Users of Both 3DCoat and Zbrush their strengths.

[Rectro]

Hello.

Im a long term Zbrush user and am gathering some research information from users who use both Zbrush and 3DCoat. This thread is not X vs Y war, but rather an informative look at what are their strengths, and how these strengths aid in choose what app is more suited to one person or another.

Some of the things im looking at are as follows.

1: Pure sculpting Mesh based and other technologies, and feel of brushes
2: Fast base mesh creation
3: Freedom to concept sculpt
4: Intuitive navigation in the UI
5: Innovative features that are unique to each program
6: Reliability, stability, and performance
7: Workflow between other apps
8: Extra features no directly related to sculpting such as posing, Uv, re-topology
9: Cost and value for money inc cost for upgrades
10: Customer support
11: Commercial Training

Thanks, Dan

[blade33ru]

z brush has way more commercial training , but that because its so complicated.  You will find it less necessary with 3d coat.  coat has a ton of very innovative features but its WAY more intuitive than z brush.  coat is better IMO in areas of retopo, uvs, sub tools, painting textures.  by default z brush sculpt brushes feel nicer but you can tweak coat to feel more or less the same.  coat doenst have the nice deformation tools of zbrush,  but some of the surface brushes can mimick it. way more freedom in coat to concept sculpt.  coat is way more stable than z brush.  i find z brush crashes quite a bit .  even tho it saves your info almost always.  in contrast coat rarely crashes.  you can right click and export entire voxel hierachy out as an obj which you can open as tool in zbrush and split to subtools.  the coat UI is fastly superior to zbrush.   when z brush first came out i thought it was so innovative.  but over time i found it clumsy and unintuitive and literally found i had to watch hours of tutorials to keep up.  id rather create art.

 

overall i think zbrush has more features, but i just dont find it fun to use anymore.  i LOVE using coat

Edited January 30, 2017 by blade33ru

[Rectro]

1 hour ago, blade33ru said:

z brush has way more commercial training , but that because its so complicated.  You will find it less necessary with 3d coat.  coat has a ton of very innovative features but its WAY more intuitive than z brush.  coat is better IMO in areas of retopo, uvs, sub tools, painting textures.  by default z brush sculpt brushes feel nicer but you can tweak coat to feel more or less the same.  coat doenst have the nice deformation tools of zbrush,  but some of the surface brushes can mimick it. way more freedom in coat to concept sculpt.  coat is way more stable than z brush.  i find z brush crashes quite a bit .  even tho it saves your info almost always.  in contrast coat rarely crashes.  you can right click and export entire voxel hierachy out as an obj which you can open as tool in zbrush and split to subtools.  the coat UI is fastly superior to zbrush.   when z brush first came out i thought it was so innovative.  but over time i found it clumsy and unintuitive and literally found i had to watch hours of tutorials to keep up.  id rather create art.

 

overall i think zbrush has more features, but i just dont find it fun to use anymore.  i LOVE using coat

Thanks, this is a good start.  I have a few questions if you dont mind answering.

1: How long have you used Zbrush for Vs Coat, what is your main use for it?

2: When you said Coat has more freedom to concept sculpt, can you expand on this please?

3: Does Coat have methods to create base meshes fast posable compared to Zbrush Zspears?

4: Can Coat sculpt on the basis of mesh sub d sculpting with adjustable levels on the fly, working and retaining the original base mesh, if so how does it compare in terms of polygon count, how high can it go while remain smooth in  opperation?

Thanks, Dan

[AbnRanger]

If you are trying to weigh ZBrush vs 3D Coat for the purposes of making a purchase decision, it really comes down to how much are you going to be using either for sculpting? If it's predominantly for sculpting, you might find ZBrush the better choice, if price isn't that important. IMHO, 3D Coat isn't far behind ZBrush in terms of sculpting capability. It's a better sculpting app than Mudbox, overall, and that puts it in very good company.

However, the better question is "If 3D Coat had no sculpting tools, would it still be worth the cost, as a PBR Texture Painting, UV Editing and Retopology application?" As objectively as I can state it....absolutely. These are the areas where it outclasses ZBrush. It's closer to ZBrush as a sculpting app than ZBrush is to 3D Coat as a texture painting app. 

[Javis]

I know you were not directing the question at me, but more experiences from many is better, right?

1. I used ZB  v2 a lot, v3 a lot, off and on with v4. I think v4 is pretty amazing though. I pretty much use 3DC for almost everything it can do, with a heavier focus on painting, sculpting and baking.

