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


Rygaard
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1 hour ago, AbnRanger said:

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.

I understand your position and respect your opinion. I hope you do not misunderstand me for everything I'll say.

We all know that 3d-Coat is fantastic, a unique program that has great qualities, just as there are flaws. This is normal in all programs, including ZBrush in relation to the interface or something else.

No one is making comments that are not constructive.
But you're acting completely passionate about 3d-Coat, to the point that you do not want to see or not accept that there are some things that are not good about how 3d-Coat works.

If you listen to the opinions of all the people in the 3d world, you would go crazy, because the great majority would say that ZBrush is the number one program of any production, that ZBrush is practically perfect and many other opinions.
Imagine when you heard what these people would say about the 3d-coat.

Just because I love 3D-Coat, because I know of the capability of 3d-Coat and because I can not understand that 3d-Coat is seen just as a program that complements the work done by ZBrush, I created the topic to help , give my opinion and register comments from other artists on how they feel about the 3d-Coat workflow and if possible give suggestions to improve the program. So if there were concrete reasons why such changes would improve 3D-Coat, Andrew could reflect, see if it really made any difference and make decisions.

Honestly, All the things I've said and demonstrated about a free workflow would make 3d-Coat much better.
You can use only a single mesh that could be altered and manipulated directly by all Rooms without any problems using all the tools and features of all the Rooms of the program to your advantage in this unique mesh. Is bad?
You have other types of methods that could help you in some project with the use of quads with subdivisions. Is bad?
With this unique mesh the possibility of important functionalities to be implemented in 3D-Coat. Is bad?

You would not be
forced to use a feature or tool you did not like. But they would be there for you whenever you wanted.

If you could choose between the current operation of 3D-Coat or the operation of a single mesh that can be worked by all Rooms (any tool), in which you could do any type of technique (including having mesh UVs) such as modeling , sculpt, paint, texture maps and etc ... all this in this same mesh.
In all honesty, please answer me, would you choose which of the 2 operations to do your job?

I understand you want to defend 3D-Coat. But, I think you exaggerated things.
You say that the Conform functionality between the retopo mesh and the High-Res mesh is a good workflow and that has practically no problems, there you are already exaggerating.
I understand that this functionality is useful and smart, but can you dispute Conform with a unique mesh that you could change and manipulate directly?
Do you think it's normal for 3D-Coat to have practically a different kind of mesh for each Room?
How often will you have to teach or explain to users why a mesh appears in a particular Room and is not present in the other Rooms?
Is the communication between the Rooms fluent?

In my opinion, a single mesh would solve thousands of problems within 3D-Coat and the workflow would become much simpler, easier, intuitive, unified and better.

The only thing I hope is that all of us together can make 3d-coat better! :)

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14 minutes ago, Rygaard said:

I understand your position and respect your opinion. I hope you do not misunderstand me for everything I'll say.

We all know that 3d-Coat is fantastic, a unique program that has great qualities, just as there are flaws. This is normal in all programs, including ZBrush in relation to the interface or something else.

No one is making comments that are not constructive.
But you're acting completely passionate about 3d-Coat, to the point that you do not want to see or not accept that there are some things that are not good about how 3d-Coat works.

If you listen to the opinions of all the people in the 3d world, you would go crazy, because the great majority would say that ZBrush is the number one program of any production, that ZBrush is practically perfect and many other opinions.
Imagine when you heard what these people would say about the 3d-coat.

Just because I love 3D-Coat, because I know of the capability of 3d-Coat and because I can not understand that 3d-Coat is seen just as a program that complements the work done by ZBrush, I created the topic to help , give my opinion and register comments from other artists on how they feel about the 3d-Coat workflow and if possible give suggestions to improve the program. So if there were concrete reasons why such changes would improve 3D-Coat, Andrew could reflect, see if it really made any difference and make decisions.

Honestly, All the things I've said and demonstrated about a free workflow would make 3d-Coat much better.
You can use only a single mesh that could be altered and manipulated directly by all Rooms without any problems using all the tools and features of all the Rooms of the program to your advantage in this unique mesh. Is bad?
You have other types of methods that could help you in some project with the use of quads with subdivisions. Is bad?
With this unique mesh the possibility of important functionalities to be implemented in 3D-Coat. Is bad?

You would not be
forced to use a feature or tool you did not like. But they would be there for you whenever you wanted.

If you could choose between the current operation of 3D-Coat or the operation of a single mesh that can be worked by all Rooms (any tool), in which you could do any type of technique (including having mesh UVs) such as modeling , sculpt, paint, texture maps and etc ... all this in this same mesh.
In all honesty, please answer me, would you choose which of the 2 operations to do your job?

I understand you want to defend 3D-Coat. But, I think you exaggerated things.
You say that the Conform functionality between the retopo mesh and the High-Res mesh is a good workflow and that has practically no problems, there you are already exaggerating.
I understand that this functionality is useful and smart, but can you dispute Conform with a unique mesh that you could change and manipulate directly?
Do you think it's normal for 3D-Coat to have practically a different kind of mesh for each Room?
How often will you have to teach or explain to users why a mesh appears in a particular Room and is not present in the other Rooms?
Is the communication between the Rooms fluent?

In my opinion, a single mesh would solve thousands of problems within 3D-Coat and the workflow would become much simpler, easier, intuitive, unified and better.

