[Solved] how to smooth poly mesh in 3d-coat for render without upping poly count ?

[Daniel Tynan]

If any of you are Maya users, you will know that when modeling you can press "3" in maya to go into smooth mode.  if you had a simple cube it would become rounded into a ball unless you add in more edgeloops.  It does not add poly's just smooths out existing angles.   SO. . .how can I get the same effect in 3D-Coat with polygonal objects?  (I'm not talking about voxels here)   

 

I'm asking because I want to smooth preview an object in 3D-Coat  that I UV'ed and textured and use the render room too render it out in smoothed mode.  

 

Thank you,

Daniel

[A. Lynn]

Hey Daniel,

 

While I am a Maya User, I am still new to 3D Coat so I could be wrong here. That being said, my professors explained to me that hitting the 3 key is literally just the same thing as "Subdividing".  You might be able to duplicate your Retopo mesh, subdivide the duplicate, and then send that over to the Render room for an idea of what it would look like once "smoothed" in Maya. 

[TimmyZDesign]

Maya's "smooth preview" (pressing the 3 key) is actually subdividing the mesh twice (by default). Therefore you would have to subdivide twice in 3D-Coat to get the same effect.

[TimmyZDesign]

Oh sorry, I just checked and it seems that 3D-Coat will subdivide, but it won't smooth the mesh simultaneously when it subdivides. It will allow you to relax the mesh, or auto snap it to another internal high poly mesh, but it will not perform the same kind of subdivision smoothing that you get in Maya.

In other words, it is possible in Maya and Zbrush to subdivide with or without smoothing, but in 3D-Coat it only seems to perform the subdivision WITHOUT smoothing. At least I have not found a way to turn that on...

[Daniel Tynan]

Thanks Timmy. .  yeah if smooth subdivisions don't exist in 3D-Coat I guess that would be something to add to the new feature wish list.   I guess for now I'll just run the smooth mesh command in Maya on those parts and re-import into 3DC. 

 

By the way where is the subdivide tool for poly objects in 3DC?   I only know about the subdivide command in the voxels room.

Edited November 15, 2013 by Daniel Tynan

[AbnRanger]

There is a way to affect the "appearance" of the mesh in the viewport, by going to the VIEW menu >  Adjust Sub-patching. It's much more noticeable in Micro-vertex mode than Per Pixel Painting. You can see the difference when you are painting/sculpting with displacement. It's kind of like working with NURMS or TurboSmooth in Max. If you choose DISPLAY CAGE, you can see a version of original, lowpoly mesh, but then see a subdivided version in the viewport. If I remember correctly, this is roughly what you get when you hit the 3 key in Maya. You see the low poly wireframe, but it's actually displaying a subdivided version.

 

This Subpatching works in a similar way. You may have wireframe turned on, and see your low poly model, but as you sculpt/paint depth in the Paint Room, 3D Coat is using the subdivided model to display the depth. You can set a hotkey for that "Adjust Subpatch" option, by hovering over the menu item and hitting the END key on your keyboard > hit the key you want to assign it to.

 

I really would recommend reading about this part in the Manual. It was updated quite a bit for the V4 release and has some good to know info on this topic.

Edited November 15, 2013 by AbnRanger

[TimmyZDesign]

Wow thanks AbnRanger! I had been wondering what that "adjust sub patching" option was all about. I'll look into it, maybe it really is the same thing as Maya's smooth preview.

[AbnRanger]

Wow thanks AbnRanger! I had been wondering what that "adjust sub patching" option was all about. I'll look into it, maybe it really is the same thing as Maya's smooth preview.

You can test it by sculpting/painting some displacement on a model, then adjust the subpatch level. So, it's like using Turbosmooth in Max, with "Isoline Display" turned on, and you change the number of SubD levels. By the way, if anyone wants to read up on this more in the manual, I would recommend accessing the one available from the Mainpage, and going to page 134.

 

http://3d-coat.com/files/manual_4.0.pdf

Edited November 15, 2013 by AbnRanger

[TimmyZDesign]

By the way where is the subdivide tool for poly objects in 3DC? I only know about the subdivide command in the voxels room.

Yeah I was subdividing a mostly quad poly mesh, by using the Subdivide command in the Retopo Room of 3D-Coat. It is towards the bottom of the toolbar there. You can import a poly mesh into the Retopo Room and subdivide it with that Tool, and it will subdivide into quad polys, but will not smooth simultaneously.

Also (like you said) you can subdivide a poly mesh in the Voxel Room (in Surface Mode). The Subdivide Tool in that Room has options in the Tool Panel, and one of those options is "subdivide entire object". The drawback with that tool is that it only subdivides into triangles (not quads), but interestingly it DOES smooth and subdivide at the same time. The triangle limitation is a big drawback though.

I'm gonna try out the "adjust sub patch" thing now and will report back shortly...

[AbnRanger]

Yeah I was subdividing a mostly quad poly mesh, by using the Subdivide command in the Retopo Room of 3D-Coat. It is towards the bottom of the toolbar there. You can import a poly mesh into the Retopo Room and subdivide it with that Tool, and it will subdivide into quad polys, but will not smooth simultaneously. Also (like you said) you can subdivide a poly mesh in the Voxel Room (in Surface Mode). The Subdivide Tool in that Room has options in the Tool Panel, and one of those options is "subdivide entire object". The drawback with that tool is that it only subdivides into triangles (not quads), but interestingly it DOES smooth and subdivide at the same time. The triangle limitation is a big drawback though. I'm gonna try out the "adjust sub patch" thing now and will report back shortly...

Actually, when you are using the MERGE tool in the Voxel Room, hitting SUBDIVIDE does indeed use Catmull Clark quad subdivision. It gets triangulated ONLY when you commit it to a layer (in the Vox Tree Panel) by hitting APPLY (in the Tool Options Panel) or the ENTER key.

 

What I would recommend is practically any time you try to MERGE a model into the Voxel Room, and you know you want to subdivide it a time or two (to remove faceting) before you commit it to a voxel layer, then import that model into the Retopo Room FIRST. Why? So you can apply some additional (supporting) edgeloops around hard edges, lips, eyelids....any parts that get smoothed too much when Subdividing. Then go to the Voxel Room > click on the MERGE tool and at the bottom of the Tool Options panel, choose PICK FROM RETOPO. You can either subdivide the mesh in the Retopo Room after you've added your re-enforcing edgeloops, or after clicking on the Pick from Retopo option in the Voxel Room.

[digman]

I will add one thing to the adjust sub-patch, you can use it with Show displace mesh under the View menu. Now you have fairly decent looking displacement in PPP mode. Great for checking out heights which are harder to see with regular normal maps.

 

I even use it to to some sculpting in PPP mode...

 

Export the exr displacement map out. Load the model into MV mode applying the displacement map and then export that model out as a high polygon model for further work in the voxel/ surface mode room. A way of experimenting with a concept first in PPP mode...

[michalis]

Export the exr displacement map out. Load the model into MV mode applying the displacement map and then export that model out as a high polygon model for further work in the voxel/ surface mode room. A way of experimenting with a concept first in PPP mode...

 

YES!!!