3. Many. The curves tool is what you're looking for. It functions very closely to zspheres. The Sphere tool works pretty well too, it lays down a blob of clay.

4. Yes. It uses cached levels of subdivision. Regarding meshes, please clarify?

[Rectro]

20 minutes ago, Javis said:

I know you were not directing the question at me, but more experiences from many is better, right?

1. I used v2 a lot, v3 a lot, off and on with v4. I think v4 is pretty amazing though. I pretty much use 3DC for almost everything it can do, with a heavier focus on painting, sculpting and baking.

3. Many. The curves tool is what you're looking for. It functions very closely to zspheres. The Sphere tool works pretty well too, it lays down a blob of clay.

4. Yes. It uses cached levels of subdivision. Regarding meshes, please clarify?

Thanks for your reply.

Im checking out the Curve tool right now.  Can this be used to produce a armature in which can be used to sculpt on as either a Voxel mesh or normal polygon mesh that has been auto topology produced (low poly base mesh).  In Zbrush I build up the Zsphears, rotate, scale and position them in 3d space, then produce a auto re-topologized mesh that can then be sub devided as the sculpt progresses?

Regarding meshes, I asume there is two methods in which 3DCoat works, 1: Voxel based, and 2: Sub D mesh in which retains the topology from the original base mesh such as one imported allows you to keep sub dividing with full sub d levels to move up and down as you please?

If I where to work in Sub D sculpting, not voxels, how many levels can you achieve until 3DCoat slows down, I know this is different from one system to another?  Once your sub d model is sculpted, how easy is it to produce a displacement, or normal map from this stage, this is assuming my model I was sculpting on was imported with ideal topology?  n Zbrush its the simple case of Importing a mesh, store its current state (morph target) then start sculpting away adding many sub d levels as needed, in this mode I can sculpt at 86m polys without no UI slow down.  Then I return back to sub d level 1 restore to original mesh state (Morph Target restore) the produce my displacement, normal,maps with a single button press.

 

 

Thanks Dan

 

[AbnRanger]

8 hours ago, Rectro said:

Thanks for your reply.

Im checking out the Curve tool right now.  Can this be used to produce a armature in which can be used to sculpt on as either a Voxel mesh or normal polygon mesh that has been auto topology produced (low poly base mesh).  In Zbrush I build up the Zsphears, rotate, scale and position them in 3d space, then produce a auto re-topologized mesh that can then be sub devided as the sculpt progresses?

Regarding meshes, I asume there is two methods in which 3DCoat works, 1: Voxel based, and 2: Sub D mesh in which retains the topology from the original base mesh such as one imported allows you to keep sub dividing with full sub d levels to move up and down as you please?

If I where to work in Sub D sculpting, not voxels, how many levels can you achieve until 3DCoat slows down, I know this is different from one system to another?  Once your sub d model is sculpted, how easy is it to produce a displacement, or normal map from this stage, this is assuming my model I was sculpting on was imported with ideal topology?  n Zbrush its the simple case of Importing a mesh, store its current state (morph target) then start sculpting away adding many sub d levels as needed, in this mode I can sculpt at 86m polys without no UI slow down.  Then I return back to sub d level 1 restore to original mesh state (Morph Target restore) the produce my displacement, normal,maps with a single button press.

 

 

Thanks Dan

 

The Proxy Slider lets you quickly choose what SubD level to (cache) step down to. Rather than applying changes up a stack of SubD levels, 3D Coat stores the original state of the object, on your hard drive and temporarily replaces it with a lower subD level version (Proxy). When you uncache the layer, 3D Coat translates any changes made to the proxy, to the original version.

 

 

[Rectro]

Thank you for these videos, this has cleared allot up.  Am I correct in thinking that in order to work on a lower resolution you must use a decemated version in which gets cached?  If this is the case then this opens up some problems.

If 3dCoat need to create a decimated mesh in order to work on the low poly version, does this mean that there is no direct deformation link between the original imported cage mesh and whats being sculpted?  If this is the case, if you deform the mesh in sculpting or on the decimated mesh, how does the original imported mesh that essencialy is your topology cage get deformed along with the changes you made during sculpting?

