Gravin

Please have a look at the mantis feature request here: http://3d-coat.com/mantis/view.php?id=1104 and add your +1 It's been mentioned before and it's apparently not as simple to code as it would seem but the more request we have the better chance there is it might get implemented.

agreed

I kind of like having the setting available in the top toolbar. It's much easier to change things on the fly this way. Maybe an option to show and hide the tool options and panels dynamically with a key press. Like the buttons in silo can be toggled off and on with the space bar.

I think I'm going to agree with abnranger, I too would rather see some muscle added to the manual retopo workflow. As for the Shift key extrude on the fly request, is this something that we can accomplish with a macro now that we have scripting in 3dcoat? I haven't looked at the scripting at all in 3dcoat to be honest but this sounds a lot like the extender+ tool in lightwave and if we can script the switching back and forth between transform and extrude and back again it would be pretty easy to setup, just maybe not with the shift key as the shortcut...

If Andrew says it's not easy then I trust that it's pretty difficult... It would be a nice touch to the polish of the program though. Providing consistency across the different storage panels/bins. Maybe I'm just anally retentive.

aha, I thought it was probably an error on my part lol! Yeah I have your old presets installed, for some reason I assumed they were overwritten with the new build but it makes more sense that they would still be around as part of my local config. See this is why I made the request to have presets organizable into folders instead of one big list http://3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=14579

It's pretty easy to reproduce, just start a new scene, choose voxel sculpting, medium sphere, turn on symmetry, couple of strokes with grow brush, pick the softclay preset... this is where things get a little weird? sometimes 3dcoat doesnt do the auto switch to surface mode, if it does everything appears to be fine but if it stays in voxel mode after activating the preset there are random explosions. at least that is what appears to be happening. I'm using the most recent build, happens in both gl and dx versions of the non cuda builds, windows 7 x64, i5-2500k, firepro v5800 in case any of that matters.

Am I the only one getting mesh explosions when switching from voxel mode to surface mode and using the rapid2 (softclay) brush?

Thanks carlosan, My first instinct was to go to Mantis but I couldn't figure out how to add a feature request...

I'd just like to start out by saying that v4 is really great! Lot's of great new features and improvements to one of my favorite tools. I'm especially excited about the brush preset system that's been added. I would like to make one request though, add the folder functionality that is present in the rest of the preset type browsers so we can store and sort our brush presets as well. It's a little detail but it was one of the first things I looked for when I started tinkering with it and I was disappointed that it wasn't present.

Silo is a really nice app no doubt. In it's current state it is arguably one of the best dedicated modeling programs available. Of course there are other options, some with more features and some are even "free". No other software has the same feel or "zen" but atleast most of the alternatives are being improved upon still. The lack of development and consistant price drops suggest to me that the developers are more interested in cashing out and not fixing the little issues that still exist with there product. I've had a license for a few years now (paid over $150) and I used to use it daily but have since moved to clunkier but more feature ritch alternatives because of a few bugs and missing features that make it difficult to use it in my daily workflow. If you already have a dcc with reasonably capable modeling tools or you can learn blender I wouldn't recommend purchusing silo untile they put some effort into polishing it a bit more. Not saying it's not good at what it does as it is now just that in my opinion it looks like a dead parrot.

was it this? http://scary-monsters.org/Scary_Store/about_reference_image

Great idea, I've been using the displacement painting in the paint room as much as possible for this but direct support within the sculpt room would have it's benefits. Although I do see this requiring some tricks to accomplish with liveclay or voxels, I think this is usually something you see in multi-resolution subdivision sculpting apps.

3DCoat was the only sculpting app I could really wrap my head around when I first started venturing into sculpting as well. I do still sometimes prefer good old fashioned polygon modeling depending on what I'm trying to achieve but 3DCoat is a lot more fun, it's more like playing and less like solving a puzzle. Like the others have said it's a deep tool making it very diverse and useful. It's also very actively being developed and improved. It's probably the best money I've spent on any software really.

I think that as a program grows and starts to introduce more complexity and depth in it's tool set there will come a time when changing the presentation of the tools through the UI becomes an import design consideration. In some cases this can mean a radical shift in others it only requires a few small changes and in the case of 3dCoat I think a few minor changes (from a user experience standpoint) wouldn't hurt. Paving the way for a more unified and ergonomic user experience now will make future additions to the tool set easier to absorb into a users workflow. Right now there are a lot of panels and a lot of drop down menu entries in various places that could be handled a little more elegantly. I feel like I'm constantly compromising between working view-port area and open panels and some of the drop down text menus are long and at times difficult to navigate. I'm not saying things haven't improved through the beta, I really like the changes so far, I just think we as users shouldn't be afraid of further change as long as it's beneficial in the long view. That said I think Carlosa's proposal would go a long way toward simplifying the interface without introducing to radical a change.