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4 hours ago, AbnRanger said:

Replacing all the icons and adding Tool Groups is no small deal. Remember how drastically changed (or lack thereof) Maya and Max's refresh a few years ago, or what about ZBrush's UI? They probably made some small changes for the past 5 years or so, but it is largely the same UI. 

Obviously, it's not easy making core structural changes and thus cosmetic changes are about all that can be done, many times. There was already so much to be done that trying to restructure the core UI in time for this major release, probably just wasn't doable. I think there will be some changes to the layers and perhaps some other UI elements, coming in the near future, so this is probably not all.

Is the material node system in the B55 yet? I can't find it. Is it only going to  appear in the full V5 (2021)?

As for changing the interface radically, this is a dilemma for any program; you have the long term users that have learned the ins and outs of the program over the years, your faithful base, and they don't want the trouble of relearning a new interface which can consume a lot of time and then you have new users baffled by the arcane logic of the program. You 're going to go with the long term faithful userbase if you know what's good for you.

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3 hours ago, L'Ancien Regime said:

Is the material node system in the B55 yet? I can't find it. Is it only going to appear in the full V5 (2021)?

As for changing the interface radically, this is a dilemma for any program; you have the long term users that have learned the ins and outs of the program over the years, your faithful base, and they don't want the trouble of relearning a new interface which can consume a lot of time and then you have new users baffled by the arcane logic of the program. You 're going to go with the long term faithful userbase if you know what's good for you.

The node system is included in the beta version.
https://3dcoat.com/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=general:sculpt_workspace:shaders&s[]=node

But there is no information on how to use it.
I've looked through the documentation, but I can't figure out how to use it.

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17 hours ago, Yousung said:

The node system is included in the beta version.
https://3dcoat.com/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=general:sculpt_workspace:shaders&s[]=node

But there is no information on how to use it.
I've looked through the documentation, but I can't figure out how to use it.

I may be wrong here but that link you posted was to a shader generator for the sculpt room , like red wax, or car paint or a lambert, a blinn. The new Node system is apparently a competitor to Allegorethmic Substance Designer that generates complex textures parametrically...that's what I'm taking from all the talk about nodes. But it somewhat confusing at this point. Maybe Carlosan or AbnRanger can set me straight on this.

 

 

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6 hours ago, L'Ancien Regime said:

I may be wrong here but that link you posted was to a shader generator for the sculpt room , like red wax, or car paint or a lambert, a blinn. The new Node system is apparently a competitor to Allegorethmic Substance Designer that generates complex textures parametrically...that's what I'm taking from all the talk about nodes. But it somewhat confusing at this point. Maybe Carlosan or AbnRanger can set me straight on this.

 

 

Andrew hasn't given me any information about it, so I am just as uninformed as anyone, regarding this.

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3 hours ago, AbnRanger said:

Andrew hasn't given me any information about it, so I am just as uninformed as anyone, regarding this.

Well that may be good news then; if you don't know what the ultimate form of 3D Coat 5 will be then perhaps we will be getting a new heretofore unseen interface too. The literature says we're getting a Substance Designer style parametric texture generator and a new interface. Here's hoping...

And a Substance Designer style of parametric texture generator will be well worth whatever extra money we have to pay to extend our licenses ...

Edited by L'Ancien Regime
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10 hours ago, L'Ancien Regime said:

Well that may be good news then; if you don't know what the ultimate form of 3D Coat 5 will be then perhaps we will be getting a new heretofore unseen interface too. The literature says we're getting a Substance Designer style parametric texture generator and a new interface. Here's hoping...

And a Substance Designer style of parametric texture generator will be well worth whatever extra money we have to pay to extend our licenses ...

Definitely depends on workflow, but I am in agreement with you if the workflow is good. 3DC has always been missing good procedural options, especially for masking and texturing. Substance Designer/Painter is pretty much the gold standard right now for the procedural aspect. I hope Andrew and the team have considered making an equivalent of the substances themselves (advanced smart materials) which can have their own set of sliders or functions attached. Call it "Coats". If "Coats" could be made in 3DC, and used in other software like Blender or Unreal, that would be a huge help in driving 3DC adoption.

If used alongside sculpting via sculpting layers, then it adds a unique approach to sculpting that even Zbrush does not have. Imagine "coats" for voxel modeling and or tied to a brush (coat brush)? Lots of potential to market the hell out of that.

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3 hours ago, RabenWulf said:

Definitely depends on workflow, but I am in agreement with you if the workflow is good. 3DC has always been missing good procedural options, especially for masking and texturing. Substance Designer/Painter is pretty much the gold standard right now for the procedural aspect. I hope Andrew and the team have considered making an equivalent of the substances themselves (advanced smart materials) which can have their own set of sliders or functions attached. Call it "Coats". If "Coats" could be made in 3DC, and used in other software like Blender or Unreal, that would be a huge help in driving 3DC adoption.

