Should 3DCoat integrate an Industry Standard Render Engine?

[AbnRanger]

I wanted to open a discussion about the prospect of 3DCoat adding full integration of an Industry Standard Render Engine, without an extra addon fee. Chime in if you agree or disagree. Perhaps, Andrew will see the results and make a decision based on the community response. 

So, I will ask the question directly, if 3DCoat 2025 came with a renderer such as Octane, Renderman, VRay, etc. (without additional cost)....and with it, perhaps some modest (Camera) animation functionality...how excited would you be, or would you disapprove (although bug-fixing/stability work will never stop)?

Also, if you were/are someone who is looking at 3DCoat for the first time or haven't upgraded since the 4.X versions, would the integration of this Industry Standard engine persuade you to buy a license or upgrade? 

[gbball]

It would be awesome.  I would settle for something like a realtime Sketchfab integration though.

Which is actually something that could be easily achieved using Babylonjs which is a free open source webgl/webgpu game and rendering framework.  It's basically Sketchfab, but free and with real interaction if you want to do some coding.

https://editor.babylonjs.com/ - an electron based editor for Babylonjs made by someone in the community

https://doc.babylonjs.com/features/featuresDeepDive/postProcesses - about Babylonjs render pipeline

https://playground.babylonjs.com/#Y3C0HQ#146 - a Sketchfab style demo complete with post process fx that is easily integrated in a webpage for free.

[gbball]

Something built with Godot is another option.

It was my understanding that a render engine was in the works for 3D Coat, what is the progress on that?  Has it been shelved?

[AbnRanger]

3 hours ago, gbball said:

It would be awesome.  I would settle for something like a realtime Sketchfab integration though.

Which is actually something that could be easily achieved using Babylonjs which is a free open source webgl/webgpu game and rendering framework.  It's basically Sketchfab, but free and with real interaction if you want to do some coding.

https://editor.babylonjs.com/ - an electron based editor for Babylonjs made by someone in the community

https://doc.babylonjs.com/features/featuresDeepDive/postProcesses - about Babylonjs render pipeline

https://playground.babylonjs.com/#Y3C0HQ#146 - a Sketchfab style demo complete with post process fx that is easily integrated in a webpage for free.

Thanks for the info, but the question I raised isn't really about alternative OpenSource render engines. It's about integration of a major render engine that everyone knows well. This company also has a separate real time render engine. Perhaps that could be the one that gets integrated, instead.

As for the work on the current render engine, I think that was shelved while the developer is working on something else.

[gbball]

16 hours ago, AbnRanger said:

Thanks for the info, but the question I raised isn't really about alternative OpenSource render engines. It's about integration of a major render engine that everyone knows well. This company also has a separate real time render engine. Perhaps that could be the one that gets integrated, instead.

As for the work on the current render engine, I think that was shelved while the developer is working on something else.

If that's the case, it would be incredible.  Sign me up.

[Elemeno]

but its not what 3dcoat is about ...

3dcoat is for creation , the stage 1-3 of creation the rendering and animation is else where ...

implementing this sort of thing would take ages(animation) the render engine again im not too fussed , i prefer alot of outsie engines like marmoset toolbag / unreal engine 5

however to use renderman,octane or vray ... these are paid for ... the can implement them but not give them away for free

 

to be fair unreal engine is so close now and produces real time results too .. what more do you need?

[AbnRanger]

3 hours ago, Elemeno said:

but its not what 3dcoat is about ...

3dcoat is for creation , the stage 1-3 of creation the rendering and animation is else where ...

implementing this sort of thing would take ages(animation) the render engine again im not too fussed , i prefer alot of outsie engines like marmoset toolbag / unreal engine 5

however to use renderman,octane or vray ... these are paid for ... the can implement them but not give them away for free

 

to be fair unreal engine is so close now and produces real time results too .. what more do you need?

Normally, I would agree with your points, but I know I personally would love and use this render engine a lot if it were integrated in 3DCoat. The Concept Art market would be really stoked about it, because they could do most everything right inside of 3DCoat, including the use of the large library of materials this render engine offers. Just because you personally may be familiar with Marmoset and Unreal, it doesn't mean everyone else is and they may not want to be forced to learn yet another app or game engine, to do their work. That is the appeal of 3DCoat, actually....being able to do high level work at most stages of the pipeline, and hopefully that would include generating high end Character Model Sheets and Renders for clients and Art Directors to sign off on. If the objective is to send the model to a game engine, then it may not have as much appeal, but for Concept Artists and Character/Environment artists (for animation or product shots) especially, it would be big news, I am sure.

