3DCoat 2026 GPUPPP Development

[carrots]

3 hours ago, mxhunterx said:

Will both 3DCoat and Textura have these features or is this only for 3D Coat? I Only have Textura, so just curious.

This will also be available in 3D Coat Texturа

[AbnRanger]

6 hours ago, mxhunterx said:

Will both 3DCoat and Textura have these features or is this only for 3D Coat? I Only have Textura, so just curious.

EDIT: Carrots beat me to the answer

[Carlosan]

New Feature:

Press with RMB over Albedo, Gloss, Metalness to change channel type.

 

This channels are also show on Constructor export options

 

[alvordr]

My findings so far (video included to hopefully help explain this better):

On Windows 11 (latest update) I opened the app, simply tried to drag the node inspector panel beside the node editor, which worked, but then tried to separate the modifiers panel and it looked like it was going to crash, but stalled the app for about 25 seconds and then came back to life, so there's work to be done in how the panels drag.  I almost force closed it, because it looked like it crashed.

Also, the UI is too complicated for a visual node editor.  I watched the video and kept thinking "why would I ever choose that particular action or option?" and "I would rather spend time painting this on than trying to figure this out procedurally."  I kept hearing "but we can't do that without...doing this..." and it kept going and going.  I'm not slamming the work, just pointing out it needs simplification.  That's the star feature of 3DCoat in general...ease of use with great functionality.

In fairness, I sat down after the video and tried doing this without going through your steps.  I had the intention of making a simple bumpy concrete on a model of steps.  5 minutes in, I ended up with mess that didn't reflect what I was after, nor made any real sense.  I ended up doing things I wasn't sure why they happened and couldn't undo them.  If I can't approach it with relative ease, I don't see the value, where I can do this in other apps more easily.  I hope this helps.

Also, to be fair, most apps have this problem, where the designers aren't speaking in plain language and use odd terminology for actions and things users have to then learn as if it's yet another new language.  At some point, they just go back to what they already know and have taken the time to learn or find easier to understand.  Where this shines is calling things "Simple Material" vs "Principled BSDF," and that's value added to both a user that's new to 3D texturing and advanced users alike.  If you can find simplified terminology for things like that across this feature, you'll do more to capture new users.

Bonus finding:  Some changes in the panel layout in the Node room didn't remain after closing the app.  For example, I moved some panels (can't recall which) into the Node Editor Window panel, but after closing the app and reopening it, the default layout appeared, with the exception of Masks and Modifiers now being part of the Texture Editor panel in the top right area.  I then tried again, but this time saved the file after I made changes and they remained.  That may be intended, but I would expect all panels that were changed from the default after not saving and reopening the file to go back to their original placement.  I would expect all panels that were changed from the default after saving and reopening the file to remain in the places I put them (Masks and Modifiers included). HOWEVER...I couldn't recreate this problem in the video.  I'll chalk this up to user error for now.

Edited May 20 by alvordr

[Carlosan]

Sorry but you are comparing a Shader Nodes system with a Material Nodes (and Textures) sytem.

- Create a Paint Layer, add or create a Material (double click over the material icon)

Here is a set of materials based on the nodes that you can use to learn (on this stage of development we lack a documentation about how to create nodes categories)

- Add or create a Mask, apply on the layer (double click)

Here is a set o mask based on the nodes

The first icon (L2R) is your painted or filled layer, second is the material and 3rd is the mask.

- All the node parameters can be edited individually on Node Inspector

- Or globally on Object Inspector

The Node system's primary objective is the procedural synthesis of various 2D texture maps, such as Base Color, Normal, Roughness, and Metallic, which define a material's visual characteristics.
It enables the mapping and construction of these visual elements that define the surface using a structure of graphic nodes.

It does not directly control the mathematical formulas used for lighting or shading calculations.
The behavior of light when interacting with a surface is determined by the shading nodes.

Subsequently, these generated maps are connected to shading networks within a 3D rendering application or game engine.

[captainbuckfish]

Paint room layer mask not working on the Beta it seems

[AbnRanger]

On 5/18/2026 at 6:20 AM, gbball said:

It seems I've lost a bunch of my brushes.  I'm missing Pinch and Inflate.  They're missing in surface mode and voxel mode.

I've only tested on one machine so far.  I first noticed after installing this new version - 2026.02.  I also have the same issue in 2026.01

Edit:  I think a bunch more are missing, but those are the two I use the most.  It looks like most of the clay brushes are gone too.

This happened to me, too, and I haven't been able to tell what caused it. However, when I renamed the MY DOCUMENTS/3DCOAT directory and then opened 3DCoat 2026, it created a fresh new one and that seemed to fix the problem. Of course I have to copy the custom contents of that older one, such as Smart Materials, Shaders, Stencils, Presets and such, but for now, that fixed the missing brushes problem. 

