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[SOLVED] Folder Groups & Layer Comps in Paint Room layers


popwfx
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While I'm at it for feature requests while painting, It would be great if the Paint Room Layers list had the ability to have Folder Groups like in Photoshop.

and that would include the ability to Duplicate Groups (like in Photoshop) as well as apply blending & opacity levels or depth levels (and spec levels whenever that gets added) on a master level to the whole group while keeping the individual layers settings within the group proportionately. Again this mimics how Photoshop works So if I had:

Group #1

Layer #1

Layer #2

Layer #3

So by reducing the opacity of the group, you nondestructively dim all contained layers proportionately to their individually set levels. If Group = 100% then whatever is exactly in the individual group will work as it is set. Also, group folders will help with organization.

Ideally if we want to allow for better flexibility as well, the addition of a Photoshop-like feature called Layer Comps would be great. This would enable you to save Visibility, Opacity, and depth settings for all layers as a named entity. Therefore if you were say making textures for a character. You could have in the same project file, a Layer Comp for Regular, another for Burnt by explosions, and another for Injured in battle - etc. and Selecting Layer Comps in the new window would automatically set the remembered visibility, depth and opacity settings for all layers - enabling you to save states.

Please don't add the Layer Comps feature before the Layer Folders - that is more important and is needed for the Layer Comps feature.

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Thanks, I've now joined mantis and added my comment.

However, I would not like to clutter your bug tracking tool without some discussion here first sometimes - since I am not intimately familiar with every aspect of 3DCoat and the history of some of my requests or bugs if indeed they are. Hence my posting here first.

For example, my idea above is about Folder Groups and Layer Comps (like in Photoshop) - with that example, should I be creating my own Mantis request for the Layer Comps idea? And what determines when I should post in this forum section versus when I should add something to Mantis? If this forum is deprecated it should perhaps be closed? or is it for discussion prior to posting to Mantis? Thanks...

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generally users add comments to any mantis request with their own suggestions

3DC dev team read mantis request always... the navigation in this sub-forum is more occasional

no idea why this sub-forum is still open, old legacy maybe

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  • 1 month later...
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Yeah, this really gets back to the idea that's been brought up before of parity between 3dCoat and Photoshop. Going back and forth between the two works fairly well, though not supporting basic features like folder structures and masks breaks things. Adjustment layers, layer thumbnails, etc are other things that really need to be added so the two are better integrated. At work, the character team primarily uses 3dCoat for texture painting, but we eventually have to go back to photoshop to complete and organize things. It'd be much more efficient if we could setup layer groups that carry over. As well, if I open up a psd that someone else has been working on and load that into 3dCoat, it destroys the structure, so I end up needing to merge new layers into the original psd, and it becomes sort of a convoluted workflow. Another issue I constantly run into is masking not working the same. If I mask something in 3dCoat and then switch over to photoshop to finalize things, those masks don't carry over. If I have masks setup in photoshop, those don't carry over when importing into 3dCoat.

I really feel like we need photoshop parity in the order of:

Layer groups/folders

Masks

Adjustment Layers

Whatever else comes after that...

I know it's a lot to ask for it to mimic all the features of photoshop, but hitting those most basic things that are used by texture painters would be a huge help.

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  • 2 weeks later...
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I agree.

And by the way. I hope Andrew will align layer names from all lists to the left eventually. Having to scan walls of centred text is bad for eyes and productivity. Actually, It's terrible! :dash2:

http://3d-coat.com:8...view.php?id=744

This single screen which Photonvfx has posted pretty much sums up almost all of the issues I'm having with 3D Coat now.

1. No specularity blending mode and opacity (Paint Room)

2. No left-alignment of layer names. (layer lists in all rooms)

3. No layer groups (Paint Room) ->compatible with photoshop

4. No Photoshop-like masks: for non-destructive work-flow (Paint Room). ->compatible with photoshop

5. No adjustment layers, again: for non-destructive work-flow. There might be some issues with performance with this, but perhaps caching could be introduced to solve them(?). (Paint Room) ->compatible with photoshop

6. Not possible to select multiple layers at once in order to move/merge/show/hide/delete them, etc. (all rooms)

If this screen also had a right-click menu visible, then depth and specularity not being treated as "painted pixels" would be my 7th point. This could be solved either by fixing the copy channels bug: http://3d-coat.com:8...iew.php?id=1025 or by two new commands - something like: "Freeze specularity pixels" and "Freeze depth pixels" of a current layer.

This aside, I'm very satisfied with 3D Coat.

Please excuse me for driving slightly off-topic, but when I saw this screenshot, I had to spit it out.

AlWhEM2.png

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  • 5 weeks later...

http://www.adobe.com/devnet-apps/photoshop/fileformatashtml/

Adobe Photoshop File Formats Specification

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

Image Resource IDs

Image resources use several standard ID numbers, as shown in the Image resource IDs. Not all file formats use all ID's. Some information may be stored in other sections of the file.

0x0402

1026

Layers group information. 2 bytes per layer containing a group ID for the dragging groups. Layers in a group have the same group ID.

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I'm not exactly sure what you mean carlosa, but if what you're saying is that having the same group ids means layers in a group folder can be acted upon as a group then yes I like that. Just like in photoshop, we should be able to turn the visibility of a group off with 3DC keeping the internal group folder visibility settings whatever you have them so when you turn the group back on, it's however it was before you hid the group.

This also should mean that group folders can have their collective depth, spec and opacity and blending (and masking or styles if we ever get that) modified as a group. So if Group1 contains Layer1 set at 50% depth and Layer2 at 100% depth, if you set the depth of Group1 to be 50%, it is 50% of the combined depths within the group. Just the same how opacity works with groups in photoshop.

If we are revamping the layers panel, then the layers should also have locks like photoshop (but for each channel) and ideally each layer can be expanded out to show 3 sublayers of color,spec, & depth with 2D thumbnails of the content on a layer. I think someone already made a mockup like this, and if I can't find one I'd happily make one. However, as I said in another thread, I'd hate for the UI to devolve into a "user requests specific UI and it gets added" - I'd rather interaction design and a usability expert plan all permutations for a feature, but I suspect that may not be feasible here.

Although there are still a number of fixes to be made to v4, I too think this feature is critical to v4's success. And, at the probable ire of other people here, I will say that I would gladly pay extra for the upgrade if it included this. I mean - this feature alone could save me hours and hours of time managine layers when painting, and my hours = $ so anything that improves workflow a great deal saves me the money of the cost of development of such a feature. I came to 3DCoat because it was easy to dive into - and that says something positive about its usability and power - but that can still be greatly improved with feature requests like this one.

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