Jump to content
3DCoat Forums

Farsthary update channel


Recommended Posts

But it seems not at all to take into account the curvature of the existing mesh.

There's smoothing control in the tool, I just haven't added to the GUI yet :P and yes, curvature aware will be added too. The first iteration was about making it robust in the 3D case. further iterations will tackle curvature and refinement tools.

Notice how even Geomagic had to have user control on the filling process since is not a 1-1 solution but rather 1-many solution process ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Advanced Member

Wow, that sounds great, I did not expect that the more avanced blends were already in your plans!

Notice how even Geomagic had to have user control on the filling process since is not a 1-1 solution but rather 1-many solution process ;)

Yeah, although they offer sharp, tangent and curvature there might be cases where the desired solution is yet something else.

Curious on what you come up with!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Advanced Member

that's great farsthary!! All we need now is a flattening/polish tool for surface mode that is precise :) (like trimadaptive and trimdynamic from zbrush). :P

Yes,but also a better smooth brush.

WIth liveclay smooth is really a dangerous stuff,practically you can't do details by hand(I mean stuff that need more than a stroke and the need to average with smooth the strokes).

For example,let's say someone wants to do a bas relief on a object with curvature(something like a cursive writing for example or a bas relief drawing,always on a mesh with high curvature),how can you do it keeping the relative high on the bassrelief section always the same?

WIth Zbrush the smooth brush is good enough to allow free drawing/sculping on the mesh,and is relatively easy to keep the curvature and the relative depth the same across the object,with 3dcoat and liveclay is practically impossible averaging the strokes(smooth gives a tiny random displacement everytime).

When 3dcoat will fix this problem for me the sculpting tools will be perfect,now liveclay is not feasible for hard surface work(or even decorative work,like for example armours in fantasy characters)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Contributor
  • Contributor

The smooth brush is ok, what you're probably expecting is removeclay with low intensity... like me :)

And Artman, I agree with renderdemon: your example are great, but are not as crisp as they could be. But it's not something so hard to reach, I think with a few changes/enhancements (mostly what I posted in my what doesn't feel right thread) this can be solved.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Advanced Member

@renderdemon

You are not the only one.

This hardsurfacing wave. Where did it come from?

Why to build such meshes using a sculpting app?

Why devs spend so much time on this? And, still, these sculpting apps are unable to imitate a real clay behavior.

Zbrush is not only the winner, I'm afraid that it makes the rules of this contest as well.

One for sure, these aren't my rules. Not for me. I'm in search for something more real.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Contributor

Reason why my examples are not crisp is because they are cheap,quick doodles... :)

there is no hardsurface effect that can be done in zbrush that I cannot do really...may it be with Polish brush or MahCutA or TrimDynamic

This is all about understanding how TS Smooth interact with Reduce brush...I guess I need to make some serious hardsurface sculpt to demonstrate this.

I never use smooth,I use only Tangent smooth.

doing this work in Zbrush without any modelling would be much more difficult...

http://3d-coat.com/f...attach_id=11932

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Contributor

Why to build such meshes using a sculpting app?

Because it is more fun to sculpt than to use modeller...it leaves room to improvisation and happy accidents. :)

Why devs spend so much time on this? And, still, these sculpting apps are unable to imitate a real clay behavior.

To me working in LC is exactly like working with Chavant clay....I use same technique and get same results.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Advanced Member

About removeclay BeatKitano maybe you are right,I really don't know,I tried to replace smooth with removeclay,not great results so far.

From my point of view michalis I'm not much interested in hard surfacing,but it happens sometimes that you need a more precise behaviour.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Advanced Member

To me working in LC is exactly like working with Chavant clay....I use same technique and get same results.

This is really interesting Artman,personally I found 3dcoat surface mode more similar to water based clay(at the start,not when at leather hardness),it has for me the same advantage and disadvantage.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Reputable Contributor

Beatkitano thread is a good one. Right now some of the default brushes are not doing the job you need them too and need improving...

The brushes I use the most often.

Surface pinch brush with my own alpha / settings

LC CreaseClay with my own settings and alpha. I can control the brush very well.

General Brush, I created several based on this brush to Chisel or flatten and others for building the mesh...

I think I only use one default alpha...

Also you can use the radius curve panel to adjust how your alpha effects the mesh for on the fly adjusting...

in surface mode I never use the default smoothing brushes as the seem to create those little poles... I made my own smoothing brushes...

There are about 20 surface and LC brushes I rarely use as I found making my own brushes meets most of my needs. Ever artist has his method. The above is just mine.

I wish several of the artist here could spend about a month in the Ukraine with Raul going over the brushes. In person you could show Raul vs writing things down or even videos... But alas we have to do what we can... :D

I will try and make a quick video on the default crease clay and the one I created to show the difference. I will post here...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Reputable Contributor

Ok, here is the video...

The first strokes are with the default LC CreaseClay brush. with more or less the default settings and a default alpha.

The last strokes are my LC CreaseClay brush, with my settings and created alpha.

I also have what I call a LowCrease brush, which is more gentle in it's creasing plus I can use the radius curve panel to make adjustment to how my alpha interacts with the mesh on the fly. That can be done with most brushes.

