Member 3DBob Posted January 30, 2009 Member Report Share Posted January 30, 2009 Hi Andrew / All, We are trying to use 3D coat to sculpt, retopo and paint some game chars at the moment. We have been beating our head against a wall for a few days now with a show-stopping bug. It is in the painting section of 53. Import a poly mesh with or without UV, prepare to paint, try and save, crash........ every time. Same issue on Mac, Intel 32/64 The Voxel part can save fine..... Installed version 48 - no problems..... Would really appreciate a patch as we are running 1 version for sculpt and another for paint. Sometimes the baking of sculpts to meshes is a little unpredictable. BTW - apart from the bugs (it is alpha after all), this is shaping up to be a fine tool. Well done, I havn't said that enough recently. 3DBob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member TOXE Posted January 30, 2009 Advanced Member Report Share Posted January 30, 2009 Thanks, this is interesting. Nice, i havent understood a single word! Math is not my bread -TOXE Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew Shpagin Posted January 30, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 30, 2009 Hi Andrew / All,We are trying to use 3D coat to sculpt, retopo and paint some game chars at the moment. We have been beating our head against a wall for a few days now with a show-stopping bug. It is in the painting section of 53. Import a poly mesh with or without UV, prepare to paint, try and save, crash........ every time. Same issue on Mac, Intel 32/64 The Voxel part can save fine..... Installed version 48 - no problems..... Would really appreciate a patch as we are running 1 version for sculpt and another for paint. Sometimes the baking of sculpts to meshes is a little unpredictable. BTW - apart from the bugs (it is alpha after all), this is shaping up to be a fine tool. Well done, I havn't said that enough recently. 3DBob Does it happens even on standard models? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew Shpagin Posted January 31, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 31, 2009 Updated to V54. It is not planned update, the only intension is to fix critical bug mentioned by 3DBob. So most of new unfinished things are disabled. Only DX version was changed, GL was unchanged. Renderer was improved, now you can render and surf internet, render to bmp or tga (with alpha channel). Version in program is 53 (forgot to change) Now working on better combining of surface and voxel approaches (surface gives better speed but needs to be transformed to voxels in realtime). It will give speed and brushing improvements. I had 3-day not successful experiment, but now all goes well. Today and tomorrow I will be away, only very rarely online. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member Jokermax Posted January 31, 2009 Advanced Member Report Share Posted January 31, 2009 thanks Andrew, the rendering is more responsive now! the merge tools leave persistent geometry colorful garbage after use Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member psyborgue Posted January 31, 2009 Advanced Member Report Share Posted January 31, 2009 I'm getting "ridges" on patch merging, as if the depth channel is of low bit depth and "stairstepped" (see pictures). Other than those artifacts, the result is accurate. Is this a known issue? If so, is there a known cause/solution? Alpha 49 OSX Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew Shpagin Posted January 31, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 31, 2009 thanks Andrew, the rendering is more responsive now!the merge tools leave persistent geometry colorful garbage after use ALPHA 54 updated again, this time GL version included and garbage removed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew Shpagin Posted January 31, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 31, 2009 I'm getting "ridges" on patch merging, as if the depth channel is of low bit depth and "stairstepped" (see pictures). Other than those artifacts, the result is accurate. Is this a known issue? If so, is there a known cause/solution?Alpha 49 OSX Try to decrease dencity 2x or 4x using vox tree & rmb to increase preciseness of baking. Object will grow in size 2x or 4x times. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member psyborgue Posted January 31, 2009 Advanced Member Report Share Posted January 31, 2009 Try to decrease dencity 2x or 4x using vox tree & rmb to increase preciseness of baking. Object will grow in size 2x or 4x times. Thanks! Works perfectly now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philnolan3d Posted February 1, 2009 Report Share Posted February 1, 2009 This bug in Increase res is still there. I took the default sphere and cut the ends off to make a disc shape. Then hit Increase Res. twice and this is what I got. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member Eric Dandoy Posted February 1, 2009 Advanced Member Report Share Posted February 1, 2009 This bug in Increase res is still there. I took the default sphere and cut the ends off to make a disc shape. Then hit Increase Res. twice and this is what I got. Same behaviour for me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Javis Posted February 2, 2009 Report Share Posted February 2, 2009 This bug in Increase res is still there. I took the default sphere and cut the ends off to make a disc shape. Then hit Increase Res. twice and this is what I got. Confirmed. Alpha 54. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Contributor tree321 Posted February 2, 2009 Contributor Report Share Posted February 2, 2009 A work around is to sub-d the sphere first then cut. