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Chains...


Slipping_Through_07
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Hey fellow 3d Coaters.

I'm working on a piece now and love how 3d Coat can EASILY make chains using the Curves tool with "chain" profile. I will actually have a lot of them (chains) in this sculpt.

Question now is... how would I retopo the chains? Autopo? Should I even bother in 3DC or should I just build the chains in my other app (LW Modeler)?

Many thanks in advance.

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That is a good question. One option could be to just export the voxel mesh, when you save it out it will give you an option to decimate the mesh so you can reduce it's poly count down to something your someware can easily handle. auto retopo is also another option, it's at least worth checking out if you need to have quad polys.

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I'm working on a piece now and love how 3d Coat can EASILY make chains using the Curves tool with "chain" profile. I will actually have a lot of them (chains) in this sculpt.

Question now is... how would I retopo the chains? Autopo?

You don't need to retopo them. You can bypass the voxel stage and export the chains directly from the curves dialog box. This will export them with their original polygon geometry.

post-3700-0-53234500-1315461030_thumb.pn

Tom

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That is true, but you're kind of limited with what you can do with them then. I'm also wary about leaving thing in Curve form for too long. It's too easy to accidentally hit Esc and lose them or something.

I disagree. It's more functional and flexible to export it as Tom said. Here is why; You can save it out, then apply it as voxels, sculpt any details you wish on the voxel version, then import in the retopo room the mesh version and bake the details as needed.

EDIT: Not to mention that you can also just import them in the paint room and paint your disp/normal maps, too. I'd say that's not limiting at all, but a boon. :)

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You may do this trick though.

Install this spline here. A decimated version constructed in blender, same scale of course.

Use it instead of the hi def default chain.

Export directly under curves palette.

Chose the hi def chain still under curves palette and merge in voxels.

When retopo, import the low definition as retopo cage. ;)

Here a link to zbrushcentral one year ago when I was trying to inform some friends there. Nothing good came up B)

http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showpost.php?p=771997&postcount=192

chainUL.OBJ

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Sorry,

"I don't have permissions to edit my post above!" What does it means?

Anyway

scenario 2.

Just export, directly under curves palette (the decimated version), import it for painting and UVs. The default version is not needed. When importing to a decent render app, ask for smoothing. It's a chain anyway. It works fine.

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This will export them with their original polygon geometry.

Unfortunately most of splines have top-bottom cups.

the above trick works well with chain spline or the default tube. What about the others?

One by one, import the splines objs to blender or other app, delete the top and bottom cups! Delete a lot of loops for a more decimated version, if possible.

Now do as before but, after exporting the mesh under curves palette, import to blender-like editor and delete double vertices.

I'm wondering, if it's difficult for Andrew to fix this.

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Of closing the scene or something and forgetting to save the curves. They have to be saved separately so it's 2 things to think about saving

But how is that any different than if you had applied the curve as voxels? You would still need to save the curve if you thought you might want to load it back in later.

If you save the spline object as obj file, you can still apply it as a voxel too, if you need to use it as a modeling reference. You can do both.

Or, if you don't apply it as a voxel, and you later decided you should have, and you didn't save the curve, you could bring the saved obj file in and make a voxel out of it.

So, there is really nothing that you have to be careful of. Nothing that you wouldn't already have to be careful of.

Tom

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If you apply it as voxel 99% of the time you'll just hit Esc and get rid of the curve, so now you only save the .3B file. With the above method you'll have to save the .curv file as well as the .3B file. It's not really a big deal, just one extra step to remember.

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And the next time you bring up the curve tool, the curve will still be there. Save it out then.

When I'm working on a project, if I use something that has a way to save a preset for it, I save it to file, each and every time. Once you get into the habit, it's no big deal. So point = Beaten to death. Lesson learnt = Save your presets!

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With the above method you'll have to save the .curv file as well as the .3B file. It's not really a big deal, just one extra step to remember.

Why do you have to save the curve?

The only reason to save the curve is if you want to be able to load it again if you want to make changes and create a new model. And if you want to do that, you'll have to save it either way.

It doesn't matter if you create a voxel or you export it as an obj. If you don't save the curve you will still have the model you created from the curve in the first place.

Tom

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"Unfortunately most of splines have top-bottom caps"

Hey you don't pay attention on my little notices LOL. :rolleyes:

They have to, for merging as voxels but makes them useless as direct exported objs. I have to edit them before importing as retopo cage.

The more practical I found is to keep some low poly edited instances in splines library for replacement.

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"Unfortunately most of splines have top-bottom caps"

Hey you don't pay attention on my little notices LOL.

Yes, but that doesn't apply to the chain.

And, you also described how to get around that by simply removing the caps and merging the points later.

They have to, for merging as voxels but makes them useless as direct exported objs

They don't seem to need the caps. They still create voxels even without caps.

Tom

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