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Hard surface retopo help


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Hi there can anyone tell me how to hard surface to exact corners etc but extremely low poly as in, one face per flat surface for most of these parts. must be exact though. I have tried all kinds of auto retopo settings and even tried to do it manually but nothing is working, when i do the hard surface autopo it does not merge the corner vertices and overlaps faces, then when i try to merge them using the move tool it makes it get out of alignment. I just don't know enough about the technique or this program to do it correctly.  When i do it manually it does not let me snap to the exact edges, maybe i am doing it wrong. Any help is really appreciated. Many thanks

roadpack.png

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hello? anyone?

 

the problem as far as i can see is even though i made the shapes very high poly, the edges are not square. they are rounded so it messes up the retopo. its impossible as far as i can see to do a manual retopo on hard surfaces in 3d coat to eact edges because the move tool does not allow you to snap to edges!

Is this urgent help forum or am i putting his in the wrong place, this isnt a hobby for me, this is my job, can someone please help or why am i using 3d coat.

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12 minutes ago, Carlosan said:

Hi 

Hope this help

No.

None of these show anything to snap to exact edges, i already looked at them before i asked on the forum. Is it impossible for 3d coat to snap to exact edges? on hard surface?  the instant mesh is way too high poly and at the lowest poly it doesnt even keep the shape. nothing works except the retopo via decimation but even that is a mess because i cant get the sculpts to be exact square on the edges. its needs to be exact. so it can line up when put together. it will be noticable like dogs balls if i line it up with move tool as i cannot find a way for it to snap to exact edges. this program has become my nightmare and im about to just delete it

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Is not possible to snap to exact edges, sorry.

3DC is a software used for sculpt modelling, you are asking for hardsurface modeling, a task that use another apps with tools specific for that type of modelling.   

Try switching to Autodesk 360, FreeCad or Blender if you dont need organic modelling.

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7 minutes ago, Carlosan said:

Is not possible to snap to exact edges, sorry.

3DC is a software used for sculpt modelling, you are asking for hardsurface modeling,

 

3D coat should stop marketing its program as possible to do hard surface modelling then or make some changes. what a waste of time ive made all because the videos say you can hardsurface model. its a great program for organic but i really wish 3d coat was less confusing on its capabilities. why does it have retopo by decimation for hardsurface if you cant hardsurface model. shouldn't snapping to an exact point be a feature.

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3DCoat let you snap to Low poly vertex. But when you sculpt, the model dont have low poly vertices to snap because is made by highpoly geometry with lot of vertex (press W if you like to switch to wireframe view on/off)

 

Snap to low poly.jpg

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On 7/25/2019 at 3:52 AM, Lizbot said:

3D coat should stop marketing its program as possible to do hard surface modelling then or make some changes. what a waste of time ive made all because the videos say you can hardsurface model. its a great program for organic but i really wish 3d coat was less confusing on its capabilities. why does it have retopo by decimation for hardsurface if you cant hardsurface model. shouldn't snapping to an exact point be a feature.

I'm fairly new to 3d coat so forgive if I'm off here.. but have you tried creating a flattened cube in the retopo room from its cube primitive FIRST, then going to the sculpt room and importing the retopo object to the sculpt room? This'll give you the exact right dimensions, and your retopo object now matches the sculpt object exactly. You can then do some cuts with limited depth, and go back to the retopo room and either bake the high poly detail into the normals, or you can use split ring tool to subdivide the retopo object, select individual faces and transform them, and generally push the points around a bit?

 

Edited by Innovine
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3 minutes ago, Innovine said:

I'm fairly new to 3d coat so forgive if I'm off here.. but have you tried creating a flattened cube in the retopo room from its cube primitive FIRST, then going to the sculpt room and importing the retopo object to the sculpt room? This'll give you the exact right dimensions, and your retopo object now matches the sculpt object exactly. You can then do some cuts with limited depth, and go back to the retopo room and either bake the high poly detail into the normals, or you can use split ring tool to subdivide the retopo object, select individual faces and transform them, and generally push the points around a bit?

 

Even if i were to, the act of pushing the points around a bit makes it out of alignment. it doesnt snap to the exact edge of anything, meaning if i have two parts of path for example that will be butting up against each other in another platform, the mesh has to be exact or it will stand out very clearly when its put together, the mesh i am trying to retopo still has a rounded edge to it even at extremely high resolution so when i do the retopo by decimation which is the only viable way ive found to do it, it calculates the rounded part too and i end up with a mess. I have put it aside as i wasted too many days trying to find away to do it. ill have to make it in another program then import it to 3dcoat to uv and paint but it will be another time, im new to 3d coat also so i appreciate you suggestion i may give it a try anyway. thanks

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Push the middle points around a bit, leave the 8 points of the flattened cube on the corners, of course. That's the point?

