Advanced Member Grimmy Posted January 3, 2014 Advanced Member Report Share Posted January 3, 2014 I'm building several low poly hardsurface game objects but I'm beginning to think 3DCOat is actually slowing me down for this process. I love using this tool but the hard surface auto retopology quite frankly doesn't (yet) work and so I am forced to do manual retopo. After spending a few days with the manual retopo tools, although they seem quite nice to begin with are, actually quite slow to use on certain objects. And by the time I've finished I've effectively had to buil;d the model twice. I'm starting to think that I might have built the mesh in another editing program from scratch much quicker...and I wouldn't need to retopologize. I want to be convinced otherwise, but I feel that 3dCoat is still not up to low poly hard surface creation which is a huge part of my work. Is there a better workflow or something I'm missing? I've tried the hardsurface Autotopo many times and it just doesn't work for me. If this did work 3dCoat would be an all in one solution for me and I suspect many others. Cheers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member Aleksey Posted January 3, 2014 Advanced Member Report Share Posted January 3, 2014 i remember someone here mentioning that exporting a low res model straight from the voxel room worked better than using autopo. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reputable Contributor AbnRanger Posted January 3, 2014 Reputable Contributor Report Share Posted January 3, 2014 I'm building several low poly hardsurface game objects but I'm beginning to think 3DCOat is actually slowing me down for this process. I love using this tool but the hard surface auto retopology quite frankly doesn't (yet) work and so I am forced to do manual retopo. After spending a few days with the manual retopo tools, although they seem quite nice to begin with are, actually quite slow to use on certain objects. And by the time I've finished I've effectively had to buil;d the model twice. I'm starting to think that I might have built the mesh in another editing program from scratch much quicker...and I wouldn't need to retopologize. I want to be convinced otherwise, but I feel that 3dCoat is still not up to low poly hard surface creation which is a huge part of my work. Is there a better workflow or something I'm missing? I've tried the hardsurface Autotopo many times and it just doesn't work for me. If this did work 3dCoat would be an all in one solution for me and I suspect many others. Cheers Yeah, I find the Auto-Retopo is somewhat improved on Hard-Surface models, but not a lot. On more simple models, it's pretty good, and even if the topology isn't perfect, the merged/rendered model still comes out looking like it does in the Voxel Room. It's not ideal for game models, though...because it tries to distribute the polys evenly. That's not ideal for games or animated deformation (Characters). It has trouble with complexity, and to the point where it would have been much quicker to do the work manually. I find that the Strokes tool is more ideal in many cases. Why? Because it is actually something of an Auto-Retopo tool in it's own right. select a few loops > one cross-section and bam! You've got an entire limb retopologized...or an entire rectangle shaped object. It's remarkably fast, once you've gotten comfortable using it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member Grimmy Posted January 3, 2014 Author Advanced Member Report Share Posted January 3, 2014 Yeah, that might have been me. Exporting voxels as .obj files gives rubbish topology but at least it's far better than the autopo results and the object keeps its shape. But I'm not sure that it's really good enough to go in a game. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member Grimmy Posted January 3, 2014 Author Advanced Member Report Share Posted January 3, 2014 It's mainly when it comes to relatively simple models like this (attached) that manual retopo takes ages. And autopo is a right off. I'm sure that for characters etc that the retopo tools are just great... Honestly I spent about an hour trying to retopo this (it has insides too) and for me that's just far too long for such a simple object. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carlosan Posted January 3, 2014 Report Share Posted January 3, 2014 I'm building several low poly hardsurface game objects. I'm starting to think that I might have built the mesh in another editing program from scratch much quicker...and I wouldn't need to retopologize. For low poly hardsurfaces objects... yes, thats the way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reputable Contributor AbnRanger Posted January 3, 2014 Reputable Contributor Report Share Posted January 3, 2014 (edited) It's mainly when it comes to relatively simple models like this (attached) that manual retopo takes ages. And autopo is a right off. I'm sure that for characters etc that the retopo tools are just great... Honestly I spent about an hour trying to retopo this (it has insides too) and for me that's just far too long for such a simple object. That's not exactly a simple object. And it would take more than a few minutes to model it in a standard 3D Modeling app. I don't know how many times I've thought "Oh, that'll be a simple task" and ended up losing money because I underestimated how long it can often take when working in a poly-modeling app. A lot more time is spent piddling with verts and such. Whereas voxel modeing...you can simply knock it out without care for verts and edges. Then Retopo is simply a paint by numbers type of task...essentially. So, it's not a matter of modeling twice. Using the Strokes tool you could retopo that case in just a few minutes. Also, what you're doing wrong with Auto-Retopo on an object like that...is you are trying to the throw the whole model at it, at once. With a little pre-planning, you'd leave the handle and the locking objects as separate layers and then run Auto-Retopo on them separately. It could knock those out and do a bang-up job on them separately. But as one object...not a good idea Remember, you are trying to hand a rather complex task over to an algorithm. You need to try to reduce the complexity it has to handle as much as you can. Edited January 3, 2014 by AbnRanger 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member Aleksey Posted January 3, 2014 Advanced Member Report Share Posted January 3, 2014 i think that suitcase would take max 10 mins to model in cinema4d. but im could you possibly make a recording of how you would retopo that with strokes tool? Im considering moving my hard surface modelling to 3dcoat, but im weary about it... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member Grimmy Posted January 4, 2014 Author Advanced Member Report Share Posted January 4, 2014 i think that suitcase would take max 10 mins to model in cinema4d. but im could you possibly make a recording of how you would retopo that with strokes tool? Im considering moving my hard surface modelling to 3dcoat, but im weary about it... Yeah, I guess that's really my point. Is it worth trying to build it in 3dCoat when in something like C4D it seems much easier to do. Although it would probably take me longer than 10 minutes I guess if I could retopo in 3dCoat really quickly then it would be worth it, but I can't seem to do it half as fast as the demo videos I see. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member Aleksey Posted January 4, 2014 Advanced Member Report Share Posted January 4, 2014 (edited) 10 mins =) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1311vkdJBLA i think if it was 2am here i could've done it faster =) and here is a free suitcase model: http://yadi.sk/d/uKjAw7MpFQyFj Edited January 4, 2014 by Aleksey 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member Grimmy Posted January 4, 2014 Author Advanced Member Report Share Posted January 4, 2014 Now THAT is a convincing argument ! It shows me that I need to focus my modelling skills in c4d and just use 3d coat for painting and sculpting...unless of course someone is up to the challenge to build the same suitcase in less than 10 minutes in 3d Coat (with good topology)? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reputable Contributor AbnRanger Posted January 4, 2014 Reputable Contributor Report Share Posted January 4, 2014 Now THAT is a convincing argument ! It shows me that I need to focus my modelling skills in c4d and just use 3d coat for painting and sculpting...unless of course someone is up to the challenge to build the same suitcase in less than 10 minutes in 3d Coat (with good topology)? You do realize that you have Retopo Preset (quad) meshes sitting right there in your models pallet to use. You can even quickly send primitives from your main 3D App to the Retopo Room and then drag them into the Models pallet, to use whenever. It's really a matter of getting comfortable with the tools at your disposal. Auto Retopo could do a great job on all those individual components separately, or you could use the Strokes tool...or the Retopo mesh presets. It's more of a preference, really. I hate piddling with verts, edges and poly's during the modeling phase. Retopo, imho, is just a matter of quickly tracing what you've modeled with voxels Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member Aleksey Posted January 4, 2014 Advanced Member Report Share Posted January 4, 2014 still not convinced on hard surface, but that retopology with existing mesh and snapping is AWESOME! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member alvordr Posted January 8, 2014 Advanced Member Report Share Posted January 8, 2014 (edited) Now THAT is a convincing argument ! It shows me that I need to focus my modelling skills in c4d and just use 3d coat for painting and sculpting...unless of course someone is up to the challenge to build the same suitcase in less than 10 minutes in 3d Coat (with good topology)? If all you're looking for is a reason to believe 3D Coat can do hard-surface modeling, you need only look at the examples on the 3D Coat website and/or gallery. As far as good topology, I believe your thread here: http://3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=15571&hl= illustrates that the concept of good topology is something to study, and that is true for all of us. The ship/building model you had in that thread is much easier to topologize at a much lower poly count than you mentioned. As AbnRanger pointed out, knowing how to use the tools is crucial, but it's also very important to understand what you're doing, regardless of the application in terms of topology, etc. You mentioned in here that the suitcase is a simple model. Can we see an example of such an item's topology as you would do it in another app? This could help identify what you perceive as simple and having good topology. I'm not in any way saying that hard-surface is going to be easy in 3D Coat. Doing thin surfaces, like swords are much harder than most would think, depending on your process and workflow...but it can be done. Edited January 8, 2014 by alvordr Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member Grimmy Posted January 8, 2014 Author Advanced Member Report Share Posted January 8, 2014 (edited) I know 3dCoat is perfectly capable of hard surface modelling, but I'm not so sure of its the fastest tool to do it. It took me ages to model that case in 3dCoat. (Although you could argue tha's me rather than 3DCoat Honestly, I'm just looking for the most efficient workflow . In my quest I've actually discovered a massively fast workflow for creating hardsurface models with great topology (without piddling with vertices )...here it is.. 1. Build your full model in MOI (If you don't know it, its bit like sketchup ..ie pretty damn fast to model in) (See image 1) Time Taken - about 30 minutes (and I am new to the program) 2. Export this as a .obj mesh to 3dCoat. (MOI topologizes the mesh really nicely every time I've tried it !!! With an instant preview too!!!) (See Image 2)alone. Time Taken - 1 second 3. Paint it and add further sculpt details//change some topo if required in 3d coat..