The only thing I hope is that all of us together can make 3d-coat better! :)

I'm passionate because I see a constant barrage of criticism, much of which is unwarranted, IMO. CONFORM RETOPO works well for me. I have already stated multiple times here, over the past few years, that I would like to see the Retopo and Paint Mesh's consolidated into one. That's not what we are talking about here. You cannot have Quad-Based Subdivision in the Sculpt room, nor is it needed. People coming from ZBrush tend to think it is, but it isn't. The reason why is because the Platform is not conducive to Quad-Based, Sub-D Levels workflow. IT'S A DIFFERENT ANIMAL. JUST ACCEPT IT.  The triangulated nature of Dynamic Subdivision prohibits it. Why can people not come to terms with this fact?

Does the Conform Retopo mesh option require a bit of housecleaning from time to time? Perhaps, but you have to do that a bit in ZBrush, too. I think people are just to tied down to the old ZBrush convention, which they are having to implement "Work-Arounds" to accomodate Dynamesh and Sculptris Pro

 

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11 minutes ago, Dmitry Bedrik said:

I do not understand why you think so.
Only the last two releases somehow brought my faith back to the fact that it was worth spending time on this program, it began to work more stable than the .25 version in which I had to take off every few minutes. While most programs work with almost 100% stability.

In the end, 3d Coat is currently the best for me that I can afford.

I would buy myself a zbrush, if I had money for it, and perhaps I would not go to this forum at all, knowing that I have two products that completely cover each other’s flaws.

I just do not want to sit here and remain silent while 3DCoat is being bashed, when I know a lot of it is because people apply a different standard to ZBrush than 3DCoat. They claim "you have to do this workaround" in 3DCoat, but never considering you also have similar work-arounds in ZBrush, too.

In ZBrush, when you switch between different mesh types, you have limitations you have to steer around. To do that you have to employ certain countermeasures. That's called a "Work-Around." The same thing is applicable in 3DCoat. You have constant topology changes with Voxels and Surface mode. Quad based SubD levels require a relatively static, unaltered base mesh. That's why you lose those SubD levels when you switch to Dynamesh. If you don't switch to Dynamesh, you have horrible stretching issues to deal with.

3DCoat has some solid "Countermeasures" of it's own, and that's what I've been trying to get across, here.

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My opinion is that of someone who started with 3D Coat as my first real 3d application.  I started with it, then I learned Blender, then I learned Zbrush, then Unity/Unreal.  So I'm not coming from another application, I started with 3D Coat, and learned the 3D asset pipeline using it.  I literally do everything in 3D Coat where ever possible, but there are certain tasks which I avoid because it would be better to do elsewhere, and they're things that I think would cause a lot of studios to choose an alternative.  I don't think 3D Coat has to be a complimentary piece to Zbrush at all.  It can be the go to sculpting/retopo/UV/texturing tool for any studio with that one bottleneck fixed.  I strongly believe that.  Of course there are a few other things that need to be done, but there is so much that is already amazing and unmatched by competitors that 3D coat could easily start seeing people choosing to use for more and more of their work.

I'm not speaking as a person who just uses 3D Coat for sculpting or just for retopo or just for conceptart or just for texturing, or just for printing - I literally use it for all those things.  I'm looking at the program as a whole and how it fits into a pipeline for previs, film and games production, and even toys.  I'm committed to 3D Coat and I believe in the team.  As long as @Andrew Shpagin and the team keep developing it I'll be here.

There are pipelines that don't exist yet in other applications that 3D Coat is capable of with some changes.  These are the kinds of paradigm shifts that need to happen in order to really be a disruptive force.  

For example.  3D Coat has a MODEL PALETTE and you can use the IMPORT tool in the sculpt room and set a chosen model to be imported at the brush position.  Imagine if in a production environment, a library of UV Unwrapped 3D assets was given to a concept artist or set designer using 3D Coat (already happening) and they could paint out and compose the scene just by brushing objects around.  This is currently possible, but it's a destructive step and all assets brushed into the scene will be triangulated as voxels or sculpt objects.  It can be exported back to the 3D team for final layout, but they will have to use the 3d scene as a guide and manually place all the UV'd assets where the concept artist has put them in the original 3D app.  This is a maddening idea for me.  How much TIME AND MONEY would it save a production if they could just use the export from 3D Coat as is.  This is where CONFORM RETOPO isn't even an option.  Applinks could potentially solve this, but still, a way more elegant solution is the most direct one.  Being able to work with quads in the sculpt room.  I think I probably differ from @Rygaard in terms of wanting this functionality on a regular surface mode mesh, I'm proposing a 3rd mesh type in the sculpt room, so you could have an S (surface), V (Voxel), and Q (Quad) layer type in the sculpt room.  We can already show the quad based paint objects in the sculpt room, but we can't manipulate it directly, or better yet, an instance of it, that we could apply to the Paint mesh (optionally).

I know Zbrush and Maya passably, but in Blender and 3D Coat I'm proficient, so I'm basing what I say on what others can do, I'm basing it on what seems to make the most sense from my experience as an indie developer, as a teacher, as a freelancer and as an in-studio production artist.

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Here is an example of what I mean. 

I would save production time if I could bring in a UVd asset and instantiate it into my scene using the import tool.

Here I've done the following 

  1. Create a simple box sculpt
  2. Retopoed it
  3. UV Unwrapped it
  4. Sent it from the Retopo Room to the Paint Room 6 times
  5. In the Tweak Room moved each box to a different position
  6. In the UV Room, combined all the UVs to be the same and deleted the unused ones
  7. In the paint room did some painting on one of the objects which was then applied to all the others
  8. In the sculpt room, turned on view paint mesh in sculpt room
  9. Then I used the retopo object as a model in the models tab.

