3D-Coat 3.5 updates thread

[Andrew Shpagin]

I uploaded 3.5.16C for Windows just to get feedback regarding new/updated brushes.

See changes in Twitter.

[LorenzoS]

WOW. What a Bonus. Thanks Andrew.

[gbball]

I think he only changed the mac build since he had to re-upload it. Are you on PC?

Yeah,

I'm PC...that explains it then. I'll try out the new one (16C) when I get a chance..

Thanks for the explanation!

-G

[artman]

I uploaded 3.5.16C for Windows just to get feedback regarding new/updated brushes.

See changes in Twitter.

FEEDBACK

(ancient Clay brush feels great and is also devoid of the mesh holes breaking issue(at least on my side)

...this issue seems to affect only the new engine brushes.If that can help you find cause and fix.

About Mud/Scrathes.

I like Mud2 better than Mud.(because it feels more like mud and less like clay)

And scratches2 is MUCH better than Scratches.(If you plan on giving a Zb Rake brush feeling)

Rapid2 is better than rapid in my sense because it supports alpha images(like Claytubes) and Rapid does not.

(you just need to add a square alpha to 3DC default brushes library)

Again its only my opinion and anyway I use mostly Clay brush.

note:there is small typo you named it Scartches2

Also some note regarding Rake brush and Clay tubes brush in Zb.

Those are not brushes they are just presets of the Clay brush.

Really. They are just the same Clay brush but with different alphas and brush settings.

Actually most of Zb dozens of brushes are only presets variations of the few MAIN brushes.

This is why 3DCoat needs custom brush creation with custom renaming and saving to external files

that can be loaded in the interface and shared among users ...its vital. (like paint room brushes)

...that and solid precise following effect....

Also I think its interesting that BeatKitano liked the old clay brush when used to fill holes, you could reengineer that brush to make a new Surface Fill brush ,that would fill cavities 50x faster than actual Surface Fill brush.It should not be too hard to do.

Also again,not to sound repetitive but really...please get rid of the Inflate brush name or make it so it works like an Inflate brush....so that it actually Inflates.

I really think Surface mode brushes are close to being very competitive.

(of course strength for move,flatten,chisel brushes is also absolutely needed.)

I hope LiveClay will be able to retain the brush behaviors,it would be great.

Thanx

EDIT:A New "Fill brush" should be like Rapid2.

But more gentle and additve(continuous pressure)

but that would also slow down a little when reaching the end of filling the cavities.

What do you think BeatKitano?

Andrew?

[philnolan3d]

I must say, the Rapid2, Mud2, and Scratches2 tools are much better than their "1" counterparts. Personally I wouldn't even bother keeping the 1 versions.

[BeatKitano]

I agree with all the above (artman's above, I disagree with losing the v1 brushes, but a simple checkbox in the option would do without cluttering the tool tray as the difference is quite subtile and might make new users wonder why there's two versions) and want to add a note:

LIke artman says the surface brushes are really starting to feel right, but there is still an obstacle, the smooth brush (or alternate shift mode in all brushes). It doesn't feel right, zbrush 4 (and 3.5 I think) have that very fast/almost mecanical, smooth brush, it acts a bit like the flatten brush.

Is it possible to replicate that fast effect ? Right now I always have to stay on a surface and brush the surface in concentric circles to smooth it properly. Even with the brush at 100% it looks like it's at 50% compared to zbrush (and mudbox !) smoothing brushes. I'm always tempted to push the smoothing value to 200% but it leads to artefacts :/

Personnaly I think the brush should have a pretty hard effect and be able to tone it down. I hate having to use it for 5 secs to get the desired effect.The voxel smooth is what I expect, it works quickly and still allow for subtile changes.

[EDIT] Actually I agree with Phil on some points, scratches 1 and mud 1 can go, but I still like rapid 1 for filling

[haikalle]

I agree about the brushes. We are going into right direction. I would leave both versions for now.

But agree with Artman that in the future brush engine needs some work that user can creat brush he wants

and save it.

