3DCoat 2024.12
3DCoat 2024 Key Features and Improvements
- Live Booleans with Voxels Introduced! It includes Add, Subtract and Intersect modes, even with complex child objects, and the performance is surprisingly good.
- Vector Displacement Brush support was added via a small library of VDM Brushes, provided in various VDM Brush subfolders within the “Alphas” panel. VDM EXR files can be imported into the “Alphas” panel the same way like standard greyscale brushes.
- Vector Displacement Creation tool, named “Pick & Paste,” was added to allow artists a quick and super convenient way to extract the shape of almost any surface of an existing object in the scene. You don’t have to go through the tedious process of making a plane, then sculpting the desired object from scratch, like in other applications. You can use the Pick & Paste tool to make VDM brushes from whatever models where you have rights.
- Layers Masks + Clipping Masks have been implemented similar to and compatible with Photoshop’s. It even works with Vertex Paint, VerTexture (Factures) and Voxel Paint!
- Ongoing & Incremental UI Improvements continue with various efforts to improve the visual appearance (with better Font readability, spacing, and customization), plus helpful new features added to the UI.
- A new "Edge Flow“ tool in the Modeling Room allows users to add adjustable levels of curvature (to a selected Edge-loop) between surrounding geometry.
- The View Gizmo introduced. It can be turned off in settings.
- Python projects with multiple modules supported.
- The Addons system introduced to connect Python/C++ scripts developers and users. It allows easy sharing of the scripts, providing instructions, and finding information. Some useful addons included, for example, the realistic destruction with random cracks - "Break mesh with cracks" addon.
- Long-awaited Scene Scale Master tool implemented for more accurate Scene Scale fidelity between applications upon Import or Export.
- Blender 4 support improved via updated AppLink.
- AI Assistant (3DCoat's specialized Chat GPT) introduced and the UI color scheme toggle placed into the start menu.
- UV management over Python/C++ substantially improved
- Export for 3D Printing, for opening in Cura, updated
- Layers now have a Texture Map preview thumbnail (similar to Photoshop and other applications)
- The Activity Bar now has a new vertical alignment and is placed just to the inside of the right column (similar in location and function as Photoshop’s Panel Bar). Like the Navigation Bar (Top Right portion of the Viewport) it is automatically hidden to reduce UI clutter and is visible only when the cursor moves near it. When the cursor rests over an asset panel icon (within the bar) for a split second or longer, 3DCoat will instantly display the Asset Panel content over the full expanse of the right column. This all makes the UI more efficient and user-friendly.
- All Viewport-Capture features (including the time-lapse) are consolidated into the "Capture" menu.
- Default location of documents changed to User/Documents/3DCoat/ to prevent weird bugs registered in the past.
- Optional: Items in the Sculpt tree can now display Density or Polycount or both, now (use the RMB > Settings in order to activate).
- Option added: Hide the gizmo temporarily when CTRL/SHIFT keys are pressed in the Retopo Workspace using the “Select & Transform” tool.
- Navigation Undo/Redo in the camera menu. By default it is ALT-Z, ALT-Y. Now it is easy to return to the previous view.
- Retopo/Modeling Room: the Cap tool is modified. More patterns added.
- Python API for the camera management, Top/Left/Front ... views tweaked to move camera gradually, not instantly.
- Modeling Room: Some simplifications of the Smart Extrude tool.
- For the “Surface Revolution” tool, the ability to select the X/Y/Z axes as the axis of rotation has been added
- …plus many bug fixes and performance improvements
