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V4.1 BETA (experimental 4.1.17D)


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I hope that Raul when he returns will have time to look into the reason the Surface / LC algorithm is producing the surface small noise we get when brushing. Some brushes are better than others. Most of us know how to get rid of it but not having the surface noise created when brushing would be great. Andrew is really progessing along in the brush engine and this would boost the entire brushing experience up several notches for Surface / LC mode...

 

Andrew and Artman, you guys are working great improvements... Thank you! :drinks:

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dot cursor is nice

 

could be the yellow circle beeee... less yellow with more transparency ?

and red less red ?

please

-----------------------

 

and there is an invisible box at the top right hiding the mouse cursor when you navigate near the close program X button

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dot cursor is nice

 

could be the yellow circle beeee... less yellow with more transparency ?

and red less red ?

please

-----------------------

 

and there is an invisible box at the top right hiding the mouse cursor when you navigate near the close program X button

 

You can change the circle color in edit>preferences>brushing not the alpha though

 

I don't have the invisible box you're talking about.

 

Andrew: slight tweak: preferences dialog title bar changes, when you open it it says preferences (like in the menu, so it's good), but if you click on a section it changes to OPTIONS.

 

Another thing 3dcoat got for itself: working on a single resolution (no subdiv level) 16M mesh doesn't affect performance one bit, try to do that on a dynamesh project with the same polycount in zbrush :)

It's nothing new I know but since now the basic brushset provided by Artman fills the gap between the two software regarding brush handling, I can't help but notice the other differences like the higher performances on 3DC.

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Am I the only one getting mesh explosions when switching from voxel mode to surface mode and using the rapid2 (softclay) brush?

 

please help Andrew with this issue...its important.

Please send report+screenshoot to support@3d-coat.com

or even maybe send .3b file just before converting to voxels

or video would be great too if not too hard.

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On another note:

After extensively testing the vox room (surface mode, I barely use voxel anymore, except to lay down some clay to create new meshes), I got one crash (using move tool), no crash report that I couldn't send, one or two mesh corruptions (explosion and tears), but nothing that can't be fixed with close holes/reconstruct.

There may be a lot of bugs in other room (didn't try them, only paint which has problem with symmetry painting on vox mesh) so it's time to say it if you find some, but otherwise the brush handling quality made such a huge step forward I really think this should be put as the trial version. Cause with those last changes it's definitely changing the way new users will see the software regarding sculpting.

 

It's not crashy as some beta have been in the past, and it's a huge step forward (imo what should've been labelled as v4 ^^)

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I have a

 

On another note:

After extensively testing the vox room (surface mode, I barely use voxel anymore, except to lay down some clay to create new meshes), I got one crash (using move tool), no crash report that I couldn't send, one or two mesh corruptions (explosion and tears), but nothing that can't be fixed with close holes/reconstruct.

There may be a lot of bugs in other room (didn't try them, only paint which has problem with symmetry painting on vox mesh) so it's time to say it if you find some, but otherwise the brush handling quality made such a huge step forward I really think this should be put as the trial version. Cause with those last changes it's definitely changing the way new users will see the software regarding sculpting.

 

It's not crashy as some beta have been in the past, and it's a huge step forward (imo what should've been labelled as v4 ^^)

I have noticed some oddities in the past 2 builds.

1) When brushing there is a very noticeable jaggedness introduced with EVERY brush stroke. It's as if 3D Coat is making ALL edges sharp and it shows.

2) The thumbnails are now MUCH, MUCH smaller....NORMAL size is super tiny, and TINY is microscopic

3) What is the deal with Artman's presets. If I clear my own set, so I can see what new brushes Artman added, I get nothing after re-installing the app. How is this constituted as the DEFAULT set of Preset brushes if we have to go to the website DOWNLOAD section to get them?

4) Whenever I have installed a new version and am given the option to open the app from the install dialog box, I can't get ANY of my hotkeys to work on my 3D Connection device. But once I open that app from the desktop, it's no problem. Only happens when starting from the install screen.

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1) Looks like you're using surface without removestretching on an "unprepared" surface (marching cubes pattern: voxel menu>clean surface). I'm saying it in case you forgot about it but I doubt it ^^

I recall seing that kind of surface discontinuity in the past (maybe before using removestretching AT ALL TIMES), try with those options but it looks like a bug.

 

2)Weird, may be related to .xml files I don't get that.

 

3) Ah, worth looking at, if someone is advised to remove the app and don't get Artman's preset back on reinstall it's a real issue.

 

4) Can't help you, I stopped using My space pilot pro. My guts tell me the drivers don't recognize the app as 3dcoat but as its installer, the app class must be different therefore the switch to the proper profile is not done. When starting from desktop it spawn as "self" process, not the child of the installer.

 

 

AbnRanger: I see claysoft in your top left corner as selected tool, I presume it's a custom preset, but I wonder :how did you get preset names up there, it's something I wanted to ask Andrew about as he added preset hilighting but we're still stuck with base tools in that area.

