Introduce yourself!

[AbnRanger]

Hello! I'm a retired USAF officer who recently started my own business as a freelance animator. I primarily use Lightwave but have been reading a lot about the great ways in which programs like 3D Coat enhance the LW workflow--especially for UV unwrapping and fine detailing. I'm also a die hard Mac user and appreciate that 3D Coat fully supports my OS of choice.

I just started with the trial download version but already am finding I like what I see. I expect to have many questions over the next several days as I "kick the tires and light the fires" and will probably purchase a commercial license before my trial runs out unless something goes horribly wrong.

Look forward to interacting with you soon!

Good to see another veteran on here. 6yrs in the Army, myself. 3D Coat was adopted early on by the Lighwave community. Especially by those on the Newtek forums. In fact, the late, great Larry Shultz (Splinegod), mentioned it in a discussion about ZB vs Mudbox, years ago, when it was still named 3D Brush. Nobody had ever heard of it, and it was certainly no competition to either of those, at that point in time. But as a low-cost solution for 3D texture painting and some decent sculpting ability, more and more LW artists jumped on board, and Andrew worked hard to please. He even made it easy to bring in .lwo files with the nodes already setup. So, to get to the point, much of 3D Coat is LW centric....the different tabs at the top of the UI, all text option for the tool panel (just like LW), and with the right theme modifications, it almost looks like another application among those in LW (Modeler, Layout).

Here is the LW theme I created and am using, currently. You can place it in MyDocs/3D Coat/Layouts and then go to the EDIT menu > Preferences > LOAD > point to the file, and close the preferences panel. Hope you enjoy working in the app. and stay active on the forums. 80% of 3D Coat is a result of user input/feedback. I don't know of any other app that can claim that.

[Javis]

Hello! I'm a retired USAF officer who recently started my own business as a freelance animator. I primarily use Lightwave but have been reading a lot about the great ways in which programs like 3D Coat enhance the LW workflow--especially for UV unwrapping and fine detailing. I'm also a die hard Mac user and appreciate that 3D Coat fully supports my OS of choice.

I just started with the trial download version but already am finding I like what I see. I expect to have many questions over the next several days as I "kick the tires and light the fires" and will probably purchase a commercial license before my trial runs out unless something goes horribly wrong.

Look forward to interacting with you soon!

Welcome board sir. Glad you're liking 3DC, if you have any questions. Please do not hesitate to ask.

PS - I also come from LW. 3DC works great together with LW and Modo quite well (through LWO). LW "layers" and meshes from modo all come in correctly, UV maps of course, and even vertex maps all work pretty seamlessly.

[glassdog]

Howdy Yall,

Im Mike the Glassdog. Brand new to 3dcoat but not to 3d art. Looking forward to learning a lot here.

[Javis]

Welcome aboard glassdog. Looking forward to seeing your 3DC creations.

[Spinland]

Here is the LW theme I created and am using, currently. You can place it in MyDocs/3D Coat/Layouts and then go to the EDIT menu > Preferences > LOAD > point to the file, and close the preferences panel. Hope you enjoy working in the app. and stay active on the forums. 80% of 3D Coat is a result of user input/feedback. I don't know of any other app that can claim that.

Much obliged for the theme! I installed it today and it looks great. I got in some more quality time with the trial today and, though I have quite the learning curve yet to climb, I believe 3DC is indeed a great addition to my tool set. As a matter of fact I just ordered the commercial license tonight. I'm looking forward to how it's going to help me in some future projects.

More to come, as the post quota gods permit.

[digman]

Welcome! Spinland

A good group here at the 3DCoat forums. Looking forwarding to seeing some of your art creations...

[AbnRanger]

Welcome! Spinland

A good group here at the 3DCoat forums. Looking forwarding to seeing some of your art creations...

That's right. Looking forward to seeing what you can do with it. Definitely check out the LiveClay (dynamic subdivision sculpting) toolset. It's a real treat. The Kitbashing toolset as well. There are a lot of videos on the Youtube Channel, covering most of the new V4 Beta tools. Cherry pick through those, what you think you might benefit from. The Mannequin is another preset (from the Splash screen), you may want to check out. You can use it or the other Human Primitive as a good starting point for any character sculpts.