In the video, I'm initially showing what I would like to the be the result of instantiating quad layers in the sculpt room from paint objects

What I did towards the end is use the existing functionality to create box shapes in my scene.

Wouldn't it save a production time and money if it was possible to just export a version that has all the objects in the right spot without going through all the steps listed above?  All it would require would be the ability to work with Quad meshes non-destructively in the sculpt room. 

Again, I'm proposing a 3rd layer category that would allow us to work with Quad based meshes non-destructively with context-sensitive tools...a lot of which already exist in the program (i.e. Move, Transform, Import, Primitives, Grow, Clay, Pinch, Flatten, Bulge, Freeze, Subdivide Higher/Lower, etc. - no liveclay tools, no boolean tools, just the basics).

 

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7 hours ago, AbnRanger said:

I'm passionate because I see a constant barrage of criticism, much of which is unwarranted, IMO. CONFORM RETOPO works well for me. I have already stated multiple times here, over the past few years, that I would like to see the Retopo and Paint Mesh's consolidated into one. That's not what we are talking about here. You cannot have Quad-Based Subdivision in the Sculpt room, nor is it needed. People coming from ZBrush tend to think it is, but it isn't. The reason why is because the Platform is not conducive to Quad-Based, Sub-D Levels workflow. IT'S A DIFFERENT ANIMAL. JUST ACCEPT IT.  The triangulated nature of Dynamic Subdivision prohibits it. Why can people not come to terms with this fact?

Does the Conform Retopo mesh option require a bit of housecleaning from time to time? Perhaps, but you have to do that a bit in ZBrush, too. I think people are just to tied down to the old ZBrush convention, which they are having to implement "Work-Arounds" to accomodate Dynamesh and Sculptris Pro

The way you're talking about, it seems like everyone is making serious attacks, offending and destroying 3D-Coat (as you already said), as if people were saying that 3D-Coat does not work or that 3D-Coat is the worst program in the world.
That's not it!
This never existed or happened!
We all know that 3D-Coat is fantastic, it's no accident that 3D-Coat is my number one program! I love 3D-Coat!
If I come from the ZBrush world, what is the point?

You did not answer any questions I asked and with all the respect I have for you, you just did the famous "attack" tactic to defend the things. If things are working well for you is enough and that's it.

I do not think there's any need for it all.
Please, no conflicts! We have to be impartial in running any program...without being passionate to the point of not seeing things.
If something could improve, why not test? And verify that there really was some improvement in the workflow... why not think about and maybe a possible change?

I believe that the Conform is more intended for Voxels, since the Voxels is another type of system or another type of Animal. So that's fine, now it makes sense to use Conform in the 3D-Coat scenario in the Voxel world.

I would prefer to work directly in the mesh and have all the benefits, without problems and without loss of performance.
But if you like to work using Conform and then go to the Retopo Room to be able to snap, that's fine! It is your taste and your preference of work.

About the Quad and Multi-Resolution system if there was such a system inside the 3D-Coat I would use it for sure and I would be very happy! It is a powerful system that has a positive side as well as a negative side. Therefore, if it existed use it wisely!
It would be another great implementation that I could use as part of my workflow, where I could be benefited from all the good things this system would provide for me.
Best of all, I could create a Quad based mesh in 3D-Coat (or import the mesh base created by another program that might or may not have UVs) and work on this Multi-Resolution system with no problems at all.
I doubt if you had such a system on 3D-Coat users would not use or complain! In my opinion, surely users would use in production, or not?

I'm not defending ZBrush! But if ZBrush implemented Dynamesh and Sculptris Pro, congratulations to them, that does not mean that their Subdivision Levels system was bad.
Pixologic has provided users with more ways for artists to work. That way, artists could have the best of both worlds and if users wanted they could mix both systems.
If that sucks, why all these programs: ZBrush, Blender, Mudbox, SculptGL (web free program), MeshMolder (free program) and other programs have the system of Multi-Resolution and Dynamic Tessellation in their systems?
1492703995_meshmolderandSculpGL.thumb.jpg.486f35b9b51efbcb2149333ca2716efb.jpg

I've never heard of artists and studios complaining about this system. I just watch them speak good things!

Why are some of these programs considered standards?

In my opinion, the more tools and features you have available in your hands as options to choose how you will work or mix techniques will never be something negative.

I want to make my position very clear and my opinion.
I am not at any time destroying 3D-Coat through my opinions, I respect everyone in the community, I respect and I am a fan and I greatly admire the work of Andrew and his developers.
As best as possible, I will always want to help 3D-Coat, because it is my favorite program and for this I will always want to give my CONSTRUCTIVE opinions because I want to see 3D-Coat on top of the world.

I am in favor of a free system (unique mesh by all Rooms) that you can choose any tool and functionality within the program and do your job choosing any type of technique available. All unified, simple, intuitive, easy to use, fast, fluid and with complete control. Everything in 3D-Coat would work as it always did, just add a unique mesh to the system.

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3 hours ago, gbball said:

I'm proposing a 3rd layer category that would allow us to work with Quad based meshes non-destructively with context-sensitive tools...a lot of which already exist in the program (i.e. Move, Transform, Import, Primitives, Grow, Clay, Pinch, Flatten, Bulge, Freeze, Subdivide Higher/Lower, etc. - no liveclay tools, no boolean tools, just the basics).

