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I will not be silent this time. Just my opinion !


Rygaard
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@Emi I totally agree with you!

It is a question of knowing what will be best for a given workflow. If you will have a mesh with topology defined or if you will do the retopology afterwards.

In 3D-Coat there is the Proxy mode that allows the user to reduce the amount of polygons and then you can easily pose the character.

I have described the entire Blender MultiResolution process which is equivalent to ZBrush.
So you may notice that I was able to create Vertex Groups (I could if I wanted to have weight influence on the vertices) and I used Modifiers that transform the mesh in a destructive or non-destructive way. Influencing the whole mesh or just pieces of it.

I could use modeling tools (cut, extrude, bevel and etc). I was able to use texture maps benefiting me from Uvs with the Displacement modifier.
I did everything in the mesh I would like to do and I used various techniques.
I could use more modifiers later, I could reproject details in another mesh ... I have complete freedom of workflow and techniques.
If I wanted to use non-destructive and interactive Boolean operations I could.
I could do anything, anytime, and the best I could benefit from both worlds (Multi Resolution and Dynatopo). In the end, it would be enough to make retopology or to reproject details.

One very important thing, with vertex groups with weight influence on the vertices, I could do a quick rig and pose my character.

In my opinion, this makes Blender more powerful than ZBrush. Did you notice?
And hey, I'm not crazy! :D

If 3D-Coat allowed a free workflow, allowing to work with a single mesh, implement Vertex Groups with vertex weight influence, several types of Modifiers and other functionalities.
Surely if 3D-Coat could do everything I did in Blender to demonstrate to you, 3D-Coat is sure to become the industry standard program.

The freedom of any workflow, whether Voxels, LiveClays, brushes with Remove Stretching and Multi Resolution, modeling, modifiers, vertex groups and etc would make 3D-Coat a power without comparisons.

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@gbball I agree with you!
You presented great points in your comment!
I thank you for sharing your experience with us!

I think it's a very important issue for 3D-Coat developers to reflect on. And if the developers think that we artists have any reason, please do the right things.

Because in various situations (as they were presented by everyone here that are commenting) I was also completely confused and stuck in the workflow at some point.
If something is possible to do in 3D-Coat, and you take time to discover what can be done and then do, it becomes complex and frustrating.

Here in the community, there are artists working in various areas of the 3D world. I have no doubt, that the feeling of all is somewhat similar.
Because you will arrive at a point in your process you will be frustrated. Every project is required to have small, large or radical changes.

In 3D-Coat you have a workflow that looks like the installation of a program, where you keep pressing the Next button until the end of the installation. What if something happens that I need to change?

The point is not to show what 3D-Coat is capable of doing. We know that! 3D-Coat I love you!  :)

The point is to show what 3D-Coat could do to become the program that any artist would like to use for the complete and diversified workflow that the program would allow the artist to use in the best possible way. The artist knowing that he can at any time carry out any kind of technique with his unique mesh, this means a free, creative and efficient workflow.

There are users who still ask themselves:
Why does the mesh appear in a certain Room and not appear in the other Room?

Some people may argue that it is the way 3D-Coat works.
So I ask:
Does it work to what extent? Is it efficient? Does it make you do anything in the mesh, anytime you want?
I can continue to ask questions ... but I think in some things the way 3D-Coat works is good!

What I keep talking about workflow is not something radical for developers to throw in the ****** all the work they've done! That's not it! Please do not interpret this way!

When I speak in the free workflow as I demonstrated in Blender is so that there are adaptations of the code in favor of this workflow that would offer many advantages to the artists. It is not only in relation to Multi Resolution, I speak as a whole in the program.

Please, put an end to the confusion and workflow complications!
A single mesh for the whole system!
After that, the various adaptations and implementations could happen in 3D-Coat, if the developers realized if this was correct.

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The price points are very different. Never used Zbrush, but I did my research before picking 3dc. As someone who has developed software for nearly 40 years, I think I understand why things are the way they are in 3dc. I see things like the room concept as a developer's way to limit inadvertent damage when changing things in one room that don't exist in others. In the "hybrid" rooms I imagine a way to improve related things without breaking something in the specialized rooms. The invention of the mclp format allows a modular separation of what 3dc "needs" to do its work from multiple formats adhering to externally defined standards. All of these sorts of things improve the chances of success when adding additional developers to the mix. These techniques also foster the searching for and the isolation of unexpected new behaviors (bugs). I believe in the product because some very sharp people believe in it. They believe in Andrew and so do I for the reasons mentioned above. There. Love letter over!

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Please do not look at the model. Its ugly!
I just want to demonstrate to all of you the potentiality of a free workflow. I want to show the second example of this kind of free workflow.
Look how interesting this workflow I did in Blender, but I think this can also be done in Mudbox (I'm not sure).

secound_example_free_workflow.thumb.jpg.a4d32e84f908c762e31433c1730f5705.jpg

1) I used Dynatopo to block the character (dynamic tessellation). This is equivalent to I use in surface mode: Live Clays Brushes and Remove Stretching in Brushes.

2) Then I made the opening of UVs (smart UVs) even with this whole mesh of triangles because of Dynatopo's dynamic tessellation.

3) I added the MultiResolution modifier to reshape this mesh made by the dynatopo, but now I will have control of subdivision levels.

4) Since I have UVs, I created a Bump type texture map or it could be of type Displacement.
This allowed me to apply detailing using Paint in real time.
This process would be similar in 3d-coat to what we call Per-Pixel Painting and Microvertex Painting.

I know, you should ask what kind of workflow is this?
What I did was an exaggeration, I showed that I can use multiple workflow processes in the same single mesh.
I was able to mix Dynatopo, MultiResolution and Paint in Texture Map in real time.

If I wanted I could at any time perform mesh modeling using Knife, extrude, bevel and etc tools, I could use vertex groups in conjunction with specific modifiers for a particular deformation, and I could have used other types of modifiers in a non-destructive way.
After all, I could create a mesh with a better topology and reproject all the details in it or perform another type of technique.

Do you realize that the artist has total control of everything?
The artist is free to do anything and will not get stuck in any workflow.

Imagine you can do the same things inside the powerful 3D-Coat.
You can use all the functionality and tools that exist in 3D-Coat the way you want in the same mesh and without limits for anything.
Of course, to do everything I did in Blender we would have to have a single mesh, and the implementation of the following functionalities: vertex group with weight influence on the vertices and the different types of modifiers.

This is a dream...

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1 hour ago, jima said:

I believe in the product because some very sharp people believe in it. They believe in Andrew and so do I for the reasons mentioned above. There. Love letter over!

I liked your love letter!

And I agree with you about Andrew's ability and what he can do. I do not know Andrew personally, but I have a deep respect and admiration for his work. Just look at 3D-Coat and contemplate a masterpiece!
I already commented this, but I will speak again here:
"For me 3d-coat looks like it's the most rare and gorgeous rough diamond in the world! If 3D-Coat is stoned it will become close to perfection!"

I would very much like @Andrew Shpagin to start observing the opinions of the artists who use 3D-Coat and try to see if there is any consistency in everything we talk about here.

I believe that all the artists that are manifesting themselves, exposing their experiences and suggestions here, only have good intentions for 3D-Coat to be even better than it already is!
I do not think anyone has the intention of complicating or making negative reviews.
The criticisms are just constructive and well intentioned!

