Carve related tools discussion

[Andrew Shpagin]

We will discuss there how to improve carve related tools.

[3dioot]

Andrew thanks alot for the latest version but could you explain a bit what what you have done in the latest version (V24)?

Im guessing to what changes you have made to the brushes. This makes it hard to see what works and what doesnt and the possible reasons why. I can usually "reverse engineer" alot by specific testing but a little more info to remove the guesswork would really be nice. I see we still have:

Spray (stayed the same as far as i can judge)

Carve (stayed the same as far as i can judge)

Clay (stayed the same as far as i can judge)

Extrude - radius now stays stable when you unlink it from pressure (many thanks) but it still projects through and through which is a real shame (it really sucks for sculpting because of that)

New brushes:

Fill - works great.. a bit like spray but limited to the heigh or low point of the surface.

Airbrush - this feels like it grows much too fast. I dont think it should grow when you are just pressing down. I (personally, but this is also how it works in zb afaik) would like it NOT to grow like this but INSTEAD take its own stroke into account. In other words if you press down and repeatedly stroke over a single line (without lifting the pen and starting a new stroke) you will raise the surface with each stroke. The way it is now feels really wacky for me like i cant control it (excuse the expression).

Knife - i have no idea what the purpose of this brush it. As far as i can judge it works like an inverted extrude. This is really not good. You dont make one tool work inverted by default. I keep messing this up when sculpting. Normal sculpting is adding, ctrl is removing. This works like that for all other brushes. You cant just change one to work the other way around and expect people not to make mistakes while sculpting so please fix this back.

What this brush does have over extrude is that it doesnt seem to project through and through (its like a fixed extrude, inverted and with ridiculous depth value). Can you explain the purpose of this brush? If you invert the adding/removing and make the depth value normal again i would not use carve at all and would just use knife since it doesnt have the project bug. It does seem a little silly to add a seperate tool for something thats essentially a fixed carve brush with a nasty multiplier on the depth value.

So... Please elaborate a little. Is this what you did?

Just as general info ive been really using spray alot on very fine features. When i cant even use extrude on thin geometry spray works fantastic. It works very predictable and i love it for it. I know its a weird use but it really helps me out when none of the other tools (not even extrude) suffice. I can build up very thin planes with it and it never breaks through the surface.

Am i correct when i notice that you did not make a "clay" brush according to Rimmason's suggestions. I think he was really onto something with his comment about this in the main thread.

Rimmason's post

My comment on it

I think it would be very much worth it to investigate that a little.

3dioot

PS

Also im still really missing a normal flatten only for voxels. Please make it.

[Andrew Shpagin]

Clay (stayed the same as far as i can judge)

there was huge lags, it was fixed in latest release.

Extrude - radius now stays stable when you unlink it from pressure (many thanks) but it still projects through and through which is a real shame (it really sucks for sculpting because of that)

Now distance of influence in normal direction is limited, I will limit more;

Airbrush - this feels like it grows much too fast. I dont think it should grow when you are just pressing down. I (personally, but this is also how it works in zb afaik) would like it NOT to grow like this but INSTEAD take its own stroke into account. In other words if you press down and repeatedly stroke over a single line (without lifting the pen and starting a new stroke) you will raise the surface with each stroke. The way it is now feels really wacky for me like i cant control it (excuse the expression).

I will make it move dependent, not time dependent.

Knife - i have no idea what the purpose of this brush it. As far as i can judge it works like an inverted extrude. This is really not good. You dont make one tool work inverted by default. I keep messing this up when sculpting. Normal sculpting is adding, ctrl is removing. This works like that for all other brushes. You cant just change one to work the other way around and expect people not to make mistakes while sculpting so please fix this back.

It was experiment, maybe I will remove it.

Am i correct when i notice that you did not make a "clay" brush according to Rimmason's suggestions. I think he was really onto something with his comment about this in the main thread.

Rimmason's post

My comment on it

Clay was not touched, it will get further improvements.

Also im still really missing a normal flatten only for voxels. Please make it.

ok

[3dioot]

Thankyou for the indepth reply and the willingness to change/experiment.