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1) Looks like you're using surface without removestretching on an "unprepared" surface (marching cubes pattern: voxel menu>clean surface). I'm saying it in case you forgot about it but I doubt it ^^

I recall seing that kind of surface discontinuity in the past (maybe before using removestretching AT ALL TIMES), try with those options but it looks like a bug.

 

2)Weird, may be related to .xml files I don't get that.

 

3) Ah, worth looking at, if someone is advised to remove the app and don't get Artman's preset back on reinstall it's a real issue.

 

4) Can't help you, I stopped using My space pilot pro. My guts tell me the drivers don't recognize the app as 3dcoat but as its installer, the app class must be different therefore the switch to the proper profile is not done. When starting from desktop it spawn as "self" process, not the child of the installer.

I have never liked using "Remove Stretching" as it always makes the app pause for a second on each stroke...and I hate that. It's ok if I am using the MOVE tool or something, but not a brush. And if these "new" brush behaviors produce this ugly pattern with every stroke, let's put it back the way it was. This is NOT better. What's more, it's doing this on default objects from the splash screen. Not some old model.

 

As for the 3dconnexion issue...I was able to start from that screen without this issue until V4 was released. Something changed to produce this.

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Oo ? Pause for one sec ? I would have agreed with you when they were first introduced, but now I don't see any reason to not use them (unless you want to keep your topology intact), it's instant. If you have lag the issue lies somewhere else really.

 

 

 

As for the 3dconnexion issue...I was able to start from that screen without this issue until V4 was released. Something changed to produce this.

 

Andrew probably changed the way the app is executed from the installer. Or maybe it's a window security feature stoppind the driver to access a program executed from another level access.

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I have never liked using "Remove Stretching" as it always makes the app pause for a second on each stroke...and I hate that. It's ok if I am using the MOVE tool or something, but not a brush. And if these "new" brush behaviors produce this ugly pattern with every stroke, let's put it back the way it was. This is NOT better. What's more, it's doing this on default objects from the splash screen. Not some old model.

 

 

Just tried, it's exactly as I remember it, it was creating those patterns before, at least on my machine. You need to ask others to see if I'm not remembering wrong (it's been ages I've used brushes with removestretching activated), but I don't see something different than before those last builds.

 

This is what I get with startup sphere, removestretching off and clay brush

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Oo ? Pause for one sec ? I would have agreed with you when they were first introduced, but now I don't see any reason to not use them (unless you want to keep your topology intact), it's instant. If you have lag the issue lies somewhere else really.

 

 

Andrew probably changed the way the app is executed from the installer. Or maybe it's a window security feature stoppind the driver to access a program executed from another level access.

It's not as noticeable on a low-med res object, but I noticed the pause since V4 was released. It would happen when making tutorials, if I switched to a preset that had it enabled.

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It's not as noticeable on a low-med res object, but I noticed the pause since V4 was released. It would happen when making tutorials, if I switched to a preset that had it enabled.

 

I had a few "lags" like I've encountered before, but it happens once or twice and it's not related to the stroke but switching tools. I've worked with very dense models (20-30 millions sometimes) with removestretching activated and never the retesselation has forced me to stop brushing. You can continue to work, the update will still happen when you're done brushing for a little while (a few 100 ms).

 

it's really weird you encounter lags with removestretching, other may confirm or infirm but I would say it comes from your machine. In any case I can understand you don't want to use removestretching (and see cases where you need not to) so this needs to be fixed. But I'm surprised you get such important artefacts with so little change to the general surface, I don't have that issue.

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[..]

and there is an invisible box at the top right hiding the mouse cursor when you navigate near the close program X button

Yes, if I move the mouse near top right corner (closer than 100pixels?) the mouse pointer disappears and have to close 3DC with a custom shortcut (CTRL+Q).

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Issue in Don pics looks like shader issue to me....it seems he is using a non-depth picmat shader.

 

Surfacemode/Liveclay should be used with depth shaders only.

 

 

About rRemovestrtching lag...

 

No lags on my side on q8200 with 6gb ram and gtx280.

 

If you dont like Removestrtching just disable it and update preset...no need to revert whole brush engine to how it was before :) ...

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I have a

 

I have noticed some oddities in the past 2 builds.

1) When brushing there is a very noticeable jaggedness introduced with EVERY brush stroke. It's as if 3D Coat is making ALL edges sharp and it shows.

copy/paste from another thread

--------------------------------------------

Mantis example done using Draw and Extrude in sculpt mode. Both have crossed diagonals dont matter the brush direction, this means, it doesnt change the diagonals direction

http://3d-coat.com/mantis/view.php?id=1228

 

Work everything with Removestretching is the only solution ?

 

Question

Why sculpt or voxel mode triangulate the base mesh ? Is there any way to work without triangles ?

 

ty

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Question

Why sculpt or voxel mode triangulate the base mesh ? Is there any way to work without triangles ?

