Volumetric sculpting

[JulesD]

Not sure if this is possible with volumetric sculpting, but could you please let the object be as low polygon as possible then use subdivision,normal mapping or displacement mapping to increase quality. I would like to export my models for real time applications.

[SonK]

Good news!

3.0 development started. I have made core engine that is able to

1) Keep (and modify) voxels in very compact storage

2) Produce and update drawable mesh from voxels array in realtime.

I have spent only 10-12 hours on the rest in village to make all this, so I think that work will run quickly.

The firs goal - fairly fast performance.

I would love to be able to sculpt something very detail in 3.0 like i could in ZB3/MBx 2009.

Not sure if this is possible with volumetric sculpting, but could you please let the object be as low polygon as possible then use subdivision,normal mapping or displacement mapping to increase quality. I would like to export my models for real time applications.

Assuming that's not possible, you could just use the retopology tool to create a new low res mesh from the highly detail voxel mesh. I'm on the other side of the fence, i want ALOT of detail on the voxel generated mesh, as much detail as Zb3/MBx 2009.

[Andrew Shpagin]

Not sure if this is possible with volumetric sculpting, but could you please let the object be as low polygon as possible then use subdivision,normal mapping or displacement mapping to increase quality. I would like to export my models for real time applications.

As SonK mentioned, retopology tool will be a good friend of volumetric sculpting. Of course, final stage is getting low or medium poly mesh with high-detailed displacement or normals.

[Christoph]

I would love to be able to sculpt something very detail in 3.0 like i could in ZB3/MBx 2009.

i want ALOT of detail on the voxel generated mesh, as much detail as Zb3/MBx 2009.

I second this. Hi-Res Volumetric Sculpting equivalent to the millions of polys that ZB3 and Mubox 2009 have.

Thanks.

[renderdemon]

Hi,I'm new here,Hi to all!

Andrew Shpagin,you are a really talented coder!

I'm interested in volumetric sculpting,can you please explain better the workflow?

I'm new to 3d coat,but I have good experience with other sculpting programs,volumetric will be a separate stuff,or will be full integrated with other functions?

How you'll do the tessellation?

I mean,a problem I can see is triangulation,will be quad or triangle based?

Bye

[Andrew Shpagin]

You can find basic description there.

Volumetric will be integrated, but list of tools to be applied on volumetric object will differ from standart edit set.

Marching cubes will produce triangular mesh, but anyway it should be retopologised at the final stage.

[renderdemon]

Thanks Andrew Shpagin,I'll wait for it!.

For now I'll use 3dcoat for texturing and retopologization,ithe retopologization tools are really good.

[Rodney Brett]

Not sure if this is possible with volumetric sculpting, but could you please let the object be as low polygon as possible then use subdivision,normal mapping or displacement mapping to increase quality. I would like to export my models for real time applications.

I believe "voxel" sculpting process is a much different way of thinking than the Mudbox way. Typically, with Mudbox 1.07 in particular, in order to make very broad changes to the mesh, you need to work at the lowest subdivision to get good results. For example, if you wanted to make drastic changes to the overall "mass" of the model, you'd work at the lower subdivisions. Once you are at level 3-4, it becomes very tedious to displace the mesh in terms of moving big sections of it. There is less of a "give" to the surface. Even smoothing needs a stronger intensity. I like the idea of a voxel method that allows me to stay at high density all the time, regardless of whether I need to make tiny changes to the surface or dramatic changes in mass.

It is, however, just a preference thing for me. I like to just "lump" strips of volume together at high density in realtime. It's why I use Zbrush more than Mudbox these days. I feel like I can "sketch model" better in this fashion.

[SonK]

Andrew,

Over at the ompf forum they are having discussion about voxel(and raycasting) thought you might be interested in reading it, its too technical for me to understand:

http://ompf.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=904

One of the programmer is from id software and they plan on using voxel for their next engine.

[philnolan3d]

A bit over my head too, but still an interesting read. I am a bit annoyed that he said slides from the Siggraph lecture would be available after Siggraph, only to find that you (apparently) have to pay for them, pay a lot.

[rednax]

I recently found a nice article which covers rendering of Point based models with Rasterizing as well as with raytracing. Its very long though, about 250 pages (I read only parts of it ).

You can find it here: http://www.mpi-inf.mpg.de/~mwand/

It is the article "Point-Based Multi-Resolution Rendering" from 2004

[StereoMike]

Siggraph papers on the net:

http://kesen.huang.googlepages.com/sig2008.html

all too technical for me, but maybe it's useful for you, Andrew.

mike

[Scott]

I believe "voxel" sculpting process is a much different way of thinking than the Mudbox way. Typically, with Mudbox 1.07 in particular, in order to make very broad changes to the mesh, you need to work at the lowest subdivision to get good results. For example, if you wanted to make drastic changes to the overall "mass" of the model, you'd work at the lower subdivisions. Once you are at level 3-4, it becomes very tedious to displace the mesh in terms of moving big sections of it. There is less of a "give" to the surface. Even smoothing needs a stronger intensity. I like the idea of a voxel method that allows me to stay at high density all the time, regardless of whether I need to make tiny changes to the surface or dramatic changes in mass.

