Is 3DCoat "only" a basemesh solution for some users?

[geo_n]

3dioot

Such a long post. Where is your zbrush sculpt that you have trouble making in 3dc? If you think the quality of the gallery does not represent the potentiality of a software well I don't know what field you're in I'll leave it at that . My point was that zbrush has a lot of quality work because there's more users(hobbyist who can sculpt till forever) than 3dc not because 3dc is so sucky for you that its not even worth your time and money and its futile because all your rants aren't implemented. If you think you're really wasting your time and wasted your 200US then why not use zbrush or mudbox? There's not one software that can do it all in this field.

I used zbrush 2. Hated it. I tried mudbox 1.0. Loved it but it was bought by autodesk.

Here's something to read http://www.impactlab.com/2008/11/24/devote...ecome-a-genius/

Its no secret why people who are at another level are where they are. If it takes 1000-10000 hours, it takes time. So start raising your skills instead of frustrating yourself. I'm on 6 hours using 3dc direct painting and it just made my employers +5000US without them paying for my personal 3dc license Something that could have taken days to paint in photoshop took hours. Puts things in perspective when people say 3dc is a waste of money.

[3dioot]

Andrew,

I really wish we could have a good talk face to face sometime. I think it would clear a lot of stuff up and probably leave you surprised (in a good way). Regretfully that is not going to happen.

Im also not interested into writing an essay to explain my point of view.

If you think my opinion is unjustified feel free to ignore it. Its just my opinion after all and there are enough people who compensate with praise and arguments on why you should not listen to me.

Even though i am happy to hear you are spending time on "my" feature request nothing would make me as happy as seeing that Pilgway has a clear vision on where to take 3dcoat's voxel sculpting so i dont have to request what most would consider to be basic features.

3dioot

[artman]

The problem is not that he thinks your opinion is not justified.

( I don't understand why you are saying this,you know he takes everything you say as valid opinion),

The problem is that you are not patient.

It seams days to you are like weeks.

Go back in time make a list of features you wanted in 3DCoat

and look how much have been done already.

Brushes will improve it is obvious there is no real value to state such bold things as "if ever".

You know brushes will improve why are you saying that?

Not so long ago scrape wasn't even a usable brush,there was no voxtree.,no fov,interface was all changed..

I know competion is fierce but there a lot MORE things 3DCoat can do than ZB and Mudbox.

The list is long...

if any of the followings doesn't count as major selling points it is probably because you never did anything in ZB other than playing with the brushes...(yes there is alot more to zb than the brushes)

-You loose symmetry plane on subtools as soon as you rotate them

-you cannot resym models based from spheres

-you can use only quads

-retopo sucks

-you cannot copy parts of mesh (zproject brush is far less powerful than copy brush)

-you cannot do booleans (it is as important a sculpting tool as the brushes)

-all texture based shaders are based on the canvas (2d) and aren't wrapped around the model at all.

-Texture work is ten years behind 3DCoat and you can"t even do uvs...

and so on...

[splodge]

Andrew,

I really wish we could have a good talk face to face sometime. I think it would clear a lot of stuff up and probably leave you surprised (in a good way). Regretfully that is not going to happen.

Im also not interested into writing an essay to explain my point of view.

If you think my opinion is unjustified feel free to ignore it. Its just my opinion after all and there are enough people who compensate with praise and arguments on why you should not listen to me.

It's not your opinions that are a problem, it's the style in which you choose to express your opinions. You're just too harsh.

I suppose it's pointless telling you to relax, I fear that would be like telling a cow to stop eating grass.

[jedwards]

Back to the topic and original post... I definitely have a preference to use 3dcoat at the beginning stages of a piece. Voxels give more freedom to realize forms early on and even refine them up to a certain point. At higher resolutions though I simply prefer to send the work over to zbrush for finishing. I think that as the painting and sculpting brushes improve though I may be more interested in keeping the work in 3dcoat in time. Most of the new tools we have now took less than a year to develop, so I fully understand that refinements will happen and look forward to those.

I think rounding out the UV and polygon mesh editing/management may help here too. Currently I prefer to export a retopo mesh to another app for UV work, once I bring it back in I'd love to be able to merge it with other meshes and their UV sets, make tweaks etc. Consolidation of multiple meshes into one happens quite a lot when building game assets so having the capability to do those things in 3dc will make it more of a one stop 3d tool as well.

Bottom line for me though is that zbrush is simply more mature as a tool for refining sculpts. That's nobody's fault. Pixologic got there first after all. Andrew simply needs time to refine his tools and build upon what he's done so far - which is very impressive to me even now.

A year ago I had no use for 3dc in my work at all. It simply offered nothing I felt I could use to speed up or improve how I work. Today I try to use it as much as possible because I simply enjoy working with it.

[artman]

I'm working on animated features, and in my current workflow, when i'm sculpting a character's head, i NEED to keep the same base mesh, in order to re-use blendshapes or animation rigs.

3DC is great for concepts, or single creature, but i still need Zbrush.

If you do snap-relax in retopo room it should match back the original basemesh to the voxel higres efficiently.

[kay_Eva]

Case closed: http://www.3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=2378

People just haven't been thinking hard enough. And most are too uncofortable or unwilling to alter their workflows to actually take advantage of what a voxel volume is. They are still seeing it as a surface and altering it as such when it's not. 3d Coat isn't perfect. It's seems to be somewhat of a resource hog but that should improve as coding advances and technology advanced alongside it.

My only real issue currently is the voxel to normal map bake. It's a bit ambiguous and I've yet to figure it out. But hopefully that would change.

On the other hand thanks to voxels I've been working on a model lately and what I like about 3dCoat is that you can work on your model... and THEN the topology, as opposed to the "good ole days" where you kind of had to do both simultaneously. Sort of like patting your head and rubbing your tummy. Also texturing is exquisite. ANd retopo as well. I mean... om jee... have you guys been using the splines to retopo your organics. It's like Harry Potter's magic wand or something.

[T.H. ROCK]

I've crashed a few times on my modest 4gb quad computer, but for the most part I'm really enjoying 3DCoat. Thank you so much Andrew for your dedication in bringing this software to market!

I might comment that the advantage of re-topology, which by the way is a fantastic innovation, gives the user the ability to input modestly sized meshes with full implementation of normal or displacement maps to give that high poly look is indeed the way to go.

Right now, I'm having more fun than a kitten in a box a yarn.

[renderdemon]

I don't agree much kay_Eva, I don't think linking this kind of examples prove nothing(I don't have nothing against that use but it can't be the solution for everything)

Personally I don't think using another application to do volumetric sculpt isn't particularly interesting to show 3dcoat powerful.

Yes,you can merge object from outside,but this doesn't mean that the sculpt tool haven't to improve,maybe sometimes you will need to manipulate with brushes merged geometry.

I hope one day hard surface can be done better with better brushes and/or tools INTO 3dcoat,not because hard surfaces need to be done with volumetric sculpt(it's not the right tool)but because it could mean that the tool set is more mature.

To be clear,nothing against tinker's work(I like it),but I think doesn't prove nothing,for example what will happen if someone here go on stanford's web site,download lucy(the 3d scanned data),merge it into 3d coat,volumetric sculpt will allow to do extremely clean an great models?(personally I think yes,it can be done,but will take more time because brushes need some work)

Stanford lucy

P.S

Btw, personal thanks to Andrew,he is doing a great work and the tool is becoming everyday(literally)better,we have simply to see what are the limits of this technology,personally it's not clear to me.