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3d coat or zbrush


Albert
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First can you give the reasons for "not thinking" that 3DCoat is the sculpting, retopoing and texture application to use. At lot of factors are involved here, your workflow, what you plan on using 3DCoat for, etc ... We have no information from you to give you any real answers...  Both programs like all programs have their strengths and weak areas..

Edited by digman
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Zbrush is the absolute best sculpting application in the field, it has some good autoretopo features as well but features a fairly rough learning curve due to it being a bit unique in how it opperates.

 

If you are just sculpting for a hobby then 3d coat is fine. Other options include Sculptris and Blender which are free, or mudbox which you can rent from Autodesk for $10 a month. I believe LW has some sculpting capability as well.

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 So zbrush is not an option.

 

if Zbrush is not an option...  why do you ask Zbrush or 3DCoat?? :)

 

You can reach higher levels of details than Zbrush with same amount of memory in 3DCoat because of adaptive tesselation (LC) unless

you use Zbrush HD geometry which is almost unexportable and impossible to bake.... 

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The biggest advantage zbrush has over 3d coat is the amount of training material available, but in reality most of the stuff can all be repurposed if you read the 3d coat manual first.

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I think both programs have their strengths and weaknesses but they work really well together.

I absolutely love the multi-level sculpting in Zbrush but find 3D Coat way quicker to just 'create' in. Less menus getting in the way, less to think about and working with voxels feels like true sculpting freedom. Zbrushes Dynamesh still feels clunky in comparison.

UV mapping also works really well and really fast in 3D Coat compared to Zbrush.

Zremesher is really nice though and I do prefer it over 3D Coat's Autopo.

I had a situation recently where I wanted to dramatically pose a 20 million poly sculpt in 3DCoat and it was proving problematic. I took the sculpt into Zbrush, duplicated the sub tool, Zremeshed it, subdivided it a few times and projected the details across creating an easily poseable model.

I think there is a similar work-flow in 3D Coat though.

Texture painting in 3DCoat is much better especially with the new pbr system.

3D Coat is cheaper and does a lot of things in a quicker, easier way. I am glad I have both but I started with 3DCoat and would never want to be without it.

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Hello Digman,

 

My first feel of the program was that the sculpting les detailing then zbrush.

 

I want to use it with lighwave 3D.

Only for the hobby. So zbrush is not an option.

 

Greetings,

 

Albert

And you get that impression, just how? By gallery work? Sure, there is a lot more of that in ZBrush circles...because they already carved that niche into the market well before Mudbox and 3D Coat came along. But that doesn't mean one cannot use 3D Coat to create a crazy level of detail...including hair. You can see from the model in the video, that you can go as detailed as you need.....super detailed hair, eyebrows, skin pores, etc. Then, on top of poly or voxel sculpting, you have a 3rd platform for sculpting detail, and it's far more efficient on your system...that is Image-based Sculpting, in the Paint Room. It's ideal for uber-high surface details....you can blend layers of (normal/displacement map) detail together, seamlessly, increase or decrease levels of depth locally with your brush or per layer. Very flexible and efficient.

 

 

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Albert, I will not add any more to other comments as they speak quite clearly. I think your possible reasoning is just based on not fully understanding how to use 3DCoat when sculpting in voxel mode, surface mode with dynamic tessellation when using LiveClay brushes and the paintroom to create the high details you are after...

Edited by digman
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I feel that both are extremely useful in my workflow, depending on the tasks I'm using them for.  That's the reason it's important to know how you're planning to use one or the other.  For me:

 

3D Coat for:

 

Some sculpting tasks

Retopology

Texturing

Baking

 

ZBrush for:

 

More control over brush strokes (better "feel" for me)

Quick autotopo for general fixing of weird areas

 

For character work, I go into ZBrush now, finish the sculpture, either do the retopo work there or take it into 3D Coat, use 3D Coat for unwrapping, and then texture it in either app.  I have found myself going into ZBrush more, lately, but they compliment each other well.  I wouldn't prefer to answer one or the other, as I love both.

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I want it to use it with lightwave on high detailed sculpting.

And also painting.

 

Greetings,

 

Albert

If you're not a long-time ZBrush user, then 3D Coat makes a lot more sense (than otherwise)....especially if you are a Lightwave or Modo user. 3D Coat cut it's teeth with the Lightwave community several years ago, and that's why you see so many LW UI similarities (Text Buttons on a Tool Panel located on the left side, and Tabbed UI, with pop-up panels for most everything). It almost seems like an extension or 3rd app of LW, if you place them on separate monitors. And it has tighter linkage to LW than any other 3D app.

 

Attached is a LW 11 UI color scheme. You install it by going to the EDIT menu > PREFERENCES > at the bottom of the panel click LOAD and find this file (after you've unzipped it, of course).

New_3DC_LW11_Layout_23.options.rar

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Albert

I am new to both programs and have bought both in the last 3 months (need it for my work).

I can say a lot of pros and cons but the super PRO for 3D Coat for me is the hardsurface modeling.

In Zbrush yo have (until Zbrush 4R7 comes out) very painful tools for that matter - using a shadow box in ZBrush is for very patient users.

in 3D COAT I could create a gun in less than an hour - and I say it as a new user ! (please look at the attached images -  I painted it in Substance Painter)post-38733-0-88282200-1420666971_thumb.jpost-38733-0-60753300-1420666973_thumb.j

 

I do find the rooms concept a bit lousy - I bought Zbrush because I could easily import a rough model of a terrain (from 3ds max)  and UV+Texture AND Export it  in no time - I could not do it with 3DC - and believe me - I tried.

the Sculpting tools in 3DC and in ZB are awesome so I reckon you may get the same results in both at the same time if you know the tools.

