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Carlosan
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I think it's because he tends to go for the low-hanging fruit, rather than tackle the more substantial changes that should be given higher priority. So, long-standing requests like REAL Sculpt layers in the Voxel room or addressing the slow-as-frozen-molasses sliders in the Paint Room...or a Shell/Thickness tool in the Retopo Room....tend to get tabled in favor of smaller and more recent, individual requests (that aren't even mentioned on the forums or Mantis). And Beat, even if Andrew had an "artist" on staff...their requests/suggestions would get buried in the avalanche of smaller, easier to do requests.

 

Sculpt layers are CRITICAL....utterly critical, to attract more and more good artists from the ZBrush and Mudbox communities. What's ironic is that 3D Coat had Sculpt layers before the Voxel Room was ever introduced. But it involves image-based layers in the Paint Room. There should have been an effort to carry this functionality over to the Voxel Room early on. Having to do without them in the Voxel Room is tantamount to having to paint/edit images in Photoshop, all on one layer. It's highly restrictive.

 

Ok, so I wasn't imagining things :/ I didn't say it because I don't want to be all negative and plain annoying, but that's what I've been thinking for a while now.

When you ask for a change, if Andrew adress it, most of the time he gets it wrong, or "half", because he doesn't want to make the right change which would take time but would benefit the entire app (if it was thoughtout as a whole vs single tool doing single things)...

Sad.

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Ok, so I wasn't imagining things :/ I didn't say it because I don't want to be all negative and plain annoying, but that's what I've been thinking for a while now.

When you ask for a change, if Andrew adress it, most of the time he gets it wrong, or "half", because he doesn't want to make the right change which would take time but would benefit the entire app (if it was thoughtout as a whole vs single tool doing single things)...

Sad.

I've taken the time to even screen record WHY a feature is sorely needed or how much it would benefit the average user...plus, how it is implemented in other applications (for reference)...all to make it easier for Andrew. This includes detailed Mantis listings for them, to make sure it's recorded systematically. Nothing. I've bumped the Mantis requests several times....nothing. But new icons for the Primitives Tool Options panel is URGENT. A SHELL/THICKNESS tool in the Retopo Room...that can wait a few more years, until we get tired of asking.

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I know. Exactly the same here. Spent days to make detailed reports on usability and tweak/changes sometimes trivial (as in easy to make) but which could benefit greatly to the overall experience, and the same: nothing.

He needs someone else on board, to at least do what he doesn't want to do... Raul is kinda doing that, even if looking at recent Raul news, he seems to be attached to very minor and not urgent things...

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I know. Exactly the same here. Spent days to make detailed reports on usability and tweak/changes sometimes trivial (as in easy to make) but which could benefit greatly to the overall experience, and the same: nothing.

He needs someone else on board, to at least do what he doesn't want to do... Raul is kinda doing that, even if looking at recent Raul news, he seems to be attached to very minor and not urgent things...

Yep. I like a bunch of your ideas...especially the consolidation of the tool-related options into the...well...TOOL OPTIONS...panel. Including the E-Panel being moved into a section of it. An artist on staff would do no more good as their input would get shelved as it is today. Their has to be a request priority system in place (based on usefulness, length of time the userbase has waited, and number of users who requested or supported the request) and relatively strict adherence to it...regardless of how easy it is to implement. But that will never happen.

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Their has to be a request priority system in place (based on usefulness, length of time the userbase has waited, and number of users who requested or supported the request) and relatively strict adherence to it...regardless of how easy it is to implement. But that will never happen.

I hope we are proven wrong, but so far it's been very true, sadly.

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I've taken the time to even screen record WHY a feature is sorely needed or how much it would benefit the average user...plus, how it is implemented in other applications (for reference)...all to make it easier for Andrew. This includes detailed Mantis listings for them, to make sure it's recorded systematically. Nothing. I've bumped the Mantis requests several times....nothing. But new icons for the Primitives Tool Options panel is URGENT. A SHELL/THICKNESS tool in the Retopo Room...that can wait a few more years, until we get tired of asking.

