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3DCoat From Scratch (Video Training)


Psmith
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Hello:

I've been a new user, myself, and I think I have a feeling for what needs to be demonstrated to give any new user of 3D-Coat a nice, trouble-free introduction, (and beyond), to 3D-Coat and its strongest, most unique functionality.

Youtube Link - Part1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Here is a short video series that should give any new user a quick start - especially those who are tired of needing and using many applications to do relatively simple things.

Greg Smith

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If I may add one small thing to that last one... For renaming layers you can just double click the current name. It's a small things but is a little easier I think. Of course for the sake of the tutorial your way showed new users the right-click menu.

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Hello:

I've been a new user, myself, and I think I have a feeling for what needs to be demonstrated to give any new user of 3D-Coat a nice, trouble-free introduction, (and beyond), to 3D-Coat and its strongest, most unique functionality.

3D-Coat From Scratch

Here is a short video series that should give any new user a quick start - especially those who are tired of needing and using many applications to do relatively simple things.

This is Part One.

Greg Smith

I just wanted to say Thank You for these great videos. (I think the limbs would be easier to create with the curve tool however.)

But I learned so much. I was using the "Smooth" tool for things that the "Fill" tool can solve! So I've learned a great deal!

Thanks again!

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What you did here Psmith is very important. Thank you.

I may use different approach to autopo but this last tutorial is what most people need to see.

There're more difficult cases than this cartoon like figure. Where someone has to delete some faces and construct parts manually. Between hip and thighs on a real human figure... between figures on real hands. A retopo nightmare. 3DC is still the best tool for these hard cases though.

These 20-30 ngons still are a problem, I'm wondering how difficult is to have a auto ngons to tris-quads tool. I usually spend some 10 more min to turn all these ngons to quads only. Easy when symmetry is in use. Another wish here: Automatically close holes! Please...

A nice manual UV tutorial is also useful.

Happy new year. :clapping:

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Michalis:

Some of the difficulties with using AUTOPO on areas like closed fingers and closed and draped human legs might be better solved with the use of armatures for posing. Then, the human figure could be sculpted, initially, in the traditional T-Pose, or in a relaxed, standing position. Getting the cloth to drape properly would still be an issue, but could be done on a separate layer, once the base figure has been posed.

Now, I know, in the case of a classical Greek figure - fully draped, the solution still largely remains in the hands of the skilled "sculptor".

But, usually, in the case of classical sculpture, it will never be animated, so perfect topology is a luxury rather than a necessity. (Unless you are creating characters for "Night At The Museum") Who cares about n-gons if the thing is just going to sit there, motionless? Nobody will ever see those pesky n-gons, especially if the sculpture has a homogeneous texture, (like stone).

However, many of us still like to display our perfect topology to "the masters" for their scrutiny - so, better get rid of those n-gons, if this is the case.

Have a great and prosperous New Year!

Greg Smith

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n-gons isn't the best when importing to zbrush, it will turn them to tris but this way I can't reconstruct subs to the first level. This is important for non animated figures. If lot of figures will be used in a complicated scene. So I have to do some more work in retopo room.

Drapery in classical sculpture isn't so hard for retopo. Real drapery is another nightmare. Practically speaking, I prefer to finish the mesh in blender (the back face).

But your excellent thread is more generic and explains the basic principles of autopo.

BTW I hate t-poses, sculpture has nothing to do with it. If I try to set up an armature to venus sculpt, expect lot of stretching. A disaster probably. I already used it in fingers-hands-arms.

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PSmith, Do you do this for a living? Training I mean. The other thing I would like to say is that you are very clear and easy to understand. Perfect for training videos I would say.

Thank you again. looking forward to the texturing and whatever else you do.

Thank you

Mike R

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n-gons isn't the best when importing to zbrush, it will turn them to tris but this way I can't reconstruct subs to the first level. This is important for non animated figures. If lot of figures will be used in a complicated scene. So I have to do some more work in retopo room.

Drapery in classical sculpture isn't so hard for retopo. Real drapery is another nightmare. Practically speaking, I prefer to finish the mesh in blender (the back face).

But your excellent thread is more generic and explains the basic principles of autopo.

