3D-Coat 3.0 ALPHA

[ghib]

To get on topic I've been quietly testing the latest 3DC build and im pretty impressed by the potential. The new UI looks like it will be very usefull and the new DP is great. I would however like to ask if there are plans to increase the speed of the colour painting. I Hadn't realised this was an issue until i tried Mudbox with which I can brush with massive brushes with only minor lagging where in 3DC large brushes are a no no, I also notices major lag when approaching the edges of meshs.

Yes that's been one of my biggest concerns with this App. The brushes don't feel quite as smooth as working with Photoshop or Mudbox (which doesn't have the same functionality as 3DC)

3DC has come on in leaps and bounds and with the Per Pixel painting it feels a lot smoother/faster to paint than with the microvertex method but it still has issues with painting on new transparent layers.

Mudbox really has a nice brush engine. It's smooth and hardly ever lags (as you said) with large brush sizes. Also, not only does it have fading on faces with normals perpendicular to the camera it also 'wraps around' and projects the brush.

In practice this is beautiful to work with and you NEVER get those streaks you see in other apps and at the same time is so easy to paint around tight corners (fingers/limbs etc.)

It's my hope that once all Bugs are squashed and features have been implemented that Andrew will improve the Brush engine in 3DC

[BluEgo]

It's my hope that once all Bugs are squashed and features have been implemented that Andrew will improve the Brush engine in 3DC

I couldn't be more agree. 3DC has a lot of features, but the brush engine should be the main.

[Andrew Shpagin]

What about Win & Mac - they will be released simultaneously.

[geo_n]

Well, not even bugs, but also voxel tools actually are not ready for a professional release.

There is not a voxel flatten tool.

Clay tool is not good.

Rapid tool is amazing, but I hate using these surface tools which result is not the same as voxel tools. If Andrew could write the voxel version of this tool, this could be amazing !

Also fill tool is not bad, but a offset feature (like sphere tool) should be inserted, so probably it could act as a clay tool.

Generally speaking, all tools could have a offset feature, so this could be used as a modifier of the tool.

Anyway, really, Andrew you should adopt the suggestions 3Dioot and Rimasson gave you month ago.

Sorry to sound harsh, I am only trying to remind you to not lost the focus.

Oh, and of course you need some more options for the smooth tool !

is the voxel in 3dc aiming for the sculpting capability of zbrush or mudbox? I think voxel is a better version of zspheres. Very fine detail and smooth brush feel can't be achieved with voxel I think. I hope that's not the case but playing zbrush at work it just feels smoother and responsive. But I'm not buying myself zbrush. Only maybe 5% of vfx work is character stuff. 3dc is enough for me.

[erklaerbar]

I agree on whats been said about the brush engine, it needs to be more fun. I havent tested mudox so i cant compare, but Zbrush is still much more fluid and fun to use in direct interaction with heavy meshes. CUDA appears to accelerate things a lot though, really (8800GTS).

I also noticed that multithreading is barely present, at least when i look at my task manager, i barely go over 25 percent CPU usage with 4 cores, regardless of what i do in 3DC. Thats a bit frustrating, however to be fair im no coder and have no clue how hard it is to implement.

I do however believe that Andrew will adress this with time, so im confident.

[Maximus3D]

It's very rarely you see any coder add multithreading/multicore to specific tools in an application, normally you use it for the most cpu intensive tasks such as rendering because implementing it in tool X and Y is quite a bit more work and you could end up with an application that's actually slower than if it only used one core for the tools. This is because you have to tell the cpu to keep track of which cores do what and when they idle and if they're idle the cpu have to assign that core a task and when that task is finished it has to be set to idle again and so on. All this is alot of processing and core management and it eats cpu cycles and could slow it down more than you would gain from it. Besides all the extra code you need to add could also result in more bugs and instability problems. Only sculpting and possibly texturepainting would benefit from this as they can be quite cpu demanding tasks but i'm not even sure Zbrush and Mudbox use all cores, i don't think so.

Nice to see we hit 200 pages, it's something that deserves to be celebrated!

