3D-Coat 3.3 updates thread

[erklaerbar]

aaaaaaah finally multithreading!!!!!!! Wohoooo it rocks! Thank you!

[Andrew Shpagin]

Linux build uploaded.

[artman]

-Cuda-related Hole Issue mentioned by me is fixed. -

Just wanted to say...Wow!.. June has really been a golden month,Andrew made 3DCoat jumps a 2 friggin years lapse in the future...

Heck... now we can even use Stamp mode with large radius...LJB is gonna be very happy about this!!

Also have people noticed that record of max people on forum at one time has been broken in June.

The last record was 2008 or somethin...pretty cool.

[haikalle]

I totally agree. Watch out Mari...here comes multi-threaded 3d-coat.

[splodge]

+ correctly working cavity in PP mode.

[3DArtist]

I totally agree. Watch out Mari...here comes multi-threaded 3d-coat.

Now we just need to be able to import animated obj's (mdd file's and sequential obj's)

[astralpancakes]

Nice work on the new version!

I realize I shouldn't report bugs here, but I'm not sure if this is one, or if I'm just missing something. See attached screenshot.

That's two versions of 3D Coat running side by side (see titlebars), both with default settings (sky.dds enviroment map, and so on). It looks like there's something wrong with gamma correction in the new version, or something.

[michalis]

@astralpancakes: all last versions have this problem, but nobody cares.

[3DArtist]

Nice work on the new version!

I realize I shouldn't report bugs here, but I'm not sure if this is one, or if I'm just missing something. See attached screenshot.

That's two versions of 3D Coat running side by side (see titlebars), both with default settings (sky.dds enviroment map, and so on). It looks like there's something wrong with gamma correction in the new version, or something.

I believe this is the result of an attempt to unify the lighting of the Paint and Voxel rooms.

I think it would be nicer if we could setup individual lighting for each room.

[AbnRanger]

I totally agree. Watch out Mari...here comes multi-threaded 3d-coat.

I don't know if PPP or MVP is multi-threaded yet...so, I wouldn't go that far. But sure...Voxel sculpting (with this particular release) has moved up another level. The little testing I did earlier today...the merging operations are no longer the major impediment it once was. I am one happy camper today.

[Javis]

I don't know if PPP or MVP is multi-threaded yet...so, I wouldn't go that far.

Not yet. But they will be soon.

[Taros]

...

Heck... now we can even use Stamp mode with large radius...LJB is gonna be very happy about this!!

...

What do you mean here? The stamp is not supported by multithreading, neither in voxels nor in surface mode.

[michalis]

I believe this is the result of an attempt to unify the lighting of the Paint and Voxel rooms.

I think it would be nicer if we could setup individual lighting for each room.

Lighting in voxel room affects baking textures! It has do be rather dark. This is happening in all recent versions.

BTW have you tried to retopo and bake anything yet? I had some problems here (support topic)

[astralpancakes]

I believe this is the result of an attempt to unify the lighting of the Paint and Voxel rooms.

I think it would be nicer if we could setup individual lighting for each room.

Okay, makes sense. The shaders in Voxel sculpting look wrong and overexposed now, I think, but it's fixable with the color modulation setting in the shader's properties.

[philnolan3d]

I noticed something very interesting. If you turn off the shadows in the render options suddenly the lighting looks great, it won't have any shadows, but the contrast looks correct.

[polyxo]

Re-uploaded to solve mentioned problems

+ correctly working cavity in PP mode.

Just to confirm:

Quadrangulation works now. I am still figuring things out but that's really a great update Andrew!

[artman]

What do you mean here? The stamp is not supported by multithreading, neither in voxels nor in surface mode.

When using Stamp mode to drag "large strokes" with alpha images in Surface Mode it would result in incredibly high surf-vox conversion time(hours of merging).

I was able to use small brushes when Im working in the 15-20million range but not with Stamp mode...

I need to drag large strokes when using alpha images like skin pores or armor damages.

But now that Andrew has increased surf-vox conversion speed using Stamp mode in SFmode is now possible.

Also to people discussing new Shader lighting:

Shader lighting is not "wrong", its just brighter than before.

Its not a problem, its a fix.

(just tone down lighting from the vox room if find it too bright)

It was made so to properly match the shader color baking result you get in Paint Room when using same light intensity.

