Do you have CUDA? Also check in the Voxels menu and make sure the Incremental Render box is checked. This basically does what you asked with the voxel grid updates, except what it does is only updates the area immediately around the brush for each stroke. You can see this if you turn off the symmetry plane, it still stays there until you rotate the camera but if you don't touch the a camera and start working in that area, you'll see only the immediate area around the bush is being updated.
The only time I really see this pause it's only for a split second and it's only when I'm using a large brush on a very dense mesh.
I actually think it used to be like that in the alpha when he just introduced the voxel sculpting. Unless I'm actually crazy and imagining things.
I remember wondering where the feature went when I tried V3 first anyways. There were separate sets of buttons for voxel scultping and surface sculpting. Would love to see this back!
This feature has now become a full mode. Look at the Vox Tree, right next to the name for each object is a Cube icon, showing that you're in voxel mode. Click it and it will change to a squiggly line, showing that object is now in Surface mode. Surface mode is great for smoothing a thin area out without punching a hole in it.
3D Coat 3.1.03 released with a bunch of bug fixes and a few new features. Here's a quick vid showing the new Rasp-File tool as well as more about the Muscles that I missed in the last vid.
- Massive improvements in curves tool. Curves got 4 modes: extrude, move, rotate, scale to build mesh base rapidly and have very good control over the curve.
- Moving points in curve tool improved - if you will click and drag point handler will not appear but point will be moved in screen space. You can constraint movements with keys 'X', 'Y', 'Z' or using combination of them.
- New checker in curve tool - "Stick to ground" to fit curve better to the surface if need
- Full support of Drag&drop of files from explorer to 3D-Coat done. You can open or merge 3B files, models for painting and voxeling, create pens, assign reference images, create new layrs with texture, create materials, masks, fill fields with filenames. You can drop directly to viewport, then you will be asked how to use object or drop image/object to specific place like materials/pens/masks palette to perform action immediately without questions. Drag&drop supports dropping images not only from file explorer but from web too! For example find some image in google images and drop directly to 3DC without saving it to file!
- I improved cutting of with lasso in voxel room - use CTRL+SHIFT to cut off what is beyond lasso.
- fixed: incorrect preview of fill mode in microvertex painting
- fixed: sometimes splitting face in retopo tool resulted with 2 faces in different retopo groups.
- fixed incorrect combining retopo layers with Shift+Drag
Curves changes are not final - some additional changes are required there. I am trying to make it really perfect.
Version 3.1.05 released. Linux version update comes tomorrow.
- fixed most important and BIG Linux bug - point at the beginning of the stroke
- Curve tool usability improved essentially taking into account all requests.
- Save/Load buttons in curve tool
- Bug prevented drag&drop in many cases fixed.
- Also the reason will be displayed - why drag and drop failed if it happened. Some recommendations will be given automatically.
- fixed: Smoothing speed was working incorrect in muscle/rasp-file tool
- fixed: symmetry plane was not updated in primitives and curves tool after merging
- fixed: Sphere primitive does not respect symmetry
- fixed: crash in "Make symm" that happened if source side was empty (mentioned by haikalle).
- symmetry plane shift fixed in clone and degrade
- fixed: bug in retopo tool, pints and quads, when you was trying to zoom with RMB over the model.
- same navigation bug fixed in curves tool.
I just finished my first production asset with this software today. Voxel sculpt to retopo, send to uvlayout and back, bake color, normals and AO, then paint. Cavity painting over normal maps is the shit!
UVlayout was the only real detour I had to take and that was painless. I think I'll do my next personal piece completely in 3dc though just to give the uv tools a real test and then give feedback on where they need work. They seem to be the weakest link in the software at the moment.
The new curve tools are much better for blocking out characters now. Very easy to sketch out a rough skeleton and then just start sculpting.
That's cool, I was thinking of approaching my evaluation more from a workflow perspective though... selection/manipulation of unwrapped pieces etc. Not to duplicate UVlayout by any stretch but basically just make it more desirable to keep that part of the process in 3dc as well. I haven't touched the UVs since before 3 shipped though so he may well have already handled it. =]
I see. honestly I haven't really used the UVs myself much, I was using LightWave and the PLG plugins to do it, but I know he has updated it it. There's a new gizmo for adjusting UV islands, I saw that much.
Yeah I'm really happy with the UV updates so far. I used to take my model out of 3DC to do the UVs in LightWave. In my current project I didn't have to do that, it's been in 3DC since it started.
