2.09 BETA1

[Andrew Shpagin]

ops, there was serious error - 3B files was failed to open. I have updated the link, please re-download. Digman, thanks for reporting!

[Sethren]

No, thats wrong. Photoreal hair solutions is very expensive (i mean both money and computing resources), those tools are for high-end apps, such as Max, Maya, XSI etc. Those tools involve many features that can be found only in complex 3d packages, but not in 3DC (nor in any texturing\sculpting app for this metter), such as dinamic simulations.

3DC is a detailing\texturing application, so its hair tools will be based on polygons with some type of special materials\texture, it is what 3DC needs. Lets be realistic in our requests, you cant ask for film quality dinamic hair system to be implemented in 3DC, just a plugins for max or maya that can make such hairs costs x10 or more then 3DC itself.

Would you like to expane why this is wrong. Photoreal hair solutions are not all expensive. I stated Carrara 6 hair as an example of some very decent hair and as i said i had suggested to andrew some very nice hair solutions for the future of 3D Coat and also his proposals were very reasonable so it should be interesting. I never suggested dynamic hair, obviously that would be unessesary. What made you think i did not suggest hair with a polygonal solution. My requests are quite realistic. Also i never said film quality, i was suggesting near-film quality in the sense that these solutions can be comparible to being below a high-end application which i never intended anything here being high-end, just good enough to look good. Not all great hair systems cost x10 more then 3D Coat, again Carrara is a good example for hair around the 600$ mark for the entire program and there are sales and other deals as well so probably it can be bought for less.

[Sethren]

why do people want hair in 3dc? does zbrush have hair?

Its better to implement hair in a full 3d package. Lightwave has one now with its own hair system.

3dsmax has very easy to use hair system as well since ver 9. I just don't see the 3dc to lightwave to 3dsmax to etc hair connection.

Some of want hair for the sake of details. 3D Coat is an application for adding details, both large and small. Hair and Fur is a fine example of adding details. ZBrush has a fiber tool and it is not the same as a typical hair solution and ZBrush is a bit pricey. I can't afford Lightwave nor 3sdmax but i can afford 3D Coat and i know i can't be the only one.

[DragonFist]

I think the problem is that one cannot expect a film-quality hair solution from a model detailing/mapping/sculpting program. Yes, Zbrush does fibers, but they are a polygonal/mesh based thing. It isn't a full-rendering based fine hair and styling tool that can only be supplied by the final rendering program. That said, a lot can be done with the polygon/mesh based stuff and it can look quite good. It just isn't going to give King-Kong fur or Hair-commercial simulations of hair. It isn't realistic to expect it because it is a different animal that depends on the renderer.

[yukon_28]

Would you like to expane why this is wrong. Photoreal hair solutions are not all expensive. I stated Carrara 6 hair as an example of some very decent hair and as i said i had suggested to andrew some very nice hair solutions for the future of 3D Coat and also his proposals were very reasonable so it should be interesting. I never suggested dynamic hair, obviously that would be unessesary. What made you think i did not suggest hair with a polygonal solution. My requests are quite realistic. Also i never said film quality, i was suggesting near-film quality in the sense that these solutions can be comparible to being below a high-end application which i never intended anything here being high-end, just good enough to look good. Not all great hair systems cost x10 more then 3D Coat, again Carrara is a good example for hair around the 600$ mark for the entire program and there are sales and other deals as well so probably it can be bought for less.

I think that i am and others explained it well, but i'll try to explain even more. I really does not know what is "near film quality", what i know its quite simple - there is 2 hair solutions, one is based on polygons with texture\material, and second is photo-real, full featured hair and fur systems, and dinamic simulations its a MUST for those kind of solutions. I never used Carrara, and i can tell nothing about its hair system, but photoreal hair systems for packages i used to use are really quite advanced and expensive tools, always using their own or built in host application dinamics, that why i think it is not something to ask for 3DC toolset. That what i call film quality, photoreal hair solution, if it is not what you mean and your request is a simple, realtime texture-based solution, i'll also vote for it.

[jaf]

Let's let Andrew work his magic and see what we get. I wouldn't expect a photo-realistic human hair solution, but I would bet it will be something many of us can use. I tend to model scenery, vegetation and such, so I think I will find many uses.

[Sethren]

Let's let Andrew work his magic and see what we get. I wouldn't expect a photo-realistic human hair solution, but I would bet it will be something many of us can use. I tend to model scenery, vegetation and such, so I think I will find many uses.

My sediments exactly. I think the way Andrew had expaned it if i remember it correctly, it's been a while, that it would be based on a 2pt polygonal system that can be shaped with length, curl, wavyness, thickness using texture mapping/mask methods and colored using of course what is already available in the shaders. I don't expect dynamics of any sort, never wanted them, just a way to custom shape/color the hairs.

