3.00.08 [beta]

[Andrew Shpagin]

Updated to 3.00.08M

Changes:

- Possibility to bake color and normalmap of shader to textures in DP (first version, will be improved much more) It works only in retopo tool, Merge for per pixel painting with normalmap.

- Fixed incorrect normalmap and occlusion baking, normlmap baking quality improved

- Solved long standing problem - 64 bit executables will always be run as admin whithout manual choosing RMB->Run as admin

- Space navigator update - in new Y-constrained navigation scheme roll will be optionally enabled

[artman]

Beta 08 M x64 cuda

3DCoat won't start after install. (tried a clean install twice)

Windows says:The application has failed to start because it's side-by-side configuration is incorrect .

Edit:

32bit ver

windows says:The application failed to initialize properly (0xc000007b).

(I thought it would be quicker for you to see it here instead of bug section of forum... )

[wailingmonkey]

Beta 08 M x64 cuda

started fine here with overwrite of 'L' installed directory (not clean install)

and I must say, retopo->baked occ + shader bake = SWEEEET!

[Juan Carlos Montes]

Andrew you are a genius this new Feature of bake shaders is awesome!!

[philnolan3d]

Maybe I don't understand how this shader baking is supposed to work. I tried it real quick with the Marble 2 shader and I got the occlusion and the normal map, but the texture is just white. I quadrangulated, then went to the Retopo room and merged for per-pixel with normal map.

[AbnRanger]

Thanks Andrew for fixing the 3DConnexion navigation/orbiting issues. Works great now, and the Y-Axis constraint should be the default because that is how it works in other 3D applications, and it's more precise/predictatble. This makes the navigation 100 times smoother, in my opinion.

Could I ask a big favor regarding new features you add, that wouldn't benefit everyone here, I think? That is, as you complete these new FEATURES (not bug fixes), could you please place some sort of brief screen capture of it at work and place it in the tutorial section (pin a NEW FEATURES thread), so we have some idea what it does and how it works...at least to some small degree? Maybe Javis can go back a bit later and do a voice over explanation. Thanks again.

[Tinker]

Just tested new bake feature - all baked well.

Awesome, Andrew!!

[AbnRanger]

Just tested new bake feature - all baked well.

Awesome, Andrew!!

Are we expected to just figure how these new tools work? I keep hearing people talk about how well they work? How does this help anyone new to the program?

[Javis]

More will be written about these new tools once they are finalized.

[Tinker]

This feature make texturing much easyer.

1. Make voxel model from different voxel objects, for example: hull is one, details - second. Apply shaders of different colors on objects.

2. Make retopo, uv.

3. Retopo -> bake for per pixel painting with normal maps.

Now you got nice base for your texture, with separate objects colored with different colors. You can use them as masks, blend to texture layers to color them, etc. No need to carefuly divide details apart by hand.

And you got nice procedural noise and cavity, so shader no more just toy, but tool for make texturing base.

[wailingmonkey]

Are people expected to just figure how these new tools work? I keep hearing people talk about how well they work? How does this help people new to the program?

actually, yes, people are....for the time being. I think it's a question of what one wants:

new features fast

or

new features, but with videos explaining how to work them (and not so fast at all)

You seem frustrated in the last 3 posts you've made, and it's understandable, since features are coming out with nearly

every build (and looking at the beta build history for v. 3.0, that's fast!). But in order to stay on top of them, you have to

do your part in knowing how to operate all of the features that are already documented. The reality to that is you can't

learn everything all at once, so patience is in order.

Bottom line is that the machine we know as Andrew is only 1 person, so it's kinda up to us as a community to help where

we can. For instance, I didn't know how to work the sketch tool until I saw Juan Carlos Montez' 'fork' example where the

'Y' image is mainly solid...that' clicked and now I know that if I want to get X and Z projections to be solid, I need to have

a pretty square and filled image for Y. And so it goes...

With the new baking features, Andrew has said he's incorporated the shader along with AO baking...to me, that meant I

could do a voxel sculpt, then retopo it (I always export my retopo out and UV it in another program), then bake whatever

I had in the voxel room down into my new retopo for use in the 'Paint' room......and that's exactly what I got.

You've gotta try things on your own and read every topic that might have tidbits of info for you...at least that's what works

for me.

And no, it's not handy or easy or spoon-fed, unfortunately, but videos are coming out by Javis and others, and sometimes

you might just type '3dcoat' into youtube or vimeo and see if there are technique videos others have posted...

