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User Experience and suggestions


Gilded
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I just ordered 4 more Gigs of RAM and a 120 Gig SSD. Why you may ask? My file size has gone through the roof, and I'm working at as low of a resolution as I can manage along with instancing and caching.

The current file I'm working on is 1.5 Gigs. It takes several minutes to open and several minutes to save, and I have to close and reopen it regularly to salvage some system memory (lack of memory causes plenty of stability issues for me too). Given that I have about 8 different saves of the file at different times, this one piece is taking up a ridiculous amount of space.

I mentioned that it is not very high resolution.

Voxels are great for boolean operations and the freedom of topology, but I don't need (and certainly don't want) to lug around all of that voxel information once I establish my surface (especially since I will always end with purely surface information).

Speaking of which this leads to a concern with sculpting fidelity. I caught myself watching videos fondly of Modo's new multi-resolution sculpting in the downtime between loading files. The sculpting is clean and responsive and it is able to smooth out. I spend an increasing amount of time trying to get clean results, and once the voxel resolution goes up it become near impossible to avoid bumpy surfaces and to flatten/smooth things nicely.

Suggestions:

-The voxel aspect is great for blocking out a figure out of nothing as well as any booleans for combining or subtracting masses (also for the ability to import voxel scan data which I'm sure someday will be a major plus).

Once this step is complete though I feel voxels should be left completely behind and the sculpting switches entirely to a responsive surface sculpting mode which saves and stores as a mesh. Basically I feel that voxels should be pushed into the background a bit in the same way that ZSpheres are in the background for ZBrush. The user could merge to voxels while using the program when that functionality is needed, but should only have to save and load optimized meshes.

-The Sculpt and Paint and maybe even the Retopo room should merge. I found it silly that I had to be in a different room to move and adjust the underlying mesh while I paint deformation detail. I also found it silly that the retopo mesh doesn't sync up with the Sculp/Paint mesh. They are all supposed to be the same mesh, so why aren't they?

-Ptex. It has the potential to be amazing: gets rid of the need to layout UVs, optimizes texture space, and no seams. Ptex is currently not refined in 3dcoat: tight areas of the mesh produce terrible artifacts and large, shard-like displacements which make a mesh unusable. Displacement painting on the mesh needs to be improved: yet again, increased resolution equates to bumpyness without effective ways of smoothing. Ptex in 3dcoat does not currently handle tris although the format allows it; rather than subdivinding, having the ability to use Ptex on low-poly models with tris would be very helpful (especially if Ptex were included in game development).

-Organization. Currently when I have more than one mesh in the Paint room all of the layers are clumped together and not separated according to mesh. A standard folder and folder navigation system for brushes, materials, and any external files and libraries is a major priority. The entire brush library shouldn't have to load when starting the program; perhaps instead load the brush when it is selected.

Please consider these things; this really is one of my favorite programs, and I would like the best for it.

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Wait for the new liveclay and it should fix your performance issues with voxels.

I do not find it silly that I have to be in a different room to move a mesh while I'm painting. I'd never want to accidentally move my mesh while painting.

That's about all I can say as a new user! :D

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Move the mesh as in sculpt/adjust the base mesh, like using the move tool in zbrush. The room for moving the mesh surface is its own room apart from the one for painting normal/displacement details, so if I have multiple textures on a mesh and I want to adjust/sculpt on the actual base mesh geometry I have to switch rooms, giving a delay in between and not letting me see my normal/displacement/texture work. It's very annoying to adjust the underlying mesh while not knowing where the texture/normal/displacement/etc details are, and jumping back and forth is slow and clunky. The sculpt room is not a strong room on its own and the process could be streamlined, having one post-voxel or post-retopo room would be the way to go in my opinion. I'm excited for live clay, but I'll be even more so when booleans don't require merging into voxels (and when voxels can be avoided entirely in the process effectively for a detail and performance boost)

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If you don't like voxels why are you using 3d Coat? lol

I am not familar with zbrush, as the last time I used it was when it first came out, before z-spheres. You should be finished with your mesh BEFORE you start painting. Other than that I don't see why you need to adjust the base mesh while you are painting. Plus I don't know what you mean by not knowing where the textures are in sculpt mode, they show here on my 3d Coat.