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philnolan3d Posted February 2, 2009 Report Share Posted February 2, 2009 Well for that specific shape a work around is to just delete the sphere and make the shape with the circle in the E panel. However with other shapes this same problem occurs with no cutting at all just increase the resolution. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Contributor artman Posted February 2, 2009 Contributor Report Share Posted February 2, 2009 The best workaround for this problem is to clone object before increasing resolution (inc res on cloned object and delete old object) It always works. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member 3DBob Posted February 4, 2009 Member Report Share Posted February 4, 2009 Hi Andrew, Thanks for sorting that last bug. We are currently having a hellish time baking normal maps from a mesh imported with vertex normals. We are sculpting with the standard paint tools and baking a normal map from that - problem is we appear to get flipping of the normals accross UV seams - making the result unuseable. Is this a bug in the paint based normal mapping part of the software or might it be because the mesh has some Vertex Normals in it already? I have sent you an LWO object with textures. Regards 3DBob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member psyborgue Posted February 4, 2009 Advanced Member Report Share Posted February 4, 2009 Hi Andrew,Thanks for sorting that last bug. We are currently having a hellish time baking normal maps from a mesh imported with vertex normals. We are sculpting with the standard paint tools and baking a normal map from that - problem is we appear to get flipping of the normals accross UV seams - making the result unuseable. Aha. I had this problem with normal maps I created (it's addressed in my 3dc>blender tutorial). The problem is with the UV unwrapper in 3d coat. Some islands are unwrapped "face down", making problems for tangent space normal maps in many programs. To check for this, draw asymmetrical letters on your uv map or on your model with a pen tool and see if they match, or if one is "mirrored" as if you were looking at the letter in a mirror. You can solve this problem by re-unwrapping your object in a different software and then re-importing the object using File > Import UV Set. You don't have to re-paint or re-generate anything. Since 3d coat stores texture info in microverteces, you can change UV layouts at any time. It automatically regenerates a new texture to the new UVs. Just do that, export new textures, and everything should work fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member Deadman21 Posted February 4, 2009 Advanced Member Report Share Posted February 4, 2009 Aha. I had this problem with normal maps I created (it's addressed in my 3dc>blender tutorial). The problem is with the UV unwrapper in 3d coat. Some islands are unwrapped "face down", making problems for tangent space normal maps in many programs.To check for this, draw asymmetrical letters on your uv map or on your model with a pen tool and see if they match, or if one is "mirrored" as if you were looking at the letter in a mirror. You can solve this problem by re-unwrapping your object in a different software and then re-importing the object using File > Import UV Set. You don't have to re-paint or re-generate anything. Since 3d coat stores texture info in microverteces, you can change UV layouts at any time. It automatically regenerates a new texture to the new UVs. Just do that, export new textures, and everything should work fine. I had started having this problem a while back and it was driving me crazy. Thanks for the tips and explanation of why this was happening I use Carrara 7 with the Baker plugin for normal maps and this will help alot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member jedwards Posted February 5, 2009 Advanced Member Report Share Posted February 5, 2009 You can solve this problem by re-unwrapping your object in a different software and then re-importing the object using File > Import UV Set. You don't have to re-paint or re-generate anything. Since 3d coat stores texture info in microverteces, you can change UV layouts at any time. It automatically regenerates a new texture to the new UVs. Just do that, export new textures, and everything should work fine. I didn't know this! Thanks for the info! That opens up some interesting possibilities. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member 3DBob Posted February 5, 2009 Member Report Share Posted February 5, 2009 Hi psyborgue, Thanks for this really appreciate the help. Wonder if this can be resolved in further builds. Regards Bob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member 3DBob Posted February 5, 2009 Member Report Share Posted February 5, 2009 Hi All, I think there is an area which could be the main root of the confusion and problems with normals.... you can mark seams, and unwrap and then export straight away - but if you don't apply the preview UV to the Object it will have some islands flipped. You can get away without applying UV, can still paint - can still export and the colour an spec looks fine but the nomal map is sensitive to flipping of the UV clusters (islands) and will be incorrect. Also you must choose the right nmap format in the options - Either LW/MAX or Maya. So, the net result is this - Mark seams - If you want to optimise the use of the UV area and are not concerned with editing in pshop afterwards or to understand the UV area, add more cluster balls this will ad more UV Islands (Clusters) all the way down to Individual polys. - Unwrap - If you are happy with the result APPLY UV-Set (If you do not do this, you could still paint, sculpt, export but Normal export will be wrong) - Choose correct nmap format for your 3Dapp in View>Options>Normal Map Export Might need to upp smoothing level in LW if you are using that. Works fo me.... 3DBob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member erklaerbar Posted February 6, 2009 Advanced Member Report Share Posted February 6, 2009 Is it possible to extract a skin from voxels without a crust? So that absolutely everything internal is deleted? Because Im having troubles with an exploding high poly mesh as a result from projecting internal + invisible mesh parts against the surface. