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2024 Feature requests wishlist


Andrew Shpagin
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I dont think anyone would argue the need for basic scene management and multiple voxel/polygon sculpts in the same scene. :D

At the moment i agree its really cumbersome to use the merge and subtracting possibilities that are so unique to voxel sculpting. In fact you have to do two conversions that both degrade the original sculpt to make it happen; voxels>polygons>export>import>polygons>voxels.

The technology used for digital sculpting in zbrush and mudbox discourages to assemble a sculpture in parts. Even in Zbrush where there is a tool to "blend" seperate parts together you still have to be careful what you do not to brake the illusion of the model being one. In real life (and when looked at from a pure logic viewpoint) it makes a lot of sense to assemble your model in parts. Even a face can be looked at as a bunch of simple primitives. 3dcoat's voxel sculpting will really shine in the possibilities it brings here. In fact i would go so far as to say it will really change the workflow for digital sculpting merely by having the possibility to truly merge and subtract. Personally im really looking forward to having this implemented (smoothly). Ill be patient though. First perfect hiding function. Then maybe masking? Then maybe scene management? (oh yeah; i wanted better brushes too) ^_^ Im certain well get it Psmith. Its much to necessary and awesome not to be implemented.

3dioot

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Save File at time of Crash (and Unexpected Crash Recovery File load option upon next startup)

Was working for about 1 and 1/2 hours on a volume sculpt and suddenly a large section of triangles

became invisible, I went to undo, and got a crash without a crash log file. Understandably, I should have

been working with autosave on (I will from now on), but I've had so few crashes with 3dC that I hadn't

enabled it (and I didn't want to fill up my harddrive with large files too quickly--laptops just don't seem

to have enough space ;) ).

With XSI there is *usually* the ability to save the working file when a crash occurs, and if I recall correctly,

it will also autosave the file and prompt the user the next time XSI is opened to load the auto-saved

recovery file.

Could something like this be added to 3dCoat?

Thanks.

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Save File at time of Crash (and Unexpected Crash Recovery File load option upon next startup)

Was working for about 1 and 1/2 hours on a volume sculpt and suddenly a large section of triangles

became invisible, I went to undo, and got a crash without a crash log file. Understandably, I should have

been working with autosave on (I will from now on), but I've had so few crashes with 3dC that I hadn't

enabled it (and I didn't want to fill up my harddrive with large files too quickly--laptops just don't seem

to have enough space ;) ).

With XSI there is *usually* the ability to save the working file when a crash occurs, and if I recall correctly,

it will also autosave the file and prompt the user the next time XSI is opened to load the auto-saved

recovery file.

Could something like this be added to 3dCoat?

Thanks.

Are you using V30? There is so possibility. Before V30 3DC was not able to save work after crash, but V30 should do this work.

About autosave - vox sculpt 3B files take 4-5 bytes per polygon, they are not big, saving is almost instant.

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Indeed, Andrew, I was using a freshly installed Alpha-v.30.

I looked around for a savefile or a directory in either the UserData or main folders but couldn't

see if there was a backup file. Also, all of my undo files got erased (I'm guessing this is by design

after each shutdown of 3dC because I looked in there before 'ok-ing' out of the error dialog and it

was 746mb worth of undos). I also looked at the crash logs to see if it had been logged, but came

up with no notation of the crash. Upon re-start, no prompting to load crashed file (but I wasn't expecting

it based on previous use with the alpha versions). <shrugs>

Good to know you've added some implementation of crash recovery though ... perhaps I managed to crash

it too hard somehow. :blink::)

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A post from Arkanis answered here - as I found that most of my answer is a feature request :). Some of my wishes from earlier posts appear here too with some more in detail explanations...

I have a question for the users of 3D Coat around :

What is your usual workflow ?

1) Sculpt, then detail, then paint (color, etc.)

2) Sculpt and paint at the same time

3) Neither of those (please explain)

I just want to add some workflow proposals which could prove very valuable for Industrial-Design or Architectural work. Here, in contrast to character modeling in most cases super detailed surface features aren't required.

Also it is not important to create a Retopo mesh with an accent on behaviour in animations. But it would be very interesting to be able to quickly add some randomization on an existing texture which has been added in the

Source package already (with simple texure projections). Further on voxel techniques could be very valuable because playfully checking out different geometry detail solutions is typically impossible in

production geared 3D-programs.

Retopo for light weight rendering and proper animation isn't required. However Retopo could be useful for other purposes: Nurbs - conversion from quad meshes. While this traditionally was no serious option, meanwhile Tsplines

do a good job on this. Modelers with a technical background mostly aren't interested to create high frequency detail with tiny crincles on meshes with millions and millions of polygons.

