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3D-Coat 3.7 updates thread


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Ok just tried this and its Very very good.Great speed ,Everything works as it should and fast too .

You've outdone yourself this time Andrew .This is A LOT better than zbrush's polypaint system by far .Zbrush's polypaint layer system is very buggy with a lot less features.

I cant believe how quickly you implemented this too.You are one ninja coder.

Thanks!

It is still not optimized, still single - core. Will be optimized a lot in terms of speed.

One suggestion ( although it may already be possible ) .I can increase the resolution using LC with a zero depth setting but the tesselation depends on brush size and trying to cover a large area with a small brush takes a long time and the tesselation is uneven .Is there any way to mask off an area and increase the resolution ?

good idea.

Also did a quick test exporting the model and to try and bake it in Xnormal but it seems that the vertex colours dont get exported with the mesh .Is there some way I can export a vertex coloured obj mesh?

Thanks so much for all the hard work.

Vertex color is not exported now. But will do that soon. Not sure OBJ supports it...

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Thanks!

It is still not optimized, still single - core. Will be optimized a lot in terms of speed.

good idea.

Vertex color is not exported now. But will do that soon. Not sure OBJ supports it...

yes OBJ does support it as I export models from zbrush and bake in Xnormal using the bake vertex colours option.

Also is there a way to split up a surface model to separate layers keeping the vertex colours intact ?....Ive looked but I cant find a cut and clone counterpart for LC.

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sorry to spam but now you have implemented vertex colours ,a good thing to add would be to paint on a low poly retopo mesh to increase UV area from the ABF algorithm.I make games characters and when I layout my UVs in 3Dcoat I always increase the facial area's UVs to increase detail from a bake .Zbrush's UV master uses this method but to be honest using UV Master is like trying to perform surgery with mittens on so I never use it as I find it a lot quicker and more controlable in 3DCoat.

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yes OBJ does support it as I export models from zbrush and bake in Xnormal using the bake vertex colours option.

Also is there a way to split up a surface model to separate layers keeping the vertex colours intact ?....Ive looked but I cant find a cut and clone counterpart for LC.

It could be good if you will drop me any sample of OBJ with vertex color to support. It will help a lot.

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Pick color (V) don't take tool settings into account, if you uncheck "choose color from all layers" and take color it's ok, but if you call the tool with the shortcut it ignores those settings resulting in always taking black.

seems neat, not being able to color pick was very frustrating though. I'm not keen on changing my settings by the chance that I screw up my regular painting routine, but I'll have to look into some more.

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As a 2D painter, I thank you for polypainting for it increases the range of 2D art using 3D elements without the added time of retopoing and uv map making. Polypainting as it matures and coupled with a improved renderer, plug-in renderer or external render will have a wide range of use in the professional illustration field and simply a boon to artist who want 3d sculpts but do not want to retopo and uv map.

This is not to be taken as a war between using retopoing and uv maps. My comment is only that it increases the range of possible artistic and business applications. :drinks:

Any bugs I find will be posted to mantis...

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It could be good if you will drop me any sample of OBJ with vertex color to support. It will help a lot.

Ok Ive created several unit cubes .1 without ,1 with a combination of colours ,1 colour on maximum 2 vertices using ,full red(255,0,0) full green ( 0,255,0) ...etc

Also Ive created a cube for each colour ( full RED,GREEN,BLUE,WHITE and BLACK)

http://www.fileserve.com/file/GWeeQ4m/VColor cube examples.rar

hope this helps

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Hi Andrew,

Congratulations on the new update - it works incredibly well considering it's the first build with voxel painting! I'm quite surprised by the speed and fluidity of the brushes - it really is very slick for the most part (large brushes still slow down quite a lot but it's a fantastic update).

After painting for the past 30 minutes or so, I have a couple of thoughts/suggestions that I'd like to share:

- 'Flat Shade' view doesn't work and for me, it's critical for texture painting otherwise it's impossible to accurately judge colours etc. I've noticed that unless you set up the brightness correctly, it's very easy for brighter colours to appear over-bright and burn out. Ideally, there'd be a few shaders to allow us to see some shading and form but without it greatly impacting the application of colour.