It is very important that everyone participate, because the moment is now to present suggestions, experiences and tell the reasons why 3D-Coat could change in relation to its operation - workflow.
Only then will Andrew realize and know what people think about 3D-Coat.
I believe this is the most important thing that exists for the development of any program and any company would be grateful to know how your product is in front of people.
I think the longer it takes for something to be done, the harder it will become to change something, if that is the right path.

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14 hours ago, Emi said:

@AbnRanger The point is that in ZBrush you can sculpt in Dynamesh or Scuptris mode and you can go back to Subdivision levels if you want when you reproject the sculpting. You can't just expect to make full sculptures with only Dynamesh or Sculptris, and then move on, sometimes it might work, but this is a terrible way of working on many cases. Many people might do thei low poly meshes inside Maya or 3dsmax and then they export it to be sculpted, why should the low poly be thrown away and never get it back?

Sometimes working on subdivision levels is better for making big shape changes to a mesh, because having less polygons is good for many things, so working only on high dense meshes and being forced to that, will never be good for many cases, it will be slower and not precise on many cases. For example, try to pose a character that has millions of polygons vs posing it in the lowest subdivision level. what do you think will look better and it will be easier to deal with? 

What do you think is better? import low poly and do whatever you want with it, dynamic subdivisions, subdivisions, dynamic tessellation and dynamesh, or being limited like 3DCoat does with only surface and voxels? and if you want to go higher, you can't go lower? Zbrush throws stuff away, yes, and I even said many people, especially the ones who make models from a sphere will probably not care about subdivision levels most of the time, but some people do. so what is wrong about wanting to use Subdivisions levels?

In Zbrush you can use Zmodeler and the new modifiers to make shapes easily and they work amazingly well with dynamic subdivision. So when you are making that type of modeling, moving faces and adding faces and Qmeshing things around, would be easy to do as a low poly rather than millions of polygons. It's a way of working, not the only one, you can do whatever you want and don't be too limited by the program.


You even mentioned "smart materials" in the same sentence about Sculpting Layers. This is exactly what we are talking about! a big downside of 3DCoat, you apply smart materials to a high dense polygon Sculpt mesh (doesn't even need to be high) and then what? you can't export it, you can't do anything outside 3DCoat, you can only render it, unless you make a retopo Mesh, and then bake the changes which might not look right depending how it bakes and how the cage is and how it is etc.

And even after you bake it, the Retopo mesh would be different from a Paint mesh, You can't just split meshes, into different objects, change smoothing groups if necessary, you can't do much but just paint and adjust UVs and maybe use the tweak room, but nothing else. While in Zbrush you can use Zmodeler or whatever feature to create objects and it will be the same mesh, you can turn it into a high polygon mesh by subdividing or dynamesh and keep working on it. And then you can just do quick UVs on the low or high polygon and you can paint on it, and export the map. Yes is not PBR, but the point is, it works, it's the same mesh, if they enable PBR someday, it will be a bomb and you know it since you wont need to switch anything, bake anything or do anything to be able to paint in your model, even if it is a big dense mesh.
3DCoat the workflow is disconnected, you can't paint a Sculpt mesh and export the map because you can't create UVs on Sculpt meshes. The only work around to do that is to export the mesh and import whatever million polygons to the paint room, if it can support that high dense mesh. Then you create the UVs and paint your smart materials or whatever, but what if you want to make changes to the sculpture? you would have to go back to sculpt room but then you lose the texture work. Unless you created an autopo good enough to hold the details and materials and stuff and good enough for retopo room not to complain how dense it might be, then I don't see how fast you can paint a sculpt mesh inside 3DCoat and be used outside 3DCoat.

 

Also, it is interesting you mention Layers , I remember the talk about in the past and about how it was a super big missing feature in 3DCoat and why 3DCoat couldn't be taken serioulsy for production but I barely hear anyone using them in Zbrush, yet, they can create amazing things with or without them, so sculpting layers was never the reason why Zbrush is great or a reason 3DCoat was not great. so why is it then?

 

3DConnexion devices are nice but they can't make up for all the fragmentation about 3DCoat, which would slow you down even more than using a normal drawing tablet or display inside Zbrush. Like I said, it doesn't make sense for Retopo mesh to be separated to be different than a Paint object, why you can't paint on what you create. Yeah it started as a retopo only room, now you can create it, now it makes sense to create and paint right away, but to me, it always made sense and now even more. 

 

And this kind of stuff is why most people will choose Zbrush over 3DCoat, because Zbrush fits on every workflow any studio may have, it will fit any way of working for the artist, it will let you do anything. it even has GoZ which helps even more while Applinks in 3DCoat can't be called too efficient, especially the ones that are not even updated anymore like Maya. Zbrush will let you create objects with Zmodeler and use them as booleans, paint the alpha with Snapshot3D and it's a live boolean operation. how can you do that if retopo is disconnected from the sculpt in 3DCoat? Oh and yes, Live Booleans work really good especially with Zremeher v3, they never fail, they work good, they are live so you can move them around. but 3Dcoat you can't dream to do this, because you can't even use meshes you create in retopo to do it. they will have to be converted to sculpt meshes (I guess), and you can't go back and really edit them after making a boolean operation.

Subdivision levels is just one point we are making about the way many artists work still today. But even without them 3DCoat is still fragmented, you can't work as a single program as you expect but you have to keep jumping from room to room with a button that is a small patch on the problem not the fix of the problem. 3DCoat limits the workflow for many people by avoiding an important thing like Subdivision levels, I mean, imagine subdivision levels on those objects you create inside Retopo room, be able to keep editing them, wouldn't that be nice and good for people who want it?. Why would it be better no subdivision levels than having them? Why feel happy about being limited and put it as a "different approach"?

 

In the end, this post is not about if 3DCoat is good or capable of doing great things or not, or what it has that might be superior to Zbrush or why someone who bought 3DCoat and is working on it, shouldn't be ashamed of their purchase because 3DCoat is a good program. 3DCoat is a good software, and it is capable of doing amazing things. But this post is more about why Zbrush would be the one always recommended, why you would have a better bet by going with it as a team, big studio, indie, individual artist. Why Zbrush is the one everyone expect you to know it and use it and not 3DCoat even if 3DCoat has great sculpting tools. Yes, education and marketing play a big role and this doesn't even mean that nobody uses 3DCoat, since I have heard they use it for environment stuff in some studios. Of course, marketing, tutorials and youtube videos and schools curriculums will always play a bigger role why Zbrush is an industry standard, but to this day, Zbrush still offers more than 3DCoat for any type of workflow and artist, it limits you less.

You act like you cannot step down to lower resolutions in 3DCoat. You can at any time. It's a different approach, but it performs the same task.

You can also store copies of lower resolution versions of a sculpt, and later reproject higher res details onto it.

 

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You also have the ability to make a Low Poly Quad Mesh (intended to be the Baking Target) conform to changes made to a High Poly sculpt

 

15 hours ago, Emi said:

...You even mentioned "smart materials" in the same sentence about Sculpting Layers. This is exactly what we are talking about! a big downside of 3DCoat, you apply smart materials to a high dense polygon Sculpt mesh (doesn't even need to be high) and then what? you can't export it, you can't do anything outside 3DCoat, you can only render it, unless you make a retopo Mesh, and then bake the changes which might not look right depending how it bakes and how the cage is and how it is etc....

