3dcoat seems superior to zbrush in every way?

Alex_J

Guys I am just testing out 3d coat and it seems like the program I always wish zbrush was. 

Compared to zbrush, 3d coat offers: 

• actual viewport rendering so you can see what you are doing and it is not totally different compared to how your game engine will look
• you can hot swap between sculpting and texturing on the fly
• a normal UX for humans

Is anybody else using it? It seems like it could replace both zbrush and texturing app for me. I have noticed some general buginess that could be difficult for people new to computers to grapple with, but for the most part the UX is just lightyears ahead of zbrush, and because the viewport rendering is like other apps I feel like I am no longer working blind. Like a lot of times in zbrush once I actually send the sculpt to game engine it looks so different. 3dcoat feels more WYSIWG, plus the fact that I can bounce back and forth with texturing helps that out further. 

the texturing brushes and tools are really great too, by the way. I am finding it more easy to just paint in an artistic way and rely less on procedural tools.

I have not messed with the UV tools or retopo, just sculpting and texturing. If you have no checked it out I recommend it. They have a lengthy trial period.

Benjammin

The last time I tested it was several years ago, but I found that it couldn't handle anywhere close to the same mesh density as Zbrush. I'd be interested to know if its gotten better in that regard, because I did like a lot of the other things you mention, specifically "a normal UX for humans"

Alex_J

@Benjammin  
i did some quick test: 
at 32 million triangles voxel and surface sculpting shows a tiny bit of lag, but still very useable
at 128 million it is laggy enough that i consider it not useable (though you could if you really had to)

I have a 3090 GPU and 64gb ram, and this is 3d coat 2024.13

I have no idea how this compares to zbrush as I never go above a couple million triangles typically.

Benjammin

Alex_J said:

@Benjammin  
i did some quick test: 
at 32 million triangles voxel and surface sculpting shows a tiny bit of lag, but still very useable
at 128 million it is laggy enough that i consider it not useable (though you could if you really had to)

I have a 3090 GPU and 64gb ram, and this is 3d coat 2024.13

I have no idea how this compares to zbrush as I never go above a couple million triangles typically.

Good to know, thanks - definitely sounds like its improved in that regard.

Rima

It's not that good, unless it's taken some huge strides since last time I saw it.

The voxel sculpting is really convenient, but lacks clarity, unless you go high res in which case you'd have similar problems to just starting at a high dynamesh res. Means you get a similar feeling at times, but you don't get the convenience of people able to push and pull faces where they need to be to capture shape when the dynamesh res alone can't quite cut it. You could do it as a proper mesh rather than voxels, but then won't you just lack the advantages of the even topology that you can remesh on the fly if you do need to? Unless they've added a mesh-dynamesh type feature?

I also found its general layout really inconvenient. The way everything was split into "rooms". I can see why they did it, partly, but it didn't feel really convenient to me. Especially if you get partway through and decide something needs adjusting; you couldn't just do a quick tweak. You'd have to send it all back to the other room and change it, then send it back, and it was a nuisance compared to being able to just do the thing you wanted immediately.

The worst thing for me though was this. Why the hell is everything in 3DCoat that isn't a voxel a triangle? It's so much easier to get awkward topology or lumps when every face is a triangle. At least, that's how I found out. Quads are super convenient. If you make a base mesh with good topology and want to divide and sculpt it, why would you want to lose the convenience of being made out of squares for it to just be triangulated immediately? It defeats the whole point.

And it didn't even have a proper multires last time I checked, and treated a retopologised mesh as being the last step in working on the geometry; if you wanted to sculpt it after retopology, you have to triangle it and ruin your convenient quads. The...Ah, what was it called? Something-proxy? It was like a lower res proxy mesh you could work on and propagate the changes to your high res. That was interesting, but as useful and convenient as an actual multires? No, a poor excuse. Especially when you know one of the advantages of working on an actual low res version of your mesh instead of a generated proxy is that you can see where the actual topology goes, so you can easily predict where your changes will end up, like moving a loop that you know will, on a higher level, be a wrinkle around the mouth for example.