This change was requested by users over a very long discussion.

[3DCNC]

Where should we post bugs for latest beta without repeating a notification. It sometimes difficult to see what bugs have been reported for a particular beta version, without having to read though someones wishlist and fixed bugs from previous version.

[philnolan3d]

Where should we post bugs for latest beta without repeating a notification. It sometimes difficult to see what bugs have been reported for a particular beta version, without having to read though someones wishlist and fixed bugs from previous version.

Bugs should go in their proper forum area. It's also a help to put what 3DC version as well as info about your system.

http://www.3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showforum=30

I also wanted to know if I upload a screenshot of a particular bug from 3Dcoat software , do I need to also put it in the forum.

Only if you want people to see it.

[mocaw]

Update: OK it looks like (I'm fairly sure) this issue was fixed by geothefaust's suggestion to delete the "Options.xml" file in my user directory and then re-install 3DC 3.3.7! Thank you for the help!

Sorry if I'm putting this in the wrong area!

I finally have narrowed down my video cards seemingly lack of CUDA use by 3DC for voxels, to any release post 3.3.4 (I don't have 3.3.5).

So in 3.3.4, there is a HUGE difference between if CUDA is enabled or not in terms of responsiveness esp. with a reasonably sized brush/density ratio. When I upgrade to 3.3.6, or 3.3.7, it's almost like my card is hardly used at all- and things at the same brush sizes/density ratios become laggy and un-useable.

I currently have CUDA 2.2 installed with the latest developer display drivers (because the 2.2 versions don't work right with my card). I am running a GTS 250 based on the slightly updated chip set (G92b I think). This is basically an updated, more power efficient 9800GTX+ AFAIK.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127495

Any suggestions as to further testing to narrow this down further are greatly appreciated as right now 3.3.4 is better for sculpting in a general sense...but I'm missing out on some of the nice new features in 3.3.7.

At least now I know I'm not going insane about the lack of CUDA acceleration (for me) in the latest build!

[Taros]

When using Stamp mode to drag "large strokes" with alpha images in Surface Mode it would result in incredibly high surf-vox conversion time(hours of merging).

I was able to use small brushes when Im working in the 15-20million range but not with Stamp mode...

I need to drag large strokes when using alpha images like skin pores or armor damages.

But now that Andrew has increased surf-vox conversion speed using Stamp mode in SFmode is now possible.

...

Ah ok. You mean the "masks".

[digman]

Andrew, a big thank you for the multi-threading and all your hard work...

[artman]

Ah ok. You mean the "masks".

No...I mean "stamp mode".(the icon in E panel that looks like a shooting target )

(The brush mode that allows you to drag the pen in a rectangular fashion on the surface.)

Before 3.3.07:Large Drag Strokes in Stamp mode=Long conversion time.

After 3.3.07:Large Drag Strokes in Stamp mode=Quick conversion time....thus Using it efficiently is now possible.

[Taros]

No...I mean "stamp mode".(the icon in E panel that looks like a shooting target )

(The brush mode that allows you to drag the pen in a rectangular fashion on the surface.)

Before 3.3.07:Large Drag Strokes in Stamp mode=Long conversion time.

After 3.3.07:Large Drag Strokes in Stamp mode=Quick conversion time....thus Using it efficiently is now possible.

OK. Finally I've got it.

By the way: Today I had a completely crash after using a stamp on voxels. I can't reproduce it, so left no post. Before that I merged a quadrangulated mesh to microverts and moved then back to voxels to use the stamp. I am not shure if this was the reason.

[AbnRanger]

Update: OK it looks like (I'm fairly sure) this issue was fixed by geothefaust's suggestion to delete the "Options.xml" file in my user directory and then re-install 3DC 3.3.7! Thank you for the help!

Sorry if I'm putting this in the wrong area!

I finally have narrowed down my video cards seemingly lack of CUDA use by 3DC for voxels, to any release post 3.3.4 (I don't have 3.3.5).

So in 3.3.4, there is a HUGE difference between if CUDA is enabled or not in terms of responsiveness esp. with a reasonably sized brush/density ratio. When I upgrade to 3.3.6, or 3.3.7, it's almost like my card is hardly used at all- and things at the same brush sizes/density ratios become laggy and un-useable.

