Blender 3d 2.66 Dynamic Topology Sculpting Video by Blender Cookie

[blobby]

Came across Blender Cookie site, informative new Blender 2.66 feature videos.

There is an informative video about dynamic topology. Featured symmetry implementation looks interesting and well thought out too.

CGCookie videos

[Carlosan]

Ty blobby

i had used Dynotopo for some small projects and found Sculptris code implementation superior to Blender atm.

May be in a future development surpass it ? i duno

anyway

The last B12 with LC code more stable is far superior to any other sculpt experience (from my POV)

[michalis]

@carlosa

You have to prove it.

Dyntopo + multires ~ 5M mesh. Sorry for the terrible hair, just learning, always.

[BeatKitano]

There's probably a lot of thing that elude me, I gave it a go today again (I was toying with a graphicall build a few weeks ago), and even thought it works well I find it very hard to use for a single reason:

I get no feeling sculpting from it, it's almost as if tablet pressure wasn't taken into account, either the stroke was too smoothy (almost shapeless even with clay strip) or (the opposite effect) it was like building without having the control over the depth (but still getting a very slow growing pace, it's weird to explain).

Something that still feels a lot better in 3dcoat even if the surface regularity is not good enough (something I've not noticed in blender)

The all thing integrated is a good (I tried using remesh too, kinda nice even thought it still lacks control over the generated mesh).

But all in one there's still lack of feeling, almost like playing with toothpaste, you can't control the amount :/

[michalis]

But all in one there's still lack of feeling, almost like playing with toothpaste, you can't control the amount

I love you too.

Anyway, it became my favorite way of sculpting. Not zbrush, neither 3dcoat, nor sculptris, just this one.

[BeatKitano]

Don't get mad Michalis, I saw what you did with it, it's just a personal matter. I still prefer using zbrush over 3dc because the strokes are cleaner, I still prefer to use sculptris over liveclay for the same reason (even though I can't pretend to do much with it with the limitation of sculptris), but Blender is not in my "deal with it" ability.

Maybe it's just a setting thing (I discovered it was better by turning Front Faces Only on for instance). But for now I don't get the feedback I'm expecting from the tablet.

[L'Ancien Regime]

@carlosa

You have to prove it.

Dyntopo + multires ~ 5M mesh. Sorry for the terrible hair, just learning, always.

Nothing wrong with that hair at all; what did you use to make it with?

Please; I've known that Blender has miraculous powers when it comes to sculpting...80 million polygons on a tiny kernel etc.

What do I need to download to play with this? What is the bust tutorial?

[michalis]

http://www.blender.org/download/get-blender/

The official 2.66 release.

Add a cube, subdivide it 4-5 (subsurf modifier) and apply the mod as well.

Jump into sculpt mode / under topology menu/enable dynamic topology

Some instructions here

@Beat

Of course it's a personal matter. Any artistic technique or tools is a personal matter.

IMO, the brushes, the UI on their parameters, even the default behavior, are excellent.

What I mostly like in blender is the ability to sculpt after retopology, multires and projection (shrinkwrap modifier)

This last one is fixed now and works beautifully (like zb projections). You have to use project mode (positive negative On)

Is what I always (we) asking from 3dcoat, a full operative multires sculpt room. How easier and more accurate baking could be then.

A fast 3d sketch ~200-400k (dyntopo), retopology, UVs, and sculpt details-bake on a multires mesh.

What needs a lot of re-working in blender is:

-The multires modifier (old coding-unpredictable performance on less evenly distributed topology)

-the texture painting mode (not so nice performance) (but the tools are good)

-the entire redraw 3d viewport OGL engine.

At this time they're working on these.

Hair - strands under cycles are beautiful

Still, no baking under cycles engine (BI only) but in one case we already baked excellent AO and displ maps (AA)

Still, no real SSS in cycles. Fake sss works though.

A tremendous effort from the developers, a big thank you to them. We may see some eastern eggs soon.

And have fun, a look on an article of Phil Rhodes, describing his love and hate relationship with Blender

http://www.redsharknews.com/business/item/173-blender-love-it-and-or-hate-it

IMO, he's unfair. I wonder if he even dares to make similar critics on zbrush. The blender UI... is his problem now. Whatever.

[TimmyZDesign]

@carlosa

You have to prove it.

You inspired me to try and copy your work but use 3D-Coat instead. This is what I came up with:

Here is another 3D-Coat render of my version:

Cycles render is much nicer than 3D-Coat. So far I have not gotten used to sculpting in Blender. I think I just need to practice more...

So far I think the best is to use 3D-Coat, Zbrush, and Blender together. A great combination!