- Changing the voxel resolution currently loses anything you paint - would be great if 3D Coat could retain what it can..

- How about the ability to paint and store voxel masks so that we can use them when sculpting? Not sure how it'd be integrated but it'd be a wonderful feature.

Thanks!

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After playing with it for a bit I'm very pleased with the speed of it. I haven't been able to test at very high resolutions yet and there are obviously a few bugs, but very few bugs concidering its the first release of a beta. Good job Andrew!

This is the same technique I used to texture my orc avatar back in the day, but it was very difficult since after just a few dozen strokes the brush would start to slow down immensely and keep getting slower until it was nearly unusable. With the voxel painting it looks like every stroke is as smooth as the first one.

http://screencast.com/t/q5kkhF3lkTm

The only downside I see now is that there now depth or spec, only color (for now at least)

Edit: BTW it crashes when attempting to use cavity paint.

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Yes, after giving it a run short through, not bad at all for a first beta release. Low smooth shade (flat shade) is a must as John Kearney mentioned if it is possible.

I took my wip bracelet and threw some colors on it. A gold shader was the base. Speed was not to bad even on my single core windows machine for smaller brushes. I did noticed in areas of denser polygon count the brush would slow down.

Polypaint beta is single core driven at the moment, but Andrew said that will change...

Congrats Andrew!

Picture is a quick paint polypaint, Rendered in 3DCoat, A gradient was added in TB to established a light source and neutralize the colors...

post-518-0-72074500-1326239360_thumb.jpg

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AbnRanger, we all must speak our minds as you have done. To argue for the problem areas you address so firmly in an attempt to help a developer understand, Andrew in this case. is something you must do as the problems effect you and others. I think your frustration just boils over to Polypainting. To many it is not a novelity. If it had not been polypainting at this moment. another new feature could have taken the heat from you as well. Timing is what you are really taking about. What comes first, second etc and the problems have been around for awhile.

"The above is not meant to dismiss your concerns."

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- 'Flat Shade' view doesn't work and for me, it's critical for texture painting otherwise it's impossible to accurately judge colours etc. I've noticed that unless you set up the brightness correctly, it's very easy for brighter colours to appear over-bright and burn out. Ideally, there'd be a few shaders to allow us to see some shading and form but without it greatly impacting the application of colour.

- Changing the voxel resolution currently loses anything you paint - would be great if 3D Coat could retain what it can..

- How about the ability to paint and store voxel masks so that we can use them when sculpting? Not sure how it'd be integrated but it'd be a wonderful feature.

Really good points there. And have to agree with everyone else. Very impressive first beta. This opens a new door for creative artists. Keep it up Andrew and Raul!

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I'm sending Andrew a little test file, I am not able to merge painted voxels to the paint room after retopo. It goes extremely slow until it hits 99% and then just freezes up in Microvertex, Per-pixel eventually worked if I let it go long enough. One time locked up my PC.

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I know Andrew did not say you could bake the polypaint colors to a low polygon mesh as of yet but you can do it. Of course there could many problems but it was an interesting find and only a test.

What I did:

After painting I hid the voxel object under the view menu. It removes the voxel object from the objects tab.

I kept the polypaint layers.

I then merged in the normal fashion for PPP painting.

The polypaint layers remain and the new normal map etc layers were added to the list.

I then exported a color and a normal map. It worked.

I rendered the model in an external renderer.

Now the model is funky as I had only the ring section retopoed and uv map and the map was low resolution. It was a test for baking the polypainting to a low polygon model with a uv map that was all.

So internally it appears that 3DCoat has a way of baking the polypainting to a low polygon mesh, though Andrew would be the only one give a clear answer on this and it might work not well at all but this was only one test but it is of interest.

@Phil. I see you had success too but it is slow as I'm sure it is not optimized. I have not tried dispIacement. I had to make sure that the voxel object was hidden by going to the view menu and deselecting "show voxels in paint room" or 3DCoat would lock up when I tried to merge.

post-518-0-79492600-1326253558_thumb.jpg

post-518-0-24480100-1326253575_thumb.jpg

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Yes, I assumed it was to be so too but Andrew did not mention he had included the ability to do so in this first beta release. I was just letting others know you could and maybe preventing a few lockups

"Painting doesn't do much good if you can't export it"

Art is always envolving. At one time a lot of art was done on canvas or paper. Computer graphics came along we had another art revolution in the way we use and precieve art.

