3D coat limitations versus Zbrush?
polycounter lvl 13
So I used Zbrush as my high poly solution at work and at home and came across 3D coat because of a coworker. I started using the voxel sculpting tools and found I got extremely quick and excellent results not only in organic forms but a worlds of a difference in ease when creating hard surface items over using zbrush. (Also 3D coat has some awesome retopo tools, texture painting on the model and other super awesome features that all seem to be laid out very well)
So my question is does anyone have any specific reasons they use Zbrush over 3D coat? Any limitations or tech bugs that have keep you more on the zbrush side? Thanks guys!
So my question is does anyone have any specific reasons they use Zbrush over 3D coat? Any limitations or tech bugs that have keep you more on the zbrush side? Thanks guys!
Replies
I use 3D Coat for retopo though, and heavily for painting textures on objects, weapons. It's a great program.
Surface mode has its own set of brushes and works just great IMO.
After getting used to it, it is painful to go back to ZBrush.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5oQnOfM7Jo
Even myself right now made a post asking people to give me a sanity check if there wasn't something big I was missing haha.
nah i wouldn't use it for final quality work (unless paint + bakes will do the job, which on some projects is totally fine)
but the lack of layers isn#t really a strength of zbrush and the link to PS is something i used once, burnt myself with bad projection and never touched again.
just an example
this is flat shaded one base color and 2 clicks to polypaint this
with some polygroups prepared for quick masking this is ultra fast
Would you mind elaborating a bit on your process? Are you using the mask by AO feature? That option took a really long time to calculate for me so I'm curious what you're doing differently.
I'm going to record some 3Dcoat paint room videos this weekend, projection painting is one of the topics I'm going to cover.
I could imagine myself just exporting various cavity masks from zbrush, I think I would miss all the photoshop but in 3D paint tools I use in 3DCoat.
I also hope this comes to fruition:
"We are in process of making principally new shaders with SSAO/SSS/PBR that are based on panorama."
I haven't been super active on the 3Dcoat forums but I believe the next update is targeted at painting improvements.
automasking, as said, automask by cavity, automask by backfaces etc. its in the brush options, the masking features in tool are slow and shitty and not interactive at all.
@justin: 3dcoats projection is ace, and the screenshot transfer to PS is sick. I just wished they would support layermasks and other PS features.
You can create layer masks but not the same way as Photoshop - in blending select a layer from "linked layer". The bonus is that you can link multiple layers to that layer as well as inverse the linkage. I typically name the layer "_____ mask", paint bright neon colors and set it's opacity to 0%. I'll either "apply layer mask" before exporting my final PSD or just remember what layers needed the mask and create layer masks inside Photoshop. It will make sense in my video.
Andrew is on vacation atm but once he gets back he said that he'll start working on (PS-compatible) layer masks and axial (radial?) symmetry.
It finally got paint layer groups recently too which was certainly a welcome improvement.
What's this magic hard surface button you speak of?
I prefer 3dcoat for texture painting and retopo, but zbrush for sculpting. I don't like the feel of 3d coat's voxel brushes as much, and surface mode doesn't have real subdivision layers, so it's not quite as nice IMO as standard sculpting in zbrush. It's still very capable in a production environment, though. Just gotta modify your workflow to match the toolset.
An example would be just how quick it is in 3D coat to even cut a hole through the middle of another mesh, or add bevel cuts with a spline that I can edit and preview then undo and still edit the same spline to my liking. 2d grid plane snapping for details is also amazing. I've never really been a fan of the zbrush gizmo either( I wish I had an option for a traditional one). But just to get to a shape that im looking for and having full creative freedom to create shapes on the fly just is easier in 3d coat and the tools dont get in my way like they do for precision work for Zbrush.
Although I have to admit it has some features that frive me nuts.
E.g.: gizmos are just a pain, working on a grid seems to me somewhat impossible, managing different splines is not comfortable, on some occasions (not very often) I have the issue that a certain action (happens on different tools) can not be undone. Although I can't reproduce this it happens from time to time.
The voxel sculpting is very nice but I'm not sure if I would use it for hardsurface work. Maybe minor assets can be easily slapped together and used as detail elements in a classical hardsuface model.
The brush-engine for voxelsculpting is lacking depending on the situation. Getting very fine details requires a few strokes and some undo's. Or when using the line-brush-setting in voxel-mode the brush will extrude twice on each end-point of the line. For most issues you can find some way arround.
All in all I would definately recommend 3Dcoat. The program-features grow steadily and much is improving over time, but I would like to see them improving more on some tools, handling.
I would even choose mudbox over 3d coat tbh.
I might give it another try at some point, buts a bit frustrating somehow.