3DCoat New Room CAD - early pre-alpha

[Carlosan]

 

[Elemeno]

poly modelling , cad modelling anything where a single face is manipulated inside 3dcoat is too confusing to use .. 

 

cant we just get some sculpt improvements?

 

this software is slowly becoming "jack of all trades master of none"

[Carlosan]

Posting the same thing in each thread does not solve the problems you have when using the software.
Please use the corresponding contact emails reporting bugs, it is the best way to help repair them.

[L'Ancien Regime]

Is this CAD room part of the Mesh to NURBS room or are they separate?

By the way this is really an amazing development. I'm impressed.

 

 

Edited July 3, 2024 by L'Ancien Regime

[Carlosan]

The CAD room is extra and is still in development.
10 percent done so far.

This new room requires its own license.
The reaction of designers is very important to us.
If there are good sales, we will switch to the Parasolid core.
We use a geometric modeling kernel Open Cascade.

For any other questions please contact @Gorbatovsky

[L'Ancien Regime]

4 hours ago, Carlosan said:

The CAD room is extra and is still in development.
10 percent done so far.

This new room requires its own license.
The reaction of designers is very important to us.
If there are good sales, we will switch to the Parasolid core.
We use a geometric modeling kernel Open Cascade.

For any other questions please contact @Gorbatovsky

When I looked at it my first question was "is it going to have BREP too?".  So I assume Parasolids are BREP.  Very nice. Excellent.

 

Edited July 3, 2024 by L'Ancien Regime

[Elemeno]

On 7/1/2024 at 6:58 PM, Carlosan said:

Posting the same thing in each thread does not solve the problems you have when using the software.
Please use the corresponding contact emails reporting bugs, it is the best way to help repair them.

no bug was mentioned , however a cad room discussion was opened and i was entering the discussion with my opinion on cad modelling 

 

[L'Ancien Regime]

On 7/1/2024 at 1:52 PM, Elemeno said:

poly modelling , cad modelling anything where a single face is manipulated inside 3dcoat is too confusing to use .. 

 

cant we just get some sculpt improvements?

 

this software is slowly becoming "jack of all trades master of none"

When you really get into modeling stuff problems arise, technical problems. Different modeling technologies grew up for some very specific reasons, to solve unavoidable problems. 

Using voxels provides a very intuitive clay emulation, smoke emulation,  but it's not very good for complex and precise bevels and chamfers for example. It's perfect for organic creatures, but for mechanical stuff it's like putting trousers on an elephant.

Polygons with quads are great for game models and UV mapping for texture painting but have a lot of drawbacks, like jaggies and out of control polygon counts.

NURBS are great for aerodynamic surfaces and mechanical surfaces and avoid the drawbacks of coarse polygons but are terrible for organic creatures

SubD is a compromise between NURBS and Polygonal modeling, excellent for rapid 3d sketching to be then retopoed with NURBS for a perfect finish? There's some very good reasons why Alias is still a big deal and why they added SubD to their unsurpassed NURBS toolset.

BREP is perfect for solid mechanical objects, like machine parts esp if you want to do physical simulations of shear and weight for volume of materials in an object, and also provide intuitive rapid bevels chamfers and booleans

When you're working on a project based on real world situations you're going to need all these toolsets (and more!) at one point or another. How convenient will it be to have all of them in one application so that you can smoothly go back and forth between them in one program with a seamless workflow?

The only program that fully embodies all these technologies currently is Geomagic with Freeform. (by the way Freeform Ghost of MIT was the first computer sculpt program but it never took off because it required a haptic device that cost $6000 to  $24000)

My proposal to 3D Coat was to do something very similar but at low cost.

 

 

Edited July 3, 2024 by L'Ancien Regime

[Elemeno]

1 hour ago, L'Ancien Regime said:

When you really get into modeling stuff problems arise, technical problems. Different modeling technologies grew up for some very specific reasons, to solve unavoidable problems. 

Using voxels provides a very intuitive clay emulation, smoke emulation,  but it's not very good for complex and precise bevels and chamfers for example. It's perfect for organic creatures, but for mechanical stuff it's like putting trousers on an elephant.

Polygons with quads are great for game models and UV mapping for texture painting but have a lot of drawbacks, like jaggies and out of control polygon counts.

NURBS are great for aerodynamic surfaces and mechanical surfaces and avoid the drawbacks of coarse polygons but are terrible for organic creatures

SubD is a compromise between NURBS and Polygonal modeling, excellent for rapid 3d sketching to be then retopoed with NURBS for a perfect finish? There's some very good reasons why Alias is still a big deal and why they added SubD to their unsurpassed NURBS toolset.

BREP is perfect for solid mechanical objects, like machine parts esp if you want to do physical simulations of shear and weight for volume of materials in an object, and also provide intuitive rapid bevels chamfers and booleans

When you're working on a project based on real world situations you're going to need all these toolsets (and more!) at one point or another. How convenient will it be to have all of them in one application so that you can smoothly go back and forth between them in one program with a seamless workflow?

The only program that fully embodies all these technologies currently is Geomagic with Freeform. (by the way Freeform Ghost of MIT was the first computer sculpt program but it never took off because it required a haptic device that cost $6000 to  $24000)

My proposal to 3D Coat was to do something very similar but at low cost.

