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Recently, 3dcoat has not been updated with a new version


zf3d
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It has been many days now, and I have seen that 3dcoat has not released any new updates. Is there any problem with the development? Is it related to the conflict with Russia and Ukraine?
I am very concerned about the development of the company and offer sincere condolences

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Yeah. I've been concerned too. The longest that Andrew & Co have gone without a new beta has been about 3 weeks. However, that's usually due to some announced vacation or the slow holiday period. Typically, the turnover time between betas seems to be 7-14 days. Sometimes a little less. Sometimes a little more, but that's the average. No word on Twitter, the official YT page, here, or anywhere else. I totally get your worry.

That said, I'd probably just take a deep breath if I were you. No news is unnerving and uncharacteristic, but it's not necessarily bad news either. Andrew could well be hard at work or taking a much needed mental health breather, which I think that we'd all understand. As for 3DCoat itself, yeah, NOBODY here wants to go back to the evil empire...err... I mean, MAXON (j/k kinda) and the current financial insanity of ZBrush, but that's more a secondary concern when compared to the safety of the good people here at Pilgway.

For now, fingers crossed and try not to worry. Not much we can do other than hope that Andre's safe. (This whole Russia/Ukraine situation has us all worried for you, Andrew. Sincerely. Take care of yourself and your family.)

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4 hours ago, zf3d said:


Sono molto preoccupato per lo sviluppo dell'azienda e porgo sincere condoglianze

I also join this thought, I hope that there will be peace as soon as possible, that everyone can be free and at peace with each other, this is my wish as a simple user. It must be terrible to work under these conditions, because the situation IS terrible. In many other countries I think software development simply would have been suspended.

 

 

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15 hours ago, zf3d said:

I am very concerned about the development of the company and offer sincere condolences

Andrey and other developers are actively working on fixing bugs and new features. Recently, shelling from Russia has become more frequent, but we believe in the Patriots!

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18 hours ago, zf3d said:

It has been many days now, and I have seen that 3dcoat has not released any new updates. Is there any problem with the development? Is it related to the conflict with Russia and Ukraine?
I am very concerned about the development of the company and offer sincere condolences

Sometimes I think it just means they are working on something larger scale, which may take weeks rather than hours or even days to do. It is common for a team's main branch to become "frozen" for a period of time while somebody has a big set of changes in their sandbox they need to get stabilized before they can push that to main and free it up for more general submissions... Just a thought.

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On 5/27/2023 at 10:24 PM, tiburbage said:

Sometimes I think it just means they are working on something larger scale, which may take weeks rather than hours or even days to do. It is common for a team's main branch to become "frozen" for a period of time while somebody has a big set of changes in their sandbox they need to get stabilized before they can push that to main and free it up for more general submissions... Just a thought.

Yes, in general, if there is a lull in new build releases, it is because Andrew is working on something very substantial. In this case he is working on Python scripting for 3DCoat. 

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19 hours ago, Elemeno said:

what changing the whole core langauge from c++ to python?

It will most likely be a Python layer with wrappers for lots of data types and interfaces and that's fantastic news because, if it works even half as good as I imagine it will lower the bar immensely for integrating use of 3DCoat into various pipelines and tools in which there is a python environment available

sending various things back and forth for example a lot more things can be done directly in memory, between for example autodesk softwares and 3dcoat, or blender and 3dcoat

things can likely be automated in a far more robust manner too

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On 5/29/2023 at 3:29 PM, AbnRanger said:

Yes, in general, if there is a lull in new build releases, it is because Andrew is working on something very substantial. In this case he is working on Python scripting for 3DCoat. 

First of all, I hope Andrew and who ever else is in Ukraine is safe. Then; in my experience, whenever something very substantial happens in 3DCoat it also brings loads of other problems. 

I would hope for news like:

- Andrew started to add all of the most requested features and quality of life improvements.

- Andrew hired an experienced digital sculptor to fix the brushes, make better brush presets. 

- Andrew merged the rooms, removed all unnecessary stuff and re-designed a less confusing workflow and UI.

- Andrew fixed all the bugs and made sure they are not coming back. Ever.

- Andrew said f**k this and retires, buys an island and lives there happily with his family without technology and stuff.

