3D Coat Applink for 3D Coat (internally)

[AbnRanger]

Yep. You heard that right. We got all these Applinks for external apps...to do what? Streamline the process of sending assets to and from your preferred host application. What about sending assets between different parts of 3D Coat? How come we have to walk out the front door and enter in the back door.......just to go to the kitchen, as it were? Why in the world are we having to export meshes and maps outside of 3D Coat, and then having to go import it back in, in another workspace?

 

Thus, we essentially need an applink connection plugin for 3D Coat, itself...do we not? For example, if you import a model into the paint room and at some point in your workflow, decide you'd like to go ahead and do a little sculpting on it, in the Voxel Room. You'd have to import a copy into the voxel room > import another copy into the Retopo Room > then once you're done with the Sculpting > you'd have to use the Texture Baking tool...which is currently not working very well....which means you are exporting files outside of 3D Coat. Now you go to the Paint Room and Import the newly baked textures, and if you used the "Conform Retopo Mesh" in the Voxel Room, to make large scale edits to the model...then you have to export > Import >REPLACE MESH.

 

That is a LOT of stepping out of the house and coming back in, through another door...multiple times...just to do some sculpting in the Voxel Room and get the resulting displacement/Normal map back into the Paint Room. This currently makes the workflow too linear, and too complicated.

 

So, what would you guys suggest as a remedy? I spoke with Andrew about this a time or two, recently, and he agreed something needed to be done. So, please feel free to offer up any suggestions and mockups that you think would work best. And keep in mind that the more extensive/complicated the idea/suggestion, the more development time it's going to take and thus, less likely to be adopted/implemented.

Edited November 30, 2013 by AbnRanger

[AbnRanger]

My suggestion is to use the MERGE tool in the Voxel Room as a template, and as a starting point. Each room (Paint, Retopo and Voxel) would have a MERGE tool, and in the TOOL OPTIONS panel, you'd have section with options that are similar to what you might see in an Applink plugin (SEND MESH COPY TO RETOPO ROOM, etc). The Retopo Room already has a MERGE tool of sorts, but it doesn't work like the one in the Voxel Room. So, my suggestion is to have a MERGE button in the COMMANDS section of the Tool Panel (Retopo Room). When a user clicks on that, the TOOL OPTIONS panel would show a list of buttons/options for Merging operations...just as it does in the Voxel Room.

 

You would have buttons for each of the current Merging options, listed in the Retopo Menu drop down....plus a section termed MERGE ELEMENTS, with a checklist of different map types (color/spec/displacement/normal map)  to bake to a paint layer in the Paint Room. This way, you have a ton of flexibility when making additional baking attempts. You may just want to bake a new displacement map. No need to have to send it out of 3D Coat and import it back into the Paint room...or clear the whole Paint Room and do the whole thing, all over again.

 

The same thing would apply to the Paint Room. A MERGE (Arrow?) icon in the Tool Panel, and all the options listed in the Tool Options Panel. I also think, while this would be worked on, perhaps Andrew could consolidate all the Vox Tree, Retopo Groups, Objects, and Materials (maybe renamed UV Surfaces) panels into one Outliner Panel. Basically stacking those panels into one Outliner Panel, and each one could be collapse-able, to save space. But that would clean up the UI immensely and put everything where it's easily accessed. Too many different panels floating around, when they could be consolidated. Still hope he will move the Toolbar and SHIFT key menus to the TOOL OPTIONS Panel.

 

So, in each room, you have:

1) Tool Panel

2) Tool Options Panel

3) Outliner Panel

 

Obviously in the Paint Room, you'd also have the Paint Layers Panel, separate.and the Texture Editor Panel with a toggle (hopefully) as an Icon at the bottom of the Tool Panel (similar to where Photoshop has its viewport sizing/toggle icon)

[AbnRanger]

Nobody has any ideas?....nobody wants the ability to send assets between rooms more quickly/easily?

 

Edited December 2, 2013 by AbnRanger

[xsi38]

Globally, it's a good idea.

But I prefer a system like the "generation maps" window of Mudbox : a window ("internal room transfer" for example) with source layer/mesh/room, destination mesh/mesh/room and some options. Advantage = to centralize actions in one spot!!!!

[xsi38]

I don't like to compare soft but I would like to improve 3dcoat with my novice experience. Navigation is good like traditionnal 3d software : very good point!!!!. All traditional modeling tools (retopo room) will be nice!!!!! The secret is to know if new user find his children rapidely or not????

 

At the first glance, it's not easy to know how to finish the model (sculpting -> transfert details -> paint room), to know the hidden surface mode toogle,.... For example, Zbrush has some hierarchy on his right panel side (ex : texture transfer = last section). Maybe, reorder room Tabs(Left to right : Voxel, retopo, paint, render). So to give a chance to 3dcoat, you need to see the good tutorials on 3dcoat official youtube channel. I have time so it's oK but for others????

 

I think all GUI's change should be trivial and centralized with the less hidden options as possible. So AbnRanger's Outliner can be a good starting point.

[AbnRanger]

Globally, it's a good idea.

But I prefer a system like the "generation maps" window of Mudbox : a window ("internal room transfer" for example) with source layer/mesh/room, destination mesh/mesh/room and some options. Advantage = to centralize actions in one spot!!!!

Sounds like a good idea. But the only problem with that is Mudbox has a centralized UI. It doesn't have different workspaces/rooms. If 3D Coat had a central, unified UI, I'd like to see that happen. But, I think the closest thing to it would be to have a MERGE tool in the Paint and Retopo Room the same way it appears in the Voxel room. Once clicked, all the options for sending/baking assets would be located in the Tool Options panel. This way, each room would have some specific options just for that workspace, but everything would be otherwise consistent between them.

 

The Paint Room would have MERGE options to send a copy of the different meshes to the Retopo Room and also to the Voxel room. Would make it a snap to jump straight into the Voxel room to sculpt on your model and once done, you could go to the Retopo Room and click the Merge tool > bake Displacement/Normal Map to New Paint Layer...etc.  

[digman]

Staying within 3DCoat and working in a non-linear workflow plus moving a lot of options from the drop down menu method to a merge type of tool panel, I believe is a very good idea...

 

Advantages:

 

When your workflow starts in the voxel room:

 

1:Once the voxel / surface model has been merged to the paint room but you decided the voxel or surface mode model needed some adjustments, you no would no longer have to delete the model in the paint room when re-merging from the retopo room. All maps and the retopo mesh (if changed somewhat) could dynamically be updated.

A merge copy or merge elements feature would be added to the merging options in the retopo room.

 

When your workflow starts in the paint room:

 

2. Importing a model from the file menu into the paint room the model could be merged to the voxel room for either surface or voxel mode for some additional sculpting. The retopo mesh would be applied automatically (without snapping) in the retopo room if you chose to merge a model to the voxel room from the paintroom. This means that 3DC would have to internally change from you using the UV room and to using the Retopo room instead if you decided to merge a model to the voxel room from the paint room. The workflow would then become what I stated in statement # 1.

 

In the above fashion we would not longer have a linear workflow in 3DCoat...

 

3DC already has some merging features in the paint room for the mesh and textures to be updated but works only for bringing in external data. We have merging from the retopo room which is an internal operation. If Andrew can program the mesh and texture updating to work from the retopo room internally plus merging to the voxel room from the paintroom this would be great for a non-linear workflow...

Edited December 3, 2013 by digman