Psmith

Pavel: Hello! I also like to use 3D-Coat for character creation. It's a lot of fun and its fast - faster than any other process I've used, especially now with AUTOPO, which works especially well with organic, limbed shapes. Glad to have you around the forum and looking forward to seeing the things you make. Greg Smith

Well, I do agree with the Shift key shortcut idea, as well as the automatic switching from Perspective viewing to Orthographic viewing when an orthographic view is called. Zbrush uses the Shift shortcut and Blender uses the "auto perspective" function. Both are excellent. Yes, Andrew, please do it. Greg Smith

Visiting Rapidshare's home page, it looks innocent enough. I don't have enough experience with Rapidshare to know what comes after you sign up. As long as the visitors of your content are not subjected to advertising abuse, (pop-ups, involuntary page openings, mandatory software installation), then I'd say it's O.K. But, why not try Jing. It's the fastest way, and free, to do what you are trying to do. Jing has both a still screen capture utility, as well as a video screen capture utility. Andrew uses it to communicate visual concepts. Of course, the choice is up to you. Jing Greg Smith

A quick workaround is to use the "Camera" shortcut keys to get the appropriate view of your object. If that is coupled with a keyboard shortcut for toggling the Isometric view, you've got pseudo CAD functionality. Greg Smith

Jacobo: Please don't provide links to sites that force the installation of software, or the viewing of countless pop-ups and prolific advertisements in order to view your content. If you wish to provide still pictures to demonstrate the problems you are having, just do a "Print Screen" and attach a .jpg to your post - or better yet, do a screen capture of just a portion of your image and attach that. The link you have provided is the same as spam, by the way. If you want to use a non-malicious video service, just download Jing from Techsmith and take advantage of their free Screencast space and upload service. This is what we prefer. Greg Smith

Geon: I agree that this is not the ideal workflow, and, actually, I think there should be a dedicated POLY room, where everything concerning the sculpting of polygons takes place. In my world, there would be no Sculpt Room at all, but a POLY room where you can both add polygons on the fly, (ala Sculptris), and do every form of polygon sculpting and refining, (true multi-res, revolutionary decimation, AUTOPO), as well as altering any and all topography. And, it would be very simple to use. Also, Ozukaru is right - better to just do your modeling, from scratch, right within 3D-Coat. Greg Smith

The resolution at which the "base" or "root" shape has been raised to determines how much detail, both it will have, and how much the object to be merged will have, as well. I suggest pressing "Inc. res.", from the voxel tools palette, repeatedly, until your sculpt is above 70 megs to get a fairly sharp edged, hard surfaced model. If you have the RAM, go as high as you can while still maintaining sufficient speed to model efficiently. Greg Smith

The full price until October 15th is $235. After that time, the full price will be $349. Greg Smith

Will: You can rotate the scene, while at the same time getting your merged greeble or whatnot to be positioned where you want it, by holding down "Alt" while you left click and drag. Also, dragging while holding down the right mouse button moves the object you are trying to merge closer or farther from the surface of the "parent" object. Greg Smith

Takkik: It is a little unclear to me, as well. But, it looks like if you presently own an Edu license and want to upgrade before October 15th, you've got to pay $235 total. If you wait, and upgrade after the 15th, you've got to pay $250. So, you save $15 if you buy now. Greg Smith

Here is the official word from Sales: "We can make upgrade from Edu to Prof, but in this particular case he (and everybody till 15 October) can download this new version and try it and buy for 235$ till 15 October. After 15 October, updrade from Edu to Prof will cost difference 349-99 = 250$"

When using and combining Primitives or "Merging" greebles or some other kind of model, remember these things: 1) For combining Primitives using built in boolean functions, (assuming all are on the same voxel layer - uncheck "Merge to separate volumes"), pressing "Enter" combines 2 primitives with the "Add" behaviour and pressing "Ctrl-Enter" "Subtracts" the object being transformed from the primitive that has already been added to voxel space. 2) When "Merging" an external object file or greeble, press "Enter" to add the first shape to voxel space, and press "Enter" again when you want to perform the boolean "Add" function to combine the first and second shapes. "Ctrl-Enter" performs the boolean "Subtract" function between an existing greeble or object and the one you have just merged. 3) Remember to check the box "Make mesh closed", (in the Merge Parameters Pane), when trying to Merge an object skin that has been created with an opening in it. 4) Holding "Shift" while rotating greebles/objects constrains rotation to large increments, holding "Ctrl" constrains to smaller increments. Greg Smith

At Siggraph we spoke to the Radeon man and he made a strong case for how easy it is to port CUDA code over to Open CL. I do believe, if implemented, it would increase our sales substantially, since quite a few hardware platforms are rigged with Radeon components. Like everything else, this task has to take its position in line behind all the ones that have come before. Greg Smith

