V4.1 BETA (experimental 4.1.17D)

[AbnRanger]

No argument here.  I would even say we need a freeze tool or mask in the voxel room.  It's really the only reason I go into Surface Mode at all.

Your freeze tool in Voxel mode is the hide tool.

[BeatKitano]

And it's a terrible workaround: not be able to view the surface you wanted intact during sculpt of the affected surface is terrible

[Carlosan]

i asked for those long time ago

http://3d-coat.com/mantis/view.php?id=861

 

 

3DC early version had all the variants of a brush/tool hide in a click menu.

[ajz3d]

Andrew, thank you for finally fixing the WACOM issue (the blob dropped on the mesh on first touch)! And thank you for all your hard work. The latest two builds are awesome, man!

Artman, Digman, BeatKitano, AbnRanger, Carlosa and all... thanks goes to you guys too for your contribution into 3D Coat's development. Some great ideas you're posting here folks. Really awesome ideas and remarks!

3D Coat is developing so rapidly now... I'm impressed!

 

If I might make a suggestion here about a Brush tool in the retopo room. Would it be possible if a user could mark edges that wouldn't be affected by Brush's smoothing operation, or would get a lower smoothing priority (meaning they'd smooth out much, much slower than other edges)? There are always some key edge loops in the model that shouldn't be moved and currently the smoothing operation in the Brush treats every edge the same. This forces a user to move key vertices into their former positions afterwards.

 

Also, Carlosa asked about a possibility to not triangulate the mesh on import. This would be great, for stuff like blendshapes or for simply adjusting the shape of the imported mesh . I'm fully aware that the tweak room is for this kind of a deal, but tools available in this room are IMHO much inferior to the full spectrum offered by voxel room's surface tools tools (non-LC of course). Maybe include a modal window that would ask a user whether he wants to triangulate the mesh for detail sculpting or keep a vertex order in order to do tweaks? And triangulate the mesh only when a user converts it to voxels or starts sculpting with one of the LiveClay tool or enables remove stretching? You could probably get rid of the tweak room once and for all.

 

P.S. The soft clay preset explodes the mesh on my install too (4.0.06)

[SilverCity]

I agree. The Surface mode brushes are on the threshold of something amazing. But like any construction project, there is always some cleanup necessary afterward. I think matching the voxel brushes with the Surface mode brushes is necessary. For example, CLAY in Voxel mode should behave very similar to the way CLAY does in Surface mode. And BUILD should likewise be very close to Buildup and BuildClay, in Surface mode. Is that really too much to ask?

+1

This is a real problem for new users. For the advanced user it's nice to have so many options, but it takes a lot of experimentation to figure out how one brush differs from another. Maybe certain brushes that are similar can be merged and their differences can be enabled within the Tool Options window. For example, Rapid and Rapid2 can be combined and a checkbox for Smoothing will alter it's behavior.

 

I created my own presets so this has simplified my workflow, but it took a long time to get to this point.

 

+1 also, to using the Tool Options window to hold the attributes of each Brush/Tool. The top tool bar is too crowded right now. Maybe, leave the common options (Depth, Falloff, Radius, Smoothing) but everything else should go in the Tool Options window. 

Edited July 21, 2013 by SilverCity

[TimmyZDesign]

I AM TOTALLY AMAZED!!!!!! I finally got a chance to download the 4.0.06A BETA Version, and I can't believe how great the brushes in Surface mode are now! REALLY GOOD! The new Lathe tool is also very useful!

 

Big thanks to Andrew and Artman!

 

Some questions:

 

1) Can we please have text mode for the Presets panel? Icon + Drawing Mode + Alpha + Name...is taking too much space on the screen. I only want the name (no icons or anything else).

 

2) If you right-click on a tool in the Default Tools panel, then you have the option to duplicate the tool. But will this new tool save all of the same settings as a preset? Is this a way to create presets which will sit in the Default Tools panel?

[jcue]

I agree..the updated brushes work great.  Thanks for the hard work. 

[Andrew Shpagin]

I AM TOTALLY AMAZED!!!!!! I finally got a chance to download the 4.0.06A BETA Version, and I can't believe how great the brushes in Surface mode are now! REALLY GOOD! The new Lathe tool is also very useful!

 

Big thanks to Andrew and Artman!

