3DCoat 2021 Open Beta test !

[philnolan3d]

This Trace mode looks like the sculpting features we've had since the beginning. Am I missing something?

[Andrew Shpagin]

On 5/29/2021 at 1:37 AM, Barrel said:

The mesh, after being converted from voxels, is a terrible jumble of intersecting edges. Why is that?

Unnecessary brush grouping.

There is no normal dynamic topology like the 4x version.

Add dynamic topology when working with the pose tool - so that polygons are not stretched, but are drawn following the movement of the tool. The same goes for the pose mode.

1. I need some examples - scenes, pictures, etc. On my tests voxels->surface works well.

2. You may rearrange as you wish or make your own room/workspace with convenient grouping.

3. Any brush in a brush engine has a dynamic topology. Look settings. Old ones removed because of duplicate functionality and less control.

4. Will do it, but not now. Now only bug fixes and very easy-to-do features that may be done "by the way".

5. I will buy a 4K monitor soon just to improve the experience in 4K.

[Andrew Shpagin]

8 minutes ago, philnolan3d said:

This Trace mode looks like the sculpting features we've had since the beginning. Am I missing something?

It appeared recently. It was really easy to do but cool, so added it.

[Silas Merlin]

54 minutes ago, philnolan3d said:

This Trace mode looks like the sculpting features we've had since the beginning. Am I missing something?

It is quite different from anything we had insofar as this adds the ability to draw in 3d space without moving the view.
previously the 2d painting tools were exactly that : 2d. Yes you could paint in 3d space with them by rotating the view at the same time. for example Sphere tool + navigation with 3d mouse.

I am unsure of the advantages of the trace mode over this for myself, but seeing in videos that people tend to work while the view is static, even when using a 3d mouse, I would say this trace mode is indeed quite an interesting new feature. (I repeat : it gives the ability to draw in three dimensions while the view remains static)

EDIT : Sorry the video is really awkward. I see now I should have used transformation without gizmo which gives much more control. I hope someone will do just that to demonstrate the capabilities better.

 

Edited May 30, 2021 by Silas Merlin

[sprayer]

5 hours ago, Andrew Shpagin said:

5. I will buy a 4K monitor soon just to improve the experience in 4K.

Take 43" on small monitor with hiDPI not visible some problems with fonts.

And would be great to move windows out of main window

Edited May 30, 2021 by sprayer

[Andrew Shpagin]

30.05.21 B50

- New style of transform gizmo (more compact).

- Transform tool is now near the select tool in retopo/modeling rooms. It is similar to select but intended for the immediate transform after the selection.

- Curves tool got improvement - red points hidden by default, appearing only when the cursor is close. You may turn on visibility as before if need (checkbox). Curves may be transformed gizmoless (3dconnexion and gizmoless controls).

- Scripts are working correctly with the VoxTree RMB menu.

- VoxClay restored (possibly temporary), fixed strange additional layer over the surface, Voxel brush engine polished.

- Essential reduction of MCLP files (pen's alphas). But previous versions of 3D-Coat will not be able to read newly created MCLP-s.

- Both - old and new 3DConnexion approaches supported. With both approaches, you may transform objects. But old one may lead to lower FPS/lags if wireless devices used - mouse, keyboard, pen. It does not happen always, but this is the driver's problem, so can't be avoided. A new approach may not be used on older devices. So use what works better for you.

- Brush jittering in stamp mode fixed.

- Transform mode (usually triggered by 'N') may be used not only with the 3D-Connexion device but with the regular navigation as well. Press 'N' then navigate and look at how the object transforms. This is optional, may be turned off. Using icons/navigation zone leads to navigation in any case.

- Curves polished a lot.

[Carlosan]

7 minutes ago, sprayer said:

And would be great to move windows out of main window

+10000000

0000454: Detach windows from 3DC main window (2012 request)

I would like to profit more of my two monitors.

A wish is to be able to detach/seperate single windows outside of 3D Coats main application window. See my attachment for an example.

This feature would be great. Or is it already possible and I haven't seen it?

 

[sprayer]

To me clay engine still jittering and blinking

Edited May 30, 2021 by sprayer

[Elemeno]

still getting out of memory ?

nothing I do works...

I have plenty of memory and pagefile memory 

any ideas anyone?

[Carlosan]

Hi,

Use Help menu to send file to 3DC support to take a look.

Thx !

[Silas Merlin]

looking into unwrapping, nothing seems to have changed in 2021 in that respect ?

UV room and Retopo room are still separate.

Right click menu is still useless and extremely annoying, moreover it seems you can now drag the commands in it (without intending to), so next itme you open it it way be completely reordered...

Retopo room still does not have the cluster tool which would be useful for working with very high poly meshes to unwrap, it works so well in combination with uv path.

Placing a cluster is still as difficult: The tool will mark a seam instead if you do not carefully place cursor at the center of a polygon. It is a problem because the reason to use clusters in the first place (I think) is that you are dealing with a large mesh and the regular tools "mark seams" and "edge loops" are just too laggy to be of any practical use (with a large mesh).

once a cluster has been placed, the dot is still hidden under the mesh, making it impossible to see where you placed it, without hiding the retopo layer.