/ Magnus

[Silentman]

MUDBOX has become card specific, if you don't have a Quadro card you can't run it, so much for all the guys out there with Geforce 260's or even 290's.

I was also under the impression that 3D Coat is geared to be more Gpu intensive, not Cpu intensive, that's the whole point of Cuda tech, getting more stuff happening with the gpu, isn't it ??

Overall, we are sculpting in realtime, Cuda is a new tech, 3D Coat is a new program, together over time they will make a wonderfull marriage

Forget about Mudbox unless your a serious modeler making some income from your modeling regularly, as far as i can tell, Autodesks plans for that app is to market it more towards the professional production house, why else would they remove support for Geforce cards, (they state it on their website, "Mudbox does not support Geforce cards").

I for one have complete, confidence in Andrews ability to make this program hum

[cyartist]

I agree The brushes are not ready for a professional release. They do not work fluildly at all and often leads to unexpected results.Good for roughing out things but they need a lot more work before they can be said up to par . I hope andrew starts back getting focus on fixing them.

[Roger_K]

MUDBOX has become card specific, if you don't have a Quadro card you can't run it, so much for all the guys out there with Geforce 260's or even 290's.

I'm sorry if this sounds rude but thats completely uninformed and unsubstantiated. Its super smooth on my laptop with a Geforce 8600 GT. I have no doubt a program that uses the Videocard extensively has issues with certain cards and driver versions but it certainly dosn't need a Quadro to run. I dont mean to be overly harsh but that sort of statement only misinforms people

NO highend 3d apps officially support Geforce cards. Yet they run just fine. Quadros are certified and tested by Autodesk so they can say they work well with the program and they therefore support their usage. Geforce cards are not tested and are not supported. Hell some of the AD Demos on the site were done with GF cards. its just red tape

Maximus- I think 3DC uses Multicore for smoothing and some other brushing ops.

[philnolan3d]

is the voxel in 3dc aiming for the sculpting capability of zbrush or mudbox? I think voxel is a better version of zspheres. Very fine detail and smooth brush feel can't be achieved with voxel I think. I hope that's not the case but playing zbrush at work it just feels smoother and responsive. But I'm not buying myself zbrush. Only maybe 5% of vfx work is character stuff. 3dc is enough for me.

When working on my old man model (see the VS WIPS) I was able to get pretty fine resolution in voxels, meaning pores, fine wrinkles, and other blemishes. Later though I wondered if it may have been better to do that really fine stuff while painting. That would have given me more options, like using layers.

[BluEgo]

When working on my old man model (see the VS WIPS) I was able to get pretty fine resolution in voxels, meaning pores, fine wrinkles, and other blemishes. Later though I wondered if it may have been better to do that really fine stuff while painting. That would have given me more options, like using layers.

Yesterday, just to make a try, I subdivided a sphere until it reached 16 M of triangles, so I don't think that voxel should be used only to rough volumes.

Voxels are great, they need a better brush engine and organization

[jedwards]

Yesterday, just to make a try, I subdivided a sphere until it reached 16 M of triangles, so I don't think that voxel should be used only to rough volumes.

Voxels are great, they need a better brush engine and organization

I definitely think the resolution is there to do high rez with voxels. What I'd really like to see though is decent masking functions for being able to detail like in zbrush, but also to be used for increasing resolution locally. Voxel meshes would be much more efficient if you could localize resolution at key areas like on the hands and face while leaving the rest at lower resolution. I think the brushes really need some refinement as well though, or at least more customization for behavior by the artist. Is brush curve editing going to make it into the final release?

On my iMac I up-rez'd a mesh to 18.7 million triangles. It took about 4 minutes to process but the program didn't crash and I could actually still do detail work fairly smoothly. Viewport navigation slowed to a crawl though. =] That was more of a test than anything. I'm more likely to keep single meshes at or below 5 million tris, and even my iMac can handle that. This is where controlling resolution in key areas would come in handy. For a single sculpt it gets a bit tricky, but if I break things up over several meshes I can work much as I would in zbrush with multiple subtools. 3dcoat is way easier to work with for building from scratch though. I love the fact that I can now start a character directly in this app and not have to build base meshes.