When using the new "Red Wax Depth" shader, I am getting unusual real time artifacts. Follow these steps to reproduce: 1) Start with lo res voxel sphere. 2) Increase resolution several times. 3) Select an "aggressive" material to be used as displacement mask 4) Paint on sphere with Carve Tool. What you get is good displacement with invisible sectors, as seen in this snapshot. In the second snapshot you can see how this renders after running AUTOPO for Per-pixel Painting Greg Smith

And I say to you, Javis, "Amen". Greg Smith

Andrew: The same major symmetry bug can be observed by also following these steps: 1) Create a symmetrical voxel model 2) Right click on voxel layer in tree and select "Auto retopology" 3) Leave all fields unchanged except "Approximate Polycount", changing this field to 400 4) Click through the following dialogs without adding density shading or guidelines 5) When whole mesh appears in Retopo Room, select "Merge for per-pixel painting with normal map" - (an incredibly long menu option) 6) When dialog appears, don't change default settings 7) Observe 1/2 model in Paint Room. Greg Smith

Andrew: The major symmetry bug is still present and can be observed by following this routine: 1) Create a symmetrical voxel object. 2) Right click on voxel layer in tree and select "Auto retopo and merge for Ptex" 3) In the opening dialog, leave all settings untouched, except set the number of polygons desired to 400 4) Click through density and guide dialogs 5) Observe 1/2 mesh in Paint Room If you feel this is not a bug, but rather I used the wrong method to produce a whole model in the Paint Room, please outline the necessary steps. Greg Smith

Hippolyte: Much clearer, thank you. But, I think it presents a slight lack of hardware problem for some and lack of manual dexterity for others. A video demonstration would be great. Greg Smith

Nope, Ton won't be bought, from my many years of observing him and his work. This is a matter of pride for him. He's out to prove something to the world. I think he is succeeding. Did you know someone in the Blender development community is working on their version of automatic meshing of "Unlimited Clay" sculptures. Looks like they are hot on our tails. Greg Smith

Proflooney: All of this takes place within the "wizard" that is initialized when you select "Quadrangulate object" by right clicking on the desired voxel layer in the Voxel Room. After you define, (or ignore), areas of highest density, you are asked to draw some guide strokes. You can control the density of control points with the "Spline Points Density" slider in the upper right side of the top toolbar. An edge loop can be drawn by dragging from outside the sculpture, across the region of the sculpture you want a set of loops to be applied, all the way to empty space on the other side of the sculpture, then release the mouse button. An edge loop guide has been thus created. Greg Smith

In my opinion, neither voxel detailing nor "Paint Room" detailing is the answer. There is no way around, given the state of today's above average hardware capabilities, using a polygonal skin at the in-between stages of meshed sculpture design. This is why Andrew has implemented the "Surface Tools". And, I have to say, these tools are incomplete. Why, because they are, quite simply, polygonal sculpting tools, which Zbrush has expanded upon exponentially. I vote for, and am pushing Andrew for the inclusion of a very separate and specific "Polygon Layer" or "Polygon Room", if you will. This "Room", or set of tools should contain everything necessary for the precise creation of hard surfaced models. Organic shapes can be created quite nicely with the existing tool set. It is in creating precise, "machined" hard surfaces that neither voxel tools nor painting tools, or both combined, can create accurate mesh edges and curves. Why fight it - polygons are king in this area, right now. Current hardware is not powerful enough to render these things, real time, by means of voxel architecture, and painting precise mesh flattening, curves and distortion is not possible either, with the current set of Paint tools, (which really are a combination of texturing and mesh displacement tools). Now, add to the ordinary functions that other polygonal sculpting applications contain, the ability to add volume on the fly via "Adaptive Subdivision", (ala Sculptris), and 3D-Coat becomes the winner on all fronts. Anybody want to cast their votes in this general direction? Greg Smith

Phil: Thanks for this very nice explanation. It answers a lot of questions coming from different perspectives. It's an overlooked topic, for sure. Greg Smith

R. Stralberg: I am pretty sure this is just a bug that Andrew is aware of and is working on, (I reported it earlier), so, I'm sure it will be fixed in short order. Greg Smith

Robot Bob: Both things will help. Of course, the texture maps really only need be larger than 4K if you plan to use Ptex to "Increase Resolution" on any specific area of the mesh. If you really just want a fast and convenient way to start texturing an ordinary model, then 4K should be sufficient. I know that normal maps are a problem with some applications, but I'm just not sure if all of the individual problems for each app have been categorized anywhere. So many apps, so few beta testers. Greg Smith

Hippolyte: Sounds interesting, but I can't really visualize what you're trying to describe. Can you graphically present this idea? Or, expand upon your explanation? Greg Smith