Improving the Voxel Brushes: Help us Help you

[Javis]

Hey everyone,

Andrew is striving to improve the brushes for voxel sculpting. Everyone here on the forums is asking for this improvement as well.

What Andrew would like, is for everyone to share their ideas about how YOU want the voxel brushes to work. For example: How they should feel, how they should operate, whether they should have customization or not for further tweaking, presets so on and so forth. Let your imagination fly on this. Please post your ideas here in this thread!

Dig deep, come up with some good ideas everyone. The more you push Andrew, the better 3DC will turn out.

[rimasson]

2 ideas :

1 : a smooth brush that dosen't smooth creases and folds. (see attached pic)

2 : a flatten tool that have ALL the parameters than the flatten tool in the paint palette. (make planar, cut off, fill, first click point and current position)

It will help a lot for non-organic models

3 : when i use the 'draw with curve' stroke, some tools dosen't work properly. see attached pic.

Actually, pixelpaint mode is also buggy when i use this stroke.

4 i agree totally with the next post ideas.

[artman]

Nothing new in my requests,I've posted a few times about this during 3dc development

those are my 3 strongest wishes for the brushes

1-Fill brush should be able to fill not only small cavities with small brush sizes but also larger cavities using larger brush sizes.

( if you could make it a surface Fill brush instead maybe it would work better,something like new surface smooth that you did ,but that would also add volume in cavities as it smooths)

2-Scrape brush strength

(if it not possible ,there it is very easy to do it,just add a slider in the brush settings(call it "scrape intensity" for example) that would temporary override "pen sensitivity" in 3dc preferences menu.

3DC would bring back "pen sensitivity" to previous value when choosing another brush than scrape.

This is already what I do when I need to adjust scrape brush strength and it works very well.

3-15 august is soon...but if you could merge extrude brush with voxpinch brush I think it would create a very popular brush. Right now I need to use both after each other and try to follow the same strokes,which is not always easy.

[LypsiK]

I have just a small request.

When we want to change the power of the increase brush, it's not possible to do it with mouse because the right click of the mouse

change the depth value of the brush.

But the increase brush power is set by the "grow power".

It cool be cool to change the grow power with the mouse when using the increase brush.

thanks

[rimasson]

another small request :

i'd like to use mask and material masking with the smooth brushe.

[kay_Eva]

1. An easy to access Objects Palette for the voxel brushes could be cool. Where you can save objects to a pallete like the color palette in the paint mode only instead of colors you'd have your objects there.

2. A more powerful custom brush presets that allows you to make mask, settings, pen, material, object, brush, and set them all together and have them be easy to choose and edit.

[wailingmonkey]

Overall Brush Improvement:

- Brush Pen alpha curve profile editor (including ability to save/load curve profiles and reset to 'default' state)

- Soft Stroke controls need love

These two have been long-standing candidates for allowing far greater control to the user.

The curve profile editor would open up much more precise opportunities for hard-surface sculpting in addition to organic

sculpting. (thinking flatten tool enhanced precision as well as improving pinch such that we can actually pinch INTO the

sculpt and not just 'scrunch'/tighten voxels) This is something that would also greatly enhance general painting brushes as well.

In terms of the Soft Stroke improved control, Andrew, you really should make the opportunity to try the Zbrush variant.

You will then immediately understand how 3DC's can be improved. This change alone will allow for the user to create far

better inorganic edgework in their sculpts (and paint work, as this should apply globally across the software).

Right now, the 3DC soft stroke does not dampen and unify the stroke in a predictable manner, and just increasing the

setting number to a higher degree does not intuitively fix this...it just starts the stroke much further away from the cursor,

but does not dampen the natural 'jitter' inherent as we draw on our tablets.

Currently, you can adjust the 'spacing' of the particular pen settings it gets closer to a 'mechanical' stroke, but the downside

is that you can only keep your cursor over the object or you lose the stroke. Ideally, a user should be able to drag his stoke

anywhere on-screen and the stroke should continue affecting the object (to the degree it's seen in screen-space, and falloff

should be user-defined and occur where the stroke gets to the 'edge' of the object on screen-space)

[rimasson]

I don't know if it's possible right now, but i'd like to be able to draw strokes THROUGH a model, still to be able to do hard surface modeling.

Actually, i can't start a stroke in empty space.

[haikalle]

Sometimes I would like to draw a stroke that start front of the model and stops behind of the object and I would like to do this without rotating the view. Solution would be this. Bind rotate to brush so when I start to draw it would automaticly rotate view same time when it draws. And it would move automaticly also. For eaxample it would move faster when I move my pen futher from starting point. And slower if I keep my cursor near to starting point.