In Zbrush im always working on the imported mesh that contains the topology.  What ever changes I make to the original cage mesh gets pushed into the higher sub d levels, and vice versa, but I can restore the original cage mesh at any time.  This workflow lets me make changes to the topology that aids in the sculpting in areas such as the tightness of the edge loops for the lips, eye lids, finger nails e.c.t.  If I like the changes that the sculpting has made to my original imported mesh I can then stick to these changes on the cage mesh in which becomes my new and final cage mesh.  This new cage mesh then aids in holding volume and detail needing the displacement maps having to do less work, and thus producing better quality renders.

So in short, can I sub divide the original imported mesh that is my final topology mesh, and sculpt directly onto that and choose if my sculpting effects my cage mesh, and can I move up and down these sub d levels letting me adjust my cage mesh at any time which then pushes these changes to my higher sub d levels?

 

Thanks Dan

 

[AbnRanger]

Because Voxels and Dynamic Tessellation are much different technology, you have to get the quad mesh approach out of your head.  3D Coat handles it differently, but the result is the same. What you cache is the current state of a given object/layer. What you get in it's place is a Proxy (decimated copy). Whatever changes you make to the PROXY (Low Poly) gets translated to the cached object (High Poly version), once you uncache the layer.

If you want to use the original base mesh as your target mesh, for baking all the details onto, you can do so in 3D Coat by importing a copy of it into the Retopo Workspace FIRST. There is an option in the Sculpt Workspace to Conform the Retopo (Target) mesh. 3D Coat keeps the two different mesh types (High Poly/Voxel SCULPT OBJECT and Low Poly RETOPO OBJECT/MESH) separated in the app.

This helps explain the different Mesh Objects in 3D Coat, as there are 3. PAINT, RETOPO & SCULPT.

 

[Rectro]

Thanks AbnRanger, so to clarify, the Conform is working more like a shrink wrap approximation, rather than vert for vert direct manipulation in which you cannot simply say use the pinch tool on your retopo, and that pinch updates to the sculpted mesh?  As you say 3D coat separates the process, and from the videos I get that the retopo mesh has abolutly no link with the sculpting mesh  during the sculpting process as is simply used to produce the displacement,normal maps as a point of refference between the surface of the retopo and the voxel sculpted mesh?

Dan

[AbnRanger]

5 hours ago, Rectro said:

Thanks AbnRanger, so to clarify, the Conform is working more like a shrink wrap approximation, rather than vert for vert direct manipulation in which you cannot simply say use the pinch tool on your retopo, and that pinch updates to the sculpted mesh?  As you say 3D coat separates the process, and from the videos I get that the retopo mesh has abolutly no link with the sculpting mesh  during the sculpting process as is simply used to produce the displacement,normal maps as a point of refference between the surface of the retopo and the voxel sculpted mesh?

Dan

Pretty much. Again, it's because Voxels are a different animal than quad meshes. So, too are Meshes in Surface mode, once you start applying local subdivision. This is why ZBrush doesn't have dynamic tessellation. Too hard to keep the same paradigm they've always used, and allow dynamic subdivision....which you can apply as you sculpt, on the fly, or just brush the areas you want more subdivision in. That's why 3D Coat keeps it and the Retopo mesh completely separate. However, the Conform Retopo Mesh Option works pretty well for the purpose you mentioned. 

It may not be perfect for all situations, but even in ZBrush, there are times where you may have to just retopologize (Z-Remesher) to change the poly flow in a given area. In 3D Coat, you don't have to worry about topology AT ALL. So, each app has some things it does better than the other...some trade offs and some advantages. What I especially like about the Dynamic Tessellation in 3D Coat is, when vertex painting (Basically the same as Poly Painting in ZB, only MUCH better), is you can dynamically subdivide the areas where you need more texture resolution, as well. In that regard, it effectively works like Ptex. You brush select areas where you need more texture resolution.

You might ask why Vertex Paint instead of waiting until one bakes everything down to a low poly target mesh and start painting on UV mapped textures? It allows the user to visualize early on, what the model is going to look like. It also gives the user the ability too apply PBR shaders to the high poly mesh and vertex paint over the top of it, if you want. It's very helpful when you want to show the client or Art Director a more finished state without having to first Retopo > UV unwrap/edit > Bake.

You can always bake everything down to a low poly mesh...vertex paint with PBR Smart Materials + PBR Shaders. What you see is what you get, when baked.

 

[AbnRanger]

You don't have to worry about such hassles in 3D Coat:

 

[Rectro]

Thanks, im getting a much better picture now of it all, and to be honnest even without the sculpting I can see why many Zbrush users have 3DCoat along side it as the painting, and retopology tools, makes it worth the cost alone.