Latest update makes the surface sculpting mode much more useful, in tandem with voxels. Andrew added a 'chisel' brush, which works similar to the ZB polish brush when in surface mode, but overall I'm just liking how the surface mode has more familiar brushes that produce expected results.
I'm starting to develop a fairly seamless workflow between voxels for their unlimited freeform nature, and surface mode for fine tuning using more familiar and capable polygon tools. The switch between the two is fairly seamless so I'm finding I go back and forth without thinking now, depending on what I want. If I need more volume I work in voxels, if I need to refine I toggle the surface mode. Pretty cool!
Can't wait till he adds multi-resolution to the surface mode, along with vertex painting.
just check out the website and or some youtube videos. It can do many things, is cheaper and might fill gaps between certain techniques better as other tools.
as long as they make it a request not not try to force people to be moral in their sense of the term, I'm okay with it.
i'm just testint the latest trial, is there any way to increase the density of the quadrangulation mesh? not matter what i set up, the same mesh comes out and it is very rough, way too rough for my purpose
Pior, well dunno... i have a mesh from zbrush, its a toony cave interior, very flowy, very smooth forms, now what i want to do, is shortcut the retopopart, as its a cave, i just need the forms, not a superfancy animatable topology. So i thought i'd import that to 3dcoat and use the quadrangualte feature to automaticly create a topo over it, but its waaaaay too simple and loses a lot of forms.
@Autopsy: i haven't either, but thatd be my best guess in any other package
Well I did exactly that on that hairstyle I was doing and it worked fine - no need for retopo, just procedural quads. Not perfect of course esp for a character but for a cave it should be just fine.
Can you send me an obj of a similar mesh you try to convert? I'll see how it behaves in my current 3DC copy (not the latest).
That is odd... I thought you could control padding too... maybe it was just for baking. Either way, I just tried to paint outside the uv borders in the UVTexture window as well and it wouldn't let me. I'll definitely request this in the feedback forum if you haven't already.
Neox: the Quadrangulate settings are pretty useless I've found. What I do to get around those and retain some detail from a voxel mesh is to subdivide the quadrangulated mesh after it is generated. You can do that using the retopo tools. It's a general solution though since you really have no control over density in specific areas unless you delete those and retopo them by hand. But it does work if you are just looking for a fast way to retopo and retain some detail from the original.
James: Subdivisions won't help as i'v already lost forms, subidiving won't give me those shapes back, maybe scaling the voxel will help, its worth a shot, but i kinda doubt it. But maybe overall i expect too much and would have to retope large portions anyways. But maybe 3dcoat gives me the quick start i expected after all, i doubt i can get around without working on it at all
Pior: sure, do you have zbrush3.5r3? because the file is way smaller as a .ztl then in an obj, oh and do you have some sort of messenger? would be a bit easier to talk about that, but don't want to bother you ^^
Neox: Sorry I meant subdividing the mesh from the retopology tools... it should stick to the voxel mesh underneath as you rez it up, and soak up details from that mesh. The more you subdivide it the more it resembles the voxel sculpt... though 3dcoat doesn't do so hot with higher density polygon meshes... at least on the machines I work with. You should still be able to get 2 or 3 subdivisions out of it though - enough to get your forms back.
AutopsySoldier: My experience is that 3dC only applies the padding once you export your texture, so while you've got a visible seam currently, that may change when you save out that texture.
Yeah, I'm really impressed with 3d coat, but it runs really poorly on my computer. My computer is really powerful as well, so its incredibly annoying that I have performance issues. For example if I use the sphere tool to make voxel spheres on the fly, if I simply sketch across the screen in lags or completely freezes the program up.
I have a 285gtx graphic card, 16 gigs of ram, 3.0 quad core processor, and I'm running windows 7 64 bit.
I have read that 3d Coat does not support hyperthreading, therefore, multicore systems are actually a bad thing. Could this be causing my problems?
I watched some tutorials out there, and it seemed that the people running the tutorials had way better performance than I currently have. Anyways, anyone else have similar issues?
Wow that's a shame to hear. My PC isn't quite as powerful as yours but it handles voxels like warm butter, same on my laptop. I'm running a Core 2 Quad 2.4GHz 64 bit CPU, 6GB ram with an older 8800GTS card. Are you using the CUDA version? Your card should be compatible. If you're using the Direct X version try the Open GL one or vice-versa.
