V4.1 BETA (experimental 4.1.17D)

[Javis]

Welcome back Andrew. It's good to hear your trip was a good one.

[PolyHertz]

Bug: When you click on the viewport in order to switch from another app to 3DC, it will create a stroke across the mesh (in paint room, haven't tried in other rooms). That one caused me to have to redo some work because the stroke was on a layer that was temporarily obstructed by another, and I didn't see the damage caused until it was too late to undo :/

This problem could potentially cause similar damage: http://3d-coat.com/mantis/view.php?id=1124

[Psmith]

Could you give us the precise version number you are using and what your system specs are?

Thanks,

Greg Smith

[PolyHertz]

Beta 15A, and system specs added to signature.

[popwfx]

Don't worry. I have no any plans in visible future to stop or sell 3dc. We rather expect to expand.

Btw, have got excellent rest on Cyprus with my wife. Got to work now. Polishing everything.

This is the best news I've heard all week!

Edited May 14, 2013 by photonvfx

[PolyHertz]

Bug: When you click on the viewport in order to switch from another app to 3DC, it will create a stroke across the mesh (in paint room, haven't tried in other rooms). That one caused me to have to redo some work because the stroke was on a layer that was temporarily obstructed by another, and I didn't see the damage caused until it was too late to undo :/

Just fyi, I added this bug to Mantis: http://3d-coat.com/mantis/view.php?id=1132

[PolyHertz]

We rather expect to expand.

I do hope this means hiring additional programers so some of the long standing issues in Mantis (from years ago) can be fixed.

[Carlosan]

[ajz3d]

Don't worry. I have no any plans in visible future to stop or sell 3dc. We rather expect to expand.

Btw, have got excellent rest on Cyprus with my wife. Got to work now. Polishing everything.

This is the best news I've heard all week!

I agree. These is really good news!

I'm glad you're well rested Andrew.

By the way folks, is it just me or the forum has some weird issues with formatting? Quotes seem to display very oddly now on both: Firefox and Chrome. What's going on?

[PolyHertz]

Yea quotes on here are just a header with text under them, they're not separated from the regular post at all.

[ajz3d]

Something broke the formatting! Sabotage!

Edited May 16, 2013 by ajz3d

[Carlosan]

The forum software is up to the last version... may be a security upgrade broke something ?

[ajz3d]

I've also noticed that I cannot follow this topic any more. I stopped receiving notifications from other threads as well. But for some recent thread subscriptions I do receive them.

I can see only one user following this thread and it was a couple of dozens of you guys a while ago, so it can't be just me unless everyone went anonymous.

Edited May 16, 2013 by ajz3d

[philnolan3d]

The web guy changed some stuff to help us get rid of spammers, perhaps that change is related.

[mercy]

Quote:"

Don't worry. I have no any plans in visible future to stop or sell 3dc. We rather expect to expand.

Btw, have got excellent rest on Cyprus with my wife. Got to work now. Polishing everything.

"

Hiring additional programmers would be ideal for 3DC to boost bugfixing & stability, but good programmers are extremely expensive. Lets be realistic: I think expanding was meant by hiring manual-writer / GUI designer, they are cheaper.

Edited May 17, 2013 by mercy

[PolyHertz]

That would be good too, 3DC could really used an improved UI for v4 instead of recycling the one from v3. Still, it's obvious that 3DC needs a second programmer that can really shift some of the weight off Andrew, or at the very least someone to finally put the needed work into the Paint Room (seems like paint layers have been left to rott for years; no groups, masks, adjustment layers, etc.)

[AbnRanger]

That would be good too, 3DC could really used an improved UI for v4 instead of recycling the one from v3. Still, it's obvious that 3DC needs a second programmer that can really shift some of the weight off Andrew, or at the very least someone to finally put the needed work into the Paint Room (seems like paint layers have been left to rott for years; no groups, masks, adjustment layers, etc.). It's my understanding that Andrew was waiting until after the V4 Release to tackle the more structural changes. In the mean time, you do have the ability to make adjustments similar to the way you'd apply an adjustment to a layer in Photoshop, but no adjustment layers....yet. Go to TEXTURES > ADJUST...there you can blur/smooth, adjust Hue/Saturation, Gama, etc.

You also have the ability to use any layer to mask another. There are tutorials on that on the 3DC Youtube Channel, and Javis has one on his Youtube page as well. It's not as elegant as Photoshop's method (with a thumbnail and all), but I asked Andrew about this several months ago and he sounded as if he was willing to look into it in the V4 cycle.

