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Hi :)

 

A proper Bevel should not be very difficult to add based on this....stay tuned as I have now a flood of request LOL

Glad to hear. Thanks, Raul. :good:  When you try to bevel with the Spline Stroke draw mode, it struggles mightily with self-intersections at 90-45 degree angles...inner corners, essentially. On outer edges it does OK.Thought that would be worth mentioning.

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Raul, is there any way to develop a proper Beveling tool in the Sculpt Room. That EXTRUDE tool looks to be very close, but bevels aren't necessarily extruded. Using the Pose tool and E-Panel Splines does work to some degree, but not always. On irregular shapes, it can be really difficult to make it work. That's why a dedicated bevel tool would be very welcome.

+1

 

Thanks, Raul! I'm really looking forward to this whole low-poly modelling line of development...

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  • 3 weeks later...
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Tried to test/use the CloseHole tool, but it doesn't look very useful as a Bridge tool, as you can see. Plus, it has no icon, and the naming seems undecided. Cannot demonstrate it in such an unfinished state. Also, I don't see the SHELL tool, either. Both could be very helpful in the right situation.

 

143620151221.jpg

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Tried to test/use the CloseHole tool, but it doesn't look very useful as a Bridge tool, as you can see. Plus, it has no icon, and the naming seems undecided. Cannot demonstrate it in such an unfinished state. Also, I don't see the SHELL tool, either. Both could be very helpful in the right situation.

143620151221.jpg

Yeah, I think making this Close Hole Tool respect good topology rules is the key to creating a semi-automatic retopology system in 3D-Coat. By "semi-automatic" I mean partly automatic and partly manual. I think it would be the best combination, because right now automatic retopology takes a long time to process and it does not give totally acceptable results, and manual retopology gives good results, but it takes a long time. Creating a sort of hybrid approach with semi-automatic tools (like an excellent Close Hole or Bridging Tool) may be the best way to solve the retopology problem.
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  • 2 weeks later...

Thanks, yes, is still a WIP tool, and the icon somehow got lost in the merge, currently I'm working on 2-3 related tools (share the same code base) so they will be improved all at once in retopo (CloseHoles, Shell, QuadPaint and Bridge)

I as a bit of patience because are not trivial tools (actually not difficult but require many details that are time sinks ;) )

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Thanks, yes, is still a WIP tool, and the icon somehow got lost in the merge, currently I'm working on 2-3 related tools (share the same code base) so they will be improved all at once in retopo (CloseHoles, Shell, QuadPaint and Bridge)

I as a bit of patience because are not trivial tools (actually not difficult but require many details that are time sinks ;) )

Thanks Raul. Actually, it is more helpful to take your time and think them through...asking yourself how you would use it on a project. Then test it on a personal project....not just a sphere or cube. Quick tests don't take into account how the tool might be most efficiently utilized. For example, when Andrew added the ability to save and load selections in the Retopo Room. I was the one who asked him for that, but it makes more sense to store/load the selection sets within the UI, in a drop list (like the UV sets)...not in a file outside of 3D Coat.

 

So, it wasn't well thought out...but instead kind of rushed. Which is understandable, with all the demands upon his time. But, in the long run it gives you and Andrew more work to do and more requests added to your plate...just to get it right. Probably 1/3 to 1/2 of all feature requests are for refinements/reworking of tools that already exist...because they weren't given proper time in the initial development stages. The lattice in the Pose tool is another example. When first developed, if it was put through it's paces in a decent production-level test...not just on a simple primitive...Andrew would have discovered himself, that it would help tremendously to allow the user to pre-shape the lattice to that it fits or conforms to the model properly, and thus a much better and more accurate deformation. He would also discover that the few presets (number of control points) provided is too limited and that it should be up to the user to set the number of point manually, like it is done in the Primitives tool.