 

Some questions:

 

1) Can we please have text mode for the Presets panel? Icon + Drawing Mode + Alpha + Name...is taking too much space on the screen. I only want the name (no icons or anything else).

 

2) If you right-click on a tool in the Default Tools panel, then you have the option to duplicate the tool. But will this new tool save all of the same settings as a preset? Is this a way to create presets which will sit in the Default Tools panel?

1. Ok, done, in next build it will be accessible via presets RMB option.

2. There is difference in comparison to presets. The duplicated tool acts like tool rather than preset. When you changing settings in duplicated tool they will be stored each time when you change current tool. Presets are storing settings when you are creating or manually updating them. So, choose what behavior you like. When you activating preset initial settings will be used, when activating duplicated tool - last used settings.

[Carlosan]

import a model for PPP

 

save

 

switch to sculpt room

 

crash

 

 

anyone ?

[manticor]

Andrew is it possible to assign hotkeys to the rooms panels so it would be possible to have a sticky to temporarily switch rooms .

So it would be possible to sculpt a material/mask and then press a key to switch to paint room with a standard white brush already set up to paint over the area that was just sculpted then release the key to switch back into sculpt mode.

 

I looked for the hotkeys for each room but couldn't seem to find them listed anywhere and the panels dont do anything when I hover over them and press end key.

[BeatKitano]

Yeah you can't do that right now, I've been wanting this too lately because the sculpt is so clean now that I often want to preview with render room, but unfortunately can't (I even tried to assign a shortcut to the render button but no luck).

If I remember right this was asked in the ui overhaul doc with the color coding per room (for highlited tools).

 

The brushes feel really nice now, I can finaly do clean edges on clothes by hand something I couldn't achieve without using curves tools and whatnot. It's actually easier than in zbrush now.

And man, the eyelids. The nightmare it was before those changes (couldn't do those without wavy edges), it's a breeze now, again:easier than on zbrush due to local tesselation:)

[manticor]

Thats a shame..

 

Well fingers crossed 

[TimmyZDesign]

1. Ok, done, in next build it will be accessible via presets RMB option.

2. There is difference in comparison to presets. The duplicated tool acts like tool rather than preset. When you changing settings in duplicated tool they will be stored each time when you change current tool. Presets are storing settings when you are creating or manually updating them. So, choose what behavior you like. When you activating preset initial settings will be used, when activating duplicated tool - last used settings.

Thank you!

[gbball]

Guys,

 

I was thinking there shouldn't be a render room, but instead, just a render mode like in blender, where you could work in realtime and have the render going at the same time.  So you'd just press a key or a button and all your render options would come up in a window and you could still work on your mesh while it renders.

[Andrew Shpagin]

Actually with sticky keys you may switch rooms.

Add preset for desired room, assign hotkey to preset.

 

Nice sculpt, Beat!

[BeatKitano]

True for all the rooms except render (unless I miss something) since there's no "tool" to add as preset.

[artman]

True for all the rooms except render (unless I miss something) since there's no "tool" to add as preset.

No need for tools,just press Add preset while in Render room.

[BeatKitano]

Ok. Undocumented feature then ? :>

Tnx a lot Artman,  no need to ask for a feature then ^^.

[manticor]

Just tried the preset hotkey bind thing...works a treat .3DCoat continues to amaze

 

Thanks Andrew

[Creator]

1) When i'm exporting textures from paint room (without "fill empty space" option), alpha channel seems to be only 50% transparent. It's a bug or i'm doing something wrong? I'm using last stable build.

2) I can run custom XML UI in AngelScript, is there an option to run custom function from my UI? I know i can use vox(), merge() etc. but it would be nice to use self-written functions/procedures.

Edit:

New brushes kick ass.

Edited July 22, 2013 by Creator

[ajz3d]

Any chance of fixing the Soft Clay preset? I've just downloaded the 4.0.06A, but the brush still explodes the mesh after a while.

Please! This was one of the best brushes!

[ajz3d]

Looks like Clean Surface can explode meshes as well.

What I did before it happened is:

1. Loaded up the default actor model.

2. Converted to surface.

3. Applied Clean Surface

4. Sculpted a bit with Soft Clay

5. Converted to voxels.

6. Reduced the density to 800k.

7. Converted to surface.

8. Applied Clean Surface.

BLAM! Mesh exploded.