In Zbrush in its most simplest sculpting method it is the case of sculpt on one mesh with access to all sub d levels which has the benifit of what you change in either high or low base levels they update each other on the fly.  No mesh conversions, decimation meshes, or conforming.

3Dcoat skips this method all together which for the artist that starts off with building their animation base mesh in the more traditional method is forced through more steps due to the fact that 3DCoat does not have the first option found in Zbrush, Direct polygon mesh sculpting.

Where 3Dcoat seems to lay is with another method Zbrush uses called Dynamesh which works on the basis of a Adaptive mesh which seems less efficient in its polygon distribution due to the fact that 3DCoat can add more density to any given area, but in Zbrush dynamesh seems to allow such a high level of poygons even the most micro details can be sculpted without any brush or UI slow down.  Dynamesh like 3Dcoats methods also must project its high details into a map, but it allows these details to be added to the original method Zbrush uses, projecting onto a multi level sub d base mesh which gives back that original simplicity of having one single mesh with multiple levels of detail.  The only down side to this is while Dynamesh may give the ability to devide the mesh to obscene amounts of polygons, not all this data can be retained into a Map because it must first be projected onto a model that could never reach the same sub d levels as the dynamesh counter part.

Dan

Edited January 31, 2017 by Rectro

[AbnRanger]

Dynamesh was ZBrush's response to 3D Coat's Voxels. You can get some crazy levels of resolution with Voxels, as well, but the best sculpting tools are in Surface model. Especially using the brushes from the PRESETS panel. There are quite a few default ones, and they build off of the default brushes in the Tool Panel. So, for instance, there are a number of Preset brushes that behave quite different, but are based on a single default brush, such as the RAPID brush. It's worth checking out. The Dam Standard equivalent in 3D Coat would be the LC Crease preset. Polish Crisp is "hPolish" and so on. The PINCH brush in 3D Coat is as the name implies, but it indents at the same time, by default, and is pressure sensitive. You can make it pinch and crease outwardly, by holding the CTRL key to invert the action.

Anti-Bump is probably the best smoothing type, as it tries to keep the overall tangency of the mesh, but polishes  just the smaller details.

You might find some of this helpful:

 

[Rectro]

Thanks for your time AbnRanger to give me this extra info.

 

Dan

[AbnRanger]

G

12 hours ago, Rectro said:

Thanks for your time AbnRanger to give me this extra info.

 

Dan

Glad to help, as some of the most need to know things about Sculpting in 3D Coat, isn't always easy to find. 

[Carlosan]

There is another sculpt feature in 3D-Coat: LiveClay.

LiveClay is the equivalent as Unlimited Clay in Sculptris/Blender, it means Dynamic subdivision sculpting but eventually will become much more.

[Koray]

Long time Zbrush user here. Not a pro but I know almost all there is to know about it in terms of sculpting and modeling and experiment alot with it daily.

3d Coat makes you think differently to start with. Lasso tools, hide and cut tools are especially great for quick concepting hard surface with fast and solid cutting, splitting and detailing.Sure you can make similar moves in Zbrush with trim and slice curve tools, panel-group loops, brushes etc etc. but they are way too slow and technical. 

Zbrush has a better brush workflow though, when it comes to freehand sculpting and detailing especially for organic models. 

My plan so far is starting and staying within 3d coat when attempting hard surface designs like helmets, armors, mechs etc. as much as possible. Then maybe export to zbrush for further refining and brushing. 

I also know a bit of Blender and have Silo and Substance Painter 2.

Havent read the whole thread and still quite new to 3d coat and learning but this is what I think

[Rectro]

Thanks Koray, very helpful. Iv head retopo tools are very good have you used them?

Dan

[Koray]

Not really but I did watch the videos and practiced a bit. They sure feel better than the zsphere method for sure which drove me crazy and forced me to try and learn 3ds Max, Maya, Topogun and Blender finally. I did even purchase retopoflow for blender which turned out to be a huge waste of money cause I dont really like working in Blender.

The reason to all of this is because Zbrush doesnt tolerate ngons, dont have edge extrude and dont have a dedicated poly cut-slice tool. There is slice curves but they need alot of cleaning up instead of adding edges in other programs.

Zremesher and project all is good enough for organic models. There is also a workflow for hard surface splitting polygroups and zremeshing to get cleaner surfaces but you need a lot of work if you want to stay low poly and add cool details to them.

3d Coat has auto-retopo too which I dont know how to use yet.

