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Renaming the Retopo Room?


AbnRanger
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Currently, when one wants to work in 3D Coat, they are largely confined to a linear workflow (ie. Start in Sculpt Room > Retopo Room > bake/merge to Paint room > export to host 3D app), but if you want to move assets between the Paint room and Retopo room (to make some modeling edits, for example), it requires somewhat of a hack to do so. If you wanted to re-pose the default robot, it is too much hassle to do that in the Tweak Room, and actually easier to do in the Retopo room, since the Transform Gizmo in it is up to date.

 

So, with all of this in mind, I've spoken with Andrew, Volodya and even Raul about this subject and all agreed some consolidation/change was needed. This is where I would like to ask for your input as to what the Retopo room should be renamed...IF they do decide to consolidate it and the Tweak Room functionality by simply exposing the PAINT OBJECTS  to the Retopo tools. This could/should include consolidating the UV tools, IMHO. The only thing that would need to be added from the Tweak room would be the handful of sculpting tools and Gradient Selection.

 

This would mean all poly editing tools are located in one workspace. No more merging or baking to the Paint room. The Retopo mesh and your Paint room mesh would be one and the same. And it would mean a reduction of the number of rooms from 6 to 4. With some emphasis on making the Retopo room a capable poly modeler (it's close to being there, now), what would you suggest as a new name for the room/tab?

 

POLY EDIT room?

MESH EDIT room?

POLY MODEL room?

TOPO room?

TOPO EDIT room?

TOPO TOOLS room?

___________ room?

_____  ______room?

 

Also, if you indeed want to see this consolidation of rooms occur, make sure to let Andrew know by sending him an email (support@3DCoat.com). User input levels help drive the priority of requests.

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If one does something in this direction I would suggest abolishing the term "room" too.There's no rooms.The most broadly

established term for such in computer graphics is "workspace", ; it also has its origins in the physical world, but works a lot better.

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The 'room' system in 3DC really needs to be completely redone; The idea of 'moving' the model between them greatly over complicates what should be simple UI presets that the user can customize at will.

 

One 'room', multiple UI preset tabs. That's what 3DC needs.

Edited by PolyHertz
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I agree with all stated points, and Mesh Tools sounds like a good one. I don't have a problem with workspaces, per-say. I just don't like having to make copies of this mesh or that and merge copies to one room, and such. It makes for a convoluted workflow. I understand that Andrew was trying to address certain requests for various tools, and bolting on a retopo room may have made sense at the time, years ago. But, the way it was implemented provided unnecessary barriers. Instead of the Retopo tools being used on Paint Objects, the were made totally separate, in isolation. That's why....in order to do some simple modeling tasks, such as creating a mouth socket, adding some extrusions, or just welding overlapping verts on a model....one has to:

 

1) Import visible Paint Objects into the Retopo Room

2) Perform mesh edits

3) Export mesh to folder on hard drive (go outside 3D Coat)

4) Import Mesh into Paint Room using the REPLACE GEOMETRY option

 

This hack has to baffle new users who cannot believe you have to send a mesh outside the app and import it back in, just to work on it in another workspace. I was going to create a video showing how to do this, but all that would do is expose this flaw and demonstrate a hack/workaround rather than demonstrate a true feature.

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Personally, never had a problem with the room (workspace) system.

 

Combining some rooms that are really tied together when working on a mesh is a very good idea indeed. These rooms can be combined as it will make the workflow easier and more powerful.

 

I will add one major concern is it will not take tons of scrolling to find tools we need only then go through another submenu of that tool to finally arrived at the tool we need.  :wacko:

In current Room system most tools are right at your finger tips and change depending upon what selections you making you.

 

I would want the interface in this new combined room (workspace) to be context sensitive still upon which tools we are using plus our selections so our tools are right at our fingertips... The current way it works...

 

Mesh Tools is straight forward as a name. The new workspace would include many functions from retopoing, modeling, uv editing, tweaking, baking, painting and exporting.

Edited by digman
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Personally, never had a problem with the room (workspace) system.

 

Combining some rooms that are really tied together when working on a mesh is a very good idea indeed. These rooms can be combined as it will make the workflow easier and more powerful.

 

I will add one major concern is it will not take tons of scrolling to find tools we need only then go through another submenu of that tool to finally arrived at the tool we need.  :wacko:

In current Room system most tools are right at your finger tips and change depending upon what selections you making you.

 

I would want the interface in this new combined room (workspace) to be context sensitive still upon which tools we are using plus our selections so our tools are right at our fingertips... The current way it works...

