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3D Coat Trial Version 4.8.32 - Many Bugs?


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I've been using the latest 3D Coat Trial Version (Windows 4.8.32).  I see there are a couple of new versions in the beta tread, but I'm not sure those would work for me with the trial license.

When I downloaded the software, I considered myself a guaranteed purchase.  However, I've been pretty disappointed in the stability of the trial.  I've experienced many crashes and things are just not working consitently.  I've also noticed that many of the YouTuber's explaining the software are experiencing bugs

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Hello 

We always try to keep a version as free of bugs as possible. What tools working inconsequentially and crashes have you encountered?
Can you share the specs of your computer and what OS do you use?

Latest beta is version 4.8.34 and yes, work as trial too.

Could you please give a try ?

Thanks

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Still getting lots of bugs in 4.8.34.  Here is a 2 min YouTube video showing (no audio) a crash.

Basic steps:

1.  Open 3D Coat Project.

2. Start in Sculpt Room.  Object doesn't exist in this room?  Why does Mesh not exist?

3. Look for Object in UV Room.  Object doesn't exist?  Why does Mesh not exist?

4. Goto Retopo room.  Object doesn exist here.

5. Bake with Normal Map (per pixel).

6. Goto Paint Room.

7. Change UV Name.  Click reset in order to get UV to show.

8. Disable initial paint object to stop flickering.

9. Goto UV room.

10.  Apply UV's.

11 Crash.

[See 2 min YouTube video for more details).

 

 

 

 

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I would advice you to watch more tutorials, especially the ones at 3DCoat youtube channel, and also the one guy called AlienMinefield (these are the best) and Polytoots, becuase it seems you don't understand how 3DCoat works and how the workflow in the program is.

But I will just say this so maybe you will understand what I mean: Paint Objects, Retopo Objects and Sculpt Objects are not the same, they are not connected. Of course 3DCoat makes it easy for you to work within the program and do stuff to paint and bake and sculpt and do your retopo and combine those things but it doesn't mean you will work on the same mesh you paint vs when you sculpt or when you retopo. Also for example, you never use the UV tab, unless you import an object to be UVed, when you Retopo, you do the UVs on the Retopo tab.

I watched your video, you have retopo object and paint object, then you try to bake with normal map when you don't a sculpt object to bake. There are options like "Update Paint Mesh with Retopo Mesh" on Retopo tab. Paint Mesh -> Sculpt mesh, Bake Sculpt mesh onto Paint room mesh on Paint tab. Retopo Mesh -> Sculpt Mesh, Paint Mesh -> Sculpt Mesh on the sculpt tab. that's the kind of thing you do to transfer mesh from one place to another. 

But you need to really understand Paint, Retopo and Sculpt meshes are not the same, they are disconnected. then from this information you will understand how 3DCoat works and how to make your workflow easier.

 

I found some recent 3DCoat youtube videos talk exactly about this:

 

 

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I watched a ton of video and most are *****.   I did the UV in the Retopo room, but there's a bunch of functionality in the UV room for doing UV's that isn't available in the Retopo room?

Am I suppose to export my mesh and re-imported it so I can access the UV room?  If yes, then why is the UV room available?

I'll watch these two videos and see if it helps.

That said, what I hear you saying is that I have to export my low poly "retopo" mesh and import it into a new project in order to access the UV room?

Thanks

 

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Remember a lot of the people making those videos are in the forum here, myself included. Careful coming in here asking for help then trash talking the videos. People may be less willing to help.

If you're in the retopo room you can do the UVs right there, when finished it gets baked right into the Painting room. No need to even go to the UV room.

 

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The UV room has a bunch of functionality that isn't available in the Retopo room.  For example:

- Auto Seems

- Sharp Seems

- Auto Map

- Pack UV / Pack UV 2

These are just a few examples.  Unless you tell me different, I'm guessing I have to export and re-import to access this area?

Thanks

PS:  Your YouTube link is broken in your signature.

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When you click the Mark Seems button in the Retopo room a bunch of UV tools appear that are related to UVs. Including the ones you mentioned. The vast majority of the tutorials on the official 3D-Coat channel are very good. I only have a couple 3DC related videos on my channel but I have done tutorials elsewhere like 3D World magazine.