[Elemeno]

10 hours ago, AbnRanger said:

Normally, I would agree with your points, but I know I personally would love and use this render engine a lot if it were integrated in 3DCoat. The Concept Art market would be really stoked about it, because they could do most everything right inside of 3DCoat, including the use of the large library of materials this render engine offers. Just because you personally may be familiar with Marmoset and Unreal, it doesn't mean everyone else is and they may not want to be forced to learn yet another app or game engine, to do their work. That is the appeal of 3DCoat, actually....being able to do high level work at most stages of the pipeline, and hopefully that would include generating high end Character Model Sheets and Renders for clients and Art Directors to sign off on. If the objective is to send the model to a game engine, then it may not have as much appeal, but for Concept Artists and Character/Environment artists (for animation or product shots) especially, it would be big news, I am sure.

its just who pays for that license ? they just cant use a render like that for free

[Gorbatovsky]

Good topic, but I don’t understand what engine we can use so that no one pays for it.

Besides, I think it would be good for us to do at least a simple animation.

[Mighty Pea]

Cycles (Blender's render engine) is opensource and under a more permissive license than Blender's GPL (MIT I believe?)

[AbnRanger]

2 hours ago, Elemeno said:

its just who pays for that license ? they just cant use a render like that for free

No one is saying the company would be offering it to Pilgway for free. Perhaps Pilgway received a very generous offer from said company and instead of charging customers extra for a license, they'll decide to absorb the cost in the price of 3DCoat? Perhaps the company also empathizes with Pilgway trying to operate in the middle of a terrible war, and wants to show some love and solidarity to Ukraine in this way?

[Elemeno]

5 hours ago, AbnRanger said:

No one is saying the company would be offering it to Pilgway for free. Perhaps Pilgway received a very generous offer from said company and instead of charging customers extra for a license, they'll decide to absorb the cost in the price of 3DCoat? Perhaps the company also empathizes with Pilgway trying to operate in the middle of a terrible war, and wants to show some love and solidarity to Ukraine in this way?

i love your enthusiasm but companies dont care about people , if they did everything would be free..  nice to think about it though .. or maybe even if they improved their own render engine ... could even implement cycles ??

[Carlosan]

The render room needs some love for sure, but it's not that bad.

It would help a lot to be able to add REAL cameras and lights and avoid, as now, mimic the style of BPR render like ZBrush.

and import/export cameras as .fbx

[AbnRanger]

20 hours ago, Elemeno said:

i love your enthusiasm but companies dont care about people , if they did everything would be free..  nice to think about it though .. or maybe even if they improved their own render engine ... could even implement cycles ??

In general, yes, but maybe this company's home country is not very far from Ukraine, and thus they have greater understanding and empathy of what Pilgway is going through, making an offer they normally would not. Just trying to take a guess at their motivation...it's not enthusiasm, although I hope it comes to fruition.

[gbball]

52 minutes ago, AbnRanger said:

In general, yes, but maybe this company's home country is not very far from Ukraine, and thus they have greater understanding and empathy of what Pilgway is going through, making an offer they normally would not. Just trying to take a guess at their motivation...it's not enthusiasm, although I hope it comes to fruition.

If this is a real thing, I think 3D Coat should jump on it.  One of the things that I'd like to see more is better overall pipeline integration and that would go a long way.  Especially since as you've said, a lot of concept artist use 3D Coat.

It would theoretically lead to a larger userbase.  Look at what Eevee did for Blender and Lumen and Nanite for Unreal.  Even Marmoset built a texture and baking tool around their render engine.

Having a good built in render tool is a game changer.  It sounds like you're not talking purely hypothetically and you're aware of a potential partnership, are you not at liberty to say with who?

[AbnRanger]

32 minutes ago, gbball said:

If this is a real thing, I think 3D Coat should jump on it.  One of the things that I'd like to see more is better overall pipeline integration and that would go a long way.  Especially since as you've said, a lot of concept artist use 3D Coat.

It would theoretically lead to a larger userbase.  Look at what Eevee did for Blender and Lumen and Nanite for Unreal.  Even Marmoset built a texture and baking tool around their render engine.

Having a good built in render tool is a game changer.  It sounds like you're not talking purely hypothetically and you're aware of a potential partnership, are you not at liberty to say with who?

I don't think I am at liberty to say who, yet, but the offer is real. I just spoke with Andrew (and Stas, previously) about it. This is one reason why I am asking here, so others in the community can provide their input about it. I personally think it would double the 3DCoat userbase, if not much more, nearly overnight, because this render is a super-heavyweight in the industry...including the Arch Viz industry also. It would elevate 3DCoat's credentials in this market, although Pilgway would have to spend the time to integrate it, though, rather than the vendor making a plugin for it. 

[SreckoM]

Well we do not have info you have, but I do not see why would anyone be against it, especially if price is not being changed.

