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Nurbs support


polyxo
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And I was going to say I'm ready to see 3D Coat replace Silo 3D; - if the retopo is any indication of what Andrew can do with polygons, I can imagine him coming up with a decent polygon creation / editing toolkit for 3DC!

Silo has stalled out, and Hexagon, who knows - the only other (commercial) place to look for polygon editing is Modo.

In fact if Andrew could mimic some of the workflows and tools available in Hexagon and Silo, plus now with the mention of NURBS support, what more could you ask for from this application?? :yahoo:

I think 3DC is going to be the app to watch (and companies to worry about) for a good amount of time to come!

-Will

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And I was going to say I'm ready to see 3D Coat replace Silo 3D; - if the retopo is any indication of what Andrew can do with polygons, I can imagine him coming up with a decent polygon creation / editing toolkit for 3DC!

Silo has stalled out, and Hexagon, who knows - the only other (commercial) place to look for polygon editing is Modo.

In fact if Andrew could mimic some of the workflows and tools available in Hexagon and Silo, plus now with the mention of NURBS support, what more could you ask for from this application?? :yahoo:

I think 3DC is going to be the app to watch (and companies to worry about) for a good amount of time to come!

-Will

Actually there are lots of other options, Modo isn't your only choice. But it's funny you mention going from Hexagon and Silo to Modo, is that next up on the food chain? lol

I use Lightwave for all my poly editing needs.

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Actually there are lots of other options, Modo isn't your only choice. But it's funny you mention going from Hexagon and Silo to Modo, is that next up on the food chain? lol

I use Lightwave for all my poly editing needs.

I use Lightwave, Cinema 4D, and Softimage - those apps (with the exception of perhaps the first release of CORE) are more than modeling apps.

Modo isn't even a straight modeling app any more. Howver I mentioned Modo because it's >known for its modeling prowess<.

Silo and Hexagon are strictly modeling apps - no rendering or animation.

That's why I had said, it would be nice to see 3DC pickup the gauntlet for polygon modeling since both Silo and Hex have now fallen off and left a huge potential for a mid-cost modeling toolset.

A Tab within 3DC that shows the same strengths displayed for retopo, dedicated to polygon modeling would be a nice round-off (IMO) for 3DC.

In fact, I can see the Retopo tab simply becoming a "Polys" tab having similar toolsets / workflows from the 2 apps I mentioned along with some Andrew innovations as well. (Some polyboost like features would be nice also!)

Hex has a nice workflow with its extrudes and I especially like its object and surfaces generation based off lines and curves.

Silo of course just has one of the best polygon workflows out there to date but lacks the lines / curves toolset of Hexagon.

-Will

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Hi All,

as this thead is now more and more getting a discussion about possible implementation of poly-modeling tools let me try to clarify.

Some of you now start dreaming of extruding beveling and spinning edges like like in typical polymodelers...

However nobody currently thinks of adding native Nurbs modeling tools like Lofts of Sweeps to 3D-Coat.

Spline based tools inside the Voxel toolset at some point could make great sense for everybody but I guess nobody saw a reason

in adding stuff which could easily be done inside Rhino, Moi or SolidWorks.

One might missunderstand this.

You may not be able to extrude a face inside 3DCoat, however the geometry-type which most people here deal with exclusively has been read, written

and understood from day one: Polygon-Meshes.

What will get added for starters is only the equivalent for those who see a potential in using 3DC as a conceptional tool for technical applications.

Technical programs typically don't use meshes.

What will happen is that 3D Coat learns talk better to software which is typically used for the purpose of of making a car, a telephone or a piece of jewelery.

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Hi Polyxo, I'm not sure what you're saying here?

I'm advocating a polygon toolset simply because 3DC does already work with them as you mention however at the moment, it only manipulates what is imported, it doesn't really generate them using a direct polygon editing toolset. (Right now you can Vox or sculpt and then convert to polygons - not directly construct polygons.)

The Retopo toolset already shows a great poly editing workflow that some dedicated modelers lack - I was voicing for an expansion of that existing toolset into something more complete for polygon creation and editing.

As far as NURBS, I haven't yet read Andrew's Twitter on his plans for NURBS (Twitter is blocked on my job :rolleyes: ) so I came here to see if it was reposted by him but I guess it wasn't - I'm going to read that after this post to see exactly what he said he was going to do.

Being that I currently love MoI for my NURBS modeling, I wasn't looking for 3DC to try and compete as a NURBS modeler against MoI - I was sorta hoping that I could directly import my 3DMs (NURBS data, not poly) and use 3DC for what it's good at, painting and form sculpting / adding details etc.

If Andrew wants to take on Rhino and MoI - more power to him, I'm certainly not trying to limit his creativity or programming prowess in any way. (Again, I haven't read yet his statement on what he plans for NURBS)

Being that Silo and Hex has fallen off, I feel there is a gap for a mid-priced modeling app, which I think Andrew could fill nicely with 3DC based on what we've all seen him do up to now.

I'd be all for a LWCAD type NURBS toolset as well that also lets you drop down to the polygon level for export. But for character modeling, there will always be the need for sub-division surfaces in one form or another.

Now granted, if Andrew wants to do a T-Spline based implementation and forego the baby-steps of "simple" NURBS and SDS polygon modeling - then eff'n HELL YEAH!, that would be an AMAZING step for Andrew to take, and frankly would be as revolutionary as his implementation of Voxels! :yahoo:

Frankly, a t-spline solution from Andrew (IMO) would be an achievement worthy of him considering his amazing skills at 3D graphics programming!

However before I start dreaming of him adding in functions to fold space and time, let me go read what he actually said about NURBS and his plans for them! :unsure:

-Will

PS - Okay I see that only "NURBS Support" was mentioned without further details...