I don't understand the criticism, here. You think it's a BIG DOWNSIDE to be able to paint on a dense sculpt, with Smart Materials? This tells me that you only have a cursory knowledge of 3DCoat and are making dogmatic statements about it's capabilities and limitations, when you don't really know what those are. Being able to use Smart Materials on a high poly sculpt IS AN OPTION. If you want it, you can use it. Many Concept Artists do. You can export from the Sculpt Room and use Vertex Maps in host applications to display the color and gloss. But the main benefit is that it allows the users to use Smart Materials on top of PBR shaders and later bake all that down to a low poly quad mesh.

It's a big asset, not a downside.

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Andrew needs to at least dock the Proxy Slider below the VoxTree Panel, by default, because a lot of new users will not know it is there, otherwise. I would like to see it integrated into the VoxTree panel, where it's more intuitive.

This artist helps show some tips about the Proxy Slider, but has a few complaints as well, that I'd like to address:

Decimation will ALWAYS be slower because it has more surface evaluation and calculations to make. It's best used when you want the model to look as close to the original as possible, while still reducing overall memory usage and stress on one's graphic card, while working on other parts/layers of a model. It also is best to use when working with very thin layers.

Otherwise, REDUCTION is the fastest method to use. You can quickly switch between REDUCTION or DECIMATION in the Proxy Slider by clicking on the text of either option. What's really cool about it, is once you have cached an object into Proxy mode, you can drag the slider to change the resolution on the fly.

 

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Another important thing to talk about is the 3D-Coat interface.
I like the idea of palettes, but honestly, it would be good to rethink a better interface that would also allow complete user customization (menus, popups, palettes, brushes, etc.) and also improve the palettes themselves since when they are floating on the screen, the user can not place a palette inside this floating palette.

1872010396_rethinkinterface.thumb.jpg.6891b5d0784a9b4946fb841f52ad0322.jpg

My interface becomes polluted because I leave it in a logical way for my work. I need to have frequent access to brushes, presets, alphas, brush options, models, curves and so on. And at the same time I'm checking the settings of these palettes.
I wish I could have a better interface.

The Preset palette that I love becomes inefficient in relation to how presets are shown. One preset per line occupying a huge space in the palette or if the user wants a list of names (I do not like it that way).

I do not know what the new system of brushes and alphas will look like, but I think these individual palettes could continue as a way of showing things or by the palette being viewed by the shortcut key. However, it could have a new palette with a better design, logically and efficiently unifying the features of the brush, alphas, stencils, strips.

I know someone could tell me that I could put in a palette the various other palettes inside it to save space. But like I said, I use it very often and so I would have to keep changing palettes all the time to access what I need. And that would be annoying.
I know I can access by shortcut keys, but I keep checking and accessing all the time so I do not waste any time I leave all the palettes I need open.

I've changed the size of the Sculpt Layer palette, making it wider because the size of the Depth Opacity Slide is too small for you to drag the slide. Honestly I think the 3D-coat slide is not very good. Even though I increase the width of the palette because of the positioning and size of the Opacity Depth slide in the palette, the slide is still small in width making it difficult to drag the slide efficiently. And depending on the amount of polygons dragging the slide becomes painful.

2 hours ago, AbnRanger said:

Andrew needs to at least dock the Proxy Slider below the VoxTree Panel, by default, because a lot of new users will not know it is there, otherwise. I would like to see it integrated into the VoxTree panel, where it's more intuitive.

Since Andrew implemented the Proxy Slider palette, I put it under the VoxTree palette and honestly I do not have problems that way, but could be a good idea to put the proxy slider bellow the VoxTree by default in the interface.
One thing you did not think of, and I would even suggest this to Andrew, is if Andrew makes the Proxy slide work in a way that the user could freely choose any value (decimal numbers) through the slide and not just the values pre-defined jumps on the slide from 2x to 4x and etc, ie with the separate palette you can leave it wider and you can have more precision.
As I already said, I think the slides do not let you have too much precision when you drag. You could have a way to press the Shift key while dragging the slide to change the values precisely.

Please do not get me wrong, but I think putting just the Proxy Slider under VoxTree will not make the workflow of all of us better.
I do not know if you saw and read about the things that I explained and demonstrated.
Don't you think we would have a workflow with multiple options because of a single mesh and thus making our work more efficient and free?
Or do you prefer the current 3D-Coat way?

 

 

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18 hours ago, Emi said:

Also, it is interesting you mention Layers , I remember the talk about in the past and about how it was a super big missing feature in 3DCoat and why 3DCoat couldn't be taken serioulsy for production but I barely hear anyone using them in Zbrush, yet, they can create amazing things with or without them, so sculpting layers was never the reason why Zbrush is great or a reason 3DCoat was not great. so why is it then?

People have mentioned here on the forum, over the past several years, that the lack of Sculpt Layers was one major missing feature. It had a LOT of support in Mantis and Trello, not to mention all the people who emailed Andrew about it. It makes a HUGE difference. In fact, There are things you can do with it that cannot be done in ZBrush. Why does it only count if ZBrush offers something 3DCoat doesn't, but the moment 3DCoat is mentioned as having features ZBrush doesn't, you try immediately try to dismiss or marginalize ALL of those?

18 hours ago, Emi said:

3DCoat the workflow is disconnected, you can't paint a Sculpt mesh and export the map because you can't create UVs on Sculpt meshes. The only work around to do that is to export the mesh and import whatever million polygons to the paint room, if it can support that high dense mesh. Then you create the UVs and paint your smart materials or whatever, but what if you want to make changes to the sculpture? you would have to go back to sculpt room but then you lose the texture work. Unless you created an autopo good enough to hold the details and materials and stuff and good enough for retopo room not to complain how dense it might be, then I don't see how fast you can paint a sculpt mesh inside 3DCoat and be used outside 3DCoat.

 

Again, BECAUSE OF THE NATURE OF VOXELS & DYNAMIC SUBDIVISION meshes, you cannot make use of quad-based subdivision levels. I've already addressed, more than once, that YOU CAN STEP DOWN TO LOWER RESOLUTION LEVELS! It just works differently, by necessity, because Voxels are different. Trying to force ZBrush's conventions on 3DCoat won't work, because they use different approaches, for different reasons. The user can still work on much lower poly versions (Proxies) and step back up, at any time. Why is it disconnected to reproject in 3DCoat, but not in ZBrush? Why is it disjointed to paint on a High Poly Sculpt and bake it down to a low poly target mesh? If you need to go back and make changes, you can, and rebake.

 

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12 minutes ago, Rygaard said:

Another important thing to talk about is the 3D-Coat interface.
I like the idea of palettes, but honestly, it would be good to rethink a better interface that would also allow complete user customization (menus, popups, palettes, brushes, etc.) and also improve the palettes themselves since when they are floating on the screen, the user can not place a palette inside this floating palette.

1872010396_rethinkinterface.thumb.jpg.6891b5d0784a9b4946fb841f52ad0322.jpg

My interface becomes polluted because I leave it in a logical way for my work. I need to have frequent access to brushes, presets, alphas, brush options, models, curves and so on. And at the same time I'm checking the settings of these palettes.
I wish I could have a better interface.

