Voxel Moire

[Henry Townshend]

Hey! Not sure if this is the right thread for this, but did not want to pollute the Development Thread.

I have Voxel modeled this guy, and I got a bit stuck wanting to transition into "high poly" phase, meaning creating smooth clean surfaces for baking to a low poly.

However, no matter what I do, I can for the life of me not get rid of the Voxel moire patterns on the forms. I tried:

• increase voxel resolution and smooth, still moire
• switch to surface mode and smooth, still, moire translates to surface mode (Which I did find unexpected)
• smooth out surface in Voxel Mode as is, the moire persists
• use "Smooth All" function at various degrees, repeadetly, moire still there
• tried "recalculate" the surface by increasing or decreasing resolution, moire persists, even when smoothed
• use Voxel "Fill" brush to try to fill moire gaps and smooth afterwards, not very successful and makes surface uneven

My goal was to stay inside 3D Coat to go through the whole pipeline, from high poly to PBR painted low poly. But currently I am stuck because I don't want to bake moire into my low poly normal map.

I know ways to bypass this outside 3D Coat, of course, e.g. I can go to ZBrush and use ZRemesher on the pieces, which gets rid of the moire instantly, giving me a usable high poly.

However, I refuse to believe it is not possible to get a moire free high poly sculpt in 3D Coat and I am close to convinced I must be doing something wrong or not knowing something.

Any help would be largely appreciated.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6wrew56ft9y6pno/BenderMoire.mp4?dl=0

Btw. the same happens here, where I started a quick face sculpt using one of 3D Coats base meshes. The moire is nasty ingrained into the topological structure from the start, and I am a bit baffled how to get rid of it. I always thought this is normal and one has to wait until moving to surface mode to get rid of  these. But I am unable to do so.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/vdo163ll72ljlrs/CoatMoire.mp4?dl=0

[Henry Townshend]

@AbnRanger I'd appreciate your expertise here, any input what I may be doing wrong? I seen amazing hard surface models using Voxels and Surface Mode, never saw any moire on them.

[AbnRanger]

1 hour ago, Henry Townshend said:

@AbnRanger I'd appreciate your expertise here, any input what I may be doing wrong? I seen amazing hard surface models using Voxels and Surface Mode, never saw any moire on them.

Hitting ENTER when a model is in Surface mode, will effectively "Dynamesh" the model and make it evenly spaced. That is what I would have tried, first. As for smoothing, Anti-Bump is like a fine polishing brush, which is available in Surface mode from the SHIFT or CTRL + SHIFT list menus at the top of the UI. SMOOTH ALL in Surface mode should do a good job of smoothing, if you have RELAX checked. If it relaxes some areas you do not want smoothed, you can use the FREEZE brush to brush select those areas, first and then use SMOOTH ALL. It might be good also, to make this issue known to Andrew/Development at support@pilgway.com, so he can take a look at it and try to address this issue.

Do you have a mesh, currently, that you could share one single portion, for me to test and see if I can find a better solution? I don't run into this problem much as hitting the ENTER key will usually make the mesh relatively uniform for sculpting 

[Henry Townshend]

25 minutes ago, AbnRanger said:

Hitting ENTER when a model is in Surface mode, will effectively "Dynamesh" the model and make it evenly spaced. That is what I would have tried, first. As for smoothing, Anti-Bump is like a fine polishing brush, which is available in Surface mode from the SHIFT or CTRL + SHIFT list menus at the top of the UI. SMOOTH ALL in Surface mode should do a good job of smoothing, if you have RELAX checked. If it relaxes some areas you do not want smoothed, you can use the FREEZE brush to brush select those areas, first and then use SMOOTH ALL. It might be good also, to make this issue known to Andrew/Development at support@pilgway.com, so he can take a look at it and try to address this issue.

Do you have a mesh, currently, that you could share one single portion, for me to test and see if I can find a better solution? I don't run into this problem much as hitting the ENTER key will usually make the mesh relatively uniform for sculpting 

@AbnRanger Thanks so much for the quick reply! Appreciated! Pinging @Andrew Shpagin into the conversation.

Hitting ENTER unfortunately still translates the Voxel Moire over.

Anti bump kinda does what it is supposed (its great!), but still, the moire persists.

Smooth All command, even at a value of 40, will not remove the moire, even with Relax checked.

I am a bit baffled, as I think I did not experience this before when working on hard surface stuff in coat, meaning I could always resolve this kind of patterns afair by switching to surface mode at some point. The moire structure seems so deeply ingrained, as if every single measure fails due to it being adapted. I wonder if this might has something to do with the addition of Multi Resolution? Cause it is the most recent, kind of severe new addition... a side effect?