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew Shpagin Posted February 6, 2009 Author Report Share Posted February 6, 2009 Is it possible to extract a skin from voxels without a crust? So that absolutely everything internal is deleted? Because Im having troubles with an exploding high poly mesh as a result from projecting internal + invisible mesh parts against the surface. Have you tried VoxTree->Extract skin -> ... (voxel and surface methods, voxel is preferred but slower) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member erklaerbar Posted February 6, 2009 Advanced Member Report Share Posted February 6, 2009 yes, but i have tried both but it makes the problem much worse in fact. It projects partially the outer side and partially the inner side, which results in artifacts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member LaurentG Posted February 6, 2009 Member Report Share Posted February 6, 2009 Hi All, I tried for many years to find an alternative to polygon sculting, which suffer of lots of problems (the big one is: how can I create more volume without reducing quality on this new volume). Now I'm pretty sure that voxel sculting is what I'm looking for. 3D Coat is a great tool with a huge potential from my point of view. Good work ! I spent some times on 3D-Coat 3.0 alpha and it's a real pleasure to work with. However, maybe this is temporary, when I try to scult with high density of voxel, I reach my computer limits. If I could resolve this problem, I will probably leave softwares as ZBrush or Mudbox to 3D-Coat. So my question is: what are hardware bottlenecks for voxel sculting ? For example, if I upgrade my graphics hardware (more graphic memory, or setting up SLI to have more GPU computing power), will it improve voxel sculting performance ? I see that voxel sculting takes a lot of RAM, maybe more RAM is a good Idea ? More CPU power ? My current computer configuration : Intel Core 2 quad Q6600 4Go DDR2 PCI-Express Geforce 8800 GT 512Mo Windows XP 64bits Thanks for your advices, Regards, Laurent Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew Shpagin Posted February 6, 2009 Author Report Share Posted February 6, 2009 Hi All,I tried for many years to find an alternative to polygon sculting, which suffer of lots of problems (the big one is: how can I create more volume without reducing quality on this new volume). Now I'm pretty sure that voxel sculting is what I'm looking for. 3D Coat is a great tool with a huge potential from my point of view. Good work ! I spent some times on 3D-Coat 3.0 alpha and it's a real pleasure to work with. However, maybe this is temporary, when I try to scult with high density of voxel, I reach my computer limits. If I could resolve this problem, I will probably leave softwares as ZBrush or Mudbox to 3D-Coat. So my question is: what are hardware bottlenecks for voxel sculting ? For example, if I upgrade my graphics hardware (more graphic memory, or setting up SLI to have more GPU computing power), will it improve voxel sculting performance ? I see that voxel sculting takes a lot of RAM, maybe more RAM is a good Idea ? More CPU power ? My current computer configuration : Intel Core 2 quad Q6600 4Go DDR2 PCI-Express Geforce 8800 GT 512Mo Windows XP 64bits Thanks for your advices, Regards, Laurent Today (I hope) I will upload update that will add new detalisation tools that work on very high speed (at least 5x faster then usual). But in most cases bottleneck is memory amount. Memory is very cheap, so it is easy to improve especially if you have XP64. Other your specs are very good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member JulesD Posted February 6, 2009 Member Report Share Posted February 6, 2009 When trying too merge a large obj model in Volumetric, it loads in fine, but when I press enter to place it, 3D coat messes up the model. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew Shpagin Posted February 6, 2009 Author Report Share Posted February 6, 2009 Updated to V55 Changes: 1) Surface tools are improved much. They are triansforming to voxels on the fly. It opens possibility to edit object very fastly. 2) New brush - Clay (in surface tools). It acts as flattern+extrude. It is good to build shapes. Supports masks and materials with cube mapping. 3) New brush - Gum (in surface tools). It acts as extrude but works very very fastly. It is good to make small details wth materials and masks. Supports masks and materials with cube mapping. 4) New tool Logo - transforms B&W pictures to voxel objects. 5) New tool - Cut&Clone 6) New tool - Split (splits objects in parts) 7) Flipped UV clusters issue fixed. Couple of new shaders 9) All mesh merging operation produce much better quality and smoothness of voxel object. 10) Bugfixes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Contributor artman Posted February 6, 2009 Contributor Report Share Posted February 6, 2009 awesome! best day of my week! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member erklaerbar Posted February 6, 2009 Advanced Member Report Share Posted February 6, 2009 wooooooho, downloading Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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