Oki! Here is my best attempt at explaining what 3DCoat can almost do but can't quite do. I think it has 90% of the tools already, they are just not configured in such a way that I can use them like this. I am probably mega underestimating how much work is involved here but in any case here's "why you would want that". Essentially 3DC is some tools away from being able to produce production subdivision meshes. I think the main missing features from 3DC that would allow this workflow are - Quads in sculpt mode - Subdivision preview - Face sets - A "relax face sets" smooth option which tries to straighten intersection edges between face sets - Autopo using face sets intersections as guides instead of sharp angles Also, face sets are a great way to start UVs because you can usually directly convert face sets -> uv islands and unfold them. It's an awesome workflow because you essentially get your final mesh without ever leaving the sculpt At a high level, for production, I find  you don't want to be using Autopo at the very end after you are done your sculpt. You want to use it somewhere in the middle where the primary and secondary forms are in, but before you add the detail. Then you add the final details on the subdivision mesh -- this expedites the process immensely, because the "midpoint subdivision mesh" is like 90% ready to export minus some minor cleanup, but critically you want to autopo your model before adding the small details that would confuse the remeshing algorithm, then add small details after. This allows you to get the best possible automatic result, while also allowing you to add details once topo is locked down. So voxel sculpt -> curate face sets -> use face sets to control autopo guides -> use the autopo quad mesh sub-d to do your final detail sculpting pass with surface details / alpha stamping. This means you don't have to do a full manual retopo and can directly use your sculpt mesh as input for your production mesh! First, the 3DCoat workflow, and why it isn't quite there yet. And yes, I know autopo has a concept of "sharps" / using edge angle cusp for driving the remeshing algorithm but the issue is that I cannot finely control what it considers sharp edges unless my mesh itself is sharp. If we were able to use face sets to control the remesher guides, then we could manually curate intersections so they are clean and remesher friendly, and sharp in the right places. Further, I have not found surface mode booleans stable enough to support several successive sharp cuts with symmetry enabled. It inevitably loses its validity as a closed mesh after only a handful of cuts. For reference, here is my hard surface workflow in both ZBrush and Blender. However, the actual sculpting part is way less fun than 3DCoat. for me hard surface sculpting in blender and zb just don't feel as fluid and fun as 3DC.  Conveniently, Blender automatically assigns a new face set to the internal faces each time you use a boolean cut selection (box, lasso, polyline) Hopefully this provides adequate explanation! I love sculpting in 3DC and want to use it as much as possible, but i just haven't found a way to get production hardsurface geo out of it in a way that doesn't require a full rebuild. The closest I got was leveraging live boolean intersections for carving with sharp boundaries / using a different material for each boolean object to produce face sets when taking them back to blender (thanks for whoever did that, app bridge person, the fact that materials are preserved from sculpt meshes is _awesome_), but that seems to be crashing right now so I couldn't show it

unrelated: Live boolean basically always crash for me now in 2025.17   2025-12-30 21-47-07.mp4

Hey there! It's more of a workflow thing. I will try to explain it best I can as a workflow rather than a feature request.  Again I am mostly raising some of this because it would allow me to stay in 3DC longer and finish my work more completely in it. It's an incredibly powerful toolset! But there are non negotiables with different 3d pipelines, and depending on requirements of output working with voxels + autopo might get you there fast or really slow. I might try making the same shape in a few different ways to demonstrate Also I should mention that, my particular use case I am trying to use 3DC for is hard surface production modelling, I really love 3DC's fluid voxel cutting tools and that's my main reason for wanting to stay in it, and I totally understand if the particular use case I'm going for is to narrow to matter to the dev team. But I will try to make a case  Another thing that might be considered in the long term is still maintaining having different mesh types, (sculpt mesh voxel or surface, sculpt or retopo mesh quads which might support UV etc) but just having them all available in the sculpt room natively, This would allow user to work in the most optimized way (eg voxel sculpting tris only) but then pay the price of the heavier format if needed, it is also the case that zb is much slower when your sculpt model has UVs especially when it is highpoly and no subdivision levels. It is totally fine if different mesh types have different tool limitations, so long as they are viewable all together. I can see the rationale for keeping all of these mesh types in separate rooms. It keeps the contexts clean and task focused. This issue for me is just that blocks off some workflows that allow more flexibility / preserving certain mesh features that makes finalling easier.  I think 3DC's strongest feature is the fluidity you get out of sculpting freely with voxels, that's what makes it fun and addicting to use. It's just such a pain when I have to redo my mesh from scratch after I already have a good looking sculpt, and there is no intermediate meshes, or re-used geometry elements that makes my final output easier to create

Try older version, as a fast test

nope... my license expiration was 11/23, the version i upgraded to was from 10/23... do i need a complete swipe and clean install?

