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Modeling procedure


BringItBack
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Hi, n00b still plugging away at 3D Coat and for the most part really enjoying it.

 

I'm curious as to how long-time users approach modelling. For instance, I've just gotten the first real project through a process of sculpting head, body, arms, front and hind paws separately, as separate layers. Many times during the process with each part I went back and forth between voxel and surface mode in order to smooth, refine and build, smooth, build. This also included decimation as each part got closer to finished and the voxel count increased.

 

I merged children with parents, smoothed, cleaned up the joins, and had to resample in order to keep some of the detail, eg.paws. Then into Surface to do some cleanup and decimate. Then merged everything into one model before going to autopo.

 

Predictably, some parts lost detail in becoming the one whole, and I'm looking at touchups and refining the paws, eyes, etc. 

 

Does this sound routine? Are there more efficient ways of doing a model of this type?

 

Hoping this makes sense... any thoughts welcome. 

 

post-39209-0-60540100-1432686824_thumb.j

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If the final output is for a main character/ a close to camera polygonal model outwith 3DC I would be inclined to manually retopo all the elements for tidier uv's and keep the high rez surface mode for baking back the details. Good quality decimations that allows a degree of reposing of character elements can also be very useful other than using autopo.

 

Voxels over surface ?

No rules for  best method other than than a general consensus favoring voxels for blocking out and reliable boolean operations.

Surface mode for finer brush control, detailing and finessing. Similarly the inverse i.e using selective area decimation for allowing easy moving of the bigger masses in surface mode is worth building in to your design for speed. I'm a big fan of proxy mode for that - a method for which it is always best to save beforehand.

 

When it comes to working with speed in 3DC ensuring you have the most effective brush size and falloff in relation to the zoomed scale of your object holds the key to fluidity.

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Had to google Proxy mode and just found your videos on Vimeo... will take a look at those. Experimenting with everything including falloff, and from what you've written I think I'm heading in the right direction. 

 

Thanks for the comments. 

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I think I'm heading in the right direction

You are most certainly.

 

 I should/ shall pop up a video I did a few days ago with regard brush size in 3DC.

It's a seemingly small but very important factor for new users to realize.

Sometimes I feel we get so lost in the technical that the seemingly simple facts are often omitted.

 

The ability for new users to develop a mental mind map of working methodology is something that takes a few years for any software to establish by repetition. I'm happy to see for new users that the hard work on the 3DC youtube channel as well as the generosity of so many other 3DC users have made this a quicker journey.

 

Best of fortune in your 3DC journey - look forward to seeing more posts.

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