Yes, when you add a mask the Out Material is visible. The mask unhide any Material assigned to the layer. Or just quit the mask an paint over the mesh to see the material applied.   Try this: paint some strokes over a paint mesh As you can see, only a paint icon is show on the layer   Now add a simple Material on the Node Inspector and a Out Material   A new icon is show on the Layer, right to the paint icon: is the Material icon   On Node Inspector Panel, switch on Show in Object Inspector   On Object Inspector Panel change any parameter, like Gloss in this case   To see the original Color or Gloss previously painted use this nodes   Use GeometryIN node to visualize Normals

I watched this video but I don’t remember seeing him use an actual paint node . What he did do was group a bunch of painted layers and applied a material and material mask on the group . Can I do a paint On that material mask node . Maybe I am not using the correct terminology .  In substance , I can use generators , projection as well as a paint layer if need be like in the attached image1 .  How can I do something similar in 3dCoat  ?   Or like in image 2 . Can I bring in the painted stencil image in to use as a mask as well  Thanks 

Yes you can Dud you have seen this introductory video ?  ?

Very new to 3dCoat and this node base workflow is what got me interesting coming from Substance and Mari background .  Do we have the ability to have a paint node or a layer that we can add to this non-destructive material workflow  ? For example if I have a Mask network  , can I add a paint node/layer for some manual painting on top ?   Thanks

Minimize width size on Node Inspector Panel or any other Panel, some parameters can't be selected anymore

Try exporting as Triangles, not Quads, to see if that has different options. I know quads are typically preferred, but triangles might be needed here to get a better result.

I'll look into what you mentioned; it seems like the solution lies there. Unfortunately, the version I'm using doesn't have many more export options than what you can see in the screenshot. Thanks for the tip and your help Chrisd.

You may have already tried this, but just in case you have not, per vertex normals export from Plasticity may improve the result. That works with other applications to get a good result, but I do not have Plasticity to test. Searching online indicates using Refacet when exporting OBJ exports per vertex normals.

Suppose I need to know which node corresponds to these parameters. There is no way to select the parameter in the Object Editor so that the Node Editor automatically refreshes the node and also displays it in the Node Inspector.   Hence my proposal to maintain the groups for: Better visualization in Node Editor. Automatically creating separate categories in Object Editor. Ability to save these groups as Favorites that can be easily inserted into any Node Editor.  

To open a project with nodes applied on the mesh takes 1 min of loading (+o-)

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I think I've found the problem after many tests: deleting drivers, installing older ones, and switching between different software. If you incorporate Plasticity into your workflow and export .obj files, it saves them with characteristics that can make them look bad. After many tests and trying different workflows: If I export .obj files from Plasticity and use that file, I have these problems. If I use the Plasticity bridge with Blender and export .obj files from Blender or use 3D Coat AppLink, the problem doesn't exist. Problem: Plasticity is the problem. I'm using Plasticity 25.11.2 (I haven't updated). I've read that they've optimized the export to meshes. I don't know if it's fixed, but if you encounter this problem, you now know why it might be happening. Another way to work is to export .obj files in Plasticity with TRI Topology and adjust the MAX. Setting the width to 0.001 or 0.0001 will export a dense mesh that you can then convert or load into voxels. This is all information in case it's helpful for you with Plasticity. Thanks for your help, CarloSan.

Hi, I noticed this question asked a lot elsewhere but haven't seen the solution, I discovered for myself, brought up anywhere else. When Applink brings back materials to Blender, often times those materials don't appear in a Cycles render. I found this is because Coat also brings back a set of empty materials and inserts them into a Collection. These empty materials get confused for the materials containing color data. You can reassign the materials but I found it easier just to delete the entire Applink collection. Is deleting the Applink Collection always practical or will there be some instances where that Collection needs to be kept?

Thanks! I never noticed those three options (Max, Blend, Add) before!

@carrots Hi What is the proper way to assign NG Materials by uDims ? The manual refers to this node   but... how it apply to this settings, we haven't any text reference by parameter   I was trying to offset 1 UV by uDim with no luck   The Mat is assigned by layer, not by uDim   It will be hard if we have lot of uDims assigning one by one manually.

Thanks for your quick reply. It's definitely good to know about relocating data. First, I relocated the data for each different version of 3DCoat, and after restarting, everything was still the same. Then I followed the import video steps, and when I use Flat SubD, it reappears. I tried using the modeling room and imported the .obj file from the Mesh - Import menu. Then, in the Sculpt Room, I imported Mesh from Retopo. Exactly the same. The last test was using a shader with Cavity and Flat Shading enabled. It appears the same... However, a basic shader with Flat Shading enabled looks fine. Just in case you think it might work... importing as Voxels on a Voxels layer works. That'll do for now. Sometimes, in some versions, something would fail or drive me a little crazy. Installing an update or beta version would help. It works perfectly, like magic. I was messing around on chatgpt and he told me there might be a driver conflict between the uninstalled RX 580 and my new 5070. He advised me to use a utility to remove all traces of the AMD card. It's called DDU. But it didn't work. Didn't hurt to try!   Thank you so much for your help.

Put the cursor over the Depth Channel icon to select depth modes, and try the one that best fit your needs.

Hi - To avoid some artifacts you need to relocate data by versions on separate folders on //documents    - Applink it is not working on v2026   - Issues with vector normals at import:  use this steps to import without troubles   Hope this help  

For the past few days, I've been encountering a problem when importing .obj files from other software. When creating a new surface scene (from the start menu) or when importing an object, it appears with artifacts, as you can see in the image. (If I load that object into Blender, for example, it imports fine, normals, etc...) A few days ago, I had several beta versions of 3D Coat: 2024, 2025, and 2026. It worked fine in 2024 and until recently, it was working fine in 2025. But I don't know what happened. Another thing to note is that tools disappeared from the menus. Even after a factory reset, they didn't reappear. For example, Extrude was nowhere to be found. (I managed to get it to reappear by deleting the 3D Coat folder from Documents.) Yesterday, I uninstalled everything, deleted the user folders, and even the Documents folder. I installed 2025.17 and the 2026.04Ns beta, and it's still the same. Now all the tools are there. Applink for blender sent object same error, import mesh .obj from Plasticity same error. Plasticity to Blender OK import .obj I think it has something to do with anti-aliasing and normals or vectors, but even after checking in Blender and exporting to import, it doesn't work. Can you help me? note:A month ago I replaced my old Radeon RX580 with a 5070. Thx. Tomás.