 3D Coat like in Blender? I mean such a situation here: I would like to scale down each edge individually and not towards bounding box center. I can't figure out if its possible. Quick demonstration what I am looking for: 2022-07-30 00-31-39.mp4

I did some more testing on the long standing "Slow layer blending slider Problem". I recorded a video for demonstration, because I found something out (maybe it is already known): -> The problem is depending on the amount of objects or pixels you fill if the layer sliders are still responsive or not. This is good news one the one hand, cause it means it makes layer sliders usable when only applied to a few objects or UV islands! But on the other hand, it makes blending of larger, overall affecting layers still slow. Additionally, the problem is, once you have filled a whole layer, and then delete the layer contents again, it will stay laggy unfortunately... Maybe this information is useful to you. For me, this is a good finding, because it helps me to have a bit more usable texturing in 3D Coat, which I enjoy. But I wished that the sliders would be responsive in any case, so the texturing feels swift and organic. Because as I mentioned, this is one of the most important things for texture artist: Fine and responsive blending of layers on top of each other. I also noticed layer blending sliders when dragged also cause a lot of audible coil whining on my graphics card, once a whole layer got filled, but not so much when only individual objects where filled. So I feel this might be an heavy load problem that might could be solved somehow, as other texturing software do not have these problems, for instance Quixel Mixer, Substance Painter, or Marmoset. All have fluid layer blending, no matter what and how much of a mesh/map gets filled. ExplainLayerBlendingSlowDownProblem.mp4

Question about Applink: Would it be possible to have the "Auto Smooth" option deactivated by default when sending any mesh from 3D Coat to Blender? It causes in most cases unwanted shading on object anyways. It is kind of a bit tedious and time consuming having to disable it every single time after sending an object over. I looked in the Scene Properties if there is an option to already do so, but it seems there is none?

Using v39 retopo room: There is no "ball" or "points" indicators when using either Add/Split or Points to Polygons tool. Same with Smart Retopo Brush. You can still use the tools though, but they are invisible. With Points to Polygons this of course is difficult to work with. Is this intended? Or now a setting somewhere? EDIT: Just noticed this is not version related, I have the same now when going back to 38 or 37 ... not sure what I did wrong. I seem to can not get them back. EDIT 2: Ok, now they re-appeared after I opened a fresh file and then my work file again. No idea whatcould have caused this. Nevermind. Glad they are back.

Gratitude!

@Gorbatovsky Let me demonstrate in Blender. Here, I am in Retopo "mode" in Blender (Surface snapping via projection and shrinkwrap modifier active). You can see, no matter how what I select, if verts, edges or faces, the tool works equally on all selection types during retopo. It would be great if the user could use the Vertex Align Tool the same way in retopo room as in modeling room. Meaning also having the ability to align vertices to a circle, without leaving retopo room, maybe even regardless of selection type (verts, edges, or faces). I feel there should be no need to select only faces to align verts to a circle. During a retopo session, you wanna be able to align something to be circular while snapped on top of your referenece mesh, not in air. This is because if you reproject the circles afterwards, their circular structure will inevitably get messed up again. The cube example I have shown in Blender was jus an example to quickly illustrate what I mean without any retopo setup. It would be much beneficial to have this also in retopo room, as often times it can be very useful, especially on hard surface meshes, to just get circular structures in order/clean distribution again, without having to throw in a 2D Primitve and reconnect it to existing geometry. 2022-07-28 05-36-10.mp4