3DCoat 2026 GPUPPP Development

[wendallhitherd]

Just started playing with this. Seems pretty busted outside of the textured model mode. Is there a reason why it's possible to use outside of the textured model context right now? doing basically anything with the smart materials in voxel / surface / microdisplacement mode seems to break 3dc's runtime and require an app restart. I'd probably just disable it outside

A lot of the UX are named weirdly. What is the "Object Inspector"? It seems to be a layered effect compositor that allows you to assign metadata or modifiers to your object?

Typically in other 3d software an "inspector" would be a pane that allows you to inspect / edit the properties of a particular object, like its transform, name, etc. 

other than this the beta seems really smooth to run, and did yall overhaul the UI? everything seems much snappier now. I like !
 

[carrots]

2 hours ago, wendallhitherd said:

Just started playing with this. Seems pretty busted outside of the textured model mode. Is there a reason why it's possible to use outside of the textured model context right now? doing basically anything with the smart materials in voxel / surface / microdisplacement mode seems to break 3dc's runtime and require an app restart. I'd probably just disable it outside

A lot of the UX are named weirdly. What is the "Object Inspector"? It seems to be a layered effect compositor that allows you to assign metadata or modifiers to your object?

Typically in other 3d software an "inspector" would be a pane that allows you to inspect / edit the properties of a particular object, like its transform, name, etc. 

other than this the beta seems really smooth to run, and did yall overhaul the UI? everything seems much snappier now. I like !
 

ObjectInspector is a versatile window that will apply not only to materials but also to any non-destructive, procedural objects; materials and texturing simply happen to be the first areas where ObjectInspector's functionality is currently being demonstrated.

 

If there are errors or crashes when working with vector and surface objects, we need to catch and fix them—that is precisely why beta versions are released.

[carrots]

 

[wendallhitherd]

14 hours ago, carrots said:

ObjectInspector is a versatile window that will apply not only to materials but also to any non-destructive, procedural objects; materials and texturing simply happen to be the first areas where ObjectInspector's functionality is currently being demonstrated.

 

If there are errors or crashes when working with vector and surface objects, we need to catch and fix them—that is precisely why beta versions are released.

Is the intention that the node based texture system works on all mesh types including voxel sculpt / surface sculpt / microdisplacement? I was kind of assuming it wasn't

If the intention is that it work across all these domains, I can provide a list of things It tried and something went wrong

[carrots]

11 minutes ago, wendallhitherd said:

Is the intention that the node based texture system works on all mesh types including voxel sculpt / surface sculpt / microdisplacement? I was kind of assuming it wasn't

If the intention is that it work across all these domains, I can provide a list of things It tried and something went wrong

Yes, node-based texturing works with PPP, voxel, and surface objects (microvertex and ptex do not support this yet).

[Carlosan]

What about Smart Materials, will become obsolete and be discontinued on future versions ?

About Object Inspector, the plan is to make it only available for Texturing ?

or in future version could be an overhauling version (or similar but for modeling), available on modeling room to work as Modifiers on Blender or Modifiers on 3dsmax ? 

[carrots]

1 hour ago, Carlosan said:

What about Smart Materials, will become obsolete and be discontinued on future versions ?

About Object Inspector, the plan is to make it only available for Texturing ?

or in future version could be an overhauling version (or similar but for modeling), available on modeling room to work as Modifiers on Blender or Modifiers on 3dsmax ? 

As I mentioned earlier, the Object Inspector is not limited to materials and texturing—those just happen to be the first areas where it has been applied; it can also be used for any other modifiers.

[Carlosan]

Yes, I read it.

So, in the future, will the Object Inspector become the outliner we've been asking for?

And what will happen to the Node Inspector?
Will it overcome the limitations of materials and textures to become a full modal system that also includes procedural modeling?

How you've solved the challenges of implementing this new system, and also adding OpenGL, is brilliant!

[wendallhitherd]

would it be presumptuous of me to pitch some UX designs for this feature?

If I get some free time this week and I use it enough to get a better understanding of what it does / how it works I may have some ideas on how to make the UX more intuitive to a new user who has no idea what the thing is or what it does.