One example of the "half" done thing. The new Quick Access menu:

 

-The icon mode were initialy pitched as multisize and even text only to accomodate all users wishes. We noticed it was huge, so the multi-size was needed (btw I saw some users complain about the menu appearing at mouse coordinate, I agree it's annoying, but because THIS MENU IS effin' huge, with multisize icon it would be no biggie...) . No Luck.

-The rectangular shape was fighting against the paint room circular mode (wich imo is better because it flow more naturaly, the user needing very little mouse displacement to access the tools (radius concept), we asked for unification. No luck.

-The customization component was pitched as "zbrush like", type first letter of the tool you want, and type the second one if there's an ambiguity (just like zbrush), instead Andrew went with his own section concept and sub-keys which don't make any sense (why NUMBERS  and ALPHABETICAL ORDER LETTERS ?! at this point you're quicker just assigning your own shortcuts to the tools themselves !) and the 0-9 custom top tools (which are probably too far away from the ctrl-alt-shift keys to be used extensively). No luck.

 

We discussed about all of this, times and times again, no way to make Andrew realize the whole key system he had created was pretty much stupid and only needed a few adjustments to work. No luck.

 

That's the user input in a nutshell: you either get a functional system after TONS of nagging request, or you get an half-there thing which no one uses because it's convoluted or doesn't make much sense.

This is also pretty much what 60% of requests are about: some user ask for something he thinks will be useful, in the spur of the moment, to only forget about it because he didn't get what he initialy asked for, and no one elses uses it, only adding to the codebase and creating code holes and resulting in bugs all around the software.

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One example of the "half" done thing. The new Quick Access menu:

 

-The icon mode were initialy pitched as multisize and even text only to accomodate all users wishes. We noticed it was huge, so the multi-size was needed (btw I saw some users complain about the menu appearing at mouse coordinate, I agree it's annoying, but because THIS MENU IS effin' huge, with multisize icon it would be no biggie...) . No Luck.

-The rectangular shape was fighting against the paint room circular mode (wich imo is better because it flow more naturaly, the user needing very little mouse displacement to access the tools (radius concept), we asked for unification. No luck.

-The customization component was pitched as "zbrush like", type first letter of the tool you want, and type the second one if there's an ambiguity (just like zbrush), instead Andrew went with his own section concept and sub-keys which don't make any sense (why NUMBERS  and ALPHABETICAL ORDER LETTERS ?! at this point you're quicker just assigning your own shortcuts to the tools themselves !) and the 0-9 custom top tools (which are probably too far away from the ctrl-alt-shift keys to be used extensively). No luck.

 

We discussed about all of this, times and times again, no way to make Andrew realize the whole key system he had created was pretty much stupid and only needed a few adjustments to work. No luck.

 

That's the user input in a nutshell: you either get a functional system after TONS of nagging request, or you get an half-there thing which no one uses because it's convoluted or doesn't make much sense.

This is also pretty much what 60% of requests are about: some user ask for something he thinks will be useful, in the spur of the moment, to only forget about it because he didn't get what he initialy asked for, and no one elses uses it, only adding to the codebase and creating code holes and resulting in bugs all around the software.

This is why I suggested a long time ago, that Andrew take a systematic approach. Go room by room and announce a block of time for Beta testers to offer their input + feature requests, in effort to refine the tools and UI there. Andrew said that wouldn't work. I understand he has to work bugfixing in as well....but this whole pattern of jumping around from one feature here and another there, is doing more harm than good. Why? Cause by the time users can report bugs and offer input, Andrew's moved on to something else. But heck, what do I know. I've only been using this software for about 6+yrs

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Hug bro, hug :)

LOL. :D Seriously, though...I think it would help keep him from being pulled in 4 dozen different directions. When people keep emailing requests, he can send an auto-response to post their requests on Mantis + mention what Room he is working on during the current block of time. This way he can stay nice and focused on one area at a time...even if it takes 6months or more.

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from my pov

 

Andrew work over specif areas at time

Raul have a task designed

 

At this moment he is performing Paint Room improvements.

Every day he is reading a wall text of code.

 

May be... to suggest/push modifications, tweaks, features to Paint Room in this moment help him to focus in only one area. The area where he is working actually: PRoom

 

In dont know if -in middle of development daily brain storm- ask about another room 

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Problem is, example again:

 

He added folder groups to layers, added that little arrow, nice, never occured to him to do the same for voxtree... You can say things about one room, it may be changed, but the whole picture stay the same: one tool, one use, no cohesiveness.

