3D-Coat 3.2 updates thread.

[Andrew Shpagin]

For update 3.2.09 it says info about app linking for programmers would be posted. I have looked on the forum but cannot find any info in the SDK, Plugins and Programming forum etc so im wondering if this has not happened yet?

Excuse, really my miss. I will post that info with next update.

[AbnRanger]

Andrew, I noticed that when working in Voxels, the brush response gets ridiculously unresponsive after working in it awhile. Then, once you save the file, and resume work, the difference is like night and day. Is that a big memory leak or something?

[Andrew Shpagin]

Andrew, I noticed that when working in Voxels, the brush response gets ridiculously unresponsive after working in it awhile. Then, once you save the file, and resume work, the difference is like night and day. Is that a big memory leak or something?

Is it enough to ONLY save file without loading to get to usual speed? Or you need to load file or reboot 3DC?

This issue looks like first candidate to be solved, so any info is important.

[AbnRanger]

Is it enough to ONLY save file without loading to get to usual speed? Or you need to load file or reboot 3DC?

This issue looks like first candidate to be solved, so any info is important.

I try to save on a regular basis, and I noticed the big increase in speed/responsiveness immediately after a save. Things seem to really bog down over time, but returns to normal with just a regular save. You can use that file I sent you last week to test.

Is it possible to have hidden parts and non-visible layers cached to disk, instead of letting it continue to consume RAM? I noticed when hiding and/or spliting parts to another layer and turning visibility off...the Physical RAM consumption does not change any. Caching those to a temp file on disk or the pagefile would help immensely. Thanks, Andrew.

[Andrew Shpagin]

I try to save on a regular basis, and I noticed the big increase in speed/responsiveness immediately after a save. Things seem to really bog down over time, but returns to normal with just a regular save. You can use that file I sent you last week to test.

Is it possible to have hidden parts and non-visible layers cached to disk, instead of letting it continue to consume RAM? I noticed when hiding and/or spliting parts to another layer and turning visibility off...the Physical RAM consumption does not change any. Caching those to a temp file on disk or the pagefile would help immensely. Thanks, Andrew.

I have read that post and I am considering how it could be made...

But in general if you have 64 bit system and big enough swap file Windows does all that work.

[haikalle]

would caching to disk help on this issue. When you unhide/hide voxel layers or paint layers(bigger issues in paint room), sometimes it takes a quite long time

to do that.

[AbnRanger]

I have read that post and I am considering how it could be made...

But in general if you have 64 bit system and big enough swap file Windows does all that work.

The problem with relying on Windows swapping to pagefile is, you know how that bogs things down. It isn't hard to reach the physical RAM limit in 3DC. And when you approach that limit, like any other program...things get mighty slow. However, if we can cache hidden layers/parts to a temp file (perhaps in the 3DC directory) then we can better plan to stay well below the RAM limit, and avoid the lag of pagefile swapping. Otherwise, it's like hooking up a boat to your Pickup, and towing it everywhere you go...to work everyday...to the mall or theater. It's a colossal waste of resources. You tow it only when you need it.

It may take a few seconds longer to load from disk to RAM, once you unhide a portion or layer, but that's a much smaller performance hit than having a hidden layer needlessly hording precious RAM and CPU resources, while you're working. Perhaps a small icon at the bottom of the layer/voxtree panel, that lets the user voluntarily offload the layer to cache, but automatically cache to disk immediately whenever something is hidden using the "Hide" or "Cell Hide" tool.

[Digital777]

Excuse, really my miss. I will post that info with next update.

Thanks Andrew

[juanmanuel]

The problem with relying on Windows swapping to pagefile is, you know how that bogs things down. It isn't hard to reach the physical RAM limit in 3DC. And when you approach that limit, like any other program...things get mighty slow. However, if we can cache hidden layers/parts to a temp file (perhaps in the 3DC directory) then we can better plan to stay well below the RAM limit, and avoid the lag of pagefile swapping. Otherwise, it's like hooking up a boat to your Pickup, and towing it everywhere you go...to work everyday...to the mall or theater. It's a colossal waste of resources. You tow it only when you need it.