It is, however, just a preference thing for me. I like to just "lump" strips of volume together at high density in realtime. It's why I use Zbrush more than Mudbox these days. I feel like I can "sketch model" better in this fashion.

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I agree, Although i prefer the simplicity and workflow Mudbox allows me, Zbrush's main benefit is it's 2.5D voxel/pixol CPU renderer which allows for much more polys, than Mudbox, 3DC, or Modo etc can do, with a true 3D Camera on the videocards GPU.

It's ZB's 2D/3D hybrid approach which obviously allows ZB to go much further than the true 3D OGL/DX based applications like 3DC in terms of it's polycount. It would be nice in a perfect world to have unlimited polygon amounts in a true 3D program like MB or 3DC.. (There's a challenge Andrew... Perhaps Andrew and some CUDA innovation it could be improved a little from what it is now. 100 million polys sounds like a nice number to strive for.... So only Claytools and ZB uses Voxels currently. But most of Claytools innovations are patented, unlike Pixologics.. Looking forward to more 3DC 3.0 CUDA demos Andrew!

I Believe that this paper is the basis for ZB. http://209.85.141.104/search?q=cache:faMkp...t=clnk&cd=2

It's the original 1991 Paper that is very good at explaining to beginners, thought some readers of this thread may be interested:

PS. Nice video RB, the approach is good... I had done similar but not using strips in the same fashion, but with the smooth brush i, guess it doesn't really matter much...

[lc8b105]

I agree, Although i prefer the simplicity and workflow Mudbox allows me, Zbrush's main benefit is it's 2.5D voxel/pixol CPU renderer which allows for much more polys, than Mudbox, 3DC, or Modo etc can do, with a true 3D Camera on the videocards GPU.

It's ZB's 2D/3D hybrid approach which obviously allows ZB to go much further than the true 3D OGL/DX based applications like 3DC in terms of it's polycount. It would be nice in a perfect world to have unlimited polygon amounts in a true 3D program like MB or 3DC.. (There's a challenge Andrew... Perhaps Andrew and some CUDA innovation it could be improved a little from what it is now. 100 million polys sounds like a nice number to strive for.... So only Claytools and ZB uses Voxels currently. But most of Claytools innovations are patented, unlike Pixologics.. Looking forward to more 3DC 3.0 CUDA demos Andrew!

I Believe that this paper is the basis for ZB. http://209.85.141.104/search?q=cache:faMkp...t=clnk&cd=2

It's the original 1991 Paper that is very good at explaining to beginners, thought some readers of this thread may be interested:

PS. Nice video RB, the approach is good... I had done similar but not using strips in the same fashion, but with the smooth brush i, guess it doesn't really matter much...

Excuse me Scott,but you said "ZB uses Voxels currently",really ?

[Scott]

Excuse me Scott,but you said "ZB uses Voxels currently",really ?

Yeah, if you read Rodney's post carefully, he also eludes to the same idea.. We do know that Zb uses Pixols and always has, which are just Pixologics form of Voxels. (An enhanced and improved version)

However Mudox does not use this technique at all. (even in MB2 IMO) 3DC will, but will differ in that it won't be a 2D/3D hybrid approach tied to a canvas like ZB, but in actual 3D space.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZBrush:

"Like a pixel, each pixol contains information on X and Y position and color values. Unlike pixels, it also contains information on depth (or Z position), orientation and material. Only ZBrush related files can store pixol information,and exported files (to JPEG or PNG, for example) will not have pixol data, as those have been rendered into 2D. This technique is similar in concept to a voxel, another kind of 3D pixel."

[Frankie]

Yeah, if you read Rodney's post carefully, he also eludes to the same idea.. We do know that Zb uses Pixols and always has, which are just Pixologics form of Voxels. (An enhanced and improved version)

However Mudox does not use this technique at all. (even in MB2 IMO) 3DC will, but will differ in that it won't be a 2D/3D hybrid approach tied to a canvas like ZB, but in actual 3D space.

<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZBrush:" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZBrush:</a>

"Like a pixel, each pixol contains information on X and Y position and color values. Unlike pixels, it also contains information on depth (or Z position), orientation and material. Only ZBrush related files can store pixol information,and exported files (to JPEG or PNG, for example) will not have pixol data, as those have been rendered into 2D. This technique is similar in concept to a voxel, another kind of 3D pixel."