The Preset palette that I love becomes inefficient in relation to how presets are shown. One preset per line occupying a huge space in the palette or if the user wants a list of names (I do not like it that way).

I do not know what the new system of brushes and alphas will look like, but I think these individual palettes could continue as a way of showing things or by the palette being viewed by the shortcut key. However, it could have a new palette with a better design, logically and efficiently unifying the features of the brush, alphas, stencils, strips.

I know someone could tell me that I could put in a palette the various other palettes inside it to save space. But like I said, I use it very often and so I would have to keep changing palettes all the time to access what I need. And that would be annoying.
I know I can access by shortcut keys, but I keep checking and accessing all the time so I do not waste any time I leave all the palettes I need open.

I've changed the size of the Sculpt Layer palette, making it wider because the size of the Depth Opacity Slide is too small for you to drag the slide. Honestly I think the 3D-coat slide is not very good. Even though I increase the width of the palette because of the positioning and size of the Opacity Depth slide in the palette, the slide is still small in width making it difficult to drag the slide efficiently. And depending on the amount of polygons dragging the slide becomes painful.

Since Andrew implemented the Proxy Slider palette, I put it under the VoxTree palette and honestly I do not have problems that way, but could be a good idea to put the proxy slider bellow the VoxTree by default in the interface.
One thing you did not think of, and I would even suggest this to Andrew, is if Andrew makes the Proxy slide work in a way that the user could freely choose any value (decimal numbers) through the slide and not just the values pre-defined jumps on the slide from 2x to 4x and etc, ie with the separate palette you can leave it wider and you can have more precision.
As I already said, I think the slides do not let you have too much precision when you drag. You could have a way to press the Shift key while dragging the slide to change the values precisely.

Please do not get me wrong, but I think putting just the Proxy Slider under VoxTree will not make the workflow of all of us better.
I do not know if you saw and read about the things that I explained and demonstrated.
Don't you think we would have a workflow with multiple options because of a single mesh and thus making our work more efficient and free?
Or do you prefer the current 3D-Coat way?

 

 

I've been trying to get Andrew to make a number of UI changes, and he's always busy with something. Maybe, when he's fully done with Sculpt Layers (mainly needs support for Layer Masking and Conditions Painting), we can pin him down to working some on the UI.

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38 minutes ago, Dmitry Bedrik said:

I will assume that the surface mode was meant though.
Moreover, it is obvious that in voxel mode, to make the grid as smooth as in surface mode, so that the circle looks like a circle, rather than an octagon, many times more resources are needed for voxels than for a surface.

So, maybe, let's try to proceed from the fact that these modes of subdivision levels for the surface should be done?


I believe the introduction of such levels will be the most important event for the program.

As I already wrote, sometimes the customer or the performer is mistaken, and it is required at least to change the scale of the model along one of the axes.
It would be simple to perform in voxels, if only voxels did not make the model look like the world of minecraft, even at tens of millions of polygons. Well, think for yourself ... you are transferring the model to surface mode ... and you have tens of millions of polygons where you need at best ... half a million ?! 

You don't understand. Voxels are a completely different platform, and so is Surface mode. Surface mode was is triangulated before LiveClay (Dynamic Tessellation/Subdivision) came along. This was done so that it would be most compatible switching to and from Voxel Mode. People who want this Subdivision levels do not take this into account. It's trying to force a square peg into a round hole, simply because it's a convention the are used to.

Why do you need to step down to a lower SubD layer? Better performance...right? YOU CAN ALREADY DO THAT. The Proxy Multi-Res system addresses the same problem/task. Just in a less conventional way. I see no real problem with it, to be honest. I'd much prefer an extensive procedural noise library (added to the Surface mode Noise tool and Fill tool in the Paint Workspace), Conditions Masking in the Sculpt Workspace, Consolidation of Paint & Retopo Mesh (so they are one mesh type, that can be worked on in both workspaces), and a few months of UI revamp work. All of this would take well over a year or 2. Adding SubDivision levels would seem entirely redundant, even if it were possible.

55 minutes ago, Dmitry Bedrik said:

I suggested to remake the interface a year ago. And a couple of months ago, too. And the same answer as yours.

This is all directly related to marketing. People have become accustomed to the fact that in many modern things a beautiful “wrapper” is a sign of quality. And when people see 3D cCat with an interface from the 2000s, well, another question is whether a person will try to study the program. All this I also wrote Andrew.

I do not know what the developers are afraid of, afraid to spend six months or a year in order to radically alter the program for the better. Afraid to lose profits, which is so small, judging by the prevalence and popularity of the program? What to lose something?

As a result, such a business model is a vicious circle. To be afraid to spend time on improvements in the pursuit of releases, in which cardinal changes occur every six months, at best, instead of working for the future and get a dozen times greater exhaust for several years.

Nevertheless, this is not a stone in the garden of anyone, but since the developers from the CIS countries in some quantity, it reminds me of what has been happening for twenty years - when a person studies in Russia (most often), he thinks that he is all of them are specialists (and they are), but it turns out that no one needs them, because either they don’t want to pay much or they cannot attract investors for their projects.

In this case, it is the second option. In view of all the above me and other users. 

No need to be so harsh on Andrew and the team. Pixologic has heard relentless cries for a UI overhaul for well over a decade and it falls on deaf ears. Their UI is also from the 2000's and before. So is Photoshop, C4D, Lightwave, Maya and Max. I find 3DCoat's UI a lot easier on the eyes and much more intuitive to work in. Yes, it certainly needs some work to refine and improve it, for a better overall experience, but a total remake is not feasible or reasonable to expect.

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Just now, Dmitry Bedrik said:

That you do not understand what I'm talking about. Read again.
Instead of trying to make voxel levels, you can and should do it in surface mode. This is what I wrote about. In the previous post.

I'm telling you that YOU CANNOT USE SUBDIVISON LEVELS IN SURFACE MODE, EITHER. You cannot do it. Why? Because 3DCoat TRIANGULATES the mesh to make it possible to switch back and forth between Voxels, and because of the Dynamic Tessellation tools used throughout the Surface tools. They aren't just LiveClay. They are REMOVE STRETCHING, CUTOFF and many of the ADJUST section tools.

Sculpting in 3DCoat is just a different way of doing things. Why do we need to force something that isn't even necessary? Why can you not use Proxy Meshes in order to work on a lighter mesh? Same task. Different technical approach.

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....The Surface mode meshes are subject to such drastic topological changes, that traditional SubD levels are not possible. Does no one understand this? It's why you cannot use Sculpt Layers and Sculptris Pro in ZBrush. The mesh changes way too much. 

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1 minute ago, Dmitry Bedrik said:

In fact, the only advantage of voxels over surface mode is boolean operations and performance. But this does not overlap the fact that the transition from voxels to the grid and back leads to the loss of any mesh detailing. You can forget about the pores in the skin and so on, in case of an error with the mesh size and so on.

If the program could create the thickness of the mesh in a normal way, not with crutches and methods not working in 50% of cases, as well as Boolean operations were more stable than 90% more percent than now, I probably would not use voxels.

Any user needs to know where any application's limitations are. ZBrush has plenty of its own. 3DCoat actually has fewer limitations with Sculpt Layers than ZBrush does, because you cannot use Sculptris Pro and Sculpt Layers, together. You can use LiveClay just fine with Sculpt Layers, in 3DCoat. In my opinion, that 's a game changer.