 

Mesh Tools is straight forward as a name. The new workspace would include many functions from retopoing, modeling, uv editing, tweaking, baking, painting and exporting.

I wasn't suggesting the merging of the Paint and Retopo Workspace, but the Tweak Room and Retopo Room. It might make more sense to move ALL UV tools to the UV workspace, That way it removes the clutter, as you mentioned. If the mesh in the Mesh Tools (Retopo) workspace is the same that is present in the Paint workspace, then there would be no need to have UV tools in the new Mesh Tools workspace. Basically, 3D Coat arbitrarily isolates and segregates Retopo meshes from meshes in the Paint Workspace, and I think that should end, ASAP.

 

In fact, if Andrew did do that, there would be no real need to add sculpting brushes to the Mesh tools. Why? Because the Brush tool in the current Retopo tools, is effectively the same as the MOVE brush in the Sculpt and Tweak Room. And if one wants to make sculpting edits to a Paint Object, they can easily use the IMPORT tool in the Sculpt room to copy the mesh from the Retopo (Mesh Tools) Workspace, and enable the CONFORM RETOPO MESH option for larger tools like Move, Transform and Pose tool, and can finesse/re-snap the Paint Object mesh once they've done their brush sculpting.

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I hope I'm not speaking out of turn since I haven't been using 3D-Coat much until recently. However, I like the way Modo uses workspaces. The tools are under different tabs by default, BUT they can also be used in any of Modo's workspaces as well via floating palettes/pop-ups.

 

For example, in Modo sculpt and paint tools have their own preset workspace, but there is a pop-up palette with all the paint/sculpt brushes that can be used while modeling, UV mapping, etc.

Edited by PixelDust
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The 'room' system in 3DC really needs to be completely redone; The idea of 'moving' the model between them greatly over complicates what should be simple UI presets that the user can customize at will.

 

One 'room', multiple UI preset tabs. That's what 3DC needs.

BIG +1

 

why not take as example Softimage MAIN TOOLBAR workflow ?

 

Main Toolbar Contains commands and tools for different aspects of 3D work. Press 1 for the Model toolbar, 2 for Animate, 3 for Render, 4 for Simulate, and Ctrl+2 for Hair. You can also access these controls from the main menu bar.

 

ag088353.jpg

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What if Tweak room was merged with the Paint room instead, and all of the surface tools from the Sculpt room (without their dynamic local subdivision features of course) were copied to that room (Retopo room doesn't even support vertex normals!).

This would give us an ultimate toolset to intuitively manipulate geometry while preserving UVs, vertex order and normals.

 

Or even keep the Tweak room, but "copy" the sculpt room tools.

 

IMHO the only problem with the Tweak room is that it is slow and has a counter-intuitive toolset. If the toolset was identical with the Sculpt room, I think more people would use the room. I would use it for sure (extensively!) for making blend shapes.

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What if Tweak room was merged with the Paint room instead, and all of the surface tools from the Sculpt room (without their dynamic local subdivision features of course) were copied to that room (Retopo room doesn't even support vertex normals!).

This would give us an ultimate toolset to intuitively manipulate geometry while preserving UVs, vertex order and normals.

 

Or even keep the Tweak room, but "copy" the sculpt room tools.

 

IMHO the only problem with the Tweak room is that it is slow and has a counter-intuitive toolset. If the toolset was identical with the Sculpt room, I think more people would use the room. I would use it for sure (extensively!) for making blend shapes.

The Tweak Room is really obsolete and Andrew said he plans to scrap it. I reported some issues in the room and he doesn't even want to bother with it, for this reason. I think the best possible outcome would be to just have one low-poly mesh system and one room to do all low-poly modeling, sculpting and retopology. No more Paint Object and Retopo Meshes....Just meshes, period. That would have the side benefit of allowing the consolidation of all UV tools in the UV Workspace. No more confusion for new users as to where to do UV work.

 

One reason why I think this would be a huge plus is that it would allow the user to finally have the capacity to subdivide their paint room meshes, if they want. Right now, you cannot. All one would have to do is use the Subdivide command in the Mesh Tools (Retopo) Workspace. I agree that Surface mode brushes would be really helpful to add to the Mesh tools workspace.

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I hope I'm not speaking out of turn since I haven't been using 3D-Coat much until recently. However, I like the way Modo uses workspaces. The tools are under different tabs by default, BUT they can also be used in any of Modo's workspaces as well via floating palettes/pop-ups.

 

For example, in Modo sculpt and paint tools have their own preset workspace, but there is a pop-up palette with all the paint/sculpt brushes that can be used while modeling, UV mapping, etc.

 

Completely agree.

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