New User - Old user

[Magnum]

I have been into Independent Game Design and played with 3D Coat a few years ago when it was first released. Due to a neck injury I no longer program or do a LOT of 3D design. I do photography as one of my new hobbies and plan to integrate more 3D objects/Effects into my photography.

I don't need 3D Max, and have considered Blender even though I also have Rhino 3D which would probably work fine.

I notice 3D Coat now has some modeling features. Just curious as I start reading the site/functions as with Game design, I am trying to think through a 3D/2D workflow. I currently only have CS6-2D.

From those more experienced users of 3D Coat, would I be able to create basic 3D shapes or for that matter import (searching for info on that) oject files and integrate/paint and send over to CS6 Extended without the need of Blender or another 3D program?

Blender is free so no big issue. Some of the things I want to do is, place a real object in a 3D environment, or place a 3D object (like a car) into a real environment.

Any suggestions would be helpful, I have not downloaded 3D coat - yet. As i have some unfinished photo projects before I can start learning something new.

In other words, I need someone to nudge me into buying 3D Coat:)

[popwfx]

Sorry are you saying you are just interested in making still photos that contain 3D objects or compositing real objects into a virtual set as a still image?

If so, yes 3D Coat with or without Blender can help with that - I don't use Blender much since I'm a Lightwave user but recent upgrades in it have made it more feature packed, but not 100% production ready for my tastes. I also dislike Blender's interface. Photoshop and After Effects CS6 would work fine for what you say - now there are even fairly decent (but basic) rendering in Photoshop Extended - so you could export OBJ files from 3DCoat and load them into a 3D layer in photoshop and rotate and tweak lights and shading in photoshop. But you need a grunty 3D card as Photoshop isn't optimized really awesome for 3D OpenGL stuff. Also, you may get a touch frustrated in Photoshop exactly placing or photo-matching your 3D object into your environment.

But all that being said, the main problem you will experience depending on how realistic you are intending these images to be, is:

1) 3DCoat and Adobe CS6 have no real deformation engine - meaning if you have a character and want to pose it or whatever before comping into your still, you'd need to bone and rig it in order to animate it into position for the silhouette you need. Obviously this is less important if your subjects are all inanimate objects or architecture type things that don't require to be deformed or animated for your stills. If they are not organic or basic objects, then don't underestimate the power of motion that even a still needs to portray intent or convey energy in your images. If that is the case then you'd need to rely on Blender or some other 3D package in that workflow as well as 3DCoat and CS6.

also most importantly:

2) none of these packages have significant tools for Motion Tracking and solving - yes Adobe After Effects has some limited 2D trackers, but for the most convincing and realistic way to embed 3D objects into photographic scenes is to use a motion tracker and have it solve for camera position etc. Something like SynthEyes. If you only have one picture and don't have a moving camera, then that would be what is considered a "tripod solve" which is limiting in exactly how well you can embed 3D imagery into it realistically. My understanding is blender has some newer tracking features as well but I have no idea how good they are - I don't think Blender's motion tracking stuff is up for production ready projects though, I think it is still in its infancy. What I mean by all this here is that you need a solve and ways to get the 3D location and camera angles and lens distortion compensation etc etc in order to accurately match the scene to recreate it. There's also shadow catching and projection (where the light in your photo is should reflect how your object is lit and how it casts shadows onto your photo). All this is especially critical for moving images as slippage can occur if you are off by even 0.5 a pixel in the rendered composite. It really depends on what you are doing. If you just want to have a play and model and paint something in 3D Coat and then slap it into a picture in Photoshop mixed with a photo and have it look "close enough" for an average user, or if you are doing abstract non-realistic stuff, then sure, you can do that easy with 3DC & Photoshop and might not even need Blender or another 3D package.

hope this helps, but to answer your overall question - Nudge! Nudge! Nudge! 3DCoat is a totally awesomely feature packed app that is more than worth double its price. There's nothing out there that is as easy to get into and use for these sorts of things (though it may have way more features than you need). Plus if you know photoshop well, using the 3DC Paint room will be mostly second nature.

Good Luck

[Tony Nemo]

"1) 3DCoat and Adobe CS6 have no real deformation engine - meaning if you have a character and want to pose it or whatever before comping into your still, you'd need to bone and rig it in order to animate it into position for the silhouette you need." The voxel model can be posed and the topology snapped to the new pose.

[AbnRanger]

1) 3DCoat and Adobe CS6 have no real deformation engine - meaning if you have a character and want to pose it or whatever before comping into your still, you'd need to bone and rig it in order to animate it into position for the silhouette you need.

That's not true. As Tony mentioned, if he only needs to pose, he could do so capably in 3D Coat before he could even get a character rigged and skinned properly elsewhere. One can also do a decent job of posing a character in the Tweak Room, as you have gradient (soft) selection tools, as well as transform tools and some basic sculpting capability, too.

[popwfx]

Sorry, I was thinking of rigged bones specifically. The posing tools in in 3DCoat are awesome - didn't mean to give the wrong impression...

[Tony Nemo]

I thought of the Tweak room initially but since it lacked a "Pose" tool I sent him on to voxels. Posing a figure in the Tweak room would make a fine Youtube addition.

[Magnum]

Thanks for the replies. Sorry I have not responded, been tied up and did not realize I had not subscribed to the topic.As for posing, I doubt I would do too much posing. Think more of building a landscape and placing a real car or person in it. Or for that matter create a digital studio room where I can place 3D props and then have the model pre-posed and combine the picture and 3D. While I can take pictures of many items and place in as props, sometimes it is hard to find certain props in the area.

Thanks for the info. I may be buy it before the end of the month, assuming I decide to go the route of 3D compositing.

[AbnRanger]

I think you'll find 3D Coat and Blender to be a really powerful combination for doing just about any 3D work you want to do, and Blender even has a robust, node-based, compositor of it's own. Unless you are working for a studio that has a fairly rigid tool pipeline centered around Maya, Max, Softimage, Lightwave, etc., then it makes a lot more sense (bang for your buck) to do your 3D projects using these two applications. I've been a long time 3ds Max user, and with Autodesks heavy-handed price increases and upgrade policies, I'm starting to explore Blender myself.