It is still impossible to remove a cluster by clicking on it again despite what the tooltip says.

There is still no uv preview for clusters or hybrid cluster + seams

Mark seams and edge loops tool will still select polygons when you click at the center of a polygon by mistake. why ?

in UV room the above "method" still seems to be the only way to select part of the mesh, but it is so random, how to use it ? why has there never been a  proper select tool in the UV room ?

In Retopo room, when I select polygons with the select tool, I still have to switch to another tool (edge loops or mark seams) to get the relevant "Invert selection" tool, and the "clear selected" tool is hidden at the bottom of the "selected" section of the left tool bar with a different icon from the simple cross of "Clear" which does appear at the top along with "invert" when a uv tool is active.

Ok so now you want to say, "but, but, some of those things are conveniently placed in the right click menu ?"
the thing is that I don't want to have anything to do with that right click menu because it is so annoying, it appears so often when I don't want it at all, I am trying to do something esle. which should be easy to understand, since so many of the retopo tools rely heavily on right click ??!

right clicking on a vertex with "points to polygons" tool, still snaps the vertex to the mesh in "on plane" mode,  when "auto snap" is turned off.

"on plane" still relies heavily on RMB. could someone at last please explain how we are supposed to use "on plane" under these conditions ? I could never quite figure it out. It sort of works in a predictable way with add/split tool. I guess it is a bit redundant now that there is a proper modeling room with dedicated tool, but still, I'd like to know. Thank you.

EDIT : this is testing with B49, I did not see the new B50 until just now, and eager to test it with old 3dConnexion approach, thank you so much.

Edited May 30, 2021 by Silas Merlin

[Elemeno]

is there not a directx version?

[Andrew Shpagin]

6 hours ago, sprayer said:

To me clay engine still jittering and blinking

Please show what tools exactly. On my tests it works well.

[gbball]

@Andrew Shpagin 

A few suggestions

1. In select mode (retopo/modeling) can we get the option to automatically drop the previous selection when selecting something new?  Also, I found that using the marquee tools for selection is really similar to Maya/Blender...where you can marquee select an open area to drop the current selection which is nice.  

2. Now that we have Trace mode and it works with all the boolean functions, can we get a something similar to voxhide where we can use primitive objects or simple voxel layers or models as realtime boolean objects for a non-destructive boolean workflow?

3.  I'm not sure if it's intentional, but being able to work with the points/faces tool in the sculpt room feels very liberating...I've suggested in the past changing the sculptree into a proper outliner, but perhaps you can leave it as is and then add an outliner as an additional window.  Something that will allow us to manage all the different object types in one place.  Voxel/Surface Sculpts, Curves and Poly Objects and then have some of the tools associated with the object type selected available. 

[Carlosan]

@Elemeno Is OpenGL only

[Silas Merlin]

now I am able to use my Spacenavigator for navigation using the old API, however, it did not work "out of the box".
for some strange reason, tweaking the horizontal pan modulator just wouldn't work (horizontal pan would work on a direction that was fixed in 3d space, not relative to the position of the camera).... Until I decided to try to disable that direction altogether.
to do that, I set "horizontal Pan Modulator" to Zero.
of course, 3d-Coat did not accept zero as a value. well, it appeared to, until I reopened preferences and it showed the value as 1.
This seemed to reset something that was wrong.

Bottom line, now it works. Too bad I did not find this workaround at the time the beta started.

However, I have a new problem

when I press N, everything is inversed. left is right, right is left, up is down, same for rotation, etc

would it be possible to have an additional checkbox for "invert 3d mouse" just for the N object manipulation mode ? Thank you.
 

[Andrew Shpagin]

9 hours ago, Silas Merlin said:

now I am able to use my Spacenavigator for navigation using the old API, however, it did not work "out of the box".
for some strange reason, tweaking the horizontal pan modulator just wouldn't work (horizontal pan would work on a direction that was fixed in 3d space, not relative to the position of the camera).... Until I decided to try to disable that direction altogether.
to do that, I set "horizontal Pan Modulator" to Zero.
of course, 3d-Coat did not accept zero as a value. well, it appeared to, until I reopened preferences and it showed the value as 1.
This seemed to reset something that was wrong.

Bottom line, now it works. Too bad I did not find this workaround at the time the beta started.

However, I have a new problem

when I press N, everything is inversed. left is right, right is left, up is down, same for rotation, etc

would it be possible to have an additional checkbox for "invert 3d mouse" just for the N object manipulation mode ? Thank you.
 

So, do I understand right:

1) Place some object in the scene (default head)

2) Try to rotate the controller clockwise.

3) The scene will rotate clockwise.

4) Press N. Object rotates counter-clockwise (in your case) but should rotate clockwise.

 

Of course, expected that both - scene and (after 'N') object will rotate clockwise.

[sprayer]

11 hours ago, Andrew Shpagin said:

Please show what tools exactly. On my tests it works well.

Here video

[kritskiy]

19 hours ago, Andrew Shpagin said:

30.05.21 B50

- Scripts are working correctly with the VoxTree RMB menu.