I know you had good intentions in your proposal for a third category. With all respect...
But don't you think it would be redundant even if it was another type of mesh? And that possibly people would be confused and would even continue with the problem of communication between all the Rooms? Would not Surface Mode be able to handle quads or tris?


It may seem like I'm being radical, but when I talked about a single mesh within 3D-Coat, this would unify all the Rooms in your favor, regardless of the mesh being quads, tris and voxels, you could have any kind of workflow and techniques in your favor.
You could sculpt, model, create or modify Uvs, create and use texture maps (per pixer painting, microvertex painting and ptex painting), you could do any task at any time without any kind of problems. If you need to change anything you could .... Would not that be ideal?


Because I see people wanting to unify a few Rooms, but will continue with the same problem of workflow and confusion among users. And in the future when they realize, they will say: why not unify with the other Room too ....

I'll use Blender as an example. You can do anything inside Blender because there is only one mesh. The entire system, all the features and tools are available to you! Exactly everything in the program is for you to use any way you want!

In my humble opinion, regardless of whether it's Blender or any other program, the program that works like this becomes a powerful program where creation, maintenance, changes, and the way you're going to drive your project just depends on you.

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2 hours ago, Rygaard said:

I know you had good intentions in your proposal for a third category. With all respect...
But don't you think it would be redundant even if it was another type of mesh? And that possibly people would be confused and would even continue with the problem of communication between all the Rooms? Would not Surface Mode be able to handle quads or tris?


It may seem like I'm being radical, but when I talked about a single mesh within 3D-Coat, this would unify all the Rooms in your favor, regardless of the mesh being quads, tris and voxels, you could have any kind of workflow and techniques in your favor.
You could sculpt, model, create or modify Uvs, create and use texture maps (per pixer painting, microvertex painting and ptex painting), you could do any task at any time without any kind of problems. If you need to change anything you could .... Would not that be ideal?


Because I see people wanting to unify a few Rooms, but will continue with the same problem of workflow and confusion among users. And in the future when they realize, they will say: why not unify with the other Room too ....

I'll use Blender as an example. You can do anything inside Blender because there is only one mesh. The entire system, all the features and tools are available to you! Exactly everything in the program is for you to use any way you want!

In my humble opinion, regardless of whether it's Blender or any other program, the program that works like this becomes a powerful program where creation, maintenance, changes, and the way you're going to drive your project just depends on you.

I hear what you're saying, and I suppose it makes sense in a way, but I think we're kind of saying the same thing.  Some of these things are possible, but I think a lot of other tools would need to be built first.  A quad based workflow is fundamentally different from what you can do in voxels or with dynamic tesselation sculpting.  But you could hide the separation and expose all the tools alongside the mesh and have the mesh change modes in a way that's hidden from the user.  

All that being said, I think what I'm looking for is part 1 and what you're looking for would be part 2.  

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2 hours ago, gbball said:

I hear what you're saying, and I suppose it makes sense in a way, but I think we're kind of saying the same thing.  Some of these things are possible, but I think a lot of other tools would need to be built first.  A quad based workflow is fundamentally different from what you can do in voxels or with dynamic tesselation sculpting.  But you could hide the separation and expose all the tools alongside the mesh and have the mesh change modes in a way that's hidden from the user.  

All that being said, I think what I'm looking for is part 1 and what you're looking for would be part 2.  

I know the quad system is different.
What I meant is that part 1 that you explained would be just another mode in the Sculpt Room system. This means that there would be 3 separate meshes as if they were 3 different Rooms. This means that there would be another mode with more brushes and functionalities for that specific mode, which is why I spoke in redundancy.
I understand that Voxels is a completely different system of quads and tris. However, I think quads and tris are not that different so there is a need to create another mode for quads. Understood?
Blender, ZBrush, Mudbox, Maya, Silo, Mode, SculptGL, and all other programs treat the mesh as if it were a single mesh without dividing their working system into Tris and Quads. No matter if you are going to use quads or not.

If you use dynamic tessellation (tris) and then convert that mesh to quads there is no break in the system. An example is... when you use the command to triangulate a quad mesh and then if you want to use the other command to turn tris into quads.
I do not know if I'm getting it right, but what I mean by the essence is that the mesh structure will serve both quads and tris.

But if it is to work the quads system in 3D-Coat be that way as you explained, by me okay. Nothing against.
I just wish that being the way you suggested it or being the way I suggested, the most important thing is that in the end there was only a single mesh between all the Rooms so we could have the freedom to do any kind of technique at any time in the process and that all the tools and functionalities existing in 3D-Coat could be used in this unique mesh making 3D-Coat a very powerful workflow.

Note: 3D-Coat is already powerful, but it would become even more powerful.

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Combining rooms is very interesting and important topic but if we talk about making  current rooms more user friendly. Is anybody else a little confused that in Retopo room,  Uv-set menu seams so separated from rest of main menus in that room. I'm not pro user but I know this app quite well and there is some things in 3d-coat that has that "What are doing down there" feelings and uv-set menu gives me that feeling. And it seams a small thing but actually it really breaks that clear UI in that room, for me at least. Retopo Objects and uv-sets menu should be combined into one? There might be some good reason why these two are separeted so please forgive me if I'm totally lost here :)

 

About SubD and liveclay. I'm fan with the liveclay and I think that is the future. But I have red some documents that shows that to get same amount details, you need more triangles in liveclay than you need in Subd. And that makes
sense because in Subd the base mesh is well planned and created so it gives that nice poly flow when you subdivide the mesh. And when you have less triangles in subd you can crank the high count even more and get some even better
detailted sculpt. 

