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Full game ready characters in 3D coat?


Francisco
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Posted (edited)

Hello guys, for now I only use 3D coat for concept art and illustration, but I am thinking about learning the full pipeline of 3D character and assets creation.

 

I was wondering if is worthit or not trying to create full game ready characters or assets only in 3D coat. I mean everything or almost; high poly sculpting, retopo, modelling, Uvs, baking, texturing and I don't know if I miss something.

I see that most of the people use a combination of different softwares for this: zbrush, maya, substance painter, marmoset toolbag, photoshop and 3D coat. Like this example: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/xDqnAR or this: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/blLybn

 

Should I learn all those softwares? Or can I make all this in 3D coat with professional quality and eficiency?

What are the cons of using only 3D coat for all those tasks? In what of those tasks is 3D coat a good and professional alternative to those softwares?

If 3D coat is not a good alternative, why it's not?

Why the pros use all those softwares and I don't see (I think I didn't, let me know if I am wrong) any pro using 3D coat for more than hand paint textures and retopology? 

 

Thank you.

Edited by Francisco
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I would assume most professionals use 3dcoat in early stage modelling, sculpting, maybe later retopo and uv unwrapping. 3Dcoat is by itself a great tool to create shapes and volumes but it is not so good at polishing thin layers and small parts. Its algorithm requires higher resolution, therefore higher system requirement when doing these tasks. I'm not saying it's impossible but just not as comfortable as ZBrush and Maya.

ZBrush is hard but always a good choice to learn. You get more possiblity and efficiency by combining these two. If you want to do more simulation, animation or landscape rendering, a mesh modelling(Blender, Maya, Max) software is a necessity.

From other users I heard that when transferring textures from Coat usually come with obvious quality lose. Never use it myself so... Substance Painter is easy to learn and use if you are familiar with photoshop. It's a highly popular tool in the industry so never hurts to learn. 

A renderer is favorable but you can also use Blender if you want to save the money.

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Should I learn all those softwares? 
yes, if you like to work with industry standards

Or can I make all this in 3D coat with professional quality and efficiency?
yes, if you like to work as solo developer


there is no single tool that does everything

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23 hours ago, Carlosan said:

Should I learn all those softwares? 
yes, if you like to work with industry standards

Or can I make all this in 3D coat with professional quality and efficiency?
yes, if you like to work as solo developer


there is no single tool that does everything

Can you show some examples of professional quality game ready character or assets made entirely with 3D coat?

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On 5/15/2024 at 6:56 AM, Sui said:

I would assume most professionals use 3dcoat in early stage modelling, sculpting, maybe later retopo and uv unwrapping. 3Dcoat is by itself a great tool to create shapes and volumes but it is not so good at polishing thin layers and small parts. Its algorithm requires higher resolution, therefore higher system requirement when doing these tasks. I'm not saying it's impossible but just not as comfortable as ZBrush and Maya.

ZBrush is hard but always a good choice to learn. You get more possiblity and efficiency by combining these two. If you want to do more simulation, animation or landscape rendering, a mesh modelling(Blender, Maya, Max) software is a necessity.

From other users I heard that when transferring textures from Coat usually come with obvious quality lose. Never use it myself so... Substance Painter is easy to learn and use if you are familiar with photoshop. It's a highly popular tool in the industry so never hurts to learn. 

A renderer is favorable but you can also use Blender if you want to save the money.

Thank you for your answer. 

 

I agree, I like 3D coat for quick and not so detailed sculpting, but for high resolution sculpting... in 3D coat I didn't manage to do it. While in zbrush, even using it for much less time and with worst pc, I worked with much more polygons more comfortable. 

The thing is that zbrush is quite expensive, but looks like if I want to go for 3D art, is the go to software.

 

For baking also I don't see people using 3D coat. I don't know why. Same for texturing (but hand painted), only saw concept artists using it for that, as I do myself. 

I'd like to hear from experienced users about baking and texturing in 3D coat vs substance painter or other softwares. 

 

For retopo and UVs looks like there are 3D artists using it.

 

I think I'll keep learning zbrush and start learning substance painter.

 

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Posted (edited)
On 5/14/2024 at 4:53 PM, Francisco said:

Hello guys, for now I only use 3D coat for concept art and illustration, but I am thinking about learning the full pipeline of 3D character and assets creation.

 

I was wondering if is worthit or not trying to create full game ready characters or assets only in 3D coat. I mean everything or almost; high poly sculpting, retopo, modelling, Uvs, baking, texturing and I don't know if I miss something.

I see that most of the people use a combination of different softwares for this: zbrush, maya, substance painter, marmoset toolbag, photoshop and 3D coat. Like this example: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/xDqnAR or this: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/blLybn

 

Should I learn all those softwares? Or can I make all this in 3D coat with professional quality and eficiency?

What are the cons of using only 3D coat for all those tasks? In what of those tasks is 3D coat a good and professional alternative to those softwares?

If 3D coat is not a good alternative, why it's not?

Why the pros use all those softwares and I don't see (I think I didn't, let me know if I am wrong) any pro using 3D coat for more than hand paint textures and retopology? 

 

Thank you.