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would love to hear andrew comment about these issues. whats his ideas for the future? where does he want to take 3dcoat. are there any plans of making the feedback from the artists using the software more valueable?

cause it seems the biggest limitation right now is not in the software, but in the planning, organization, knowledge of the 3D workflow, etc, etc, etc.

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may be...i said may be... occurred to him to do some thing at early times of 3DC development... but now his develop knowledge is far superior and he understood a fast way to accomplish it   :D

 

//edit

Layer group in Paint room solved at version 4.1.07

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  • 3 weeks later...
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I would be delighted if instead of a flat retopo group list we had some kind of hierarchy, like in VoxTree. Sometimes flat list is simply not enough.

 

Also, what I found very limiting and troublesome to work with are:

  1. bake scan settings
  2. influence zones

Both are affecting everything globally. What I mean by this is that it is impossible to set different values for each retopo group.

For example imagine a character with two layers of clothing: shirt and jacket. If you need to slightly tweak the in/out bake distance of the first one, it will also affect every other group in the scene. Similarly, if you place an influence zone on a shirt: it will affect all retopo groups in its range: the jacket and probably even the body of the character. IMHO this isn't how it should work.

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  • 6 months later...
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Bake scan settings - every UVset need to use their own setting, not a global one.

 

A big, big Plus *1* on this feature request...  On a complicated model, well it gets very complicated to keep adjusting using the spheres globally... If it was broken down by uv set / retopo layers it would be much more manageable and accurate. You would get better normal and displacement maps..

Edited by digman
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My most desired feature for 3DC, or at least for Retopo Room, is Sketch-Based Generation and Editing of Quad Meshes (already mentioned several times on these pages):

 

 

Or at least something very similar to it. Something that would enable us to quickly lay down key edge loops and poles, and let the program create the desired amount of fill loops for us. All this with the resulting mesh being easily editable.

 

---

 

Another feature I'd like to see is a tool that would let us to select loops on our mesh and mark them as key loops. Such loops would not be affected by Relax and Brush Smooth tools. This would allow for keeping the shape of those loops, and nicely relaxing all fill loops that are between them.

 

---

 

Full support of OpenSubdiv CC algorithm in Retopo Room and bake settings.

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Andrew spent 1.5 years on the sculpt room, and I'd like to see something similar for the paint room and things relating to painting. While I really enjoy the PBR materials, there are so many more things that can be done.  Especially relating to UV maps and painting. One of the biggest complains from a client I'm hearing (and it's one of mine), is that there is no multiple UV tile support. Proper support, not the half-measure we have where it imports tiles as maps.

 

That's what I'd like to see addressed.

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  • 2 weeks later...
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While this may sound like a continuation of the re-projection function that was mentioned above, it's slightly separate.  Right now, it appears that we need to sculpt, retopo or autotopo, project, and then paint.  Seems to me that the fix is not to bother with projection or even UV/Retopo until long after the sculpting AND painting are done.  Why bother painting at a certain resolution, because it follows the UV/Retopo/Projection phase at a particular resolution?  All that seems to do is limit the quality of the texture work being done.  ZBrush works this way, as well, and it's annoying.

 

Just sculpt...paint...and then do the other work.  As far as an argument for or against having to go back and make edits to prototypes...why bother going through all the UV/retopo hassle if you're going to make major changes, anyway.  Just autotopo and then decide on the changes.  There's no doubt in my mind that a re-projection function would be helpful, as I do know that you can't always get that final sculpt/retopo the first go-round after a prototype is decided on, but it sounds like this would be an automated function...as you sculpt, as you retopo, but perhaps done behind the scenes, until you press that "Finalize" button that spits out a production item.

Edited by alvordr
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While this may sound like a continuation of the re-projection function that was mentioned above, it's slightly separate.  Right now, it appears that we need to sculpt, retopo or autotopo, project, and then paint.  Seems to me that the fix is not to bother with projection or even UV/Retopo until long after the sculpting AND painting are done.  Why bother painting at a certain resolution, because it follows the UV/Retopo/Projection phase at a particular resolution?  All that seems to do is limit the quality of the texture work being done.  ZBrush works this way, as well, and it's annoying.

