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3D-Coat Retopology in 4.0 Beta


welchrs64
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Pretty amazing at how diverse your skills are. Engineering, programming...now game creation? Hat's off, to ya. Having said that, if you want to teach 3D at some point, then finishing a degree would certainly be important. I would say one thing school did help and that is having to take anatomy and life drawing classes I otherwise would not have taken, probably. Principles of Animation and Character Animation as well. Modeling and texturing....didn't learn anything I didn't know already, except doing so in Maya. I would highly recommend finishing it at a State institution, if possible, and not a private school, like Art Institute or ITT. Those schools will rake you over the coals, financially, as they are simply in it to make bank...and lots of it. And you'll come away with a mill stone of debt hanging around your neck.

On another note, the more you narrow your tools down, the more productive you'll be in them. All the different tools out there to use....it's like being a kid in a candy store. And it never stops. There is always something cool one app or renderer does, that entices you. But I find it's best to just settle on one main 3D App (that can do everything you want it to do), and one texture/sculpting app. When you factor in cost, and you are doing personal/freelance work, it really is hard to beat Blender and 3D Coat. If you want to stay current in an app., so it's easier to find work in most studios, then you do need to consider Autodesk apps, Lightwave or C4D.

Thanks AdnRanger! you are so right about getting enticed by all the various tools, I am in recent months coming out of that phase. It seemed there was always something on sale or that seemed it could make a Character with easy staples button or get your game level working instantly. I ended up with a few redundant tools like for example I have a Silo License but didn't end up leaning on it for my go to modeling tool, The same thing happened with Messiah and now it looks like rigging is not so hard in Blender and I have already made many successful rigs in Carrara Studio (they never update it :mad: & FBX export sucks). The only example that wasn't a waste or hasty purchase was that of 3D-Coat vs Zbrush. I like using both together. The other thing I had to realize is that I had to spend extended dedicated time with just a few tools or I would be relearning what I had done before when i'd come back to them. I'm no were near I were I plan to be with these tools but things have been coming together easier since I spent more time using the tools and having fun with them as opposed to always shopping for that easier one. I have witnessed that a person that knows how to model can make a great model in $30 Milkshape or $4000 3Ds Max because it is more about knowing what needs to be done and how to to do it than just what buttons to push.The jargon matters.

My main tools now are:

Sculpting: Zbrush/3D-Coat

Retopo/Painting: 3D-Coat

Vertex modeling: Blender

Rigging:Blender

Game Engine: Unity 3D

Music: Fruity Loops Studio

Posing High Poly Models: Daz3D

MoCap: IClone 3dxChange

Rendering High Poly Models Scenes for cut scenes: Carrara 8 Studio Pro

Picture Editing: Gimp

Green Screen/Filmi Editing: Corel Video - Here is my website http://the-one-md.wix.com/dragadesign/site#!__site/dragatv

I didn't list Voidworld because it was so intuitive it seems to work the same as Carrara far as vertex modeling goes.

The bright side the redundant things are my grown son or daughters can take over my Topogun License Messiah Studio if they want it so I guess it was not total waste. It was my time that was wasted several months ago in 2012.

There was always something on sale. :rofl:

Robert

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Hello Alvordr! I have some Blender help that helped me a lot lately that I will post here for you tonight. I installed 3ds Max UI python script for Blender that makes the navigation and basic modeling control all similar to 3ds Max and Maya.

This is voidworld. Great free modeling program. It is what Silo would be if they still updated it. https://digitalfossils.com/

I mainly play Rock and funk guitar and bass but I try on Keyboard also. Here is link to some bass and keyboard I dubbed on to my AION (WOW type dame from NcSoft) video capture. I play a lot of Prince and some Kid Rock and Lynard Skynard Style and Chic type stuff and some Jazz. I'm interested in Techno and Trance a lot these days also.

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Here is some guitar stuff.

It is on my youtube channel

Links to download the Blender interface extension and instructions.

I will find the link to the author and share it also so you can get the updates.

3dsmaxKeybinds.zip

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Alvordr and every body. With that Blender extension you will be able to hit the space bar and all common modeling command will be right there in a pop up menu kinda like what happens in 3ds Max. The layout are also simplified some as well. The navigation to move objects around is just like 3ds Maxx and you can also switch it to Maya like if you want.