One thing though. While making the growth move dependant is probably a really good idea i noticed today on the forums that some people were really happy with the airbrush the way it is for stamping/growing detail in a single spot and i can really understand that. (havent tried to use it in that way yet) This would be a very good reason for the airbrush to work the way it is now.

So please also keep a version that does it with just pressure. I know we get alot of tools now but well sort out the great ones later and see if we can combine certain qualities with options under a brush. For example if you make growth move dependant and it feels good it would be nice if this became just a toggle instead of two tools.

But thats of later concern.

Thanks again!

3dioot

[BluEgo]

IMO if a tool it's called "Airbrush", it should act exactly at it does

Anyway talking about clay and carve, following rimasson's suggestion about that carve act a lot like ZB's clay, I think that carve tool is not as smoothed as clay should be.

In other words, carve result should be smoother than now to mimic zb's clay, or at least I think so, cause I cannot find any method to have the right stroke, even with falloff and smoothing set to 1 and with the latest alpha on the right

[ldzywsj]

Andrew,the move tool is cool and hot,but I feel not free and comfortless when uses CTRL to move in normal direction , why not constraint the move direction to a face which is vertical and get throught the normal?

oh,perhaps the attached picture may show what i mean!

[Taros]

Andrew,the move tool is cool and hot,but I feel not free and comfortless when uses CTRL to move in normal direction , why not constraint the move direction to a face which is vertical and get throught the normal?

oh,perhaps the attached picture may show what i mean!

The idea is good, but I would implement that only as an option, in combination with pressing a key, for example.

[3dioot]

@ BleuEgo

Yes you are right. Its also really usefull as is. I allready suggested we keep it. Airbrush is great for "spraying on" alpha's (ive tested it now). I dont think you have to worry about airbrush going away.

But i also want to see a brush with grow based on move because that will really rock and will feel much nicer for building up volume. The airbrush to me doesnt feel nice to sculpt in volume. Im certain many other people will appreciate growth based on movement as well.

@ ldzywsj

Thats a very interesting idea. However it should not replace the current system which works really well for me. What i think would be a really great solution is to create something like "symmetry snapping". You allready have this with the retopology tools where if you work in symmetry points placed within a certain distance from the symmetry line will snap to it.

In other words. If you have chosen the move tool and move your brush close enough to the symmetry line it will snap to i (perhaps it could change color or something to show you your on the symmetry line). If you click or press now to start moving your movement will be locked to the symmetry plane.

Offcourse the snapping distance should be a setting. I think this could work really well.

3dioot

[3dioot]

V25 comments

A lot of stuff i requested didnt make it in. Ive reread them and i still stand by them. I was really hoping to get a brush that would grow based on movement with this release. Cant please everyone i guess. I hope its still coming.

Edited a part out here; didnt make sense. Have to test more.

Build imho really shouldnt exist. Since you implemented options specific to brushes (like for pinch and spray) the best solution would be to have ONE airbrush with a single option called "build". When you turn this on it behaves like the build brush. I think this would be a more elegant solution.

Extrude doesnt really seem to project through and through anymore (if i really try hard i can still make it happen but i have to try it on purpose). Subtracting however is broken.

I have posted this under bugzzz:

Broken extrude

Movie:

Click me

Sphere brush.... Erm. I know people asked for a way to easily place spherical volumes but i kinda doubt they meant this. No comment.

----------------

Some long standing requests that would make a lot of difference:

Brushes dont remember their settings individually. This is a real pain. Plain and simple.

Brush strokes are crappy. Nomatter how much performance increases there will come a time when even the best workstation struggles with whats being asked. This should never lead to a degredation of strokes. This is a very long standing request that influences all brushes. Brush strokes become very rough when placed with high speed or with the system under pressure. Faceting occurs both in path curvature and placement on the surface.

In the same line comes this request by rimmason which would also increase stroke quality:

"To prevent breaks in the stroke when the tablet pressure change quickly, and when you use a pressure-dependant stroke, could you add an option to smooth brush radius changes and opacity over time ?"