BTW I hate t-poses, sculpture has nothing to do with it. If I try to set up an armature to venus sculpt, expect lot of stretching. A disaster probably. I already used it in fingers-hands-arms.

I don't think Auto Retopo was ever intended to be a pipeline to ZBrush or Mudbox...and even for users of those applications, who may consider using it, the idea is bring a finished model INTO 3DC to retopo a lower res mesh. If you are trying to send something over to those apps, you can simply export a quad mesh right out of the vox tree menu, or manually do the Retopo work.

Autopo was never intended to be an all-encompassing solution. Just a good one to consider under less demanding circumstances (regarding polygonal construction). It's a massive improvement over the previous toolset and works really well for certain uses.

Personally, I would never use it for Characters, unless it was rather distant from the camera or for non-animated usage. The way I look at it...it's pretty much like TV dinners. Some of the ones you see in the freezer isle make for a decent lunch or late night meal, when you don't really feel like cooking. However, when you have guests over, TV dinners are not what you are going to be serving them...are you?

I agree, to the extent that there are some things I don't particularly like, at times (n-gons and sometimes the loops spiral instead of the algorithm making closed loops). But then, once again, it's not intended to be a replacement for Manual Retopology. It's intended to be a tool to use when precise CONTROL (over topology) isn't completely necessary. The idea of adding guides and painting areas of density is an effort to meet somewhere in the middle...between Total control (manual) and No control (automation). I'm sure Andrew will continue to make some improvements over time. Adding the "Dot-Loop/Ring" feature I mentioned (many times) would help expedite the cleanup phase.

With that said, Automated processes are never going to make everyone happy, all the time. Same goes for PTex. It's great under certain circumstances, but I generally opt to do UV's manually (and scale areas/islands that I want to get more resolution, in the process). I do manual retopo most of the time as well, because like UV layout tools, the manual ones are still relatively fast to use.

On clothing, or on more primitive shaped, hard surface objects, I think Autopo makes sense.

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Hi Greg,

I'd also like to add my Thanks for all your efforts with these Tutorials, they've been a great help.

Looking forward to seeing more.

regards Colin

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On clothing, or on more primitive shaped, hard surface objects, I think Autopo makes sense.

On hard surface models I find autopo to be completely unusable. Never yet had anything usable that way. Any tips on hard surface autopo?

Oh and the spiral loops I have seen many a time. Would love to know what causes that.

Cheers

Mike R

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Mike:

The closest I've gotten to "success" with hard surface, rectilinear objects, is to place guide strokes very close to the hard surface edge, (on both sides), which produces a rectangular grid of quadrangles, fairly close to these edges and, also, across all surfaces.

Spherical objects are best "guided" by placing "all the way through" guides, in a rectilinear fashion - the sphere is then treated like a "spherized" cube, (ala Blender).

But, AUTOPO has not really been engineered with hard surfaces in mind.

There is an interesting development in this kind of auto topology, though, that's happening with the guys from Groboto. Their routines are excellent, and now nearly anything can be modeled by means of boolean functions, inside Groboto, (very cheap and intuitive to use). Using this pipeline, it now becomes possible to make hard surfaced objects over there and import them for texturing inside 3D-Coat.

Check it out: (make sure to read the "Mesh Structure" section).

Groboto 3 Auto meshing

Greg Smith

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Greg, I actually own Groboto as well and have been playing around with the 3 beta (Not checked for confirmation of any release for mac yet this month.)

I have a number of apps but stick to one or two and never get round to learning the others.

For example up to now I have used Zbrush almost exclusively for sculpting and Modo for general modeling. However I own Lightwave, 3dcoat, Groboto, Curvy 3d and Carrara etc and never get round to using them or learning them.

Recently though I have found 3dcoat suits me better and all of the graphics for my next ios game are created in 3dCoat. It helps me create quicker and experiment more and that's why I am spending more and more time here trying to learn the ins and outs of it.

Cheers

Mike

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Thanks for the work on these Greg. There is a lot of information in there to pick from. I am really looking forward to the painting tutorials.

Rich

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Awesome! Congrats in getting these out - I know how painful it is to get these things all recorded, edited, produced, marketed and so on. You've done a very fine job here good sir. :drinks:

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