Zbrush doesn't use voxels. Their data structures is polygons, and it's a surfacic paradigm, not volumetric. It's only their display (rasterizing) which is software based and renders pixols with z and normal information so that they can do nice deferred shading. See how much it slows down when you zoom in onto an object to get a clue it is very fill-rate dependent because of its software renderer.

[Ztreem]

I think this volumetric sculpting have big pontential, even in it's early alpha stage it works quite good. For the first time I feel completly free when sculpting in the computer. Great work Andrew this can be a really big thing.

Here's a quick test playing around.

[Marc Wakefield]

I think this volumetric sculpting have big pontential, even in it's early alpha stage it works quite good. For the first time I feel completly free when sculpting in the computer. Great work Andrew this can be a really big thing.

Here's a quick test playing around.

Cool!

Where did you get this?

Is this Andrews Cuda / 3d coat demo?

[StereoMike]

I guess it's the hack they talked about at cgsociety.com. Andrew has some inactive vol-sculpting magic already in place (on your pc), some guys found out how to activate it.

@Ztreem: Cool! I wonder how you achieved the bubbles in mid-air. How do you let 3dcoat know, where to place them without a mesh that delivers the depth?

mike

[Ztreem]

the hack is really simple and works fine. just create a empty text file in the install folder and call it volume.dat, that's it. Now when you run 3DCoat GL version you have a cube at the bottom, this is volumetric sculpting.

StereoMike: I just sculpted out long stripes and cut it off and leaved some pieces left in air. The nice thing about sculpting this way is that you are not limited by anything, just add or remove geometry as you whish.

[SonK]

the hack is really simple and works fine. just create a empty text file in the install folder and call it volume.dat, that's it. Now when you run 3DCoat GL version you have a cube at the bottom, this is volumetric sculpting.

StereoMike: I just sculpted out long stripes and cut it off and leaved some pieces left in air. The nice thing about sculpting this way is that you are not limited by anything, just add or remove geometry as you whish.

I get the same effect by using the "sculpt branch" tool. Wow this is great, even in 2.10.5 there are small improvements to the voxel sculpting tools. One thing i always notice with the current mesh base sculpting and now with voxel scuplting is, that the brush strokes always come out too rough..i find myself having to use the smooth tool to soften the stroke. This was also an issue with Mudbox 1.0.7 but its been address in Mudbox 2009.

[nuverian]

Just a glimpse of what it will be and it seems amazing!

I found myself playing around for hours with just a basic alpha tool... :-)

And about the roughness Sonk, since the vol.sculpting tools will be anew, hopefully Andrew will address the issue.Still too early to say though.

[SonK]

Just a glimpse of what it will be and it seems amazing!

I found myself playing around for hours with just a basic alpha tool... :-)

And about the roughness Sonk, since the vol.sculpting tools will be anew, hopefully Andrew will address the issue.Still too early to say though.

I hope so, that's one of the reason i do not use the mesh sculpting tools in 3DCoat. Nobody wants to smooth every stroke they make, that's counter productive. Also the triangles that make up the surface needs to be much smaller, so i can add very fine detail. Agree it has great potential if those 2 issue are fully address in 3.0 final release, i'll definitely upgrade.

Anyone know how to load a different mesh for voxel sculpting? right now 3DC points to creature.obj, is there a text file somwhere?

[philnolan3d]

Anyone know how to load a different mesh for voxel sculpting? right now 3DC points to creature.obj, is there a text file somwhere?

Pick a different OBJ, drop it in the Samples folder and name it multi.obj

[rimasson]

Wow, i'm impressed.

The initialization of the voxel tool takes nevertheless a couple of minutes

[Andrew Shpagin]

Ha! It seems it is time to upload something interesting. I hope to upload some more advanced version today with 5-6 new tools

[lc8b105]

Ha! It seems it is time to upload something interesting. I hope to upload some more advanced version today with 5-6 new tools

Dx&GL or only GL ?

[SonK]

Wow, i'm impressed.

The initialization of the voxel tool takes nevertheless a couple of minutes

couple of minutes?? it was realtime for me....once it click on the cube icon, boom , voxel generated triangle surface! Andrew, we need smaller triangles, please!

[Andrew Shpagin]

couple of minutes?? it was realtime for me....once it click on the cube icon, boom , voxel generated triangle surface! Andrew, we need smaller triangles, please!

Just paint bigger object Anyway further optimisation will increase speed and decrease triangles

[Frankie]

Just played a little with the volumetric tools. Seeing the incredible potential volumetric sculpting/painting has when integrated with the other tools, I really have to wonder why no other dev explored it besides Sensable. Anyway, congrats Andrew, you're the best!

With a complete toolset and with 64bits support (ran out of mem very quickly here), this will put any other application to shame.