However they also work with such HiRes (Tri) meshes which are typically created by 3D-scanners. Traditionally the workflow here was to 3D-scan an existing precision object (say a spare part of a vintage-car) and to

accurately reverse-engineer the input-mesh with an engineering package. The output is directly producable but does not allow for drastic form changes - no problem in this case. But what if the powerful means of 3D scanning

is used in a different way? When the designer defines the rough shape, 3D scans it and wants to work over this 3D-template?

Then it is a pain have a restricting Nurbs model on screen. It would be much more powerful to go on sculpting with digital clay and to convert to Nurbs at given time. This could happen in 3rd party programs with Tsplines

or with typical Reverse-Engineering tools. If procedural brushes were added to 3DC which could e.g. relatively precisely mimic precision features in clay (say a 5mm fillet) even those features could get retrieved by those

programs which can also recognize those at the to be reproduced part of a vinatage car.

Desired workflow 01:

Import medium density Mesh from Nurbs-Modeller (Mix of Quad and Tri-mesh)

Texture with typical projection types (Box, Cylinder etc...) randomize with

additional paintstrokes - work without caring about UV's at all, send back to Nurbs

package to Render (single frames).

Desired workflow 02:

Export voxel data as HiRes mesh, open in Nurbs precision modeller, create Trim curves

projected curves and Points on Top of mesh. Send points and curves back to 3DCoat in

a popular format, appy these on voxel model (For trimming, input for curve-tool, input for

Voxel surface creation á la Archipelis. Points could be used to array/align geometry-elements

precisely.) I believe that such a workflow made far more sense than adding a lot of CAD-style

curve tools to 3DCoat. It should also be possible to import a HiRes mesh natively created

in a CAD-package including curves and points. The most powerful combination would of course

be file-linking. Features in a Nurbs package were updated and got refreshed by reloading the

relevant bits to 3DC.

Desired workflow 03:

Import of HiRes Scanmesh or Pointcloud-data:

Conversion to clay, Symmetrizing, Detailing, Painting, Retopo.

Export to Nurbs package, Conversion to Nurbs via Tsplines

Apply Texture maps on Low Res Mesh or Tsplines Model for Rendering,

Prototyping with Tsplines/Nurbs-model.

Holger

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Was you asked to save your work after crash?

I don't believe I was prompted to save, and the error message was different than

messages I'd gotten in the past (sorry, should have taken a screenshot). I was a

little irritated at loosing what I'd done so I was madly searching to save it out and

sadly not thinking about screenshots. :(

Anyhow, if I can duplicate it I'll do better at giving you more to go on...but again,

glad to hear you've worked up some means to recover crashed files (other than

periodic auto-saves).

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Seperate volume objects in one scene

I don't know if this was already written here.

I wish to have the possibility to sculpt on more then one object in the szene. In this case I could sculpt a figure that have a body and seperate armor, clothes or objects. The advantage is, that those object would not flow in other (like metaballs). Hope you know what I mean. Another example is to create a mouth and the teeth are separate own objects.

To control the objects they should lie on layers or something similar.

Be creative

Chris

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Andrew, do you think it's a good idea to have coloured voxels brushes? Maybe it's possible to create a colour map while sculpting.

*sigh* I typed a long whole paragraph, then my comp. crashed before I could post it. Anyway, I was saying there's been a big discussion on this not too long ago. In a nutshell the problem is that the geometry gets rewritten with every brush stroke so any color painting you do would constantly be destroyed.

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What I would like to see is a volumetric flatten brush,and a claytube brush(like Zbrush).

Claytube imho is the best brush zbrush has,it allow giving feeling and personality on the sculpting,3dcoat volumetric sculpting is becoming really good,imho needs some artistic brush(like claytube)

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I think Scrape does a pretty good job of this. I've also figured out that if you click the right spot with 2D paint (while holding Ctrl) it can do a pretty good job of scraping off the bumps and leaving the valleys. it's takes a little trial and error to get the selection point and brush size right, but once you've got it it does a good job.

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Hi Andrew I was thinking it would be helpful to select a part of a model and be able to modify the selected area.

just a simple idea, maybe is hard to do it with VS.

Hi Juan Carlos , this was exactly the same thing I supposed in the thread about transpose!

I am agree, and I think this could be a surface tool, instead of a voxel one.

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What I would like to see is a volumetric flatten brush,and a claytube brush(like Zbrush).

Claytube imho is the best brush zbrush has,it allow giving feeling and personality on the sculpting,3dcoat volumetric sculpting is becoming really good,imho needs some artistic brush(like claytube)

What is claytube?