 

 

no ... i know what they all are , its just anything is implemented like cad modelling or poly modelling the ui and workflow is confusing and i end up wasting so much time when it could be made alot better .

 

thats why i think any cad room or modelling room is pointless until they have a proper workflow

[Henry Townshend]

On 7/1/2024 at 7:52 PM, Elemeno said:

cant we just get some sculpt improvements?
 

I for once agree with this here.

The Sculpt Room and especially Paint Room Room still have basics missing other software has for decades as standards, and you guys stack another separate Room after putting so much development effort already into the modeling room. Of course whatever developers decide, it's their thing. But my suspicion is they are not really lead by professional users needs anymore, but by "wouldn't it be cool if" hobbyists wishlists of strange sorts. And what that should lead to seems strange to me as a passionate user of this software for primarily making art and game art, privately and professionally, and who ditched Substance Painter and Zbrush as a leap of faith in favor of 3D Coat.

Sculpting and Painting is such a strong suite of 3D Coat and should not be neglected in favor of piling up more foreign features imo. Artistic users screaming for years and years what is still missing there to make it professionally/Industry compatible.

I predict no one or very few tech fetish people will use 3D Coat for CAD. 3D Coat is an ART tool. Voxel Modeling is already capable to create shapes like these, especially with live booleans. Is it precise? No. Does it need to be to make art? No. Users do not chose 3D Coat for dry precision work. Users chose 3D Coat to make art.

I can not understand why 3D Coat doesn't play upon it's strength in which it is unique in the industry: A godsent 3D software fusing 3d Concepting and Production for artists at its core.

Better to polish that and iron out the kinks, to be more widely adapted, and integrated as a tool into pipelines, so all users, and the hard working devs, can benefit. Not focusing on experiments enjoying people, or people who like to bend the software to their very private dreams of wanting to get something that costs thousands of dollars in other software for cheap.

I see e.g. something as crucial as non destructive Adjustments being off the table, but a CAD room is being worked on. Very strange decision to me.

[Carlosan]

Sculpt Room is developed by @Andrew Shpagin
Modeling/CAD is developed by @Gorbatovsky

They are two areas of development with different times and that do not interfere with each other.

I don't see any conflict.

[L'Ancien Regime]

I don't see any conflict either nor do I see having different modeling tools as being separate entities either. They will all work in concert just as they do in Houdini. You can make a Nurbs model, voxelize it with OpenVDB  for modifications in that form then polygonalize it back and forth as part of a seamless workflow. But now instead of a bunch of very expensive programs and time consuming file transfers it'll all happen in one very inexpensive program.  You're already making sculptures in voxels with OpenVDB then adding minute details in Surface Mode then retopologizing it by hand or automatically and then using that for extracting displacement or normal maps and then painting the UV maps. Adding a NURBS/BREP system just gives you another toolset to add to that.  And that is artistic as hell. Imagine using Move or Pose or Bend tools in Voxels on a modern auto design, or a piece of jewelry,  surface mode it for added details and then modifying parts and details with NURBS. How is that not "artistic"?

Maybe the Pre Raphaelites or Sympolists would disapprove but Daniel Simon would approve I think. 

I just hope there's plans in Gorbatovsky's project for making two adjacent surfaces or splines to make them match tangentially

Edited July 4, 2024 by L'Ancien Regime

[AbnRanger]

On 7/1/2024 at 12:52 PM, Elemeno said:

poly modelling , cad modelling anything where a single face is manipulated inside 3dcoat is too confusing to use .. 

 

cant we just get some sculpt improvements?

 

this software is slowly becoming "jack of all trades master of none"

The developer working on this (Alexander) does not work in the Paint, UV, Sculpt (normally) or the Render Workspaces. Pilgway sees the popularity of upstart new CAD modeling app, Plasticity, and sees an opportunity to offer similar functionality inside 3DCoat because there are already many NURBS tools and NURBS like tools for Polymesh generation. Andrew is the main developer for those workspaces and tasked Alexander to work on the Retopo/Modeling/CAD-NURBS tools.

Therefore, if you have a problem with the functionality in those fore-mentioned workspaces, send an email to support@pilgway.com which Andrew typically receives. You are communicating directly with him when you send a bug report or request to that email. Here, you are generally just speaking to other members and the forum monitor. Andrew chimes in from time to time, but emails to support is the direct pipeline of communication with him.

[L'Ancien Regime]

2 hours ago, AbnRanger said:

The developer working on this (Alexander) does not work in the Paint, UV, Sculpt (normally) or the Render Workspaces. Pilgway sees the popularity of upstart new CAD modeling app, Plasticity, and sees an opportunity to offer similar functionality inside 3DCoat because there are already many NURBS tools and NURBS like tools for Polymesh generation. Andrew is the main developer for those workspaces and tasked Alexander to work on the Retopo/Modeling/CAD-NURBS tools.

Therefore, if you have a problem with the functionality in those fore-mentioned workspaces, send an email to support@pilgway.com which Andrew typically receives. You are communication directly with him when you send a bug report or request to that email. Here, you are generally just speaking to other members and the forum monitor. Andrew chimes in from time to time, but emails to support is the direct pipeline of communication with him.

 A separate fee for the CAD room will be $75-150.
The price will depend on the type of geometric kernel.

And you won't have to endure its presence if you don't want to fork out the fee. 

[Carlosan]