Sure thing, here's the file, feel free to explore in detail, be my guest! Happy to contribute if this is really some unwanted behaviour and might can be solved:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/gvhdzmsgehoi3l0/Futurama_Bender_110.3b?dl=0

So far I thought I am doing something wrong. But after you answer, these are pretty much all the steps I would also do myself, and at least I thought would be a guarantee to fix any unwanted unclean voxel surface remains.

Maybe another info that miiight be interesting: I created the guy exclusively using primitives from the Primitives tool, and then adding/subtracting these from each other, or deform them via pose tool. Did not bring any external meshes into 3D Coat. All is done using internal 3D Coat Primitives, cylinders, spheres, torus,...

But as in the above second video, you can see this also happens when choosing one of 3D Coat's base meshes from the start menu.


 

Edited February 12, 2023 by Henry Townshend
typos

[AbnRanger]

7 minutes ago, Henry Townshend said:

@AbnRanger Thanks so much for the quick reply! Appreciated! Pinging @Andrew Shpagin into the conversation.

Hitting ENTER unfortunately still translates the Voxel Moire over.

Anti bump kinda does what it is supposed (its great!), but still, the moire persists.

Smooth All command, even at a value of 40, will not remove the moire, even with Relax checked.

I am a bit baffled, as I think I did not experience this before when working on hard surface stuff in coat, meaning I could always resolve this kind of patterns afair by switching to surface mode at some point. The moire structure seems so deeply ingrained, as if every single measure fails due to it being adapted. I wonder if this might has something to do with the addition of Multi Resolution? Cause it is the most recent, kind of severe new addition... a side effect?

Sure thing, here's the file, feel free to explore in detail, be my guest! Happy to contribute if this is really some unwanted behaviour and might can be solved:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/gvhdzmsgehoi3l0/Futurama_Bender_110.3b?dl=0

So far I thought I am doing something wrong. But after you answer, these are pretty much all the steps I would also do myself, and at least I thought would be a guarantee to fix any unwanted unclean voxel surface remains.

Maybe another info that miiight be interesting: I created the guy exclusively using primitives form the Primitives tool, and then adding/subtracting these from each other, or deform them via pose tool. Did not bring any external meshes into 3D Coat. All is done using intenral 3D Coat Primitives, cylinders, spheres, torus,...

But as in the above second video, you can see this also happens when choosing one of 3D Coat's base meshes from the start menu.


 

I think I found the culprit. Whatever shader you have selected for the Sculpt Mesh you are working on, go to the thumbnail for that shader > RMB click > choose EDIT PERMANENT SHADER > in the Shader Settings dialog, UNcheck FLAT SHADING. When that is checked, you have viewport smoothing turned off. I don't know why, but I never noticed that before. 

[Henry Townshend]

Thanks for the quick checkout!

Unfortunately, it is not it. I purposely use flat shading during construction, and smooth shading also from time to time to check my surface. But the moire problems persist in smooth shaded, non-flat shaders as well. So it is not an issue of the shading used. This was also my assumption at some point though, but even with 3D Coats default Shader, which uses smooth as default, the problem is there.

You can see switching flat and non flat does not change the issue of the ingrained moire, which is still the same problem, even when exported to other apps (in this case Blender, seen in the video)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/2rqgdwuxas0ns19/2023-02-12 23-15-18.mp4?dl=0

Edited February 12, 2023 by Henry Townshend
sent two links by accident

[Carlosan]

It is not an easy task because you are using voxel mode (great for rough sketches) to sculpt smooth surfaces on lowpoly count mesh (700k) 

Surface mode is best suited for that task

To solve the issue use antibump + powerful smooth as alternative smooth. A value around 35% will be ok.

Hope this help

[Henry Townshend]

11 hours ago, Carlosan said:

It is not an easy task because you are using voxel mode (great for rough sketches) to sculpt smooth surfaces on lowpoly count mesh (700k) 

Surface mode is best suited for that task

To solve the issue use antibump + powerful smooth as alternative smooth. A value around 35% will be ok.

Hope this help

Thank you for the help!

As you can see in the videos,  I am already using Surface Mode, not just Voxel mode. I am indeed using and knowing that Voxels are intended for sketching out forms and Surface Mode is needed to proceed. However, I am not able to get a usable surface in Surface Mode anymore, the moire remains no matter what I do.

Could you maybe post a video of your smoothing procedure where you turn around the model? maybe also with a more shiney shader on it? It is hard to tell from a static image how the surface really behaves and how clean it is.