It is possible and I believe worthwhile.  I think 3D Coat would benefit from being able to sculpt on a quad mesh with subdivision levels, which would also allow for more straightforward baking.  But other than that, you can get very detailed sculpts if you understand how to approach things strategically.  Everything you learn will translate to other tools if you decide to expand your pipeline.

Edited by gbball
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2 hours ago, gbball said:

It is possible and I believe worthwhile.  I think 3D Coat would benefit from being able to sculpt on a quad mesh with subdivision levels, which would also allow for more straightforward baking.  But other than that, you can get very detailed sculpts if you understand how to approach things strategically.  Everything you learn will translate to other tools if you decide to expand your pipeline.

alot of my problem is if im doing hard surface , ill mock up a concept , ill then retopologise it to create clean smooth geometry but once thats done , i cant change that shape at all , if we had a surface multires that kept quads we could then go back to level 1 , change in low poly and then back up again , how ever once you again res to a surface model the triangles distort the mesh making what youve just made useless so most of the time i just concept my work in 3dcoat , an then clean it in other software like zbrush or ill even retopo and then move over high and low project and carry on working with clean topology and division levels 

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Sorry but for hard surface modeling it is not recommended to use a sculpture program but CAD (Fusion 360, MoI or Plasticity, to name few).

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Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, Carlosan said:

Sorry but for hard surface modeling it is not recommended to use a sculpture program but CAD (Fusion 360, MoI or Plasticity, to name few).

But Carlosan, many concept artists, me included, use 3dcoat for hardsurface. It may sound not intuitive but we do because Coat offers a effective way to do boolean and shape sketch. 

Just like Elemeno had mentioned, those are the problems which troubled me alot as well. To reach a higher fidelity and clean edge Coat requires much more polycount which makes it inappropriate for detail sculpting and modelling in the first place.  I decimate and bake normal maps to reduce polycount before export to other programs for editing. The inconvenience of later editing has bothered me alot but thank to the devs who made multiple decimate possible this process has been shortened from hours to minutes. I derived my workflow from Norris Lin's tutorial. He used Blender for mesh organization and SP for baking. I just combined those steps in Coat. There are other people who use Coat for beautiful hardsurface concept. I believe there was an interview with Bruce Yu. He is awesome, too.

I haven't yet touch much Zbrush. Will do and try to bridge a workflow between both. But still, I do hope the devs can make continuous optimisation because I found the desire to use more and more polycount for hardsurface. I really hope Coat can make the link with Zbrush easier. I know they are competitors, but to be honest, there are already many artists who use both of them.

Edited by Sui
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//out of topic, sorry...

As you said... concept artist...

The great challenge to be a standard in the industry is how 3DC can interact within the already created ecosystem, that implies an easy interaction in the in/out (import/export) scheme.


I have asked Andrew several times to consider this MoI feature to be added to 3DC.

 

If any1 like it, considerer to drop a mail to Andrew asking for this feature.

Thanks

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On 5/17/2024 at 2:04 PM, Francisco said:

Can you show some examples of professional quality game ready character or assets made entirely with 3D coat?

Quality AAA games characters or props are realized by team work. 

You must acquire the knowledge that allows you to know how to select the appropriate tool to do your job.
And to be able to reach god level, which is what they currently ask for each skill.

3DCoat excels on hand painting, voxel sculpting and retopology, and is very good on texturing, surface sculpting and modeling. 

But AAA game companies ask that you know the tools they use and for which they have spent years developing their own solutions such as scripts, plugins and addons that make up their own workflow.

The 3DCoat development team has worked hard to add the necessary tools to easily be part of those ecosystems, expanding the language to python, improving the creation of extensions and the possibility of creating add-ons by external developers.

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When looking for tools, there is no tool that entirely solves all the steps of the process since for each of them you need a tool specialized only in that stage.

Let's take as an example the skills requested by a AAA company like Room8Studio to select their future artists.

We are looking for experienced and highly skilled 3D Character Artists:

Superpowers you have are:
High-poly sculpt in Zbrush;
SubD modeling in Max / Maya;
Character topology for animation;
Cloth simulation in Marvelous Designer;
Strong knowledge of anatomy;
Experience in working with hard surface;
Texturing in Substance Painter;
Good understanding of modern pipelines and requirements for the Photorealistic Character creation;
Ability to follow and correctly interpret / improve the concept idea;
Teamwork skills;
Work experience in game projects for PCs and consoles as a Character Artist;
Relevant portfolio with examples of works in the corresponding direction.
 

You’re a rockstar if you have 
Experience creating hair for games;
Experience in making creatures;
Knowledge of Unreal Engine 4;
Drawing skills;
Good understanding of rigging and animation process;
Intermediate English level and above.
 

As a part of Room 8 studio, you will 
Create high-poly and low-poly models of photoreal characters and creatures for games on given concepts;
Create optimal UV mapping and texture baking (normal, AO, etc.);
Work with photorealistic texturing;
Work with game engines.

As you can see there is not a single app that perform all this request.

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My opinion:

In an era where large companies do not recover the large investment put into some games, they are reducing costs by laying off staff, AI is advancing more on positions that perform repetitive tasks, and burnout has become common... 

3DCoat is the ideal tool for mid, low and solo developers who make their own games and -in relation to production costs- have more profits developing games for mobiles and PCs (also making them for H5 gamers).

gaming.jpg

 

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