[jaf]

My sediments exactly. I think the way Andrew had expaned it if i remember it correctly, it's been a while, that it would be based on a 2pt polygonal system that can be shaped with length, curl, wavyness, thickness using texture mapping/mask methods and colored using of course what is already available in the shaders. I don't expect dynamics of any sort, never wanted them, just a way to custom shape/color the hairs.

Hey Sethren, you must be spending too much time generating those great Genetica textures! Sediments? Sentiments!

[Sethren]

Darn, did i miss spell that word. Maybe i do have sediments err sentiments on the brain. Can't be a good thing. :lol:

[philnolan3d]

Found a bug. When using the Fill tool, when you choose a color for pores or spots (maybe others) you get a new color picker window if that's set to IMG none of the buttons work. The sliders work and the "crosshair" icon works, but nothing else. Not even the Ok or Cancel, so I'm going to have to force quit the program unless someone has an idea of how to close that window.

Edit: I just tried it a couple more times with different objects, it seems the buttons work fine until you try to use the new move/zoom icons, then everything stops working.

[Roger_K]

Strand based Hair?? I cant believe dynamics have even been mentioned in this thread, This is a projection painter. If you want a full software SUITE then perhaps you should look elsewhere.

I know its easy to become overenthusiastic but this is just plain silly

[Oliver Thornton]

Strand based Hair?? I cant believe dynamics have even been mentioned in this thread, This is a projection painter. If you want a full software SUITE then perhaps you should look elsewhere.

I know its easy to become overenthusiastic but this is just plain silly

Hi Roger, you must be new here. Perhaps you should go and check out the Tree Generator thread. It's a free download (for now anyway) that uses the same engine as 3DC. Turns out the Generator was available for a long time by changing one line of text in a config, Andrew was just busy developing new features and forgot to tell us. When you're done checking out the complex options for mesh generation that already exist in 3DC's pipeline you might be more ready to believe that Andrew is fully capable of providing us with the ability to grow hair at a wide range of quality/resolution and probably the ability to bake high poly hair to low poly with auto clip maps, whatever. Andrew's the crazy overenthusiastic one here, and he's shown good reason to be. When people mention dynamics I believe they are saying they want a) weight maps they can generate and export to allow the application of dynamics to the hair-polys, or the ability to use gravity and collision to style the poly hair, or c) perhaps both if Andrew's really ambitious.

3D Coat, it turns out, is not just a projection PAINTER.

I know it's easy to be silly, but please be more enthusiastic.

-Oliver

[Roger_K]

Sorry if I sounded a little OTT there, I still think its silly but let me elaborate on why . The idea is interesting but its hard to imagine how it would work. Having strand based hair in 3db is all well and good but what about when you want to render it. You can only do so much with polygon strip based hair, alot of the quality would be lost in this method(volume, frizz), exporting the guide hairs would be pretty difficult as well as there is AFAIK no accepted standard for storing this sort of data. If you exported strand based geometry your looking at massive polygon counts and a product that is useless for animation.

If it can be made usefull then bring it on, but this sounds like the requests for animation tools in silo

[SonK]

Sorry if I sounded a little OTT there, I still think its silly but let me elaborate on why . The idea is interesting but its hard to imagine how it would work. Having strand based hair in 3db is all well and good but what about when you want to render it. You can only do so much with polygon strip based hair, alot of the quality would be lost in this method(volume, frizz), exporting the guide hairs would be pretty difficult as well as there is AFAIK no accepted standard for storing this sort of data. If you exported strand based geometry your looking at massive polygon counts and a product that is useless for animation.

If it can be made usefull then bring it on, but this sounds like the requests for animation tools in silo

QFA.

[Oliver Thornton]

If you exported strand based geometry your looking at massive polygon counts and a product that is useless for animation.

You are not wrong. I'd never do it myself for 'real' looking CG hair, but there's still a wide gamut of quality between here and there which would satisfy a lot of people's needs. That being said, I hear ya about the crazy requests. I'm just saying I've given up on placing restrictions on my expectations of what could/would/should be done with 3DC.

-Oliver

[Brendan Ross]

For some reason whenever I save out spec and normal maps from the latest beta they're appended with "_default". It's not happening with color maps, though.

Anyone else running into this?

[Roger_K]

You are not wrong. I'd never do it myself for 'real' looking CG hair, but there's still a wide gamut of quality between here and there which would satisfy a lot of people's needs. That being said, I hear ya about the crazy requests. I'm just saying I've given up on placing restrictions on my expectations of what could/would/should be done with 3DC.

-Oliver

atleast your not a dried up old cynic like me (age 25 :P)

Im gonna have to break out this new beta tonight, i've just finished a tommy gun in MOI and its begging to be painted