V4.1 BETA (experimental 4.1.17D)

[haikalle 315]

There is one problem I'm still seeing.

 

If you start with default sphere (surface mode) and then choose LiveClay brush. Detail set to 5.0. Now try to do very long stroke. You can do it quite slowly.

You can press W (show wireframe) to see the problem better. First the stroke start ok. density level is ok but after continuing you can see that suddenly density 

level stops and then comes back. Hope you can understand what I mean. Other than that problem I don't see anything bad. It's all good. 

 

Edited December 8, 2013 by haikalle

[artman 186]

OkI went and finally tested the brush I never use...the dreaded Reduce brush (not using shift but  using Cleanclay with very unsafe values).

 

I used it in a very reckless manner using very low values and doing strokes with other brushes crossing areas of ridiculously high density next to areas that are very low density and.....no holes!!!!   Thats a very good test to witness the work you guys did.

Its like Liveclay is not experimental anymore but a truly safe sculpting solution....

[BeatKitano 321]

I wouldn't go as far as Artman about safety (yet ^^), but one thing is for sure: with the responsiveness increasing dramaticaly I'm sure more traditional sculptors are gonna jump onboard.

Mudbox got a few hooked by it's simplicity and butter smooth brush engine (up to a certain polycount), with the freeform advantage that 3dcoat offers + this new speed, it's sure to gain the attention of that crowd quickly.

 

The new changes, which are somehow magic since I can't put my finger on it but are very noticeable (wtf ?) also make the overall liveclay meshing much more consistant, and I don't know if changes were made to the smooth algorithm but it's much easier to get a clean surface. I can't tell if the clean aspect is the result of a more progressive tesselation algorithm or if smooth is 10 times better at averaging the surface.

Either way I don't get that jagged edge problem when I wanted well defined creases and angle. I don't get that feeling that the topology gets new polygon on each stroke, it feel so smooth it really feel like that blob of clay before me is truly that: clay. It's hard to explain but it feels right.

 

My idea of a sculpting software is: If you can give tool that make "organic" hard surface sculpting possible without worrying about the mesh topology, because organic sculpt doesn't need that degree of control, then you won. When one can do more it can do less in short

It certainly look like 3dcoat is finaly achieving that goal.

 

Good job Andrew and Raul !

[artman 186]

ok one more  ultraviolent test :

 

-I squeezed model at center line with move brush to get an awful surface to work on.

 

-Then a used a ton of heavy LC brushing around symmetry line

 

-Then I used Sym Copy

 

-Then I used some more heavy brushing along Sym line.

 

-Then I used Reduce brush recklessly and unevenly along some sections of symmetry line

 

-Then Sym copy again...(can't be more violent than that)

 

Then some more brushing around sym line.... NO HOLES,NO SPIKES.

 

Im 100% sure I would have gotten holes/spikes  in previous build.

[artman 186]

 but one thing is for sure: with the responsiveness increasing dramaticaly I'm sure more traditional sculptors are gonna jump onboard.

Mudbox got a few hooked by it's simplicity and butter smooth brush engine (up to a certain polycount), with the freeform advantage that 3dcoat offers + this new speed, it's sure to gain the attention of that crowd quickly.

At this point only agressive showcasing will get that into peoples head....

So you know what to do: get us a "few " CGHUB editor's pick man. Just 2 or 3... hahaha

[BeatKitano 321]

 

 

Question Artman: did you try it with Cuda version ?

Cause I'm anxious to use it, too many issues in the past, is it stable/safe and how does it fare performance-wise compared to simple version ?

[Andrew Shpagin 1,519]

Thanks for testing!

Not all brushes completely translated to new approach. Inflate/general still use old approach at least partially. After this successful test we will apply changes to all brushes. Possibly tomorrow I will re-upload with complete change.

[BeatKitano 321]

Awesome work Andrew, I REALLY hope it doesn't create holes/tears cause that's so much better now it would really be a hard hit on the experience.

 

Oh btw, for those working on old projects using this build: beware if your meshes are corrupted before hand (it doesn't always show, the shoulder canon of my current sculpt is corrupt and only show in zbrush) you'll get tears/holes.

 

So to have a clean experience don't use the build on older project for bug reporting. 

[BeatKitano 321]

Ahaha, awesome, the funny detail that show you how much it changed: no more self intersecting buttcracks Creaseclay is now predictable.

[artman 186]

 

 

Question Artman: did you try it with Cuda version ?

Cause I'm anxious to use it, too many issues in the past, is it stable/safe and how does it fare performance-wise compared to simple version ?

I've always used only Cuda version....so I dont know how it compare with simple.

[artman 186]

I've also experienced the same issue as Haikalle ...it seems details values above 4 will makes some brushes "skip" some surface

 

 

Thanks for testing!

Not all brushes completely translated to new approach. Inflate/general still use old approach at least partially. After this successful test we will apply changes to all brushes. Possibly tomorrow I will re-upload with complete change.

That would be great!!

[BeatKitano 321]

Surface control is top notch, here's the result of my test starting with 4.0.11A release: I couldn't get surface this clean before. This actually feel more forgiving than competitor products. I don't hesitate to modify a surface in fear of not getting it as clean. This is two parts: arms and the rest, I wanted to see if I could get hard angles without compromising close parts. The new routine gets angle changes much better and it's now easy to sculpt whatever comes to mind without using freeze all the time.