[Sui]

I have a few concerns. First of all is the time to implement such a heavy function. It may certainly impact the effort to optimise and create other functions which are essential for the role Coat used to play. 

The second would be the efficiency of the software. Let's be honest, Coat is not the fastest one in the market. Considering the speed, bugs, I would personally not use Coat to render a heavy model.

Since someone mentioned a lot of concept artists are using Coat, I must say Coat is great for creating interesting shapes and volumes. I use it to create a single building or a vehicle all the time, but I never build an entire scene in Coat. It would be way too heavy and can easily crash. Coat is not optimised for such kind of job.

So personally, I would be against(not strongly though) the integration of such a render engine. It will be good to have if it does no impact on other functions. Just, I would suggest more attention on making the creation, autopo and export better. These would certainly make concept life easier.

[SreckoM]

Well adding new render engine does not make it full DCC app. I think idea behind it is to preview, in much better way, model you work on. Or concept artist to render model in better quality than what they have now and use that render in PS for example. I do not think that idea is to make 3DCoat layout app. There are many things it misses to be something like that, not just render engine.

[Elemeno]

8 hours ago, SreckoM said:

Well adding new render engine does not make it full DCC app. I think idea behind it is to preview, in much better way, model you work on. Or concept artist to render model in better quality than what they have now and use that render in PS for example. I do not think that idea is to make 3DCoat layout app. There are many things it misses to be something like that, not just render engine.

having a full on render engine like vray seems pointless ...

youve really jsut got to use 3dcoat how it as meant .. an amazing concept tool to get a very clean first pass of your mesh , the retopo tools are the best ive ever used

 

but when it comes to polishing and painting it lacks .. so having a render room thats super high quality renders .. you would have to work outside of 3coat and then bring it inside .. 

kinda defeating the object .

[Sui]

8 hours ago, Elemeno said:

having a full on render engine like vray seems pointless ...

youve really jsut got to use 3dcoat how it as meant .. an amazing concept tool to get a very clean first pass of your mesh , the retopo tools are the best ive ever used

 

but when it comes to polishing and painting it lacks .. so having a render room thats super high quality renders .. you would have to work outside of 3coat and then bring it inside .. 

kinda defeating the object .

That's it Elemeno. But still, I would really like if Coat can be better in polishing stuff and bridging with other soft. I became hesitated whenever I reach details because I dont know if they can be carried well to the next stage, and Coat has a lot of limitations on both performance and function. That's what I really crave for optimization as I work on concept arts.

[Francisco]

It would be cool. Many times I only go to blender for render. I don't know if is better integrating another company's render engine or develop their's more.

But yeah, I think integrating a more intuitive and user friendly render engine would give to 3Dcoat more value. I don't like to move lights with numbers or sliders, I would like to place them in the scene and be able to move them with the mouse. Also the camera placing and management is not very comfortable to use for me.

I think the one they have works good for single objects but I don't feel that comfortable with it when rendering complex scenes. 

That said, for me is not a big deal to export the assets to blender and render there.

 

[TheHighFlys]

If this includes MaterialX support + real lights/cameras sign me up!

[Kaos]

I don't think building the software out is a bad idea. Also, I don't think it's fair to say that 3DCoat wasn't engineered with that in mind. From my understanding, 3DCoat was originally made for Retopology and doing UVs, and the current state of 3DCoat is quite different than what it originally was. 

I think having different options inside of 3DCoat for rendering and animation are great idea. Animation would also mean having the ability to rig something up completely, which is cool. A more thought-out Render Room is the best place to start, and I don't think they need a ton of work. More cameras to choose from and physically move around and locate would be a good start, much like what can be done in Maya or Unreal. These would be just fighting though, as we aren't trying to capture from most of these (except maybe one outside of the viewport, depending on how it's set up). 

3DCoat does have its option for rendering built in. It's not the best in the world, but it is free. 

Additional drop downs could be added in, similar to how RenderMan is right now, giving you the option to select what rendering agent you want to use, open source or paid for. I don't imagine it would be too big of a deal to bridge the software inside of 3DCoat. It wouldn't be the ideal situation, and you would have to check the Terms and Conditions to see if this is allowed, but you could bridge the most important aspects that would be needed. It wouldn't be the full software, not without just having a bridge to port it over, similar to how Zbrush is doing right now. 

In terms of price, if I were managing it for Zbrush, I wouldn't have anything to do with the billing. Make the software/bridge/plugin available as part of the next years software, and if you want to use it, you have to pay for that actual software (for example, you will need to pay for Keyshot). 
 

This would still take a lot of work, but I think the Rendering room is probably one of the areas in need of the most love. It's not bad, but it's definitely in need. 