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When you go in sculpt mode it displays the base mesh. I remember working on the details of a satyr in the paint room (it is not always feasible to do all of the details with voxels) and I wanted to adjust the face features (ie adjust the underlying mesh). The sculpt room didn't show the displacement info so I couldn't see where certain features were and how they looked as I adjusted the mesh. Also there was a significant delay switching between the rooms (I had a decent amount of textures) which became frustrating since I had to constantly go back and forth between the rooms to get things right. I don't see a reason for these rooms to be separate, especially since the sculpt room is very limited to begin with.

On the topic of voxels: Voxels are fantastic for basic things, but the performance gets out of control when you go on to do more complex things. Since most of the things I need to do require a decent amount of surface detail/resolution, increasing the resolution on the entire voxel mass is not efficient. The surface is what really matters (especially since the end product will almost always be a mesh), the workflow should reflect that. If it were possible to have flexible surface sculpting (topology independent) as well as allowing for boolean operations, then by all means that should replace voxels as the default 3dc workflow (with voxels being more in the background for specific voxel things like 3d scan data etc).

3dc is my program of choice, the point here is not to bash it. I want to see it get better. Ideally I could do all of my sculpting and detailing without worrying about topology or performance, do quick retopo, bake my details, paint and be on my way.

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Sorry again if I sound stupid but I have the same meshes in paint and sculpt with normal maps and all, do you have them turned off? Voxels do not work in the paint room for me. There is much debate about the sculpt room on other threads, so I'm not saying it's fully featured. Again, you shouldn't be adjusting your facial features while you are painting. The model should be done by then. You say sculpting and detailing, not sure what that refers to buy I assume you mean voxel sculpting on both accounts. So here's the workflow: Voxel sculpt, retopo, uvw, bake, paint, export.

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In this particular example the face is something that has very subtle spacing differences that change a lot about the look. It is not unusual or "against the rules" to shift facial geometry throughout the entire process or at the end to get a certain mood etc.

Now as for the topic: In a world of infinite resolution and performance, then the ideal you have stated (that you should put all of your detail in the voxel sculpt) may apply. The truth is that users can't afford to continually raise the resolution on a voxel sculpt high enough in order to get all of the clean nuances and details that are typically required (and even if they could, it's a very demanding and inefficient way of doing things). That's why a lot of the detail work is often reserved for after the retopo (for the normal details etc). If I could effectively sculpt all of the details in the beginning then I would certainly do that and be on my way.

Voxels are not an optimized system for getting the most out of surface details. Increasing the resolution on an entire chunk of voxels takes up a lot of resources (the higher the resolution gets, the more the difference between voxels and subdividing increases). Not to mention that sculpting through voxels does not have the fidelity of sculpting along a subdivided mesh (independent 3d coordinates versus connected tangential surface planes). Not to mention the file size gets out of control for even approaching moderately detailed scenes (like in the range of gigs, hopefully you don't mind waiting 5 mins for a scene to load and a minute switching between rooms if you don't have an ssd). So in reality what ends up happening is that users tend to make the main forms and the main details with voxels and then add and refine the rest post retopo (with the normal/disp map painting).

As far as the mesh showing in the sculpt room, I'm mostly referring to displacement details using Ptex. This isn't really a major point and it wasn't meant to be, the main point here is that the program would benefit from making the post-retopo work contained in one room. There is no reason why a user should have to load between two different rooms to turn on and off the visibility of the meshes they are working on or to do very basic mesh adjustments/manipulations. I'm not even talking about something more complex like posing (which shows how poorly featured the sculpt room is on its own), just very basic mesh management.

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