3dioot's ideas thread

[parel]

Voxel sculpting "under" a mesh skin with static topology is exactly the same as sculpting directly on a mesh (i.e. zbrush and mudbox). I hope you see this.

Not entirely- the data that is in the poly mesh would be able to poke holes through the enclosed voxel volume which I still think you cant do in Zbrush- there are probably more ramifications than that

Still thinking of how a relative frame of reference around the rough volumes created with voxels might be created within the context of the absolute frame of reference of the rasterized voxel space.

[BluEgo]

3DIoot I simply love your idea about brushes wich emulate different levels of resolution.

GREAT!

[GabeM]

I haven't read the entire thread yet, but here's a little cut and paste with some ideas I had.

[improving Surface sculpting mode]

A work around I have found when it is too difficult to work a model in 3D coat. Is to export to Zbrush, do what I need there and bring it back to 3dcoat.

Sculpting works a lot faster in ZB and there are many more brush options.

I would like to see the surface sculpting mode in 3D coat match the speed and options available in other applications. It seems a bit ignored right now. IMO it should be as important as vox modeling, with each having the options not available to the other.

For surface mode, I'd like to see these things added...

Multi res sculpting, with the ability to alter the base mesh topology.

Add fall off and alpha image options for every brush

Include an Inflate brush

Paint mask on surface

something like a Lattice deformer.

Fill brush

If possible, all the brushes should have a counter part in surface and voxel mode. You don't need to be switching back and forth to use general tools.

Voxel sculpting has some very nice options, but poly sculpting is more efficient with the speed and multi res work flow. I'd like to have the two methods combined in such a way that allows a user to work with the advantages of both. Switching back and forth doesn't have to happen often, only when you really need it.

Multi res levels could be automatically generated, but it doesn't have to go down too far. It can do what the quadrangulate does now, and up.

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Seeing how you can quadrangulate a voxel model already and merge a poly mesh. why not use these features as a substitute for multi level sculpting? If you can't do it with voxels, convert to the polygon method when you need to.

1 = Give the quadrangulate option a menu. It will ask how many sub division levels you want to create for the polygon version of the current voxel form.

It would quadrangulate then subdivide again to match the voxel high deails. You can then move up and down the sub division levels like other apps.

2 = Allow polygon sculpting with these newly created sub division levels. No automatic conversion to voxels at this point to save memory.

3 = If you want to work with voxels to add shapes or anything that requires voxel functionality. Convert the object to a voxel like normal.

4 = Do what you need in voxel mode, if you want to go back to polygon sculpting, do the quadrangulate command again to make the necessary sub division levels with new topology.

5 = In polygon mode, you could be able to alter the base topology. Export the base mesh, or use retopo mode for this with some added modeling tools.

That way you can work both ways, add sub division sculpting without a restriction on topology.

The quadrangulation algorithm could be smarter for this to work better, like suggested earlier. Let the user help it out with some guide lines. It would be cool if you could see the effect of that in real time with a low poly preview or just some wires.

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[Reference files to improve system performance speed]

3D coat lags really bad when you have more complicated models. A way to improve speed is to degrade the mesh. What if you could select part of a model with the hide brush, and save it to the hard drive, to free up space while working in 3D coat.

You could do the same for any layer in the vox tree.

If visible it would be a reference mesh, so you can see it but it would not be active unless you load that stored data.

The reference mesh / stand in could be a simplified / Optimized model.

Something else may be to have an isolation option, so you can work on any of these reference meshes on their own file. Click a layer, set to Isolate mode. A new scene will open with only that layer. Do what you need, then turn off isolate to go back to the main document. Sort of like the hold / fetch feature in 3Ds.max. Instead of having all the model parts at once, just have one layer at a time. Combine this with the hide brush if possible, to save even more memory by working on small parts.

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[chris_solo]

My opinion is that the future of the sculpture of the voxel is the voxel by adding or subtracting brush through the layers!

for example, you built with a general form and you add to the voxel field as with the brush "sphere" but this matter follows wrap/snap to the main form...and as it is on one layer, you can be remove or add to the function of existing layers!

this solution does not exist, I think or I have not seen ...

This has the effect of making fairly accurate joints and gives clean edges!

this option is for me the future of the sculpture as voxel brushes are for me not precise enough...

I put an example of my idea in pictures:

follow pictures from left to right

[3dioot]

I want to thank everyone who participated in this thread.

