3DCoat From Scratch (Video Training)

[Psmith 87]

Edgedeep:

Sorry for the delayed reply - and thank you for your comments.

In my opinion, if 3D-Coat is used in the "order" that I present in these tutorials, similar, and even better results can be obtained in 3D-Coat, alone, than spreading the work between the other 2 apps you mentioned.

The secret lies in working with voxels, one level of detail at a time (only adding resolution when absolutely necessary) - and coupling this with a skilled use of the AUTOPO tool set. Maybe, if you need precise geometry placement - using the manual Retopo tools to modify what AUTOPO produces brilliantly, in the first place.

And, the good news is that things will get better - when 3D-Coat offers a complete set of polygon modeling and sculpting tools that rival and exceed anything available in the marketplace. At this point, there should be no need for anyone to model, sculpt, add topology and texture with any competing program.

Greg Smith

[BRCosta 0]

Hey Guys!

I am a newbie here and hope to be here for a long from now! You know why? Because my story looks like the exactly story of the Edgedeep guy that have posted above!!

And so I found 3D-COAT and what??! I am "producing" already!!! Wow! You know what - MANY THANKS, for the member PSMITH for doing this EXCELLENT VIDEO-TUTORIAL!! It deserves a 10 of 10 score for sure! Congratulation PSMITH, surely your tuto helped SO MANY 3-COAT users and so on!

My second THANKS goes to the member PHILNOLAN3D!! Man you have helped me too!! That simple TIP you gave some posts ago for the member "newbie" about the Cylinder and Spheres to make the RATS TEETH just have FINISHED with my brainstorm!!! For just ONE SIMPLE - ENTER KEY -!

Thank you for all of you!

Hope this post gets approval from the moderators as I do not know why my posts are needing review..thats okay! I am enjoyning 3D-COAT! Thinking buying it as soon as before the trial version evaluates...

Regards,

Rodrigo - BRCosta.

[philnolan3d 263]

Glad to hear you're enjoying yourself. Every new user's first few posts get moderated so don't worry it's not you. An unfortunate step we had to take after getting bombarded with spam a while back.

[macklebee 1]

is the sound missing from the last video?

great vids btw...

[Rob 3]

Greg, I'm so impressed with this series that I'm being sold on 3D Coat. Thanks for taking time to do these.

[firemind 1]

Just another "thank you" for these videos. The production is very professional.

[HarbingeR 0]

Hi Psmith.

I am a newbie in 3D. I am trying different applications and i really like 3D Coat. I watched your tutorial and did this .

Yea, i know that's not looking good . Anyway, thanks for the tutorial.

[Javis 524]

Hey I think that looks pretty cool HarbingeR! It has a very surreal cartoon look to it. Great job!

[HevJudo 2]

Thankyou for an awesome series!! One of the best tutorials in presentation, voice over, content.. that I have seen in a long time..

I agree with your comments re not needing other applications depending on your workflow.. I have zbrush, I have messiah, I have blender, I have lightwave, and even Toonboom Animate(which is fun) (maybe modo Geothefaust!! ).. but the one I use the most for all my modelling and painting is 3d coat. At the moment the workflow for me between 3d coat and lightwave has been great but the ease of modelling and creating textures is just awesome.. Check out my simple simple simple rocks, trees and mushrooms.. all done in 3d coat.. lietrally all modelled, retopo'ed and painted in 30 - 60 minutes (I cant remember.. but my coffee was still warm when I finished!)

By the way.. you had me at 'using the move tool'.. dont know how I did anything without it!

All the best

Andrew

[Psmith 87]

I own ToonBoom Animate, too - but, for me, it's just too complicated to use (to be fun). These days, if it's not fun, I don't bother much. I've spent too many years tearing my hair out with learning "workarounds" - just to accomplish simple things that . . . well, I don't want to spend my time doing that, anymore.

I love what you made there - and the time it took is just right - SHORT. Nothing should take us as long to make as it usually does - not when there is software like 3D-Coat. And coffee should never get cold.

Actually, the only reason I'm still involved with 3D stuff is to make cartoons. That is really all I ever wanted to do, in the first place. 3D-Coat is the perfect place to start, (and nearly end), the process.

I've tried to talk Andrew into including some kind of rudimentary animation system into 3D-Coat, but he is hard set against it. Oh well.

Others see 3D-Coat as a serious technicians tool - and it is that - but that's not why I use it.

Soon, I'll be posting my second set of "From Scratch" videos - this next one is slightly more realistic (The Proverbial Pirate). Big project, really, so I'll be presenting it in chunks.

Thanks for tuning in,

Greg Smith

[wave of light 22]

Soon, I'll be posting my second set of "From Scratch" videos - this next one is slightly more realistic (The Proverbial Pirate). Big project, really, so I'll be presenting it in chunks.

Thanks for tuning in,

Greg Smith

Ohhhh, interesting. Pulls up a chair and waits....