[michalis]

he he

Excellent. Better than mine.

BTW, this "... to prove it" goes for sculptris, not 3dcoat.

Now, mine is already retopo-ed and multires sculpted. Meaning that I can bake from multi res data directly (much more accurate), if I have to export it. Otherwise, staying in blender, you don't need baking at all. Animate the low res base and send hires data to the render engine.

Anyway, a wonderful surprise, Timmy.

[TimmyZDesign]

Thanks for the compliments Michalis! It is an honor coming from you!

Is it possible to export both retopo mesh and hi-res sculpt from 3D-Coat, then somehow rebuild subdivision levels within Blender with those? Then I could gain the advantages of multi res data...

[michalis]

Is it possible to export both retopo mesh and hi-res sculpt from 3D-Coat, then somehow rebuild subdivision levels within Blender with those? Then I could gain the advantages of multi res data...

Yes, it is.

Export both meshes one on top of the other.

On the low poly cage:

add a multi res modifier, subdivide as needed. A ~2-5M quad mesh is probably what you need.

add shrinkwrap modifier,

1. under shrinkwrap modifier, select project method, positive negative checked!

2. enter the name of the original hi poly sculpt

Voilà.

Some artifacts may occur on difficult areas (on the back of the ear or mouth by example). Smooth brush will fix it easily. (similar issues are common in zbrush too)

3. Enable alpha based brushes and add pores wrinkles or any detailed sculpting, probably adding another subd level. (if you have enough RAM >8GB)

In the end, you will be able to bake normal, AO, or, displacement 32 bit exr maps from multires data. This is the best way.

Multires modifier in blender needs re working for sure. I keep saying it. It's quite a ram eater, but the worst is:

It performs smoothly (like in 3dc - zbrush) when a less than 3k retopo cage is in use. A 10k cage will kill performance for sure.

A ~500-1000 faces cage makes blender to fly. I was able to smoothly sculpt on a 100 millions faces !!! Zbrush can do this (not really) , on a single mesh I mean.

I keep asking for a rebuild subdivisions modifier too. You're right, it's a very useful tool. (zbrush has it)

IMO, what makes blender an interesting sculpting tool is the ability to have a decent pathtracer in hand as you sculpt. It's not a real time viewport of course but you just hit render any time you sculpt. GI raytraces-pathtracers tend to eat cavity in general. Sometimes you don't know how sculpt will look in a renderer.

This is always my main problem working in zbrush. BPR lies. On the other hand, 3dcoat render room is not a GI renderer but it's a decent preview engine. I hope Andrew will have time one day to improve it.

[TimmyZDesign]

Thanks Michalis! This Blender workflow is quite interesting!

[bisenberger]

I've been thinking about trying Blender lately. What is a good learning source for starting out?

[michalis]

LOL

Good point bisenberger.

Try this BA forum thread

http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?267023-Up-to-date-complete-tutorials

I started learning blender seriously, when I joined a blender community in athens. Became a friend to people who are developers of blender parts.

Started camera chats, giving courses on sculpting, talking about art etc etc .

This is all about blender, a democratic community.

Anyway, download latest builds here (not a fast server, unfortunately LOL)

http://builder.blender.org/download/

New real SSS cycles node implementation is just marvelous.

Hair and SSS, n-maps and displacements bumps, a pathtracer supporting CUDA, an interactive render window. Rigging, animations... What else do you need for your presentations?

3dcoat and blender:

two powerful UV editors, two retopology systems, voxels and surf mode on one hand, dynamic topology and multires sculpting on the other.

Wonderful new texture tools implementation in blender, unification of sculpting-painting tools (this is important) , so, two texture systems too.

Time for art.

[bisenberger]

Thanks for the info (and links) michalis.

[The Candy-floss Kid]

Always great to see the wonderful work you create in Blender Michalis.You're a superb ambassador for the creative merits of the application and would existing software habits, muscle memory and time allow I'd love to dig a bit deeper in the application myself. It would be fantastic to see you produce a demo video of you sculpting with the new features of Blender - which I know you do not .....so, little point in poking? :-) Maybe one day?

Out of curiosity have you switched to Blender for free sculpting full time over ZBrush , 3DCoat or Sculptris which I remember you were a big fan of in terms of it's power behind the simplicity?

[Greg]

I've been learning Blender, and have to say that its modelling tools are superior to Lightwaves (which I recently spent $695 to upgrade). So, now I wonder what else it does better. Guess I'll find out. I'm used to Lightwave interface of course, but now it's just a matter of learning Blenders.

I agree with Blobby - check out http://cgcookie.com/blender/ for really good tutorials.

