Separate frozen area?

[wilson66]

I have a character that I sculkpted quite a while ago in ZBrush, and that is simply a single object (no separate parts). I would like to separate it into multiple objects in 3D Coat (like, separate the legs from the body ect).

First thing I noticed is that 3DCoat does not seem to be able to separate parts of the geometry in voxel mode and keep vertex colors. When I separate in voxel mode, vertex colors are lost. Why? Is there a way to separate in voxel mode, and keep the vertex colors?

So be it, separating in surface mode works in combination with vertex colors. Although 3D Coat doesn't cut the object in the exact area I have selected, but "forgets" small parts that I then need to clean up afterwards. At least the separated object still has the orioginal vertex colors.

There are certain parts of the character that cannot be easily be extracted/ separated using simple lasso selections, or I would have to cut it into multiple parts temporarily and merge those parts again afterwards.

Is there a way to mark a certain area (e.g. freeze the area using combination of lasso selection and brush tools), and then separate the frozen area into a new object? If so, how do I do it?

 

 

Edited January 6 by wilson66

[AbnRanger]

There is no dedicated tool specifically for this task...to completely extract/separate a frozen portion of a Surface mesh, not just make a copy of it (like Vox Layer or Coat). You could send Andrew (support@pilgway.com) a feature request asking for it, because the basic functions to make the tool already exist in 3DCoat). However, in the mean time, you can use 2 separate tools to perform this task.

1) COAT tool...it uses a curve to create a selection. You could use the freeze selection > CURVES Menu > FREEZE SELECTION TO CURVE. Make necessary adjustments interactively and then hit APPLY when you are done. 3DCoat has separated the copy to it's own layer.

To create a hole where the surface area was extracted from, make sure to select the layer you want to cut it from and choose...

2) POLY REMOVE in the ADJUST section of the Tool Panel. With the Freeze selection still intact, you can hit the APPLY button and it will cut the frozen selection away.

[Carlosan]

No, voxel mode is volumetric and dont keep vertex color info.
Only Surface mode keep vertex colors

Try Separate...

[wilson66]

I can see the vertex colors on the object in voxel mode (before the separation), and they are kept when switching between voxel and surface modes. They are only lost in the newly separated parts.

I can't see why it should not be possible to transfer them to a separated voxel object as well, its just not implemented in the tool I suspect. It would be way faster to just do the separations in voxel mode, instead of having to rely on the surface mode booleans that love to produce invalid geometry/ pieces of geometry floating around that need to be cleaned up.

Parts are not disconnected, so "separate disconnected parts" will not work out.

 

Edited January 6 by wilson66

[Carlosan]

Volumetric models are not only surface based.
You can transfer only the external surface, but cant control the inner distance.

- Multilayer volumetric material example

 

[wilson66]

When I opened the file today, vertex colors for most of the objects were simply gone. On some areas they were still visible, for whatever reason. No idea whats going on here, because vertex colors on all objects were clearly visible yesterday when I closed the file.

Whatever, last nail in the coffin, those missing features (other thread), and strange hick-ups like disappearing vertex colors that makes you lose work, really keep me from wanting to invest a lot of time into the application at all.

Wanted to give 3D Coat another try, but this is not convincing for me. Back to ZBrush it is.

[Carlosan]

Did you deleted any Layer ?

Vertex paint data is stored into Layers