Modeling Room - Next Steps

[Oleg Shapov]

12 hours ago, Britain said:

Next question is can you make the vertices bigger? 

I don't understand what you mean.

[Britain]

10 hours ago, Oleg Shapov said:

I don't understand what you mean.

The visual size vertices are really small. When clicked on they are barely notable unless you change mesh color. In Blenders preferences/viewport you can change the size and even color (and can do so also with edges). This makes them easier to see in complex scenes.  Another question but it pertains to other rooms. Is there a list of 3dcoats assigned keyboard commands. I know you can remap the hotkeys.

Thanks

[Oleg Shapov]

16 hours ago, Britain said:

The visual size vertices are really small

Looks like a feature request. Passed on to developers.

[Grakino]

I made my another video about modeling room. This one is the longest (1,5 hour) i made, because I had a lot to talk about it. In this video i made a modeling review, talk about my experience, about modeling problems, made some feature and bug request and offered some solutions to the modeling problems.

I hope that the developers will see it, and that they will have the patience to watch it to the end . But most important I hope that this video will be useful and lead to positive changes in the 3DCoat modeling process, and i didn't waste a couple days to prepare it .

I put a link to my mega drive.

https://mega.nz/file/lOt3FKjR#B5zvzSXMxj0t9B_mIuyj2GZfoGoq92ZgTsRIXEvc2g4

I also mention you that I previously made a video about retopo/modeling where I also talked about some of their problems. I post it in Bugs topic but i also put link here.

Retopo/modeling discussion start at 12:25 minute.

https://mega.nz/file/lL8jDLSL#pkyz0o6sP1ix8UpzDhrxZGmukO0UsOFOJxBnt4zBdFU

[Gorbatovsky]

4 hours ago, Grakino said:

I made my another video about modeling room.

Thank you very much for the work done.
I really liked that you compare the work of Koat and Maya.
Your work is very relevant for us. Because I have to do some polishing of the Modeling room before our release in 2025.
I read your message at night at 4-30.
I will watch the video several times. Then we will talk again.

Have a nice day.
I wish you creative success.

[Sal_GC]

This is a copy of a post I made in a 3DC Discord. I wanted to post it here to keep the discussion fresh. I really want the modelling room to improve as much as it can. Hope this helps.

Despite the Modeling Room being relatively young it could, if fully realized, bring much more versatility to Coat. Making, in many cases, the 1 app mostly (or even completely) workflow a possibility. Regarding the Modeling Room I would like to suggest:

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1. Increased functionality of polygroup panel. Being able to make groupings and multiple polygroup selections would help in making more complex objects/scenes. Also toggling selectability could really help.

2. Object Outlines for general transforms per polygroup. Rather than transforming sub objects in polygroups this would imply also being able to select polygroups in the viewport directly, as a whole, having the outlines help indicate such selection.

3. Rotate multiple selections at individual origins.  Just like the scale tool from the Selected tool group, scaling each selected polygroup/island individually , being able to axially rotate multiple selections at their individual origins rather than an average center point would also be of much use.

4. Increase the bevel size using mouse drag + modifier key (or even without gizmo). Beveling is one of the most common tasks in  poly modeling, and making it as streamlined as possible would make the modeling process much smoother. Currently, using the mouse wheel to increase  Qty of segments is great, very useful. However, one must go for the gizmo to manipulate size. Pairing a mouse drag  + modifier key to handle this would help a lot.

5. Increase number of split rings dynamically. I find the way the split rings tool work very handy, allowing to place a cut precisely were wanted. It would improve it's functionality much more if one could increase the amount of splits just like the bevel tool, via mouse scroll. Using ALT + mouse scroll could produce this effect.

6. Being able to turn curves into naked edges. As @Evil_Weasel  pointed out, I believe Coat doesn't do standalone verts/edges. This would imply a more substantial change for Coat, but definitely is would be very welcome.

7. Customizable QuickAccess panels (also useful in the Sculpt Room). Being able to make custom panels invoked by spacebar could personalize/speed a lot of the workflow during modelling.  Having access to multiple of these, already customized, could help segment the workflow as well. Not only tooling in the QuickAccess panels would be customizable  but dimensions as well (I have seen Rygard's video about it and  having this function built in Coat would be preferable).

8. Reduced amount of E-panel modes for the Modeling Room. As far as I have been using and getting to know the modeling room, I have not found much use for pressure sensitive drawing modes. Perhaps if they were repurposed, like for some sort of soft-selection, having the radius of selection depend on pressure, they could be used in the room. But as of now, it doesn't seem clear as to how they would be needed there (the smoothing command with shift also seems odd for the room). Tools like select could very well function only with 2 or 3 modes, that could conveniently be switched on the fly with user-defined/modifier keys combo.

9. Allow translation in 2 axes with transform gizmo.  Most software have in their gizmos indications for translation of an object in any 2 axes, usually a  small plane perpendicular to the omitted axis. In Coat's gizmo this produces scaling along that plane. I think this is perfectly fine, no problem with being different. Yet, adding the translation functionality would not hurt. Pairing drag + modifier key could be used to this end.  I did manage to translate along a plane in one move, but by mere accident after rapidly pressing X, Z. Both methods could very well coexist.