Well it is what it is. I hope I get to play with the release before my payment cycle ends :D

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AbnRanger was awarded the badge 'Great Support' and 1 points.

9 minutes ago, Koray said:

First of all, I hope Andrew and who ever else is in Ukraine is safe. Then; in my experience, whenever something very substantial happens in 3DCoat it also brings loads of other problems. 

I would hope for news like:

- Andrew started to add all of the most requested features and quality of life improvements.

- Andrew hired an experienced digital sculptor to fix the brushes, make better brush presets. 

- Andrew merged the rooms, removed all unnecessary stuff and re-designed a less confusing workflow and UI.

- Andrew fixed all the bugs and made sure they are not coming back. Ever.

- Andrew said f**k this and retires, buys an island and lives there happily with his family without technology and stuff.

Well it is what it is. I hope I get to play with the release before my payment cycle ends :D

Well, Andrew does still fix bugs, but he said the program currently seems stable and should allow him time to work on Python script integration. C++ is not so easy to learn and write. Other users have asked for it. Let's wait and see what comes of it. 

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1 hour ago, AbnRanger said:

Well, Andrew does still fix bugs, but he said the program currently seems stable and should allow him time to work on Python script integration. C++ is not so easy to learn and write. Other users have asked for it. Let's wait and see what comes of it. 

I wish I had a friend who defended me like you do :D

3DCoat is becoming like a swiss knife with 100 functions where people mostly buy and use it for the knife and a few other stuff. If you ever used one, you know that as the number of functions increase, it gets harder to carry it around, hold the knife and use it comfortably. I can go on but I believe you understand what I mean :)

swkn.jpg

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23 hours ago, Koray said:

I wish I had a friend who defended me like you do :D

3DCoat is becoming like a swiss knife with 100 functions where people mostly buy and use it for the knife and a few other stuff. If you ever used one, you know that as the number of functions increase, it gets harder to carry it around, hold the knife and use it comfortably. I can go on but I believe you understand what I mean :)

swkn.jpg

I am not defending. Just trying to relay information I got from a recent conversation I had with Andrew. He even told me to let people on the forum know that he was working on Python scripting, if they were asking why the pace of new builds had slowed down. I am anxious to see some UI changes I had proposed several months ago, but if Andrew thinks adding Python scripting will have a bigger overall impact, then who am I to quibble with him about it?

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On 5/31/2023 at 1:55 PM, Koray said:

First of all, I hope Andrew and who ever else is in Ukraine is safe. Then; in my experience, whenever something very substantial happens in 3DCoat it also brings loads of other problems. 

I would hope for news like:

- Andrew started to add all of the most requested features and quality of life improvements.

- Andrew hired an experienced digital sculptor to fix the brushes, make better brush presets. 

- Andrew merged the rooms, removed all unnecessary stuff and re-designed a less confusing workflow and UI.

- Andrew fixed all the bugs and made sure they are not coming back. Ever.

- Andrew said f**k this and retires, buys an island and lives there happily with his family without technology and stuff.

Well it is what it is. I hope I get to play with the release before my payment cycle ends :D

Could you provide some specifics, perhaps even a screen recording showing the supposed flaws in the brushes that need fixing? Please show how even tweaking the parameters in the Tool Options panel fails to deliver the results you are looking for. If there is a real problem, I hope Andrew will indeed fix it. For what it is worth, he worked with Flavio Rygaard (a skilled sculptor with ZBrush sculpting experience, and contributor on this forum) extensively to try and bring the newest brush engine up to par (with ZBrush), as much as possible, and this continued back and forth for almost a year if not more. 

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AbnRanger, do you have any idea if there are any significant improvements to the Paint room on the agenda for 2023? I looked briefly at their Trello Roadmap, but couldn't tell anything really from that.

One of the things I've enjoyed most since I adopted Blender as my core hard surface modeling app is how much insight we get regarding what major initiatives are planned, what's actually being worked on, even generally when these things are scheduled to arrive. I'd love to see Andrew open up a little more about where he sees 3DCoat as headed, and what the priorities are.

All of their work in the Sculpting area has paid off with some real recognition among Concept Artists, and I think another wave of focused updates in the Paint room could gain 3DC more recognition in the production asset creation area, especially for game asset development.