All that said, it is a very useful tool. It has good sculpting options, texturing, retopology.....Honestly, I think if they just made some changes, and could improve performance, it would be able to become almost on par with ZBrush. A huge advantage it does have in some ways is being actual 3D. If VR sculpting ever takes off they have a decent chance of being able to do it, whereas ZBrush, as I understand it, can't possibly do that, by nature.

Alex_J

@Rima

it has multi-res layer support now, and i have been sculpting on quad meshes so perhaps something there has changed. It seems like the intended workflow is that you use the voxel modeling as you would use sculptris pro in zbrush (or dynamesh) when you are figuring out forms. Then you can retopo (it has lots of different ways to do this) and use regular surface sculpting if you wanted to do hi res details like skin pores. 

But the way I work is usually build a low poly mesh in maya first and then just subdivide it a few times for a quick pass with sculpted details. So for me, the workflow in 3d coat is same as zbrush, just that it has better viewport (more WYSIWG with the sculpted details). 

it has replaced zbrush for me for sculpting. 

But I feel similar about the rooms... it is very hard to figure out how to do a lot of simple things. THe intended workflow is not always clear, there is scant and outdated documentation, and the whole program does not seem to use a consistent design pattern so figuring out one corner doesn't mean you can figure out others. Because of that reason I gave up digging much further into the retopo and baking tools. So for me it is just replacing zbrush in the same way I used zbrush - just bring in a model for sculpt and that is all. Any other type of mesh processing i do in maya and bake and texture I still stick with Toolbag. For me a quick and painless workflow is the highest priority.

Rima

Alex_J said:

@Rima

it has multi-res layer support now, and i have been sculpting on quad meshes so perhaps something there has changed. It seems like the intended workflow is that you use the voxel modeling as you would use sculptris pro in zbrush (or dynamesh) when you are figuring out forms. Then you can retopo (it has lots of different ways to do this) and use regular surface sculpting if you wanted to do hi res details like skin pores. 

But the way I work is usually build a low poly mesh in maya first and then just subdivide it a few times for a quick pass with sculpted details. So for me, the workflow in 3d coat is same as zbrush, just that it has better viewport (more WYSIWG with the sculpted details). 

it has replaced zbrush for me for sculpting. 

But I feel similar about the rooms... it is very hard to figure out how to do a lot of simple things. THe intended workflow is not always clear, there is scant and outdated documentation, and the whole program does not seem to use a consistent design pattern so figuring out one corner doesn't mean you can figure out others. Because of that reason I gave up digging much further into the retopo and baking tools. So for me it is just replacing zbrush in the same way I used zbrush - just bring in a model for sculpt and that is all. Any other type of mesh processing i do in maya and bake and texture I still stick with Toolbag. For me a quick and painless workflow is the highest priority.

Oh, well that changes things. It's been a while since I've used it; must've been added in an update. I'll give it a look, then; it's always good to know my options.

One thing I did forget to say though is that the retopology definitely has an edge on ZBrush in some respects. It's been a while since I used it, but the auto retopology seemed decent. But the real benefit it had there was all the controls for manual retopology. Adding faces manually, groups, relaxing it to make it smoother while keeping your faces....It was quite convenient.