We are at another threshold, one day I see artists using 3D sculpting / 3D paint programs with internal renderers of the first quality using polypainting. No thought given to retopos, uv maps or textures maps to create their art. That day is still in the future.

Please do not assume that I'm against the world of retopo, uv and textures map. It would not make good business sense to do that, they will always be a part of the industry as oil and watercolor are still with us even though we have powerfull paint programs. I'm excited for the abiltiy not to have to make a retopo,uv and texture map. I'm feel like the first few people who put their canvas in the closet and started using computers to create their art. Deluxe paint, anyone? :D

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I know this won't be popular among some (and probably not even Andrew), but this is the very thing I was afraid of. The first build hasn't even been out a full day yet, and already dozens of additional requests and complaints. This is going to be a MAJOR undertaking to get it right. Meanwhile, those of us who have been waiting for a LOOOOOOONG time for simple updates to CUDA or attention given to the Paint Room (layer panel is chock full of lengthy delays and sliders that just don't freakin work), now see this shiny new novelty come out of nowhere and jump to the front of the line. To keep it in perspective, for those of you who asked Andrew for this...imagine him suddenly dropping further development and leaving it tabled for a few years, while a multitude of other features take it's place in the list of priorities.

CUDA used to be a major selling point of the application...and has since been treated like a hand-me-down toy that the owner has outgrown. Andrew stated OVER A YEAR AGO that CUDA had not yet been optimized in the Voxel Room (still coded for the earliest versions of CUDA...there have been several major new advancements since). and for it's usage to be expanded to the Paint Room. That one feature has far greater implications and potential benefits for the application and ALL users....than some frivolous novelty like Polypainting. I'm sorry, but this is one area of ZBrush I could do without. Andrew spent lots of development time just to offer BETTER solutions than poly painting. Why now do we suddenly need it...when we have MUCH, MUCH bigger fish to fry?

Performance and stability might not be the most exciting/pleasant things for a developer to pursue, but if you are still trying to play catch up with your competitors in those areas, all the new features in the world won't change people's perception (in the industry). What's more, is you stand to lose even your most loyal users if you continue to ignore these key areas. Lightwave users know this predicament quite well. There are some core features they've literally been waiting on for years and years, and STILL don't have. They lost a massive chunk of their current userbase while becoming less and less relevant in the industry.

There is reason why CUDA performance is not updated. If I will spend 2-3 weeks if will speed up 20%. And if I will not tell you will not even notice it... So I will find better application of 2-3 weeks.

Color painting is not just following someones request but what I was planning for years. So it is not "just one more feature".

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...

- How about the ability to paint and store voxel masks so that we can use them when sculpting? Not sure how it'd be integrated but it'd be a wonderful feature.

Thanks!

Why are you not using the regular mask tool in the paint room? It's much stronger than the basic surface tools masks, because you can save the masks and it is corresponding now with the surface mode! Means: You paint a mask in paint room: It works in surface mode too. You freeze something one in surface mode: It works in paint mode...

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I know this won't be popular among some (and probably not even Andrew), but this is the very thing I was afraid of. The first build hasn't even been out a full day yet, and already dozens of additional requests and complaints. This is going to be a MAJOR undertaking to get it right. Meanwhile, those of us who have been waiting for a LOOOOOOONG time for simple updates to CUDA or attention given to the Paint Room (layer panel is chock full of lengthy delays and sliders that just don't freakin work), now see this shiny new novelty come out of nowhere and jump to the front of the line. To keep it in perspective, for those of you who asked Andrew for this...imagine him suddenly dropping further development and leaving it tabled for a few years, while a multitude of other features take it's place in the list of priorities.