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I spent most of my time this evening learning rigging in Blender but I'm trying to not go a day without practicing and repeating what I have learned in 3DC and moving forward there to. I plan to make my jackets like I did with the breast armor shield (that I still have a long way to go on) in ZBrush and eventually 3DC. I have a bought Daz3D jacket That I liked for the Char so I decimated it and made a prototype that I can put on the Unity Char until the other cloths are done.(after I learned to make straps better and hard surface techniques).

The blender rigging worked except I forget to attach some of the head. All the body parts moved fine but the top of the head and eyes looked crazy all stretched or left behind. LOL. Not bad for a first day. Blender is great. Like 3DC I should have been to shy of it months ago :) Looks like other than rendering stills Carrara 8 Studio might just sit on my shelf now.

http://3d-coat.com/f...35770480706.jpg

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That's very cool. Thank you. I'll have to dig into Blender again, when I've got more time. I'm struggling with getting a gun I'm modeling to normal map properly.

Here's some of the music I've worked on...and I do realize I'm no musician...I just like to dabble with everything computer:

http://soundcloud.com/psiclone/linkin-park-lostintheecho (remix contest entry I submitted)

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That's very cool. Thank you. I'll have to dig into Blender again, when I've got more time. I'm struggling with getting a gun I'm modeling to normal map properly.

Here's some of the music I've worked on...and I do realize I'm no musician...I just like to dabble with everything computer:

http://soundcloud.co...k-lostintheecho (remix contest entry I submitted)

http://soundcloud.co...d-tang-psiclone

http://soundcloud.co...d-whats-up-girl

http://soundcloud.co...ork-in-progress

I like these! I'm listening to the 3rd one right now. I'm gonna listen to all of them. Of I follow Piscoline on that channel, is that You? Sounds good. I hope you won the remix contest.

I'll be studying bump mapping one soon and in Blender as well.

Robert

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Yeah that's me. I lost that contest, but there were like 600 entries and I have very little talent. I just like trying my hand at it from time to time. Thank you for the compliments.

By the way, you play the guitar very well. Were you bass or acoustic? In either case, I liked them both.

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Thanks! I played lead guitar, bass, and keyboards, the drums are from FL VST drum instrument plugin but I can't remember which one I used. I just pick from the list make beat pattern, My cuz is going to help me learn drums for real when I get time.

You should keep on making music. Some it would sound really bumping in intense parts of a video game. It works on the dance floor already because I was grooving over here! My neighbors are probably mad cuz it is late and I forgot and had it up loud. LOL

Speaking on bump maps I'm gonna go back and cut the seams on this prototype and pain't on some displacement so I can practice bump maps in 3DC and also in Blender. 3DC just keeps amazing ,me for I'm surprised that this jacket exported and rendered because though I remembered to bake the textures I forgot to cut the seams. The UV looks like a scattered mess but 3DC still spit it out just fine.

Also in a now redundant program that I got months back while I was still intimated by 3DC called Blacksmiths3D it changes the texture if you change your perspective. In 3DC I was all over the place, zoomed in, zoomed out and it kept the leopard pattern the same. Disclaimer" Blacksmith3D (http://www.blacksmith3d.com/) is great program and has been updated so it probably has improved beyond that flaw. I didn't buy the update because I saw that 3DC can do the same thing and more. The update came out shortly after I got active on this forum recently. I try to avoid all that this vs that negative type of talk unless I feel neglected by updates never coming out. LOL

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Thanks for the link to install 3ds Max keyboard navigation and shortcuts. I used to model in 3ds Max all the time, and bought Deep Paint 3D for texture painting. It was really cool at the time....but had almost no tutorials for it, and as you mentioned; some of these smaller software apps don't have much support or upgrades. It has been a dead product for years now. So, that's where 3D Coat came in. BodyPaint 3D was kind of a standard at the time, but it was too expensive and now is pretty much tied to C4D. I also bought 3DC because it had fairly good sculpting ability and I really didn't feel the need to fork out $700 for ZBrush, just to be able to do the same thing. At Andrew's pace of development and his willingness to respond to user input and feature requests, I knew it would be just a matter of time before he caught up with them (in terms of speed, features and refinement).