It does strike me as having a bit of Blender's problem, though, speaking of an incoherent design pattern. Trying to be all things to all people. Last time I looked at their updates, they seemed to be trying to push it not only as a sculpting and texturing solution, but also as a modeling tool, which struck me as....Kind of pointless. Nobody's going to use it for that, I think. They have better options that are specialised for it. I'm no expert, but I feel it's probably better if it focuses on being a few of them excellently than trying to be everything.

iam717

They should make a stand alone hand-painting version for les$, idk the price currently, yes i am that lazy,atm.  (All i got to contribute atm)

Alex_J

@iam717
they do have that its called Textura

Alex_J

it dawned on me that mudbox still exist. For some reason I thought it had been discontinued. Anyway, I trying out the 2024 version and actually it is closer to what I've been seeking than 3d coat is. When it comes to sculpting I pretty much use like two brushes and the only functionality I have to have is subdivision layers. Mudbox offers this and is beautifully simple... and it plays very well with rest of the workflow. THat is where 3d coat seems to fall apart... it seems to assume some specific workflows and doesn't give you low level control over import/export process. it has a too many tools which do a bunch of things all full of assumptions, rather than just give you direct control. Mudbox is easy to go to and from maya / photoshop without any headache. 

It is shockingly cheap too (though annoyingly, a subscription). 

Benjammin

Alex_J said:

it dawned on me that mudbox still exist. For some reason I thought it had been discontinued. Anyway, I trying out the 2024 version and actually it is closer to what I've been seeking than 3d coat is. When it comes to sculpting I pretty much use like two brushes and the only functionality I have to have is subdivision layers. Mudbox offers this and is beautifully simple... and it plays very well with rest of the workflow. THat is where 3d coat seems to fall apart... it seems to assume some specific workflows and doesn't give you low level control over import/export process. it has a too many tools which do a bunch of things all full of assumptions, rather than just give you direct control. Mudbox is easy to go to and from maya / photoshop without any headache. 

It is shockingly cheap too (though annoyingly, a subscription). 

I used to love Mudbox. At some point (maybe a decade ago? IDK) it stopped running on Geforce GPUs and demanded Quadra instead. I'm guessing they reversed that at a later date...

Alex_J

@Benjammin

seems to be the case because I have a geforce GPU and it is running good. I did some sculpting at 17 million tris without any slowdown. it is really inviting how it just has the things I actually use and not much else, and seems to be designed around normal production workflow rather than a bunch of zany toys bolted on that you got to sift through to find the things you actually want... 

as far as features i actually use it seems to be on par with zbrush, but people on the internet are saying it is a decade behind... perhaps I am behind what is going on in studios but I would be curious where the lag is because for me I just need subdivision layers and basic brushes. Some autoretopo stuff is a bonus but I almost always either start from base mesh or do manual retopo so its not something i care a lot about. But I mostly just do basic realistic style characters, perhaps if you are doing "zbrushy" stuff like hyper complicated armor with panels or something like that where you just make it up on the fly - yeah i dont think you could do that very well in mudbox.

pior

@Alex_J : well you're in for a treat once you'll discover the Flatten brush, which is by far the best out of all sculpting apps out there *and* has the option to perfectly conform to the initial normal, producing perfectly flat facets.

Alex_J

@pior

it is nice! pretty exciting, i grew to dislike sculpting over time because if you dont work regular enough in zbrush it is just a big chore to refamiliarize with it, and I always feel like I spend 50% of my time tweaking the program rather than just working... spent most of the day just sculpting in mudbox and didn't really have to change anything to feel like the workspace was "ready for work" if you know what i mean.

ZacD

I have an old copy of 3dcoat I still regularly use since it's coinvent for quick, easy, and lazy retopo, UVing, voxelizing/smoothing. I could probably get the same perks within my modeling package with plugins, but it's always been good enough for me.

thomasp

Benjammin said:

I used to love Mudbox. At some point (maybe a decade ago? IDK) it stopped running on Geforce GPUs and demanded Quadra instead. I'm guessing they reversed that at a later date...

Did it actually refuse to run though? I recall they initially demoed it (when it was still in beta) exclusively on Quadro's (and made some outrageous performance claims related to those too while they were at it). I always ran it on Geforce's and don't recall any time it did not run or became a crashfest or anything.

Never did much sculpting in it but still use it for some painting here and there. Old version though from before the subscription times.