[michalis]

Out of curiosity have you switched to Blender for free sculpting full time over ZBrush , 3DCoat or Sculptris which I remember you were a big fan of in terms of it's power behind the simplicity?

Free sculpting? Do you mean freeware? Why should I think this way? I spent my money on 3dcoat, zbrush, and on some donations to specific blender developers.

Regarding sculptris, it's a dead app already, thanks to pixologic. I hope I'm wrong.

OK, it's only my opinion, but sculpting under a pathtracer-environment, especially after the new wonderful implementation of cycles SSS, is very important to me.

Starting a 3d sculpt-sketch, blender dyn-topology is the more spontaneous tool I ever had. Brushes are excellent, simple and parametric. Great control.

For more than 300k dynamically tessellated mesh, I can jump into 3dcoat for a better performance. Maybe.

Or, on the other hand, I can directly go for re-topology, multiresolution and projection-shrinkwrapping on the original mesh.

Now I can sculpt up to million faces, maintaining great performance. (better than in zbrush if I may say so). The benefits of multires sculpting. Bake down n-maps displacement maps etc from multires. This is the only, the best way for precise maps.

Still, having great previews under SSS GI rendering.

Do you see my point?

Here is a fast test. On how to carve on a piece of marble. SSS and GI eats carving. If you ever tried to carve a piece of marble, you understand what I'm saying. So close to the real thing then.

[The Candy-floss Kid]

Free sculpting? Do you mean freeware? Why should I think this way? I spent my money on 3dcoat, zbrush, and on some donations to specific blender developers.

Regarding sculptris, it's a dead app already, thanks to pixologic. I hope I'm wrong.

Hi Michalis , I was using free in the context of "liberated" sculpting i.e free of the previous technical constraints and considerations required by subdivisional modeling (be that "detailing in" or "detailing out") and hence allowing greater creative freedom in the initial design process.

Are you saying that Blender is giving you better normal maps/displacement map integrity for further detail than is currently possible with 3DCoat?

One last question if your end usage is a 2D Still Render and not animation are you retopologizing for the advantages of polygon handling in the renderer as well as uv texturing whilst also allowing you to push the details further with maps beyond the handling constraints of polygons?

[Mike DaPrimate]

Okay...so I will eat up yet another one of my "are you a spammer" qualifying posts here. ;-)

Blender is very awesome. I use it often.

By the way, I can't set a profile pic...error keeps coming up, and I don't think it's because of the size. is it cuz 'm new to the forum?

[michalis]

Sorry for the late reply @the candy-floss kid"

Are you saying that Blender is giving you better normal maps/displacement map integrity for further detail than is currently possible with 3DCoat?

Indeed, blender can bake from multires. It's the most precise way for excellent displacements. Any other method is approximated and provides blurry maps. Same goes for normal maps but it's not a big deal, as these are approximated anyway. Blender still bakes under the old blender internal (scanline like), unfortunately it doesn't interpolates these maps, you have to bake 4k or 8k and resize after. OK, blender bakes them fast. It also bakes AO maps from multires (goood) but it takes sometime. So, with the exception of lack of AA, expect similar quality maps to zbrush.

Seams are almost invisible.

About retopo. I believe in two retopo procedure. One for sculpting needs, a second for animation purposes.

About auto retopo: it could serve the sculpting needs if it could create very low poly base cages. Like 500 for a head. It can't. It doesn't take much time to manually do it. (On the medusa head I posted on wip topic, well, it's very hard to retopo it and harder to make good seams. )

There are simpler quasi autopo procedures though. like decimate at extreme settings, do a few more work using decimate brush (LC, Dyntopo, sculptris). Then, there's some fast trick to convert it to quads if needed. Both 3dcoat and blender have their tricks-tools to fast add seams manually on this. Excellent base for shrinkwrapping on top of the original mesh, converting it to a multires mesh for further sculpting.

Yes, 3dcoat lacks of multi resolution sculpting room. This alone is killing me.

There is great potential on this, if Andrew will go for such approach. I can only imagine how innovative solutions he could add there. Multires is never as friendly as it should, even under zbrush. (I admit it, the "rebuild subdivisions" is a beauty)

I was hopping for a v4 3dcoat with a real sculpting multires room.

Yes, we have it under blender, but we also have dyntopo, Uvs, edit mode, retopo tools, painting textures, stencils... so... my point is: what to do with 3dcoat except of painting textures and some voxel sculpting?