Thank you for the fix! Unfortunately not everything is working: for example I was subtracting with this command in 4.9:

cmd("$SubtractFrom_VolumeName")

but nothing happens when I use it in the 2021.

I also decided to randomly try Vox.subtractFrom('VolumeName'); — and surprisingly this worked in v4.9.72, but not in the 2021.b50

Vox is a very interesting class but I can't find full documentation on it: does it exist somewhere?

Edited May 31, 2021 by kritskiy

[Silas Merlin]

4 hours ago, Andrew Shpagin said:

So, do I understand right:

1) Place some object in the scene (default head)

2) Try to rotate the controller clockwise.

3) The scene will rotate clockwise.

4) Press N. Object rotates counter-clockwise (in your case) but should rotate clockwise.

 

Of course, expected that both - scene and (after 'N') object will rotate clockwise.

yes but it's not just rotation : move up is move down and move left is move right, etc...

 

[Andrew Shpagin]

2 hours ago, Silas Merlin said:

yes but it's not just rotation : move up is move down and move left is move right, etc...

 

Do you have "Rotate around current pick point"?

 

[Silas Merlin]

11 minutes ago, Andrew Shpagin said:

Do you have "Rotate around current pick point"?

 

Yes.
Here in video :
-Ears vox layer selected
-showing rotation mode around pick point
-I move left with 3d mouse
-while moving left I press N : you see the ears move towards the right
-I press N again and camera resumes moving towards the left
 

[kt2]

On 5/30/2021 at 2:28 PM, Andrew Shpagin said:

3DConnexion approaches supported. With both approaches, you may transform objects. But old one may lead to lower FPS/lags if wireless devices used - mouse, keyboard, pen. It does not happen always, but this is the driver's problem, so can't be avoided. A new approach may not be used on older devices. So use what works better for you.

Thank you for leaving the old API option as an alternative in B50!

Although the new API can be mastered (just as one re-learns how to drive when in a new car), the old one still feels more reliable in certain parts of the workflow. It's good to be able to access either of the two modes within the same application.

The [N] key 3D mouse transformation in Pose tool does not work correctly with the old API at the moment but I guess one can't have it all.

Edited May 31, 2021 by kt2

[kt2]

 

[reptilebeats]

I would love to see a smooth mesh preview option in retopo mode, mirror only selected faces and also the ability to mask polys or verts from snapping to the surface would be great

 

[Silas Merlin]

Testing the "rotate around camera origin" in B50 with the same scene I tested the feature when it came out on 4.9
FPS seems much more steady, and the navigation works just fine.
 

Scene is made of 34,865,199 triangles with vertex colours. Note steady 59 FPS bottom left of screen :
It feels a lot more steady than in 4.9. I tested navigation in this same scene last year in 4.9 : https://youtu.be/2ErcYvJUCfo

[Yousung]

First of all, I would like to thank the developers who have been working hard to develop and fix the program.
- New curve tool features....
- Fantastic combination of Pose Tool and Transform without gizmo....
I've been enjoying learning since I started 3DCoat at the end of last year

Of course, I do feel some discomfort while using it.
One of them is the numerical adjustment of parameters.

Can you add a function to fine-tune the parameters of the tools?

When I use the tool, I am faced with a situation that changes too rapidly when controlling the numbers.

Although it can be adjusted with Spacebar or direct numerical input
It feels inconvenient to enter the numerical value every time until the desired result is obtained.

Attached here is an image of parameter adjustment in 3dsmax for example.


( watch the mouse movement ! )

You can adjust the intensity of numerical change by using Ctrl and Alt.

If such a function is added, I think it will be much easier and faster to find the desired result than now.

Thank you.

[philnolan3d]

I can agree with that. Like in LightWave the more you drag on the mini-slider the faster the numbers go. So when you first start you get fine precision but then you can go faster if you need to.

[Elemeno]

opengl constantly crashes.. will final release have a dx version?

also not sure if its a bug but if i do a fresh install it works perfect... but if i close and reopen i get the "out of memory" message and crashes

this is something alot of people got in the past as well...  cant find a fix for it

[Andrew Shpagin]

9 hours ago, Yousung said:

First of all, I would like to thank the developers who have been working hard to develop and fix the program.
- New curve tool features....
- Fantastic combination of Pose Tool and Transform without gizmo....
I've been enjoying learning since I started 3DCoat at the end of last year

Of course, I do feel some discomfort while using it.
One of them is the numerical adjustment of parameters.

Can you add a function to fine-tune the parameters of the tools?

When I use the tool, I am faced with a situation that changes too rapidly when controlling the numbers.

Although it can be adjusted with Spacebar or direct numerical input
It feels inconvenient to enter the numerical value every time until the desired result is obtained.

Attached here is an image of parameter adjustment in 3dsmax for example.


( watch the mouse movement ! )

You can adjust the intensity of numerical change by using Ctrl and Alt.

If such a function is added, I think it will be much easier and faster to find the desired result than now.

Thank you.

Almost anything may be controlled numerically using SPACE button. Drag some gizmo element and press SPACE.