Agree also about smoothing brush. It's feels a bit more flattening than smoothing. And it would be nice if it could be a bit stronger.

[artman]

as the difference is quite subtile and might make new users wonder why there's two versions

Hmmm...Difference is very strong.Impossible to not see difference.What tablet are you using?Do you have a Cintiq?

Anyway,Why cant 3DCoat have 200 brushes presets? It would be cool,lets just change tool tray to custom tools with icons like Zb/mb.

Users could have 5 brushes or 37 for that matter.

[michalis]

But I have to complain about the pinch tool.

It was never right. Pixologic only understood that negative (ctrl) values forces the tools to pinch inner. Why I need this? Because I use two or three tools only. Voxel mode only. Details can wait, its an after retopo job.

[BeatKitano]

Hmmm...Difference is very strong.Impossible to not see difference.What tablet are you using?Do you have a Cintiq?

Anyway,Why cant 3DCoat have 200 brushes presets? It would be cool,lets just change tool tray to custom tools with icons like Zb/mb.

Users could have 5 brushes or 37 for that matter.

I've an Intuos 3, but I still think scratches 1/2 are pretty similar at first glance, I'm thinking toward beginners here, having too much to play with can make it look frightening

Tons of brush presets would be awesome at some point, but I think like you said in zbrush most "special brushes" are standard brushes with tweaking, 3dcoat is having more and more special brushes that could be replicated with standard brushes.

I think it would be best to keep it to a minimum and allow special brushes via tweaking later on when a full preset system is integrated. No ?

But I have to complain about the pinch tool.

It was never right. Pixologic only understood that negative (ctrl) values forces the tools to pinch inner. Why I need this? Because I use two or three tools only. Voxel mode only. Details can wait, its an after retopo job.

I've to agree strongly about that, there was some picture that explained the situation in a thread about brushes suggestion. And in fact that picture may still be too soft, In zbrush there a brush called dam stardard that pinches and creases, it's very useful.

[artman]

But I have to complain about the pinch tool.

It was never right. Pixologic only understood that negative (ctrl) values forces the tools to pinch inner. Why I need this? Because I use two or three tools only. Voxel mode only. Details can wait, its an after retopo job.

Actually what happens here is that in Zb Pinch brush the default Brushmodifier setting is set to 20.

This means it blends Pinch brush with a little " 20" of Standard brush.

This is why you get a pinch inward effect when using Ctrl.

Its not in the behavior of the pinch brush its the behavior of the standard brush.

There is one slider in almost every brushes...sometimes it blends with standard brush,sometimes it mix with inflat brush.Its a lot of fun to try out.

If you set it to zero and thus remove the Standrad brush behavior you are left with only pinching...no in,no out.Try it,you will see.

So in a sense 3DCoat Inverted pinch is true inverted behavior...which is "to unpinch",to expend.

But I understand why you need that effect ,its a very strong and useful effect.For Clothes,for wrinkles for many many stuff.

In Sculptris they made Crease brush to do this.

In 3DCoat you can use pen no4 with extrude brush,the sharpness of the pen simulate pinching inward (while not really pinching of course)

Blending 2 brushes behavior together with a slider would be great but I think it would require tremendous efforts from Andrew.

But maybe in the future...who knows. In Pilgway speed frame time warps are not uncommon.

[artman]

I think it would be best to keep it to a minimum and allow special brushes via tweaking later on when a full preset system is integrated. No ?

Totally. But checker boxes are sometimes just waiting there.Permenently checked or unchecked.

How many times do we try the "Dont lift edges" checker box in flatten brush. I sometime forget it exists.

I think at this point what we really need is more LJB sculpting videos.

More showcasing of brushes use and tricks not just some writing or screeshots of spheres like I do.

But people dont use surface mode enough,even at early low res stages the block out power of the clay/rapid/mud brush is insane.Its like there is this idea that surface mode is for last stage details but its so untrue,especially now that we have free multiresolution and resampling...

and with LiveClay and Andrew's new surface mode booleans its gonna be frightening.