Most of the discussions were on target, well thought out and with effort put into them.

I'd love to see more of these on the 3dcoat forum.

I purposefully kept quiet for a while to see if people would see the need to bring 3dcoat's voxel sculpting to a higher level and discuss it on their own (ive also been on vacation). Im very happy with the response it has gotten.

---------

With that said ive seen nothing change in the way 3dcoat is being developed. There is still no good rapid brush for voxels (or a good clay for that matter). Still no flatten (rasp is not the same). Strokes still facet and bury in the surface. You still get spikes and holes in your sculpt. Surface brushes still break symmetry. The list goes on and on. I have seen nothing of the so called "professionalism" in development that was promised when v3 was released.

Let alone ive seen or heard anything in regards to the topic that was discussed in this thread. (but then again you could say this is "new", the above requests stem from the v3 alpha days)

I wont partake in feedback anymore. Im fine with my video's staying on this site since many people find them useful and i have nothing against 3dcoat's community. But i cannot recommend this app to people anymore. "It will improve" has really lost its meaning to me. If the basics dont get fixed what does it matter 3dcoat gets an update every 2 weeks? Nothing.

3dioot

[spacepainter]

Ah, how sad.

[3DArtist]

Since im talking about importing here is an additional request. While id like to tackle voxel-surface workflow some other time it would be great if you could import a mesh object as reference within the voxel room. Currently you can toggle a layer to mesh based sculpting but you only get this choice after you have converted it to voxels. Ideally i would like to get this choice on import so i can import a reference mesh without losing details during the conversion to voxels which i am not going to need (for that layer) anyway.

I've run into a situation that something like this would be useful. I've retopo'd a second layer of clothing and brought it into the voxel room, now I would like to be able to see the non-voxel objects to see how they line up as i sculpt (make sure the 2nd layer of clothing (voxel) does not break through the first layer (poly), etc.) Right now just a toggle box that allows all objects to be seen would work. (all visible like retopo and render rooms)

On a lesser note, being able to import an object (from file, retopo, or paint room) into just the surface mode to be sculpted (in voxel room) would be nice too.

[Andrew Shpagin]

It is so sorrow to hear it...

I have very much requests and I am implementing those of them that are techinically possible.

From the point of view of artist it is not always visible what is techinically possible, what is hard and what is impossible.

I can't even explain it well because as always all is in details. So I am picking what is possible. And several of your requests are implemented.

[wailingmonkey]

and that's the way life goes...

in the inimitable words of Mick Jagger :

You can't always get what you want

But if you try sometimes

You get what you need

sorry...I think the thespians are getting to me...

[vil]

I really disagree with 3dioot. Voxels are getting faster and faster, there is no doubt of this, the new toothpaste and muscle tools give very fast and predictable results.

I guess object-based brushes like these could even improve and do also some of the requested tasks - e.g. flatten could be allready nicely performed with negative objects merging.

And the fact, that 3dcoat has very often updates, just means you can expect a larger change if you come after half a year, not after your holiday.

[BluEgo]

With that said ive seen nothing change in the way 3dcoat is being developed. There is still no good rapid brush for voxels (or a good clay for that matter). Still no flatten (rasp is not the same). Strokes still facet and bury in the surface. You still get spikes and holes in your sculpt. Surface brushes still break symmetry. The list goes on and on. I have seen nothing of the so called "professionalism" in development that was promised when v3 was released.

Let alone ive seen or heard anything in regards to the topic that was discussed in this thread. (but then again you could say this is "new", the above requests stem from the v3 alpha days)

I wont partake in feedback anymore. Im fine with my video's staying on this site since many people find them useful and i have nothing against 3dcoat's community. But i cannot recommend this app to people anymore. "It will improve" has really lost its meaning to me. If the basics dont get fixed what does it matter 3dcoat gets an update every 2 weeks? Nothing.

3dioot

Well, I think this sounds a little bit harsh, but I have to say that I agree with some of the concepts you are explaining here.

I know that something is technically possible and something not, but here the focus is not adding new features, but improving the brush feeling.

Currently the brush engine is terrible. Well, maybe is not terrible, but hey, is the worst currently available, if you try mudbox and zbrush.

What I see, are new features every single day, but the brush engine is always the same.

Why? 3DC is really plenty of features, I understand that coding something new is much more interesting, but these features are not well minded and integrated in a robust workflow. As 3dioot said, the basics are still the same...