I currently have CUDA 2.2 installed with the latest developer display drivers (because the 2.2 versions don't work right with my card). I am running a GTS 250 based on the slightly updated chip set (G92b I think). This is basically an updated, more power efficient 9800GTX+ AFAIK.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127495

Any suggestions as to further testing to narrow this down further are greatly appreciated as right now 3.3.4 is better for sculpting in a general sense...but I'm missing out on some of the nice new features in 3.3.7.

At least now I know I'm not going insane about the lack of CUDA acceleration (for me) in the latest build!

You're saying it now uses CUDA, where it didn't previously? How did you determine whether it's fixed now or not? I was wondering how to do that exactly...discern CUDA usage, that is. When I rotate about with my SpacePilot, I can see the GPU load go to 100% temporarily (in GPU-Z), so I don't know that it's a good barometer for CUDA necessarily.

[Javis]

You're saying it now uses CUDA, where it didn't previously? How did you determine whether it's fixed now or not? I was wondering how to do that exactly...discern CUDA usage, that is. When I rotate about with my SpacePilot, I can see the GPU load go to 100% temporarily (in GPU-Z), so I don't know that it's a good barometer for CUDA necessarily.

It's about as close as you can get, really. When you're rotating the view port of course it's going to use the the video card to do so, and safe to assume any heat that is registered through any monitoring software (or hardware) is going to reflect the change in temperature. Likewise, if you're performing an operation that uses the video card or GPU through CUDA, then it is safe to assume that any temperature changes registered by the monitor will be from your usage of said operation.

Perfect? No. Useful? Yep.

As for the problem, it was related to options.xml using settings from a previous version of 3DC and applying it to a version that didn't have the exact feature(s) of that version, and was causing some weird problems. I recall having similar problems, and thus able to solve those problem with the same procedure (that is, deleting the options.xml file), when Andrew first added caching, among other things.

I'm glad mocaw and I got it solved, together. Team work!

[mocaw]

You're saying it now uses CUDA, where it didn't previously? How did you determine whether it's fixed now or not? I was wondering how to do that exactly...discern CUDA usage, that is. When I rotate about with my SpacePilot, I can see the GPU load go to 100% temporarily (in GPU-Z), so I don't know that it's a good barometer for CUDA necessarily.

Well I went by two indications- first and foremost, a lot of testing with the same size brushes, on the same size density of default sphere divided three times AND by the heat registered in SpeedFan/Afterburner. What I would do is get the brush size large enough to just be usable (by my standards) with CUDA on, then turn it off and try and do the same stroke. Most of the time it went from usable to not when I turned CUDA off.

Before I deleted the Options.xml file, I would do the same routine, and there would be no change in anything past 3.3.6. While it was not like night and day (this isn't a 400 series), it was the difference between usable and good to "...why did I bother upgrading my card..."! Is it using 100% of the cores/card for sculpting? I still don't think it is, but I'm not sure 3DC does for sculpting anyway.

As soon as I go to render in 3DC OR turn shadows on while sculpting- then the card gets VERY HOT (well 58C at 35% card fan speed- which is the hottest I've seen so far). Same goes if I rotate a lot with a fairly dense sculpt. I think these things use a different part or program on the card (DirectX?). This card is known to run kind of cool most of the time anyway so judging by heat alone isn't enough it seems.

Now I'm a happy voxels camper! Thanks again for the help geothefaust, I would have never thought of that as a possible solution!

[AbnRanger]

From Andrew's Twitter:

"I made several steps toward nice auto retopo - routine to calculate cross fields as described there - http://bit.ly/b4bWYE about 2 hours ago via TweetDeck..."

"I was in country for couple of days. I was offline that time."

I wonder how many keyboards Andrew goes through in a year...I bet they wear out every month or so. After all the work he did, stepping out in front with PTex, then flat out rebuilding the Voxel Sculpting Engine, and now this....there has to be some sort of International software development/programming award. Whatever it is, I nominate Andrew right now.

[Thomas P.]

Trying to unwrap a model after assigning uv seams will crash 3D Coat every time on my end (OSX).

Thomas P.

[Andrew Shpagin]

Trying to unwrap a model after assigning uv seams will crash 3D Coat every time on my end (OSX).

Thomas P.

send model to support@3d-coat.com and I will help