In ZBrush, Dynamesh is not compatible w SubD levels. Regardless, you have a bunch of workarounds necessary to complete a sculpt, in ZBrush. So, why do people act like 3DCoat is the only app where some work-arounds are needed? I'd really like to know. Seems like a huge double standard. For every workaround needed in 3DCoat, I can point to one in ZBrush.

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....

17 minutes ago, Dmitry Bedrik said:

In fact, the only advantage of voxels over surface mode is boolean operations and performance. But this does not overlap the fact that the transition from voxels to the grid and back leads to the loss of any mesh detailing. You can forget about the pores in the skin and so on, in case of an error with the mesh size and so on.

If the program could create the thickness of the mesh in a normal way, not with crutches and methods not working in 50% of cases, as well as Boolean operations were more stable than 90% more percent than now, I probably would not use voxels.

 

You again about your about something. Do not use voxels at the finishing stage, what's the problem?

Normally, voxels should be used to create blanks, boolean operations, and the approximate location of certain elements, and the surface mode to create small parts and finish processing.

But no, you continue to argue that this is supposedly impossible.
This is possible if you do not get hung up on the endless switching between voxel mode and surface mode.

Voxels can hold the details needed for things like Skin Pores, wrinkles and such, if necessary, but like any application, a user should always do some planning before starting any project. You do this in order to maximize the efficiency of each tool, using it for it's strengths. This is why you would want to wait and do the detail work after the blocking out and Boolean stages. Booleans in Surface mode have been improved in recent builds, and it works pretty well except in some extreme situations.

Again, you need to know what each tool or more does well and what it doesn't, and use it accordingly.

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5 hours ago, Dmitry Bedrik said:

I suggested to remake the interface a year ago. And a couple of months ago, too. And the same answer as yours.

 I think there are many people who would like a better interface and this comes from many years.
Today, all programs recognize that it is necessary to have a user-friendly interface, intelligently interactive according to the tool and even giving you opportunities to choose features that could perform a certain task according to what you are doing at the moment .
Interfaces that besides being beautiful, these interfaces offer complete customization for users like Menus, PopUps, Palettes, Brushes, complete change of where all things stay in the interface (nothing is stuck) and many other things.

An example interface that developers have realized must be changed and improved:
Blender was horrible until version 2.4, in version 2.5 it seemed like another program and in the current version 2.8 the developers felt that it was necessary to redo everything and they did a great job so far.

One thing I do not understand is the way of designing, usability and organization of the features and tools within the 3D-Coat menus and palettes. I think it could be redone in a better way.

In my opinion, the developers are not afraid, the problem is that to redo the interface will need to occupy a lot of time that is precious to them in developing features and tools that are essential and important to the artists.
For many years, artists have been asking for features and tools that are only now being implemented in 3D-Coat. If developers do not listen to this request from their users, the program will be left behind and users will switch to other competing programs because that's the truth! The market practically dictates the rules, whether you like it or not.
As well, without forgetting that the developers need to solve the problems of errors and bugs.
Depending on the size of the 3D-Coat developer team, the time spent improving the interface becomes small or virtually zero at the moment.

Perhaps with the help of the community working on the interfaces, menus, popups and etc .... and presenting everything well elaborated and explained to the developers can make some difference.

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8 hours ago, AbnRanger said:

I've been trying to get Andrew to make a number of UI changes, and he's always busy with something. Maybe, when he's fully done with Sculpt Layers (mainly needs support for Layer Masking and Conditions Painting), we can pin him down to working some on the UI.

It's true Andrew is always busy and I understand!
But my intention was not to point out only elements of Interface. The topic I created was directed towards a better workflow for us artists within the 3D-Coat.

In case Andrew and the developers listen to what we are talking about and they realize that they could develop 3D-Coat in this sense of the free workflow, then of course it will be necessary to change the 3D-Coat interface a bit.

I understand everything you talk about 3D-Coat, but I do not honestly understand your arguments practically against a possible implementation of Subdivision Levels.

It would be just another good thing for all of us, that even you would use when you needed it, if you wished.
If the current 3D-Coat Sculpt Layers accepts dynamic tessellation, even though I do not understand programming much, I think 3D-Coat Sculpt Layers could also support quads.

My biggest emphasis on everything I'm talking about is just that you can do everything you want to do in a single mesh.

If you have seen my demos, you can certainly realize all the benefits and what I could accomplish within Blender.
Including, I over exaggerated and I could mix methods like Dynamic Tesselation, Multi-Resolution, Uvs aperture, Real-time texture map painting that would be similar to Per Pixel or Microvertex.
I could use modeling tools similar to what exists in the Retopo Room, the mesh having UVs with it and a world of techniques that we could all benefit from.
With all this it would open space for implementations of something similar to the Vertex Group with weight influences on the vertices, Modifiers, non-destructive techniques and many other things because of the use of a single mesh.

The point is not just the Multi-Resolution (subdivision levels), the goal is something much bigger. It would be the workflow without confusion, controlled and free by the artist.

You talked about the users planning the project and so using the features and tools accordingly.
However, there are many times that even if you correctly plan a project, things change. You will never be fully under the command of a project.

In my opinion 3D-Coat is excellent, but the current workflow of 3D-Coat can not leave an artist stuck in previous plans or during the work and get submitted the tools and functionalities.

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2 hours ago, Dmitry Bedrik said:

In general, this topic is filled with dreams and complaints. The only thing I saw in it, and what can be done right now is to start making videos on YouTube in order to popularize the program.

This topic is not a topic created by a developer who is asking for help to change something.

I created this topic so that Andrew can take knowledge about how the 3D-Coat is seen by users of 3D-Coat and other users of other programs in relation to the workflow or anything else .

If the comments on the topic are constructive and positive by letting him realize that it is important to implement or change something on 3D-Coat, it will be at his criterion. Therefore he will develop the program in the best way. Our role is simply to show him the things that happen and why there could be some change.

If you think you can do something positive, please do. You had a good idea, share with us 3D-Coat videos on Youtube!  :)

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9 hours ago, AbnRanger said:

....The Surface mode meshes are subject to such drastic topological changes, that traditional SubD levels are not possible. Does no one understand this? It's why you cannot use Sculpt Layers and Sculptris Pro in ZBrush. The mesh changes way too much. 

This is fine for one-off situations, but becomes problematic when you have multiple meshes to work on or if you want to use a quad mesh as a base for sculpting.  If that's the case, 3D-Coat cannot be your option unless you want to deal with workarounds.  You would choose Zbrush or even Mudbox.  For sculpting specifically, 3D-Coat doesn't fit well into a pipeline because of this.  I don't think anyone expects that surface mode meshes should be quad based with subdivision levels.  But there should be a third mode (subD) along with surface mode and voxel mode for a regular subdivision sculpting mode with as many of the brushes that can be used....claybuild, move, pose, and sculpt layer functionalities on a UV mapped mesh, etc. (probably not the boolean tools understandably) and users logically would be able to move destructively from one mode to another if and when it made sense to do so. 

 

A workflow within 3D Coat would probably look like:

Voxels->SurfaceSculpt->Retopo/UV->QuadSculpt/Paint(with Subdivision and sculptlayers)->Bake to Retopo Mesh->Final Adjustments in paint room.

