stusutcliffe

This is how I work most of the time. I save the scene as an FBX ( Blender does not appear to have vertex colours on OBJs) Import into Blender , then I have to "activate" the colours with an attribute node . Its pretty straight forward. ( once I figured it out,that was the hard bit!) but can be time consuming If I need different levels of spec for each part. It would be great just to send the scene there with all the correct nodes in place.

Yeah, Grant Abbitts tutorials are great , clear and concise . If you want to get goin in Blender ,these are the ones.

No problem, I sometimes use smart materials on high poly meshes ,then actually sculpt a bit of random texture on that maybe does not align properly but you can get away with it. I find here is no set way of doing things , it usually depends what you want your final result and destination to be to determine your process. I very rarely bother with retopo these days , I usually just sculpt, paint then render.

Yes, you have nearly figured it out yourself ! Smart material bumps will only work on an object that has been baked and has an image map texture. If you are using the smart material on a vox/surface mesh the bump channel won't affect it, only the colour and specularity.

Mystic Teacup, . The vox tree layers are independent of each other . You can only sculpt on the layer you have highlighted. (like layers in photoshop) The layer is just an area where your model resides . You dont sculpt through all the layers at the same time. There is an actual version of 3dcoat that has a feature called "sculpt layers" where the actual model can have sculpt layers sort of embedded in itself, maybe that is what you need? Go to the download page and select the version of 3dcoat that has SL in the name ( Ive never used it so not sure how it works )

There are two versions to download , look for the one that has SL in the name .

I think I read somewhere it can only render 1 uv map at present. ( did you uv and paint or just vertex paint?) I gave up on it long ago, it just wasnt playing ball. So now I use 3dCoat normal render for my "level 1" renders, Marmoset for an upgrade to "level 2" and just started to use Blender for my "level 3" renders.... Also bearing in mind, I avoid retopoing like the plague these days, I just vertex paint, lifes too short to sit around drawing little squares on everything.( well I do it occasionally when I really have to.)

Its still there, you may have inadvertently hidden it! Go to "Edit " ( on the top row) - " customise UI " see if it has been turned off. If that aint it , you may need more advanced techie help.

Great stuff! Who needs CG when you can get real rhinos to do all that..

A man after my own heart... i would keep everything as separate objects and even consider separating the arms and legs then you could duplicate them and have one set hidden whilst you pose the other ones . Also ( for my workflow in Marmoset Toolbag) separate objects can have different surface properties, but not if they are all combined . ( vertex paint method only contains colour info not spec but image mapped objects can have both. But I find that little drawback is far outweighed by not having to retopo and bake. I can always do a spec render then comp in photoshop. But generally dont even bother these days.) So on Skellator , what I would do is paint him in 3dcoat ( vertex paint), pose him, export the scene as OBJ ( whilst in the Sculpt room.) Open in Marmoset and play with the surface properties - maybe a slightly shiny skull, and for the cape there is a sort of fuzz shader to apply. Another note, I would be quite happy rendering in 3dcoat , all I find its missing for my purposes is bounced colour and refractive glass. Just remember there is no real set way of doing it right and wrong , it is whatever is a good fit for you

Nice character there Mr Monkey. If he were mine at that stage my process would be , vertex paint him , pose him using the pose tool, export to Marmoset to render. Done ( does Cinema 4d have vertex colours?) ( of course if you are animating him or doing loads of poses go the retopo way. But for a couple of nice posed renders just pose him as is, dont forget to save your neutral pose of course. I used to do all that retopo mularkey, but now I dont .)

Marmoset tick a few boxes. Its made my cg life a lot easier.

Dear Mr Shagy, Hope you sort it out.....just so you will see that you dont need Renderman , I persevered with it for a while hoping I would get Disney like renders..nope you will be lucky if it even looks in focus. ( Im sure I will be accused of dissing it or doing it wrong.) Has anyone on this forum got an amazing renderman render to show, I would like to see it. I see you you have Marmoset, Substance, Blender and ZB , you're sorted! If you get it goin please post some stuff.

This has been broke for me for a long time . (38... still broke) So you are not alone!

I did a few models with "Retopo via Decimation" a while back ,that worked great .