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Simple work flow procedure questions


Greg
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Hello,

I've used 3D Coat for a while (I've even done a few videos about using it) but haven't followed as closely as I should lately. I have some what I guess are basic questions, but there are areas of confusion for me dealing with work flow.

As a hypothetical example, let's say I want to model a detailed human body, and paint it.

My questions is what is considered to be the best workflow for that now? I know Live clay / surface mode has been added.

Here's the way I'm thinking it would be done. I realize that there are, as in most things, several ways to accomplish this, but am looking for a good and/or logical way if you will. Is my logic below totally wrong?

1. Create the basic body shape (I'd use curves).

2. Switch to Surface Mode and use the live clay tools to get everything as close as possible to the shape I want, but not detailing it.

3. Switch to voxel mode and continue detailing & up-res until it looks like I want, sans pores, small wrinkles etc. Add larger detail things like knuckles, nose, eyelids, fingernails?

I say "not detailing it" in surface mode, cause it seems like once you switch to voxels all of your details from surface mode disappear.

Is that right so far, or sound close?

Here it's a little more murky to me. Let's assume this will be a game character, not something for print...

The way I would have done this before would be to retopo the model, create UV maps and paint those. But I guess we can paint on voxels now?

So, where to go from here?

With such a large tool set, I don't think I'm the only one who wonders this.

Thanks to anyone who replies.

Greg

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Off hand, Gregg, I would do your finishing in Surface mode using Live Clay and not return to Voxels. If you want to paint the model at this point (without Retopo), go directly to the paint room without going back to voxels as you are now concerned only with the surface, not the volume.

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Thanks Tony. I'll go experiment a little. So, If I paint the model without retopo, is the paint applied when I do retopo it? I'll read up on this.

Also, if Live clay is the preferred method now, what's the purpose of voxel mode? For the large shape?

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I'm not posting much at the forums this year but here is my take on your question.

Voxels for creating the basic shape up to medium details.

Surface mode for the fine details. All liveclay tools have dynamic tessellation. You can have more detail in the finger nails than the forearm muscles for an example.

Painting quality in surface mode is depended upon the amount of vertices you have as it is vertex based. The higher the amount of polygons you have the better quality of your painting.

It is if nothing else good for creating your base color undercoat for your model as you can bake that color when merging from the retopo room. Good for getting your color scheme down...

Also a good thing to remember is that you need a larger resolution texture map to capture all those fine details in the surface mode model.

That is a workflow question depending upon what your end result is for the model, animation or a still image etc... You will have to decide to sculpt the extra fine details or add them later in the paint room.

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Thanks for that Digman. I'll have to watch AbnRangers video about baking a few times. That seems to be the part I'm really missing.

Greg

The Voxel/Surface/LiveClay workflow is largely a matter of preference. If you have the hardware to handle it, you can increase the voxel resolution plenty high enough to capture high levels of detail, and find that you prefer how it feels to Surface mode. I actually do, much of the time, but when doing creases, it's nice to be able to use the CreaseClay brush for that. There are some nice brushes in Artman's Brush Presets (in the Exchange section of this forum), that work in Surface mode. So, experiment with them and brushes in Voxel Mode (adjust your spacing in the Brush Options Panel, falloff and other parameters to get a customized brush that you want to use in the future...and create your own preset for that tool/brush).

Because Voxels remesh with each stroke, and maintain uniformity throughout, it sort of runs counter to how LiveClay works. That's why you will either have to increase the level of resolution on the model if you switch from LiveClay to Voxel Mode...or you will lose some degree of detail/sharpness. In some cases, that can be a good thing, actually. For example if you created some creases, but you want to soften them up a bit, hitting ENTER (which remeshes the model to be uniform like Voxel Mode) or switching to Voxel mode.

So, in short, the ideal workflow would be to use Voxel mode up to a high resolution, then switch to Surface mode and use LiveClay for the detail stage of the Sculpt.

As for Painting, it's probably best not to Voxel/Vertex Paint if you are going to retopo the model and transfer to the Paint Room...although you could. As the others mentioned, it will bake all textures down. Problem with that workflow is twofold.

1) Now you have both the layers that belong to the Voxel model, and layers 3D Coat baked to the Retopo model. It leaves you with a crowded mess of layers to sort through (this is one reason why we need an outliner panel).

2) You can't use the Texture Editor when painting on a voxel object. This is also why I practically never use Ptex. The Texture Editor is one of the most powerful features in 3D Coat and having that option inaccessible is out of the question for me. It has some useful purposes (Paint Now or Later, and good for quick prototyping/graphic design where Retopo'ing the model isn't needed)

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Thanks Don. So you're saying that for every day purposes, when you are aiming for a lower resolution, animate-able model, a good work flow would be:

Create it with voxels, increasing resolution as needed.

Switch too Live Clay and detail.

Go and retopo the model, create UVs

Go into paint room and paint away.

etc.

Still going to watch baking tutorials.

:)

Greg

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Thanks Don. So you're saying that for every day purposes, when you are aiming for a lower resolution, animate-able model, a good work flow would be:

Create it with voxels, increasing resolution as needed.

Switch too Live Clay and detail.

Go and retopo the model, create UVs

Go into paint room and paint away.

etc.

Still going to watch baking tutorials.

:)

Greg

Hit the nail on the head, Greg. Pretty much the same workflow you used on the Ghost tutorial, except for the LiveClay part.
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Most of the time I find I create my assets in a modeling package (Modo), and depending on the level of detail, will either just stick to the paint room for detailing things like pores, wrinkles, folds, etc.. If a higher level of detail is required, I import into the sculpting room and use surface mode, then bake out a texture map using my original mesh in the retopo room, then import that into the paint room for painting and paintable depth details that are easier to do with the paint tools than sculpting.

So:

Model in external app

Import for paint

Or;

Model in external app

Import for sculpt

Bake details to original mesh

Import mesh and baked map into paint room and finish detailing

Other times, not so often lately, I do start my creation in 3DC with voxels.

So:

Voxels base shapes

Surface detailing

Retopo & UVs

Bake details to paint room

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Hey Javis, thanks. I know we all have preferences in how we create assets. For me, it's much easier to create organics in 3D Coat or ZBrush (with the exception of any hard surface stuff, which IMO is best left to a good modelling package like Blender, Modo, Lightwave etc.).

But your post confirms I need to investigate baking more in depth. Thanks for the reply!

Greg

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