[spacepainter]

Can't compare the Voxilians to the polygon shapeshifters.

[BluEgo]

Can't compare the Voxilians to the polygon shapeshifters.

I think I can

We are talking about brush feeling, not about making "subdivision levels" in voxels or something really hard to obtain with this kind of technology

Furthermore, a more logical implementation of the brushes is something that has nothing to do with voxels.

[spacepainter]

I own Maya and it's 30 times the price. But it's the culmination of 15 years of teamwork.

Andrew makes a dream come true for many artists.

[artman]

-Airbrush feels great.My favorite brush along with MB Nudge and Zb Claytubes.

-Surface Clay in surface mode is superb,and very fast.

-Increase does its job fine.

-Surface Pinch is as great as MB2009 pinch.

-New toothpaste on a degraded model is very quick to build up an entire basemesh.

-Surface Smooth has a great feeling,you can use with SF Clay it to emulate MBox flatten,fill brushes

There is no excuses to not create beside lack of imagination,it has been proven by many users on this forum(obviously ,not me).Tinker,Tree321 and Juan proved it.

Anyway 3DCoat V3 is not just the voxel brushes.

It is the only actual solution on the market that allows to make a complete gamemodel from thin air(lowpoly,UVS,highpoly,direct editing of normalmap,shader baking +shader creation)

ZB and MB cant.

Again Tinker and Juan proved it.

Without spikes or holes or anything dramatic happening to their models.

3Dioot is dismissing 3DCoat only based on the voxel brushes,which are just a part of V3,he probably never made a single gamemodel or even a complete hires character in any app ever,he also probably have a very small experience of Zb and Mb,also probably only limited to the brushes.

Probably.

3DCoat is a game modeling/texturing/baking solution not a Zb emulator.

I found him cool and very proactive with his feature requests but sentences like this sickens me

"But i cannot recommend this app to people anymore"

What?Really?

I would not want to be your girlfriend.

[BluEgo]

I own Maya and it's 30 times the price. But it's the culmination of 15 years of teamwork.

Andrew makes a dream come true for many artists.

I am not saying 3DC is not a good software. I love it for texturing and retopo purpose (it is really a GREAT piece of software), but for voxel actually is not good enough.

We are not funboys. We are pro who want their tools act as they should

There is no excuses to not create beside lack of imagination,it has been proven by many users on this forum(obviously ,not me).Tinker,Tree321 and Juan proved it.

Anyway 3DCoat V3 is not just the voxel brushes.

It is the only actual solution on the market that allows to make a complete gamemodel from thin air(lowpoly,UVS,highpoly,direct editing of normalmap,shader baking +shader creation)

ZB and MB cant.

Again Tinker and Juan proved it.

Without spikes or holes or anything dramatic happening to their models.

3Dioot is dismissing 3DCoat only based on the voxel brushes,which are just a part of V3,he probably never made a single gamemodel or even a complete hires character in any app ever,he also probably have a very small experience of Zb and Mb,also probably only limited to the brushes.

Probably.

3DCoat is a game modeling solution not a Zb emulator.

I found him cool and very proactive with his feature requests but sentences like this sickens me

"But i cannot recommend this app to people anymore"

What?Really?

I would not want to be your girlfriend.

I totally agree with this.

[spacepainter]

I'm a funboys LOL

[BluEgo]

I'm a funboys LOL

[3dioot]

Well, i see the responses to my post are not as harsh as i expected them to be. Im happy with that.

@ spacepainter

Ehm.. Thankyou for stating your opinion?

@ Andrew

So im a "silly" Artist now with no regards of coding and the challenges it brings. Even if that were true, what are you implying that means in regards to my requests?

Are you blowing dust in my face to blind me or yourself?

I expected you would reply with the fact that you have incorporated many of my requests. And you are right you did. What affirms my decision is that you think thats all i asked for whenever i posted.

Regardless of the reasons you just do not seem to get my point. This is the last thing im going to say in regards to feedback. You are great at coding. Get some else to figure out a future plan, a roadmap for 3dcoat. With focus and vision, your application can be so so much more.

Browsing over the forum and just picking up requests here and there randomly based on how easy they are to implement is not maximizing 3dcoat's potential Andrew. With what you have made so far you can innovate and run ahead. Instead you are just flirting at its edges. Adding weight which only makes core improvements harder to do.