Post by Rimmason

I think its high time that especially the second issue is being looked into. The first could be considered workflow enhancement but if you want people to go all out on testing/sculpting with the alpha's/beta's its important to alleviate any big pains that stand in the way as soon as possible.

Thanks for reading.

3dioot

[Mantis]

I have to agree with 3dioot, the smoothness of brush stroke need to be improved.

It seems that you have too much request and you have misunderstood some of them.

That's the case for pinch.

Here is a video to show you how it works in Zbrush.

http://screencast.com/t/6saoPnA2

Brushmode control the depth, or elevation, of Pinch 0 mean no depth and Zintensity control the power of pinch.

Now you seems to have just added a new slider Pinch Power, but depth don't do anything to Pinch, there is no elevation.

The sphere tool seems like a carve tool or extrusion tool with a perfect rounded profile, but I don't see the need of having an extrusion value who make the current sphere higher than it's hemisphere.

If you go past it's hemisphere you will have some trouble to refine your shape, and you can even make the sphere flying above your surface or diving into your surface that you can't see it anymore.

I think that you should focus on the current tools, and see if some are not too redundant.

You could separate the tools like this:

-Roughing Tool:

Sphere,Build,2D Paint

-Standard Sculpting tool:

Extrude,Clay,Spray/Thaw,Carve, Inflat/Bulge (who deseperatly don't want to come )

And the other tools are there for a more advanced sculpting I think, these one are really important and should be focused on.

Thinking about the problem with extrude tool does the projection occur from the surface or to the surface?

I thought the problem I saw about extrude let think that it was projection to the surface who I think is a bad way to do it.

By reading the description of Sculpt brush and Bulge brush you can deduct that it is from the surface, and that's just the way the surface is displace that change.

Sculpt brush displace using an average of the surface under the brush and bulge displace using every normal for each point.

[Andrew Shpagin]

Really, in latest update I worked over multicore support almost 95% of time. Optimisation is very complex issue.

So brushes was not improved essentially.

Ok, I will work some time over brushing.

[BluEgo]

I think that we should not complain Andrew to have not upgraded existing tools. We must remember that this is an alpha version and that there is a lot of work still to do.

There are already a lot of upgrades, but this doesn't mean that from a version to another (usually 2 work days) all our dreams would come true.

I could wait a year if 3D coat will be superfast and with great tools

Please don't give too much pressure on Andrew.

[Mantis]

I don't think it has anything to do with complaint.

At least I am not complaining at all and trying to help as much as I can.

I'm testing the tools and report what I find wrong.

I thought that was why we are here, testing this AWESOME software

And I got a looonggg list of what I wish, (including tools for hard surface modeling) but at this stage I think we should focus on the basic tools.

I know that Andrew do a great Job, and that's the best and promising software I ever seen.

Sensable will never reach this industry and Zbrush and Mudbox don't want to move to VS, so Andrew is like Jesus Christ coming back to earth

[BluEgo]

Sensable will never reach this industry and Zbrush and Mudbox don't want to move to VS, so Andrew is like Jesus Christ coming back to earth

Anyway, I am trying the new beta of Mudbox, and there is a thing I don't understand comparing it to 3D coat.

If I work on very high subdivision, of course strokes become slow.

Anyway if I make a fast movement with the pen, the final result will be as smooth and rounded as I wish, even if there is a delay on displayed stroke.

In 3dcoat, with a fast stroke, the final result will be segmented, like it didn't have enough samples.

Maybe there could be implemented a way to interpolate samples, giving us a much more fluid stroke ?

[Andrew Shpagin]

In 3dcoat, with a fast stroke, the final result will be segmented, like it didn't have enough samples.

Maybe there could be implemented a way to interpolate samples, giving us a much more fluid stroke ?

It seems to be not easy issue, but dont' worry, I will solve it. I know how it is important.

[Andrew Shpagin]

One simple note why some requests are done, some - no.

The rule is very simple - I do now the thing that can be made in most easy way at the current moment.

Some things look like complex but are easy to do (like render), some look easy but are hard to make (smooth stroke).

I have more complex from my point of view things only when I have bright idea how to do it.

[Mantis]

Getting smooth brush stroke is probably really hard, autodesk seems to spent a lot of time to improve their brush engine because they talk about it often in their interviews.

