Member marble51 Posted March 6, 2016 Member Report Share Posted March 6, 2016 HI. I have downloaded the Demo of 3DCoat with a view to using it in conjunction with DAZ Studio. The first thing I wanted to try was to re-texture a clothing object. I exported the dress as .obj with its UV Map and imported into 3DCoat for per-Pixel Painting. I then started selecting Smart Materials and painting them on the dress. However, as I tried different materials, I was constantly being told that it needed to calculate AO and other values. I assume these are to do with PBR but all I want is a simple texture image (such as denim or lace or tartan) along with, perhaps, an opacity map and a normal map for wrinkles and cloth weave. I don't know why I need metallic roughness and the other complex surfaces. The dress will eventually be rendered in either DAZ Studio using 3Delight or Luxrender (I don't use their IRay PBR). Luxrender has its own material settings which may or may not be compatible with the 3DCoat settings - I have no idea. I could use Gimp and paint directly on the UV templates but that doesn't give me a good representation of how it looks in 3D as I'm painting it. Also, it can be a pain to line up seams, etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member marble51 Posted March 6, 2016 Author Member Report Share Posted March 6, 2016 After posting the above, I found some more tutorials explaining smart materials so I'm in the process of going through them now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Contributor Tony Nemo Posted March 6, 2016 Contributor Report Share Posted March 6, 2016 The more powerful the software, the trickier it is to use. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member marble51 Posted March 6, 2016 Author Member Report Share Posted March 6, 2016 The more powerful the software, the trickier it is to use. Yep - I can see why I am labeled Newbie and you are labeled Expert. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reputable Contributor Solution digman Posted March 6, 2016 Reputable Contributor Solution Report Share Posted March 6, 2016 (edited) To create a simple fabric that requires no curvature map or Ao map is easy... Look at the second attached image. That is the smart material editor. Click on new to make your own smart material... Just add your fabric seamless texture image. Metal by default is set to "0" and roughness is set to "100". Your are creating a dielectric material (non-metal) You could create a normal map for your fabric depth based off the your seamless fabric texture but that is not the subject of this post. There are a number of programs that are capable of creating normal maps based off images... Choose your preferred mapping shown in the attached image... You have the choice of a several. Give it a name and save... Done... Edited March 6, 2016 by digman 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member marble51 Posted March 6, 2016 Author Member Report Share Posted March 6, 2016 (edited) Thank you, I will try that. I take it from what you say that the fabrics that come with the program install are special PBR materials and are meant for internal renders - not for export? At least not for export to something that does not recognise these materials? By the way, is it not possible to create the Normal map from a greyscale image within 3dCoat? Edited March 6, 2016 by marble51 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reputable Contributor digman Posted March 6, 2016 Reputable Contributor Report Share Posted March 6, 2016 (edited) Yes you can use a greyscale image to create the smart material normal map. Thanks, I forgot to mention it. Not the subject of the post but really 3 ways of methods of exporting for renderers and game engines. Texture Menu: Gloss---Color Specular--- for regular renderers, can be a non-pbr workflow. Gloss---Metalness--- Unity game engine or any others that support this workflow. Roughness---Metalness--- Unreal game engine or any others that support this workflow. This workflow can be used in Renderers that have the correct shader node / nodes. The renderer generally needs a GGX shader as well that will be used in the process. Blender has some PBR shader nodes that users have created. You also have 3 types of shaders to use under the View menu in 3DC depending upon which workflow you chose under the Texture menu... 3DC is indeed a powerful program, take your time and enjoy learning it... Edited March 6, 2016 by digman 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member marble51 Posted March 6, 2016 Author Member Report Share Posted March 6, 2016 Thanks again. I'm used to seeing Gloss and Specular channels - I don't do gaming. There seem to be quite a lot of DAZ Studio and Poser users who are happy with 3DCoat which is one of the reasons I downloaded the trial. When I get brave, I'll attempt to model some figures but I'm an old dog and learning new tricks takes a while. I have Blender too but, again, a lot of new learning to do there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reputable Contributor digman Posted March 6, 2016 Reputable Contributor Report Share Posted March 6, 2016 (edited) I am an old dog too... 63 and Tony might lead the old dog pack here... Nothing like a few beers to get the old brain cells a charge... er or is that the reverse! I never believed or will ever believe you are too old to learn... Threw that public education propaganda out the window many years ago... Edited March 6, 2016 by digman Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Contributor Tony Nemo Posted March 6, 2016 Contributor Report Share Posted March 6, 2016 You generate new neurons everyday but must use them or lose them. At 79, I do qualify as an 'old dog'. A good idea, David, to take an art sabbatical. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member marble51 Posted March 7, 2016 Author Member Report Share Posted March 7, 2016 Well, you guys are an example to me - I'm inspired to carry on and learn more. Maybe 64 isn't so old after all and I hope I'm still learning at 80. By the way, things started to click and fall into place last night and I started to get the hang of materials. I created a new one from a Filter Forge sample. It is lace but I'm scratching my head a little as to how to make the holes transparent. Is there a transparency/opacity map feature? If not, it isn't really a problem because I can use a grey scale image again in the DAZ Studio opacity channel. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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