Voxels or LiveClay ?

[v377]

Hi,

I am new to sculpting and I am a bit confused of which path to take for sculpting characters (which is my main goal).
I watched many tutorials on 3D Coat and read documentation.
For old users who already know voxels and surface it is easy to choose and just watch updated videos but for a new user there are many infos missing in the new videos. I watched a lot from the past too but I cannot get a grasp which way to go because many are obsolete (although there is some good information scattered here and there).

As far as I understand for now, before thinking to go into smaller details on surface mode, I should focus on voxel or LiveClay.
I understand the differences in performance but I do not understand which one to use it for most of the time and also what would be a good workflow in switching between voxels and surface. IF working in LiveClay is similar to voxel why use voxel and then surface and back to voxel for more sculpting if needed and so on? Wouldn't it be better just work in LiveClay ? (scenario: Maybe I will miss creating detailed layers in voxels, then do some details on a base head mesh in surface and then on switching back to voxels if I want to go and sculpt more big details, I will have to 32x a full voxel layer not to loose my res ... )
I understand voxels help a lot in boolean operations but in sculpting a character I do not see anyone using booleans but only brushes. So, particularly for character creation (organic ones I am interested and not realistic) is it a boolean approach to it or not needed since sculpting with brushes is more reliable ? Then again should I just focus on LiveClay for creating characters and skip voxels ?

Sorry if I my words are messy but this thoughts are influenced by the confusion I am in right now.

[Carlosan]

Hi 

Use voxels for rough sketches, as sand or plasticine. 

Surface for overall shape, details and ornaments, as clay.

Add final details using Live clay as marble.

[v377]

Thank you for your answer but I am still not enlightened
I will try summarise a workflow as I understand it now and please correct me:

first thing I should make a rough model as you said in voxels (even some ornaments but not with very High desnity as I will tesselate in Surface ?)

then get the V layers to Surface layers and tesselate where I want high-details

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what I do not get from what you wrote is this:

- isnt the overall general shape done in voxels allready ? what to do more in Surface mode than to tesselate some areas of the existing shape and add details and ornaments ? or do you reffer as after doing this we can call it overall finalised shape and in voxel is just a general shape ?

- and what is the difference in adding detalis and ornaments with Surface Tools vs adding same ones in LiveClay tools (using of course Freeze, Subdivide if needed) ? Are there major differences for example between extrude and flatten or expand and inflate ? When should I rely on one or the other ?

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One more thing: I noticed that one can paint on vertices and now on depth map as well. This is procedural which is good. 

Question: is it possible to make rough sculpting in voxel layers and paint details and ornaments on vertices ? Eg: I want to have a base model for a character and have layers with different depths that will give me organic variations without the need to have different sculpts for each model. What are the caveats to this if possible ?

In game assets and animation assets from a logical stand-point it would be a problem since those platforms use ray-casting on geometry, but I do not understand how the export works for such assets: when I export an obj/fbx will those assets include the depth info provided from the painted vertices ? Will it be possbile to change the shaders in an external program ?

 

thank you again!

 

ps. If anyone cand do / link videos to show 2018-2019 techniques in building organic characters, like the series "from scratch" that was dne years ago, it would be an awesome addition to the allready existing videos you guys provide.