Correct link: https://www.youtube.com/user/PhilNolan3DJ

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In my message, I already talked about the UV room vs Retopo room. Like philnolan3d says, you will get the options depending where you are and what you have selected, that happens with some tools around 3DCoat, like when you change from Voxel to Surface, you will get different tools. But Like I said, UV tab is only for models you import and you want to do their UVs, nothing else, it's like some people like 3DCoat UV tools, let them use it like people use UVlayout or RizomUV or something. But if you are creating the Retopo of your model within 3DCoat, you will need UVs so they are integrated on the retopo room, and yes, everything you get on UV room. Good news is 3DCoat team got it figured out so you can work fast and easy when you do your retopo and then you need to do the UVs, you dont need to change rooms or anything.

A little note about the UVs is that when you import a mesh to be painted from an external file or from the retopo room to the paint room, the model, which is a 'Paint Object', will be also accesible and displayed on the UV room in case you wanted to change something about the UVs of a painted object, but that won't affect or has anything to do with the retopo UVs, only the Paint Object UVs.

 

For example, AlienMinefield is a great guy with nice tutorials and a really complete Introduction to 3DCoat and for example this video covers exactly the unwrapping process after you retopo an object.

 

And I don't know which videos you watched or not about 3DCoat, they are not many available compared to other software but only you know. I still suggest and mention AlienMinefield, since his Welcome to 3D-Coat video series can really help you understand 3DCoat in a short time. I also mention PolyToots since I have watched him since his first upload few months ago and he can really teach you stuff and show you great things you can accomplish with 3DCoat. But what I believe is everyone can learn from anyone as long as they are willing to learn and see what they can learn from others even if their information is not shown or spoke as good as others, just remember you are the one who still don't know 3DCoat well to judge other people's videos, so all you can do if you want to learn from others is gather the information the best you can to understand the program more and more.

Edited by Emi
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@philnolan3d

Thanks, I didn't realize that if I clicked on the option the commands would show up.

@Emi,

I've watched the Alien Minefield video you mentioned, and yes his videos are good.  I believe he's talking about going UV's in the UV room so that why I was trying to get to the UV room.  I didn't realize that all the functionality was repeated in the Retopo room.  I still think they should be turning off the room's that are not really avialble depending on the type of operation you select.

 

 

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Well that's how 3DCoat works, you select something and new buttons and options appear. And yes, most new users jump to UV room thinking that's where you do the UVs after you retopo, but no. so It's an understandable confusion but you will get used to it.

 

Talking about your video, it is hard to tell why the crash happen or what you are even trying to achieve and what are you doing that is causing the crash. Especially since you hide alot of things on your UI so it's hard to see what is what and what might cause the issue. Like, I would guess the head you originally have on paint room is a Paint object? so you are trying to replace that with the retopo object? since you don't have any texture on the model. why not just delete the paint object and send the retopo to the paint room again?

Few things I notice are that I noticed is that the Retopo mesh doesn't have UV since you are using Auto Mapping and you are using the Blender preset. What if you use something like Retopo -> Per Pixel (no baking)? this option will not replace any paint object and it will create a new one and then you can delete the one you want but it will not try to do anything about the texture and keep layers and all that. What if you choose the Unknown preset? This unknown is set by what you see in Edit -> Preferences and the options about Normal map and Triangulation method and Tangent Space and so on, so to be honest you have more control if you set it yourself rather than go with a preset that you can only see by going to 3DCoat programfiles folder and find the XML to exactly know what settings it uses or not in those presets.

Another suggestion, what if you create the UVs yourself? since it crashes when I see the "attempting to pack" the UVs. What if you use the DX version instead of the GL?

Many things you could do to trial and error this crash. But like I said, without a file to open, it's hard to really give a good advice and stop guessing a way to avoid this crash. I mean, I have done what you are doing many times in past and as test to see if it crashes and depending on the situation and what I am trying to achieve and no crashes here, at least not on that simple step.

Edited by Emi
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Maybe I'll create a video tonight with the MIC to see if I can explain things a little better.

Yes, I believe the original object is a paint object.  You've given my a few ideas with you create UV's for the texture comment.    I'll also try the DirectX version again, I did try it once before for another issue.