[Spinland]

Great, thanks for the tips! I'm excited to get some quality time with my Wacom and all these cool new toys.

[elephantboy90]

Hi,

I'm new to 3D Coat and 3D modelling in general. I have Carrara 8 as my main 3D program but found the modelling tools difficult to get to grips with for "organic" shapes, hence getting 3D Coat.

[Kelvin Ng]

Hi this is Kelvin from Hong Kong. I used to create game assets with Cheetad3d. Its a nice and fast. However when I come across UV editing and texture painting I think there should be a better approach... I tried out ZBrush but I don't like its UI and the way it modifies polygons... After reading some videos from 3D Coat I do think its what I am looking for

[khaja]

hey everyone my names Jake. I'm a 3rd year Games Design Student studying at staffordshire university, hoping to do my masters year after i've finished this one. I found 3d coat intitially through it's painting room and started experimenting with voxel sculpting soon after. For high poly organic or hard surface i love it. It's freed me up so much from the issues of topology (triple edge looping and the like) and has allowed me to just create without restraint. I currently have the educational version on steam but i'm saving up the cash for the full commercial licence soon enough. Anyway that's all from me for now. I've got some WIP stuff that i shall throw up on a thread.

[William T Watson]

Hello everyone. My name is Will, and I'm pretty new to the 3D-Coat Environment. As a matter of fact, I'm about two weeks into exploring the software. I'm not new to 3D or computers --I work in IT and so much of what I do is a hobby when it comes to 3D. I've become pretty familiar with Silo, but it lacks some things when it comes to design and they don't seem interested in releasing a new version of it. Basically, I got into Smith Micro's Poser and I saw that some people were using 3D Coat for retopology and other designs.

Believe it or not, I took an interest in 3D Coat because it seems that normal every day shoes are a practical impossibility in the Poser/Daz universe. I like the idea of being able to customize my own looks and styles and so I put myself to the task of learning how to use the software.

[AbnRanger]

Hello everyone. My name is Will, and I'm pretty new to the 3D-Coat Environment. As a matter of fact, I'm about two weeks into exploring the software. I'm not new to 3D or computers --I work in IT and so much of what I do is a hobby when it comes to 3D. I've become pretty familiar with Silo, but it lacks some things when it comes to design and they don't seem interested in releasing a new version of it. Basically, I got into Smith Micro's Poser and I saw that some people were using 3D Coat for retopology and other designs.

Believe it or not, I took an interest in 3D Coat because it seems that normal every day shoes are a practical impossibility in the Poser/Daz universe. I like the idea of being able to customize my own looks and styles and so I put myself to the task of learning how to use the software.

Uh-oh. You done did it now! You've gone and got yourself hooked. I was in college for Graphic Design and stumbled upon some classes for 3D. If one has an artistic talent, or desire for creating things, this is it. Won't be long before you hang those IT shoes up, methinks.

Welcome aboard, and to the other few who posted before you. This is a really good forum for getting help and sharing tips and assets, such as brushes, presets, UI color schemes, etc. Make sure to pop in from time to time to contribute.

Don

[Chris Botha]

Hey all, my name is Chris Botha, I am a jeweller, I use cad (Matrix, Rhino, Tsplines etc etc) and also do my own machining . I have been looking at 3dcoat because Colin Creed a friend of mine uses it. I am primarily interested in the transition from OBJ to Voxel and back for its instant boolean and "blend" options prior to rednering, we bought one student licence so far to test the waters, and if it works out we will buy two full ones for work.

this is what I do with it for now.

from this sharp hard nurbs

to 3dcoat for InstaBlend

then rendering

for more info about me, see

Digital-Jeweller / Jewellery Art.

http://www.facebook.com/DigitalJeweller

http://digital-jeweller.blogspot.com.au

http://www.hollowaydiamonds.com.au

​hope to learn and share with you

[AbnRanger]

Hey all, my name is Chris Botha, I am a jeweller, I use cad (Matrix, Rhino, Tsplines etc etc) and also do my own machining . I have been looking at 3dcoat because Colin Creed a friend of mine uses it. I am primarily interested in the transition from OBJ to Voxel and back for its instant boolean and "blend" options prior to rednering, we bought one student licence so far to test the waters, and if it works out we will buy two full ones for work.

this is what I do with it for now.

from this sharp hard nurbs

to 3dcoat for InstaBlend

then rendering

for more info about me, see

Digital-Jeweller / Jewellery Art.

http://www.facebook....DigitalJeweller

http://digital-jeweller.blogspot.com.au

http://www.hollowaydiamonds.com.au

​hope to learn and share with you

So, do you normally try to get the model back into Nurbs, afterward...or just leave it as an OBJ or STL?