A workflow starting outside 3D Coat would look like:

Create basemesh, or start with base mesh created previously, ImportToQuadSculpt->QuadSculpt/Paint(with Subdivision and sculptlayers )->Bake to Retopo Mesh->Final Adjustments in paint room.

If 3D Coat could do that people would have no choice but to strongly consider it for their pipeline.  As it is, people in industry are more likely to use it for Concepting, Retopo or Painting.  The sculpt tools are really cut off from the rest of the pipeline unless you are willing to deal with major, major concessions.  So as amazing as Voxel sculpting, Surface mode and liveclay sculpting all are people will be unlikely to use 3D coat as part of their pipeline for sculpting because of this one omission.

How amazing would it be to take your retopo mesh, bring it into the sculpt room, subdivide it a few times, project your liveclay details onto it and sculpt/paint detail onto the UVmapped mesh using sculpt layers with PBR materials and shaders.

I know that 3D Coat has another way of doing things, which is great, but these kinds of pipeline friendly bridges need to be created in order for this tool to become more widely adopted.

I don't want more work for @Andrew Shpagin and the Pilgway team, but as backwards as it might seem.  This is the way forward if you want people to discover all the other cool stuff that 3D Coat can do.

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Can someone elaborate how going  up and down  subd levels will improve my sculpting experience instead of just pressing 

the proxy slider?  Subd sculpting is not even in my top 20 wanting list for 3dc  ,some z features i wouldnt say no subd sculpting aint one of them.

Pictures :This sculpted in sculpt room and then baked displacements onto a subd low poly mesh that i can detail in paint room.

Might not work on all cases but it generally works.

Capture.thumb.JPG.2063dde68ce0fab6ba13b9babf0241e7.JPGCapture2.thumb.JPG.5042b8b877571428c1d440d786b0f244.JPG

As for voxels ,its a  big plus having this feature cause  there are some cases and operations that 

you cant make with polygons.  Eg I tried ( in zbrush) splitting a sphere in half and then boolean union it with little success.

The reason i use 3dc more often than z is because to a certain point it forces dynamesh and 3dc is better at handling iregural/arbitral meshes. Also baking and merging/rearraging uved meshes AFTER BAKE is a super strong feature for 3dc.Not even painter can do that.

As  for modeling function they both lack in comparison to modeling packages such as max/maya/blender with modifiers etc.3dc is not even advertized as a modeling package though i hope more modeling tool functions make it the future.

 

Good Z examples are polish by groups and batch operations that can be performed (decimate-export etc)  that i d like to see in 3dc. 

Both are very good apps depending on what you want to do with , they work differently but thats not a bad thing if you invest the time on both. I wanted to make a video for z users to find their toolset inside coat but i dont have much free time.

Maybe that will help some people wanting to  also learn 3dc.

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58 minutes ago, micro26 said:

Can someone elaborate how going  up and down  subd levels will improve my sculpting experience instead of just pressing 

the proxy slider?  Subd sculpting is not even in my top 20 wanting list for 3dc  ,some z features i wouldnt say no subd sculpting aint one of them.

Pictures :This sculpted in sculpt room and then baked displacements onto a subd low poly mesh that i can detail in paint room.

Might not work on all cases but it generally works.

Capture.thumb.JPG.2063dde68ce0fab6ba13b9babf0241e7.JPGCapture2.thumb.JPG.5042b8b877571428c1d440d786b0f244.JPG

As for voxels ,its a  big plus having this feature cause  there are some cases and operations that 

you cant make with polygons.  Eg I tried ( in zbrush) splitting a sphere in half and then boolean union it with little success.

The reason i use 3dc more often than z is because to a certain point it forces dynamesh and 3dc is better at handling iregural/arbitral meshes. Also baking and merging/rearraging uved meshes AFTER BAKE is a super strong feature for 3dc.Not even painter can do that.

As  for modeling function they both lack in comparison to modeling packages such as max/maya/blender with modifiers etc.3dc is not even advertized as a modeling package though i hope more modeling tool functions make it the future.

 

Good Z examples are polish by groups and batch operations that can be performed (decimate-export etc)  that i d like to see in 3dc. 

Both are very good apps depending on what you want to do with , they work differently but thats not a bad thing if you invest the time on both. I wanted to make a video for z users to find their toolset inside coat but i dont have much free time.

Maybe that will help some people wanting to  also learn 3dc.

44

SubDs doesn't improve sculpting in 3DCoat, it just makes it more pipeline friendly.  Right now, 3D Coat isn't a viable option for a lot of sculpting pipelines.  The example you've shown is fine, but what if you want to sculpt on a mesh that has already been created.  has a mouth bag, nose, nostrils, eyes, teeth etc...all UV unwrapped.  Would 3D Coat be your first choice to change the sculpt into another character?  If you had a choice, you'd probably use Zbrush or Mudbox because they support that workflow better. 

If I'm making something from scratch, 3DCoat is very comparable and presents its own unique workflow which I like, but when you want to avoid duplication of tasks and streamline work process it becomes a problem.  It's even a problem if I make something from scratch in 3DCoat, retopo it and then realize that I need to make changes to the sculpt, that's when you start to see the problem.  There are some workarounds like conform retopo mesh to sculpt, but it's not a good solution beyond fairly general adjustments.

 

Edit: Also, I try to make as many 3D coat videos as I can, and I will continue to make more.  It might sound like I'm down on the program, but I'm not.  I think it's awesome.  I use it for all my sculpts, I teach it to my students and I think it has an opportunity to become a go-to option for indie developers if not larger studios.  I advocate for it a lot.  Just now, I asked the people at Artella to include it as one of the software options that can be listed as it's not there.  I'm currently learning to code in C++ primarily for my game, but I'd love to be able to work on tools for 3DCoat one day. 

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I was thinking about the workflow of 3D-Coat.

Everything that exists in 3D-Coat could work the same way. Because I think there are great advantages of the current operation of 3D-Coat, where the artist can choose a certain task to be executed. In reality 3D-Coat are several programs in one. The problem is the flow of the mesh between all these programs (Rooms), where each program (Room), sees only its own mesh.

But what could be done to be able to exist a unique mesh that could be manipulated by all the Rooms and thus having all the benefits of the program in favor of the artist?

This unique mesh could be the mesh that is present in the Surface Mode (Live Clay, Remove Stretching) and with the possible implementation of a mesh in quads (the more alternatives given to the artist is better, is not it? ).

On Surface Mode, this mesh (tris or quads) could support UVs and could have all the benefits I said when I demonstrated in Blender:
. UV Support System
. Vertex Group System
. Modifiers System  (non destructive or destructive if you wish):
    - Multi-Resolution and others modifiers that have important functionalities.

If the user converted to Voxels, since it is a completely different system, the UVs and other benefits would apply in the mesh before being converted to Voxels and so would continue the system as all users know about Voxels and at any time the user could go back for Surface Mode.
One important thing I'd really like is that if it were possible somehow I could transform it into Voxels without loss of detail or that in this conversion I did not need billions of polygons to keep the details made in Surface Mode.

Thus, the mesh that is in Surface Mode could be worked directly in the Retopo Room that would allow the use of modeling and retopology tools.
In the Retopo Room, all functions would be used normally, including the functionalities of the tools of opening of UVs, realization of Bakes and etc.