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14 hours ago, AbnRanger said:

Could you provide some specifics, perhaps even a screen recording showing the supposed flaws in the brushes that need fixing? Please show how even tweaking the parameters in the Tool Options panel fails to deliver the results you are looking for. If there is a real problem, I hope Andrew will indeed fix it. For what it is worth, he worked with Flavio Rygaard (a skilled sculptor with ZBrush sculpting experience, and contributor on this forum) extensively to try and bring the newest brush engine up to par (with ZBrush), as much as possible, and this continued back and forth for almost a year if not more. 

Just do a search on artstation and tell me how many of the images that are tagged with 3dcoat are made with those brushes? or look at the images Carlos post here. See any brush work?

As a customer I shouldnt be the one to deal with the tool options to make them work. I can never be sure if a brush is working as intended. Lately I had a brush acting weird and made a thread about it. Then I deleted the 3DCoat files under my/documents to fix another problem which also fixed the brush problem. How am I supposed to know if I messed up or if 3dc is acting weird. Now I remember I had another problem with symmetry, made a thread, Oleg replied and told me not to "climb to the other side of the symmetry" :D :D 

If you really believe all the brushes are fine tuned to their absolute best then I rest my case.

 

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9 hours ago, tiburbage said:

AbnRanger, do you have any idea if there are any significant improvements to the Paint room on the agenda for 2023? I looked briefly at their Trello Roadmap, but couldn't tell anything really from that.

One of the things I've enjoyed most since I adopted Blender as my core hard surface modeling app is how much insight we get regarding what major initiatives are planned, what's actually being worked on, even generally when these things are scheduled to arrive. I'd love to see Andrew open up a little more about where he sees 3DCoat as headed, and what the priorities are.

All of their work in the Sculpting area has paid off with some real recognition among Concept Artists, and I think another wave of focused updates in the Paint room could gain 3DC more recognition in the production asset creation area, especially for game asset development.

There are some big things going on behind the curtain, already. The GPU brush engine for the Paint workspace is near completion, and one developer has been working on a nodal texturing network, and the model can be directly exported to Unreal Engine with all material nodes intact (if I understood it correctly). This is something nobody else offers, not even Substance Painter. I am not sure if this is done via USD export or what file format, or if it will also work when exported to other applications like Blender or Maya, 3ds Max, C4D, etc. I think some kind of procedural noise (beyond what is already available in the FILL tool) is also being worked on. If there is a nodal network for Materials, I think it will inherently be procedural. I have been pushing for the new Brush engine to be made available, in some BETA form at least, soon, because as you say, the Paint Workspace needs some attention.

After Andrew finishes with the current Python scripting integration, he is supposedly going to start working on UI improvements, and that would likely start in the Paint workspace, with updated layers. Thumbnails for the different channels and masks are among the requests. I will also be advocating heavily for Adjustment Layers, that will be at least partially compatible with Photoshop's Adjustment layers. I also asked Andrew if he would please modify the current Activity Bar to work more like PS panel bar, where it is located in the same position and panels can be collapsed or expanded in the same way. This would allow new users to understand its function more easily and it wouldn't clutter the UI as much as the current Activity Bar does.

I will try to find out more details and try to pass them on when I learn more.

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@Koray It would be very helpful if you record a video showing how those brushes you mentioned affect your work, and your suggestions for improvements for each brush you refer to.

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4 hours ago, Koray said:

Just do a search on artstation and tell me how many of the images that are tagged with 3dcoat are made with those brushes? or look at the images Carlos post here. See any brush work?

As a customer I shouldnt be the one to deal with the tool options to make them work. I can never be sure if a brush is working as intended. Lately I had a brush acting weird and made a thread about it. Then I deleted the 3DCoat files under my/documents to fix another problem which also fixed the brush problem. How am I supposed to know if I messed up or if 3dc is acting weird. Now I remember I had another problem with symmetry, made a thread, Oleg replied and told me not to "climb to the other side of the symmetry" :D :D 

If you really believe all the brushes are fine tuned to their absolute best then I rest my case.