I now do practically all my modeling and UV layout in 3D Coat, even though 3ds Max is a really powerful modeler, itself. I watched some of Leigh Bamforth's DVD tutorials on modeling from scratch in 3D Coat, a few years back, and got hooked on it. Kind of a "Reverse Modeling" concept (similar to building a model from ZSpheres and primitives in ZB). Build it all in Voxels and sculpt...all in the same environment > Retopo/Autopo (easy as tracing or Paint by numbers, because the model is already built) > UV > Merge to Paint Room for texturing > export via Applink (to 3ds Max) > Rig and Render there.

Like 3D Coat, Blender has come a long, long way...so much so, that I am tempted almost daily to switch to using it's Cycles Rendering engine. It is very impressive...especially considering that it is very much out in front with GPU acceleration technology (involving CUDA, which both of our cards support). So, perhaps you should look into it, for your in-game video clips, or even stills. It even has a built-in Compositing module, as well as Video Editing. They recently updated the flame and smoke sim tools. It's really amazing to see this much creative power in a free application.

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Your Welcome AdnRnager!

I can see what you mean. I have become very fond of Zpheres in Zbrush but after playing with the Curves in 3DC I see they are very similar Also I am finding more and more that on the art side of game dev It can all be done in my case with just 3DC and Blender long as I keep studying the and taking advantages of what they have to offer. .I amazed by these tools.. 3DC can be so intuitive. I didn't read or watch a curves video but I found tonight just from playing around how to make a Zshperes type skeleton base with them and then apply some muscle. I can't say enough about this product.and Blender. Things render so nice in Blender and once you get the short cuts out of the way via 3ds Max extension it becomes much more friendly.

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It's a cool jacket. There are some UV issues on the body, but I have also had some problems with normal mapping lately, and to some degree, UV mapping.

With Normal Mapping, just make sure no geometry is poking through. That's an issue with any baking tool. You can modify the cage by going into the RETOPO menu > Baking Parameters. You can adjust the cage (inner and outer amount). One thing you can do is select verts in the problematic area(s) > turn off Snapping (checkbox in toolbar at the top of the UI) > click on the TRANSFORM tool and nudge the selected verts away from the underlying Voxel object (or reference mesh). I had a very detailed Football glove give me fits, and Andrew pointed out that sometimes verts will drop below the voxel object (if it's a thin, double-sided shell, etc.). After adjusting the baking cage and moving the verts in the trouble areas, it came out perfect.

As for UV's, I'm not sure what the nature of the problem is, but one principle to keep in mind is, ALWAYS try to do your UV's on lower poly versions. Make sure you have it unwrapped before you subdivide the Retopo Mesh. The higher the poly count, the more difficult it is to get a clean unwrap. This is the case in 3ds Max as well. So, it's not an issue with 3D Coat, alone. You can always add more detail and loops to the mesh after you've unwrapped it. With that in mind, sometimes when using Auto Retopo the user can adjust the poly count a bit too high. So, when you go to unwrap it, the mesh is too dense to get the desired results.

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Thanks for the link to install 3ds Max keyboard navigation and shortcuts. I used to model in 3ds Max all the time, and bought Deep Paint 3D for texture painting. It was really cool at the time....but had almost no tutorials for it, and as you mentioned; some of these smaller software apps don't have much support or upgrades. It has been a dead product for years now. So, that's where 3D Coat came in. BodyPaint 3D was kind of a standard at the time, but it was too expensive and now is pretty much tied to C4D. I also bought 3DC because it had fairly good sculpting ability and I really didn't feel the need to fork out $700 for ZBrush, just to be able to do the same thing. At Andrew's pace of development and his willingness to respond to user input and feature requests, I knew it would be just a matter of time before he caught up with them (in terms of speed, features and refinement). I now do practically all my modeling and UV layout in 3D Coat, even though 3ds Max is a really powerful modeler, itself. I watched some of Leigh Bamforth's DVD tutorials on modeling from scratch in 3D Coat, a few years back, and got hooked on it. Kind of a "Reverse Modeling" concept (similar to building a model from ZSpheres and primitives in ZB). Build it all in Voxels and sculpt...all in the same environment > Retopo/Autopo (easy as tracing or Paint by numbers, because the model is already built) > UV > Merge to Paint Room for texturing > export via Applink (to 3ds Max) > Rig and Render there. Like 3D Coat, Blender has come a long, long way...so much so, that I am tempted almost daily to switch to using it's Cycles Rendering engine. It is very impressive...especially considering that it is very much out in front with GPU acceleration technology (involving CUDA, which both of our cards support). So, perhaps you should look into it, for your in-game video clips, or even stills. It even has a built-in Compositing module, as well as Video Editing. They recently updated the flame and smoke sim tools. It's really amazing to see this much creative power in a free application.