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On 3/3/2019 at 10:57 PM, Freelance Games said:

I watched a ton of video and most are *****.   I did the UV in the Retopo room, but there's a bunch of functionality in the UV room for doing UV's that isn't available in the Retopo room?

Am I suppose to export my mesh and re-imported it so I can access the UV room?  If yes, then why is the UV room available?

I'll watch these two videos and see if it helps.

That said, what I hear you saying is that I have to export my low poly "retopo" mesh and import it into a new project in order to access the UV room?

Thanks

 

When you this, could you be more specific and elaborate on just what it is that makes the video *****? Maybe those who create them can learn something (from the criticism).

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That's a subjective question, but I'm guessing there would be general agreement that there's a lack of tutorial videos.  

 

Personally, I prefer videos:that are:

1. focused on a specific goal.  For example, in this video we will Retopo this model.

2. don't make heavy use of the word if (new users won't be able to follow a lot of if then logic when they don't understand the product).

3. heavy use of vocabulary that might only be understood by someone at an expert level.

4. videos that are abstract without any real goal to illustrate functionality.

5. videos with loud music or no voice over.

 

That said, I shouldn't have been so critical to the people making the videos (except the ones with the loud music.. ;)).  There are some good videos, just not as many videos as you might find for something like Blender or Unity.

Thanks

 

Edited by Freelance Games
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I understand, the procedure (start menu> import for retopo) seems cause difficulity for new users.

I seldom import high poli mesh for re-topo from the start menu.  I usually import high-poligon mesh as voxell  or sruface mode in to sculpt room.

then start retopo. 

I have never known, if I  import  mesh for retopo (with start menu) ,  there will be " paint object" too.   I test it as same as you,  The mesh (retopo reference high poli mesh) can not be shown in sculpt room. but shown as paint object. it seems strange for me when compare other work-flow.

And if you import mesh to sculpt room, Usually we can direct paint it in paint room as vertex paint.  then the color is visible in sculpt room too.  but about your case,, we can not. because there is no mesh in sculpt room for vertex paint, and the paint mesh have NO UV (so can not UV paint too).

As you mentioned, i think, 3d coat should not show it as paint object.  because after all to paint it, we need to retopo, then generate retopo mesh and bake to paint room. then it generate additional mesh (which we paint), over imported mesh in same room.  

Then If I were you, I may not use the start menu to retopo,, or do not use" import Refelence" , just import the high-poli mesh to sculpt room. (even though I do not edit it but start retopo) this work flow seems more fit and you can understand the purpose of each mesh in each room. 

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3 hours ago, Freelance Games said:

How do you get rid of all the extra points and faces dots (spheres) floating around the scene?

You shouldn't really end up with any of you're only clicking on the mesh. In most cases you can delete one by hovering the mouse over it and it will turn white, then hit Delete. Occasionally I'll get one that just won't delete. Then I just ignore it.

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The reason you can't paint on the mesh in your video (in the beginning) is that it doesn't have a UV map so 3DC doesn't know where the paint should go.

As far as rotating, even without the Alt key, you'll notice that there's a thin line making a boarder all around the edge of the viewport. If you drag in that area you'll always be able to navigate.

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I hope to add feed back from user (not perfect new comer, though not pro-user),

The workflow (or start menu) import mesh as retopo (reference) easy cause issue. Because it against rule which we often see in many tutoriall about each room relation ship.The rule is "Paint object (mesh) can be used in UV room, and can be used in "edit-geometry room"  

but if I import mesh to retopo, from start menu, or use "import as reference (for retopo), though I can retopo in retopo room , the reference mesh are shown as paint object.

So I suspect even though I can not paint it, I can use UV room. but in UV room, the mesh never appear. that means after all we need to retopo it.then generate mesh in retopo room .  then generate UV too.. So there is no meaning we keep referecne as paint room object.    if 3d coat import the reference mesh to sculpt room (with w/o voxelazation, if user hope so to keep current poligon) it seems more reasonable.  and may not cause many issue, when user actually start painting. 

