V4.1 BETA (experimental 4.1.17D)

[Tony Nemo]

Come on guys. Let's keep the personal stuff to ourselves, or do it in private. There are much better things that can be done with that time and energy.

Any further off topic discussions will be dealt with swiftly.

I thought forums had matured past the old 'flame wars' of yesteryear. Oh, and I concur with Timmy, An app that is constantly being improved is just my cup of tea. On the point made by Carlosa, if the diagonals could follow the stroke any problem would dissappear. I expect tris are used to enable maximum resolution for displacement.

[AbnRanger]

Oh, just came here to say Artmans brushes are in a funny file format and dont work! I see the reason for that........waiting anxiously.....

FILE > Install 3dcpack. That should install both his penpack and presets

[AbnRanger]

I thought forums had matured past the old 'flame wars' of yesteryear. Oh, and I concur with Timmy, An app that is constantly being improved is just my cup of tea. On the point made by Carlosa, if the diagonals could follow the stroke any problem would dissappear. I expect tris are used to enable maximum resolution for displacement.

I still think there should be two parallel tracks....2 builds. One, a Stable build that all the bugfixes get applied to (with the lone exception of new features). This will make 3D Coat much more feasible to use in a tight-deadline, production environment.

The other build/track would be New Features. This would be the BETA build (basically what we have now). If there are bugs, issues, missing components to these features, this is where they get addressed. All the bugfixes can be applied to this build, but it will still remain BETA, considered unstable for production.

Perhaps once every 3-6 months, Andrew could add all the features to the stable build, that appear to be clean and solid. I just think it's inherently bad to mix new, untested features, with bugfixes in a build. You can never get a stable version this way. Why? Cause you are constantly introducing new germs (bugs) along with the medicine (bugfixes). One version needs to be sterilized, so to speak.

Andrew would say "just use the major releases." The problem with that approach is none of the bugfixes and corrections of missing features get applied to these versions. This is why major 3D apps release service packs/hotfixes. These are bugfixing ONLY additions to those "major releases."

[stusutcliffe]

Thanks Abnranger, but I think Artman is fiddling with it at the moment.The only download seems to be a ".4" file....whatever that is.Maybe Artman can clear this problem up.Not operator error this time as the other penpack " Hair" works fine.

[digman]

I still think there should be two parallel tracks....2 builds. One, a Stable build that all the bugfixes get applied to (with the lone exception of new features). This will make 3D Coat much more feasible to use in a tight-deadline, production environment.

The other build/track would be New Features. This would be the BETA build (basically what we have now). If there are bugs, issues, missing components to these features, this is where they get addressed. All the bugfixes can be applied to this build, but it will still remain BETA, considered unstable for production.

Perhaps once every 3-6 months, Andrew could add all the features to the stable build, that appear to be clean and solid. I just think it's inherently bad to mix new, untested features, with bugfixes in a build. You can never get a stable version this way. Why? Cause you are constantly introducing new germs (bugs) along with the medicine (bugfixes). One version needs to be sterilized, so to speak.

Andrew would say "just use the major releases." The problem with that approach is non of the bugfixes and corrections of missing features get applied to these versions. This is why major 3D apps release service packs/hotfixes. These are bugfixing ONLY additions to those "major releases."

This I agreed with and it has been mentioned before. The reasons are solid and I hope Andrew will at some point follow this way of updating his software... You can currently run two versions of 3DCoat on the same machine but only one at a time so there is no problem running a stable and a beta version. The beta builds could have their own separate 3DCoat folders so as not to cross wires...

[manticor]

You may do split with fillet easily, just enable "Complex joint profile"

But general fillet for booleans is far not easy task.

Would it be possible to have an option to generate a curve at a Boolean intersection ,such as when merging layers ,or even just an extra option on the vox layers tab ...i.e generate curve from intersection with > layer XX .Then it would be possible to sweep a curved mesh around it to accomplish the same kind of fillet but with the added benefit of being able to scale points on the curve thereby making variable fillets .An option to specify the amount of points would also be nice .I know this method is already possible but it would be a real speed boost to not have to do this every time a fillet is needed.