The use of all Autopo functionality would work in the same way, but with some adaptation, in which the user could choose to generate a new mesh (leaving the original mesh intact) or the same mesh automatically modified with the new topology ( of course, for this process the user should duplicate the mesh to be able to reproject the details in the new topology).

This Surface Mode mesh could be worked normally in the Paint Room with all its functions and tools. If the artist chooses to paint directly on the Vertex (polypainting) he could.

If the user wished, he could choose among all the methods that exist in 3D-Coat: PerPixel Painting, MicroVertex Painting, Ptex painting and etc and so the user would create a texture map to be painted in real time in the sculpted mesh.
If the user wished to re-sculpt the mesh physically, no problem! He would go back to Surface Mode, restart the sculpturing process with all the brushes and features, and the user would not miss anything that was done in the Paint Room because UVs and Texture Maps would not be lost.

The most interesting thing about this single mesh scheme would be the following:

If the artist imported a mesh in the Paint Room and chose a task such as Per Pixel Painting or Microvertex Painting, he would go through the setup process normally as everything is done in 3D-Coat and he would begin to accomplish his task, but at any moment, he could go to Surface Mode and he could sculpt the mesh directly with the brushes.
The artist being satisfied with what was done in Surface Mode, he would return to the Paint Room without problems and would return to painting in the texture map (per pixel painting, microtexture painting, ptex painting).
And if for some reason the artist needed to change the Uvs or create new Uvs, he would have no problems! He would go to the Retopo / UV Room and he would do what needed to be done and then he would go back to the Painting Room.
There would be no problems with the workflow, because the workflow would never be broken or frozen.

Another example, if the artist imported a quads based on Surface Mode, he could (if implemented) use MultiResolution and work on the mesh he imported. All Rooms would be available to the artist to do any technique he needed in this mesh.

Everything in 3D-Coat would work as it always did, nothing would be lost, it would be a matter of adaptation.
But with this unique mesh adaptation, the 3D-Coat workflow would be completely fluid and free throughout the program.
It would completely unify the entire system and this would bring numerous opportunities for powerful implementations for 3D-Coat.

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8 hours ago, Dmitry Bedrik said:

....However, there was a time to create a store with materials from scratch .. ???

You are assuming the people creating the Materials store have anything to do with the actual software development side of things. They don't. You use the resources you have. Like Rygard said, Andrew believes the top priority now is to Bugfix (continually) and finish features users have been asking for, for a long time. Half of ZBrush's userbase continually harps about their UI, and for over a decade now, nothing has really changed. Pixologic and the die-hard loyalists would just tell them they can customize the UI to your liking. Same thing in 3DCoat. You can do a lot of customization, to make the UI more efficient for you.

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3 hours ago, gbball said:

SubDs doesn't improve sculpting in 3DCoat, it just makes it more pipeline friendly.  Right now, 3D Coat isn't a viable option for a lot of sculpting pipelines.  The example you've shown is fine, but what if you want to sculpt on a mesh that has already been created.  has a mouth bag, nose, nostrils, eyes, teeth etc...all UV unwrapped.  Would 3D Coat be your first choice to change the sculpt into another character?  If you had a choice, you'd probably use Zbrush or Mudbox because they support that workflow better. 

If I'm making something from scratch, 3DCoat is very comparable and presents its own unique workflow which I like, but when you want to avoid duplication of tasks and streamline work process it becomes a problem.  It's even a problem if I make something from scratch in 3DCoat, retopo it and then realize that I need to make changes to the sculpt, that's when you start to see the problem.  There are some workarounds like conform retopo mesh to sculpt, but it's not a good solution beyond fairly general adjustments.

 

Edit: Also, I try to make as many 3D coat videos as I can, and I will continue to make more.  It might sound like I'm down on the program, but I'm not.  I think it's awesome.  I use it for all my sculpts, I teach it to my students and I think it has an opportunity to become a go-to option for indie developers if not larger studios.  I advocate for it a lot.  Just now, I asked the people at Artella to include it as one of the software options that can be listed as it's not there.  I'm currently learning to code in C++ primarily for my game, but I'd love to be able to work on tools for 3DCoat one day. 

What you are suggesting are LARGE SCALE CHANGES for SMALL SCALE BENEFITS. Can you create video demonstration/comparison showing why it's necessary for 3DCoat to make these changes, to make it more "pipeline friendly." If there is real merit to it, Andrew can see it demonstrated, not just stated.

I'm not seeing it. If I need to sculpt on a character already UV'ed with a mouth cavity and all, I would import that model into the Retopo Room, then send a copy to the Sculpt workspace (GEOMETRY MENU > RETOPO MESH TO SCULPT MESH), then use CONFORM RETOPO MESH with large scale changes done with the MOVE, TRANSOFORM or POSE tool. Any brush sculpting changes can easily snapped periodically, in the Retopo Room w/ the Brush tool. You can quickly switch between the two workspaces by assigning hotkeys to the Workspace tabs, so it's not a chore or a real break in your workflow.

I don't care that they are separate meshes. I think it's a good thing in some respects. There isn't a single situation or project where I feel I couldn't sculpt/model a character properly or as efficiently in 3DCoat. In fact, I think I can work much faster in  3DCoat because the 3Dconnexion device support allows me to shave about an hour or more per 8-10hr workday, since I don't have to constantly stop > navigate > stop > navigate. ZBrush certainly has some features 3DCoat doesn't and things that work better, but people forget the converse is also true.

I can now Sculpt and Texture Paint, SIMULTANEOUSLY, and with Sculpt Layer functionality, on a high poly sculpt, using Smart Materials.

You have to split that work into 2 different stages and in fact, you have to export the low poly mesh to Substance to get the same painting functionality. Why is no one talking about that? That is a MASSIVE advantage....but yet all we hear, here, is how 3DCoat is the app that's uber limited.  

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...in the previous post I meant to say, that an artist can now Sculpt and Texture Paint with PBR textures/shaders SIMULTANEOUSLY using Smart Materials and with Sculpt Layer functionality that is compatible w/ Dynamic Tessellation/LiveClay.

NO CAN DO in ZBrush. No need to buy and learn another separate app  (Substance Painter) to do the PBR texture painting. THE WHOLE FREAKING PIPELINE CAN BE DONE AT A HIGH LEVEL OF COMPETENCY/EFFICIENCY IN 3DCOAT. NO CAN DO in ZBrush.

This merges work normally done in separate stages of the pipeline, and 3DCoat is the one with a disjointed, "Pipeline Unfriendly" workflow? Huh? I beg to differ.

 

 

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2 hours ago, AbnRanger said:

What you are suggesting are LARGE SCALE CHANGES for SMALL SCALE BENEFITS. Can you create video demonstration/comparison showing why it's necessary for 3DCoat to make these changes, to make it more "pipeline friendly." If there is real merit to it, Andrew can see it demonstrated, not just stated.

I'm not seeing it. If I need to sculpt on a character already UV'ed with a mouth cavity and all, I would import that model into the Retopo Room, then send a copy to the Sculpt workspace (GEOMETRY MENU > RETOPO MESH TO SCULPT MESH), then use CONFORM RETOPO MESH with large scale changes done with the MOVE, TRANSOFORM or POSE tool. Any brush sculpting changes can easily snapped periodically, in the Retopo Room w/ the Brush tool. You can quickly switch between the two workspaces by assigning hotkeys to the Workspace tabs, so it's not a chore or a real break in your workflow.