CUDA used to be a major selling point of the application...and has since been treated like a hand-me-down toy that the owner has outgrown. Andrew stated OVER A YEAR AGO that CUDA had not yet been optimized in the Voxel Room (still coded for the earliest versions of CUDA...there have been several major new advancements since). and for it's usage to be expanded to the Paint Room. That one feature has far greater implications and potential benefits for the application and ALL users....than some frivolous novelty like Polypainting. I'm sorry, but this is one area of ZBrush I could do without. Andrew spent lots of development time just to offer BETTER solutions than poly painting. Why now do we suddenly need it...when we have MUCH, MUCH bigger fish to fry?

Performance and stability might not be the most exciting/pleasant things for a developer to pursue, but if you are still trying to play catch up with your competitors in those areas, all the new features in the world won't change people's perception (in the industry). What's more, is you stand to lose even your most loyal users if you continue to ignore these key areas. Lightwave users know this predicament quite well. There are some core features they've literally been waiting on for years and years, and STILL don't have. They lost a massive chunk of their current userbase while becoming less and less relevant in the industry.

This is NOT A NOVELTY this is a MAJOR FEATURE .If you had any experience of using zbrush for any length of time then you would understand why.

To illustrate why this is a must have I will explain to you why this is so .

Firstly as you do not need to retopo and UV to start painting ,this saves at least half a day of work.

Secondly it is resolution independent,now imagine you have created your retopo mesh and uv'd and start painting ,you have a fixed resolution to work with so you decide before hand what resolution you want to work with and now you are stuck in that resolution ,halfway through painting you find that you cant paint fine enough detail on specific area's .So then you have to either res up your textures or reconfigure your UVs and rebake which causes degradation to the textures.

Being able to paint directly onto the mesh and increasing the tesselation in specific areas is a lot more efficient and FASTER....time is money.

Another thing is that a lot of the professionals who use 3DCoat dont use it exclusively, they ,like myself use zbrush aswell .But a major failing with Zbrush and has been for quite a lot of years is the layer system with polypainting...in short ... its very buggy and using it for any length of time introduces all kinds of artifacts.So being able to export a model from zbrush to finish painting in 3DCoat with a great painting system is definately a licence seller and Im pretty sure as soon as Andrew implements import and export of vertex colour embedded OBJ's he will sell a lot more licenses which is the major reason he does what he does.

Also the polypainting system also is one short step from something a lot more powerful .That is the ability to boolean painted meshes which I see as the holy grail as it would save people a lot of time.

I just have to say that there is something that really annoys me about a select few on these boards ,and you exemplify it.I know that you are a major contributor and you have helped a lot of people in the past ,me included and I thank you for it .But I think that some people on these boards really do overstep the mark in terms of critisism of Andrew , and should think before posting.You are getting a lot of features for a small amount of money and the rate at which the features are added is a lot faster than any other 3D program I know of.If 3DCOAT was owned by Illuminatidesk you'd really be moaning.

So before posting please think and do so like a gentleman.

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how long would it take to implement the ability to save all options relating to a brush, to a brush library ? this would be beyond huge.

+1 But I think that will be implemented soon !?

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This is NOT A NOVELTY this is a MAJOR FEATURE .

Secondly it is resolution independent,now imagine you have created your retopo mesh and uv'd and start painting ,you have a fixed resolution to work with so you decide before hand what resolution you want to work with and now you are stuck in that resolution ,halfway through painting you find that you cant paint fine enough detail on specific area's .So then you have to either res up your textures or reconfigure your UVs and rebake which causes degradation to the textures.

Being able to paint directly onto the mesh and increasing the tesselation in specific areas is a lot more efficient and FASTER....time is money.

Also the polypainting system also is one short step from something a lot more powerful .That is the ability to boolean painted meshes which I see as the holy grail as it would save people a lot of time.

These alone are major feature upgrades. Not having to worry about your texture sizes. I presume, once a solid export option is introduced, it would give you the option to choose texture sizes?

Super work Andrew.

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I am basically a brand new user to 3dCoat I bought it for what it could do when I bought it, and I thought this is neat.Then, whats this you are sneaking out on me ...painting straight on the mesh ..wow ! Thats just gravy isnt it?

I really dont know how Mr Shpagin finds the time to deal with it all. Hats off to you Andrew!

( try asking for something for Carrara and see how long you have to wait, then you get something you REALLY dont need or want!)

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