Anyway just an idea Andrew.maybe I should put this in the requests section.

[JoseConseco]

Awesome job Andrew! I like it a lot - new buildup option. I did some dodle an I found a bug (very nasty)

When you undo while in the middle of stroke, last part on brush stroke is not stored in undo history. Also mesh gets corrupted. Really not cool, since I didn't save and I couldn't fix nose area :/

Btw. is there a reason why LC brushes are separate from Surface brushes? It is annoying to switch to rapid brushes to LC brush, just to add some tesselation, and then back to Surface brush, and back to LC brush and so on.

[AbnRanger]

Awesome job Andrew! I like it a lot - new buildup option. I did some dodle an I found a bug (very nasty)

When you undo while in the middle of stroke, last part on brush stroke is not stored in undo history. Also mesh gets corrupted. Really not cool, since I didn't save and I couldn't fix nose area :/

Btw. is there a reason why LC brushes are separate from Surface brushes? It is annoying to switch to rapid brushes to LC brush, just to add some tesselation, and then back to Surface brush, and back to LC brush and so on.

I agree about UNDO being problematic from time to time, but why would you ever try UNDO right in the middle of a stroke, to begin with? I'm not surprised it causes issues. It's like sticking your finger under the blade when slicing vegetables...JUST DON'T DO IT....unless you actually want to come up with a digit missing, so to speak.

As for the LiveClay brushes....how is it annoying to switch between LC brushes and other brushes in Surface mode? I don't get it. It's no different than switching from Extrude to Buildup. That's not a hassle. It's just another group of brushes, with different behaviors. Sure, it's primarily for tessellating while you sculpt, but they also have their own unique behaviors. For example...the Inflate Brush. It isn't simply the EXPAND brush with tessellation. It's actually the only real Inflate brush in the entire toolset.

Plus, you can tessellate on the fly by switching either your SHIFT key menu or CTRL + SHIFT key menu to "Extra Detail." This way you don't need to switch brushes to tessellate/reduce/decimate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TvHOvx_xeg&feature=c4-overview-vl&list=PL0614F2A03AD725CD

By the way, Andrew, in those menus ALL DETAIL is misspelled. It should be ADD DETAIL, instead.

[digman]

Awesome job Andrew! I like it a lot - new buildup option. I did some dodle an I found a bug (very nasty)

When you undo while in the middle of stroke, last part on brush stroke is not stored in undo history. Also mesh gets corrupted. Really not cool, since I didn't save and I couldn't fix nose area :/

Btw. is there a reason why LC brushes are separate from Surface brushes? It is annoying to switch to rapid brushes to LC brush, just to add some tesselation, and then back to Surface brush, and back to LC brush and so on.

When you press the Ctrl + Z, pressing Ctrl first will invert the stroke. I corrupted the mesh has well using the same method... I never undo in the middle of a stroke but appears you have found a bug or least come across something 3DCoat cannot perform at the present time which is UnDo in the middle of a stroke.

What AbnRanger is talking about is in the interface top menu (Shown in Picture) plus you can create your own preset brushes and save the brushes in any order you want... You can grab a preset brush and move it up or down the column regardless if they are Surface mode or LC brushes...

[JoseConseco]

AbnRanger - thanks for info. I will try to remember about undo, but this is rally dangerous bug - if I work for one-two hour then all work if for nothing. I tested zbrush and blender (I do not like to compare software but anyway) it is blocking undo from being possible to make, while in the middle of stroke.