3D Coat - looked interesting on paper but the interface drove me away: managing layers was no fun whenever I trialled it.

Benjammin

thomasp said:

Benjammin said:

I used to love Mudbox. At some point (maybe a decade ago? IDK) it stopped running on Geforce GPUs and demanded Quadra instead. I'm guessing they reversed that at a later date...

Did it actually refuse to run though? I recall they initially demoed it (when it was still in beta) exclusively on Quadro's (and made some outrageous performance claims related to those too while they were at it). I always ran it on Geforce's and don't recall any time it did not run or became a crashfest or anything.

It might've been the beta. Its quite a long time ago and memory is unreliable, but I do seem to remember a pop-up message saying my GPU wasn't supported before it shut down.
Regardless, I'm glad that's not a thing anymore.

Ruz

I did try it a few years ago but it chugged like mad so I gave up

iam717

Alex_J said:

@iam717
they do have that its called Textura

Awesome sadly some strange happenings are happening and i can't even view the site.

isp or windows is not allowing me to view the site, What could i(we) possibly do if that is the case, if that continues..

Anyway thanks for telling me, now you all see the proof that I've been offline for quiet a while now, or i would've know bout this, just a comment i stated a while ago about getting offline and been offline for a while.

gnoop

Ruz said:

I did try it a few years ago but it chugged like mad so I gave up

Had been my main texture painting  app   for decade  in not more.   Still love its brush system way more than  Substance Painter  . But yeah, it's very unforgiving  . A tiny mistake and   it freezes like crazy

Ruz

it was more the general responsiveness. i still prefer zbrush, but don't do much these days

I have barely touched substance painter either

Neox

i dunno i have the feeling with every version of 3dcoat it gets worse. i get more errors every time i update. 

visual glitches like this:

import works, export doesnt? oh no just different colors, export works. the UI is full of this stuff.

or here:

then this retopo ui, i gave up complaining years ago. it used to be nice, instantly recognizable, now it is this

this interface full of buttons that look the same at first glance and most text is longer than the buttons and partially hidden. 

just gimme all text buttons back please i can process this stuff quicker than trying to decipher some random symbols. also man those buttons are gigantic it eats almost a quarter of my UI. 

but the option to scale text doesnt have influence here and i couldnt find settings for this yet.

also just dysfunctional features in retopo and UVs...

like... how?

 

shit like this drives me nuts. this worked 10 years ago, why is it broken regularily since version 2021?

i think retopo strokes is now usable again but was unusable for a long time. sadly by now my super old 4.9 version doesnt work anymore... i would switch back in a heart beat

pior

Absolutely in agreement with the above. I think 3DC is probably stuck in a bubble with their long-time users with strong survivors bias. If anything I feel like this is bound to happen with small/medium sized software getting too involved with "community feedback".

Alex_J

yeah my initial reaction was like, "wow it has competent sculpting and a real viewport!" but after actually digging into it, when it comes to actual workflow it has a lot of issues. Each thing you do in it comes bundled with a bunch of destructive stuff. Like you can't just "import and export a model". Each import process comes with a bunch of destructive processes so you have to figure out this really complicated process to do basic things like get a model in and out. 

Anyway, as to why after 2021 it may have got worse, that might be because it is a ukranian development and i think 2021 is when the war began?

overall it seems like the program is like a programmers pet project that they use to build various things that strike their interest, and not so much something that was made to solve a production problem and then iterated on to improve that. 

For now mudbox has become my go to sculpting app (goes to show how much I dislike zbrush), and toolbag remains my texturing/baking app. i am completely in love with toolbag even though it still lacks some key things like a clone brush, but for the most part i just love how simple it is to use. everything is just drag and drop, it is so easy to manage complicated layer stacks without really thinking about. 

kanga

Not for me. Ive been using zBrush since 2004. That was also the last time I paid for it. I remember when 3DCoat came out and depending on what you made depended on whether you were allowed to purchase it. So I didn't. Some time later the censure was dropped and I decided to try 3DC on my laptop. Could not get it to work. I think I spent a day troubleshooting but no joy so I gave up. Some years later I saw positive reports on 3DC so I tried again on a different laptop. This time it worked,... well sort of. The program ran like a pig in quicksand. This time it didn't take me a day to uninstall it.