I think that this one of the best videos I have seen so far to get very high detailed mesh. And it shows that artists used 3d-coat for medium detail and used 2d app for high detailing the rest. Question would be for that artist what
stopped him to do high detail in 3d-coat? He seams to be very talented artist to give a good feedback to Andrew.

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/8kmdE?fbclid=IwAR30F7gvcw3QCxlA9zb3UQAkBGkYP5R7JeVvw3EyJpJXaJt0gOx0_OOBT0M

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Yeah blender is really catching the speed. For my favourite tool in blender is "snake hook" and similar tool in 3d-coat has is "snake clay". I use it all the time in blender
when in 3d-coat I hardly ever touch that tool. 

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11 minutes ago, AbnRanger said:

I posted a BUNCH in this thread. It seems you didn't bother watching them. You won't understand my points, fully, without watching them.

 

I need to try making hair with snake tool, didn't know it can do that:)

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Again a constructive talk ends in personal discussions. It is not allowed in this forum.

And please, think about the workflow.

As Emi said, that's the key.

----------------------------------

Open again, people be polite and constructive please.

Honest feedback is always welcome.

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I would just ask anyone who truly thinks Quad-Based SubD meshes/levels in 3DCoat....a MASSIVE undertaking if at all possible...to screen record their case, using ZBrush and 3DCoat to show where 3DCoat's current workflow is inferior to the one proposed. This way, if there is indeed sufficient merit for such a major development effort, Andrew can see it. You have to show him why it would help, many times. Just telling him won't often convince him. Not for large scale undertakings.

Conform Retopo Mesh and Proxy system were designed to address those needs. I'm not at all opposed to incorporating good features from other apps, like ZBrush. I told Andrew that with a really well thought out and implemented Sculpt Layer system (with Erase, Magnify/Reduction, Layer Masking and Condition Masking) + Procedural Noise Library (for the NOISE tool and Fill tool in Paint Room) + Vector Displacement Brushes....all for V5, would make 3DCoat so close to ZBrush in terms of overall production-level capability, that it puts 3DCoat clearly in the conversation, where it really wasn't before.  Maybe after V5, it might be worth exploring, but I'd rather have a more robust system built around the current Voxel and Surface mode platform, in the mean time.

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I quickly did a small project of a face on Blender: Dynamic Tessellation + Multi-Resolution.
image.thumb.png.ab316fe9ea4faa8b9ecc916c5a71d21d.png

My goal was to demonstrate to you the benefits we would have if 3D-Coat had only a single mesh for all Rooms.

My concern was to mix techniques simulating the Rooms of the 3D-Coat. In this project I did not worry about the workflow and I did not worry about the look of the face because I know it is bad, but I did worry about the ease of techniques, control and maintenance of the project.

I could use different types of workflow and I have enough knowledge for this, but my biggest focus was on the freedom I had during the creative process. But if it was a real workflow, I would have the chance to do anything in my favor as well.
Many things I have done in this demonstration, I have notion, that were forced and exaggerated, but it is to show the potentiality of things.

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Thanks Rygaard for nice demonstration. But I'm not sure if this kind of freedom really is freedom what we need in 3d-coat. For example I have had never situation where I would need to model into high poly mesh the way you did 
in the picture. I would go back to sculpt mode and sculpt those details or add other mesh. I think that way of modelling is not very efficient. More I think this more I'm shifting to idea that we need rooms. But not as many we have right now. 

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It is true that to optimize the workflow many tasks could be carried out in a single step, and many commands are repeated or disseminated in the interface.

The tools to carry out the work are fine, only that sometimes accessing them is a bit tricky.

But Andrew does not just need time to create a new interface. 

First you have to understand how 3DC works, understand how it is used by doing different jobs for different needs of artists and then, with the road map drawn to link all the blocks with a new paradigm for the user.

Fluency is achieved with simplicity.

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4 hours ago, haikalle said:

Thanks Rygaard for nice demonstration. But I'm not sure if this kind of freedom really is freedom what we need in 3d-coat. For example I have had never situation where I would need to model into high poly mesh the way you did 
in the picture. I would go back to sculpt mode and sculpt those details or add other mesh. I think that way of modelling is not very efficient. More I think this more I'm shifting to idea that we need rooms. But not as many we have right now. 

 @haikalle Thank you for your opinion!  :)

I know what I did would not be ideal in a workflow. You have complete reason about the details or add another mesh with better topology! But I did not worry about that.

It was my intention to demonstrate that in a real project with this freedom, you have an easier way in relation to the flow of the mesh for all the necessary program features that you would need at the moment.
I worried much more about demonstrating that I have no difficulties or problems performing any kind of technique, even being in the worst case scenario that I put myself in.
I purposely pulled to the extreme, in a very exaggerated way, what I could do and if I would have some sort of problem in this kind of approach. In no time, I wasted time, everything behaved as I wished and it was very quick to be done.