Cool trick with the shift and ctrl+shift, that will have to do.

digman - yeap, that ctrl-z is really not cool. Hopefull it wil be fixed. About presets - but can I make rapid brush with LC tesselation? It is just that sculptris spoiled me - and there I did not have to think what brush to use to add geometry. I was automatic, so I could focus just on sculpting and not on tools. I it is actually funny, that with complex softwares like Zbrush or 3d Coat I tend to be less creative, because I think to much about what way I should do this or that. In sculptris there is usually only one way, so I focus only on design .

Anyway one more. Buildup ftw!

And I think I found another bug... when painting spec color in vertex mode. When I make new layer with 'specular color' blending, and fill it with black - specular seems to be not afected. But maybe this works only with textures and not with vertex paint. Who knows...

[ajz3d]

Andrew, I think Snap to 3D grid needs a little bit more love.

http://3d-coat.com/mantis/view.php?id=1229

[AbnRanger]

AbnRanger - thanks for info. I will try to remember about undo, but this is rally dangerous bug - if I work for one-two hour then all work if for nothing. I tested zbrush and blender (I do not like to compare software but anyway) it is blocking undo from being possible to make, while in the middle of stroke.

Cool trick with the shift and ctrl+shift, that will have to do.

digman - yeap, that ctrl-z is really not cool. Hopefull it wil be fixed. About presets - but can I make rapid brush with LC tesselation? It is just that sculptris spoiled me - and there I did not have to think what brush to use to add geometry. I was automatic, so I could focus just on sculpting and not on tools. I it is actually funny, that with complex softwares like Zbrush or 3d Coat I tend to be less creative, because I think to much about what way I should do this or that. In sculptris there is usually only one way, so I focus only on design .

Anyway one more. Buildup ftw!

And I think I found another bug... when painting spec color in vertex mode. When I make new layer with 'specular color' blending, and fill it with black - specular seems to be not afected. But maybe this works only with textures and not with vertex paint. Who knows...

I don't know if Spec color works in Vertex Paint mode, either. But try to just paint the color first, then just switch the blending mode to Spec Color.

[artman]

Awesome job Andrew! I like it a lot - new buildup option. I did some dodle an I found a bug (very nasty)

When you undo while in the middle of stroke, last part on brush stroke is not stored in undo history. Also mesh gets corrupted. Really not cool, since I didn't save and I couldn't fix nose area :/

Btw. is there a reason why LC brushes are separate from Surface brushes? It is annoying to switch to rapid brushes to LC brush, just to add some tesselation, and then back to Surface brush, and back to LC brush and so on.

I understand what you mean about Switching from 2 sections when working...yeah its annoying,but with presets tab docked on the left side you can make it replace leftpanel and have both LC and Surface brush there.

I will upload new presets soon there is clay build brush,new sharp brush,improved flatten/polish,smoother greeble brushes ect...

about undo bug:

I will try to reproduce tomorrow I don't have 3dcoat at work ,just internet.

To do undo in middle of stroke Im guessing you got it assigned on intuos express keys....I don't see any other way.

[TimmyZDesign]

you can make it replace leftpanel and have both LC and Surface brush there.

Really? How do you do that? I've been wanting to try that kind of configuration, but don't know how to move the default brushes panel from being on the left.

Also, is it possible to make the presets just have a text name instead of showing little icons of all the different settings?

[artman]

Really? How do you do that? I've been wanting to try that kind of configuration, but don't know how to move the default brushes panel from being on the left.

Also, is it possible to make the presets just have a text name instead of showing little icons of all the different settings?

You cannot move the default brushes panel from being on the left but you can make them disappear clicking the little arrow on top.

Then you dock preset panel to the left.

About icons,no I dont know how to do it but just text for presets is too small for comfortable fast mouse clicking in my opinion

[TimmyZDesign]

just text for presets is too small for comfortable fast mouse clicking in my opinion

I prefer all of my tools to be text (no icons). Mental recognition is faster for me that way, and I can fit many more tools on the screen at once if they are text. Many of the preset brushes share identical icons anyway. Only the text is different.

