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Retopo Room - Next Steps


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On 3/25/2021 at 10:03 PM, kenmo said:

Well, if you are the author of the video we can all be assured it will be of very high quality. I've always enjoyed your tutorials, videos and tips.

Look forward to it.

Thank you, kindly. There is a little bit of a delay as some of the tools have been and still need a bit of tweaking before I record a new demonstration, which I am working on.

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6 hours ago, Thomas Cheng said:

Has anyone looked a the new 3DS Max Auto Retopology tool?  I think that might be a good way to building a strong starting point. 

 

 

As a 3ds Max user, myself, I like it, but the default Auto-Retopo in 3DCoat was quietly improved in 4.9 and it does a bang up job in most cases. If I were to have some trouble on a given model, though, I would let the new Auto-Retopology tool in Max have a crack at it.

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Retopo...just what I wanted to discuss here. Andrew produced the first auto topology system all by himself years ago and it was an amazing accomplishment. It was a bit rough and often frustrating. 

Also I'm finding all the innovations for 2021 a bit intimidating to me so I've been sort of avoiding 3D Coat lately. I started tooling around tonight just trying some approaches with anatomy and layers and curve tool and came up with this and thought; "this would really be a tough test for autopo". The old autopo would definitely have crapped out on this one but not any more. 

3DCoat autopo is unreal now. I'm impressed as hell. It's not appropriate for animation...no autopology system is really. But it's smooth and flowing now whatever complexities of topology you throw at it without any egregious glitches and that's really impressive to me. I"m thinking that MOI3D for hard edge mechancial stuff and 3D Coat for organic sculpting is pretty close to being the ideal workflow and on a tight budget at that.

 

Em1WN0E.jpg

Edited by L'Ancien Regime
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13 minutes ago, L'Ancien Regime said:

Retopo...just what I wanted to discuss here.

Thank you, Autopo is not perfect, but it works well.
You just need to be able to use it.
Andrew  has been periodically improving it for 10 years.

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Hi Gorbatovsky, 

Love the new tools that are going  into 3dc , and what i d like to see in future would be an "ai" assited retopo process that works as i sculpt my model. Retopo is basicaly  making the same model twice for better usage later either as subd or nurbs depending on industry.  For example  adding a cube  into the scene could also add the lines that describe the shape , then if i subtract  a portion should cut those lines so as to be used later onto the retopo process.  Sculpt brushes could come into this logic , eg pinch creates a line, flatten brush creates parallels . 

This way you make cut down the retopo process and make the model once (almost).

This is more of a brainstoming design idea than a request and i thought i d inspire you to make tools.

Thank you.

           

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7 minutes ago, micro26 said:

Sculpt brushes could come into this logic , eg pinch creates a line, flatten brush creates parallels . 

Thank you, this is very interesting! But, only if there were not very many movements with the brushes.
Have a nice day.

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I still find the Blender addon Quad Remesher is a much superior product to anything 3DC or 3DC2021 can do and much faster.

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15 minutes ago, kenmo said:

I still find the Blender addon Quad Remesher is a much superior product to anything 3DC or 3DC2021 can do and much faster.

Do you like the Blender better?
Why are you here then?

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If the retopo mesh is for concept sculpt, current 3d coat auto retopo works well enough for baking details to low poly mesh.

Blender and ZB sculpt on SubD meshes, so better auto retopo matters for creating base mesh.  3d coat sculpts on live clay, no base mesh required.

If the retopo mesh is for animation, then manual retopo is needed in most cases.

Edited by animk
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13 hours ago, Gorbatovsky said:

Do you like the Blender better?
Why are you here then?

No. I much prefer 3DC and believe 3DC is awesome. And I am a registered user of 3DC and will be upgrading to 3DC 2021 as I truly believe it is worth every penny. However the only thing Blender does better is auto retop via it's Quad Remesher plug-in, which is a commercial plugin and not FREE.

Sorry if I somehow offended you. It was not my intent.

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32 minutes ago, kenmo said:

I much prefer 3DC and believe 3DC is awesome.

Thank you. I am very happy.
We work hard to make our users happy with the program.
But, not everything works out at once. We have to prioritize.
Have a nice day and success in your creative work.

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2 hours ago, Gorbatovsky said:

Thank you. I am very happy.
We work hard to make our users happy with the program.
But, not everything works out at once. We have to prioritize.
Have a nice day and success in your creative work.

I fully understand. I have issues with other software that I love as well. I use Photoshop, Lightroom, Corel Painter, ArtRage, Blender, DAZ Studio, MOI3D, e-onsoftware's Vue. Love them ALL. But they are have issues. So nothing is PERFECT in this world. 3DCoat is simply one of the best pieces of 3D a software out there. I just do not have good luck with the auto retopo process and have NO interest in manual retoping. For me, nothing comes close to Quad Remesher.