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Claytubes is a zbrush 3.1 brush.

Its behaviour is similar to what extrude and carve do using the first left pen(the antialiased white full circle),the way brush strokes overlap are like carve,where the last brush stroke stay on top,but the shape is more similar to extrude(with carve you see a bit the circle ,with the extrude not but the overlapping is mixed(you see under the previous stroke)

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All the info required to create claytubes has allready been posted. ;)

Claytubes is alot like carve with a square alpha set to follow pen motion.

The things that carve still needs to become really good has been posted here some time ago.

If you implement those suggestions then anyone who chooses a square alpha set to follow pen motion will have "claytubes" equivalent.

3dioot

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All the info required to create claytubes has allready been posted. ;)

Claytubes is alot like carve with a square alpha set to follow pen motion.

The things that carve still needs to become really good has been posted here some time ago.

If you implement those suggestions then anyone who chooses a square alpha set to follow pen motion will have "claytubes" equivalent.

3dioot

Exactly.

I think you and rimasson made a great job describing how carve should be modified.

Thank you

EDIT: it's time for a feature request :)

Is it possible, in the future, to add local subdivision ?

I think it could be difficult adding it, but it would be a great feature.

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I'd like to have an option for remembering the brush settings for each tool (size, profile, alpha...etc).

Also I'd like to have an option to turn OFF brush size dependent on pressure for the smooth (even when it is turned ON on the current tool).

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Streaming voxels!

The performance are so good that I think a way to sculpt really big volume can be a killer application.

Maybe not all at the same time(even zbrush isn't able to sculpt more than 20 millions quad at the same time)but using hard disk to store voxel data that isn't edited can be cool.

I know I'm asking too much...

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There is a panel for brush presets. It should handle all of those things.

Yes but what I would like is the tools to remember which preset to use.

For instance I might want to carve with a certain preset profile and size and pressure etc... and extrude with another preset, another size etc... I would like 3dcoat to be able to remember all those parameters when I switch from carve to extrude.

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There is a panel for brush presets. It should handle all of those things.

I dont think Frankie is talking about brush presets. I think what he refers to is that the general settings for each tool should be stored per tool. In other words if you have carve set to .5 pressure and extrude to .3 then switching from extrude to carve will change from .3 to .5 and vice versa. Same for settings like brush radius, alpha, smooth stroke etc. This is -on top- of brush presets. Brush presets should not have a fixed brush radius for example. This would mean that if id make something like a slasher brush then everytime i switch to that tool it would flip back to the fixed brush radius that is set in the preset. I do not want that. I want it to switch back to the brush radius i last used with that specific brush. A preset should hold things like alpha, follow, jittering, rotation etc but not general tool properties like brush radius or depth.

I also thinks it helps to make a difference between a brush preset and a BASE tool. For example if id make a slasher brush i would make that with the extrude tool with a certain alpha set to follow. So for the -slasher preset- id like it to remember the alpha as part of the preset. For extrude however id like it to remember the alpha based on the alpha i last chose when i used it (within a session ofcourse; it should not save after i exit the application).

As many have requested smooth should ALSO be a seperate tool. It should stay linked to shift ofcourse but having a seperate smooth would mean that with the above system implemented you can set smooth brush to a fixed radius and have that radius every time you hold shift. Ofcourse in a perfect world you would be able to use a percentage setting for smooth brush radius. Something where you can say that you want smooth to be, for example, 1.5 times the brush radius of the tool that you used before it. In other words; use carve with a brush radius of 10, hold shift and get a smooth with a brush radius of 15. Features such as this (or the local brush settings) are not something that can be resolved through a GUI. They are actual features just like masking or transpose and just as important in the long run.

That said im excited about the coming features and hope Andrew has spend some good time on getting an actually artist friendly and fast solution for transposing. Im keeping my fingers crossed a good masking system is in place otherwise it wont really be possible to test transpose because its power will really shine with masking and move and rotate to create new geometry. Mask out a neck area, invert, move. Powers of voxels will shine like it hasnt done before. :)

3dioot

PS

Seems like Frankie allready beat me too it. I do think we are talking about the same thing. Ive requested this often. I think its "in the can". No idea when Andrew will get to it though.

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Seems like Frankie allready beat me too it. I do think we are talking about the same thing. Ive requested this often. I think its "in the can". No idea when Andrew will get to it though.

Hehe. Absolutely right about the smooth brush too. They put it as a separate tool in mudbox for a reason.

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Hello Andrew :

actually, you can cut through a voxel mesh by using one of the closed cure strokes (circle, square, contour...) whatever the tool you are currently using.

Do you plan to create a unique Cut through tool ?

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