[Chris Botha]

This is for rendering only so I leave it as OBJ tho technically since my CAM applications all work with meshes (rhinocam/deskproto) i could continue my process directly.

[silkroadgame]

Hello,everyone,new here from China.

[Carlosan]

welcome

[matty686]

Hi I am Matty I always wanted unlimited sculpting ability but i have shaky hands so I tried digital sculpting i have tried about 5 programs and hated them all they crashed because polygons are slow so now i have finely settled with 3d coat

of course i cant export anything i make because my art is so detailed that it crashes every polygon based program so as a result i make do with the 3dcoat internal render feature and hope for decent glass shaders someday

[AbnRanger]

Hi I am Matty I always wanted unlimited sculpting ability but i have shaky hands so I tried digital sculpting i have tried about 5 programs and hated them all they crashed because polygons are slow so now i have finely settled with 3d coat

of course i cant export anything i make because my art is so detailed that it crashes every polygon based program so as a result i make do with the 3dcoat internal render feature and hope for decent glass shaders someday

Welcome aboard. That's why you generally want to take your high poly sculpt, and Retopologize (build a low polygon version on top of it, with snapping enabled), to bake all the small sculpting details onto either a normal or displacement map. Then export to the program you prefer to render out of.

In 3D Coat, you generally want to separate different parts of a model onto their own layers, and cache the layers you aren't actively working on...to preserve as much memory as you can, while you do the uber high detail work. For the micro-surface level detail, like pores, very fine wrinkles, etc....you may opt to level that stage of your work until you've baked everything down and merged it to the Paint workspace. There, you have all the painting tools at your disposal to sculpt live normal map/displacement map detail, and see the updates live in both the 3D Viewport and 2D Texture Editor. That's referred to as Image-Based Sculpting, and 3D Coat is one of a few apps that offer it. It's specialty is exactly what I just mentioned. High res surface level sculpting.

You can push your sculpt as far as you think you can in the Voxel room, using LiveClay, and then leave the rest to image-based sculpting, where there is a much lower RAM penalty.

[matty686]

ok how do i handle something this huge

ok how do i handle something this huge

[AbnRanger]

ok how do i handle something this huge

ok how do i handle something this huge

You can use the SPLIT tool to divide it up into sections, and cache the layers you aren't actively working on. You can always merge the layers back together before baking, if you want. Depending on you system specs., you may not need to do that. You can use LiveClay as well, for the HiRes detail.

[dangre]

Hello all, Dan here. I am an engineer, yes one of those. I'm looking at different solutions to go from messy 3D scan data to SolidWorks. My business doesnt justify affording the expensive reverse engineering software out there (GeoMagic, Rapidform, etc at $20k+). I normally work with rectangles, cylinders, and an occasional cone when I feel real crazy. 3DCoat has opened my eyes to a new world. I have already cleaned up some very organic scan data. It has allowed me to massage some data I normally could never work with and get usable data. I am currently working on some model airplanes for a client which would have been a real pain with SolidWorks. Now the clincher is to see how I can interpolate those boring rectangles, cylinders, and cones an engineer needs to work with. I know 3DCoat is not meant for that but maybe I can find some complimentary software solutions that will help me out. I've seen a few hard surface tutorials out there but any links to others would be greatly appreciated. Awesome software!!!

[Wunderwolf]

I also just wanted to say Hello.

Im a computer scientist who uses 3d-coat for different Render-Engines.

And maybe to make his own little indie game one day.

Well ... HELLO !

[Carlosan]

welcome !

[AlphaGrunt]

Hi everyone, my name is Jay. I'm 34yrs old and have been working designing and rendering jewelry for the past 6yrs. Prior to this I spent 4yrs as a light infantry paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division where I served 3 combat tours in Iraq spanning 2yrs time. My service is who I am but my passion is what I do and I hope that 3D Coat allows me to express that even more.