[SonK]

I definitely think the resolution is there to do high rez with voxels. What I'd really like to see though is decent masking functions for being able to detail like in zbrush, but also to be used for increasing resolution locally. Voxel meshes would be much more efficient if you could localize resolution at key areas like on the hands and face while leaving the rest at lower resolution. I think the brushes really need some refinement as well though, or at least more customization for behavior by the artist. Is brush curve editing going to make it into the final release?

On my iMac I up-rez'd a mesh to 18.7 million triangles. It took about 4 minutes to process but the program didn't crash and I could actually still do detail work fairly smoothly. Viewport navigation slowed to a crawl though. =] That was more of a test than anything. I'm more likely to keep single meshes at or below 5 million tris, and even my iMac can handle that. This is where controlling resolution in key areas would come in handy. For a single sculpt it gets a bit tricky, but if I break things up over several meshes I can work much as I would in zbrush with multiple subtools. 3dcoat is way easier to work with for building from scratch though. I love the fact that I can now start a character directly in this app and not have to build base meshes.

QFA,

I actually miss the masking function from Zbrush and it would be powerful with voxel. Increase voxel locally, would be great but is it possible?. Brush curve editing, where would Andrew place that? This is why a good GUI design is needed for crazy features that people want now and in the distant future.

I'm still using alpha 75.

[Andrew Shpagin]

Updated to V82 (Win & OSX)

Changes:

1) Updated reference image tool

2) Updated navigation and interaction with all tools

3) Round menu and context menu with "SPACE" in all pages

4) Massive bugfixes everywhere - render, tabs, stability, retopo, voxels, interface, ...

[artman]

Thanx Awesome!!

Edit:all bugs mentioned by me in my earlier post are alive and kickin.

[Roger_K]

When working on my old man model (see the VS WIPS) I was able to get pretty fine resolution in voxels, meaning pores, fine wrinkles, and other blemishes. Later though I wondered if it may have been better to do that really fine stuff while painting. That would have given me more options, like using layers.

Not that i've done it that much but i found using a normal map rather than high density geometry for fine detail a far faster and more manageable work flow

[Andrew Shpagin]

Edit:all bugs mentioned by me in my earlier post are alive and kickin.

I noted all of them, but really they are not fixed still.

But they are not forgotten.

[philnolan3d]

That's funny, I was just about to go out, then it started raining really hard and I thought I had better wait a little while. Right after that you posted v82.

OK installed now. Here's a couple bugs left from 81:

1. There's something wrong with the perspective in the render room. If it looks good in Paint, it looks squished in Render.

2. The yellow circle of the cursor in Render follows the shape of the model in the other rooms. The shape is different due to the above bug.

The circle menu will take some getting used to, but I'll give it a shot. Great work!

[wailingmonkey]

Brush curve editing, where would Andrew place that? This is why a good GUI design is needed for crazy features that people want now and in the distant future.

This has been a suggested feature for some time now (pre-voxel work)...in my mind, it would need nothing more than the

ability to have it as a dockable panel (same as 'pen' , 'pen options', 'strips', etc.). So in that regard, what's going on now

with Andrew's interface changes would seem to support future growth quite well...maybe some folks want prettier GUI looks,

but the functionality part of it seems close to done now.

Andrew,

Maybe I'm mistaken, but I would still expect the 'ref image for x-axis' to follow along the x-axis....as it is now, it

follows the z-axis. I can totally work around that, but just think it would be contrary to how the user would expect

their reference image to be displayed. (still think it would be nice to be able to 'lock' any chosen plane)

[artman]

I noted all of them, but really they are not fixed still.

But they are not forgotten.

yeah,sorry..sometimes I forget that you read everything even if you are hyperbusy.

space bar menu is really cool btw

[Auger]

Andrew,

Maybe I'm mistaken, but I would still expect the 'ref image for x-axis' to follow along the x-axis....as it is now, it

follows the z-axis. I can totally work around that, but just think it would be contrary to how the user would expect

their reference image to be displayed. (still think it would be nice to be able to 'lock' any chosen plane)

Can you tell me where to load up the reference images?