I don't care that they are separate meshes. I think it's a good thing in some respects. There isn't a single situation or project where I feel I couldn't sculpt/model a character properly or as efficiently in 3DCoat. In fact, I think I can work much faster in  3DCoat because the 3Dconnexion device support allows me to shave about an hour or more per 8-10hr workday, since I don't have to constantly stop > navigate > stop > navigate. ZBrush certainly has some features 3DCoat doesn't and things that work better, but people forget the converse is also true.

I can now Sculpt and Texture Paint, SIMULTANEOUSLY, and with Sculpt Layer functionality, on a high poly sculpt, using Smart Materials.

You have to split that work into 2 different stages and in fact, you have to export the low poly mesh to Substance to get the same painting functionality. Why is no one talking about that? That is a MASSIVE advantage....but yet all we hear, here, is how 3DCoat is the app that's uber limited.  

I think you're missing the point I'm trying to make.  I know you are well-intentioned and want what's best for the the app and the developers like the rest of us, but I can't see the downside here.

What you're suggesting are workarounds and I've used conform retopo mesh before.  It can be useful in certain situations, but it's fairly limited.  Snapping periodically, in theory, could work, but what about on tight spots like ears, lips?  Again, I've used it and I ended up reworking things over and over because the mesh snapped to the wrong things.  So I've tried what you're suggesting and it's problematic, not to mention the performance hit due to rendering a high poly sculpt and a retopo mesh simultaneously.  It's not a direct solution to the problem, it's a workaround plain and simple and it's not workable in a lot of situations.  I know that I can bring a retopo mesh to the sculpt room and even subdivide it if I want to, but once it's a sculpt mesh, it gets triangulated, then I'm back to using conform retopo mesh to sculpt mesh to make sure my target retopo mesh keeps up with the sculpt mesh. 

All of these things would be handled automatically if It was possible to work directly on an original quad mesh and subdivide it non-destructively.  You're also talking about time savings in other areas of the application, such as using the 3D Connexion mouse, but why not save time by allowing direct sculpting on quad mesh with subdivision.  I've heard @AndrewShpagin say it would be a bit of an undertaking, but I haven't heard him say it's impossible.  I would love to hear from him whether it is, in fact, possible and what it might look like.  

I really don't see why you're so against it.  You can see the value of being able to conform retopo mesh to sculpt and moving the retopo meshes to the sculpt room for sculpting, wouldn't quad based subD sculpting be better?  Again, it's not at the expense of everything else, it would in addition to and a great compliment.  Imagine doing work on your final UV mapped mesh directly using sculpt layers with pbr texturing, at a high subdivision level, then baking that down to your target mesh.  

Also, I hate to bring it up, but I remember way back when Andrew was just starting to make Surface mode in addition to voxel mode, you were against the idea of vertex painting on a surface sculpt object at the time, but look where that has led. 

So, I really don't think subd sculpting is a small scale benefit because it would obliterate the bottleneck that currently exists in the program, and I think it's worth whatever amount of work would be required.  

If I have some time I will definitely make a few videos discussing the issue.

Edited by gbball
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1 hour ago, gbball said:

I think you're missing the point I'm trying to make.  I know you are well-intentioned and want what's best for the the app and the developers like the rest of us, but I can't see the downside here.

What you're suggesting are workarounds and I've used conform retopo mesh before.  It can be useful in certain situations, but it's fairly limited.  Snapping periodically, in theory, could work, but what about on tight spots like ears, lips?  Again, I've used it and I ended up reworking things over and over because the mesh snapped to the wrong things.  So I've tried what you're suggesting and it's problematic, not to mention the performance hit due to rendering a high poly sculpt and a retopo mesh simultaneously.  It's not a direct solution to the problem, it's a workaround plain and simple and it's not workable in a lot of situations.  I know that I can bring a retopo mesh to the sculpt room and even subdivide it if I want to, but once it's a sculpt mesh, it gets triangulated, then I'm back to using conform retopo mesh to sculpt mesh to make sure my target retopo mesh keeps up with the sculpt mesh. 

All of these things would be handled automatically if It was possible to work directly on an original quad mesh and subdivide it non-destructively.  You're also talking about time savings in other areas of the application, such as using the 3D Connexion mouse, but why not save time by allowing direct sculpting on quad mesh with subdivision.  I've heard @AndrewShpagin say it would be a bit of an undertaking, but I haven't heard him say it's impossible.  I would love to hear from him whether it is, in fact, possible and what it might look like.  

I really don't see why you're so against it.  You can see the value of being able to conform retopo mesh to sculpt and moving the retopo meshes to the sculpt room for sculpting, wouldn't quad based subD sculpting be better?  Again, it's not at the expense of everything else, it would in addition to and a great compliment.  Imagine doing work on your final UV mapped mesh directly using sculpt layers with pbr texturing, at a high subdivision level, then baking that down to your target mesh.  

Also, I hate to bring it up, but I remember way back when Andrew was just starting to make Surface mode in addition to voxel mode, you were against the idea of vertex painting on a surface sculpt object at the time, but look where that has led. 

So, I really don't think subd sculpting is a small scale benefit because it would obliterate the bottleneck that currently exists in the program, and I think it's worth whatever amount of work would be required.  

If I have some time I will definitely make a few videos discussing the issue.

I was not against Vertex Paint altogether, just that there were bigger fish to fry at the time. Performance switching between Voxel and Surface mode was abysmally slow at the time, IIRC. In this case, trying to impose Quad Subdivision sculpting into a paradigm that is triangulated for good reason, would make an absolute mess of things and would be incredibly hard to explain the workflow. It's just a different way of working and people need to just accept it. Again, there are many "work-arounds" in ZBrush, but you never mention those. Only what you perceive in 3DCoat, making it seem as if 3DCoat is the only app that requires some "work-arounds" to do what you want. 

The Truth of the matter is that with Dynamesh and Sculptris Pro, you have to accept a certain number of "work-arounds." 3DCoat's work-around is using Conform Retopo mesh. I've recorded a number of videos showing it in practice, and in every case it was not a big problem.

This is one of the more extreme examples of using CONFORM RETOPO MESH and it worked as well as I could expect. I've used with edits around the eyelids, corners of the mouth, etc., and it's not a real hassle as you and others claim. You can turn auto-snapping off to nudge the trouble spots in the Retopo mesh, close to where it needs to be (if it's not already in place) > turn auto-snapping back on > tap, nudge or smooth with the Brush tool, as needed. In many cases, it's not anymore difficult than having to Dynamesh and later remesh again with ZRemesher. That's a work-around, but none of 3DCoat's critics mention that.

I'm just trying to give 3DCoat a fair shake here, because it's been taking a bloodbath from all the critics, when it's not warranted.

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18 minutes ago, Dmitry Bedrik said:

Shoals of zbrash or any other program, any other person is not an excuse for some points for 3D coat.

What do you mean by "Excuse?" There are areas where both applications can use some improvement. Does that mean 3DCoat deserves to be ruthlessly bashed here, and have the developers called cowards for not reconstructing a completely new UI?

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