Quads are 2 triangles....there is always triangles even if you dont see them. :)

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Every 3d software, everywhere works with triangle. 3dcoat with voxels is working with marching cubes which is just another name for "every triangle confirguration needed to produce every shape approximation".

500px-MarchingCubes.svg.png

Surface brushes work with whatever topo you have, but without removestretching it creates stretching, and if your topology is not good enough for your shapes you'll get those issues.

Lc/surface+removestretching is just a way to add triangle where stretching is too visible. It creates more "regular" triangles when needed. 

 

So in short: No there's no way to avoid seing the triangles, unless Andrew creates a subdivision sculpt room and you only use quad based models here (but it's still triangles though ^^).

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, unless Andrew creates a subdivision sculpt room and you only use quad based models here.

and under the hood it would still be triangles....its like asking for water without hydrogen.

 

I think what carlosan is asking for is Liveclay brushes to produce topology that follows the details direction 

....its impossible :) ...maybe in 5 years..its like autoretopology on the fly combined with brush behavior....that would bring any computer to its knees just doing basic brush strokes..

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I'm not even sure that would solve his problem, there's always loops to be created and that would mean bad choice in transitional surfaces for an automated process. You'd still fight the newly created topology. 

The best way to manage that is to use removestretching and continue to refine brush control.

 

So far the progress are huge, if you can keep the overal shapes smooth (transition between different area densities) then it's easy, the only remaining thing to do to make all kind of shape easy to create is to give the tools to control the flow.

 

Basicaly sculpting can be thought as two "systems": shaping and creasing.

 

Shaping means giving volume (inflating) or constructing masses. Creasing is establishing "constrasting" elements which serves as landmarks.

There's no other system as flattening is essentialy shaping between two creases.

 

So:

 

As "broad smooth" shapes are easily doable with removestretching, only the tight linear "creases/ridges" are remaining as an obstacle. And latest pinch+removestretching help with this: it keeps the creased area together to avoid the "jaggy" effect from tris not following the flow of the stroke, and keep the density under control as edges which are too small get consumed by the retesselation process.

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my point

 

try to LC strokes with Sculptris and 3DC

 

using sculptris, the triangles follow the strokes direction, and they are not keeping the same area... every triangle streach -and are more big more tiny- following the strokes

 

using 3DC LC BRUSH* every triangle have the same proportion without follow the artist stroke... just are created dividing the area and nothing more

 

the algorithm works in a very different way

 

* edited

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please help Andrew with this issue...its important.

Please send report+screenshoot to support@3d-coat.com

or even maybe send .3b file just before converting to voxels

or video would be great too if not too hard.

 

It's pretty easy to reproduce, just start a new scene, choose voxel sculpting, medium sphere, turn on symmetry, couple of strokes with grow brush, pick the softclay preset... this is where things get a little weird? sometimes 3dcoat doesnt do the auto switch to surface mode, if it does everything appears to be fine but if it stays in voxel mode after activating the preset there are random explosions. at least that is what appears to be happening.

 

I'm using the most recent build, happens in both gl and dx versions of the non cuda builds,  windows 7 x64, i5-2500k, firepro v5800 in case any of that matters.

post-9038-0-91632500-1374324056_thumb.pn

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@carlosan

 

The algorithm you're describing was used a long time ago, it was great as long as you kept somewhat "similar" densities. If you use a high density stroke on a low density area you had what I call "superpoles" which are essentialy vertices with 5-6 edges. It's TERRIBLE, you don't want that, ever, in your sculpt, it's a mess to smooth out you will never get a smooth surface with that, and you'll get nasty areas around it with tris buildup.

 

In your example you're showing heavy tesselation stroke on a somewhat regular surface, you can get the same effect (but better result) in 3dcoat if you chose the same condition (with a liveclay brush, not removestretching, which is not a 'detailer', just a 'smoother' option).

 

@Gravin, I don't understand everyone use this softclay brush, I don't see it by default. Care to share it ?

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No but I know what you mean, you mean all the weird spiral/loops that get in a LC stroke compared to plain triangle in sculptris. And I just answered your question: it looks weird, seems unpractical, but yet it's better for transitional surfaces.

In the past 3dc worked that way too, and it was a mess to clean up those poles in certain area (corner of noses/eyelids/lips and many other cases on simple large smooth surfaces).

Basicaly the software was putting those in random places, exactly like an inexperienced artist modeling a character for the first time would do: putting those special vertices randomly in their edgeflow while they need to be strategicaly placed for sculpting and/or animating.

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@Gravin, I don't understand everyone use this softclay brush, I don't see it by default. Care to share it ?

Its an old preset and should not be used in current build...I've trashed it for quite some times now.

Imo its pretty bad...compared to my actual clay presets.

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I found that if you choose the SMOOTH tool in Surface mode > choose RELAX and nothing else, that you can now brush without any geometry patterns showing. It's really just nasty geometry, that is the cause of the issue, because when you turn wireframe on, you can see there the patterns have extra geometry with lots of long,skinny triangles along the loops in the mesh. Smoothing spreads all the tris out where it's no longer so nasty.

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