I can also stick to bug reports and avoid the high level UX feedback if that is preferred

Some intuition friction I get immediately from "object inspector"
- inspectors in basically all other 3d software show the properties of a selected item. In 3DCoat an object inspector would most intuitively show the user the properties (transform, visibility state, etc) of the currently selected sculpt object or paint object.
- One thing that's sort of unintuitive about 3dcoat in general (though I actually think this is a good feature, it just doesn't work like other stuff) is that layers are scene-globals, IE they are not defined per object, they are persisted across all SculptObjects (one layer, applies to all sculpt objects) and also they persist across rooms. 
- it seems like the object inspector is similar in that it defines scene-global data objects that can apply to layers, or the scene, or particular sculpt objects. A name for this panel that would fit better in my head would be like... Scene Data Editor or something.
- Does the object inspector always list all of the data constructions that exist in the current 3dcoat session? or is the display scoped to only show for example show datas that are defined for the currently selected layer, or the currently selected sculpt object? If the panel had a context selection, or was context sensitive, some UX sugar could be supplied such that the user gets extra modal options for editing whatever is currently selected or edited. Like "you are currently editing materials because you selected the materials edit drop down, now you see a list of all material like data objects in the scene, and you get some additional widgets that only apply to materials"
 

Edited June 15 by wendallhitherd

[carrots]

8 minutes ago, wendallhitherd said:

would it be presumptuous of me to pitch some UX designs for this feature?

If I get some free time this week and I use it enough to get a better understanding of what it does / how it works I may have some ideas on how to make the UX more intuitive to a new user who has no idea what the thing is or what it does.

I can also stick to bug reports and avoid the high level UX feedback if that is preferred

Some intuition friction I get immediately from "object inspector"
- inspectors in basically all other 3d software show the properties of a selected item. In 3DCoat an object inspector would most intuitively show the user the properties (transform, visibility state, etc) of the currently selected sculpt object or paint object.
- One thing that's sort of unintuitive about 3dcoat in general (though I actually think this is a good feature, it just doesn't work like other stuff) is that layers are scene-globals, IE they are not defined per object, they are persisted across all SculptObjects (one layer, applies to all sculpt objects) and also they persist across rooms. 
- it seems like the object inspector is similar in that it defines scene-global data objects that can apply to layers, or the scene, or particular sculpt objects. A name for this panel that would fit better in my head would be like... Scene Data Editor or something.
- Does the object inspector always list all of the data constructions that exist in the current 3dcoat session? or is the display scoped to only show for example show datas that are defined for the currently selected layer, or the currently selected sculpt object? If the panel had a context selection, or was context sensitive, some UX sugar could be supplied such that the user gets extra modal options for editing whatever is currently selected or edited. Like "you are currently editing materials because you selected the materials edit drop down, now you see a list of all material like data objects in the scene, and you get some additional widgets that only apply to materials"
 

I would appreciate your suggestions regarding the UI/UX.

The ObjectInspector currently features a context selector at the very top (Object vs. Layer) to choose whether you want to manage the properties of the object or the layer. For the next version, I plan to add a default Transform component to all objects—something currently missing—which will allow for numerical control over an object's position, scale, and rotation, as well as the ability to write new components in Python.

[carrots]

22 minutes ago, Carlosan said:

Yes, I read it.

So, in the future, will the Object Inspector become the outliner we've been asking for?

And what will happen to the Node Inspector?
Will it overcome the limitations of materials and textures to become a full modal system that also includes procedural modeling?

How you've solved the challenges of implementing this new system, and also adding OpenGL, is brilliant!

Yes, the Node Inspector will remain separate from the Object Inspector and handle individual nodes—simply because it is more convenient to work that way when both panels are available. Nodes are already distinct Python objects, so it is only a matter of time before we can write new nodes in Python and use them for other tasks, such as procedural modeling.

[Carlosan]

That sounds incredible.

It's a new foundation. 

I'm amazed.

[Carlosan]

Paint Room > PPP
Any Smart Material applied show deformaion at seams

 

 

[thinkinmonkey]

Hello,

I've downloaded and launched, but not used, the new 3DCoat some days ago. Today I did nothing, like nothing nothing: not running or installing or downloading or whatever.

I've just found this file in my recycle bin:

Do you have any idea why?

Thanks,

Michele

Edited June 17 by thinkinmonkey

[Elemeno]

49 minutes ago, thinkinmonkey said:

Hello,

I've downloaded and launched, but not used, the new 3DCoat some days ago. Today I did nothing, like nothing nothing: not running or installing or downloading or whatever.

I've just found this file in my recycle bin:

Do you have any idea why?

Thanks,

Michele

i couldnt find this file on official auto updating files , and i havent been able to download the new files due to my firewall