I had experienced these duplicated mesh (which maybe useful only when user understand clear , each option ) when I first bake,, I really needed many test to clear understand , which mesh I curretnly working.  and many generate layers (which I do not hope  to bake normal only, but bring from sculpt room shader)

 

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Well, it is a reference object you won't be able to paint it and I don't know why it is listed as paint object, but I never use that option anyway, I always import it to the sculpt room which would be the way to do it in my opinion, since you can sculpt inside 3DCoat anyway and do more work on it and take advantage of 3DCoat. I saw that when you click on the Perform Retopology, you will find the "Import huge reference mesh. Import really heavy meshes there. They will be represented as Sculpt Objects in surface mode. Textures will be applied too as vertex color", so maybe this option would be better? or just import it directly into the sculpt room, I don't know

 

I would always think that importing things as sculpt mesh would be the correct way because it is weird that option adds them as paint objects in the first place (never used that). I can confirm that by using Update Paint Mesh with Retopo Mesh would cause a crash because is expecting to replace the visible reference object that was imported and that seems like a no no. And that's the reason why when you use Retopo->Per Pixel (No baking) or the Bake to Normal you use in the video won't cause a crash either because it won't try to replace anything and just add a new paint object from the retopo you have done. 

 

Few things about the video:

you should use an underscore instead of a space, so the name will be displayed correctly.

To delete floating points (I guess from Points/Faces Retopo tools) there is an option on Special Section called Clear Points. just hit spacebar and you will see it.

The message you get after you bake is because 3DCoat is attaching the normal map to the layer and locking the normal map to disk, which is a new feature, it has to do with resolution and all that, haven't really read about it to care what it does, but that's the reason it gives you a location on your HDD and all that.

 

If you want to quickly hide everything but the retopo object you did, only click on visibility eye icon with alt, it will hide everything but the object you are using the alt with.

 

And last and I guess more important, in your video you can't paint because you should delete or hide the extra layer(s) that were created when you baked with the normal map, as you can see there is a layer called Color and that's because 3DCoat also bakes the color that the 'high res' object, so that layer is actually covering your painting on the layer 5 and such. This is the reason why you can see painting until you have the Layer 7 on top of it, so yes, if you deleted or hid the color one, you would see the other painting you made before layer 7.

The bake of the color, it's something you want only if you want to use the "ID map", or because you textures the high res and you want to keep some of it as a reference or maybe it gets baked good to keep it, but for something not useful that was baked with the color on your video, well, it's easier just to delete it.

 

Also, to make your life easier, you should delete the extra Surface Material (UVset) that was/were imported with the reference mesh. In your video, in your Texture Editor you are seeing the SkinM UVset not on the one you made when you baked which you named MyUV, if you were on MyUV you would also have seen paint on it and maybe understand that it was working but it was being covered. and then you would be able to paint directly in the UV and all that. You can see them in the tab named Surface Materials, so you can easily hide or delete what's not needed.

 

 

 

Edited by Emi
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As far as I can see, instead of correcting a bunch of bugs in the sculpture room, where the Coat is really strong, and because of bugs and departures, it cannot approach the zbrash, the last four updates are for some reason directed towards the drawing room, while products where drawing a mesh is much faster and more convenient (like SP2). Instead of trying to catch up with a locomotive that has long gone, it is better to make absolutely stable what already works well. However, the developers do not understand this. I described 20 bugs and suggestions on the mantis, but they receive almost no response, as I said, instead, efforts are directed to the drawing room. 

 

 

Edited by Dmitry Bedrik
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Hopefully a change in the order and color code them tabs would help with common workflows.  Sculpt   Retopo  (blue)     Paint  (1/2 blue to orange)   Tweak  UV  (orange)     Render (white)  Workflow #1  bring in/start in sculpt room then on to retopo  room (use the UV tools in retopo)  then to paint room.   Workflow #2  Bring in to Paint room  use Tweak room and UV room .  The Paint room is both the end of one workflow and the Start of another . any visual identity would help new users . I had the same problems with it 3 years ago .   

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3 hours ago, Sorda said:

As far as I can see, instead of correcting a bunch of bugs in the sculpture room, where the Coat is really strong, and because of bugs and departures, it cannot approach the zbrash, the last four updates are for some reason directed towards the drawing room, while products where drawing a mesh is much faster and more convenient (like SP2). Instead of trying to catch up with a locomotive that has long gone, it is better to make absolutely stable what already works well. However, the developers do not understand this. I described 20 bugs and suggestions on the mantis, but they receive almost no response, as I said, instead, efforts are directed to the drawing room. 