 

Why do I need to do a search? You said the brushes needed fixing, and I am asking you to please present those issues here, so we can pass them on to Andrew, or perhaps offer some changes in the form of a Brush pack? If you are ok with them, then perhaps Andrew can make them a default version. Personally, I like the Clay Brush as it is....even compared it to ZBrush's default Clay brush and in my experience there is very little noticeable difference. Both are buttery smooth and fun to work with. Same with the Rapid Brush. The Polishing/Trimming brushes may not work the way you prefer, so it would be helpful if you could provide side by side examples of them working in ZBrush and how the same type of brush in 3DCoat works in comparison. Do you want it to have more "bite" or less. Do you want it to have a softer edge, etc?

What would a search of Artstation prove? Jama Jurabaev (Senior Concept artist & Art Director at LucasFilms) has shown many recent sculpting examples from 3DCoat and he has not made any public complaints about the Brush Engine. Nor has Bay Raitt, who said many times on the 3DCoat Facebook page that he loves sculpting in 3DCoat. He worked on Gollum in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. He also has not mentioned anything about the brush engine being flawed. And if either of them found them to be flawed, they would certainly contact Andrew directly and raise the issue with him. He knows both of them, personally.

Bay Raitt - IMDb

 

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@Koray i know what you mean when you say about the brushes not acting as intended because theres too many options that the slightest change might be right or wrong,

but once you have played for a few hundred hours with all the brushes and their options, you will realise how they work and how having the extra options are truly a blessing ,

however theres always negatives, its harder to get a smoother finish and the loft tools are super confusing ...other than that its amazing !

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7 hours ago, AbnRanger said:

There are some big things going on behind the curtain, already. The GPU brush engine for the Paint workspace is near completion, and one developer has been working on a nodal texturing network, and the model can be directly exported to Unreal Engine with all material nodes intact (if I understood it correctly). This is something nobody else offers, not even Substance Painter. I am not sure if this is done via USD export or what file format, or if it will also work when exported to other applications like Blender or Maya, 3ds Max, C4D, etc. I think some kind of procedural noise (beyond what is already available in the FILL tool) is also being worked on. If there is a nodal network for Materials, I think it will inherently be procedural. I have been pushing for the new Brush engine to be made available, in some BETA form at least, soon, because as you say, the Paint Workspace needs some attention.

After Andrew finishes with the current Python scripting integration, he is supposedly going to start working on UI improvements, and that would likely start in the Paint workspace, with updated layers. Thumbnails for the different channels and masks are among the requests. I will also be advocating heavily for Adjustment Layers, that will be at least partially compatible with Photoshop's Adjustment layers. I also asked Andrew if he would please modify the current Activity Bar to work more like PS panel bar, where it is located in the same position and panels can be collapsed or expanded in the same way. This would allow new users to understand its function more easily and it wouldn't clutter the UI as much as the current Activity Bar does.

I will try to find out more details and try to pass them on when I learn more.

Wow. Thanks for the thoughtful reply! I just finished a re-watch of the "Quick Start Smart Materials" video series just to firm up my understanding of the design intent and usage of Smart Materials. The point at which I became less enthusiastic was with the Attach To Layer workflow, which is an attempt to introduce a procedural method to Smart Material use. The fact that it isn't currently possible to render Smart Materials directly in viewport (meaning without the Smart Material Preview window) is a significant workflow limitation, and gets worse if you have multiple attached SMs because the Preview will only render one at a time so you can't get a fully composited view of your model.

My hope is that Andrew will continue to think about how to allow the texturing process to be more procedural (while still remaining "artist friendly", and not turning into a Tech Artist tool), and to make improvements to viewport rendering which might, ideally, remove the need for the Preview window entirely. To be performant, that would almost surely have to be GPU rather than CPU based.

An yes, in terms of the Layers structure, there seems like a lot of room for user friendly improvements there. I could also mention the aging Texture Editor window, but I think I've said enough!

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25 minutes ago, tiburbage said:

Wow. Thanks for the thoughtful reply! I just finished a re-watch of the "Quick Start Smart Materials" video series just to firm up my understanding of the design intent and usage of Smart Materials. The point at which I became less enthusiastic was with the Attach To Layer workflow, which is an attempt to introduce a procedural method to Smart Material use. The fact that it isn't currently possible to render Smart Materials directly in viewport (meaning without the Smart Material Preview window) is a significant workflow limitation, and gets worse if you have multiple attached SMs because the Preview will only render one at a time so you can't get a fully composited view of your model.

