Member The.Great.ESCape Posted June 27, 2013 Member Report Share Posted June 27, 2013 I'm not horribly new I suppose, but I haven't fully dived in to figure out the best ways to work in 3D-coat as I keep tending to fall back on ZB because it is usually performs better (i.e faster/smoother) on my less than cutting edge laptop. I've been playing with Live Clay though, and it is fun even if it bogs my system down in no time. I need to get the hang of using dynamic decimation with LC I suppose. But, I digress. I was wondering if there is something similar in 3D-Coat to polygroups in ZB? I find them useful especially when it comes to texturing hard surface sculpts. It's also fun for playing with things like panel loops and other polygroup based effects. While I'm at it, is it possible to use the voxel layer tool in a subtractive manner, or is the tool purely additive? If voxel layers are additive only, is there a subtractive version I am not seeing? Thanks for your time people Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carlosan Posted June 27, 2013 Report Share Posted June 27, 2013 Hi Time ago another user asked same question, here the link http://3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=9822&hl=polygroups --------------------------- Because some users doesnt work with ZB, let me add 2 docs to illustrate the tool: http://docs.pixologic.com/reference-guide/tool/polymesh/polygroups/ http://docs.pixologic.com/user-guide/3d-modeling/modeling-basics/polygroups/ Polygroups allow you to organize the mesh with visual grouping information. Polygroups are one way to organize your mesh. Another way is to use Subtools. Where SubTools create separate pieces of geometry, Polygroups only create separate selection areas. Your mesh is still one contiguous surface. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Contributor Tony Nemo Posted June 27, 2013 Contributor Report Share Posted June 27, 2013 "While I'm at it, is it possible to use the voxel layer tool in a subtractive manner, or is the tool purely additive? If voxel layers are additive only, is there a subtractive version I am not seeing?" Right click a voxel layer and see all the boolean operations (near the bottom of the list). Voxels are a great way to do bools. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member alvordr Posted June 27, 2013 Advanced Member Report Share Posted June 27, 2013 If you want subtractive, you can either use a voxel layer and subtract it from another, or use say a primitive and hold Ctrl while hitting Apply or the Enter key to subtract it from the layer you're on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member alvordr Posted June 27, 2013 Advanced Member Report Share Posted June 27, 2013 As far as polygroups, I'd say no, but then you can use Split to put a painted area of your voxel onto another layer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member The.Great.ESCape Posted June 28, 2013 Author Member Report Share Posted June 28, 2013 "While I'm at it, is it possible to use the voxel layer tool in a subtractive manner, or is the tool purely additive? If voxel layers are additive only, is there a subtractive version I am not seeing?" Right click a voxel layer and see all the boolean operations (near the bottom of the list). Voxels are a great way to do bools. Thank you for the reply, but I was thinking of the name of the object tool "VoxLayer", but should have said "VoxExtrude" (my mistake).... What I actually wanted to know was if it was possible to use VoxExtrude to do insets... or only extrude as the name would imply I suppose. If you're familiar with ZB then you know that the inflate deformation is probably the closest parallel... with it, you just have to use a negative value to create an inset as opposed to an extrusion. I am missing seeing the live preview in ZB as to what effect deformations are having... Come to think of it. I do remember some way of using the gizmo tool to extrude and inset, but I can't recall where I once saw how to do it and have forgotten. if you know what I'm talking about and can point me to some resource or other explaining the process... that would help with what I was working on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member The.Great.ESCape Posted June 28, 2013 Author Member Report Share Posted June 28, 2013 Hi Time ago another user asked same question, here the link http://3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=9822&hl=polygroups --------------------------- Because some users doesnt work with ZB, let me add 2 docs to illustrate the tool: http://docs.pixologic.com/reference-guide/tool/polymesh/polygroups/ http://docs.pixologic.com/user-guide/3d-modeling/modeling-basics/polygroups/ Polygroups allow you to organize the mesh with visual grouping information. Polygroups are one way to organize your mesh. Another way is to use Subtools. Where SubTools create separate pieces of geometry, Polygroups only create separate selection areas. Your mesh is still one contiguous surface. yes, with the newish slice and panel loops... polygroups can be used to good advantage with hard surface sculpting. Not to creating nice clean boundaries for texturing later, so long as the mesh is high enough resolution. I do like the fact that you can paint directly on maps from within 3DC... it's more of a WISIWIG approach if you need to render in an external application. With ZB you have to project the vertex painting onto a texture map, but then it's always slightly different after, and ZB doesn't support editing of the texture map directly. It would be cool if ZB polypainting supported PTEX as opposed to just straight vertex painting, but not yet apparently. There are definitey advantages in texturing and retopo with 3DC Voxels do really nice booleans, but I can't get to a decent detail level with vovels on this laptop. It will be cool if LiveClay for voxels becomes a reality. Then maybe it would be time to look at implementing things similar to ZB's deformation and polygroup-like effects because the divisions could be cleaner without the res being so high it freezes my laptop. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reputable Contributor AbnRanger Posted June 28, 2013 Reputable Contributor Report Share Posted June 28, 2013 yes, with the newish slice and panel loops... polygroups can be used to good advantage with hard surface sculpting. Not to creating nice clean boundaries for texturing later, so long as the mesh is high enough resolution. I do like the fact that you can paint directly on maps from within 3DC... it's more of a WISIWIG approach if you need to render in an external application. With ZB you have to project the vertex painting onto a texture map, but then it's always slightly different after, and ZB doesn't support editing of the texture map directly. It would be cool if ZB polypainting supported PTEX as opposed to just straight vertex painting, but not yet apparently. There are definitey advantages in texturing and retopo with 3DC Voxels do really nice booleans, but I can't get to a decent detail level with vovels on this laptop. It will be cool if LiveClay for voxels becomes a reality. Then maybe it would be time to look at implementing things similar to ZB's deformation and polygroup-like effects because the divisions could be cleaner without the res being so high it freezes my laptop. In surface mode, the Cutoff tool is actually using LiveClay technology to optimize the geometry along the edges of a boolean operation. It takes longer to calculate, if the model is dense....naturally, because it is not a matter of turning on/off voxels on a 3D grid and remeshing uniformly (voxel), it's essentially performing a decimation routine....leaving fewer polys in planar surfaces, yet more along sharp angles. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member The.Great.ESCape Posted June 29, 2013 Author Member Report Share Posted June 29, 2013 In surface mode, the Cutoff tool is actually using LiveClay technology to optimize the geometry along the edges of a boolean operation. It takes longer to calculate, if the model is dense....naturally, because it is not a matter of turning on/off voxels on a 3D grid and remeshing uniformly (voxel), it's essentially performing a decimation routine....leaving fewer polys in planar surfaces, yet more along sharp angles. It will be nice to see some workflow vids with the new Live clay tools... I have ideas, but so far I am not as familiar with the 3DC interface as ZB... I'm one of the oddballs that started 3D in ZB. I'm not a 3D professional and sometimes some of the application specific terms that actually mean more or less the same thing slow me down a bit... I know that ZB is notorious for using non-standard naming, but that's what I am used to now... go figure. although they had a new release today (technically yesterday now I suppose) that I'm still figuring out the new features of as well. I'm liking their new trim tools better than the clip tools so far except for one... what I thought was an odd behavior and the fact that they don't work with symmetry mode... though that may change. I'm not exactly locked into one tool though... I've collected a few 3D odds and ends now... a little disappointed with my investment in groboto as development and forum replies seem to have died... Right now I mainly use my 3d models as reference for my more or less 2D art... that may change as my skill set seems to keep expanding though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.