 

Just sculpt...paint...and then do the other work.  As far as an argument for or against having to go back and make edits to prototypes...why bother going through all the UV/retopo hassle if you're going to make major changes, anyway.  Just autotopo and then decide on the changes.  There's no doubt in my mind that a re-projection function would be helpful, as I do know that you can't always get that final sculpt/retopo the first go-round after a prototype is decided on, but it sounds like this would be an automated function...as you sculpt, as you retopo, but perhaps done behind the scenes, until you press that "Finalize" button that spits out a production item.

The below is if I am understanding what you stated otherwise ignore my commment.

 

You can vertex paint on your surface mode object by switching to the paint room with no retopoing or baking. Of course the quality of painting is depended upon the amount of vertices you have in your model.  More vertices mean higher quality. Great for the prototyping colors etc...  You can bake the vertex colors to use at least as a base for your finish work.

Edited by digman
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Andrew spent 1.5 years on the sculpt room, and I'd like to see something similar for the paint room and things relating to painting. While I really enjoy the PBR materials, there are so many more things that can be done.  Especially relating to UV maps and painting. One of the biggest complains from a client I'm hearing (and it's one of mine), is that there is no multiple UV tile support. Proper support, not the half-measure we have where it imports tiles as maps.

 

That's what I'd like to see addressed.

Yes, Yes and more Yes... +1 and some of the long standing feature requests for the retopo room that have been mentioned in this thread and at Mantis...

Edited by digman
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The below is if I am understanding what you stated otherwise ignore my commment.

 

You can vertex paint on your surface mode object by switching to the paint room with no retopoing or baking. Of course the quality of painting is depended upon the amount of vertices you have in your model.  More vertices mean higher quality. Great for the prototyping colors etc...  You can bake the vertex colors to use at least as a base for your finish work.

 

True, but that's not obvious to most newcomers and some others.  Perhaps we need to highligh/tout that capability?  Also, does that include emissive and layer painting?

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True, but that's not obvious to most newcomers and some others.  Perhaps we need to highligh/tout that capability?  Also, does that include emissive and layer painting?

Yes, I was only bringing to your attention that that vertex painting is included. I have not been to the official 3DCoat website to see how much information it is given so newcomers are aware of it.

Emissive works for the default shader, some of the other shaders might have problems and layer painting is included. Never paint on layer "0" it will mess things up...

 

Well, 3DC makes me a BBQ every Saturday and Sometimes on Sunday as well... :rolleyes:

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Just that I wont forget. Features to fix preferably asap:

1. Current tesselation algorithm is unable to work well with very low poly meshes eg. cube -it makes cube shrink and deform (blender doesn't have this problem, but sculptris suffers from it too). See below simple cube sculpted with LC brush(dosen't look like cube any longer) :

Cube.jpg

Also there seems to be problem with uneven triangulation of mesh on edge of each brush dab. See below I made 2 strokes with LC brush with hi spacing on left and low spacing on right. First dab, at beginning of each stroke, looks great (better than blenders or sculptris). But then mesh gets corrupted and there are areas of higher triangle density.

Storke.jpg

This is fine until you want to smooth it out. Below I marked in red how bad mesh surface looks after smoothing geometry like the one above. So I learned to not use smooth brush in 3dcoat, and use polish brushes to fix that. But this is not solution, just workaround. I really wish I did not have to spent my time fixing ugly bumps one mesh like those anymore. 

NotSooGoodTriangulation.jpg

Somehow blender and sculptris both manage to get even mesh distribution on each brush dab.

To sum up I wish 3dc have better better mesh triangulation algorithm, that works on low poly meshes and gives nice even mesh distribution.

 

2. I would love to have all 3dc surface brushes to have option to work in LC mode. Just like in blender or sculptris where user can enable dynamic tesselation for all the surface tools. I especially like how rapid1 and rapid2 brushes work, and it makes me sad I cannot combine them with LC.

 

Sorry for lots of images.

Edited by JoseConseco
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