[PolyHertz]

It's my understanding that Andrew was waiting until after the V4 Release to tackle the more structural changes. I asked Andrew about [getting ps-style masks] several months ago and he sounded as if he was willing to look into it in the V4 cycle.

That's good to hear. From what I can tell a lot of artists who have tried 3DC, but use another 3d painting solution or stick to just photoshop, decided against using it for painting specifically because of the poor interoperability with photoshop.

[Andrew Shpagin]

Updated to BETA16 (Win)

- Bake occlusion tool may bake direct light

- flattern tool in Paint tool will work correctly for PPP

- a lot of work done to fix bugs reported by mantis, crash reports, issues sent to support

- ptex painting speed improved essentially, random quads issue fixed

This is probably last build in V4 preparation cycle. Next build will be V4 release (expected).

[Carlosan]

[AbnRanger]

That's good to hear. From what I can tell a lot of artists who have tried 3DC, but use another 3d painting solution or stick to just photoshop, decided against using it for painting specifically because of the poor interoperability with photoshop.

What's poor about it? Interoperability with PS is one of 3D Coat's strengths.

I don't think it's necessary to have 3D Coat be a complete clone of Photoshop. As long as it can handle most of tasks I would normally do there, and somewhat efficiently, that's enough for me. I asked him about treating each layer in 3D Coat as a Layer Group is, in PS. Why? Because that is effectively what you have. Each layer is really 3 hidden sublayers (depth, color and spec maps). I'd like to see the ability to expand or collapse those, and even delete a channel/map that I don't need or want on that given layer. This would take up less RAM and keep things tidy.

Layer Mask thumbnails is another (including the ability to have them on each channel/map). This way you have a lot more control and easily see what is masked and what isn't. But all of these things may not be so easy to implement in 3D Coat's architecture. However, I don't think even these will cause a huge ground swell of texture artists switching to 3D Coat...until Andrew solves the dilemma of Large Brush lag in 3D Coat. This exists in the Paint Room as well as the Voxel Room. In fairness, small to medium brush radius' offer pretty brisk and fluid strokes. But Large brushes remain 3D Coat's Achilles heel.

On large maps (4k+), 3D Coat really struggles with large brush sizes. Mudbox does not. It handles 8k maps far better than 3D Coat handles 4k maps. I even showed Andrew this comparison (screen share) twice in the past 2yrs, and he basically shrugged it off as unimportant. This has got to change. It isn't just me noticing this, and he thinks you can just use a smaller brush to remedy the problem. That just isn't a practical answer. Suggesting a workaround never is. So yeah, I'd prefer this long-standing issue get fixed before any other major features are added. Maybe bring in a GPU programmer (temporarily) who can help him figure out a solution to this bottleneck.

Edited May 18, 2013 by AbnRanger

[PolyHertz]

Only at the most rudimentary level. No groups, missing blending modes, non-transferable blending modes, lack of opacity and visibility transfer, no PS-compatible masking, etc. Though honestly I think that layer effects and adjustment layers are probably overkill atp, as I consider those extended functions of Photoshops layer system. Groups and masks however are not, they're basic functionality that needs to be there.

And I completely agree with you on being able to expand and delete unneeded individual layer color/spec/depth channels. They probably shouldn't be created as part of a layer until needed, otherwise its just wasted memory.

Edited May 18, 2013 by PolyHertz

[AbnRanger]

Only at the most rudimentary level. No groups, missing blending modes, non-transferable blending modes, lack of opacity and visibility transfer, no PS-compatible masking, etc.

I can agree on some level, but again 3D Coat isn't designed to be a PS clone, feature for feature. It isn't useless simply because it doesn't offer some of these things. It's intended to be a stand-alone 3D texturing app that affords a good deal of interoperability with PS. Yet we are here fussing that it doesn't do everything that PS does or the same way PS does. Neither does Mari, or ZBrush, Mudbox or BodyPaint. Name a 3D Texture painting app that does? I could come up with an equally long list of PS features or interoperability features that they don't offer, as well.

You said 3DC doesn't have layer masks...but it does.

You said it didn't have layer adjustments like in PS, but for the most part, it does (TEXTURES menu > ADJUST). Let's not trash and belittle the application simply because you didn't realize what it could do, or it doesn't offer them in a way you'd prefer. Pointing out a problem or making a feature request is always welcome, but let's not make this a 3D Coat slamfest...saying "I know folks who won't use it because it doesn't do things exactly the way it does in PS..." If they want to work in PS...nothing wrong with that. It has it's own strengths and tools that were developed over a 20yr period and with a huge development staff. 3D Coat has some amazing texturing tools that are unique to it....features you won't find in PS.

