Newbie initial questions

[Fonte Boa]

Not sure this is the correct place to post, either if you dont worry about put all my initial questions about 3dcoat, since this is the first time i opened it.

(01) When i start it, 3dc asks me how i want to begin work, i pick an sphere in Voxel sculpting. Ok, i am in Voxels "room": why there isnt any object in Tweak one? (please dont laugh of me)

[AbnRanger]

Not sure this is the correct place to post, either if you dont worry about put all my initial questions about 3dcoat, since this is the first time i opened it.

(01) When i start it, 3dc asks me how i want to begin work, i pick an sphere in Voxel sculpting. Ok, i am in Voxels "room": why there isnt any object in Tweak one? (please dont laugh of me)

No problem. With the different workspaces, the workflow can be a bit confusing to new user. I like to think of it as having two main sections of the application. On one, the Paint, Tweak and UV workspaces/rooms are all connected. The other contains the Voxel and Retopo workspaces. When you import an object into the Paint room, you can sculpt the geometry or perform basic transform operations to it in the Tweak Room. If you are working on a model in the Voxel room, that is where you would modify/tweak it.

[alvordr]

From what I've learned so far, I would summarize the 3DC workflow like this (it might be easier to think of each room as Step 1, Step 2, etc., depending on how you're starting your workflow):

STARTING WITH VOXEL SCULPTING:

1. Voxel Room --> 2. Retopo Room --> 3. Paint Room or UV Room and then Paint Room --> 4. Tweak Room (if you find it useful) and then Paint Room

STARTING WITH RETOPO MESH IMPORT:

1. Retopo Room --> 2. Paint Room or UV Room and then Paint Room --> 3. Tweak Room (if you find it useful) and then Paint Room

STARTING WITH IMPORTED MESH FOR PAINTING:

1. Paint Room or UV Room and then Paint Room --> 2. Tweak Room (if you find it useful) and then Paint Room

The video above shows how to do most, if not all of these steps.

[Fonte Boa]

Abnranger and alvordr: thank you very much. I could now to have an 3ds overview.

I found another video very useful to newbies like me:

[Fonte Boa]

(02) I cant find Material Editor in Paint room: am i missing to do something?

[alvordr]

Possibly the best way to answer that question is to say that there is a difference between materials and textures, in most 3d apps. In this case, your shaders in the voxel room are your materials, that dictate how shiny, bumpy, colorful, etc. something is starting out. Once you have gone through the process of getting your sculpt into the paint room, then you're talking about getting whatever was generated with that material "baked" onto it in a format where you can paint textures and further bumps, etc. It's a bit confusing, I know, but if you can see that there's a difference between materials and textures, then you're part of the way there. It's like having a metal material for something, with rust painted onto it, or having a wood material that you apply some brown or other color painted onto it. One is the material, the other is the texture.

[Psmith]

Not all Voxel shaders "Bake" equally well. Sometimes, in fact, the result rendered in the Paint Room is quite different than what is seen in the Voxel Room.

So, you can only loosely compare Voxel shaders with the "Materials" available in other apps. It's a trial and error proposition in 3DC.

If you want the most controllable result - you may be better off doing all texturing work in the Paint Room using the Diffuse Color, Depth and Specular modes along with carefully designed "Materials" - which are really a complex form of Texture, within 3DC.

Just look to the right of the interface while in the Paint Room to see the "Materials Panel". When you add a new Material to the default group, using the "+" button - you are presented with a dialog which allows you to assign the same or different bitmaps to be applied in each of 3D-Coat's "Channels" (Diffuse, Depth, Specular).

Painting over your model with these kinds of complex texture combinations really allows for an infinite variety of texturing effects and real world "material" simulations.

Greg Smith

[AbnRanger]

(02) I cant find Material Editor in Paint room: am i missing to do something?

In the Menu Bar go to WINDOW > POP-UPS > OBJECT MATERIALS. You can dock it wherever you like, and each time you re-open 3D Coat, it should be right where you docked it.

[alvordr]

That's a good point, Greg. I hardly ever use the materials pallete during the Voxel phase, as I had done when I first got 3DC. I will more likely go to it when I'm in the Paint Room. So far, I've had pretty good success with the shaders baking into my models, but I've only used certain ones for what I'm after.