If used alongside sculpting via sculpting layers, then it adds a unique approach to sculpting that even Zbrush does not have. Imagine "coats" for voxel modeling and or tied to a brush (coat brush)? Lots of potential to market the hell out of that.

yeah IOW sculpting with straight up displacement maps generated in a compositing laboratory.  3D Coat is already half way there with the 3d sculpting in the paint room as you directly paint with normal maps. Real time sculpting with textures and displacement maps generated in a node texture workspace would be pretty cool...

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15 hours ago, L'Ancien Regime said:

Well that may be good news then; if you don't know what the ultimate form of 3D Coat 5 will be then perhaps we will be getting a new heretofore unseen interface too. The literature says we're getting a Substance Designer style parametric texture generator and a new interface. Here's hoping...

And a Substance Designer style of parametric texture generator will be well worth whatever extra money we have to pay to extend our licenses ...

It's my understanding that the Nodes system will be an available addon, rather than a direct feature. I guess this makes sense if it is indeed an alternative to Substance Designer, which not every user needs...so instead of increasing the price of 3DCoat/Textura for everyone, only those who want and need this functionality can add it on, like a C4D module (not sure if they are still doing that or not).

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Texture artist don't need parametric textures and masking options?
It would be a mistake for an important part of that pipeline to be hidden behind an addon. If he does indeed go that route, I might as well not bother upgrading to begin with.

1st party Addons also have a habit of being neglected.

Edited by RabenWulf
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47 minutes ago, RabenWulf said:

Texture artist don't need parametric textures and masking options?
It would be a mistake for an important part of that pipeline to be hidden behind an addon. If he does indeed go that route, I might as well not bother upgrading to begin with.

1st party Addons also have a habit of being neglected.

I am just speculating, but it seems they are using the nodes as a direct competitor to Substance Designer, but rather than in a separate app, it's a separate addon. Nothing wrong with that decision. They might change their mind, but I presume that was their plan, and I cannot blame them. 

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8 hours ago, AbnRanger said:

I am just speculating, but it seems they are using the nodes as a direct competitor to Substance Designer, but rather than in a separate app, it's a separate addon. Nothing wrong with that decision. They might change their mind, but I presume that was their plan, and I cannot blame them. 

One thing that should be remembered that 3D Coat is no longer just a one man operation. Andrew has taken on other talented workers and has a payroll to meet.  If long term license holders are charged an extra $100 for V5 or 2021 whatever it's called that's reasonable.

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I would find that decision wrong, as it does not appear to take into consideration why Designer and Painter are separate in the first place. Designer started off as a much older piece of software known as "MaPZone". In one meeting, some of the Designer users asked why they could not have texture painting (Painter) in Designer, and the developers essentially said that it was not built to really be a direct texture painting application. There were some technical hurdles they would have to over come, and it would better to start from scratch in order to get the ideal substance Painting workflow. This is clearly not the case for Pilgway if they were able to make nodes as a 3DC addon. Where Designer was not a painting application from the start, 3DC was.


mapzone_interface02.png

In short, if 3DC node/parametric texturing is an addon, it means that it can already work within the 3DC's framework as a normal feature. If Pilgway wanted it to be separate, it would have been far smarter to just have it as a stand alone application. The only way I could see an addon being acceptable in this particular case, is if it were for Blender, Maya, 3DS Max...etc rather than just 3DC by itself.

As for the payroll subject, its tough. The key is to increase user base, which in turn generates more revenue in the long run. Higher prices or pay-walled features creates lower accessibility, and thus a smaller user base. This is especially true when the market is already saturated with options. If Pilgway could afford to it, I would personally suggest they make their software as cheap and as accessible as possible, just to grow their user base. Focus on growth, much in the same way Epic is doing now with their free software and games, and where Zbrush was with their pricing/no cost upgrades back in the day (though they did not have a saturated market to compete in). Once the user base grows exponentially and a strong foundation is built around those users, begin to increase pricing or offer those pay walls. The larger user base carries with it its own momentum. Higher quantity at lower prices can result in higher profit than lower quantity at higher prices, but the returns are usually slow to start at first. Imo it is critical that 3DC focus on growth (user base), as that is what gives the most sustainable revenue in the long run.

 

Edited by RabenWulf
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7 hours ago, L'Ancien Regime said:

Thanks. That's great. Now all I have to do is figure out how to use those nodes.

Yes it's not very intuitive and with some bugs you have to close and apply shader again to see result. You need to start from MaterialIO this is main slots for example albedo it's for color input. Again if you do not see result or model is invisible it's a bug

here starting point

k8ZwMUU.jpg

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3 hours ago, sprayer said:

Yes it's not very intuitive and with some bugs you have to close and apply shader again to see result. You need to start from MaterialIO this is main slots for example albedo it's for color input. Again if you do not see result or model is invisible it's a bug

here starting point

k8ZwMUU.jpg

Thanks for this. What's your assessment of it? Is it a viable technique in the finished texture mapping or is it just a shader generator for use in the sculpt room?