Also, I don't like to use the spacebar menu to select tools because that is slower than just moving my hand to the left and selecting the tool from the toolbar with my pen (when using a Wacom Cintiq).

[JoseConseco]

artman - I'm waitin for your brushes, cos they are awesome. Should replace most of default ones.

btw. I there a way to add hotkeys to brushes ?

[JoseConseco]

Ok forget it. End key does the trick.

[popwfx]

Updated to 4.0.05. It is BETA, after approving may be marked as stable. But there was a lot of changes, needs some testing.

- Many surface brushes got 2 new parameters - Normals sampling and Buildup. It is very important for convenient and predictable sculpting.

- New major feature (Split&Joints) in 3D-Coat for 3D-printing: http://pilgway.com/files/SplitNJoint1.png http://pilgway.com/files/Joints2.png

- Lathe tool (one of primitives) - http://bit.ly/14Int9B , other example - http://bit.ly/19Og3YZ

- New principle of pinching introduced - "Angulator" tool. See there - http://www.3d-coat.com/files/Angulator.png

- Primitives/Models may perform intersection or splitting of objects in scene

- Primitives functionality and UI improved, now you may choose boolean operation type - http://www.3d-coat.com/files/SplitPrim.png

- Very nice and convenient grids and snapping improvements! Look there - http://bit.ly/121Xozk , http://bit.ly/17EjLDW

- Lute brush - http://pilgway.com/files/Lute.png

- Spherical/Cylindrical mapping introduced for masks and materials - http://bit.ly/165Lats

- Now every tool in voxel room may be duplucated or hidden via RMB: http://bit.ly/12a9wiS . It allows to replace and customize existing tools

- If ptex scene has multiple objects, it is now possible to export ptx files separately, one ptx file per object. Colored specular/emissive export for ptex done too.

- Several mantis reported problems fixed.

As soon as it will be checked just a bit, I will send sources to Linux/Mac compiling.

The Split & Join for 3D Printing feature is nice thanks! Also glad to see the Spherical & Cylindrical mapping finally! Thanks!!

[popwfx]

I'm generally very grateful of the 3D coat forums as well as the very positive and helpful community here, and my only complaint about it is we often have these 100+ page long threads and the threads' topics wander all over the place from release info, to bugs, to help requests, to other comments. Perhaps things would be easier if thread topics were maintained as strictly as possible (I say as I digress in this thread) ?

That aside, and I certainly don't want to walk in the middle of a discussion/flame war that to me is reminiscent of years ago in the lightwave forums and the reason I stopped going there for a long while (years) as it devolved into arguments and speculation etc. Thankfully it is better now. And hopefully that doesn't end up happening here. But I would like to say, that despite any frustrations I encounter with 3DC (and there have been a few big ones for me - so I understand that frustration) I love 3D Coat (and not in a fanboy way) it is a great tool and I've never experienced as prompt help, courteous and speedy development for problems I encounter than with any other software than here (regardless of company size), so I would like to keep things constructive and moving forward. Thanks Andrew!

I really dig this software, and regarding Zbrush etc -- 3DCoat ain't the only tool in my toolbox. It's a favorite of mine for sure and I really enjoy using it (even with some long standing issues that would be better fixed), but it does enough amazing stuff for me that it is useful as heck to me! Maybe not in all ways I'd like it to be, but in several ways that count. Obviously, I have to jump through hoops with it occasionally and sometimes I hit a brickwall with a bug or issue. But my experience is that Andrew is very helpful (though sometimes brief in responses- but that is to be expected with as much as is on his plate)

Do I want more developers and more clean up of existing issues - yes. But I don't want to be an arm-chair quarterback (or whatever the European equivalent is ) and speculate about a company that is not mine. I'll make my voice known as needed and hope it turns out well. But quite frankly, one project with this tool is more than enough to pay for 3DC and ZB and Substance Designer etc for me a few times over - so 3DC is a great complementary tool and I hope it improves. In general I think it is getting better and to me, in my workflow there are less bugs being introduced than before, though I agree, a battening down of the hatches and refactoring/fixing/in-depth testing of some features might be needed before bigger newer features are added. That being said, v4 is more than good enough for me for now (especially when used with my other tools) - I just try to make sure I don't paint myself in a corner during a tricky/tight-deadlined project if I can at all help it - certainly not with workflow I'm not 100% certain of.