Sure zBrush uses an odd system and the interface is unique, but the program flies as fast as you can think. Runs really well even on crappy hardware and is reliable as heck. Any problems with usage are covered by a plethora of YT vids. I'm sure there are people who love 3DC. I'm not one of them.

Alex_J

@kanga yeah the sheer amount of learning content you can find for zbrush (plus that, at least before you could buy it and own it forever) are huge pluses that 3d coat seems to lack. Though on the pricing i think 3d coat is possible to own still? Not sure I didn't look super deep into it. But the lack of learning content is a big problem because you can easily spend an hour trying to figure out how to do something that you know a basic tutorial would answer in five minutes and if you already have some other programs that do that thing, it's a big turn off.

Michael Knubben

pior said:

Absolutely in agreement with the above. I think 3DC is probably stuck in a bubble with their long-time users with strong survivors bias. If anything I feel like this is bound to happen with small/medium sized software getting too involved with "community feedback".

I've been bitching about the bugs and UI issues for ages, and at some point just stopped reporting them officially as nothing was done. Recently they've redoubled their efforts on some of those longstanding bugs and they've been fixing them, so might be worth piping up a bit again!

Haha, I just went into my emails to see _how long_ exactly some of them were open, and:

Date Submitted:             2013-03-15 11:27 -03
Last Modified:              2023-01-28 05:16 -03

Sadly, I too find the sculpting tedious. The UI is even more crowded and unclear than in the other sections, for starters...

gnoop

Sadly there is no material /texture software   that I would consider  convenient.   All them are monstrously terrible IMO.   You  can just tolerate one while other feels   intolerable.    3d coat  had been tolerable   for  some time but then  stopped to be such  .   I switched to Painter   and  hated it no less.   All it's non-destructiveness is just marketing   if you compare it to Mari for example.      You have to redo    almost everything in Designer with your own sbsars   before it starts to be helpful.     Needed a planar projection  recently . Ended up recreating it in Designer  because in Painter it's always blurry  and you don't have a huge spare resolution like in MAri to compensate it.

I wish Substance Designer just had  screen painting and brush system from 3d coat.     Hate Designer either but IMO it's  most tolerable of all of them combined so far. 

  My last hope on ChatGPT  .  Seems like more chances it will create you software you want    rather than a mess  human software engineers do  and  you waste your whole life adjusting to .   

Neox

gnoop said:

Sadly there is no material /texture software   that I would consider  convenient.   All them are monstrously terrible IMO.   You  can just tolerate one while other feels   intolerable.    3d coat  had been tolerable   for  some time but then  stopped to be such  .   I switched to Painter   and  hated it no less.   All it's non-destructiveness is just marketing   if you compare it to Mari for example.      You have to redo    almost everything in Designer with your own sbsars   before it starts to be helpful.     Needed a planar projection  recently . Ended up recreating it in Designer  because in Painter it's always blurry  and you don't have a huge spare resolution like in MAri to compensate it.

I wish Substance Designer just had  screen painting and brush system from 3d coat.     Hate Designer either but IMO it's  most tolerable of all of them combined so far. 

  My last hope on ChatGPT  .  Seems like more chances it will create you software you want    rather than a mess  human software engineers do  and  you waste your whole life adjusting to .   

haha yeah, different topic. but agreed most public sbsars are sorta useless and need to be redone to at least open parameters, or just enable the different mapping methods.

i don't get the whole "this is procedural!" thing while nothing but a handful of parameters can be tuned in the end.