Of course, in the ideal scenario, shortly after I finished the sculpture using Dynamic tessellation, I would quickly create a retopology of that mesh and I would follow my project with the mesh with a good topology.
Afterwards, I reproject the details from one mesh to the other, and add the Multi-Resolution in this good mesh to improve the sculpture.
At this point, I would have the choice to further detail using Multi-Res or I could create and paint a detail texture map (including the texture projection technique) and I would apply this texture map using the Displacement Modifier in a non-destructive way. Total control between physical sculpture (muli-resolution) and detailing paint of the texture map (Painting + Displacement Modifier).
Then I could accomplish a correct way to texture map painting Diffuse (albedo) and all other types of texture map for the project.
In this project, I would have complete control of everything and if I needed to change anything I could in a very easy way. ;)

You could in a real scenario, import a mesh with UVs and use Multi-Resolution to get on with your project. :) 

In another scenario, if you wanted to directly add MultiResolution to a Sphere, you could start your project from scratch and follow it normally.

Honestly, I have total efficiency of my project in a very intuitive and easy way. Because I had this unique mesh, I had everything the program could offer me in my favor. Regardless of the choice of process that I will follow. :) 

One important thing to be said is that in 3D-Coat I could accomplish many things from what I did, but at a certain point in my project, I would be stuck and have to address something to move on. Honestly, I would have to perform " some
work around" that are not intuitive for an artist to follow through with the project.
For this, a new user or even a user who has more experience in the program would have to have a complete knowledge of how 3D-Coat works. The problem is that sometimes things are not so simple to understand.
I also love the way that 3D-Coat works, but I do not have the interactivity that I would expect to have between the Rooms. I would have to create a different type of mesh to have access to a certain Room functionality.

Just one example:
Maybe, have the possibility of a new Room called Modeling. This would mean yet another program within 3D-Coat that might present the same problems that currently exist.
Maybe this Room would communicate with the Retopo Room and maybe with the Paint Room, but it would not communicate directly with the Sculpt Room.
What I mean is that currently you can not use the Retopo Room tools in the mesh that is in the Sculpt Room. So that a Sculpt Room mesh can be used in the Retopo Room, only if you carry out an Autopo or process of mesh retopology to create another mesh.

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12 hours ago, AbnRanger said:

I would just ask anyone who truly thinks Quad-Based SubD meshes/levels in 3DCoat....a MASSIVE undertaking if at all possible...to screen record their case, using ZBrush and 3DCoat to show where 3DCoat's current workflow is inferior to the one proposed. This way, if there is indeed sufficient merit for such a major development effort, Andrew can see it. You have to show him why it would help, many times. Just telling him won't often convince him. Not for large scale undertakings.

Conform Retopo Mesh and Proxy system were designed to address those needs. I'm not at all opposed to incorporating good features from other apps, like ZBrush. I told Andrew that with a really well thought out and implemented Sculpt Layer system (with Erase, Magnify/Reduction, Layer Masking and Condition Masking) + Procedural Noise Library (for the NOISE tool and Fill tool in Paint Room) + Vector Displacement Brushes....all for V5, would make 3DCoat so close to ZBrush in terms of overall production-level capability, that it puts 3DCoat clearly in the conversation, where it really wasn't before.  Maybe after V5, it might be worth exploring, but I'd rather have a more robust system built around the current Voxel and Surface mode platform, in the mean time.

I completely understand what you mean.

I had done that Sculpt Layers video for Andrew, rich in detail for him to realize how important Sculpt Layers is in 3D-Coat for us artists! And it was well worth all my effort! :)
I would very much like to do this kind of video, but I do not know if I would have time for that. I'll see what I can do about it.
If anyone can make a video too, please help!

3D-Coat is one of the most powerful programs I've ever worked with. I feel really good working with it. The program has great possibilities to become even more powerful.

@AbnRanger All the features you said are perfect and really the artists would have a lot of power on their hands to accomplish many tasks.

But some things are important to be done as I've been trying to explain the benefits of it all.
3D-Coat is fantastic at everything, but I think the program is not simple and intuitive. It does not have an easy flow in relation to the mesh in all the Rooms.

The first step would not be a new interface.
We already have everything in our favor. Everything is ready! It would only be the operation of the rooms in relation to the mesh. I think it would just be an adaptation of how things work within the program.

I love all the power that 3D-Coat has, you can do everything, but that power is concentrated in different places that do not interact. I know there's a certain amount of interactivity when you throw a mesh to another Room, but it's not the same as you being able to act directly on the same Mesh.

If you open a project by importing a mesh with UVs in the Paint Room (PerPixel or Microvertex Paintings) and throw that mesh to the Sculpt Room, you will not have the details of that mesh in the Sculpt Room. And in the Sculpt Room, you would be working on another type of mesh that would not have UVs. Of course, after you change the mesh you can perform the Bake to return to the Paint Room, but sometimes the result of that Bake is not so good (depending on whether you know how to make a Bake correctly).
This will be a problem if users do not know how to fully use 3D-Coat. I know it is the way that 3D-Coat works and I agree that you have to know how to handle the program, but it becomes very elaborate to get things done.

13 hours ago, AbnRanger said:

...and for what it's worth, Rygard already did something like this in pitching the Reproject tool to Andrew. I'm glad he asked for it. Can be very handy in the right scenario.

And I think there are more good things coming around... ;)

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6 hours ago, Carlosan said:

It is true that to optimize the workflow many tasks could be carried out in a single step, and many commands are repeated or disseminated in the interface.

The tools to carry out the work are fine, only that sometimes accessing them is a bit tricky.

But Andrew does not just need time to create a new interface. 