Jon

[David Walters]

Thanks for fixing the render docking bug I reported - switching tabs seems much much faster now, it all seems a lot more polished.

The [space] popup is great. I did find a bug though - if you hold down the button (I thought that you'd have to keep it held like Maya for some reason ) and move the mouse you get many copies of the menu. Also more importantly clicks on the tools are immediately passed through to the canvas. So if you click the erase tool you end up with a hole, etc.! I don't want to be too critical of a brand new feature though and I'm sure it'll be much better really soon!

An extra bug - or at least something that's really confusing to me - when I import objects for DP, I always get 2 layers. It would be much clearer to have just one layer by default I think -- sorry to keep repeating myself though

[Maximus3D]

Great update once again, especially the spacebar menu thingy that's a nice touch! i like it.

/ Magnus

[Silentman]

I'm sorry if this sounds rude but thats completely uninformed and unsubstantiated. Its super smooth on my laptop with a Geforce 8600 GT. I have no doubt a program that uses the Videocard extensively has issues with certain cards and driver versions but it certainly dosn't need a Quadro FX to run. I dont mean to be overly harsh but that sort of statement only misinforms people

NO highend 3d apps officially support Geforce cards. Yet they run just fine. Quadro's are certified and tested by Autodesk so they can say they work well with the program and they therefore support their usage. Geforce cards are not tested and are not supported. Hell some of the AD Demos on the site were done with GF cards. its just red tape

Maximus- I think 3DC uses Multicore for smoothing and some other brushing ops.

It is neither uninformed or unsubstantiated, what version of Mudbox are you referring too mate, i'm referring to Mudbox 2009. It clearly states on Autodesks website that Mudbox Doesn't support Geforce cards, and it isn't just an indemnity statement, they don't state that about 3ds Max 2009 and guess what it runs just fine, go figure...

Tell me why i can install the latest trial of 3D Coat and it runs flawlessly, but i urge anyone to install Mudbox 2009 on a system without a Workstation card such as Quadro and see how you can't even bring up a base model in the 3D vieport.

Also Mudbox V1.07 works fine, the new 2009 version doesn't.

Anyways i don't want to derail the thread, i was simply making a point, and that point is the latest version of Mudbox won't run without the right cards and thus for it has been pushed into another league, it's not a hobbiest program anymore, 3D Coat on the other hand seems to fit well with all levels, It's great for hobbiest and professional. In time when the 3D Coat has gone through it's iterations it will far outshine Mudbox.

[philnolan3d]

Maybe I'm mistaken, but I would still expect the 'ref image for x-axis' to follow along the x-axis....as it is now, it

follows the z-axis. I can totally work around that, but just think it would be contrary to how the user would expect

their reference image to be displayed. (still think it would be nice to be able to 'lock' any chosen plane)

X-Axis goes through the X-axis, this is the way I works in most programs I believe. When I picked Z I expected to see the image when I looked at it from the front camera and that's what it does.

Can you tell me where to load up the reference images?

Under Camera > Background > Choose Ref Image for (X/Y/Z) axis.

I'm curious how to get rid of it though if I don't want it anymore.

As for MudBox 2009 I tried the demo on this computer (GeForce 8800 GTS) and the model seemed to open and work pretty decently. Then I switched to painting and as soon as I touched virtual brush to virtual canvas it crashed and would never load again even after re-installing.

[Silentman]

Now back on topic, can you update Alpha V81 to V82 or do you need to uninstall Alpha V81 and then install V82 ?

[Javis]

You can update without uninstalling.

[Silentman]

Thanks for fast reply, i hadn't installed it yet and didn't want to if i needed to get the new version

[kay_Eva]

OMGOSHHHHHH

3d-Coat has radials!@!!!!!

RADIALSSSS

join me in the dance of excitement!!! :clapping: :clapping: :clapping: :clapping:

is there a way of getting rid of the brushes panel on the far left because now that there is the new fantastic space bar menu I don't need those buttons on the left anymore ^^

[philnolan3d]

Thanks for fast reply, i hadn't installed it yet and didn't want to if i needed to get the new version

Yeah it just overwrites all of the files, though it seems to remember your settings and some other things like any special shaders you made up.