 

When proper time is not taken, it causes users to get frustrated in having to ask for these corrections repeatedly over the course of years. And it is more e-mail and forum chatter Andrew has to deal with. So PLEASE, take your time. As bad as we would like to have the tools, it's better for the both parties that it be done right, from the start.

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You're absolutely right, is that once ideas start flowing in your mind is very hard to put them on hold because eventually you will loose interest to make them once you are soaked into the necessary but tedious task of polishing. I'm more the creative type of coder ;)

Is like in an animated film production line: the key animators, the in-betweeners etc.

Unfortunately programming is not as easy to delegate so we must perform all the roles making mistakes in  the process. I will try to improve this on myself!

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Bravo! This QuadPaint tool looks very interesting!

Also I suggest:

1) Please allow the user to start drawing new splines starting from existing points on existing splines.

2) Please allow the user to press CTRL to create a point on the spline as they are drawing it. This way they press CTRL 4 times (as they draw the line) to create 4 points on the spline. By timing when they press CTRL, then they can control the size of the polygons that will be drawn. If CTRL is not pressed, then points should be placed automatically at even intervals along the spline (how it is now).

Also, to test out this tool, please look at 3D character head topology reference images, and try to recreate that exact topology with this tool. Please do not only test it only on a sphere. Take note that there must be 5 pointed stars on each cheek of the character for example. Test to see if that kind of topology can be easily created with this new tool.

Thank you so much for your work on these tools! It is very exciting to see these developments!

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Maybe you will be happy to hear that I have supported Raul and Andrew some weeks ago with a prototype concept for some of the upcoming features Raul is currently working on.

 

So be patient please. Raul is showing just the first levels of the developing process. When all works like expected, then we will get very cool features which will reduce our working time and increase the quality level of manual retopo a lot!

;)

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You're absolutely right, is that once ideas start flowing in your mind is very hard to put them on hold because eventually you will loose interest to make them once you are soaked into the necessary but tedious task of polishing. I'm more the creative type of coder ;)

Is like in an animated film production line: the key animators, the in-betweeners etc.

Unfortunately programming is not as easy to delegate so we must perform all the roles making mistakes in  the process. I will try to improve this on myself!

Thanks. :good:

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Good news! Thank you Taros!

But are you saying that I am just wasting my time making suggestions? Is the planning stage already over? Now we should just be waiting for a beta to be released?

No. Suggestions are always welcome. User statements and experience are fundamental for a development. So if you have ideas, let us know.

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  • 3 weeks later...
Improving the contour detection algorithm

Hi

contour-1.png?w=700&h=416One of the core algorithm of the QuadPaint tool estimates the amount of closed contours that can be extracted from an arbitrary set of strokes, which can be treated as graphs.

In my first development attempt I successfully implemented an algorithm that extracted the minimum path loops first. It worked very well but soon realized that the condition had very common ill cases:

In the above figure, the minimum path for the outer loops overlaps the inner loop, causing messed geometry in latter stages of the pipeline:

prev.png?w=700&h=477So I must carefully find another solution, another condition that adjacent loops should met:

Filled loops should not overlap , but that term is a bit tricky because we are talking of 3D meshes so some sort of projection or volume intersection test needs to be implemented, and we all know those arbitrary precision intersection mesh calculations are very heavy for close to real-time performance.

I eventually found a very elegant solution: Filled contour areas, non overlapping adjacent contours have minimum area compared to the overlapped ones, In terms of a Set theory, overlapping is equivalent to a Union and non overlapping to a Difference.

And that’s it! after implement that condition, arbitrary graph sets can be decomposed in  minimum area loops or adjacent non overlapping sets.

contour-2.png?w=700&h=477

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So is this the default Retopology room thread atp?

If so, I'm just wondering if we'll ever see a proper relax brush? All these other features look nice, but I'd settle for just being able to quickly relax parts of the mesh...(the request has been on Mantis and Trello for some time: http://3d-coat.com/mantis/view.php?id=1572)

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