I did experiment with these when I bought substance painter first time and realized I need low poly models. These days I'm trying to get better at finding cool shapes and getting better at the overall concept so no retopo for now till I really like a model and decide to send it to Substance.

I also bought Silo for about $10 during christmas for low poly work if I ever have to. It is a discontinued old software but dedicated to modeling with a simple interface.  

[Rectro]

Zmodeler from memory has edge extrude and slice tools but by no means the way I'd choose to 3d model, I use MODO, and C4D which sorts all my modeling needs, and retopo.

Dan 

39 minutes ago, Koray said:

Zbrush doesnt tolerate ngons, dont have edge extrude and dont have a dedicated poly cut-slice tool.

[Speike-Styles]

hi @Rectro

I have tested Zbrush in the past:

• I like the Presentation of how the UI is more Human, just everything looks like it is everywhere scattered when you first start.
• It gives you a great Visual advantage to the Human eye, but you still have everything 3d Coat has/ In its own way.
• I think here you can make some real nice Fur and Hair, like out of the Box. This is Pro for these scenarios.
• Here I think the way it feels Really light and there is no " I am thinking Process", it seems to work Out of the Box with very very little bugs" Again this is just my opinion.

Here it can handle way better Polygons with a very Slow PC unlike 3D Coat it needs more Juice.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

I think 3D Coat lets you speed up with fast tools where you can switch from one panel to the other. It has more of a all around scenario environment. One of the first things you see in 3Dcoat is the start up page. This page alone gives you a real " What do you need Sinario "

•  Do you need to UV Map a Mesh? NP
• Want to repair a Scanned Mesh? Easy
•  Want to Retopo Something? Done!

etc.. So It will offer you with Options that will help you speed up the Process.

The cool thing is you can set up real cool on the go and very Fast Auto Retopo etc. The Calculation works, but it takes time ( It's all Math)

• Now where it may be Critical: 3DCoat is a RAM/ Hog. works great with small Poly, but with over 30M Polygons you will need more Juice!

 " You can't go to a war with a Butter Knife, you need something along the lines of a Tank"

_____________________________________________________________________________________

zBrush

1. zBrush a Bigger community, because it is better marketed. " They Hired someone"
2. They have more Community Videos, Conventions. / Here the Pros share there Work. So you can find things fast, or even join up / Around the world Meet ups "So if you enjoy the Teamplay"
3. Lots of Commercial Training & Good Workshops, Plently of free Tutorials
4. There smaller Version will fit anyones need ( The bundle Option gives you a great hardware too )

 3DCOAT

1. I use 3DCoat mostly for the Sculpting and it works Perfect for my needs. Yet from time to time it feels Klunky and not Polished. To many Your on your own Scenarios. "Kind of Grungy"
2. You can't make your own Palett, you only have a Blender kind of way to " Shortcut Hood" "In my Opinion it needs to be less / Robotic in it's ways"
3. Only a few Commercial Training Videos, but not detailed. More of a Workflow with no How Come, just do it like that kind of way. So this is not good for beginners. There are Plenty of free tutorials that talk about everything.
4. PBR Rendering A+++
5. PBR Painting A+++
6. The Student Licence is just what everyone who just wants to learn it first or Hobbyist who needs it for it's quick tools the only Imitation is the Texture export "max 2k" ( This would be a one stop )
7. The Pro Version just gets rid of the 2K Limitation ( The Price is Fair for what you get. )
8. 3DConnexion A+++ ( If you use this in other Programs you will enjoy having this advantage here)

Note: Theses are my Options and by all means I do not want to put any Software higher or better then the other. They Both worked very hard to get to where they are. They Both have shared a BEAutiful new Workflow then what we used to have 20 Years ago. Hope this helped

 

Greetings Speike

 

[Koray]

1 hour ago, Rectro said:

Zmodeler from memory has edge extrude and slice tools but by no means the way I'd choose to 3d model, I use MODO, and C4D which sorts all my modeling needs, and retopo.

Dan 

Thats a different edge extrude. You cant start from a single poly, pick an edge and extrude to empty space. It connects to another edge and creates a triangle. Sure you can add an edge loop or slice and transform that edge but thats not what we mean/need

And with the slice tool you cant slice a sigle poly starting from anywere and make an angle in the middle. sometimes when there are many polys add edges by itself to make triangles and/or quads which you usually need to clean up.

Zmodeler is cool if you have a plan and know what you are doing but you cant start with a single poly and extrude as you wish.

I believe we can safely say that its for box modeling not for edge and poly modeling.