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Trying to create a repeated pattern (scales), surface not getting what I need?


SanguineJackal
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Hi everyone,

 

I'm new to the forums and to 3DCoat. I just got the trial version last week and I am SUPER impressed. I am, however, having a bit of a hard time with something.

 

So my project will be needing a lot of fine details in it, but I have a lot of the important ones in it already. The face of this beast, for example, already has a good bit of detail.post-37725-0-17029200-1374087097_thumb.j

 

However, now I am trying to do a repeating pattern of scales that I made the alpha for in Photoshop. When I try to run the brush along the length of its snakelike body, it displaces the HECK out of everything and while the scales look good from the side (kind of), it looks like a seismograph if I rotate the view.

post-37725-0-76166500-1374087080_thumb.j

post-37725-0-60537500-1374087205_thumb.j

 

Now my big question is, would it be at all possible to use this brush in the Voxel sculpting to get this detail, rather than the surface mod options? The surface seems to bog my computer's memory down WAY worse than Voxels, too.

 

Or would it be possible to just apply the alpha as a bump map in this program, so I don't have to bother with exporting?

 

:x Sorry, I looked in the Help and it didn't seem to help me that much... I appreciate any feedback you can give me.

 

Thank you!

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You may have too much resolution on the object. Toggle wireframe (W key) and you can see if it's too dense for what you are trying to do. Resample it to a lower resolution (lower part of the Tool Panel), and use LiveClay, instead. You can check out these videos and maybe they will help a bit.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQroW1froTw&list=PL0614F2A03AD725CD&index=14

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bX5He53oFpk&list=PL0614F2A03AD725CD&index=26

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Another thing is your model is non-uniform at least on the body layer. The red coloring of those words is a warning. Check the bottom section of the interface and you can see the warning. I saw the warning in your image.

 

You have stretched the voxels along one axis... This will cause problems in sculpting and merging to the paint room.  Under voxtree menu, choose to uniform space or global space to correct the voxels.

 

Voxels are based off 3D Cubes and need to stay uniform. This goes the same for Surface mode as well which is polygon based. 

 

Also for the amount of detail you are going for, you have somewhat of voxel resolution overkill... Best plan with voxels is start with lower resolution and work your way up. Add only the amount of resolution you need for what you are sculpting at that stage...

 

This wip scene is at about 6,500,000 polygons in surface mode. I created the basic form and a large amount of medium details using the formula above. Now I can go to the next step for final details...

post-518-0-72799400-1374105036_thumb.png

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I don't think I've seen the knees turned into such formidable weapons! This guy is well endowed for close combat.

Ha. Ha. And if he gets hungry, he could use his helmet as a stove to cook on. :p: Sorry Digman. Just having fun......Tony got me started. :D

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LOL, It's alright, If he, the model can not take some good humour flak, then well I will just have to melt him down digitally...

 

You're right...we do NOT  want to offend the guy who could ruin your family planning with one knee strike. Please send our sincere apologies. :D

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Awesome, thank you guys so much for the input.

 

Since I have several layers of objects, it seems I have to resample them all individually... and yeah, the entire polycount on this mesh is pretty mind-boggling. So I'm resampling each to a much friendlier resolution, and it seems when I do so, it's making it uniform at the same time because that red warning goes away?

 

But yeah, it seems that the V next to the layers has changed to S (it popped up a warning about surface being lighter loads on the memory but not as good on detail or something? messing with the polygons themselves?). Is there a way to merge a few of my layers into a single object? I can't find that anywhere on the help either or in the menus. :x

 

EDIT: Okay now and it has my cursor stuck as something so I can't zoom in or out, just change the size of the cursor.... >_<

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Voxel Mode will be represented by a V on a given layer. Surface Mode, likewise an S. You can generally switch back and forth between them as needed, by clicking on those icons. Each mode works differently (Voxels are solid all the way through, with volumetric pixels), and has their own tradeoffs/advantages. There are a few ways to merge objects together. You can see a few here:

 

To merge layers together, there are a few ways you could handle that:

1: Hover your cursor over the layer you want to merge (to another) until you see a little MOVE icon > Hold the SHIFT key while you move it on top of the layer you want to merge to

 

2: Hide all the layers you do not want to merge > select one of the remaining (visible) layers > right-click and choose MERGE VISIBLE

 

3) Right-Click the layer you want to merge to another > choose MERGE TO > select the layer you want to merge it with

 

4) If you want to merge (collapse) all child layers with the parent layer, you select the parent layer > right-click and choose MERGE SUBTREE

 

I find it's usually faster to merge layers together in Voxel mode, but not totally necessary

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Voxel Mode will be represented by a V on a given layer. Surface Mode, likewise an S. You can generally switch back and forth between them as needed, by clicking on those icons. Each mode works differently (Voxels are solid all the way through, with volumetric pixels), and has their own tradeoffs/advantages. There are a few ways to merge objects together. You can see a few here:

 

To merge layers together, there are a few ways you could handle that:

1: Hover your cursor over the layer you want to merge (to another) until you see a little MOVE icon > Hold the SHIFT key while you move it on top of the layer you want to merge to

 

2: Hide all the layers you do not want to merge > select one of the remaining (visible) layers > right-click and choose MERGE VISIBLE

 

3) Right-Click the layer you want to merge to another > choose MERGE TO > select the layer you want to merge it with

 

4) If you want to merge (collapse) all child layers with the parent layer, you select the parent layer > right-click and choose MERGE SUBTREE

 

I find it's usually faster to merge layers together in Voxel mode, but not totally necessary

Just out of curiousity, since I will need to have this as a much lower polycount for a game, would it be more realistic to just outright retopologize? Also, if I paint on this I should be able to export bumps AND paint, correct?

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You should probably get all your sculpting done first, then Retopologize the model....basically tracing the topology for a much lower polygon version. And yes, that is the mesh you will bake all the high resolution sculpting detail onto. When you "Merge" from the Retopo workspace to the Paint workspace, 3D Coat bakes all the details onto normal or displacement maps and the color and spec info onto their own maps as well. You will see the merged low poly model in the Paint room with all these maps present on paint layers. You can inspect the baking result, and proceed to texture paint, or delete the object (if you did not like the baking result) > click on the DELETE UNUSED PAINT LAYERS > try the bake again, after making the needed adjustments.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4F9k_yEGVQ

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