[Fabio Dona]

Brushes should be simple and easy to understand. For instance, the increase brush does 2 things, it increases the surface and smooths it. Cool, but "soft brush" would be a better name. Also, if it does 2 things, I want to have full control about them, I need to adjust how much it smooths too. Instead of hard coding a complex brush it's better to have a generic brush engine like Photoshop and let users make presets using combinations of basic features. It's easier to understand and modify brushes this way.

[Routb3d]

Brushes should be simple and easy to understand. For instance, the increase brush does 2 things, it increases the surface and smooths it. Cool, but "soft brush" would be a better name. Also, if it does 2 things, I want to have full control about them, I need to adjust how much it smooths too. Instead of hard coding a complex brush it's better to have a generic brush engine like Photoshop and let users make presets using combinations of basic features. It's easier to understand and modify brushes

this way.

Love this idea! A brush engine.. would be cool to mix the abilities of different brush types to create brush cocktails.. elude be cool to show a sample surface to show the impact of perameter changes. Maybe a few surface scenarios would help.

[LJB]

I don't know if it's possible right now, but i'd like to be able to draw strokes THROUGH a model, still to be able to do hard surface modeling.

Actually, i can't start a stroke in empty space.

Rimasson I had an Idea for a similar brush that lets you free carve Like this, In my head i called it the Voxel Wire. I Like the way you can tear great chunks out of your volumes with the Lasso and a negative (CTRL) Stroke but based on Painting from View position. I named it the wire as it closley refelcted actual sculpting (If I need to remove a large volume of clay I would simply wire it off the original) much like cutting cheese!!

[JamesE]

I would like it if the falloff gradient, and even the brush strength curve could be disabled when painting, and basically only show up when I right click to adjust them. I find them very distracting when trying to sculpt details in voxels. Whether this is an option or permanent change doesn't matter... it's just a really distracting way to work. To be clear, I don't want to see them even when I'm not making a stroke. Only when I hold down the right button to change them. I know they disappear when you make a stroke... I just don't need to see them at all, until I change them. Controlling them separately might be even better... as in turning off the gradient, but not the curve, or the other way around. Obviously making this an option would be best for everyone. It's just a lot of visual distraction to filter out when I'm trying to focus on precision strokes, especially when there are already details underneath the cursor - makes it hard to start a stroke exactly where I need to.

[Seeda]

Some of my reciepients wrote it befor, but i will write it too.

I would be glad if the brushes would feel smooth like the brushes in Mudbox.

Perhaps this is not he right description for you too understand what i mean, but try it by yourself the brushes in Mudbox a smooth and very accurate.

So i dont have to write to much, i think this should describe exactely how I wish to handle the brushes.

[cuffins]

I would like it if the falloff gradient, and even the brush strength curve could be disabled when painting, and basically only show up when I right click to adjust them. I find them very distracting when trying to sculpt details in voxels. Whether this is an option or permanent change doesn't matter... it's just a really distracting way to work. To be clear, I don't want to see them even when I'm not making a stroke. Only when I hold down the right button to change them. I know they disappear when you make a stroke... I just don't need to see them at all, until I change them. Controlling them separately might be even better... as in turning off the gradient, but not the curve, or the other way around. Obviously making this an option would be best for everyone. It's just a lot of visual distraction to filter out when I'm trying to focus on precision strokes, especially when there are already details underneath the cursor - makes it hard to start a stroke exactly where I need to.

when Caps Lock is on only the crosshair of the brush is visible...may be this helps...

Rene

[cuffins]

I'm requesting a masking mode for the brushes. That means we can PAINT a mask onto the voxels like in pose mode to mask out areas which will be unaffected. It should also be possible to smooth out, subtract from and invert a mask. For me it's the most missed feature in 3DC...The new implemented HIDE functionality doesn't do that job...

I think it can't be that hard to implement because it still works in pose tool.

Rene

[jedwards]

I'm requesting a masking mode for the brushes. That means we can PAINT a mask onto the voxels like in pose mode to mask out areas which will be unaffected. It should also be possible to smooth out, subtract from and invert a mask. For me it's the most missed feature in 3DC...The new implemented HIDE functionality doesn't do that job...

I think it can't be that hard to implement because it still works in pose tool.

Rene

Agreed. I would be more inclined to attempt high detail work in 3dc with some proper masking tools. Until then it's zbrush for that stuff.

[jedwards]

when Caps Lock is on only the crosshair of the brush is visible...may be this helps...

Rene

Heheh, thanks for the reply cuffins. I actually find that toggle even more confusing though. =]

I do want to see the brush radius cursor itself, as that allows you to see the size and also easily pinpoint where your stroke will start, stop etc. The capslock toggle crosshair is actually too distracting as well, being bulky and right in the center of the brush, and lacking the radius indicator, it's quite confusing. Basically I just want to see the circle when I'm working - no crosshair or anything else. It might be cool if you could customize the capslock toggle so that you could see either just the crosshair, or just the circle though!