I work in Boston but live in a beatiful beach town on the coast of NH. This will be my first 3d package outside of a jewelry specific one so I'm excited to see what kinds of things 3DC can add to my world. I'm currently fumbling through the trial period...but hope to get ahold of Javis soon to try and set up some sort of 1v1 to get me up to speed even faster!

I'm excited to be part of this community and hope this package turns out to be everything I hope it to be!

[AbnRanger]

Hi everyone, my name is Jay. I'm 34yrs old and have been working designing and rendering jewelry for the past 6yrs. Prior to this I spent 4yrs as a light infantry paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division where I served 3 combat tours in Iraq spanning 2yrs time. My service is who I am but my passion is what I do and I hope that 3D Coat allows me to express that even more.

I work in Boston but live in a beatiful beach town on the coast of NH. This will be my first 3d package outside of a jewelry specific one so I'm excited to see what kinds of things 3DC can add to my world. I'm currently fumbling through the trial period...but hope to get ahold of Javis soon to try and set up some sort of 1v1 to get me up to speed even faster!

I'm excited to be part of this community and hope this package turns out to be everything I hope it to be!

Cool Beans. I served 3yrs at Ft. Bragg (1st 3 at Ft. Campbell/101st) in the 82nd Abn Div. as well (1/325 AIR). Served with that unit in Desert Shield/Storm. Was in the Florida/Swamp phase of Ranger School when they (on DRF 1) got deployed. They snagged my Ranger buddy (1st Lt.), but luckily I was allowed to proceed and graduate before joining them. I sure respect you guys who had to do multiple tours. There were a lot of guys "burned out" when we got back after roughly 6mos. Had to have been a lot of stress constantly rotating back. Hat's off to you for that,

Good to have you on board, and be sure check out the videos on 3D Coat's Youtube channel. Constantly adding new content all the time.

http://www.youtube.com/user/PILGWAY3DCoat

[umitsuki]

Hello from Japan

Best regards.

[Javis]

Welcome aboard AlphaGrunt and umitsuki!

AlphaGrunt, Hooah. Couple of years in the Army myself, too. Back in the late 90s. Mech infantry. Ft. Benning. Stuck me in HHC A 1/19 Inf Reg.. We were the guys training all of the mech infantry at building 500, specifically for the BFVs. No tours whatsoever. Looking forward to seeing more of your work. It's neat to see people using 3DC for jewelry. I'm interested in this myself.

umitsuki, nice first works! よさそうだ。　すみません、わたし　の　日本語　の　良いではない。　(Sorry, I am not so good with Japanese. I have not practiced in years. I plan to move to Japan to work eventually.)

[AlphaGrunt]

Cool Beans. I served 3yrs at Ft. Bragg (1st 3 at Ft. Campbell/101st) in the 82nd Abn Div. as well (1/325 AIR). Served with that unit in Desert Shield/Storm. Was in the Florida/Swamp phase of Ranger School when they (on DRF 1) got deployed. They snagged my Ranger buddy (1st Lt.), but luckily I was allowed to proceed and graduate before joining them. I sure respect you guys who had to do multiple tours. There were a lot of guys "burned out" when we got back after roughly 6mos. Had to have been a lot of stress constantly rotating back. Hat's off to you for that,

Good to have you on board, and be sure check out the videos on 3D Coat's Youtube channel. Constantly adding new content all the time.

http://www.youtube.c...r/PILGWAY3DCoat

Welcome aboard AlphaGrunt and umitsuki!

AlphaGrunt, Hooah. Couple of years in the Army myself, too. Back in the late 90s. Mech infantry. Ft. Benning. Stuck me in HHC A 1/19 Inf Reg.. We were the guys training all of the mech infantry at building 500, specifically for the BFVs. No tours whatsoever. Looking forward to seeing more of your work. It's neat to see people using 3DC for jewelry. I'm interested in this myself.

Ahhhh a fellow lawn dart and infantry brothers, I'm feeling at home already! Thank you for the welcome guys and I look forward to exploring 3D Coat as part of my work flow. Though I may have already hit a wall with how clean the mesh is looking after export.... I'll make a post in another thread as to not to clutter the "welcome center".

Thanks again!