But Keep up the good work Andrew and please when you get a breather - look into this methodology which works wonders (for startups/one-man bands particularly) - it may help you manage your business and your development schedules and choices etc and keep as many customers happy as possible here during your growth. It's called Lean Startup and it might be of some help to you.

p.s. btw, I have appreciated BeatKitano's previous contributions and help and clarification of issues which I'm certain have helped this software. So thank you, Beat, for that. (not sarcasm here)

Edited July 11, 2013 by photonvfx

[ajz3d]

Andrew, why is CUDA smooth boost always disabled after each restart of 3D Coat? Can you make the program to remember this setting please?

---

The report:

http://3d-coat.com/mantis/view.php?id=1231

Edited July 11, 2013 by ajz3d

[ajz3d]

Also, a small report about transform gizmo's size that seems to be dependent on camera's zoom. It's been driving me mad since my first contact with 3D Coat, but I kept forgetting to report it.

It's not a big deal, but I still think it's something that should be dealt with eventually.

http://3d-coat.com/mantis/view.php?id=1230

[Andrew Shpagin]

Updated to 4.0.05H [bETA]

- surface mode brushes tuned a lot to produce good and predictable result. Especially that ones:
Draw, Clay, Flatten, Chiesel, Rapid, Rqapid2, Claws, Claws2, Mud, Mud2, LC, Lute
I especially recommend Rapid, Rapid2 and Flatten with Buildup.
- Problem (relatively rare) with first big spot when brushing with pen finally resolved.
- Better stability of LC & Remove stretching brushing, no more black dots
- Loop subdivision tool implemented in surface tools. It is just regular mesh subdivision, very helpful for accurate detailing.
- Smoother tool to smooth selected area at infinity degree. This is valence independent smotthing of some area regardless on it's topology. Instead of iterative smoothing it solves directly the Poisson equation. There is option to preserve details and get area that preserves general shape but vanishes details.
- Delete all layers changed to Delete unused layers
- Top panel optimized for lower resolution, it may work correctly on 1280x... screen
- Artman's preset included by default. It overwrites existing artman tools once after installing

Mac&Linux builds are coming really soon, within 1 or 2 days

Thanks to Artman for huge help in preparing this build!

[Creator]

Thx.

[Carlosan]

oh wow ! TY !

and TY artman !

testing

[artman]

thanx Andrew!!

for those who wants a backup of presets

artman penpack final ver 1.5.3dcpack

[stusutcliffe]

Good news on the dreaded " Big Spot".

Nice work Artman and of course Andrew.

( nice to see "Scartches" finally corrected!)

Edited July 14, 2013 by stusutcliffe

[wave of light]

Wow guys, thank you so much for this build. Great to have Artman's presets as standard in new builds.

[AbnRanger]

Thanks Andrew and Artman

[digman]

I hope there is no major problems with this build, otherwise the Linux or Mac builds will be delayed again... Ok, don't take me to serious as I have a windows license too but it is an old, old computer that is coughing till it's dying breath... The windows computer is in the ICU right now and I do not feel like visiting it...

Thanks Artman and Andrew for using his input. My own preset brushes are close to Artman's brush presets...

The power of 3Dcoat is creating your own presets, We ask Andrew for that ability quite awhile ago. He gave it to us, Artman took it to heart and then shared his creations with the 3DC communtiy...

You as a artist can fine tune or create new brush presets. It is up to you the artist and your personal style of working...