[Taros]

I don't know if it's possible right now, but i'd like to be able to draw strokes THROUGH a model, still to be able to do hard surface modeling.

Actually, i can't start a stroke in empty space.

Yes. This is one of the features I miss too. It would be a good extension.

[Taros]

Brushes should be simple and easy to understand. For instance, the increase brush does 2 things, it increases the surface and smooths it. Cool, but "soft brush" would be a better name. Also, if it does 2 things, I want to have full control about them, I need to adjust how much it smooths too. Instead of hard coding a complex brush it's better to have a generic brush engine like Photoshop and let users make presets using combinations of basic features. It's easier to understand and modify brushes this way.

Very interesting and promising idea. If this is possibile I second that!

[Taros]

I'm requesting a masking mode for the brushes. That means we can PAINT a mask onto the voxels like in pose mode to mask out areas which will be unaffected. It should also be possible to smooth out, subtract from and invert a mask. For me it's the most missed feature in 3DC...The new implemented HIDE functionality doesn't do that job...

I think it can't be that hard to implement because it still works in pose tool.

Rene

Yes. A further idea is not just paint the masks only but have the possibility to paint masks like materials, too. I mean: to use a black and white image as a "border mask" and paint the parts I would like to use as a mask.

[cuffins]

Heheh, thanks for the reply cuffins. I actually find that toggle even more confusing though. =]

I do want to see the brush radius cursor itself, as that allows you to see the size and also easily pinpoint where your stroke will start, stop etc. The capslock toggle crosshair is actually too distracting as well, being bulky and right in the center of the brush, and lacking the radius indicator, it's quite confusing. Basically I just want to see the circle when I'm working - no crosshair or anything else. It might be cool if you could customize the capslock toggle so that you could see either just the crosshair, or just the circle though!

Yeah customizing the toggle would be great! But seeing only the radius when pressing Caps Lock as you described would suit all my needs...Should we post this in "Must fix before 3.01?"

Rene

[Javis]

Yeah customizing the toggle would be great! But seeing only the radius when pressing Caps Lock as you described would suit all my needs...Should we post this in "Must fix before 3.01?"

Rene

Yes definitely post it there too.

[adrian]

voxel follow is very nice,

but would be better if you could move out of the sculpt,

i almost like it more then move brush, because its more fluid ( and its pure voxel) but you should have an option for amount of smooth it uses

and the amount of pulling, stronger = pulling longer the same volume

sphere brush VS merge on pen,

i love the freedom of sphere brush, and i would like to do same thing with other forms

but merge on pen feels like your stuck all the time > when hitting borders, it would be cool to have same freebrushing feel

but with other shapes, so you select freesculpt > standard is sphere, and then you select shape, or some optimized choiches

as for presets,

really needs to save brushingtool you working with and the option to show all presets or just the ones for that brush

create own custom set of tools,

if you're sculpting you dont need axial, 2d, cloth, text, ... , it would clear everything up and better focus on what you need

[Monsoon]

I would like to see the brush radius be able to be extended beyond the size of the object. For instance when I use move with a particular pen, I can only get it as large as the object. I would like to be able to make it larger so that the scale of the pen movement could be larger. Know what I mean? Maybe it can already but I haven't figured it out.

Also, I would like to be able to paint mask with any brush or pen by just pressing ctl or alt like you can in Zbrush.

Again, maybe there's already a way but 3dC is so full of stuff already, it's hard to find stuff sometimes.

My 2 pesos

M

[erklaerbar]

A- I want to be able to start a stroke outside of the mesh

B- Voxels: Im not happy with the radius restrictions that were introduced to prevent CUDA bugs. I want to be able to draw with every radius.

C- Performance, performance, performance for voxel brushing in anything higher than default resolution

D- soft stroke is not really a pleasure to use

E- follow curve has dot problems (as per rimassons screenshot)

thank you

[lc8b105]

A- I want to be able to start a stroke outside of the mesh

Hi erklaerbar, you can already start a stroke outside of the mesh now. Just change the navigation way to Maya format.

[LJB]

Andrew, The Size at which brushes can be affective severely (especially at high voxel levels) limits thier usefulness, I emplore you to take a further look at 3Dioots Idea thread, It not only offers a possible solution to Area of influence but also a boost to performance. I think Area of influence and Performance are areas that must to address first and foremost. Then once stable tweaks to other brushes would become much easier as this limitation will not be a constant.

[Taros]

Hi erklaerbar, you can already start a stroke outside of the mesh now. Just change the navigation way to Maya format.

Where I can change the navigation ? I don't find a option in the preferences.

[rimasson]

Where I can change the navigation ? I don't find a option in the preferences.

in the camera menu