LiveClay Help Me Understand

[The Candy-floss Kid]

What's going on?

Does LiveClay represent a directional change of emphasis in 3D-Coat or merely a broadening of additional functionality?

Is it about including all the advantages of surface modeling over voxels - kinda like Dynamesh in reverse with the emphasis still on returning to the glorious freedom of voxels? Is it a drive to be more like Sculptris with regard dynamic tessellation and in consideration of the existing advantages of Proxy mode what advantages does dynamic tessellation offer when even Sculptris flakes out at a certain poly count?

A tool such as the cut tool in LiveClay - what is the difference between it and the standard voxel cutting methods? What are the creative advantages of moving in this direction?

I had always considered 3D-Coat a voxel sculpting program but is it moving in a greater a hybrid voxel/ surface direction?

So many questions but you get the gist.

I'd be truly grateful for some illumination on this conceptual umbrella subject.

[digman]

I see LC and remove stretching, boolean merging as added features, not replacing voxels. Right now alot of attention is on it because Raul and Andrew are spending quite abit of time working out the bugs and optimizing. LC gives us the ability to put in tiny details without having to increase the entire mesh to get them. "Local Subdivision". Andrew and Raul now have taken us father down the road as I think they saw other tools could be added because of Raul's code added to 3DCoat. That is my take on it...

[kay_Eva]

The issue is that people learned how to sculpt in 3d programs a certain way. And they mostly like to stick to that one way. As such, many aren't sure what to make of voxels let alone voxels + LC.

It is true I have never been able to sculpt as detailed or correct of anatomy in voxels as I have in polys. Even so, I loved voxels so much that I continued to stick with it almost exclusively. Not many people can afford to make that switch becasue maybe their job or project demands certain results. I, being a student/hobbyist type could afford to stick with pure voxel sculpting because I had no project that demanded any particular result.

That said, I will continue to use 3dCoat's voxels in order to build volume. And then after I feel the volume is correct. I will use LC to add localized detail such as notrils and eyelids that used to complicate things quite a bit. Where the surface Boolean comes in is when someone wants to add sharp, detailed 3d primitives to their current model. With voxels, if the detail on the primitive was very high, then even if the rest of the voxel model was relatively low resolution, in order to preserve detail, the user would have to increase the resolution of the entire model in order to match the primitive. But now, with surface boolean, instead of adding the detail in voxel mode u can add it with LC.

So, if the primitive is volume oriented, you would probably add it in voxel mode. If it is detail oriented, then probably surface mode.

3dCoat is delivering the possibility of new workflows and approaches to sculping/modeling. So, in that sense, where it is going I could only speculate.

[The Candy-floss Kid]

I see LC and remove stretching, boolean merging as added features, not replacing voxels. Right now alot of attention is on it because Raul and Andrew are spending quite abit of time working out the bugs and optimizing. LC gives us the ability to put in tiny details without having to increase the entire mesh to get them. "Local Subdivision". Andrew and Raul now have taken us father down the road as I think they saw other tools could be added because of Raul's code added to 3DCoat. That is my take on it...

Thank you Digman , ok so it's an initial implementation of Raul's work and a step towards another method of adding detail ?

Where the surface Boolean comes in is when someone wants to add sharp, detailed 3d primitives to their current model. With voxels, if the detail on the primitive was very high, then even if the rest of the voxel model was relatively low resolution, in order to preserve detail, the user would have to increase the resolution of the entire model in order to match the primitive. But now, with surface boolean, instead of adding the detail in voxel mode u can add it with LC.

So, if the primitive is volume oriented, you would probably add it in voxel mode. If it is detail oriented, then probably surface mode.

3dCoat is delivering the possibility of new workflows and approaches to sculping/modeling. So, in that sense, where it is going I could only speculate.

Thank you Kay for the explanation of the Booleans. You say these are surface booleans - so are they "traditional" polygonal meshes that can be turned back to voxels should one wish? So if say I was creating a scene or character in 3D-Coat, layers could be polygonal and/ or voxel in nature?

[kay_Eva]

yup

[digman]

Yes, Try the LC inflateclay brush with detail set at about 2.00. Use a alpha brush that has some detail on it. Also the smaller you make your brush size the more sub-divisions of the mesh takes place under your brush cursor. Hold down the W key to see the mesh and then you will understand better.

What this means is we now can put our detail in a localized manner and not have to increase the whole model's mesh to get small details.

This was the main purpose of adding LC originally but now as grown beyond as I had stated earlier...

[The Candy-floss Kid]

Thank you both, much appreciated.

[Digital777]

I see LiveClay like a response to everyone that said 3DC could not get the same high detail other sculpting tools allow. With voxels you have always needed a decent computer to have high detail amounts due to memory issues but with LiveClay it's not as much of a issue and you can easily get really high quality.

The main advantage of LiveClay is that while with voxels you have to increase the resolution of the whole mesh each time you want more detail with LiveClay you can simply put the details on the mesh only the places where it is actually needed.

With the LiveClay tool try increasing the detail amount which starts on something amazingly low like 0.70 but can go as high as you need really, if you hold the W key you can see how it changes the mesh and adds the detail to only where you brush.

I think the current reason why people don't get what it's actually doing is the fact the Detail amount inputs are set really low as default so it works ultra fast but they can go much higher and i am guessing many people are not even trying that.