New Member Polyvert Posted August 10, 2011 New Member Report Share Posted August 10, 2011 Hi Everyone, first post here. Iv been using Zbrush since v 1.5, thats going back a while now, so you can say iv grown up with Zbrush. Zbrush is not my only tool, its part of a pipeline which generaly is used for refining forms, sculpting details, texturing, and of course general concept sculpts. I use Luxology Modo for rendering, DAZ3D Hexagon for most of my modeling, Messiah studio for animation, still new to that one, and Unfold3D for Uv unwraping, Photoshop CS3 for post work and texture work. A few things that I have given up on within Zbrush are its retopology tools, and the broken SUV (Smooth Uvs) function to smooth texture maps produced from Zbrush. Polypainting is great but it does require a very high polymeshes which often means working in (HD mode) which limits the area in which you can work on at one time, that is not a real issue, but like to know how 3Dcoat deals with painting high quality textures upto 6k maps. Id like to texture in PS style layers, and work more close with Photoshop, as often I end up doing alot of high res texturing within Photoshop. For thoes of you who have used Zbrush 4, id like to know what id gain by adding this app to my pipeline, and how it will speed up my workflow. All applications have their strengths and weekness, so please be honnest and give as unbias run down as you can, no fanboys, I will always use Zbrush in addition to this app should I decide to get 3DCoat. Thanks in advanced. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Psmith Posted August 10, 2011 Report Share Posted August 10, 2011 If you have the hardware to support them, voxels offer sculpting freedom and flexibility not yet available with a polygonal workflow, (but we're working on it). It's also pretty well been established that 3D-Coat has among the most advanced Retopo tools available. With regard to texturing, it's hard to beat 3D-Coat's speed and simplicity for painting with any combination of diffuse, specular and displacement channels, simultaneously. 3D-Coat is the only app that has an intelligent and very useful Auto-Topology toolset (AUTOPO), which, when used skillfully, can save hours, if not days of creation time. These are just a few of the advantages of adding 3D-Coat to your Zbrush pipeline. Greg Smith Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member Spiraloid Posted August 11, 2011 Advanced Member Report Share Posted August 11, 2011 they are comparable. 3d coat has better topology tools. paint in layers with spec and normal mapping. layers can be used to mask other layers. voxels make tangled regions impossible. other than that I find them pretty comparable. like most 3d tools. it's a preference. the surface details are much better in zbrush. the rough volumes and surface forms are a bit better in 3DC. here's a 5 minute mesh from voxels made using autotopo and auto uv's with baked normal, color and AO layers to illustrate Psmith's points. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member D-BOGG Posted August 11, 2011 Member Report Share Posted August 11, 2011 Wow, thanks for posting the vids. I've learned new things about 3DC with every video you have linked. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Javis Posted August 12, 2011 Report Share Posted August 12, 2011 Hi! In case you're interested, here are some more videos that should get you started: (The links are video channels, I am unsure why the forum is converting them still to a video, click the links below them to go to the individual channels) http://vimeo.com/channels/3dctraining http://vimeo.com/channels/3dcoat Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member ozukaru Posted August 16, 2011 Advanced Member Report Share Posted August 16, 2011 To favor 3d-coat this image is a render of a model (the very first) that my nephew Daniel (only 8 years old) has made with 3d-coat in only 15 minutes (with my guidance but I did not touch the mouse or keyboard), with z-brush i doubt he could have done anything remotely resembling (and I know well z-brush). btw: the character was named "pulga del espacio" (flea from outter space) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Contributor Tony Nemo Posted August 16, 2011 Contributor Report Share Posted August 16, 2011 Buen hecho! A budding 3D artist. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member vivi Posted November 1, 2011 Advanced Member Report Share Posted November 1, 2011 If you have the hardware to support them, voxels offer sculpting freedom and flexibility not yet available with a polygonal workflow, (but we're working on it). It's also pretty well been established that 3D-Coat has among the most advanced Retopo tools available. With regard to texturing, it's hard to beat 3D-Coat's speed and simplicity for painting with any combination of diffuse, specular and displacement channels, simultaneously. 3D-Coat is the only app that has an intelligent and very useful Auto-Topology toolset (AUTOPO), which, when used skillfully, can save hours, if not days of creation time. These are just a few of the advantages of adding 3D-Coat to your Zbrush pipeline. Greg Smith About the Auto-Topology.. it ain't true.... wrap-it, a plugin for 3Dsmax has that too and it is loads faster than 3Dcoats. But yeah..I like using 3D-coats Retopo..it feels nice. So nice that I dont wanna even use the AutoRetopo... At the moment I can'T see a reason why changing from Zbrush4 to 3D-Coat... 3D-coat is still a baby. It can become very powerful though. But isn't Pixologic also going into Voxel direction? They have more money. Look what Updates the shot out everytime...BIG updates...with superior features... For me it is important what u get out of these applications..it is nothing worth to me to have a cool model, but not being able to export it with the same quality! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member vivi Posted November 1, 2011 Advanced Member Report Share Posted November 1, 2011 they are comparable. 3d coat has better topology tools. paint in layers with spec and normal mapping. layers can be used to mask other layers. voxels make tangled regions impossible. other than that I find them pretty comparable. like most 3d tools. it's a preference. the surface details are much better in zbrush. the rough volumes and surface forms are a bit better in 3DC. here's a 5 minute mesh from voxels made using autotopo and auto uv's with baked normal, color and AO layers to illustrate Psmith's points. hmm..weird...in this video he is using the grow brush using a mask...but when I use grow, the mas won't affect the sculptping... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member Digital777 Posted November 1, 2011 Advanced Member Report Share Posted November 1, 2011 There is just 2 3DC developers as far as i know and for a long time just Andrew yet everyone compares 3DC to the big company products like ZB and Mudbox so it's clear a lot of people see 3DC it as having the potential to rival or be better than them. Zbrush is more powerful that is true, however they probably have been in development much longer, have a lot of money, making adjustments to the way the tools work over the years, more game studio support and a much bigger development team than 3DC etc. At first people saw 3DC as a add-on tool for ZB etc with it's voxel, painting, UV and retopo tools yet now with LiveClay and better voxel tools it is starting to be seen as a rival sculpting program and 3DC will get better and better. With ZB's recent updates it's clear that they are looking at 3DC and using some of it's ideas so they are probably starting to see 3DC as big competition right about now. People just need to keep reporting workflow issues, bugs and ideas etc and i am sure these will be sorted as the program gets better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Javis Posted November 1, 2011 Report Share Posted November 1, 2011 hmm..weird...in this video he is using the grow brush using a mask...but when I use grow, the mas won't affect the sculptping... He's using masks. There is a tab just for masks that can be used for (just about) any sculpting & painting tool. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Javis Posted November 1, 2011 Report Share Posted November 1, 2011 About the Auto-Topology.. it ain't true.... wrap-it, a plugin for 3Dsmax has that too and it is loads faster than 3Dcoats. But yeah..I like using 3D-coats Retopo..it feels nice. So nice that I dont wanna even use the AutoRetopo... At the moment I can'T see a reason why changing from Zbrush4 to 3D-Coat... 3D-coat is still a baby. It can become very powerful though. But isn't Pixologic also going into Voxel direction? They have more money. Look what Updates the shot out everytime...BIG updates...with superior features... For me it is important what u get out of these applications..it is nothing worth to me to have a cool model, but not being able to export it with the same quality! I'm not sure what pixologic having more money and more developers has to do with what 3DC can offer someone. As I'm sure you're aware of by now, Pilgway is a very small company, only 2 developers working on features/bugs, and one more who does ports to mac/Linux and squashing bugs on said platforms. 3DC is a great tool, and yes it's still in development, it constantly is. If you compare feature for feature in releases between each application, 3DC has either the same or more. The difference is that pixologic does it all in one build, and of course makes a huge hub-bub about it with fancy commercials and loud music. Pilgway does it every single bloody week, AND you can have a role in this development by posting/requesting features and your ideas in constructive way. I must say, it does feel like you're trying to either "sell" zbrush here, or scare folks away from 3DC. The latter is not tolerated. Please stop posting in such a way. Instead, post constructive ways and ideas on how to improve what you think could be done better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member vivi Posted November 1, 2011 Advanced Member Report Share Posted November 1, 2011 He's using masks. There is a tab just for masks that can be used for (just about) any sculpting & painting tool. I said, I am using the mask as well.. but the grow brush won't use it.. maybe it changed in the new version ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Javis Posted November 1, 2011 Report Share Posted November 1, 2011 For voxels you'll need to increase the resolution of the object before it will capture such details. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member vivi Posted November 1, 2011 Advanced Member Report Share Posted November 1, 2011 For voxels you'll need to increase the resolution of the object before it will capture such details. no, other brushes work fine...it is only the grow brush Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Javis Posted November 2, 2011 Report Share Posted November 2, 2011 And you increased the resolution of your voxel object? I've just tested with a simple sphere in build 3.5.27A, increased the resolution 1 time and it worked A-OK for me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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