[AbnRanger]

Sorry for the late reply @the candy-floss kid"

Indeed, blender can bake from multires. It's the most precise way for excellent displacements. Any other method is approximated and provides blurry maps. Same goes for normal maps but it's not a big deal, as these are approximated anyway. Blender still bakes under the old blender internal (scanline like), unfortunately it doesn't interpolates these maps, you have to bake 4k or 8k and resize after. OK, blender bakes them fast. It also bakes AO maps from multires (goood) but it takes sometime. So, with the exception of lack of AA, expect similar quality maps to zbrush.

Seams are almost invisible.

About retopo. I believe in two retopo procedure. One for sculpting needs, a second for animation purposes.

About auto retopo: it could serve the sculpting needs if it could create very low poly base cages. Like 500 for a head. It can't. It doesn't take much time to manually do it. (On the medusa head I posted on wip topic, well, it's very hard to retopo it and harder to make good seams. )

There are simpler quasi autopo procedures though. like decimate at extreme settings, do a few more work using decimate brush (LC, Dyntopo, sculptris). Then, there's some fast trick to convert it to quads if needed. Both 3dcoat and blender have their tricks-tools to fast add seams manually on this. Excellent base for shrinkwrapping on top of the original mesh, converting it to a multires mesh for further sculpting.

Yes, 3dcoat lacks of multi resolution sculpting room. This alone is killing me.

There is great potential on this, if Andrew will go for such approach. I can only imagine how innovative solutions he could add there. Multires is never as friendly as it should, even under zbrush. (I admit it, the "rebuild subdivisions" is a beauty)

I was hopping for a v4 3dcoat with a real sculpting multires room.

Yes, we have it under blender, but we also have dyntopo, Uvs, edit mode, retopo tools, painting textures, stencils... so... my point is: what to do with 3dcoat except of painting textures and some voxel sculpting?

Michalis...you have Multi-Resolution capability in the Voxel Room. Just because it doesn't function exactly like it does in ZBrush or Mudbox, doesn't make it non-effective. Anytime I want to step down resolution (now even decimation) levels, I have the freedom to do so. What's even better is if you have done some Voxel Painting, if you step down to a lower level proxy, using decimation, 3D Coat will transfer the color to that proxy. So, in some ways, it may not be what you are used to in ZB or MB, but in other ways it's better. I don't know why you have to constantly come here and trash 3D Coat and tell everyone how glorious it is, instead in Blender. We get it. You like Blender. You hate 3D Coat.

As for true layers in the Voxel Room, Andrew told me recently, that he knew how he might be able to do it and would look into in the V4 cycle (not Beta). But in the mean time, most of what I personally would use layering and masking for, is already available in the Paint Room, using image-based sculpting. It is perfectly suited for the task (of blending, stacking and masking layers of micro-surface level detail), so why not use it?

[Malo]

I use Blender since 2.42 and yes, i still know how the Face Select Mode works.

Michalis got his point. With Blender you could do much more then with 3D Coat.

But as far as i see over the years with Blender, you could do everything what you want, but nothing realy good.

Dynotop up to 500k Polys, thats a joke. Viewport Performance, lol. Baking is still horrible. My last Baking adventure with 2.56 was 6 Million Polys and i was not able to bake something. I have to split my object into 2 Million Poly parts, in Mudbox and ZBrush Trial i was able to bake 12 Millions on my old machine with 2GB Ram. Now with Bake from Multiress it works a little bit better but still a huge difference between Zbrush or Mudbox.

Texturepainting? How would you do that in Blender? It is still the same ugly workflow since 2.42

Project Painting with no Preview is a no go. Zoom changes the size of the texture and other crazy stuff.

Anyway, 3D Coat is still the better choice, if you want to sculp, retopo, uv and texturing something instead of using Blender for that. And thats from a long time Blender User.

[michalis]

No talking with both Abnranger and Malo. The first is just spoiling words as always use to do. The second is ignorant of blender, obviously.

You can try to ignore me. Please do.

[BeatKitano]

And that conclude my 1800th and last post on those boards.

That was fun.

[michalis]

You know beatkitano, you can never call someone troll, when he gave his money to buy the application. Whom gave his/hers money to help development of this specific app.

Is this clear? I hope it is. We don't just talk, you see. We gave our money. Quite a difference. I don't know what you had in mind when posting this.

[michalis]

Official blender 2.67 is out anyway

http://www.blender.org/download/get-blender/

[bisenberger]

Thanks for the heads up michalis.

[Malo]

Dont get me wrong.

I still use Blender and i love it, but for that four parts (sculp, retopo, uv and texturing), 3D Coat, ZBrush and Mudbox are much more efficiently as you could do it in Blender, in my eyes.

I have tested nearly every build that cover that areas, and it was not that what i want and need.

At the end, i give up and went to 3D Coat, and now i have much more fun with that App.

Edited May 8, 2013 by Malo