 

 

Did you read "bugs" in the title and you wanted to bring your negativity to the thread? LOL please.

This thread actually is not even about bugs, it is about a new person who doesn't know 3DCoat and can't understand what's going on. It´s not about bugs anymore, every program has a way of working and I am trying to help the person to understand how to work around 3DCoat.

Also, Substance Painter is actually a pretty mediocre painting program, but guess what? PBR is about Albedo, metalness, roughness, etc which any program, even a website can do nowdays. The only strength about Substance Painter is being able to work with Substance Designer files, and that's it. it doesn't even support radial Symmetry or anything but 1 plane mirror system, it doesn't support curves, or text, it only supports blur as a filter so you can't easily blur what you paint, it doesn't even support a real position system for the smart materials you have to create a position map for that to happen, it doesn't even support a real way of painting the Height/Normals and being recognized on the bake for that to happen they had to create the anchor points which is a horrible way of doing things, better than before, but still crappy. You can't really preview anything when you bake in Substance Painter, it is slow, you can only guess the cage you are doing, you don't even get skew correction, it is really slow. So if you think that's better, it shows you haven't even used 3DCoat for painting. Yes, 3DCoat can be unstable and not perfect especially when you work with smart materials attached to layers. But since it is all about Albedo, normal map, roughness, metalness etc, the result is all that matters. 

Substance Painter has pluses obviously, like how it can fit a workflow like when Epic made Paragon and they used it to make masks and use the masks with the great material graph from UE4. But it doesn't mean it is the greatest painting program on earth, the only plus you get is that most people use it so you get easy materials everywhere for free or cheap. It is actually more limited in terms of painting, unless you have Designer and you can do workarounds for the many missing features like the way they supported text inside Substance Painter.

 

Sounds like you are one of those people that if they don't fix the few bugs you might encounter, the next day of reporting, Developers don't understand anything and are doing nothing but scratching their butts on every new update (even if they already said that the work has been mostly on the so called and so needed Sculpting layers that everyone has been asking for years), causing your little crusade against 3DCoat developers, even to the point of telling that the program is ****** with such disrespect only because you threw some cheap bucks at their program (if you even did that). Sounds more like excuses, like if other software didn't have bugs, it's exactly what I see with people who barely use Maya, but complain at Autodesk for bringing "buggy features", but when they bring hundred of bugfixes it is still a bad program, they might not even know how to use 10% of Maya but they complain about it without trying to workaround bugs, really learn how to do anything on it, and if it is too bad, then stop using it and move on.

 

You are not helping the thread, you haven't even read what this is all about, but you wanted to add your negativity that has NOTHING to do with the thread and the problems the NEW user is encountering with the workflow. Yes, the workflow might not be the most intuitive at times and that's why I am trying to help a new user instead of just focusing on imaginary bugs from your fantasy land that have nothing to do with his videos, his problems and this thread at all.

So please, if you are not going to help him, move on. 

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How many acid words about anything. I have been using this program for a year, I bought it, and for a year I see how bugs migrate from version to version. 

In fact, all that you wrote here is that you are rude to me and you wrote what a substance painter is bad (because you do not know how to work in it, judging by your words).

And finally, read the title of the topic. You tell me about drawing, I'm talking about the whole program. As it is written in the title of the topic. 

Edited by Dmitry Bedrik
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2 hours ago, Freelance Games said:

@Emi

I think its a fair point to say there are some issues and they seem to be addressed by more experience user working around the issues.  It would be great if some of these things could be address for new users.

I already posted everything I saw on your video, from the crash from the other videos to the way of doing everything you are trying to do. They are workflow issues because you are a new user, the crash is just the obvious thing of trying to replace a reference mesh with some small low poly retopo mesh. There is not much to day to what I already said about that, everything was easily "fixed" by knowing the program. But they are not bugs, and any bug discussion isn't something valid anymore after your last video, it is you just not knowing 3DCoat and that's understandable.

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