And by the way, I'm really not trying to be snarky or make you feel small or be an ass-clown. It's just that there's a bit

of a fend-for-yourself reality right now as version 3.0 is still hot off the oven (and continuing to be cooked every 3rd

day or so).

[AbnRanger]

Since the training is so scant compared to other programs, it's not as easy to get up and running as it would otherwise be. There's alot of unorthodox/non-industry standard ways of doing things in 3DC and that frustrates matters even more. Having new features are great, but in my opinion a "Fend for Yourself" reality isn't going to sell seats...not when there are more mature products on the market with plenty of training materials available for it.

I don't have tons of time for a lot of guesswork exploration, and I'm trying my best to get up to speed through the manual and tutorials others are sharing...so for someone who is rather new to the program, it HAS to be frustrating when others talk about how cool new features are when no effort has been made to even amend the manual the slightest bit to explain where the new tools are and how to use them.

As for the video capture...you're saying as they are wrapping it up they can't do a simple demonstration...seeing how the development team are the ones who know how they operate? Why can they not do a screen capture during their final tests? Is that too hard and time consuming?

[jedwards]

Since the training is so scant compared to other programs, it's not as easy to get up and running as it would otherwise be. There's alot of unorthodox/non-industry standard ways of doing things in 3DC and that frustrates matters even more. Having new features are great, but in my opinion a "Fend for Yourself" reality isn't going to sell seats...not when there are more mature products on the market with plenty of training materials available for it.

I don't have tons of time for a lot of guesswork exploration, and I'm trying my best to get up to speed through the manual and tutorials others are sharing...so for someone who is rather new to the program, it HAS to be frustrating when others talk about how cool new features are when no effort has been made to even amend the manual the slightest bit to explain where the new tools are and how to use them.

As for the video capture...you're saying as they are wrapping it up they can't do a simple demonstration...seeing how the development team are the ones who know how they operate? Why can they not do a screen capture during their final tests? Is that too hard and time consuming?

It would be pointless to update the official manual as new features are added. They are almost never in a final state when they are first added. It usually takes a bit of feedback from the community to fix bugs, and iron out workflow and features for any given tool - this is part of andrew's overall approach to developing the software and it has worked pretty well so far. It results in us getting the tools we ask for rather than someone else deciding for us and paying for it 'like it or not'.

If time isn't a luxury for you you probably shouldn't be messing with new features in new builds and instead focus on what's there that you use regularly. Asking for professional, commercial quality training from a product that is neither as mature, nor well documented, nor as well staffed as other commercial solutions is a bit unrealistic. The trade off here is that you get all this cool new stuff at a rapid rate and at a dirt cheap price, and faster than the other developers can do themselves. The alternative is to buy something else and pay extra for whatever training you need that is available and generally remove yourself from the developer/user feedback loop.

Andrew's development method is a perfectly viable approach to business for a software as immature as 3dc. As it does mature and gain more audience you'll see more training material. Until then, this is what we have to work with. Personally I wouldn't trade this for anything. It's better than being left in the dark for a year or more and then getting stuck with whatever updates the developers feel you should have. Anyway, it's not that hard to skip a build or two and catch up on features later. I do this often as it suits my needs or dependence on a specific build to finish a piece. It's entirely up to me how much I want to scrub the forums for updates and info, and it doesn't take a lot of time to do.

[philnolan3d]

Keep in mind this is a beta version. It's not currently meant to sell seats. When the beta is finished and it's released an update to the manual will be made and some tutorials will probably be made too, then nobody will have to fend for themselves. It's one of the caveats to any beta testing, there's rarely any instructions. When I was testing LightWave before Fiber FX was released Fiber FX was way more complicated than most of the 3DC's features and we had no instructions at all.

[AbnRanger]

It would be pointless to update the official manual as new features are added. They are almost never in a final state when they are first added. It usually takes a bit of feedback from the community to fix bugs, and iron out workflow and features for any given tool - this is part of andrew's overall approach to developing the software and it has worked pretty well so far. It results in us getting the tools we ask for rather than someone else deciding for us and paying for it 'like it or not'.