[nathan]

I would like to see a "minimum radius" setting similar to photoshop and others for having pressure linked to brush radius. I like having size hooked to pressure but I rarely want 0% or 1% so I hardly ever use it.

it would also help to smooth out the jumps between pressures because most of the time you would have it at more like 50%.

[3dioot]

@BluEgo

If you think this is not important then go lobby for feature X that you think is important in the thead category that was created for it. Their are many requests on this forum that are non specific, non constructive, downright silly and/or have absolutely no place in the current development phase of this alpha. Still i dont go into those threads to comment on how those people shouldnt "stress Andrew out".

I do my best to be specific, constructive and, yes, polite in my requests and comments. I spend much time trying to figure out whats wrong and if i cant explain it with words ill fire up illustrator and draw something up. However this doesnt mean i dont get a little disheartened every once in a while when i look at the current state of the brushes and realize how much work still has to be done for them to become merely acceptable and pleasant to sculpt with let alone for them to become great.

@Andrew

Yes i was hoping i would see one new brush which would have the growing based on movement behaviour so i could test it and see wether that was indeed what was missing all along. I am desperate for either a fixed clay (which would be the best solution and yes im refering to Rimmason's suggestions here) or a finetuned extrude. (extrude needs some tweaking anyway but im saving that for a later date) However "Cant please everyone i guess." was a nudge in your direction that i understand you are working very hard and cant do everything at the same time. Ill keep it more formal next time to minimize the chance for misunderstanding.

With that out of the way im very happy you got MT working. I do not have a dual core at home but i have one at work and the speed increase is phenomenal.

V26 comments

I did not expect V26 to change things drastically, i expected some bugfixes and that was all. (and the brush improvements to come in V27 after a longer time) However it seems you tried to come towards me (i thankyou for that) by trying to implement some of my suggestions at the very last minute. Im afraid in doing so you replaced a good tool though. :lol:

Airbrush

----------

This tool got replaced. The defining characteristic of this tool was the building up over time where you didnt have to move the brush to make it grow. I know i requested this be changed but i later came to realise it was a unique tool with a great functionality for stamping in detailed alpha's. I read this in other posts on the forum, it was pointed out to me by BluEgo and after some testing i noticed this myself too.

I requested the tool stayed; just the way it was.

To add onto this. I never found the build version of this brush in V25 to be of much use. The sudden change in behaviour where it "capped out" and became flat if you would spray for too long was also not an improvement compared to V24. If you want to keep these options, or i missed the people raving about these options, i think it would be a better idea to implement them as options for the brush. In summary:

One airbrush tool which at its default acts like it did in V24

One option called "cap depth" which makes it act like it did in V25

One option called "build" which makes it act like the build brush in V25

In the future i think you will find noone is using either cap depth or build and it can be removed but thats just my opinion, there may be people out there that love those options to death.

Extrude

---------

Got fixed. Im very happy i got my slightly improved extrude back in full fuctionality! Thanks!

The grow on movement brush (which in V26 is called Airbrush)

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ill have to play with this a little more. It is better for building up volume but not too the extent i was hoping. Its also quite slow in comparison to other tools. Its seems there is this order to brush speed. Fast-Medium-Slow being Carve-Extrude-Spray/airbrush It feels like spray is even a bit faster then the airbrush. I understand these tools differ in what they do but its never good for a volume building brush to be the slowest of the available ones. Because you will use it with a larger radius and you will be making fast strokes with it.

In summary:

Im glad i got a volume building brush to test and play with for now (please rename it to something else like volume and change airbrush back)

Its performance/feeling is far from great; i think the best thing to do for V27 regarding a volume brush is to focus heavily on the new clay (which would be the improved carve)

I think i got everything covered now; time for brunch!

Just to error on the safe side this time: I would like attention paid to brushes/brushs strokes and i dont want them tomorrow but, yes, i would like to see significant improvements for the next update. Its just a wish; not a demand.

3dioot

PS

It also seems that in V26 airbrush and build are the same? Perhaps its an idea to put the old airbrush back under "airbrush" and keep the new one with growth on movement under "build".

