Member Redbeer Posted June 11, 2009 Member Report Share Posted June 11, 2009 First of all, I'd like to say that this is a great program. One of the coolest new programs I've purchased in the last 5 years. You've done a really excellent job on this program Andrew! Having used the Alpha for a few months (and I just purchased the upgrade to 3.0 today), I've thought of a few ideas for additions to existing tools, and some "new" stuff as well. 1) In the voxel primitives, I'd like to see an adjustable revolution "range" for the circle/curve based primitives (sphere, capsule, cone, cylinder, ngon, gear (and maybe ellipse too). What I mean is, I want the ability to limit the total angle that these primitives are swept out at, so, as an example, if I choose a sphere, I can adjust the amount of revolution angle to make a "wedge cutout" of the sphere quickly and automatically, (envision a 3D Pac-Man shape). I'd also like to see the addition of a torus with a similar "partial rotation" adjustment before I commit to the voxels. The torus would help with creation of non closed earings, chain links, etc. Seems like some options that shouldn't be overly difficult to add, but add a lot of utility to the primitives if you want to start in 3DCoat from scratch. Assembling/adding stuff with voxel primitives is actually a big reason I bought into the program. I realize some of this can be accomplished with booleans, screen based cutouts, importing geometry, etc., but it would be a lot easier and more flexible (while also more precise) to just change a number or a slider for "angle of sweep rotation". 2) For a new feature, since we have cloth, why not a quick "fluid" simulation? I realize that fluids can be tedious and computation intensive, but even just something to get a "starting point" for water splashing over or into an object might be kind of cool. I'm thinking of something where I could pour voxels over an object and stop the simulation at a certain point, then sculpt in the higher level details. Would be nice for wave scenes, mud on a surface, heavy rain, etc. Even something where I could pour voxels into a "box" and stop the simulation on a particular "wave" of fluid, then delete what I don't need/sculpt details into what I want to keep. Or something where I can drop an object "into" a fluid box, and capture a snapshot of the splashes. This could also be configured as a softbody tool, where I could configure the voxels to "stick together" (raise the viscosity/internal friction), and get a ball to fall and turn flat on a hard surface, without falling apart. It would probably save a lot of sculpting to make natural looking rock deformations and a multitude of other things. This is certainly a feature that none of the existing hi-res sculpting/modeling packages have. It might be a neat selling/marketing point as well if you can pull it off well. 3) Some sort of "noise" modifiers for voxel surfaces. For instance, say I want to create a relatively flat cube (like a terrain, but it has more use than that), but I want to quickly create some "random noise" (perlin, fractal, simplex, wavelet) on a particular portion of a voxel surface without having to brush/draw it on the voxel surface. Make it box/lasso selectable for the area you want to affect, then an interactive representation of the changes to the surface as I "dial it in". I realize I can import an alpha and draw it, but I'd like some numerical/slider configurations in the voxel room, on the fly, so I can make visual adjustments as I go. It would open up a lot of potential for strange artistic affects in addition to making the voxel ---> quadrangulate feature a decent terrain generator. 4) Macros/scripting. It would be nice to be able to save repetitive operations into a macro, or even better, get some access to the tools and/or mesh/voxel operation internals with scripting (python or something, it doesn't much matter to me, as once you learn "to script" it's just different syntax). This way I could write my own tools and functions. Just some ideas for point updates and or Version 4. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Stanley Posted June 11, 2009 Member Report Share Posted June 11, 2009 Those are all thoughtful and reasonable suggestions for 3D-Coat's development, Redbeer! Those refinements would certainly be great additions to the program. Maxon Cinema 4D's simple, clean method for adjusting primitives seems to be a suitable interface design to emulate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Redbeer Posted June 12, 2009 Author Member Report Share Posted June 12, 2009 Those are all thoughtful and reasonable suggestions for 3D-Coat's development, Redbeer! Those refinements would certainly be great additions to the program.Maxon Cinema 4D's simple, clean method for adjusting primitives seems to be a suitable interface design to emulate. Thanks. This brings up a good point too, automatic and radius/offset adjustable chamfer and/or fillet on the box/cube, and the end caps for the ngon, cylinder, tube, and gear would be a nice addition as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Stanley Posted June 12, 2009 Member Report Share Posted June 12, 2009 Your concept about pouring voxels and sloshing the syrupy mixture about is brilliant. The inventive modeling applications for dribbling and splattering the liquid over a surface would be limitless. 3D-Coat's fast and inviting voxel mechanism is perhaps the program's most significant innovation, and your insightful suggestions would help extend its competitive advantage. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member kay_Eva Posted June 13, 2009 Advanced Member Report Share Posted June 13, 2009 yeah voxels can be used for much more than sculpting, like modeling for instance and the things you suggest here =) maybe Andrew will increase voxel capability in the future Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member Roger_K Posted June 14, 2009 Advanced Member Report Share Posted June 14, 2009 Yeah Simulation of fluids would be nice indeed especially since everything is in voxels allready. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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