 

(2Millions polys)

[Andrew Shpagin 1,519]

Nice sculpt!

Freeze currently not works in LC, deforming painted surface not works as well. This will be corrected in nearest update.

[Andrew Shpagin 1,519]

Mac & Linux 4.0.11 uploaded.

11A (or B ) will be uploaded when mentioned issues will be fixed.

[haikalle 315]

I've also experienced the same issue as Haikalle ...it seems details values above 4 will makes some brushes "skip" some surface

 

Good to hear that I'm not the only one. I think that this issue is related to relationship to surface density

you are going to paint and LC detail number and size of brush. Here is another picture. I used reduce tool to reduce sphere density a little bit. Then I used LC with detail = 2.85 and

it gives  same results.

 

 

But like I said before. This update is huge step foward. Sculpting is really fun with the latest version.

Edited December 8, 2013 by haikalle

[b33nine 21]

Btw, another request would be for a consistent universal transform gizmo for all transform and pose operations.

 Yes please. The pose tool gizmos are incredibly awkward, not sure why they can't be the regular transform gizmos.

[farsthary 139]

Hi

 

Thanks for your feedback, and there's more coming :P

 

@Haikalle and Artman:

That is not actually an error, is a limitation we had imposed hard-coded on the amount of faces per-cell around 20K triangles , during subdivision, because Andrew and I thought artist don't need to go crazy with such high poly-count in large strokes anyway. This can easily be changed (or exposed to the artist in detrimental of the simplicity) or even completely removed but your RAM can suffer if go crazy with tiny polygons. But after each end of stroke, cells are rearranged so the counter is reset, meaning is not a real limitation on how many detail you can achieve, but on a single stroke continuously only.

Anyway, we can increase it since performance now is so good that average artist PC has more room to spare

 

As more good news I've improved further subdivision algorithm and now is even faster, robust and "topologically beautiful" under any circumstances.

[farsthary 139]

Also one thing: the update you have is only partial, new changes are not propagated to all LC tools, so that's why you can still get holes and errors on some tools or combination of them, but don't worry, in new update all tools will be fixed

[artman 186]

Also one thing: the update you have is only partial, new changes are not propagated to all LC tools, so that's why you can still get holes and errors on some tools or combination of them, but don't worry, in new update all tools will be fixed

Awesome!!

[ajz3d 786]

I'm speechless!

Fantastic work guys! Thank you!

[artman 186]

 

 

@Haikalle and Artman:

That is not actually an error, is a limitation we had imposed hard-coded on the amount of faces per-cell around 20K triangles , during subdivision, because Andrew and I thought artist don't need to go crazy with such high poly-count in large strokes anyway. This can easily be changed (or exposed to the artist in detrimental of the simplicity) or even completely removed but your RAM can suffer if go crazy with tiny polygons. But after each end of stroke, cells are rearranged so the counter is reset, meaning is not a real limitation on how many detail you can achieve, but on a single stroke continuously only.

Anyway, we can increase it since performance now is so good that average artist PC has more room to spare

 

well it was just for testing purpose,personnaly  I don't use brushes that go above 4 detail value...

[digman 1,207]

I will wait for the new Linux update beyond 4..0.11 as the new brush speeds seems worth the wait...

 

Yes, please remove limitations on the amount of polygons in adding detail... We all are all big boys and girls here...  The limitation of only being able to set it to "5 "in the detail setting is hindering... This applies to large strokes or small... If we screw up then it is our fault not you...

 

In 3.7 we were not limited... again please return to this...

[AbnRanger 1,574]

 Yes please. The pose tool gizmos are incredibly awkward, not sure why they can't be the regular transform gizmos.

If you choose to work in Freeform mode, you can lasso select control points and you get a regular transform gizmo. I like the default gizmo for what it does. If I need more control, I just use the FFD mode.

[AbnRanger 1,574]

Also one thing: the update you have is only partial, new changes are not propagated to all LC tools, so that's why you can still get holes and errors on some tools or combination of them, but don't worry, in new update all tools will be fixed

Thanks, Raul. I noticed that if I have Vertex Paint applied to a model, and go back to use LiveClay to increase the resolution in an area, LiveClay deletes/destroys the paint information in the area I brush. It just started doing this with 4.0.11A

[AbnRanger 1,574]

Hi

 

Thanks for your feedback, and there's more coming :P

 

@Haikalle and Artman:

That is not actually an error, is a limitation we had imposed hard-coded on the amount of faces per-cell around 20K triangles , during subdivision, because Andrew and I thought artist don't need to go crazy with such high poly-count in large strokes anyway. This can easily be changed (or exposed to the artist in detrimental of the simplicity) or even completely removed but your RAM can suffer if go crazy with tiny polygons. But after each end of stroke, cells are rearranged so the counter is reset, meaning is not a real limitation on how many detail you can achieve, but on a single stroke continuously only.

Anyway, we can increase it since performance now is so good that average artist PC has more room to spare

 

As more good news I've improved further subdivision algorithm and now is even faster, robust and "topologically beautiful" under any circumstances.

Yeah, I don't go over a value of 5, either....so, maybe leave it the way it, is by default, but give the user a warning if they try to add a value larger than 5.