3D Coat feature set inquiries

[sonyad]

Hello, everyone.

 

Thank you for your time. I'm not yet a 3D coat user but I do have a few questions about its features before I commit and become one and I would like to hear from people who are already using it on whether it provides some of key features I'm looking for.

 

1. Does it provide automatic splitting of the mesh mapping on the texture along the edges on the mesh which have faces meeting at an angle greater than a given value so that you don't have to manually define texture seams on the mesh?

 

1.b. Can you constrain the automatic UV mapping with regard to the amount of distortion which is acceptable so that it automatically creates seams to minimise distortion?

 

1.c. Can you have it automatically create seams between faces which, although not strictly adjacent are near one another, according to the incidence angle of their respective planes so it automatically splits the mesh mapping on the texture along mesh edges which are filleted or chamfered in actual geometry on the mesh?

 

2. When working with mesh normals, can you have it not try to average normals between faces which have an intersection angle of more than a given angle?

 

3. Can you have it smooth triangular meshes by creating additional vertices and triangles to soften the transition of the mesh surface between two adjacent faces whose meet angle is less than a given value?

 

4. Can it convert triangle only meshes to quad dominant meshes reliably and effectively so that a mesh which was originally triangles only becomes quad-dominant and the conversion is good enough to be subdividable without meaningfully altering the shape of the model?

 

6. Does 3D Coat support .ptex?

 

I would very much like to hear from anyone using 3D coat on any of the points listed above.

 

Please let me know.

 

Thank you for your time and consideration.

 

Laurențiu.

[TimmyZDesign]

1. Yes it can do automatic UVs and they seem to be pretty good. You simply click on a button and then it is done. There aren't any settings.

1.c. Manually creating UVs in 3D-Coat is very easy (I'm serious), so I would recommend just doing that instead of using the automatic feature.

2. Yes there is an automatic smoothing option for normals where you can enter a desired angle. This is available when importing models into the Paint Room.

3. I don't think you can enter an angle for that, but there are various ways to relax/decimate/smooth the mesh either by brushing a specific area, or applying the function to the entire mesh. The degree to which the relax, decimation, or smooth occurs can be controlled, but I don't think it is based on angle, it is a percentage value.

4. You can automatically retopologize a triangle mesh into quads (this function also has multiple settings so the user can get desired results), or you can perform that retopology manually to get even better results. That retopologized mesh can then be subdivided in an external application if desired. The automatic retopology function (although good) is not perfect however, so I would recommend manual retopology to get more exact results. Manual retopology in 3D-Coat is very good.

6. Yes it supports Ptex, but I recommend testing it to see if it suits your needs because the implementation in 3D-Coat is somewhat different than other apps which support Ptex. (It might actually even be better than what you were expecting...or worse...depending on your needs).

Overall I recommend that you download the free trial and test 3D-Coat for yourself. My brief answers are not adequate enough for you to see if your expectations will actually be met.

[sonyad]

Hey, Timmy.

 

Thank you for looking into and addressing my inquiries.

 

Since opening this thread I found :

 

https://youtu.be/uU69uLo-kq0?t=3m15s

 

and it seems that both feature 1. and 1.b are present in the 'Sharp Seams' and the 'To Planar' tools.

 

Thanks for the suggestion I'll put off trying the demo until I've saved up enough to buy the pro version if I like it. Though I'm pretty sure now it's got everything I'm looking for and I will.

 

Thanks a lot.

 

Laurențiu.