First you have to understand how 3DC works, understand how it is used by doing different jobs for different needs of artists and then, with the road map drawn to link all the blocks with a new paradigm for the user.

Fluency is achieved with simplicity. 

I agree with you. Great points raised!

Carlosan, I think that would not be the case for a new interface.
We already have everything in 3D-Coat, everything is ready. I think if it happened some change would be more in relation to an adaptation of how the mesh works in relation to all Rooms.
The interface would be less, since of course it would evolve over time.

In my opinion, the most important thing would be to make all the features and tools available in a single mesh simplifying the whole process in a much more intuitive and easy way.

I agree that we have to learn to master the program, but sometimes it becomes a bit difficult for that. Unfortunately many confusions happen.

I remember when I was starting my 3D-Coat learning path, I watched a video explaining how 3D-Coat worked with Rooms. It was about why a mesh is present in one room and was not in the other.
At one point, I started to laugh (sometimes when I get nervous I start laughing! Will understand!) and I was very nervous because I had become more confused yet.
I remember that the author of the video had difficulties explaining, not because he did not know how to explain, but because it is complicated to make a new user understand this somewhat strange operation of 3D-Coat, that is, a completely different operation from which I was accustomed to using of the various other programs.

Honestly, I had lost the will to learn how to use 3D-Coat, but I thought 3D-Coat was fantastic, and I decided not to give up and try to learn the program.
After a long time, I began to understand a little. And of course I understand the process nowadays.

For me, this trajectory of learning was very painful and difficult! And I think that's why many users end up giving up on the program because of this differentiated 3D-Coat workflow.
I'm not saying that being different is bad. Never! Being different is very good, but in the case of 3D-Coat I did not have a good initial experience.

Today, I see 3D-Coat with other eyes, it is a program of the following style:
Please choose a task and perform it linearly. And this is often powerful and efficient.
The problem is that you often need to have better control of your project. So that's where confusions and problems begin with the 3D-Coat workflow.
For artists who want to change something, they will need to be very knowledgeable about the program's workings and do a lot of work-around, and from that time on, new users would be out of the game because they were wondering what now? How can I do this?  Why that?

I'm going to talk about Blender again, you have a single mesh and you know you can do everything that you have learned from the beginning of your trajectory in the 3d world.
Everything is more intuitive, simple, practical, easy to use and every choice you need to make, you do there, no problem because everything is connected in this single mesh. The entire system of the program is geared towards this mesh.

I've never used Mudbox, but the little I've seen seems to me to be a program of this kind of operation in relation to the simplicity and ease of using a single mesh. If I wanted to learn Mudbox it would be a very smooth and fast transition process.

In ZBrush, taking the fact that you first need to activate the EDIT Button to use the program (All users who start learning to use the program are confused and frustrated because they can not sculpt, if they do not know to have EDIT enabled and other steps), the operation of the program is easy to understand because of this unique mesh.

I'm sure if I had a single mesh working inside 3D-Coat, I would have a gigantic improvement in my workflow process that would be much more intuitive, fast, and powerful.

But in the end, regardless of everything, I will always love working on 3D-Coat. :) 

 

 

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On 4/13/2019 at 5:11 AM, haikalle said:

About SubD and liveclay. I'm fan with the liveclay and I think that is the future. But I have red some documents that shows that to get same amount details, you need more triangles in liveclay than you need in Subd. And that makes
sense because in Subd the base mesh is well planned and created so it gives that nice poly flow when you subdivide the mesh. And when you have less triangles in subd you can crank the high count even more and get some even better
detailted sculpt. 

Can I honestly tell you my opinion?

When I work with subdivisions, I have an impressive detailing quality!
By the time I used ZBrush and now using Blender through Modify Multi-Resolution, I can see how great that kind of system is. I can not explain the reason for this because the programming area is not my specialty, but I am witness that this system provides an excellent quality of sculpture and rich detailing in definition.
When I did the face of the demonstration, I felt the difference between Dynamic Tessellation and Multi-Resolution.
By the time I began to sculpt the Brush trait on the surface of the mesh seemed more fluent and the way the system behaved at the time of detail was fantastic.

Dynamic tessellation is great and gives me fantastic things too.

The only thing I can tell you is that both systems have both good and bad points.

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I agree that subdivisions gives a fantastic results.   I have seen many pro users that starts with liveclay and then retopo and continue with subdivisions. So the both ways are needed and I think it's hard to combine these two and their best parts
into one. I don't like that if I resample in surface mode, 3d-coat first convert my mesh into voxel then do the resampling and then converts it into surface mesh. I loose much detail in that process. About the rooms I really like @AbnRanger suggestion. And even if the final goal is to have one room, I would like start from combine two rooms and then refine that workflow. Then see how all works together. If everything works ok  then
combine again two rooms and refine that workflow. etc etc... 

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2 hours ago, Rygaard said:

Can I honestly tell you my opinion?

When I work with subdivisions, I have an impressive detailing quality!
By the time I used ZBrush and now using Blender through Modify Multi-Resolution, I can see how great that kind of system is. I can not explain the reason for this because the programming area is not my specialty, but I am witness that this system provides an excellent quality of sculpture and rich detailing in definition.
When I did the face of the demonstration, I felt the difference between Dynamic Tessellation and Multi-Resolution.
By the time I began to sculpt the Brush trait on the surface of the mesh seemed more fluent and the way the system behaved at the time of detail was fantastic.

