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Edit All Layers in Ext. Editor is still broken. Creating new layers in Photoshop or generally reshuffling layers then importing back breaks the Layer structure in 3DC. It seems this is unlikely to get fixed for the 3.0 release so I'll submit a post in the Feature Requests forum. Thought this worth a mention however as it is a MASSIVE workflow killer.

Fantastic Release this is... Menus look cleaner, Icons are lovely/readable, Merging objects work, Docking Texture editor now works correctly, Pen presure and mouse click settings (1st 5 icons are now much more readable), Minor issues I did notice - More in Cavity selected = Cavity Radius is in the wrong place on the top tab. (It's beside Specularity slider instead of beside Cavity Scale) - Alt clicking on an eye in the Layers Panel no longer isolates the layer visibility. - After sculpting on a model that was imported for PerPixel painting then moving to the Render room. The model appeared broken (like random faces missing and texture stretched) Can't wait for the official 3.0 Release. Consider me a customer. I'm with Tree321 in the excitement level

I'm glad you brought this up. I was sure there was something different about the navigation system but just couldn't put m finger on it. Well done for spotting

Just discovered a possible reason for a BUG that's been bothering me for a few releases now. Sometimes the viewport navigation would stop working on a region of the screen after some time working in 3DC. It dawned on me today that it is after closing the Texture Editor panel, the portion of the screen that it was taking up won't allow you to rotate/pan/zoom. It is as if the panel is transparent but still there. Here is an image to illustrate

David, you can place colours into each slot by 1st chosing a colour from the picker then right clicking over a slot. It will overwrite one that is there. Alternatively you can load in .aco files from your Adobe Photoshop\Presets\Color Swatches folder. Nice p.s. Kuler type colour scheme creator would be a sweet bonus

Looking more solid with each release Andrew Texture Editor - Pan & Zoom Locked with docked Tab & Color Picker These two bugs still exist in Alpha-83

Ah my mistake. One thing I noticed while trying this was that if you set the view in the Texture editor to show normal information it would be great if you could use the eye dropper tool to pick the actual colour from the normal map.

What do you mean by 'it's just not doing it'? What's not working 1, 2 or all? I just tried this on Alpha-82 DX64 and it seems to be working ok. I can paint Colour, Spec and Bump at the same time. As far as I know 3DC paints all three things onto the same layer and converts the depth to normal map on the fly, which you can export separately by turning layers on and off if you have painted on several layers. p.s. I'm sure I'll get corrected on this

Hey BluEgo, I spotted this a while back and posted a query, Andrew replied and is aware that it's something that's very much needed esp for game artists, so hopefully once all the bugs are squashed it'll get worked on Here's the thread I posted fyi

Yes that's been one of my biggest concerns with this App. The brushes don't feel quite as smooth as working with Photoshop or Mudbox (which doesn't have the same functionality as 3DC) 3DC has come on in leaps and bounds and with the Per Pixel painting it feels a lot smoother/faster to paint than with the microvertex method but it still has issues with painting on new transparent layers. Mudbox really has a nice brush engine. It's smooth and hardly ever lags (as you said) with large brush sizes. Also, not only does it have fading on faces with normals perpendicular to the camera it also 'wraps around' and projects the brush. In practice this is beautiful to work with and you NEVER get those streaks you see in other apps and at the same time is so easy to paint around tight corners (fingers/limbs etc.) It's my hope that once all Bugs are squashed and features have been implemented that Andrew will improve the Brush engine in 3DC

This is funny Brian. I remember you from the Silo forums and the beta release threads. Don't worry about learning 3DCoat it's very easy to pick it up ; a work colleague installed the app in the morning and by the afternoon was flying through resurfacing a model. The rate at which Andrew seems to squash bugs I'm sure this app will be ready in no time. Obviously Andrew doesn't need defending but, this forum is one of the most optimistic and constructive I've kept an eye on, let's hope tit doesn't go down the dark route of pessimism or fanboy-ism like 'other' forums.

Bug Report Alpha81 - You cannot Pan or Zoom in the Texture Editor if you Dock it. You can if it is undocked

Color Picker undocking This one is still in Alpha81

I agree.. having the name Base seems to make more sense, and I also feel that if we shouldn't be making any changes to it we shouldn't be able to edit it in any way. It just confuses matters the way it is at the moment. The way it is currently almost feels like we have been exposed to a little bit of 'under the hood' workings of 3DCoat.