[Andrew Shpagin]

So, you want airbrush only time dependent and not capped at all, yes? (Now it is capped in normal direction by radius to prevent far - distance influence).

I also have no strict definition of carve. So I have not improved it. I have read comments but I still don't see bright idea.

Have you seen that setting are stored and you have ability to cheoose if growth is time dependent?

Also, does render works on your 6800 ?

About V27 - main thing that will be done there is possibility to bring VS object directly to retopo tool with no delay. I have found easy way to do it and was not able to resist to make it

I can add brushing changes there if you will tell what is most important at this moment.

Also, I an developing soft interpolated brush path. It will come in one of the next builds. It is not easy.

[3dioot]

So, you want airbrush only time dependent and not capped at all, yes? (Now it is capped in normal direction by radius to prevent far - distance influence).

If we want to keep it simple then yes because the current implementation of "capping" is bad. If you hold it too long you blow all the detail out of the brush. Im not really clear what you mean by the last sentence. Did you have to cap it to avoid it being buggy?

Capping could be a very good thing (when looked at from a workflow perspective) but then it would have to work differently. Instead of the brush working like a cylinder that gets filled up untill it hits the ceiling and maxes out it should take the alpha into account. In other words; if one area of the surface that the brush covers reaches maximum height (the white spots in the alpha) thats the cap. And it should stop growing. So you are never able to just wash out the stamp like you are now. If you can make capping work like that it would be a very nice feature to have as an option.

Since were talking about the airbrush here is an additional request to really "finish" it.

Currently disabling pressure to depth does nothing. This makes sense with the brush growing over time but is also a missed chance. What i would like to see here is that when you disable pressure from depth it doesnt grow over time anymore at all but litterally stamps the alpha on the sculpt with the strength that you have specified with the depthslider.

I also have no strict definition of carve. So I have not improved it. I have read comments but I still don't see bright idea.

If its unclear at this point i will need some time to put it all down in a clear way. I will do that but am a little pressed with other matters atm.

Have you seen that setting are stored and you have ability to cheoose if growth is time dependent?

No i havent. I am writing this down while the latest version (V26) is open in front of me. When i change the radius it gets changed for all tools. When i change depth it gets changed for all tools. When i change the alpha it gets changed for all tools. What exactly do you mean with "Have you seen that setting are stored" because i almost get the feeling we are talking about different settings.

In V26 I see no options for airbrush, build or extrude in the sculpting menu. I only see a grow option under pinch?

Also, does render works on your 6800 ?

Yes. Thankyou. Ill even say its quite cool to render this fast on my gpu although its not a very important feature in light of 3dcoats general direction.

About V27 - main thing that will be done there is possibility to bring VS object directly to retopo tool with no delay. I have found easy way to do it and was not able to resist to make it

I can add brushing changes there if you will tell what is most important at this moment.

The retopo on voxelsculpt will make alot of people happy.

Ill spend some time trying to write down what i think (it will always be thoughts since i cant test it) will work for carve/clay. As stated above that will take me a while. Also there is a big chance it wont be great from the start and require additional itterations to become perfect. There is no escape that developing the brushes will be a bit of trial and error. (as it has proven to be up till now)

Also, I an developing soft interpolated brush path. It will come in one of the next builds. It is not easy.

Thats great. I dont care wether its in v27/28/40+ (i hope sooner then release 40 ). If its hard and takes a long time then thats the way it is. All I want to know its being worked on. Not tucked away in some dusty corner for later. Its much too important for that.

I hope to have a clear description of how to improve carve/clay up this evening.

3dioot

[Mantis]

Since were talking about the airbrush here is an additional request to really "finish" it.

Currently disabling pressure to depth does nothing. This makes sense with the brush growing over time but is also a missed chance. What i would like to see here is that when you disable pressure from depth it doesnt grow over time anymore at all but litterally stamps the alpha on the sculpt with the strength that you have specified with the depthslider.

Sorry 3dioot, but I have to disagree with this.

It's a nonsense, an airbrush must work like it does when it was first added.

An airbrush grow over time and the pressure control it's power.