[Carlosan]

Feature request:

OpenGL to power its interactive 3D and 2D UV unwrapping viewports and tool operations.

* speed up the complete UV editing workflows please

[AbnRanger]

On 5/24/2026 at 10:20 AM, Carlosan said:

Feature request:

OpenGL to power its interactive 3D and 2D UV unwrapping viewports and tool operations.

* speed up the complete UV editing workflows please

And we NEED, NEED, NEED a DESELECT (SEAMS) BRUSH in the UV tools. On models without super clean topology and UV seams (ie. RETOPO via DECIMATION and Imported STL files, etc.), it can be a major paint in the bum and major time drain to deselect unnecessary seams. I know we can clear all seams at once, but in many cases that is going too far. There may just be one difficult part, while all the others are okay. Being able to DESELECT with a Brush would make the task much more efficient and a lot faster. I have requested this multiple times. The is also an open source UV packing utility that works way better than 3DCoat's packing. I requested that a long time ago also. It's really needed, and the UV toolset has really been somewhat neglected since Andrew added GU unfolding.

 

[carrots]

Windows, 2026-03 NS (Beta GPU Per-Pixel Painting)
3d-coat-5-27-2026NS.zip (Just unpack and run 3DCoatGL64.exe)

- Retopo/Modeling Room: Added option "Switching Pen Mode to Rectangle After the Select Transform Activated"
- New nodes are now created at the location where the right mouse button was clicked to invoke the menu—rather than at the location where the mouse cursor happened to be at the moment the node was created.
- The "Soft Displacement" property has been added. This is a displacement effect designed to be used in conjunction with a normal map: Soft Displacement shifts vertices without affecting shading, and its impact on shadows is reduced by half; the normal map is then used to define the orientation of each pixel, ensuring correct shading. This feature is crucial for creating high-quality fabric materials.
- Retopo/Modeling Room: "Polygon Tree" has been improved. Speed up work for large files.
- Retopo/Modeling Room: tool Cap - bug fixed and improvements.
- Node header default colors are now category-based (each category has its own distinct color).
- Normal Map Support in Node-Based Materials
- Fixed a crash that occurred while clearing the Node Graph in the Node Editor.
- Fixed selection of multiple nodes using a rectangle or CTRL.
- Added the ability to select multiple painting layers, move selected layers within the painting layer tree, and group, hide, unhide, duplicate, or delete them.
- In GPUPPP mode, layer masks affect based on brightness, rather than exclusively based on transparency.
- SoftDisplacement, combined with Sheen, can simulate fur, while FWSNormal defines its direction. To enable support for PPP texturing, "Show Displacement Mesh" must be enabled, and tessellation must be configured.
- A tool for extracting MicroprotrusionsColor based on pixel brightness has been added to the PBRTiler extension.

[carrots]

ATTENTION: Existing fabric materials will be replaced with new fabric materials in the next build.

[AbnRanger]

On 5/17/2026 at 7:25 PM, Henry Townshend said:

You guys actually did it... speechless. What a spectacular puzzle piece for 3D Coat to have fallen into place.

Thanks for all your hard work on this and carefully listening to user feedback. Seems you really thought about everything and more in regards to non destructive adjustments, masking, and their previews! Utterly impressive.

And offering a video walk through and docs from day one is very appreciated. Plus even having new common shading models now like SSS etc is an absolutely mind blowing bonus that will make texturing in 3D Coat so much more accurate for target, and enhances rendering possibilities inside 3D Coat immensely.

Absolutely insane update. Congratulations. I think it is early Christmas now for many users.

P.S.: Please add the still missing ability to select and move/drop into groups multiple layers at once. This is such a disconnect now with such a powerful system in place to still have to re-arrange your layers in the layer stack painfully one by one.

This should be implemented now, in the latest 2026 GPU build (03)

[AbnRanger]

On 5/23/2026 at 4:23 AM, captainbuckfish said:

Paint room layer mask not working on the Beta it seems

This was reported and fixed in the latest 2026 GPU build (03) 

[Elemeno]

SO MANY AMAZING FEATURES COMING THROUGH!!! can i ask if sculpting will see any love during these updates? the brushes still feel off , sculpting isnnt as great experience as i would like.

[Mihu83]

14 hours ago, Elemeno said:

SO MANY AMAZING FEATURES COMING THROUGH!!! can i ask if sculpting will see any love during these updates? the brushes still feel off , sculpting isnnt as great experience as i would like.

Also, I would like to see(finally) some fixes/improvements for Curves tool, as it's a mess for years now.