3D-Coat 3.2 updates thread.

[spacepainter]

Oh I did not know what I was missing before we got PTex! It's seamless, it's scalable, it's superfine!

Thanks again Andrew.

[Klaus Nordby]

Whoah, sexy! I've not yet tried the beta build, so it was great seeing a demo of what this newfangled Ptex stuff means in practice -- thanks, Phil! I'm so glad I've never yet wasted a minute of my life on learning to making UV maps -- for it now looks like it would have been wasted time. :-) All praise to Andrew for implementing this at super speed -- and we should also be very grateful to Disney, for open-sourcing this game-changing new technology.

[3D-TPI]

This looks very good! Here is a quick test-object exported to Rhino and rendered with Maxwell.

is this using ptex? so there ar no uvs? how does that work with maxwell as maxwell needs uvs?

[JamesE]

Whoah, sexy! I've not yet tried the beta build, so it was great seeing a demo of what this newfangled Ptex stuff means in practice -- thanks, Phil! I'm so glad I've never yet wasted a minute of my life on learning to making UV maps -- for it now looks like it would have been wasted time. :-) All praise to Andrew for implementing this at super speed -- and we should also be very grateful to Disney, for open-sourcing this game-changing new technology.

That video reminded me of how uncomfortable it still is to zoom in 3dcoat. =]

Way too snappy, resulting in jerky, over or undershot zooms as you try to focus on an area without going through it. Even after getting used to it I still don't like it.

Yay ptex though! =

[AbnRanger]

Could Andrew or someone write a detailed explanation on Ptex (as it is to be used and exported in 3DC especially) and put it up as a sticky, so folks that want to know about it can easily find answers instead of having to rummage through lengthy threads just to get the nuts and bolts of the thing. I want to place a thread about this over on the 3ds Max thread at CGSociety, yet I don't even understand the half of it. Can it export to most 3D programs like Max or Maya, or not? If so, what occurs during export...the Ptex UV layout gets sent over as a standard UV layout and the textures correspond?

[JamesE]

Here's what I'm hoping to be able to do with it eventually:

1. blockout in voxels to med/high rez

2. send over to ptex to paint and detail

3. retopo and uv

4. bake color, normal and AO maps from ptex into my retopo'd uv'd mesh

5. send assets to game engine

6. profit

[artman]

Here's what I'm hoping to be able to do with it eventually:

1. blockout in voxels to med/high rez

2. send over to ptex to paint and detail

3. retopo and uv

4. bake color, normal and AO maps from ptex into my retopo'd uv'd mesh

5. send assets to game engine

6. profit

With Texture baking tool you can make all that.

Use it at stage 4. ,export your retopo mesh and select it as target to receive textures in Texture baking tool,be sure all voxel layers are off and only Ptex model is visible.

(the only thing you wont get is AO)

[wailingmonkey]

...

(the only thing you wont get is AO)

Which is in need of more love(or rather, new solution) for quite some time now...

[calilifestyle]

Ok so ptex are only readable/used in game engines? Or once i export say lwo, will all the mat. come along with the model.

[Tony Nemo]

Ok so ptex are only readable/used in game engines? Or once i export say lwo, will all the mat. come along with the model.

Although I am unclear as to the process, I've seen a Ptexed model in C4D.

[lwan]

Hello,

The release do not run on latest cuda 3.0 beta

Cheers

[Andrew Shpagin]

Could Andrew or someone write a detailed explanation on Ptex (as it is to be used and exported in 3DC especially) and put it up as a sticky, so folks that want to know about it can easily find answers instead of having to rummage through lengthy threads just to get the nuts and bolts of the thing. I want to place a thread about this over on the 3ds Max thread at CGSociety, yet I don't even understand the half of it. Can it export to most 3D programs like Max or Maya, or not? If so, what occurs during export...the Ptex UV layout gets sent over as a standard UV layout and the textures correspond?

http://www.3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=5073

[3dCoatWannabe]

Or once i export say lwo, will all the mat. come along with the model.

Here's what I'm hoping to be able to do with it eventually:

1. blockout in voxels to med/high rez

2. send over to ptex to paint and detail

3. retopo and uv

4. bake color, normal and AO maps from ptex into my retopo'd uv'd mesh

5. send assets to game engine

6. profit

I'm a bit confused.

I'm primarily interested in using 3D Coat with Lightwave to animate, so I'm trying to get a handle on how I can use Ptex today.

Some posts indicate that Ptex will replace UV mapping, but UV is listed as a step in this workflow.

Is this just for older programs like Lightwave that don't understand Ptex?

So that Ptex is usable by older programs now, as long as we UV and send them something they understand.

But - in the future, when all programs understand Ptex, the UV map will become an unnecessary step?

[artman]

I'm a bit confused.

I'm primarily interested in using 3D Coat with Lightwave to animate, so I'm trying to get a handle on how I can use Ptex today.

Some posts indicate that Ptex will replace UV mapping, but UV is listed as a step in this workflow.

Is this just for older programs like Lightwave that don't understand Ptex?

So that Ptex is usable by older programs now, as long as we UV and send them something they understand.

But - in the future, when all programs understand Ptex, the UV map will become an unnecessary step?

If it is to animate and render in LW idont think there is gonna be a problem.