It may take a few seconds longer to load from disk to RAM, once you unhide a portion or layer, but that's a much smaller performance hit than having a hidden layer needlessly hording precious RAM and CPU resources, while you're working. Perhaps a small icon at the bottom of the layer/voxtree panel, that lets the user voluntarily offload the layer to cache, but automatically cache to disk immediately whenever something is hidden using the "Hide" or "Cell Hide" tool.

Something akin to tools in Zbrush comes to mind, but with onloading-offloading to-from RAM. I agree, this could help raise the complexity a scupt with a little planning beforehand.

[Andrew Shpagin]

Updated to 3.2.11 (Win only, Mac+Linux - very soon if there will be nothing too critical until the morning).

- At least I solver issue with external normalmap. I am leaving external normalmap layer unmodified (even besides islands) and applying it after creating on-the-fly padding. It gives much better output quality for the pipeline [import exteral normalmap->add details/heal/correct->export modified map].

- Possibility to smooth with shift over seams on normalmap layer. This feature was there before but worked not well. Now it works really clean and you can even soften sharp edges on the model with this tool. Also it is easy to remove seams over normalmap.

- Possibility to pan in texture view with SPACE as in Photoshop. You should choose 3D-Coat preset from [Camera] menu.

- Drawing with CAPS LOCK will hide cursor only while painting, not always. It improves precission of painting and gives better control.

- If you are in custom pivot point mode "Frame" command will move pivot point to the center of the object (and framing itself of course).

How to use connector with other apps:

- You should make plugin of your favorite app that should save file My Documents\3D-CoatV3\Exchange\import.txt which has 2 lines: path to the input LWO/OBJ file (textures should be stored there too if exist) in the first line and path to output LWO/OBJ file on the second line. The last path will be used to export LWO and textures from 3D-Coat.

- as soon as user will edit file and textures he will press special button in File menu of 3D-Coat and LWO/OBJ file and textures will be saved to the folder that was specified in input.txt. File export.txt will be created by 3D-Coat - it will contain list of files created by 3D-Coat including LWO files and textures.

- you should replace your object in scene with this new one and store if need textures in corresponding place

[pbowmar]

Hi Andrew,

So for Linux it would be the same file but in <3D_Install_Dir>/Exchange?

Cheers,

Peter B

[AbnRanger]

Something akin to tools in Zbrush comes to mind, but with onloading-offloading to-from RAM. I agree, this could help raise the complexity a scupt with a little planning beforehand.

Yes....it would be very much like Subtools. Something just has to be done to make Voxel Sculpting more efficient. Even with Surface mode...it's almost like you're stuck with 1990's technology and hardware, cause there is no multi-threading and there is no efficient method of offloading hidden elements/layers from RAM.

Even though I've started using Mudbox for Sculpting high detail models, I decided to keep my license of 3DC, as there are some handy things that can be done in Voxels (and the rest of the program). But I still am eager to see some progress being made on the bottlenecks in the toolset. This is one of them. A simple "Cache to Disk" feature could help. I assumed, prior to this, that it was being offloaded automatically, but by keeping Task Manager open and monitoring Physical RAM consumption, I was highly disappointed to find that it wasn't. I don't want Windows trying to decide when to dump data for me. When it does, it's slow going.

Windows doesn't know that a hidden layer should be cached, to conserve RAM and CPU resources. That's the application's task.

[haikalle]

Amazing Update! Thanks so much Andrew. It seems to be very stable too.

[Andrew Shpagin]

Hi Andrew,

So for Linux it would be the same file but in <3D_Install_Dir>/Exchange?

Cheers,

Peter B

Yes. But I am considering a better place because other app can have problems accessing 3D-Coat's folder in this case.

[pbowmar]

If I might suggest, if you had the dir location in a config file, then each studio could configure it as needed. Perhaps it defaults to the 3DC install dir/Exchange as you have it now but a config file can override, or something?

Cheers,

Peter B

[pbowmar]

Hi Andrew,

Sorry for being dumb, but I can't seem to get it to work. Do you have an example import.txt file?