(image 3) Job done. So, I'm not sure that even the best 3dCoat expert could get a nicely topologized mesh built and to that stage in such a short space of time with 3dCoat alone. Edited January 8, 2014 by Grimmy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Contributor ajz3d Posted January 8, 2014 Contributor Report Share Posted January 8, 2014 (edited) For me, one of the main problems with hard surface retopo in 3D Coat is that its Retopo Room lacks component snapping of any kind. Edited January 8, 2014 by ajz3d Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carlosan Posted January 8, 2014 Report Share Posted January 8, 2014 remember Sketch tool and Logo tools in the Voxel Room. http://3d-coat.com/play_video.php?link=http://www.pilgway.com/~javis2/Voxel_Tools/Voxel-Sketch.mp4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member alvordr Posted January 8, 2014 Advanced Member Report Share Posted January 8, 2014 (edited) Well, it sounds like you've got a workflow in MOI that works better for you. If that's the case, I would use that. I love using 3D Coat, despite some of the issues I've had with it. It works for me and I do almost 100% of my work in it, now. That said, if I need to do something that works better, elsewhere, then I turn to that. It is more desirable for me not to have to move outside the app to do what I want, but many of us are patiently waiting for fixes/features to roll into 3D Coat to address those issues. The updates have been more frequent in 3D Coat than just about any other app I've seen. Unfortunately, I do find that aggressive schedules like this tend to re-introduce problems that have been fixed before. Edited January 8, 2014 by alvordr Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member Grimmy Posted January 8, 2014 Author Advanced Member Report Share Posted January 8, 2014 Please don't get me wrong. I love 3dCoat and it's still a huge part of my pipeline. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reputable Contributor AbnRanger Posted January 8, 2014 Reputable Contributor Report Share Posted January 8, 2014 Please don't get me wrong. I love 3dCoat and it's still a huge part of my pipeline. Alvordr is right, though. Until you have a firm grasp on the Retopo tools...especially the Strokes tool....you cannot properly assess 3D Coat's value as a hard surface modeler. Some people will prefer sticking with a traditional poly modeler (I'm pushing Andrew all the time to enhance the tools in the Retopo room, to give users the ability to poly model efficiently, if they want to...right now it's mostly geared toward retopologizing voxel objects), and some enjoy the freedom of modeling without having to fiddle with verts, edges and faces, during the construction phase...and with no nasty boolean aftertaste. It may seem like you are modeling twice, but that's not very accurate. Some things 3D Coat does so fast, it can save minutes and hours...if not days, on a given project. Other things, it might take a bit longer to do. I like to be able to create, without having to worry about topology and welding, cutting and cleaning up booleans in a traditional modeling app. I rarely use 3ds Max for modeling anymore. Again...with that suitcase...if you try and auto-retopo the whole thing in one pass, it's not going to come out nearly as clean as if you keep the parts separated on their own layer, and quickly run Auto-Retopo on them separately. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reputable Contributor AbnRanger Posted January 9, 2014 Reputable Contributor Report Share Posted January 9, 2014 (edited) You can see much of what we've discussed, demonstrated here, as well: Edited January 9, 2014 by AbnRanger 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member douglasrthomson Posted January 10, 2014 Member Report Share Posted January 10, 2014 I've been playing around with 3D coat for some hard(ish) surface modelling and I'm liking the results. Cinema 4D is the primary software I use but I'm trying to find more ways to use 3D coat for the production of my models. I'm working on a little animations featuring clockwork toys and I thought I'd start by using 3D coat rather than Poly modelling in C4D. The Penguin model was voxel modelled using Booleans and was very quick to produce (I tried modelling this using polys in C4D but it was taking me a long time - no Bools in C4D because the resulting meshes are awful). I then topologised them manually and exported to C4D and fine-tuned the mesh with C4d's sculpting tools. I didn't mind effectively sculpting the object twice as I enjoy the sculpting process. Topologising by hand was also fun and relatively quick. I'm also learning a lot about topology just by doing doing it by hand and this is feeding through to my Poly modelling processes. When I say I'm liking the results from this workflow, I mean that the meshes I'm creating aren't absolutely perfect and, to my eye, I'm getting more realistic results. I maybe wouldn't try to model an iPhone with 3D coat but I think it's useable for some 'hard surface' work as nothing in this world is perfectly smooth/round/flat etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member alvordr Posted January 10, 2014 Advanced Member Report Share Posted January 10, 2014 Very cool work! I like the fur on the chicks. That's something I've toyed with in ZBrush, but find to be rather useless, except for renders. Does C4D do this well and animate with the fur? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member douglasrthomson Posted January 10, 2014 Member Report Share Posted January 10, 2014 I really like the Hair module in C4D. I'm not so sure how it will work when the object is animated but I'm hoping motion blur will help to mask any issues! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member alvordr Posted January 10, 2014 Advanced Member Report Share Posted January 10, 2014 Just curious, as ZB won't animate, other than a turn-table, so it's a bit pointless to use it's fibermesh feature...except for stills or if you want to tackle hair textures. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Contributor Tony Nemo Posted January 10, 2014 Contributor Report Share Posted January 10, 2014 I very much doubt that you will encounter any issues animating with Hair in C4D. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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