 

 

 

Regards.

Edited by nirsul
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@Nirsul

You can easily do that in Zbrush actually, you just have to know the workflow. Masking, and polygroups are necessary as well as knowing how to manipulate the primitives.

Zbrush still kicks the living crap out of 3d Coat from what I have seen of 3d coat so far, but its methodology is also very unconventional. 4R7 will certainly increase the ease of entry when it comes to hard surface modeling in Zbrush. Both applications are fast if you know what you are doing.

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I have said it many times, but it seems that the two programs compliment each other very well.  I would take one over the other for certain tasks, but in the end, having both really smooths out problems you might have in one, with the other.  If I'm doing hard surface modeling, I'm not personally going to touch ZBrush.  I'll use 3D Coat or a dedicated program for that, such as 3DS Max, Cheetah3d, etc.  This isn't to say that ZBrush can't do it...absolutely false.  However, I find it's method for creating hard surface sculpting, short of panel loops, very awkward and time consuming...granted I'm no ZB power user.

Edited by alvordr
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I like both, i couldn't live with out 3d coat in my arsenal tho. 3d coat is by far the best art program i have ever used, all they need to do is add the abillity to bone and animate and it would be the ONLY! software i need besides a game engine to work from, zbrush is awesome but 3d coat wins my vote time and again because it is just everything i need to go from concept to creation except the animation stuff. sadly i can't rig and animate in 3d coat, maybe i should request that as a feature lol. zbrush is great for its ability to sculpt and paint and with the new dynamesh it really almost feels like real sculpting, not as smooth as 3d coat however, but still pretty close, but i still choose 3d coat cause you can be much more artistic in your workflow with out having to think about it and or wait for dynamesh to actually chug threw a retopo for small changes.

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Yet Zbrush on the long run is very cheap considering the $$$ users spent upgrading since its first version ( = 0) :-)

It would upgrades over the span of 20yrs in 3D Coat to reach the $800 that ZBrush costs upfront. Pay a lot now (ZB), or pay a little now and small increments every 4-6yrs (3D Coat).

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I've nearly stopped using Zbrush completely since I got 3d-Coat. Zbrush is not a complete solution for making production ready models for animation. It will let you sculpt lots of detail sure, but recovering that detail into something useful in production is something you will be looking outside of Zbrush to get done. I am finding that a lot of the detail I would previously sculpt in zbrush as geometry I instead paint into as normal map texture in 3d-coat. This is far quicker, more resource efficient and gets better results. Being able to go from sculpt to production ready textured asset inside one program is such an incredible advantage it isn't to be overlooked for the relatively minor advantages Zbrush offers.

 

 Zbrush has a very slick and hip marketing campaign behind it to help cover up it's massive flaws and outright omissions. Don't get sucked in by it. There is a reason they won't let you try it before dropping almost $800 on it.

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I've nearly stopped using Zbrush completely since I got 3d-Coat. Zbrush is not a complete solution for making production ready models for animation. It will let you sculpt lots of detail sure, but recovering that detail into something useful in production is something you will be looking outside of Zbrush to get done. I am finding that a lot of the detail I would previously sculpt in zbrush as geometry I instead paint into as normal map texture in 3d-coat. This is far quicker, more resource efficient and gets better results. Being able to go from sculpt to production ready textured asset inside one program is such an incredible advantage it isn't to be overlooked for the relatively minor advantages Zbrush offers.

 

 Zbrush has a very slick and hip marketing campaign behind it to help cover up it's massive flaws and outright omissions. Don't get sucked in by it. There is a reason they won't let you try it before dropping almost $800 on it.

 

Considering I know a few of the pixologic guys and go to their events around town (Los Angeles), I can honestly say there really is no "slick marketing" campaign you refer to... unless you consider allowing some of the industries top artist to demo and give tutorials on how they work as "slick marketing". To me thats kind of what people want to see, its not hype its objective information about known artists and their workflow.

As for animation, neither 3d Coat or Zbrush are geared towards animation, trying to paint on normal maps is never going to be the same as baking them out from a high poly sculpt. You also need to generate other kinds of maps for the best texturing results, this includes cavity, AO and curvature maps. Additionally, keep in mind the best normal maps you get are when you go with object space and then convert them to tangent space geared toward the engine in question.

Zbrush's focus is to give you, the artist, the ability to pop out extremely high rez and high detailed models with low resource cost in a relively short amount of time. Neither it or 3d coat do weight painting, rigging and animating, though technically you can animate in Zbrush, I wouldnt say its really worth it outside of conceptualization (there was a demo awhile back in which a creature was lifting weights and breathing heavily to show off the morph animations).

 

Regarding the trial or lack there of... Pixologic is an odd company, they are very..unique in how they do things and they could be making a lot more money if they chose to (especially by charging for every update) but they dont since money isnt really their primary focus. You can still get the trial for version 3.5 if you look for it, and with acquiring sculptris, which is given freely, that has taken the place of the demo. Its basically like "heres an intro to sculpting with the same kind of feel, zbrush goes 1000x further". Theres really not much competition either for them, even 3D Coat doesnt necessarily compete in my opinion. Zbrush is just the best application to get sculpts out and with as much detail as possible. It doesnt need to be anything else.

Either way you are going out of both applications to prep a model for animation.

Edited by RabenWulf
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