Dynamic tessellation is great and gives me fantastic things too.

The only thing I can tell you is that both systems have both good and bad points.

I think this is the reason Pixologic has spent so much of their development time and resources, to refine and improve ZRemesher. So that the topology flows better. I don't think it would work well, using 3DCoat's Auto-Retopo. It does a great job on many things, but it's a bit fussy and that is why Instant Meshes was added. Problem is, Instant Meshes would give very poor topology, as it has too many termination points/poles. SubD levels on Instant Meshes would be a nightmare, and the Current Auto-Retopo would be too fussy to be usable half the time.

That's why I say, even if Andrew could implement a Quad-Based SubD mode, it wouldn't help much, and there are better solutions already in place (Conform Retopo & Multi-Res Proxy system). 

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I wanted to show a sketch i made just to show how rooms are very well connected togther.

Begun as voxel then sculpted with adaptive tesselation and then textured in paint room( ao and cuv layers created from high res mesh). 

I can now make changes to high poly and still get my nice pbr materials inside paint room, after that i can 

start baking  into a mid/low poly mesh into a uv set on its own. Then after all pieces are baked i can merge uv sets into 1 eg after baking everything .In the meantime everything is interconected , this mean i can update high poly or texture at anytime even AFTER bake.  This is pipeline is a huge timesaver(for me at least ) and not very apparent for new users.

Eg proxy slider should popup when caching or some sort of hint area where mini guides help the user .

I also think that 3dc should not be afraid of experimenting not copy the industy standards cause it will make it differenciate from the rest.

 

Capture2.JPG

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2 hours ago, AbnRanger said:

I think this is the reason Pixologic has spent so much of their development time and resources, to refine and improve ZRemesher. So that the topology flows better. I don't think it would work well, using 3DCoat's Auto-Retopo. It does a great job on many things, but it's a bit fussy and that is why Instant Meshes was added. Problem is, Instant Meshes would give very poor topology, as it has too many termination points/poles. SubD levels on Instant Meshes would be a nightmare, and the Current Auto-Retopo would be too fussy to be usable half the time.

That's why I say, even if Andrew could implement a Quad-Based SubD mode, it wouldn't help much, and there are better solutions already in place (Conform Retopo & Multi-Res Proxy system). 

I do not know if that was the real intent of Pixologic.
Because even with all the technology that provides a good mesh generated automatically, this mesh will not be used for production. You can even use curves to guide a supposedly correct topology, but even then the result is not the ideal mesh for production. Just a good mesh to sculpt. Now if you work in the area of 3D printing, you do not need the correct or ideal topology.

Then, the artist will have to manually make the topology process to correctly obtain the sequence of the polygons to have an ideal mesh. Of course, this manual process will be prior to the mesh detailing. Or Import a production mesh from the beginning and continue with the project.

On the other hand, you're right that this time spent by them to perfect ZRemesher would provide a better mesh for the artist to work with this system of subdivisions.

I've used the Multi-Resolution system many times. And this system never gave me problems. Even if the mesh has some topology problems like tris or other types we can call a bad topology, Multi-Resolution has always handled very well any kind of mesh I've worked on.

I had not used the Multi-Resolution system for a long time because I obviously use 3D-Coat (Dynamic Tessellation) for my work.
But in this small Face project I demonstrated using Blender, I had a pleasant surprise at how this system handled the completely  horrible mesh in the topology issue.

I really felt a big difference when I started to sculpt, it is difficult to put into words an explanation for this, maybe it is the method of the calculation of subdivision, I do not know the technical terms for this. But the mesh became excellent for the process of sculpting and accurate and sharp detailing.

Of course, if you do not know how to work on this system, you will have polygons stretched and you will end up fighting against the mesh.
One of the good things about this Multi-Resolution system is that it allows the use of UVs in the mesh.

I remember you made a video about the sculpture process in that creature from the Avatar movie (Voxel Surface Mode Sculpting pt.2).

I realized that you had difficulty working with the mesh in the creature's cavity. Not because you did not know how to sculpt, but because the mesh topology (dynamic tessellation) you were working on in Surface Mode was against you.

That is to say that the mesh appeared stretched and there were problems in the mesh with the appearance of holes. You tried using Smooth in the area and you felt that you were not solving the problem. After the smooth, you tried to sculpt with other brushes, but the mesh did not behave the right way. When you used Expand Brush things got worse, then when you switched to InflateClay (LiveClays) the mesh had several problems. To try to solve the mesh problem, you used CleanClay to rebuild the mesh and smooth it. But even so the mesh was not good for sculpting, I had this impression when observing how the Brushes behaved in this mesh. CreaseClay also gave you problems with the mesh.

Of course, this video is old and Andrew has perfected the system, but in my experience of sculpturing through 3D-Coat's Dynamic Tessellation, it sometimes gives me a bad surface to sculpt in which I am fighting against the area. But after all, most of the time, I can sculpt with great quality. :)

I have said all this to say that in dynamic tesselation also has problems. I love sculpting on surface mode, but I can not deny that I have problems from time to time using this system. I use the sculpt room all the time, so I know what I'm talking about.

But since I'm not a programmer, I do not know if Multi-resolution would cause problems in 3d-coat. Just talking to Andrew to really know.
I think we would not have problems with Multi-Resolution if it was implemented in 3D-Coat. It would provide good things. The artist could choose between the two types of system, which would be wonderful. I think it would be worth it.

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