Only Renderman supports Ptex file loading for now.

Anyway you dont need it Andrew implemented Ptex export as a standard image file with special filtering between tiles so you wont get

any seams in LW.

export .obj and export Texture.

[AbnRanger]

http://www.3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=5073

Thanks Andrew.

[philnolan3d]

Anyway you dont need it Andrew implemented Ptex export as a standard image file with special filtering between tiles so you wont get

any seams in LW.

export .obj and export Texture.

I would think you should be able to export LWO. It being for LightWave and all.

[3dCoatWannabe]

I would think you should be able to export LWO. It being for LightWave and all.

Phil - I've really enjoyed your videos!

As I see that you're a Lightwave user from your web site, if you ever feel compelled to create a 3D Coat/Lightwave workflow video, I'd certainly feel compelled to watch and appreciate it!

[Javis]

I've also been meaning to do a 3DC<>LW tute (LW User here too!), but the more general workflow is in more demand from most users.

What part are you having trouble with, in getting your assets to LW?

[philnolan3d]

I'll consider it. There really isn't that much to it though.

[3dCoatWannabe]

I've also been meaning to do a 3DC<>LW tute (LW User here too!), but the more general workflow is in more demand from most users.

What part are you having trouble with, in getting your assets to LW?

Well, so far I've just been reading and watching videos - trying to figure out how it all ties together, as I'm also learning Lightwave, Modo, Jimmy RIG, After Effects and a host of plug-ins and tools. Ahhhh!

I may be over complicating things, and it will all be very simple once I actually dig in and start working.

Can I disregard the things I've been learning about unwrapping an object to a UV Map, as Ptex will allow outputting a complex and more detailed UV map?

[Javis]

Well, complex? Arguable. Chopped up into square bits? Definitely.

Ptex basically takes every quad polygon (and triangles with less desirable results) and give each one a unique set of UV coordinates. Each of these "islands" are scaled according to the need of the user.

So it makes it much more difficult to go into a 2D paint program and then paint on the UV map directly, however... When you have 3D-Coat anyway, this isn't much of an issue. Plus, you can still project in Photoshop in 3DC, so that's not much of an issue. IMHO, any thing that helps cut out a bunch of work and looks WAY better is awesome in my book.

Regarding your question whether you should still learn UV mapping... Absolutely. It couldn't hurt (well OK it can be painful if you don't like it). Knowing how to do it properly is only a good thing. There are lots of tutorials on UV mapping out there. In fact SimplyLightwave.com has a good one:

http://www.simplylightwave.com/movie_pages/tutorial.mhtml?tut_id=541

It's for Lightwave, of course. So this should give you some idea of how difficult it is to UV in LW... Once you have done it in LW, then try it in 3DC. You'll notice a huge difference, lol. It's much easier. Much much easier.

Selecting seams in 3DC is so great.

I did a video on the UV tools in 3DC, of course it's not a UV tutorial proper. But it should demonstrate more clearly how to use them.

http://vimeo.com/channels/3dctraining#7005596

[philnolan3d]

Yeah I think it's still definitely important to know UV mapping, especially since right now almost nothing supports Ptex. When doing it in LightWave it can also help a lot to use the PLG plugins

http://homepage2.nifty.com/nif-hp/index2_english.htm

[polyxo]

is this using ptex? so there ar no uvs? how does that work with maxwell as maxwell needs uvs?

Yes, I guess it was Ptex. I drew Primitives and merged them to Ptex.

Later I exported an .obj and textures. They all were composed of these unreadable squares but

were correctly interpreted inside the Rhino-viewport already. No problems at rendertime.

There's one problem though - one can not invert the colours of Ptex-maps: as soon as you do

so the chaotic grid-pattern appears...

[rimasson]

I'd really like to have some feedback about 3dc's Ptex support form a guy who used this mapping technique at Disney

[Digital777]

I'd really like to have some feedback about 3dc's Ptex support form a guy who used this mapping technique at Disney

3DC is not connected with Disney though this is just a technology made by them. It would be interesting to find out what they thought of it though, i think 3DC now having this feature before others has definately given the program some good press on the big 3D sites and it is getting noticed more. Although other programs will probably get the same technology over time but it has got people talking about 3DC more which is great and maybe more film/game studios will start to use it also.

[Andrew Shpagin]

Updated to 3.2.03 (only Win for now)

- I made much much better algorithm for limit subdivision surface directly after importing model for microvrtex painting and Ptex. Model after import will look much closer to the limit subdivision surface.

- Increase resolution in Ptex improved - faster and more efficient. Expand/contract selection is add to this tool.

- Many convenient improvements inside Ptex - displaying textels count, better management of local subdivision.

- better padding for PSD files export

- Fade on edges in pen options will act on all pens simultaneously

[philnolan3d]

Um... I don't see any reference to Ptex anywhere in this update. (DX 64 Cuda version)

[haikalle]

same here

[Deadman21]

Um... I don't see any reference to Ptex anywhere in this update. (DX 64 Cuda version)

Same also 32bit non cuda

[Andrew Shpagin]

Oh, excuse. Please delete 2 files:

3D-Coat installation folder\ToolsPresets\noptex.txt

3D-Coat installation folder\ToolsPresets\burl.txt