[Umbra]

Hmm, I don't see a point in getting something like Octane/Vray inside of 3DCoat. Is it just for better quick renders and material preview? I have my doubts the developers are integrating and allowing any further shader network manipulation similar to other DCC apps and renderer plugins. Most concept artists, I imagine, are comfortable already with pushing models and texture maps out of 3DCoat into other rendering dedicated software. This will just lead more requests in users desiring a more general and broader 3D package with 3DCoat. Can the developers really support that change in direction? What kind of refactoring is required on that? There's a lot more to be considered.

I highly doubt it would be 'free', and it would be something Pilgway would have to consider into their licensing pricing. I also don't expect out of the popular rendering software companies to be supporting a 3DCoat implementation in the long run - especially a company like Chaos Group, so I doubt it's them as an option.

Maybe if I understood the intention of this kind of implementation more than as a general question this would make more sense for me.

[Elemeno]

22 minutes ago, Umbra said:

Hmm, I don't see a point in getting something like Octane/Vray inside of 3DCoat. Is it just for better quick renders and material preview? I have my doubts the developers are integrating and allowing any further shader network manipulation similar to other DCC apps and renderer plugins. Most concept artists, I imagine, are comfortable already with pushing models and texture maps out of 3DCoat into other rendering dedicated software. This will just lead more requests in users desiring a more general and broader 3D package with 3DCoat. Can the developers really support that change in direction? What kind of refactoring is required on that? There's a lot more to be considered.

I highly doubt it would be 'free', and it would be something Pilgway would have to consider into their licensing pricing. I also don't expect out of the popular rendering software companies to be supporting a 3DCoat implementation in the long run - especially a company like Chaos Group, so I doubt it's them as an option.

Maybe if I understood the intention of this kind of implementation more than as a general question this would make more sense for me.

yea there are other things needed before this , like quads only in surface .. ive needed that since i bought the software

[nickloong]

The only thing is, my work content process so far has been completed in 3dcoat.

So if possible, I hope that the rendering process of 3dcoat can be more complete or better (it does not need to be too professional or perfect)

The current rendering engine is actually very good for amateur rendering enthusiasts, but what is the problem?

1. Refraction calculation of transparent materials leads to complete darkness.

2. The effect of specular reflection is disappointing

You only need to solve these two points. It does not need to be too large or complicated. It is enough for amateurs.

It will definitely be difficult to implement all functions in one go. Bugs and conflicts will definitely be difficult. If you solve them step by step, Would it be more appropriate?

[Sui]

I guess people with different workflows have different thoughts about this. There are people who doing the majority of works in Coat. And there are people like me who use it in companion with SP, Blender and other software.

For the later group of artists, they sure have adapted to other software and therefore have little need for this. If the integration would result in an increase of price, it could sure be a con when purchasing.

I would say making improvements and optimisation is necessary but there is no crucial need of a professional engine. Also making export and autopo better will be extremely important. It is generally impossible to work/texture with models from Coat other than triplanal mapping in SP or box mapping in BL. They are hardly editable outside Coat. Like I said early, building an entire scene inside Coat, is just impossible. Even a professional engine can be added, its use will be limited to a single or maybe a few objects due to the polycount.

So why spending large amount of resource to implement something limited when you can use the resource to build improvements that can benefit all users?

[alexn007]

Great discussion, but honestly, for me, the 3DCoat render is not to bad. With 3DCoat, I tend to author my assets, model, UV, retopo, and paint. I only use the render to help give a quick preview of a raytraced render. But I don't see it as a final render. Once I get it out of 3DCoat, I'll bring it into another package adjust final material adjustments, lighting, and then add procedural elements if needed before kicking off a final render.

I wouldn't want to pay more for 3DCoat to have an industry-standard render built into it, since this would also mean, there would need to be a proper lighting module and the material system would need to support that render. for example, if Renderman or Vray was to be included, then I would expect to use that renderers material system. That won't come for free and would certainly hike up the cost of 3DCoat. If 3DCoat was also an animation and rigging package then maybe, but all the renderer will be used for is single frame or turntable renders, I don't think it is quite worth it. My 2 cents anyway.

[AbnRanger]

On 5/4/2024 at 8:18 PM, Elemeno said:

yea there are other things needed before this , like quads only in surface .. ive needed that since i bought the software

Could you please screen record some kind of comparison as to how this is a big benefit in another application and show where in 3DCoat, that sculpting with a triangulated mesh fails to offer this benefit? I just have a really hard time picturing how this happens to be a need in 3DCoat, because I have never felt like "Man, if only I could sculpt with quads, this would work so much better." I promise, I am not being cynical. I just need help understanding why quads is such a big need. If someone could show me, I am open to be persuaded.