Edited May 18, 2013 by AbnRanger

[PolyHertz]

You seem to think I'm trying to bash 3DCoat, and I'm not. It's a very powerful program with a lot of great features, and does indeed do some things better then Photoshop. But it's not a replacement, it's a companion app. Could it one day replace Photoshop for texturing? Sure, in fact Mari's whole design is based around doing just that. But for now it's about getting more users right? Why argue against something that could help with that?

(btw, knew about the features you mentioned, I was just saying that their current implementation leaves something to be desired.)

Edited May 18, 2013 by PolyHertz

[AbnRanger]

I totally agree that, after V4 is launched, one of the first things I hope will happen is some attention given to the Paint Room. Other apps, like Mudbox, have closed the gap, if not gone ahead of 3D Coat (in many regrads), because 95% of the focus for the past 4-5yrs has been Voxel Sculpting and Retopology tools. If Andrew can solve the large brush radius lag and build a more efficient, robust layering system (including some sort of layer cache), I think he opens up an entirely new market...Film. Right now, it's just not that feasible to use it when working on 8k+ maps. But apart from that, it's hard to find an app that can do so much and so well in each major toolset as 3D Coat.

Edited May 18, 2013 by AbnRanger

[pixo]

If Andrew can solve the large brush radius lag and build a more efficient, robust layering system (including some sort of layer cache), I think he opens up an entirely new market...Film.

I don't think so.

As i already told in this forum and especially to you AbnRanger , there's much more than only performance optimization.

The lake of a PROPER Mutli-tile support is one of the reason.

Now may be with the Angelscript (another reason) it's possible to create a bunch of tools to make the process easier.

Still i really like 3DCoat as a modeling tool, i found it really good for this.

Cheers,

Pixo

Edited May 19, 2013 by pixo

[AbnRanger]

I don't think so.

As i already told in this forum and especially to you AbnRanger , there's much more than only performance optimization.

The lake of a PROPER Mutli-tile support is one of the reason.

Now may be with the Angelscript (another reason) it's possible to create a bunch of tools to make the process easier.

Still i really like 3DCoat as a modeling tool, i found it really good for this.

Cheers,

Pixo

Why would "lack of proper tiling"...as you put it...be a hindrance to doing film or cinematic texture work? Tiling is just another technique....just another way to skin the same cat. Most 3D Apps use UV sets the way 3D Coat utilizes them. Instead of spreading the UV maps out on the table, as it were, 3D Coat and those apps simply stack the UV's in the 0-1 texture space. Sure you can work with tiles in apps like Max and Maya, but it takes a specific workflow to use them. Max, by default stacks all UV's in the 0-1 space, just like 3D Coat does.

Mari is the standard at this point, not because of features, but performance. That's it's bread and butter. Take that performance out of the equation and Mari would be no better than 3D Coat, Mudbox or BodyPaint, IMO. Both apps have their strengths and unique tools, but also limitations.

Edited May 19, 2013 by AbnRanger

[pixo]

By the way i'm not talking for video game, freelancer or hobbyist.

In my experience of 3dCoat, Mudbox and Mari , i have to not be agree with you.

"Tiling is just another technique"

Yes it is, but this is the most used by the "Film industry" (there is a reason for that, to me it's the most efficient at the moment) and 3D Coat doesn't handle it properly.

We used Multi-tiling longtime before Mari came on the market.

If Mari is a standard now it's just mainly because it fills the lack of current tools on this field.

Anyway there's much more than only multi-tiles support, you also have:

-Import animated camera

-Import animated mesh (sequence of obj, i guess they will implement alembic really soon)

-animated textures

-versioned meshes

-OpenColorIO

-hdri (Paint Through only )

-SDK for custom shader

-Python SDK

-Strong support

Anyway there's even more, but it was just to underline that optimizations is not the biggest problem in a proper pipeline.

Personally i really like 3DCoat but i'm using it just for modeling at home (i'm not working as modeler).

Kind,

Pixo

[ajz3d]

A very short bug report about the lack of specularity jitter/variation in the Paint Room.

http://3d-coat.com/mantis/view.php?id=1143

[robotbob]

bug in paintroom.

pls follow these steps

use bucket tool.

add custom . .

load a texture in the colour channel

change from cubic to UV mapping

fill is 100% black.