A newer user would be at a lost at what do to and the default brush would be almost useless to him. The default LC Creaseclay brush should work closer to mine right off the bat and then make your adjustments from there.

The mesh is close to 1 million polygons...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWrI2I79NNg&feature=youtu.be

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Contributor

About removeclay BeatKitano maybe you are right,I really don't know,I tried to replace smooth with removeclay,not great results so far.

From my point of view michalis I'm not much interested in hard surfacing,but it happens sometimes that you need a more precise behaviour.

Removeclay is not finished, raul worked on it recently, you can expect better results in a future build.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi :)

Forgive my absence in the forum, yes, I think all of those complains regarding the default behaviour of those tools would be addressed before leaving the beta stage ;)

Regarding RemoveClay is a tool or is based on a technology I'm reseraching/developing rigth now that will be the foundation for several powerful tool and will bring more topology freedom to LC (more than what already have :P)

for example this important step will allow a much better RemoveClay realtime brush, CloseHoles tool, etc.

http://farsthary.wor...reconstruction/

@Artman: WOW, I really enjoyed those sculpts! nice and thanks for sharing, it really encourages me to see real work with LC tools.

@Renderdaemon, Michalis, BeatKitano,digman, DavidF: I take all of your opinions into account! one step at a time, some tools seems very easy from the artist point of view and from the programmer are a time sink to develop and other tools seems magic to the artist and are actually a matter of hours to code ;) that's why is almost impossible to predict timeframes here, developing is a art too :P

Cheers

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Reputable Contributor

Glad your back and can work on LC and surface mode, very encouraging... :D

Could you check when you have time the smart decimate routine under the voxels menu you developed for surface mode to keep details.

I could be wrong but it seems to be different now and does not do as well of a job as in the past.

You are now ask for a percentage to decimate like the export decimate under the voxtree tab when exporting a voxel model. Asking for a percentage is not a problem, I think Andrew added the percentage dialog box after you left but my memory fails me there...

It could just be my imagination but the routine seems to have changed...

Your orginal announcement of the smart decimate under the voxel menu...

http://farsthary.wor...t-deciate-tool/

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Reputable Contributor

Sorry no examples as my backups go lost when my external drive crashed. My mistake there on trusting the external drive.

I think when you test and compare the two results, you will see the difference and be able to again improved the smart decimate routine.

I noticed the difference when It got changed. I was waiting for you do get back before discussing the subject.

The examples on your web page even show the difference, you have more triangles left in the detail areas than what you get when you run the smart decimate routine now.

Thanks for looking into this matter...

EDIT:

I afraid to run an old copy of 3DCoat with your code as it might screw up my settings in the newest beta. Alot has changed since then...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Contributor

Sorry no examples as my backups go lost when my external drive crashed. My mistake there on trusting the external drive.

I think when you test and compare the two results, you will see the difference and be able to again improved the smart decimate routine.

I noticed the difference when It got changed. I was waiting for you do get back before discussing the subject.

The examples on your web page even show the difference, you have more triangles left in the detail areas than what you get when you run the smart decimate routine now.

Thanks for looking into this matter...

EDIT:

I afraid to run an old copy of 3DCoat with your code as it might screw up my settings in the newest beta. Alot has changed since then...

Technicaly you can, just backup your program files/3dcoat-V3 folder and your "documents/3dcoat-v3" folder. Then you should be fine (I don't think 3dcoat relies on registry). I'll check.

Edit: nope, just the install folder path there, so no worries.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Reputable Contributor

Ok here is a picture of running both the routines from the newest beta. 3.7.18F. Linux version 64 bit non cuda.

My test:

I first ran the decimate tool under the voxtree tab when you export an object. Then reimported that object back into it's own layer in surface mode.

I then ran the smart decimate tool under the voxel menu on another copy of the original model.

They are compared side my side in the picture.

There have been a lot of changes and Andrew improve the brushing stroke code while you were away. Maybe he had to change the smart decimate code for compatibility reasons or to fix some bugs though I am only guessing.

Results are explain in the picture...

Your original coding of the smart decimate did a better job of keeping details than the regular decimate under the voxtree tab.

@BeatKitano... In Linux for a clean install / default settings of a prior beta version, I just backup my current 3DCoat folder under Home... Then delete it. Rename the main 3DCoat folder.

Now just unzip the older beta tar.gz file and I'm good to go... There is no installing 3DCoat in Linux, unzip the contents of the tar.gz file and she is ready to run. I know that will work but I just had to redo my presets and even though it is not possible for things to get screw up. I will hold off in case somehow it will not take my re-registering of the software which you have to do when you delete the 3DCoat folder under home and rename your main 3DCoat file... No problems on the recent betas but I would have to go back quite a number of beta versions and at this stage just rather not do it to get a clean install that might give me a headache.

EDIT: Raul, I sent you an uncompressed image through PM...

post-518-0-53980300-1348341704_thumb.jpe

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Advanced Member

Tool's default behavior is the most important.

For instance, blender dyntopo has a clay strips tool. Blender is an open source app and Raul almost belongs to this family.

How difficult is to have such a behavior and such an important tool in 3dc/LC?

IMO, this blender sculpting tool is superior to the ZB one (build clay). Try and see why.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...