stretch65

Hi, I'm a bit confused about how to use these fancy new PBR materials in DAZ Studio. So far I haven't started using DAZ Studio's IRay renderer because my machine is bit slow and the renders are likely to take a long time. So I still prefer to use DAZ's 3Delight renderer. But I'm not sure how to get PBR materials to look right using 3Delight. I know the basics - I know how to plug in color, specular, normal and displacement maps on a simple object. But I'm still not sure exactly what kind of PBR maps I should export from 3D Coat, and what channels I should plug them into in DAZ Studio. Can someone give a simple example?

Hi, I need some help on UV mapping in 3D Coat. I have a basic grasp of UV mapping, but I don't understand 3D Coat's handling of Surface Materials. When I'm using DAZ Studio, its Geometry Editor allows me to select groups of polygons which I can name as surfaces. When I export out a model as a .OBJ file and import it into 3D Coat, for some reason each surface becomes a separate UV space. I suppose I was under the misguided impression that surfaces and UV spaces were separate, independent things, but it seems that 3D Coats treats them as one and the same. So, anyway, I've tried moving UV islands from one UV space to another, mainly because it seems somehow wasteful to have just one surface assigned to its own UV space. But when I do that, and export the model out and import it back into DAZ Studio, the surfaces that I originally defined no longer exist. Instead the surfaces I now have are the UV spaces that were created/modified in 3D Coat. This is pretty annoying. I mean, what if I wanted to put 2 or more surfaces on one UV space, and still have the same surfaces defined in DAZ Studio? I can't - can I? Is there something I'm missing here?

Thanks AbnRanger - I'll have a look at the videos. Thanks digman - you've always been a great source of help. Using an OBJ to create the alpha/strip sounds the most appealing - I haven't quite got around to learning GIMP (so many programs to master!)

Hi, Are there any detailed tutorials around about how to create alphas and strips? I'm a complete beginner at this, so I have no idea about 'alpha channels', file formats, or what layers I need to create. I've googled this topic a few times but there seems to be a conspicuous lack of info on this subject.

Thank you Jarvis.

Hi, I know how to use the Retopo room, but I'm a bit unsure about how to create polys that really match the topology of my models. I guess this is not really a question specific to 3dcoat, but are there any CG tuts or videos that teach this fundamental skill?

I'm exporting an OBJ file. But I just realized that the "_default" is actually the name of the UV set, isn't it? I guess I can see the logic in putting that at the end of each material name.

Hi, Is it possible to retopologize an open mesh (without converting it to voxels first)? If so, what's are the steps?

Hi, Every time I create material groups in the Retopology Room and export out the model, the names that I've chosen for each group all have the string "_default" appended. This is kind of annoying. I can easily rename the groups back to what I wanted using a text editor, but is there any particular reason for this renaming? Can this behaviour be altered or is this just something Andrew hasn't fixed yet?

Hi, I've modeled an item of clothing for DAZ's Victoria 4. I'm ready to try painting the item, but I'd like to have Victoria 4 also in the scene to help guide where I put the paint. Is it possible to have a kind of reference mesh (which can't be painted) in the Paint Room, along with the mesh I want to paint? If so, how?

Hi, I'm only a beginner so please be patient. I've only just learnt that a model can have different 'material groups'. How do I go about creating these? How would I create them on something really simple like a single mesh (such as a cube)? Is it done in the UV Room?

Thanks everyone. I discovered that if I simply drag on the gizmo's uniform scale cube, and scale up the model, more detail is preserved. That seems to increase the number of voxels used.

Hi, I'm very new to 3D-Coat, and I've been trying to import an OBJ file which has some sharp edges. The first thing I did was click File->New, and choose "Voxel Sculpting". The OBJ file appears in the scene along with the transform gizmo. At this point, it looks fine - all the edges are perfectly sharp. But when I click "Apply" and then choose another tool, the model looks kind of 'pudgy' and the edges have been rounded off. How do I ensure that the voxel model looks exactly like the imported OBJ, with all its details preserved? (The application that I originally created the OBJ in was Rhino, and I made sure to generate a file that has a very high polycount. But no matter how dense the polygons are, the voxel model still doesn't look crisp. Is there any way of increasing the voxel resolution *before* the import occurs?) Any help appreciated. Thanks.

Hi, I realize that if I hold the 'w' key down, I can view the wireframe, but is there any way of keeping it displayed while I'm modelling? I've already tried setting the 'Wireframe' checkbox in the View menu, but this doesn't seem to change anything.

Sorry guys - I've just re-attempted this tutorial and the problems I had seem to have gone.

Hi, I've been trying to do the 'Rat from Scratch' tutorial, and I've encountered a strange problem. So far I've drawn the tear-shaped body, the neck, and the head with 2 cheeks. After that, I noticed in the VoxTree I had about 4 different 'Volume 1's. At that point I noticed that on some parts, a lot of sculpting tools had no effect. So I right-clicked on the top volume layer and chose 'Merge Visible' which replaced all the layers with one. But now I have this strange problem with the Smooth tool. Even if I lower the strength of the tool to zero, when I rub it over the model, its effect is quite strong and it just obliterates the model instead of just gently smoothing it. The effect seems to be the same no matter how I vary the strength. So what's going on here?

Hi, I tried downloading and installing the 3rd party resources for 3D Coat. I think there were four .3dcpack files consisting of new brushes, materials, etc. But after installing them, there doesn't appear to be any new additions. I've restarted 3D Coat, but I still can't see anything new. Have I done something wrong?

Well, thanks for your help. It seems like the symmetry plane has been a bit of an on-going problem - not a significant one though.

Hi, I'm very new to this program so please forgive my ignorance. My symmetry plane has become rather tall and I don't know how to shrink it down. When I reduce the size of the 'blob' that I'm working on, the plane just remains the same size. Can someone help me out?

Hi, I'm very new to 3D Coat and beginning to work through some tutorials. One of the features which attracted me to 3DC was the retopologizing. However, I was wondering how or if it can handle open meshes like pieces of clothing? Also, is it possible to sculpt open meshes - for example, put some wrinkles in a piece of cloth? Thanks.