That plugin for Blender made a big difference. When I tried modeling off ref images a while back when I first attempted Blender without I just wouldn't happen for being overwhelmed with hot keys. I started this at lunch time in just a few minutes. I'll prop make most of my body parts in 3DC and ZB but I still need to be able to Box model and progress in Blender. Please try that plugin. It's great!

post-12483-0-72819500-1357759665_thumb.p

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  • 1 month later...
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Hello My 3D-Coat Community! I have been away from 3D-Coat for two weeks so Icould learn the parts of Blender that I need for modeling, animation, and rigging. As I stated early in the forum I plan to have 3DC and Blender be the main parts of my Game Devlopment Studio anlong with Unity Game Engine. Zbrush and a few other tools are just complimentary for me. I love the before mentioned three software's more than I can do justice with words.

Well I learned Blenders modeling tools better to the point do all the things that I used to only be able to do in Carras 8 and 3Ds Max. I started rigging lesson from youtube videos and now can rigg and weight paint in Blender as well. I'm comfortable in resuming my 3DC learning and work on my character further now. I needed a lot of repetition so that I would not have to relearn Blender basics everytime I open it. It was not that hard. Blender gets a bad rep for no reason.

Here is brief video I made with a few tips and showing the rigg. After rigging a free character from theFree3DModels.com yesterday successfully I was able to rigg my character from start to finish in about an hour. That included the weight pain repairs.

Last note. I learned how important it is is to keep the model and or retopolgy neat. The free Character I rigged in 10 minutes. MY own Character the rigging part took about 20 minutes before I moved on to weight paint it. The original Character from last year was so sloppy it could not be rigged easily at all so it's skeleton from Mixamo will stay in it forever. LOL So needless to say when I get back to work on my 3DC project, as AbnRanger suggested to me on one of the post regarding my character breastplate, I won't be cutting any corners. LOL

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Cool. Making good progress, it seems. With Autodesk's recent price increases, I don't see myself upgrading anytime soon, so I'm going to be digging into Blender myself.

Great news AbnRanger! I have also been exploring Blender, and so far I like it very much!

Because of your great 3D-Coat tutorials, I am looking forward to some great Blender tutorials from you in the future!

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Blender is a good app to learn.

The serie 2.6x is still in alpha state.

The 2.7x drop some internal compatibility.

The 2.8x will be more stable and compatible. This will be the real launch like a professional app.

If any1 is interested to read the roadmap:

http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?227830-Blender-2-6x-development-thread&p=2235920&viewfull=1#post2235920

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  • 2 weeks later...
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I just got some free one on one training via Skypr share screen from a Blender Guru. I learned how to make a control rig. Blender is going well I can model, keyframe animate, paint, rigg, weight paint, and now make a control rigg. I will be focus more back on 3D Coat and my Unity game now while always keep moving forward with 3DC, Blender and Zbursh.

I rigged my 3DC project I shared earlier in this forum now I look forward to redoing that 3DC work and rigging it in Blender again.

I'm loven Blender.

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  • 9 months later...
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Been a while since I was on 3D-Coat. I have been studying other tools and aspect of Game Development. Going between Zbrush 3D Coat and blender has gotten easier but I have a long way to go. This is where I am at with this character now. I will be doing some of retopo and painting in 3D-Coat like I did with the previous revision earlier in this thread. 

 

Here is video of some of my making this revision of the Game Character for my game.


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Edited by welchrs64
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