Edited by L'Ancien Regime
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@L'Ancien Regime I am not sure, still testing. Sadly there is no any docs and description to nodes. And it's not polished i think, for example node from texture, you may notice it's inserted in invisible mark(Sampler2d). Would be logical to make one node for all MaterialIO like final node 
But you already may achieve interesting result with procedural maps. 

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2 hours ago, sprayer said:

@L'Ancien Regime I am not sure, still testing. Sadly there is no any docs and description to nodes. And it's not polished i think, for example node from texture, you may notice it's inserted in invisible mark(Sampler2d). Would be logical to make one node for all MaterialIO like final node 
But you already may achieve interesting result with procedural maps. 

No documentation again.

When programmers write code, they tend to insert comments on each segment of code as they work for their own benefit and to help other programmers that will work on it. Surely they could at least just redact all those comments and throw them out there on a PDF so that the intentions the programmer could be made clear to the ultimate users? 
Houdini's documentation is the very paradigm of how this should be done.

https://www.sidefx.com/docs/houdini/

Just go through this even if you never want to use Houdini; it's an encylopedia on computer graphics in general that's highly instructive to the greatest detail.

Then look at how meager the 3D coat documentation is. And no I don't want to pester Digman to tell me what is going on. 

If this node editor is just for making sculpt room shaders that have no value in creating textures for a final render then really it's a waste of their time especially when their lighting system in the sculpt room is really just not up to snuff. 

Edited by L'Ancien Regime
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Which is frustrating as any time you have a new "big" feature, it is the most important thing to not only market but have documentation and tutorials on. This turned out to be a kind of "soft launch" where few probably even know it came out much less what the biggest changes and additions were. I'd like to see 3D Coat succeed but it is dropping the ball on a marketing level. I suppose this is fine if the developers like going at this pace and don't need a boom in sales or interest.

Anyways, I may be wrong, but it looks like the most useful workflow for the nodes so far is to craft "shaders" with depth information, which results in the ability to paint "sculpt" data alongside textures (optional) onto a mesh. With fill layers this can result in a quick surface sculpting/texturing approach.

If I were Pilgway, I would focus on showing that kind of workflow and even continue to refine it in relation to the GUI so that its as easy to use as possible. This would also provide a unique "difference" that it could have over Allego..er Adobe's offerings.
 

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I have some questions and some suggestions about Nodes.  I'm not sure who can answer or if someone can point me in the right direction, but I figured here is a good place to start.

Here are some preliminary thoughts and questions.  I'm going to try to manage the ideas and questions using Clickup.  The link is below.

Nodes
  • What can I do with AVobjects? What do they do?
  • Better color coding or tooltips for various input/output types - I can't tell what is float/int/vector/color/b&w/ect.
  • It is currently unclear what each i/o node is referencing - for example, how does the time node work?
  • The Geometry nodes can be grouped into one node with selectable options
  • The Blend nodes can be grouped into one node with selectable options
  • The Math nodes can be grouped into one node with selectable options
  • Add a blur node to modulate the transition between black and white
  • Undo/Redo support
  • Ability to save and reuse node groups as modular elements selectable from RMB menu
  • Ability to dive in & out of grouped nodes
  • Ability to group nodes into one node.
  • Tweakable parameters for Patterns2D and Patterns3D nodes
  • Drag/Drop auto attachment

https://sharing.clickup.com/42618498/t/h/860q3qdqf/D6M24825PPN47G9

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Thanks Carlosan, but to be honest, this doesn't help much more than the tooltips that exist within the nodes.


I know how to do basic things like use noise as a mask between two colours and the material IO nodes are similar to Substance Designer...but I don't know how to use the Cavity node and I don't know how to use the AVObject nodes.

I was able to look up the functionality of some of the math nodes in an glsl reference, but I can't get the time node working and same thing for the AVObject nodes.

What do I need to do to get something to display?  Does it depend on the context I'm in?  Like Environment Nodes/Shader Nodes/Post Process Nodes? image.png.24c8dc342eb1408acc7736bfbcaa7ac9.png

Also, what is the reason for some inputs/outputs being green and others red?

image.thumb.png.2f0b5bcc4e8a01c9c82732549bcbdfa8.png

Is it just a partial implementation and some nodes don't work properly yet?

I think there needs to be more communication around this feature and the current state of it's implementation.

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Is the nodes capability to remain only for the shaders, or am I missing some way in which I can create and edit smart materials using nodes in the paint room? If it can be used only for shaders, is there any news on developing node access in the paint room? Been following this for 2 years now, hoping it will come to pass.

Been using 3DCoat since it was in beta...2007? 2009? I can't remember. I love it even more than ever. Please do not ever sell this to some giant, evil corporation.

Please let us know if materials node editor will become available.

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