I create the import.txt file in Exchange, that looks like this:

d:\temp\3dc_tests\iotest\test.obj

d:\temp\3dc_tests\iotest\out

Nothing happens in 3DC that I can see but the import.txt file is deleted from the Exchange dir.

I'm sure I'm not understanding something

Cheers,

Peter B

[Digital777]

Thanks for the update and app link information. The info about this would be much better to go in the SDK, Plugins and Programming forum though i think.

I say that because it is simple to find always then, people can easily link to it on other forums and also the beta thread won't go off-topic much also.

[pbowmar]

Point well taken! I've started a new thread in the SDK forum.

Cheers,

PeteR B

[Andrew Shpagin]

I reuploaded 3.2.11 because AppLink code was wrong. Look this thread about AppLink:

http://www.3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=5596

I plan OSX build for today's evening and Linux build for tomorrow.

[Andrew Shpagin]

OSX build uploaded.

[Roger_K]

Im trying out the Applink system now. I can get stuff into 3dcoat just fine. When i press "bring object back" all that is written to export.txt is "C:\Program Files\3D-Coat-V3" nothing else is output.

im running 3DC 64bit cuda on windows 7 pro 64. im outputting my files to "c:\3DC\" 3DC is loading them fine.

[AbnRanger]

Im trying out the Applink system now. I can get stuff into 3dcoat just fine. When i press "bring object back" all that is written to export.txt is "C:\Program Files\3D-Coat-V3" nothing else is output.

im running 3DC 64bit cuda on windows 7 pro 64. im outputting my files to "c:\3DC\" 3DC is loading them fine.

Thank you a bunch for taking this on for 3ds Max users...I wonder if there would be any way to create a LIVE link like you have between 3ds Max and Combustion? If so, one could theoretically, paint in 3DC on one monitor and watch the final render results update live in VRay RT or finalRender R3.

[Roger_K]

Thank you a bunch for taking this on for 3ds Max users...I wonder if there would be any way to create a LIVE link like you have between 3ds Max and Combustion? If so, one could theoretically, paint in 3DC on one monitor and watch the final render results update live in VRay RT or finalRender R3.

Nope That would involve max having access to 3DCoats memory. Nice idea tho. having 3DC load a set of files into layers and save back to them would be the closest you could get. but then the bridge would be pointless as max would update automatically.

[Andrew Shpagin]

Linux build uploaded.

[Andrew Shpagin]

Im trying out the Applink system now. I can get stuff into 3dcoat just fine. When i press "bring object back" all that is written to export.txt is "C:\Program Files\3D-Coat-V3" nothing else is output.

im running 3DC 64bit cuda on windows 7 pro 64. im outputting my files to "c:\3DC\" 3DC is loading them fine.

It looks like you have not filed second line in "import.txt". There should be specified the name of output object.

[michalis]

Thank you Andrew, you fixed some of my problems here.

Unfortunately I still can't work with it because of more serious bugs (or they aren't?)

1. Seams in normal maps are visible, I didn't edit them just baked.

2. I must have a really dark environment in voxel room, else textures maps are burned (see photos)

I already returned to 3.2.10 beta.

[Roger_K]

It looks like you have not filed second line in "import.txt". There should be specified the name of output object.

excellent ill check that out.

[pbowmar]

Hi Andrew,

3.2.11 on Linux 64, the normals are whacked. Colour layer is OK but normals not. This is simple per pixel paint.

Cheers,

Peter B

[pbowmar]

Whoops here's the screencap...

[faizol]

Hi Andrew,

3.2.11 on Linux 64, the normals are whacked. Colour layer is OK but normals not. This is simple per pixel paint.

Cheers,

Peter B

Hi Peter B,

are you using Nvidia's card? If so, may I know what's your driver's version? I'm using Fedora 11 with the latest Nvidia driver (195.36.24 - system summary in my signature), and haven't had the luck to use 3D-Coat at all. I was told that Linux's 3D-Coat doesn't use CUDA just yet, so it's irrelevant of the CUDA's framework that got installed on my system. The bad thing is that other application runs just fine on my system.

regards,

Faizol