Perhaps your brush size is too big. Here's a little video example, while I have a 10 million triangle object open the Sphere tool works great with smaller sized brushes but it does lag a bit at larger sizes.
I bought 3dcoat in its 3.0 beta stage, thinking it could make me forget zbrush in the near future.
Except its retopo and paint tools that have pretty much everything i want, i'm still waiting to have a "clay feeling" with the brush engine. Even sculptris is more what i want and its only alpha 3.
A shame that Andrew is working on "cool-but-absolutely-not-needed-ptex" and not on the vox sculpt capabilities of the program...
Well ptex is like 95% done now. Personally I love how the brushes feel. I've been playing with sculptris since it was first released and I'm sorry to say, while it's a cool idea and I wish him luck with it, it feels like sculpting on a water balloon to me at this stage.
I guess the idea with Ptex is that it will allow Andrew to finally get some kind of multiple resolutions going for voxel sculpting, like Zbrush's subdivisions. Also some proper masking tools would be welcome. Its pretty darn hard to sculpt without that. Cutting and pasting vox objects to work around its inability to mask is a massive pain in the ass. Also the constant artifacts I get while sculpting make it more of a chore to work with than any of the other sculpting solutions I've used.
That said...I'm still only using it for retopo, uv's and occasional diffuse painting. I'm kinda ticked that he's, so far, completely ignored the multiple requests for full color per pixel spec w/ gloss control. Without that, its not a fully functional next-gen asset painter. I thought that was supposed to be its core competency...
I don't see how Ptex would help multi-res sculpting, it has nothing to do with it. Besides, the base code for multi-res is already there in the voxel room (Surface mode). I personally don't see the real need for it, but I may find a use for it occasionally.
I've never seen those requests. I doubt he's "ignoring" anything. He said a few times in the past that his method of working is that he'll get inspired to work on something and that's what he'll work on for a while. Right now that's Ptex. Feature requests are probably where he gets much of that inspiration since quite a few of my requests have been implemented.
I don't see how Ptex would help multi-res sculpting, it has nothing to do with it. Besides, the base code for multi-res is already there in the voxel room (Surface mode). I personally don't see the real need for it, but I may find a use for it occasionally.
I've never seen those requests. I doubt he's "ignoring" anything. He said a few times in the past that his method of working is that he'll get inspired to work on something and that's what he'll work on for a while. Right now that's Ptex. Feature requests are probably where he gets much of that inspiration since quite a few of my requests have been implemented.
Phil there are a few threads about coloured spec on the 3dcoat forums eg http://www.3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=3561 which Im also curious to see get more attention as its actually a useful feature right now not like some of the other features which are more experimental.
Hmm OK I think I actually have seen that thread I probably just didn't remember it because I've never needed that feature. Ptex on the other hand I'm really happy to have, I wish I had it when I was doing the orc in my avatar.
but in the end you have to unwrap some mesh anyway if you want to bake it and use it for real time graphics.
Ptex will start to get interesting when more tools support it and it becomes a viable option in the asset workflow or pipeline.
Photoshop for example could use a serious update into the digital CG corner like a better 3D support, navigation and perhaps even a support for the Ptex format.
Kinda sad that 3dcoat is the only 3rd party app that adopted this new tech so fast.
Wow that's a shame to hear. My PC isn't quite as powerful as yours but it handles voxels like warm butter, same on my laptop. I'm running a Core 2 Quad 2.4GHz 64 bit CPU, 6GB ram with an older 8800GTS card. Are you using the CUDA version? Your card should be compatible. If you're using the Direct X version try the Open GL one or vice-versa.
Well, I believe you were correct, it was because I was using too large of brushes. Using small brushes is very fluid and I don't have the problem mentioned earlier at all. I still would sort of expect a little better performance than what I get, but perhaps I don't fully realize what is happening with these voxels.
Anyways, I am using the 64 bit version, but not the CUDA 64 bit version. I tried to install CUDA a while back and shortly after my computer started getting blue screen errors. It might have simply been by coincidence and not had anything to do with CUDA at all. But I can't really risk it, since I make a living off my computer, and I need it working at all times.
My review on 3d Coat:
I still prefer using good old mudbox for my sculpts. Mainly because I believe that working with subdivisions is a bonus actually, as it lets you refine every sub-d more and more. And if done correctly actually gives you more control. However, I think Voxels are ideal for creating base meshes on which to sculpt, and general 3d concepting. Also, certain things that would be a huge pain to create hardsurface wise in 3ds max, would be ridiculously easy in 3d coat by just joining objects or using the booleans.