[philnolan3d]

I see a huge difference between scratches 1 and 2, in this pic both strokes were made with the same 20% depth and full pressure (in the E panel)

[BeatKitano]

Totally. But checker boxes are sometimes just waiting there.Permenently checked or unchecked.

How many times do we try the "Dont lift edges" checker box in flatten brush. I sometime forget it exists.

I do ! I use it, a lot, it's the only way to have the same effect as the trim dynamic brush in zbrush, (when you invert the brush and it raises the surface to the surounding "cliffs" instead of flattening down to the lowest point). I wish it was there by default on inverted flatten/scrape in fact...

But I agree we should share our "special" workflow with brushes and whatnot, I would do it if wasn't overbooked and didn't have a crappy connection at home (awfully long time to upload a few mins video).

@Phil:

I agree about scratches and mud, v1 can go, they have no real purpose (to me at least) and their next version look cleaner.

[Garagarape]

But people dont use surface mode enough,even at early low res stages the block out power of the clay/rapid/mud brush is insane.Its like there is this idea that surface mode is for last stage details but its so untrue,especially now that we have free multiresolution and resampling...

Still didn't test last version, but I agree with Artman about surface mode.

It is really powerful to get good blocking in the early time.

I also use it, may be in a bad way, when voxel resolution is too high for the smoothing brush to work good.

Surface mode > Flatten > then go back to voxel mode.

Happy to read about so many different workflows.

It means that 3dCoat is really flexible.

[Phizter]

Hi Andrew,

I just gave 3D Coat 3.5.16C (CUDA) 64bit Win7 a test run and I am overwhelmed with joy .

Rapid2 Definitely works a lot better than rapid! Nice fluid motion.

Scrathes2 is much better than Scratches. I think that the old scratches had a very unpredictable behaviour, hence I found it useless. Scrathes2 has good predictable behaviour and it runs fast and smooth. I think Scrathes2 is a very useful brush.

Mud2 is also a bit more predictable than the old Mud. Even though the difference here is not that big I do prefer Mud2 over Mud.

So I agree with philnolan3d that the Rapid2, Mud2, and Scratches2 tools are much better than their "1" counterparts. And I too wouldn't bother keeping the 1 versions.

Also I agree with Artman regarding the Inflate brush. I am not really sure what that brush does, but it is definitely not inflating as I would expect an inflate brush to do. As the brush is working right now I really think it is only cluttering the interface. 3D Coat would be a more clean and nice experience without it.

Well, super nice update, thanks again for all your hard work Andrew .

[b33nine]

but there is still an obstacle, the smooth brush (or alternate shift mode in all brushes). It doesn't feel right, zbrush 4 (and 3.5 I think) have that very fast/almost mecanical, smooth brush, it acts a bit like the flatten brush.

I'm glad you mentioned this Beatkitano. I think the smooth brush behavior in 3dcoat is my biggest obstacle in regards to using 3dcoat for sculpting. It infuriates me quite honestly, it's WAY underpowered even after 1 or 2 +res's and it almost feels like it pushes down into the mesh. Also, using the shift modifier for smoothing should not keep the alpha from whatever tool I have active. I'm not sure how many people feel the same in regards to the smooth tool(s), but it causes me too much grief to consider 3dcoat as a viable sculpting option for me.

[haikalle]

I'm glad you mentioned this Beatkitano. I think the smooth brush behavior in 3dcoat is my biggest obstacle in regards to using 3dcoat for sculpting. It infuriates me quite honestly, it's WAY underpowered even after 1 or 2 +res's and it almost feels like it pushes down into the mesh. Also, using the shift modifier for smoothing should not keep the alpha from whatever tool I have active. I'm not sure how many people feel the same in regards to the smooth tool(s), but it causes me too much grief to consider 3dcoat as a viable sculpting option for me.

Agree

After futher testing I'm ready to dish out "1" and leave only "2". They just feel great

[Andrew Shpagin]

In general it are not exact copies of old brushes. Due to they was inserted in new engine they got more unoform spacing and speed boost. So don't feel that this is step back.