With a real airbrush that's what you do, push the trigger stronger will get you a stronger effect.

If you disable pressure for depth you should have a linear growing effect.

I can see that you don't seems to like the current airbrush but that's how it should work.

But you are right that a stamping Tool is needed, but I prefer to see a new tool called Stamp for this kind of thing.

That is more logical.

And If I can share my thought about Carve, I think that a custom brush curve could make the job.

Or I didn't understand Carve tool, but from what I saw that's the only tool who give you a sharp edge.

I played with Mud to check it, and the 5th fallof can get you a sharp edge when the previous give you a smoother edge.

So it does the job and reduce the number of brushes.

[3dioot]

Sorry 3dioot, but I have to disagree with this.

It's a nonsense, an airbrush must work like it does when it was first added.

An airbrush grow over time and the pressure control it's power.

With a real airbrush that's what you do, push the trigger stronger will get you a stronger effect.

If you disable pressure for depth you should have a linear growing effect.

I can see that you don't seems to like the current airbrush but that's how it should work.

But you are right that a stamping Tool is needed, but I prefer to see a new tool called Stamp for this kind of thing.

That is more logical.

Do you even read what i write down? Did you read my previous comments? I want the old airbrush back. The one from version 24 to be exact.

The one that grows over time. Just like you say an airbrush should (and it should).

If you would take the time to actually read my post you would see i do not want that removed. Pressure DOES influence the strength of adding (the strength of spraying if you will). Im just saying that if you unlink pressure from depth (which you can do right now; its the little brush in front of the depth slider) NOTHING changes.

So you have an option and changing it does NOTHING.

If nothing changes then why not have it act like it normally does when depth is linked to pressure (so its a normal airbrush then) and when you UNLINK it (which currently does NOTHING) it becomes a simple stamp brush.

Im baffled you are able to misinterpret my post to this extent.

3dioot

PS

And yes a curve profile is needed. Would benefit extrude more then carve but i dont care. All brushes could benefit from it. This, however, is completely seperate from what most people regard a "clay" or volume building brush.

[rimasson]

I like the carve tool because it's the only tool able to cover a surface with a kind of layer (the thikness is controlled by the depth value), removing little bumps and holes.

I zbrush, i use a lot the clay brush, as it allo me to add or remove depth to a model, while keeping it smooth.

the carve brush do the same job, except that i always need to smooth the surface after i use the carve.

Thz zbrush clay tool is able to remove a layer : the more similar tool in 3dc is the Scrape tool. i can't control the depth of the removed layer, but the surface after i used the scrape is clean and smooth

Used in substractive mode, the carve tool actually gives to the model a chiseled look that i like. keep it like that.

I'd really like to have a kind of carve tool to add or remove a layer (the depth if this layer could be controlled by the depth value) that leaves a surface as smooth as the scrape tool, regardless of the tiny holes and bumps of the original surface.

With that tool, 3dc will have an extensive toolset.hope

I hope also that we will be able to use the brushes with all the available strokes mode (stamp, draw with curves

[Mantis]

@3dioot:

Wow you are always excited, you should calm down.

And Yes I read your previous post entirerly and when reading your last one I'm thinking that you are misinterpreting my post, that will become a never ending story.

And I still disagree with your idea, and I don't see the problem for having a Stamp Tool who does it's job and an airbrush Tool who does it too.

Maybe I didn't explained it well but I don't think it's a reason to react like this, I try to help and I don't have anything against you.

So you want to have an airbrush who act like an airbrush when pressure is on, and act like a stamp when it's on.

And I think that could be better to use the pressure only for the airbrush.

When pressure is OFF power of the airbrush is linear over time (you don't have any control on it).

And when pressure is ON you can vary the power of the airbrush that you can control with pressure.

I don't have photoshop because I'm not at home but I'm almost sure that's how it works and I think that's how.

I don't see what is wrong with that and what I say wrong.

And I don't think I have misunderstood your post, I don't even said that you want to delete airbrush tool.

@Rimasson:

Oh Ok I see what you like. But I didn't take the carve tool like this, I just thought it was a carving tool =)

But yes I have to second you on this, having a layer brush is needed.