I would value brush engine and performance improvements a 1000x over the new "muscle" brush. Truth is most artist would. But you dont seem to listen to them. Some of the greatest work on this forum is done by people who ended with saying which stuff was hard to do. Which stuff wasnt easy enough in comparison to package X. THOSE are the people you should listen to. You arent ready for fluids. For Inverse kinematics. For NURBS (even paying someone else to do it is wasting resources). There is so much to gain at 3dcoat's core but you just neglect it. You have said, even promised, you would fix the strokes. You didnt. How can i possibly interpret that fact in a positive way? I cant.

Best predictor for future behaviour is past behaviour. Thats just as true as it is for me as it is for you. Dont be sad. Prove me wrong instead.

@ wailingmonkey

yep

Believe it or not. I still want 3dcoat to succeed. I still think its gold. I just doubt it will ever be dug out of the mountain. I see many trenches dug around it though.

@ vil

Typical case of "potential high". Excited by what is possible now combined with an idea of how things will evolve. It will pass.. eventually.

@ Bleuego

We have always seemed to be on the same line with this. Hasnt sorted the desired effect yet has it?

"3DC is really plenty of features, I understand that coding something new is much more interesting, but these features are not well minded and integrated in a robust workflow. As 3dioot said, the basics are still the same..."

I wish i would have said that since i fully agree with it.

@ Artman

dejavu

Your logic is still as flawed as it was the previous time you replied similarly.

The personal attack is a new addition though.

The assumptions about me and my skills are humorous at best, especially coming from you.

We do agree on one thing though. I wouldnt want you as my "gf" either. I guess your participation in this thread has brought me something good after all. I laughed out loud.

3dioot

[artman]

The assumptions about me and my skills are humorous at best, especially coming from you.

Im not talking about your skills I'm talking about the fact that the only thing you talk about is voxel brushes...

and you never talk about per-pixelpainting,retopology,normal maps or anything else.

So I vaguely assumed that you never did a gamemodel ever.I mean ever.I was surely wrong.

You also discard 3DCoat only on the voxel aspect while at the very same time some gamestudios are using it

on real gamemodels that are gonna be in real games,I find it ironic.Because they bought a license,find new ways of improving their workflow with it everyday while you ''cannot recommend this app anymore''.

There must be something wrong with those guys.

[ldzywsj]

@3dioot

I really love your idea about resolutionless sculpting and others,but you aren't a programmer,why you are so firmly believe your ideas are techinically possible? I think you are a little temerarious.In fact,I really hope your ideas can be implemented.I PMed Andrew about your ideas,but I think he is really overwhelmed with information.So,please hold your horse,and believe Andrew can make it!

@Andrew

You are really a genius and code machine,and works so hard,you add a ton of features to 3dc.If you try mudbox and zbrush,you will realise the brush engine of 3dc should be improved,so stop add features,and focus on the brush engine improvment,it is very important,it is the core of VS!

[Ghostdog]

3dioot has clearly thought long and hard to come up with his opinions and I find them well thought out. I agree with some and not with others.

Things get lost in translation, but in my humble opinion Mr 3dioot I wish for the sake of 3D Coat and it community that had spent more time on the tone and feeling you portrayed in your posts as they negative enough to provoke senseless terms such as fanboy getting thrown around which gets us no-where.

3dioot gave it a shot and contributed a lot of thought and deserves thanks and respect for that. That respect can just as easily be lost however.

The comment above about the softwares roadmap is a very good one, from a business perspective.

[ghib]

Talk about spitting the dummy out.

I started reading 3Dioots's threads a while back and while they are very thoughtful and he obviously invested a lot of time thinking & writing them they are merely a lengthy theory. What I think he doesn't understand, as has been stated already, is that the bridge between his theory and the real excecution will take time to build.

So 3dioot has lost patience and he's moved on.. that's his choice but hopefully something useful can be gleaned from his very lengthy posts.

I have been guilty in the past of losing patience with the lack of development for features/bug fixes that I personally have posted about but now realised that with Andrew's pace of development brings it's own demons. How to track everything?

If there were a public customer feedback 'Bugs & Feature Tracker' similar to the one over at Nevercenter then we users wouldn't get so frustrated sometimes and it might help Andrew keep on top of it all. i.e. if a user is wondering about the priority of their bug/request or even if it is being tracked at all they can take a look at the page and if it's not there make an update.