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Carlosan - many thanks for the tip. I truly appreciate it. I'll give it a try. Cheers & many thanks...

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I have been using 3d coat for topology for several years, and I recently felt that I need a feature, which is to display open edges.
I am not sure if this function is not available, but it is very convenient to check if there are overlapping points and there are no soldered points.
In fact, I have encountered this problem recently. I used to export to 3ds Max and use its xnview to check, but if 3d coat has this function, I don’t need to check it in another software.

1.thumb.jpg.837528ca5cf5940b5bca3b43b06e03f2.jpg

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8 minutes ago, smer0315 said:

I am not sure if this function is not available, but it is very convenient to check if there are overlapping points and there are no soldered points.

Thank you.
I think this would be a useful feature.
Add to the list TODO.

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Sorry, I just thought of two more requests.
1. I want to be able to set the distance between the retopo model and the reference object, because my current work is after retopo, the model needs to be turbosmooth again, and after that the model will be slightly reduced because of this, so usually I will make the model Go out a bit.

2.thumb.jpg.47a6595141f09aa17cbec9ef865c8f47.jpg

I sometimes use the Additonal Extrusion in the 3d coat, but when it is previewed symmetrically, the center will also be offset. And the position when selected is still at the 0 position.

3.thumb.jpg.84d5a63ab8e1a797122e34f4e798e2f7.jpg4.thumb.jpg.4375ca518f318bd10b4706c5b7113dc9.jpg
 

2. Hope to have a subdivision preview, like maya press the number key to have a subdivision preview. And the number of stages can be customized.

I know that 3d coat 2021 will have a smooth preview in modeling room, but I’m not sure that it can also be used in the retopo room?

5.thumb.jpg.c95aa5051ca6593b966423f287f790e3.jpg

 

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18 hours ago, smer0315 said:


I have been using 3d coat for topology for several years, and I recently felt that I need a feature, which is to display open edges.
I am not sure if this function is not available, but it is very convenient to check if there are overlapping points and there are no soldered points.
In fact, I have encountered this problem recently. I used to export to 3ds Max and use its xnview to check, but if 3d coat has this function, I don’t need to check it in another software.

 

Good idea! I use "Select Open Edges" in LightWave to find holes in the mesh. It would be nice to have it in 3DC too.

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On 5/25/2021 at 1:03 PM, smer0315 said:

1. I want to be able to set the distance between the retopo model and the reference object

2. Hope to have a subdivision preview.

Hi 

1. You mean this command: Additional Extrusion ?

Additional Extrusion.jpg

2. A tool like this ?

 

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On 5/27/2021 at 5:59 PM, Carlosan said:

Hi 

1. You mean this command: Additional Extrusion ?

Additional Extrusion.jpg

2. A tool like this ?

 

Thanks for reply

Yes, I know about the function of Additional Extrusion, I am talking about center offset when symmetrical

oh~live smooth can use in retopo room great!!

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I have not tried 3DCoat 2021, but prior my biggest problem with 3DCoat's retopo is it would not respect the loops I would draw.  I'm good a manual retopo and envision where all the loops should be before I start any retopo job.  When I draw the loops and it doesn't respect them it drives me mad.  To get around this I would use the autoretopo to get it good enough without loosing too much detail, then export for Blender.  In Blender I can use Retopoflow to get it done faster than the manual tools in 3DCoat.

Ideally I would like the retopo to absolutely stick to my edge flow, while being able to quickly add or take away loops to see the new result, and having it fill in geometry not there in a case where I already started making some of the retopo.  Being able to quickly increase or decrease poly count fast would be a big plus.  Density of the geometry should have an auto calculate based on curvature option.  It could even have a recommended loops detection.  We then set our loops, choose our percent geometry density, see result, modify loops, maybe quickly add some geometry in a hard place to help retopo using retopoflow like tools, finish fast.  Done right it would be the best system.

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Hello.

I'm very happy about that you work on retopo room.

I tried old versions of 3Dcoat and maybe some of these features were developed. First thing that I was missing was a snappin to the points. This is important for making low poly from hard-surface objects and CAD. I really need tools that are close to modeling to do that. Second thing that was not ok for me was pure manual retopo. Each polygon should be drawn by hand.

You are doing a great work! Thank you a lot!

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Love 3AD Coat 2021. I am very glad I upgraded. My only disappointment is the auto retopo. It is still light years behind Quad Remesh and not even close.

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  • Carlosan changed the title to Retopo Room - Next Steps

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