[rimasson]

When i read the beginning of your post, i was wondering for a couple of seconds why you were talking to me like this..

[3dioot]

@Mantis

You are right. I did overreact. Linear growth amount is a viable option when depth is unlinked from pressure. I apologize. Its probably great for the few people that use a mouse. I doubt the tablet people would ever use it though. Also i consider it a bit of a waste to add yet another tool which does "almost the same but not quite" while it could be bundled in one tool. All personal opinion though...

@Rimmason

I thought you wanted the clay tool to do a little more then just being a filler + offset brush? One of the things i liked about your previous explanation in which you expanded upon the carve brush was that simply because of the method it works the carve brush is one of the fastest brushes. So, if this behaviour can be had with a tweaked carve brush it would add a lot of value over a spray/airbrush/filler based solution. Not only that there is more stuff "wrong" with it then the final result not being smoothed. You showed me the main principle was correct and useful. But the depth sampling was far from ok; i doubt thats suddenly ok now while nothing has changed.

3dioot

PS

Since V27 is out now anyway im going to take mantis's suggestion and go relax/calm down. Ill write up something tomorrow.

[nathan]

For the airbrush tool or option it should definitely build over time, like the first version. That is what an airbrush does.

The depth control (which should really be renamed "rate", or "speed" or "flow" for an airbrush) should control the speed at which the brush is applied. When pressure is linked to depth, 0% pressure would do nothing, and 100% pressure would equal the amount in the depth parameter. When pressure is unlinked from the brush it should run at the amount in the depth parameter constantly. It should not switch over to a new behavior, this is how all the brushes work currently and should work.

This is how v27 appears to be acting now, and it's perfect.

But really, this is all getting a bit out of hand. There are too many brushes now and they all do nearly the same thing, and one person likes this and wants that, and another person hates it and wants something else...

I'm going to reiterate what I said a while back HERE , but this should not be a unique tool. There should simply be an "airbrush" option which makes the currently active brush build up over time rather than some other option such as movement. Andrew should not be spending his time tweaking and adding new brushes trying to make the perfect set of brushes when it all really comes down to a few different methods in a few different areas, because the brushes will never be perfect that way. Someone will ALWAYS want something different. If all of the options are exposed so that anyone can have the tools react how they prefer then EVERYONE can be happy

For instance, Rimmason's request for the carve brush above should simply be a checkbox to have the brush also perform smoothing as you stroke. You should be able to use that option on any brush, or turn it off for any brush. This is how the extrude brush was working for a while, but I notice it's not now.

I am going to take some time and write up a proposal on the options that are needed and maybe a layout for what it could look like.

I encourage everyone to give this some thought and spend some time thinking about the truely unique properties that we should have at our disposal, and not necessarily how end result tools should behave.

[3dioot]

Nathan i agree.

Its not as simple as you put it though. The ability to create brush presets should be created at some point. Just like you have pen presets at the moment.

However there is still work on the foundation of the brushes. Little use to think of a system to wrap them up in this early.

The good thing about having different tools at the moment is that its easy to differentiate. You can see which one is slow and which one is fast. You can see which one bugs out and which one does not. This makes development a little easier imo.

Also i think its a bit ridiculous to say that its all down to user preference. Its not. The current Clay brush currently is way, way too slow and utter crap to use on low res voxel sculpts. I dont care how but it will have to be improved. Either by tweaks to carve (and if people like the old one by all means keep it; just make a variation on it and give it a new name), a depth sampling (averaging) system under extrude (which it needs anyway) or a whole new solution noone yet thought of. It can be any of those things as long as a -quality- brush is the final result.

As long as the base brushes still arent up to snuff (and they arent) the base principles that underly those brushes cant be thought of in a sculpting wide brush preset system. It would be like putting the car in front of the horse.

With that said im glad this thread is getting some comments eventhough i may or may not agree with them. More people in the mix should (in theory) only lead to better results that everyone is happy with.

3dioot

[Mantis]

When i read the beginning of your post, i was wondering for a couple of seconds why you were talking to me like this..

Sorry I was posting at the same time and Edit the post after seeing yours.