I used Anti Bump and Powerful Smooth as well, unfortunately to no avail .

[Oleg Shapov]

Try multi-resolution levels + smoothing. Not ideal, of course.

ScreenCaptureProject704.mkv

[Carlosan]

Looking your model, for Low poly models another way will be to model it on modeling room.

can't remember as usual workflow sculpt low poly models trying to mimic Catmull-clark surfacing modelling, when can model CC surface it on the other room.

[AbnRanger]

13 hours ago, Henry Townshend said:

Thanks for the quick checkout!

Unfortunately, it is not it. I purposely use flat shading during construction, and smooth shading also from time to time to check my surface. But the moire problems persist in smooth shaded, non-flat shaders as well. So it is not an issue of the shading used. This was also my assumption at some point though, but even with 3D Coats default Shader, which uses smooth as default, the problem is there.

You can see switching flat and non flat does not change the issue of the ingrained moire, which is still the same problem, even when exported to other apps (in this case Blender, seen in the video)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/2rqgdwuxas0ns19/2023-02-12 23-15-18.mp4?dl=0

When I look at the wireframe of the default bust, I might notice the moire pattern in some areas, but when I turn off FLAT SHADE in the Shader settings, it looks smooth as butter. I am sorry that you still seem to have issues with this...but I typically sculpt with a bit higher polycount...especially when I am expecting to see a very smooth surface. Perhaps, with FLAT SHADE turned off in your shader + Surface mode, Sculpt like you normally would, but when you get to the stage where you need a very smooth surface, try to bump the resolution up quite a bit more than 700k. If this and Anti-Bump smoothing doesn't work well enough, then Andrew will need to take a look at the problem.

[Henry Townshend]

Thanks a lot to all for all the help! Very grateful!

Thanks much @Oleg_Shapo for the video! This is very interesting! Cool! Tried it, there is still some moire left, but it is a good tip to speed up the entire smoothing process!

Thanks @Carlosan for showing the surface in motion! Now I believe it !  And I understand what you mean with the low poly modeling approach sometimes being "better". But my whole love for 3D Coats sculpt room is the exact absence of polygons and the free-ness to create with booleans and pose tool, as if one would use real clay mass!
I am not trying to mimic low poly subdiv cage modeling with voxels, I am just trying to get clean high poly hard surface meshes using a Voxel to Surface approach! Low poly comes lader!

@AbnRanger I see your point. You are right, increasing the polycount does indeed help with using Anti-Bump! One thing I realized, is that I use Jama Jubarev's high contrasting sculpting HDRI most of the time (the second one form the upper most left, with one strong key light and 3 lower lights) and I noticed that it intensifies the moire effect! Other default 3D Coat skies do not do this the same way afaics. Also in conjunction of which shader is chosen. So this probably came into play as well! (see video: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ksgstcxa97j17l5/jubarev high contrast sky moire emphasis.mp4?dl=0)

Did some more tryouts and I think I can now manage to get the surface I aim for while staying inside 3D Coat. Awesome! Even when translating to Blender the surface now reads well.

Maybe, some kind of automated smooth process option when converting to surface mode would be cool. Like a global Anti-Bump and Powerful smooth of sorts.

One question would remain for me: How would I go about smoothing these borders as well, without altering their silhouette, now that I get a smooth surface elsewhere?

Edited February 13, 2023 by Henry Townshend
formatting

[Henry Townshend]

I suggest a global Smooth Tool similar to the "Polish" tools in ZBrush's "Deformation" Pallette, where you can smooth an object globally, even while respecting object's features and edges.
 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/t6e3op44mxj7og5/2023-02-17 20-47-47.mp4?dl=0

Smoothing objects out manually by hand placed brush strokes by hand consumes too much time, and Anti-Bump also interferes with the silhouette of the Object, if used extensively. So does Powerful Smooth. I think 3D Coat would benefit immensely from such a slider!

The "Smooth All" function doesn't seem to be the same. Even when run on 100 multiple times, it wont really polish a surface as desired. No matter what options enabled in my xp.

Edited February 17, 2023 by Henry Townshend
typo

[Henry Townshend]

Blender also has this now since a few versions ago, under "Mesh Filter" -> "Surface Smooth" (need to drag along the sculpt to filter apply the filter globablly, not the best UX imho )).

Not as effective as ZBrushs polish, but it it does a decent global smooth job:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5u14luuy45rpk6s/2023-02-17 22-12-59.mp4?dl=0

Edited February 17, 2023 by Henry Townshend
context