If time isn't a luxury for you you probably shouldn't be messing with new features in new builds and instead focus on what's there that you use regularly. Asking for professional, commercial quality training from a product that is neither as mature, nor well documented, nor as well staffed as other commercial solutions is a bit unrealistic. The trade off here is that you get all this cool new stuff at a rapid rate and at a dirt cheap price, and faster than the other developers can do themselves. The alternative is to buy something else and pay extra for whatever training you need that is available and generally remove yourself from the developer/user feedback loop.

Andrew's development method is a perfectly viable approach to business for a software as immature as 3dc. As it does mature and gain more audience you'll see more training material. Until then, this is what we have to work with. Personally I wouldn't trade this for anything. It's better than being left in the dark for a year or more and then getting stuck with whatever updates the developers feel you should have. Anyway, it's not that hard to skip a build or two and catch up on features later. I do this often as it suits my needs or dependence on a specific build to finish a piece. It's entirely up to me how much I want to scrub the forums for updates and info, and it doesn't take a lot of time to do.

I understand what you're saying, but even in beta testing, there needs to be a more cogent explanation of a new tool than just saying on Tweeter that a feature is done....then having only the most experienced users brag about how great this tool is.

I still don't see any info on the Sketch tool so many people were clamoring about. A small paragraph added to an amendment page at the very end of the manual or placed somewhere on this forum IS NOT too much to ask. Thanks for the dissertation, though. Perhaps it was a mistake for me to have jumped on board this early in development.

It's actually one reason why I waited until 3 was released...

[Andrew Shpagin]

As for the video capture...you're saying as they are wrapping it up they can't do a simple demonstration...seeing how the development team are the ones who know how they operate? Why can they not do a screen capture during their final tests? Is that too hard and time consuming?

My workflow is not so linear... actually...

I remember making yestrday's build... It was very late and in very last minute because all was not smooth. My family was waiting for me, so I had not even extra second (thanks to kindness and patience of my wife).

Why I hurried? Because next week my upload capability (only mobile internet in country house) will be limited essentially and I found errors in previous build that must be fixed.

So I have not made demo video

[AbnRanger]

This feature make texturing much easyer.

1. Make voxel model from different voxel objects, for example: hull is one, details - second. Apply shaders of different colors on objects.

2. Make retopo, uv.

3. Retopo -> bake for per pixel painting with normal maps.

Now you got nice base for your texture, with separate objects colored with different colors. You can use them as masks, blend to texture layers to color them, etc. No need to carefuly divide details apart by hand.

And you got nice procedural noise and cavity, so shader no more just toy, but tool for make texturing base.

Thanks for the explanation...this is what I was talking about. A small paragraph summary and placed either in a text document named "Beta Build Notes" or something similar, and placed at the end of the manual with each build, placed in the User Data directory in the installation, or in a Pinned thread titled "Beta Build Notes." Maybe a screen capture taken as they run final tests. I know this is likely to introduce a massive disturbance in the space-time continuum, but hey...a guy can ask, can't he?

Just asking Andrew to throw us a bone...those of us who recently bought in and have yet to reach Jedi Master status in the 3DC universe

My workflow is not so linear... actually...

I remember making yestrday's build... It was very late and in very last minute because all was not smooth. My family was waiting for me, so I had not even extra second (thanks to kindness and patience of my wife).

Why I hurried? Because next week my upload capability (only mobile internet in country house) will be limited essentially and I found errors in previous build that must be fixed.

So I have not made demo video

No problem, Andrew....I was just making a request along those lines cause it gets so frustrating to hear the guys who have used the program for a long time to go on about how great a new tool works, and I can't even find any info on it. Thanks again for the SpacePilot/Navigator fix.....that makes navigation so much smoother.

[kay_Eva]

Andrew you are a genius this new Feature of bake shaders is awesome!!

hehe yeah i do that in blender usually now I get to do it in 3d Coat, that's super awesome, I'm going to test it out now =)

haven't even downloaded yet!

[Andrew Shpagin]

Beta 08 M x64 cuda

3DCoat won't start after install. (tried a clean install twice)

Windows says:The application has failed to start because it's side-by-side configuration is incorrect .

Edit:

32bit ver

windows says:The application failed to initialize properly (0xc000007b).

(I thought it would be quicker for you to see it here instead of bug section of forum... )

Strange... No one version runs on your side?

Is it Vista 64 with 64-bit CUDA toolkit installed?

[artman]

Strange... No one version runs on your side?

Is it Vista 64 with 64-bit CUDA toolkit installed?