[Taros]

Just want to say, that I agree with the most content of 3dioot. There should be spent more time for improving the current features and engine, than to implement very new elements. It is worth more to have a clean and fast voxel brush engine, than new brushes. I have no problem to wait for new content, when I get a "perfect" brush implementation instead.

There is a lot of truth in 3dioot aspect.

And one more comment: Here are a lot of professional artists with brilliant technical background. Don't forget this. And I don't mean the background of how to draw anatomy.

[BluEgo]

Yes, I really want to say that 3DC is not developing in the right way. Currently it is becoming a sort of Frankestein, with a lot of features taken by various papers, but there is not planification, no roadmap.... why ?

The feeling I have is that the approach to coding is not professional. Sorry Andrew for this conclusion, I admire you for your great ability, but I can't be happy when I see all this potential wasted in the wrong direction.

For example.... why are you coding ABF++, as I can see on twitter, instead of re-thinking the whole interface and behaviour of your voxel brush engine?

There are a lot of missnig features, like a GUI curve to edit the alpha/falloff of your brush, a control which set the offset of your brush from surface, a better move tool, a control to blur your alpha, and above all, less synthethic and more artistic feeling when using brushes.

I agree with Taros, "Here are a lot of professional artists with brilliant technical background", please listen to them, not to fanboys.

[spacepainter]

"Professional " people don't need to call other people names to feel better.

Every one in this thread have been begging endlessly for new toys and still got them. Andrew, don't spoil us anymore.

[ghib]

Yes, I really want to say that 3DC is not developing in the right way. Currently it is becoming a sort of Frankestein, with a lot of features taken by various papers, but there is not planification, no roadmap.... why ?

The feeling I have is that the approach to coding is not professional. Sorry Andrew for this conclusion, I admire you for your great ability, but I can't be happy when I see all this potential wasted in the wrong direction.

For example.... why are you coding ABF++, as I can see on twitter, instead of re-thinking the whole interface and behaviour of your voxel brush engine?

There are a lot of missnig features, like a GUI curve to edit the alpha/falloff of your brush, a control which set the offset of your brush from surface, a better move tool, a control to blur your alpha, and above all, less synthethic and more artistic feeling when using brushes.

BluEgo I feel that an unfortunate side effect of having such open Alpha releases to the general public is a reaction like this. Not that I'm criticising it or anything but maybe we should all be a bit more grateful that Andrew allows us to view his work in progress.

Having said that I am all for a stronger brush engine, not only in Voxels but more importantly for me in the painting side of things (which is one of the main reasons I bought 3DC)

[Klaus Nordby]

The idea of using a feature-voting/bug-tracking system -- like Nevercenter's -- gets three votes from me! That way, it might be easier for Andrew to prioritize his numerous coding tasks when he sees our votes.

[JamesE]

I'm quite happy with the way this software is evolving. Do I want to see improved brush engine and more performance? Sure... but I'm finding those aspects more than acceptable for the tasks I've been putting them to and I am very grateful for how much attention has been put into the other areas of the program - it is literally changing how I produce content. Andrew has brought 3dcoat closer than any other software I've used in my career to being a full featured modeling and texturing solution that is relevant to my needs as a game artist today. If I had to line this app up beside bodypaint, modo, zbrush or mudbox today and could only purchase one of them, 3dcoat would be the one hands down.

The roadmap has been driven by the user base just as much as by andrew. The features we have today wouldn't be there if people didn't want them. It's a bit disheartening to see how far this program has come in just a year in comparison to anything else out there and yet people still aren't happy with it? Time and user feedback are the biggest factors in seeing whether this program not only continues to evolve but gets refined as well. Any other software I've used would have taken 3 years or more to get this far in development and the feature list certainly wouldn't have been nearly as influenced by the users as simply provided by the developers. The way this works is that if you don't speak up, or continue to provide feedback on development, you won't get what you want. This is a very unique opportunity for all of us that does not come along very often, trust me. I plan on doing my part and continuing to give feedback on every area of the program because I want to see it all improve - not just one section, because it is all important to me and my work.

[GED]

I get the impression that we have unrealistic expectations when it comes to voxel brushes. We all want them to work just like zbrush/mudbox polygon sculpting brushes and they just dont work quite the same way. I dont think the 3d coat developers are ignoring these brush requests I just think they are pioneering completely new territory here and we are taking that for granted expecting what might actually be completely impossible. I think that over time new methods will be invented to work voxels the way we would like but for now the toolset we have is pretty impressive.