 

P.S. I can send the file. It's saved just before point #8. Explodes every time after Clean Surface is invoked.

Edited July 23, 2013 by ajz3d

[BeatKitano]

YOu don't want to mix clean surface/resym with multiple surface<>voxel conversions. Ever. Don't say it's clean surface acting up, it's much more deeper than that, the problem has always been around and VERY random (and that's why Andrew can't fix it).

 

That's why I say when you're in surface, you stay in surface. (except for some boolean operations tricky in surface you don't really need voxels now).

 

And Artman said SoftClay is broken and he know's it trigger mesh explosion that's why he said to not use it.

You don't want a destructive brush in your workflow, all his presets are safe, some default brush definitely aren't (wrinkle clay beware !).

[ajz3d]

These are dire news indeed.

Can you recommend an alternative brush/Artman's preset to Soft Clay?

[gbball]

Use clay or claybuild from his new presets...those work amazingly well. 

 

The default clay brush is excellent too.  Especially with remove stretching on.  Try it on a mesh with about 1million triangles, you'll love it.

 

-G

 

Edit:  I made the same mistake, getting constant explosion using softclay preset.  Then I realized it was from an older version of the Artman presets.

Edited July 23, 2013 by gbball

[BeatKitano]

I use it (default clay) as my secondary clay brush, Artman's clay is nice but it still an "elevate in the radius" brush. You can't hide the square alpha unless using a very large falloff, which defeat the purpose of the brush.

It's not always ideal for organic shapes that's why I like to use default clay + a somewhat "flat" (the flat circle with soft edge only modified to fade more on the edges) as a secondary clay brush. That way you avoid the "blobby" clay with a more regular stroke and yet retain more organic quality.

 

@gbball

 

Yes softclay IS NOT in the default preset package.

[artman]

These are dire news indeed.

Can you recommend an alternative brush/Artman's preset to Soft Clay?

Default Clay (default one not my preset) + the  soft alpha pen should gives you a soft clay feeling I think.

 

I prefer my Clay brush to be much harder so I can retain more of the natural creases it creates when strokes overlap as I  use those as a base for  wrinkles.

[ajz3d]

Thank you folks, I now use both: Artman's Clay and default Clay. Both are fantastic.

 

I'm not sure if it's already been mentioned here, and do forgive me if it was (this thread has over 100 pages), but the CreaseClay can produce holes in specific parts of a sculpture. For example, in character I'm currently working on, there are exactly two fixed areas that always open up when I brush them with CreaseClay. A curious fact is that after those holes show up, nothing (even Undo) is able to eliminate them or bring the surface to its previous state. The only thing that helps is reloading the scene.

 

 

[artman]

Thank you folks, I now use both: Artman's Clay and default Clay. Both are fantastic.

 

I'm not sure if it's already been mentioned here, and do forgive me if it was (this thread has over 100 pages), but the CreaseClay can produce holes in specific parts of a sculpture. For example, in character I'm currently working on, there are exactly two fixed areas that always open up when I brush them with CreaseClay. A curious fact is that after those holes show up, nothing (even Undo) is able to eliminate them or bring the surface to its previous state. The only thing that helps is reloading the scene.

Could be good to send file to support@3d-coat.com so Andrew can inspect it.

[digman]

Sometimes

 

Thank you folks, I now use both: Artman's Clay and default Clay. Both are fantastic.

 

I'm not sure if it's already been mentioned here, and do forgive me if it was (this thread has over 100 pages), but the CreaseClay can produce holes in specific parts of a sculpture. For example, in character I'm currently working on, there are exactly two fixed areas that always open up when I brush them with CreaseClay. A curious fact is that after those holes show up, nothing (even Undo) is able to eliminate them or bring the surface to its previous state. The only thing that helps is reloading the scene.

You could try to use the Clean up Memory under the voxel menu (if you have not done so yet) before using the crease brush. I seen it fix problems but sometimes caused a mesh explosion as well.  Also once the hole is created you could try and paint around the hole using the reconstruct brush. Another user said at times this fixes some holes in the mesh but you will a little clean up to do.

 

Yes, send the file to Andrew... There are still some lingering hole producing bugs in Surface and LC mode.