Sometimes you just need to bring aspects of other apps to show context, but yes, that's not the thread for that.

Hello Try uninstalling and re-installing the license again (on Help menu)

Hi Hope this help  

No "versus" threads. Discussions about tools, workflows or development implementation is fine, but absolutely no "app vs app", or derogatory statements about an app. These bring needless debate that too often becomes contentious.

And my argument was about your argument about dynamesh Nope, I'm actually used to 3DC, definitely more than to typical poly modeling, but I see the benefits of having quads alongside voxels. As much as I hate some aspects of ZBrush, I also see the absolutely strong aspects of this app.  

hello again... wanted to ask other users of cc4/iclone what method and settings do you use when importing characters into 3dcoat?!? ive always had issues w/ their alignment on import, and was hoping there was some setting i could apply so they import correctly... .fbx import options im using now yield facing backward, facing the floor, awkward positions on the grid... is how the figure positioned in the ui screen even matter? is it the same if i reposition and rotate as needed?

greetings all... ive been away for some time now, and in returning and updating my software my 3d coat is insisting i need to update. i checked the date on my license, and downloaded the correct version but im still seeing watermarks and am being told im in my trial period. what can i do?

My point about Dynamesh was merely in response to your post about using it at some point > using Z-Remesher. In my opinion, it seems you are used to accomplishing certain tasks with Quads, which is fine, but if I can do the same task with 3DCoat's current tools...which includes being able to switch things up a bit and use the poly modeling/retopo tools for some tasks...then it doesn't really matter as long as you get the same result in the same time frame. It will probably be until after the holidays before I can get around to replicating these examples in 3DCoat. I have a few other things to take care of before I can tackle that.

Curve tool(no matter what version) is still very laggy and hard to control(even the video shows huge lag). You still don't get it, I don't give a damn about Dynamesh - you can use dynamesh for organic stuff for quite long time in the process, but for hard or semi hard surfaces you need quads pretty much from the start. I need mesh editing abilities during the process not after and bringing retopo mesh into sculpt room will end with triangulation. Also, Auto-Retopo usually fail with any mildly complicated objects and I don't care about doing manual Retopo(waste of time) when I can bring that mesh into ZBrush, ZRemesh it in no time, subdivide it and keep all the editing abilities - absolutely hassle free process. You have Multi res in 3DC, but its functionality is limited - you can't even use cut off tool in this mode. I still think that introducing properly implemented/seamless quad workflow into 3DC in combination with voxels, would put 3DC ahead of other apps. Oh, one more thing, sometimes I see info about 3DC limited userbase and the point of implementing some features because of that and my two cents are... some major changes + stability and performance adjustments are needed to cut bigger piece of that 3D cake, because at this point, it's almost impossible to attract seasoned ZBrush users. 

Thanks....So, you want me to do as the author said and take 6 hours to make the first example and another 6-10 hours doing the 2nd one?  I will see what I can do. Nevertheless, you can easily do this in 3DCoat without it taking 2x as long as ZB. As an example, if you don't like the way the legacy Curve tool works, you can use the newer Curves from the Curves panel (hit the Q key). Regarding quads with dynamesh...that's practically the same workflow you can do in 3DCoat. Auto-Retopo is 3DCoat's equivalent to Z-Remesher and you would apply it to the finished high poly mesh/voxel object. Why would you need quad meshes in the Sculpt room when Voxels or Surface mode meshes can do the same thing and when you are ready to make it all quads for the final mesh, you use Auto-Retopo or manual Retopo tools.

High poly only, as that is my role. Same quality and ability to edit it at any given time. Also, if that's gonna take you doble the time it takes in ZBrush then that's a no go.  Also, as of your Dynamesh argument - Dynamesh is used only in some portion of the process, finished sculpts are (almost)always quads, Zremeshed, Projected, otherwise it's a big mistake.