Let me try and clarify... create the retopo first, from a primitive. Then when you go to sculpt room and import, it exactly fills the retopo mesh (to the limits of the layer resolution, which you can crank up a bit). You now have a flattened, perfect cube in retopo room, and the same shape in sculpt (with slightly rounded edges). Now if you route out some areas in sculpt, when you go back to retopo you can subdivide the cube and move the inner points to match the routed areas. Just using the Split Rings tool will snap to the surface and you get nice alignments very easily. The edges of the cube will still be perfectly in place, and will still tile seamlessly. You don't move those. If you need to, you can subdivide the edges and use the transform tool to move them up and down. It's probably not 3dcoats strong point, but I don't see offhand why this wouldn't work. 

Might even be an advantage to model the tiles in blender, and extrude the faces, then import those as both retopo and sculpt objects, and add small normal map details to the sculpt, and bake, I've been experimenting with this direction.

 

 

Edited by Innovine
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27 minutes ago, Innovine said:

Push the middle points around a bit, leave the 8 points of the flattened cube on the corners, of course. That's the point?

Let me try and clarify... create the retopo first, from a primitive. Then when you go to sculpt room and import, it exactly fills the retopo mesh (to the limits of the layer resolution, which you can crank up a bit). You now have a flattened, perfect cube in retopo room, and the same shape in sculpt (with slightly rounded edges). Now if you route out some areas in sculpt, when you go back to retopo you can subdivide the cube and move the inner points to match the routed areas. Just using the Split Rings tool will snap to the surface and you get nice alignments very easily. The edges of the cube will still be perfectly in place, and will still tile seamlessly. You don't move those. If you need to, you can subdivide the edges and use the transform tool to move them up and down. It's probably not 3dcoats strong point, but I don't see offhand why this wouldn't work. 

Might even be an advantage to model the tiles in blender, and extrude the faces, then import those as both retopo and sculpt objects, and add small normal map details to the sculpt, and bake, I've been experimenting with this direction.

 

 

yes i get what you are saying, but ill clarify, every edge has to be exact to the the edge, even the cuts and indents because they will need to line up with the next pieces cuts and indents the same so if i push any edge or part ive cut out around, that wont be the case any longer since it doesnt snap to exact edges. pushing points around isnt exact so unless im missing something youre saying, it wont be the result i need. im not sure if you saw the original picture i posted with the multiple pieces. the other issue is, if i auto retopo without decimation its way too high poly, i want a peice of mesh that is perhaps 20 faces max, which is easy to do in maya in a longer more boring way because its not clay modelling. if that makes sense. also to get a perfect square cube id have to have 50 million resolution or something and having that many pieces at once, my pc cant handle that , i mean i have 32 gigs but its not going to handle it. as carlosan said, 3d coat cant do this particulat thing, its great for most things but not this kind of exact hardmodelling

 

Edited by Lizbot
also, i dont use blender, i dont have the time needed to learn another program right now, ill have to do it next year.
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1 minute ago, Innovine said:

Ahh, got you, I thought you only needed to tile on the horizontal plane. Sounds like 3d coat isn't the right tool for this job then.

yes unfortunately i found out after spending days making those models lol, as you can probably tell from my original post i was pretty frustrated about it. 3d coats amazing (though having a lot of annoying bugs atm ) still love the program, its amazing :)

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On 7/24/2019 at 8:52 PM, Lizbot said:

3D coat should stop marketing its program as possible to do hard surface modelling then or make some changes. what a waste of time ive made all because the videos say you can hardsurface model. its a great program for organic but i really wish 3d coat was less confusing on its capabilities. why does it have retopo by decimation for hardsurface if you cant hardsurface model. shouldn't snapping to an exact point be a feature.

Both 3DCoat and ZBrush have a good deal of HardSurface modeling capability, but that's not their specialty. Therefore, both are going to have features that are highly usable for the task, but perhaps not all the modeling features you might find in an app like 3ds Max, Maya, Modo, Blender, Rhino, etc? Should Pixologic stop demonstrating their Hard Surface modeling tools, in ZBrush?

 

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....and as Carlos said, SNAPPING TO VERTEX on a high poly object is very impractical because there are way too many vertices under your brush for it to accurately determine which one to snap to. That's why applications that have vertex snapping are generally designed for lower polygon models. Try using Vertex Snapping in 3ds Max on a dense mesh. It will be a nightmare. Is that what you want?

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12 hours ago, AbnRanger said:

....and as Carlos said, SNAPPING TO VERTEX on a high poly object is very impractical because there are way too many vertices under your brush for it to accurately determine which one to snap to. That's why applications that have vertex snapping are generally designed for lower polygon models. Try using Vertex Snapping in 3ds Max on a dense mesh. It will be a nightmare. Is that what you want?

idgaf im not using those programs, am i. this is also the community board for 3d coat so.. w/e

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5 hours ago, Lizbot said:

eat a d89k

Why are you being so hostile, here? You made the claim that 3DCoat is promoted as able to do hardsurface modeling, but doesn't even offer vertex snapping. In that sense, it's most comparable to ZBrush. Neither are intended to be extensive modeling applications. That is why it was mentioned. Your veiled profanity and slurs are totally uncalled for. Nobody made any hostile or abusive statements toward you.

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