 

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This is what I have come across during my time working in the room. These suggestions go in hand with what others have mentioned before. Maybe I am ignoring some tools or commands and hence place them here as suggestions, if so, my bad.  I would love to help code these myself but I am not currently that experienced at C++. If I understand well, perhaps the new Python API can allow to create some scripts that could help in these tasks.  I will surely try my hand at it.

I will be doing some video tutorials on 3DC this upcoming year. I just wanted to see how many things mange to get polished for the 3DC 2025 release. Thank your for your work @Gorbatovsky. I am hoping to see the "Solids" room update soon. It will give so much power to designers. Cheers!
 

[Gorbatovsky]

On 10/11/2024 at 7:24 AM, Sal_GC said:

6. Being able to turn curves into naked edges.

It's not clear. Please explain in more detail.

[Sal_GC]

@Gorbatovsky Yeah sure. That is, to be able to extrude a single vertex and produce an edge, with no face attached to it. By connecting many of this edges one can produce silhouettes that can later extrude. Useful for creating perimeters among other cases. They have many uses. 

[Gorbatovsky]

6 hours ago, Sal_GC said:

That is, to be able to extrude a single vertex and produce an edge

Thank.
Why extrude one vertex and create an edge when you can build a polyline or spline?

[Caron]

The same with their respective counterparts in the Voxel space.

[Sal_GC]

Sorry for the late response @Gorbatovsky. 
Polyline? I am perhaps missing on this feature. On the other hand the extrude naked edges feature allows fine control in creating certain shapes. For example, if one would want to trace a certain profile, with explicit control over the amount of edges and vertices produced, this would very much help. I will go have a look at the Polyline and Spline you mention.

On the topic of creating edges, is it possible to convert a straight curve object to edges? I believe this wasn't possible some time ago.

 

[Grakino]

Hi, i just wanna say, in my video i complained about edge auto-select when you deleted faces and just now i accidentally found this. What a shame .   I take back what I said about it. Minus one problem, i guess .

Edited October 28, 2024 by Grakino

[Oleg Shapov]

2 hours ago, Grakino said:

Minus one problem, i guess

I forgot about it too. And I think that this setting has no place there.

[Gorbatovsky]

On 10/7/2024 at 11:43 PM, Grakino said:

I made my another video about modeling room.

I also made little video. Thank you.

 

[Grakino]

Hi!

I had some free time, so I made a video about modeling and a little bit of retopo rooms. This one turned out to be quite long, just under 3 hours . I wasn't expecting such a long video, but I felt like I had to finish what I started, otherwise I would have been thinking about it as unfinished business all the time.

This time I published the material as a private YouTube video and added time-codes for easy navigation.

This is the last video about retopo/modeling, I don't want to come back to this topic anymore, I want to move on and complete my character while I have free time. I'm doing all this because I want to help make 3DCoat better, and I hope I won't regret the time I've spent. I hope this helps.

Next up is UV, let's see what awaits me there. But first a bit of sleep ) .

[Sal_GC]

Hi everyone,

I was trying to rotate a primitive I had slightly modified in the modelling room. I see in the transform tool there are 3 textboxes to input the coordinates (or reset them to 0) for the object. However I don't see an equivalent for rotation. So, besides estimating by hand what would be 0 degrees in all axes, is there a way of resetting an object/polygroup's rotation to 0? Thanks! 

[Oleg Shapov]

34 minutes ago, Sal_GC said:

So, besides estimating by hand what would be 0 degrees in all axes, is there a way of resetting an object/polygroup's rotation to 0?

Hello! No, there is no other way except Reset Axes.

[Sal_GC]

Oh! Thanks for the heads-up.
I am planning on making a series of videos of working inside of 3D Coat, approaching the modeling tools as much as possible, and for this purpose I find it best to map the tools and make use of sticky keys as well as of stacked keys. However, there seems to be a bug with reassigning certain keyboard shortcuts. I have not been successful in permanently deleting the 'S' shortcut for symmetry. I do manage to delete it with backspace once, then reassign it to  a preset, just for it to later self reassign itself again to symmetry. It is as if the default values could not be changed. However, it doesn't happen with all tools,  I could reassign 1-3 keys for vertex edge, face selection mode respectively, however, the 'S' key keeps reverting to symmetry. I even went room by room changing it there but didn't work either. 

I understood the keyboard shortcuts can be room specific. Meaning I could change the 'S' shortcut for symmetry just in the modelling room and leave it there for others, however I keeps reverting my changes. I have also saved a keyboard shortcut file, yet the changes don't persist. I am using 2024.31, is this a known bug in other versions? 

Thanks! 

[Oleg Shapov]

30 minutes ago, Sal_GC said:

I am using 2024.31, is this a known bug in other versions? 

It's programmed that way. But I'll pass your wishes on to the developers. Thank you!

[Sal_GC]

So, if I understood well, does this mean this one keyboard shortcut of 'S' for symmetry cannot be changed, or is it just not working well in 2024.31? As of now, it seems like the only keyboard shortcut I cannot reassign successfully. 

[Oleg Shapov]

2 hours ago, Sal_GC said:

As of now, it seems like the only keyboard shortcut I cannot reassign successfully.

Please use other keys until I get a response from the developer.

[Carlosan]

Gorbatovsky said

We are switching to the new Parasolid core.

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Parasolid is a geometric modeling kernel. 
A geometric modeling kernel is a solid modeling software component used in computer-aided design (CAD) packages.