PPS - T-Spline reference: http://www.tsplines.com/products/what-are-t-splines.html

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My guess would be an implementation like Modo, which would be highly functional

http://www.luxology.com/whatismodo/plugins...translator.aspx

Personally I want the control in Claytools, but this import/export might help me export a voxel>mesh model to Rhino after rough volume sculpting.

Andrew needs to hire an army of programmers. He is a big picture thinker and fast implementer, but I think that he needs more minions.

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My guess would be an implementation like Modo, which would be highly functional

http://www.luxology.com/whatismodo/plugins...translator.aspx

Personally I want the control in Claytools, but this import/export might help me export a voxel>mesh model to Rhino after rough volume sculpting.

Andrew needs to hire an army of programmers. He is a big picture thinker and fast implementer, but I think that he needs more minions.

Indeed. He seems to be heading, even if a small amount, in that direction. I do believe it is for the best. He's got a grand idea for what 3DC is - I'd like to see it realized fully.

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Okay, I see - yall talking the other way around - exporting 3DC forms as NURBS objects - interesting...

I use NURBS mostly for hard surface objects - I'm not sure what I'd do with a Vox'd asteroid shape exported as NURBS??

(I've used 3DC recently to create asteroids for my game which I then exported into Unity.)

I'm not sure what I would do with an asteroid (or other softbody shape) in MoI??

Typically from MoI I export into Cinema 4D for animation and then export into Unity (polygons).

I guess what I'm saying is I'm not sure what I'd do with a NURB'ed Vox??

On the other hand, I'd really love to have them t-splines in 3DC!

I'm definitely interested in seeing how you folks would like to use a 3DC based NURBS toolset...

-Will

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First of all congratulations to the developers.

What I would like to ask at this stage is when you say .3dm support do you mean support for REAL Nurbs Curves, Surfaces and Solids OR Rhino files should be saved (baked) as a polygon mesh inside Rhino before loading into 3d-Coat?

Also when you export from 3d-Coat to Rhino etc. would that be Nurbs files like .3dm, IGES etc. OR Mesh files like .Obj ?

Thanks in advance.

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First of all congratulations to the developers.

What I would like to ask at this stage is when you say .3dm support do you mean support for REAL Nurbs Curves, Surfaces and Solids OR Rhino files should be saved (baked) as a polygon mesh inside Rhino before loading into 3d-Coat?

Also when you export from 3d-Coat to Rhino etc. would that be Nurbs files like .3dm, IGES etc. OR Mesh files like .Obj ?

Thanks in advance.

First stage - just import 3DM.

Second - manipulating nurbs surfaces in 3DC shell

What about export - I will see how it goes.

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First stage - just import 3DM.

Second - manipulating nurbs surfaces in 3DC shell

What about export - I will see how it goes.

thanks for you prompt reply.

Just to clarify, you say Ill be able to import 3DM files that contain Curves, Surfaces or Solids and then use the UV Unwrap, paint, Sculpt tools in 3DC...That's great news. :clapping:

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Well I'm not sure about curves - he said Surfaces and I'm assuming also closed surfaces (solids).

There's not much you can do with a NURBS curve unless you're going to generate a surface or solid from it.

I don't believe Andrew is talking NURBS surface creation (yet)...

Back in the day (I guess before MoI) I used to also wish my applications could directly import and work with NURBS surfaces.

My Rhino (v2) exports were so ugly and required so much rework that I dropped using it for my model creation (even though I LOVED the simplicity of forms creation using NURBS modeling)

Once MoI came out with its hella clean polygon exporter I was once again able to add NURBS modeling into my art path.

Thing is, now I don't have a need any longer for direct 3DM import??

As a Rhino user, hell yea, I could see the advantage of being able to import a .3DM into 3DC (CLEANLY) and work it from there. (But didn't I hear they're trying to improve their polygon exporter for the next version??)

As a MoI user, I'm not sure? MoI's >lo-poly< OBJ exports are so clean, (provided the app can handle ngons), I don't thirst for direct .3DM import any longer?

Sure, it's still hard for me to get MoIs into ZBrush (unless I forego ngons and up the quad/tri quantity really high to maintain the smoothness) - so I can see an advantage to 3DC being able to import the .3DM as NURBS as a competitor (at the moment) to ZBrush, but other than that?...

Looking at the videos that I was pointed to, I see NURBS modeling and sculpting of NURBS objects - I can do this now with an OBJ export from MoI?? Perhaps I'm still missing (as a MoI user) the desire for direct NURBS import here??

Again, T-Spines I can see because they are the best of both worlds - plus you'd also be able to export your t-s objects as polygons OR NURBS...

-Will

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actually those are not nurbs objects. Those are highly controlled voxel sculpts which can use something like nurbs curves to control brush action.

I see a curve system to control your brushes, mask off an area or act as rails for a pressure sensitive stroke to be very useful to create controlled design feature.

Also a sketcher as shown in the video would be mighty helpful.

Thanks for the links polyxo. That is my dream sculpt toolset.

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Yes, I can see being able to edit a voxel using curves to shape and mask would be hella nice but what does that have to do with NURBS surfaces?

You can do this kinda thing with cage deformers to a degree.

I can see perhaps importing a >hard-surface< NURBS model to a Voxel that looks exactly the same - without any softness or rounded corners and things.

Perhaps, Andrew, you can explain further your vision for adding NURBS support?

-Will

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I mentioned nurbs curves as being a useful tool that had other applications than plain import. Since we are talking about Rhino import, nurbs curves import development would help other aspects of voxel sculpting and general usage.

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