The difference between 1 and 2 brushes:

1 - interpolates normal to stroke in every point, applies averaged plane and extrude in every point to get clay effect

2 - acts as equally spaced set of spots, applying plane+extrude in every spot.

Regarding universal brush - I think it is inavodable step, but a bit later.

[kay_Eva]

loving the new brushes the 2s have it

[Javis]

After some thorough testing of the new brushes. I've got to go with the "2"s here, the 1's still a bit wonky.

Especially digging the old/new/2 version of mud and clay, spectacular performance.

[Javis]

Regarding universal brush - I think it is inavodable step, but a bit later.

I hope sooner rather than later. This has been a long time request of many here, I'm sure we would all invite such a change.

[Andrew Shpagin]

It doesn't work.

I don't understand why.

There is also broken areas (squares) on the texture:

I'm going to check all once more.

Ok, this problem fixed. The problem was in transformed volume.

[mwgrafx]

I get a crash every time I try to merge my layers in the paint room on ver 3.15.14A. I know it is outdated with the amount of versions out there. Just seeing if it has been fixed in newer versions. Its hard to keep up with these version because what might work in one version wont work in another and vice versa.

Edit: Thanks for the reply in my thread about the issue.

[BeatKitano]

I get a crash every time I try to merge my layers in the paint room on ver 3.15.14A. I know it is outdated with the amount of versions out there. Just seeing if it has been fixed in newer versions. Its hard to keep up with these version because what might work in one version wont work in another and vice versa.

That's why Andrew is working so hard on bugfixes right now: to release a "stable" version where everyone can fall back to if future versions are buggy

[philnolan3d]

I get a crash every time I try to merge my layers in the paint room on ver 3.15.14A. I know it is outdated with the amount of versions out there. Just seeing if it has been fixed in newer versions. Its hard to keep up with these version because what might work in one version wont work in another and vice versa.

Edit: Thanks for the reply in my thread about the issue.

It's probably faster to download the latest version than it is post post your question, let along wait for a response.

[michalis]

f you set it to zero and thus remove the Standrad brush behavior you are left with only pinching...no in,no out.Try it,you will see.

So in a sense 3DCoat Inverted pinch is true inverted behavior...which is "to unpinch",to expend.

But I understand why you need that effect ,its a very strong and useful effect.For Clothes,for wrinkles for many many stuff.

In Sculptris they made Crease brush to do this.

In 3DCoat you can use pen no4 with extrude brush,the sharpness of the pen simulate pinching inward (while not really pinching of course)

Blending 2 brushes behavior together with a slider would be great but I think it would require tremendous efforts from Andrew.

But maybe in the future...who knows. In Pilgway speed frame time warps are not uncommon.

Thanks artman, of course I knew how zb brushes really work.

My problem is that, this is the way I'm thinking when sculpting and what I usually do in vox mode is to sculpt with negative standard brush and pinch after. These two and the move tool are my basic tools in vox mode.

Pinch is even greater real sculpting tool in vox mode as it doesnt affect topology but rather the real volume of mesh. A similar (but quite differnet) behavior in sculptris (after some smoothing)

[gbball]

I played around with version 16C last night and the Rapid 2 brush is the best the rapid brush has ever been. It's as smooth as butter. I can't wait to try it out some more.

I didn't get around to trying the other version 2 brushes, but I will spend more time with it this weekend. If they're anything like the Rapid brush though, I'm sure I'll love them too.

-G

[Andrew Shpagin]

I updated Win version to 3.5.16D to get feedbach regarding surface Smooth function.

Now ot works without holes and acts in a different way.

Other changes from Twitter applied too.

[BeatKitano]

Andrew I LOVE YOU. It's christmas, this is the smooth brush as it always should have been. That's perfect I can know render surface without unwanted bumps

Thank you so much !

With that sole change, I now completely agree with artman, I will probably work all the time in surface mode (except for sym copy which sometime creates holes). I can't thank you enough for this.

Ahah, hardsurface sculpting is cleaner/easier to do than in zbrush and mudbox... that's...something.

Michalis will love this new smooth, you can practically sculpt everything with it only...