[HevJudo 2]

I own ToonBoom Animate, too - but, for me, it's just too complicated to use (to be fun). These days, if it's not fun, I don't bother much. I've spent too many years tearing my hair out with learning "workarounds" - just to accomplish simple things that . . . well, I don't want to spend my time doing that, anymore.

I love what you made there - and the time it took is just right - SHORT. Nothing should take us as long to make as it usually does - not when there is software like 3D-Coat. And coffee should never get cold.

Actually, the only reason I'm still involved with 3D stuff is to make cartoons. That is really all I ever wanted to do, in the first place. 3D-Coat is the perfect place to start, (and nearly end), the process.

Thanks for the comments.. I agree about workarounds.. Im in my mid 30's, have a young family and a job completely unrelated to 3d or design.. and all my learning is gained in the hour or two each day that I can squeeze in to trawl forums, training videos or osmosis in general .. so I can make cartoons! The best training not only shows you how but explains why.. Im an engineer and the worst thing you can do is memorise a formula.. the best thing is to know how to derive it! So any sort of training that does that (like yours) is the biggest time saver imaginable.. More time can then be spent creating so that your design and your animation (the ultimate goal) constantly improves.

Regards

Andrew

[Jean-Luc 0]

Thank you very much, very useful

After watching the two first video I decided to edit my post because I think, thank you wasn't enough:) I have learned so much simply by watching the first video, really, really, HUGE thank you

[3DKiwi 0]

Thanks for an excellent tutorial. Here's what I came up with. I did my own thing in a couple of places. This is my second effort at sculpting so I'm very pleased with how it turned out. My other effort was the Javis Jones spaceship tutorial.

Retopologized and rendered in Cinema 4D. A slight bit of polygon tweaking was done in Cinema 4D.

3DKiwi

[philnolan3d 263]

Good job, I'm curious why you went to C4D to retopo when I have great tools right here.

[3DKiwi 0]

Sorry I meant to say retopologized in 3D Coat. I did some minor polygon tidying up in C4D.

If I was allowed to edit my post I would change it.

3DKiwi

[philnolan3d 263]

After a few more posts you should be able to edit them. I forget the exact number.

[3DKiwi 0]

Thanks. I'd better make some more posts.

Here's an update after sending the rat to the gym to work out

Nigel

[Tony Nemo 398]

I finish up in C4D when the topology has to incorporate the interior of a mouth. I could do the interior by itself in 3DCoat but I would combine it with the head in C4D.

[Kali Brutalka 0]

I am very new to 3D Coat so excuse my "dumb question". I am following the rat's teeth tutorial and started with a cylinder.

However when I add the sphere the cylinder disappears. I have tried the "unhide all" command but no help.

Any ideas of what I could be doing different? All my screen settings appear to match yours. (I think)

Thank you for the great tutorials.

i have the exact same problem. i've tried hitting Enter after positioning the cylinder and that keeps it in place when the sphere appears but after when i hit ctrl+enter nothing happens so i guess i must be missing someething??? also my sphere and cylinder are green color - not like in the tutorial where they're whitish... does that matter in any way?

[Psmith 87]

When using Primitives, the "Enter" key adds the Primitive to the scene. You can also consider this kind of "adding" as a boolean "add" operation. When you hold down the "Ctrl" key and then press "Enter", you are performing a boolean "subtract" operation.

So, first you "add" a cylinder Primitive, using the "Enter" key - and then you "subtract" a sphere Primitive from the cylinder Primitive, using "Ctrl-Enter".

Since the time this tutorial was made, 3DC has changed. So, if you are using the latest beta version, your voxel sculptures are automatically displayed in the Paint Room by means of "View/ShowVoxelsInPaintRoom". This means that painting is integrated with Voxels - and that painting or texturing includes whatever Shader has been applied in the Voxel Room. Also, colors can be painted over these shaders, directly without giving the Voxel sculpture any polygonal topology.

So, in the case of the Rat's gums, you can choose a shiny, gum-like shader - go to the Paint Room, select the "Fill" tool and press "B" to invoke the Color Palette - choose a gum color, and apply the color to the shader, (which retains its original characteristics, but adds the influence of the chosen color).

Now, when AUTOPO is used to create the gum topology, the Directly Painted textures will be automatically "baked" to the automatically created topology.

Give it a try. Experiment with various shaders to get the effect you desire.

Greg Smith

[Kali Brutalka 0]

well i've bumped into another problem - everything seems OK but when i start to paint my model this weird lines show up...any clue what this might be and how to correct it?

[Psmith 87]

Are you painting with the blue "Depth" icon enabled (no X through it)? Make sure you have "X"'s on every icon except the one for "Color".

Greg Smith

[bisenberger 36]

Hi Greg,

Just finished watching your rat from scratch videos. Very helpful and very well done.

Thanks you,

Bill

[AFalk 2]

Great little series and it helped a lot, so thanks Greg!