It is Vista premium ,toolkit I has always been there,the only thing I don't install

is cuda SDk. But,there is one thing......I briefly tried before installing betaM,it's new cuda 2.3 and I had performance problem with it so I reverted back to cuda 2.2...maybe it has left some damage.

Cuda 32 bit version also wont start (with error message as stated in my post)

I'll try 3DC simple

and I'll also try to reboot(I think I havent rebooted for 2 week..)

I'll report back in half an hour.

(I never had starting up issues with any of the builds since I started with something like alpha24)

[kay_Eva]

just want to say what fun the normal bakes are perfect! occlusion and shader bake it's great!!! thanks Andrew

Wow... I'd go so far as to say the models look better inside of blender than they do 3dCoat now. That's amazing. Wow.

This is exciting.

[artman]

Non-cuda version gives same response:

The application has failed to start because it's side-by-side configuration is incorrect .Please see the application event log for more detail. (no event log or crash report opens,where is event log?)

rebooting didnt help either.

I know what is it, it is a curse...I`ve been waiting for an automated shader baker that could

handle multi-millions of polys for like forever and now that there is one...I can`t try it

I think I`ll format out of frustration.

[Andrew Shpagin]

Non-cuda version gives same response:

The application has failed to start because it's side-by-side configuration is incorrect .Please see the application event log for more detail. (no event log or crash report opens,where is event log?)

rebooting didnt help either.

I know what is it, it is a curse...I`ve been waiting for an automated shader baker that could

handle multi-millions of polys for like forever and now that there is one...I can`t try it

I think I`ll format out of frustration.

Are you logged as administrator?

Even non-cuda 32-bit tells the same?

What antivirus do you use?

Also - just for test - turn off UAC system in windows.

(Control panel->User account->Turn user account control on or off)

[artman]

Are you logged as administrator?

Even non-cuda 32-bit tells the same?

What antivirus do you use?

Also - just for test - turn off UAC system in windows.

(Control panel->User account->Turn user account control on or off)

Yes!!!!! 32-bit non cuda works (it was the only one I didnt tried)

Now I can test your new features hehe....

I have no antivirus. (I got windows defender but that doesnt count really...)

I tried user account thing (was off,turned it on...rebooted...tried starting 3DC to same error message)

I don't know if I'm logged as administrator but my user properties have all privileges,

and even if I rightclick on .exe and choose "run as admin" I still get the same error message.

Anyway I don't remember having problem with 3DCoat installs ever before...

I think it has to do with what you did when you setted run as admisnitrator as default....I cant imagine the shder baker or the 3dconexion stuff stoping 3DCoat from loading...I think .

I reinstalled Beta L just for fun and everything was fine.

I'm using Vista premium Home sp 1

with nvidia gtx260.(someone has those specs here ???)

I`ll do a complete format tomorow and report back on this.

Thanx again for fast concern

[Andrew Shpagin]

Artman, try that links (without new UAC settings that was introdiced for 64 bit executables in 08M):

With CUDA, 32 bit

With CUDA, 64 bit

Without CUDA, 32 bit

Without CUDA, 64 bit

[artman]

Artman, try that links (without new UAC settings that was introdiced for 64 bit executables in 08M):

With CUDA, 32 bit

With CUDA, 64 bit

Without CUDA, 32 bit

Without CUDA, 64 bit

Shazam!

That was it,everything works fine!

And I must say Shader baker is amazing,there is no self shadowing problem at all!

thanx

[mAXWELL]

Who can use CUDA with 3DCoat?

Thanks

Maxwell

[philnolan3d]

Anyone with one of these graphics cards:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/cuda_learn_products.html

[Fabio Dona]

I want to run 3d-coat as standard user in Windows. I have two accounts here, one administrator(created when the system was installed) and a standard account, for day to day use.

If I run 3d-coat as admin using my standard account, the user profile for 3d-coat will be created to that user, the admin, not the standard account.

But I don't want to make this account an administrator, even with the UAC I prefer to use a limited account. So I solved that installing 3d coat (08L) in a non privileged folder.

But now in 08M I can't do that anymore, it forces me to run as admin anyway. So I changed my account to an admin account just to run 3d-coat properly.

The problem is, that's not the correct way to handle this. You should make it run in a standard account.

[Javis]

Actually, UAC should be stripped out of windows and a better solution put in place or sought after. It's worthless rubbish. All it ever does it cause problems. Frankly, I have it turned off and don't ever plan on using it.