I have just been using 3DCoat again recently and have to say Andrew what a brilliant App. The Per Pixel painting feels so smooth and the UI is looking fantastic (albeit with some bugs) There are still a few things that I personally have issue with that I hope will be addressed before the 3.0 release. 1. Layer 0 - I still don't understand what this layer is for and have only had problems with if I actually paint on it. Just one example is Painting on it with a colour then using the erase tool will actually make the mesh transparent. By default it is the chosen layer after importing a mesh and I sometimes forget to move to Layer 1 and don't notice until it's too late. Please make it hidden to us. 2. Strange Falloff when drawing with Pen Still exists in Alpha80. This for me is the big issue as the quality of the brush engine is MOST important when achieving accurate textures. The issue with the erroneous overlapping brushstrokes also exists in the freeze tool and becomes painfully apparent when you paint over the mask with a colour that is in high contrast to what is beneath. 3. There doesn't seem to be a way to import multiple meshes for Per Pixel painting other than 1st merging the objects in another app before bringing into 3dCoat. Preferrably a way to merge new objects for perpixel painting will be available. Anyway, just want to end this post on a positive note and say that I can't help spreading the good word about 3dCoat and that I think several people in our studio are using it purely for it's retopology tools (probably because they haven't discovered the rest of it yet p.s. An added bonus of being able to calculate Cavity & Height Masking based on imported Normal Map and this app will be Gold. Might even be able to ditch Photoshop altogether Fingers crossed.

Just noticed an error with the new UI and docking the Color Picker. While holding down the mouse button to choose a colour, I accidentally moved the mouse cursor out of the Panel and 3DCoat tried to 'undock' the Color Picker panel. Expected result - you should only be able to undock Panels by clicking and dragging on the ==== Double bar at the top of the panel.

I see problems with this, in that it's not going to be immediately obvious to people that you CAN dock everything. I reckon that using the free RMB to move panels around without docking might be a bit better than using up another hotkey.

Hi Andrew, I have a few small suggestions for the Retopology tool all of them related to Points&faces and hopefully will aid the workflow. Hide the Brush size when this tool is activated. It's not used and is a big distraction. (It's not nice to make Radus = 0 all the time) Consolidate 'Del. polygons' and the 'Split edge rings' tools into the Points&Faces tool. My suggestion is to use CTRL LMB - del. polygons CTRL SHIFT LMB - split edge rings Delete Points by CTRL RMB clicking on the points. (This ties in with the idea of Deleting things by pressing CTRL but having it on the RMB so you don't accidentally delete any faces) Only draw Triangles when we press Shift. (I find that I make unwanted triangles all the time by accident) Draw the Points down over new low poly retop mesh. (sometimes you lay some points down and you can't see them; causing issues later) Give us the ability to clear all Points or delete multiple points by drawing a Marquee box or Lasso. I also have 1 more suggestion related to Retopology this time with the Strokes tool. Can you give us the ability to insert new points along the stroke inbetween existing points? Thanks for listening. p.s. The new UI in ALPHA 79 is looking ACE

I like both layouts, but B feels more clean to me and having a small window preview of what's in each Layer is GOLD; it's so useful when you have many layers and need to quickly pick a specific one. It's worth noting (perhaps obviously) that the thumbnail should be an preview of the 2d layer not a grab of the 3d viewport (as it is in Shadow's mockup). I also quite like the icons AND text from A but I think that being able to quickly toggle each on and off would be ideal. When learning new functions I find myself having to hover over the icons to get the tool tip. The unfortunate effect of having text as well as icons is taking up more space. Zbrush's method for holding down CTRL while hovering over an icon and giving a detailed explanation is really nice. To be honest, with everything dockable and giving the ability for users to tailor to their needs will kindof negate these mock-ups no?

I just sent request also

I have NEVER liked Layer 0. It has only ever caused me problems in the past. I really wish it were either hidden from us and permanently locked. Also while I'm at it painting on New blank layers seems to behave strangely around the edges of a brush. Not sure if transparency in 3dCoat works properly. I'm an artist and not technically minded so I don't know the ins and outs of how it all works but it just doesn't feel as smooth as using Photoshop yet which I guess is the aim for this apps painting. p.s I'm actually talking about Paint Layers here not voxels sorry..

Is looking great Andrew. Feels much cleaner with the dockable layout and I quite like the Paint/Sculpt/Retopo/UV/Voxels tabs at the top left (however they do have a slight lag when switching between them) I'd also like to see a difference between tabs that are selected and ones that are 'behind'. If the selected tab header became brighter it would be instantly clear that it is indeed selected. I noticed a few bugs. 1. Between the Paint/Sculpt/Retopo/UV/Voxels tab and the sliders panel above it there is a very small pixel thin gap where an underlying model in the viewport will show through. 2. Crash bug where I maganged to kill 3dCoat by Pressing L to bring up the Layers Panel. (I haven't been able to reproduce it yet but I'll keep trying) It's a great move in the right direction though.

Unfortunately a lot of people are actually sold on both aspects of this arguement. This happed recently at my studio.. It actually took a combination of the front end gallery getting it's update showing quality models created using 3DCoat and me, personally giving a quick demo of how good the retopology tools are for others to make the purchase. I think 1st impressions definately make an impact and when a top quality model is showcasing a particular app it comes across as more professional & inspires.

Perhaps a simple press on the CTRL key could temporarily slide it then go back to altering size once released. Or vice versa.

I'm pretty sure this has been asked before a million times but with all the quick Alpha releases I'm just installing over previous installs but everytime I have to reset all the keyboard shortcut settings I made from the last time.. EVERY time. Is there a way to store keyboard shortcuts to a file and to load them in with each new install? p.s. Great work on the latest Alphas Andrew, Word is spreading around this studio about 3Dcoat.