My hope is that Andrew will continue to think about how to allow the texturing process to be more procedural (while still remaining "artist friendly", and not turning into a Tech Artist tool), and to make improvements to viewport rendering which might, ideally, remove the need for the Preview window entirely. To be performant, that would almost surely have to be GPU rather than CPU based.

An yes, in terms of the Layers structure, there seems like a lot of room for user friendly improvements there. I could also mention the aging Texture Editor window, but I think I've said enough!

imagine the smart material preview like a mask tool , when you add a smart material , imagine its instantly added a black mask, with each stroke you add white ... its quite useful but its nowhere near SP , but 3dcoat has huge advantages elsewhere , hopefully the ui gets improvements .... its a little out dated now

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3DCoat-2023-20 
Fri Jun 2 21:05:43 2023

 

- Multiple small bugfixes

 

- Voxel object->RMB->Axial symmetry corrected

 

- The Core API restored, now it works correctly (it was broken for 2023 builds).

 

- The Python scripting support in 3DCoat preliminary release. It is still in development and testing sand growing stage, but the base version already available, including basic documentation. We will add more functionality, samples, improve functionality in next builds. The Python API is very close to Core API, same classes, same functions, same logic, but applicable to the Python. Currently embedded Python 3.8 used (as last that supports Windows 7). No any additional install needed, all included.

 

- 3DCoat > Edit > Preferences > General > Store Window State

 

- Fixed problem of text correction (text not applied locally).

 

- Fixed several problems of voxel extrude tool.

 

- Fixed stamp + voxel brush engine with color.

 

- Fixed narrow, but important problem of hotkeys: if you assign hotkey to the tool that currently present in UI, then switch (say to voxels) and try to activate that action it will now be triggered anyway if it is generally applicable.

 

- The new mechanism to extend 3DCoat implemented - some (more heavy) assets like VDM alphas may be downloaded right from the alphas panel (if you will get to VDM folder). Generally this mechanism will be extended to other assets as well.

 

- Logging the usage of the environment variable "COAT_LICENSE"

 

- Tool "To NURBS Surface" - Bug fixed for Auto Unify.

 

- Bug fixed for Lofte mode with Undo in Tool Smart Retopo.

 

- Tool "To NURBS Surface" - Added button Auto Unify. "Unify the surfaces within rectangular regions that are formed by selecting edges."
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I am praying for Andrew for safety in the situation he and his company find themselves in.

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18 hours ago, AbnRanger said:

Why do I need to do a search? You said the brushes needed fixing, and I am asking you to please present those issues here, so we can pass them on to Andrew, or perhaps offer some changes in the form of a Brush pack? If you are ok with them, then perhaps Andrew can make them a default version. Personally, I like the Clay Brush as it is....even compared it to ZBrush's default Clay brush and in my experience there is very little noticeable difference. Both are buttery smooth and fun to work with. Same with the Rapid Brush. The Polishing/Trimming brushes may not work the way you prefer, so it would be helpful if you could provide side by side examples of them working in ZBrush and how the same type of brush in 3DCoat works in comparison. Do you want it to have more "bite" or less. Do you want it to have a softer edge, etc?

What would a search of Artstation prove? Jama Jurabaev (Senior Concept artist & Art Director at LucasFilms) has shown many recent sculpting examples from 3DCoat and he has not made any public complaints about the Brush Engine. Nor has Bay Raitt, who said many times on the 3DCoat Facebook page that he loves sculpting in 3DCoat. He worked on Gollum in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. He also has not mentioned anything about the brush engine being flawed. And if either of them found them to be flawed, they would certainly contact Andrew directly and raise the issue with him. He knows both of them, personally.

Bay Raitt - IMDb

 

There is also a video where Jama and Anton discusses why Jama moved his complete workflow to Blender and why Anton also tried to but couldnt.

Please post that too now that you've started it :D 

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On 4/12/2014 at 4:29 AM, Javis said:

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