Plus, I really like the retopo tools, and I'm going to have to give em a go sometime to see if I prefer it over 3ds max 2010 tools. Painting wise, I prefer bodypaint for sure, I'm just used to it and it has everything I need. Mudbox is actually quite nice at times as well painting wise, because you can view your normals real time while you work.
But there are certainly enough things happening with 3d coat that I am convinced that it will help me out. I'll probably pickup a copy when my trial period runs out.
but in the end you have to unwrap some mesh anyway if you want to bake it and use it for real time graphics.
Ptex will start to get interesting when more tools support it and it becomes a viable option in the asset workflow or pipeline.
Photoshop for example could use a serious update into the digital CG corner like a better 3D support, navigation and perhaps even a support for the Ptex format.
Kinda sad that 3dcoat is the only 3rd party app that adopted this new tech so fast.
I agree that it would be great to see more packages using Ptex. Not sure what unwrapping you mean though. I haven't tried using any Ptex exports in a game engine yet but I understand it works well.
BTW Brad you should start with a very low voxel resolution then you probably won't have that issue with the large brush, for example starting with the smallest of the sample spheres.
Phil: I detect the slightest whiff of defensiveness re: 3DC. Thats really not necessary. My understanding was that Andrew was coming up with some novel combination of quadrangulate, ptex and voxel multi-res to enable smooth transitions back and forth between low and high detail vox resolutions. Also, if you can auto quadrangulate the model, ptex it to address texture coordinates, that might be a first step towards proper masking.
As for "never needing it" re: colored spec...try doing some real work for a next-gen game or high end off-line rendering and then tell us how unimportant colorization of your specular values are...or per-pixel gloss control.
Well that's why I specified that I personally have never needed the coloured spec, obviously some other people are interested in it. As for the multi-res maybe that's true, I just haven't heard it before. I do understand there may be some trouble with mipmapping in game engines, but I haven't tried it so I'm not sure how bad that is.
Replies
The only time I really see this pause it's only for a split second and it's only when I'm using a large brush on a very dense mesh.
This feature has now become a full mode. Look at the Vox Tree, right next to the name for each object is a Cube icon, showing that you're in voxel mode. Click it and it will change to a squiggly line, showing that object is now in Surface mode. Surface mode is great for smoothing a thin area out without punching a hole in it.
Here's a little video example:
http://screencast.com/t/84AiayFKWfh
http://vimeo.com/6418098
http://www.3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=3594
http://vimeo.com/6508309
UVlayout was the only real detour I had to take and that was painless. I think I'll do my next personal piece completely in 3dc though just to give the uv tools a real test and then give feedback on where they need work. They seem to be the weakest link in the software at the moment.
The new curve tools are much better for blocking out characters now. Very easy to sketch out a rough skeleton and then just start sculpting.
new tools like this one look useful
http://www.screencast.com/users/PalSan/folders/Jing/media/6a1b5c8c-3388-4423-b909-a048f089fa09
I'm starting to develop a fairly seamless workflow between voxels for their unlimited freeform nature, and surface mode for fine tuning using more familiar and capable polygon tools. The switch between the two is fairly seamless so I'm finding I go back and forth without thinking now, depending on what I want. If I need more volume I work in voxels, if I need to refine I toggle the surface mode. Pretty cool!
Can't wait till he adds multi-resolution to the surface mode, along with vertex painting.
as long as they make it a request not not try to force people to be moral in their sense of the term, I'm okay with it.
I downloaded the demo and been trying it out but I get this stupid seam where the UV seams are. I thought you used this software to paint away seams?
I have this image, it's kinda hard to see....but I can't seem to paint a few pixels away from the UV seam edge....anyone experience this?
I have no idea how to do that.
@Autopsy: i haven't either, but thatd be my best guess in any other package
Can you send me an obj of a similar mesh you try to convert? I'll see how it behaves in my current 3DC copy (not the latest).
Neox: the Quadrangulate settings are pretty useless I've found. What I do to get around those and retain some detail from a voxel mesh is to subdivide the quadrangulated mesh after it is generated. You can do that using the retopo tools. It's a general solution though since you really have no control over density in specific areas unless you delete those and retopo them by hand. But it does work if you are just looking for a fast way to retopo and retain some detail from the original.
http://www.3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=4663
Unfortunately I haven't had any feedback on it.
I really would like to buy it, the retopo tools are freaking awesome!
Pior: sure, do you have zbrush3.5r3? because the file is way smaller as a .ztl then in an obj, oh and do you have some sort of messenger? would be a bit easier to talk about that, but don't want to bother you ^^
I have a 285gtx graphic card, 16 gigs of ram, 3.0 quad core processor, and I'm running windows 7 64 bit.
I have read that 3d Coat does not support hyperthreading, therefore, multicore systems are actually a bad thing. Could this be causing my problems?
I watched some tutorials out there, and it seemed that the people running the tutorials had way better performance than I currently have. Anyways, anyone else have similar issues?
Perhaps your brush size is too big. Here's a little video example, while I have a 10 million triangle object open the Sphere tool works great with smaller sized brushes but it does lag a bit at larger sizes.
http://screencast.com/t/ZTEyMDgwYT
BTW version 3.2.05 was released today. It would be awesome if game engines started to handle Ptex, it would mean no more UV mapping.
Except its retopo and paint tools that have pretty much everything i want, i'm still waiting to have a "clay feeling" with the brush engine. Even sculptris is more what i want and its only alpha 3.
A shame that Andrew is working on "cool-but-absolutely-not-needed-ptex" and not on the vox sculpt capabilities of the program...
That said...I'm still only using it for retopo, uv's and occasional diffuse painting. I'm kinda ticked that he's, so far, completely ignored the multiple requests for full color per pixel spec w/ gloss control. Without that, its not a fully functional next-gen asset painter. I thought that was supposed to be its core competency...
I've never seen those requests. I doubt he's "ignoring" anything. He said a few times in the past that his method of working is that he'll get inspired to work on something and that's what he'll work on for a while. Right now that's Ptex. Feature requests are probably where he gets much of that inspiration since quite a few of my requests have been implemented.
Phil there are a few threads about coloured spec on the 3dcoat forums eg http://www.3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=3561 which Im also curious to see get more attention as its actually a useful feature right now not like some of the other features which are more experimental.
Ptex will start to get interesting when more tools support it and it becomes a viable option in the asset workflow or pipeline.
Photoshop for example could use a serious update into the digital CG corner like a better 3D support, navigation and perhaps even a support for the Ptex format.
Kinda sad that 3dcoat is the only 3rd party app that adopted this new tech so fast.
Well, I believe you were correct, it was because I was using too large of brushes. Using small brushes is very fluid and I don't have the problem mentioned earlier at all. I still would sort of expect a little better performance than what I get, but perhaps I don't fully realize what is happening with these voxels.
Anyways, I am using the 64 bit version, but not the CUDA 64 bit version. I tried to install CUDA a while back and shortly after my computer started getting blue screen errors. It might have simply been by coincidence and not had anything to do with CUDA at all. But I can't really risk it, since I make a living off my computer, and I need it working at all times.
My review on 3d Coat:
I still prefer using good old mudbox for my sculpts. Mainly because I believe that working with subdivisions is a bonus actually, as it lets you refine every sub-d more and more. And if done correctly actually gives you more control. However, I think Voxels are ideal for creating base meshes on which to sculpt, and general 3d concepting. Also, certain things that would be a huge pain to create hardsurface wise in 3ds max, would be ridiculously easy in 3d coat by just joining objects or using the booleans.
Plus, I really like the retopo tools, and I'm going to have to give em a go sometime to see if I prefer it over 3ds max 2010 tools. Painting wise, I prefer bodypaint for sure, I'm just used to it and it has everything I need. Mudbox is actually quite nice at times as well painting wise, because you can view your normals real time while you work.
But there are certainly enough things happening with 3d coat that I am convinced that it will help me out. I'll probably pickup a copy when my trial period runs out.
I agree that it would be great to see more packages using Ptex. Not sure what unwrapping you mean though. I haven't tried using any Ptex exports in a game engine yet but I understand it works well.
BTW Brad you should start with a very low voxel resolution then you probably won't have that issue with the large brush, for example starting with the smallest of the sample spheres.
Edit: BTW I just uploaded a video of my current 3DC WIP if anyone's interested. I'll use Ptex to texture him and render in LightWave.
[ame]
As for "never needing it" re: colored spec...try doing some real work for a next-gen game or high end off-line rendering and then tell us how unimportant colorization of your specular values are...or per-pixel gloss control.