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Workflow Question


Randy
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Let's say I have a low poly car .obj I created in another application. I want to bring it into 3DC and add some geometry dents. Can I bring it into the Voxel room and keep the imported geometry? I only want to add geometry to certain areas. If I import it into the Retopo room, I can not use all the cool Voxel tools.

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Workflow suggestion:

0. Use latest beta build (currently 3.7.16A) You can download from this forum in the section called New Releases And Betas-->3D-Coat 3.7 Updates thread.

1. File-->import-->Import mesh for voxelizing

2. Scale up your model to desired resolution (bigger scale = higher resolution of voxels) Click apply in Tool Options palette, or hit Enter. Your mesh will be voxelized. Also select "Yes" when asked to remember original model position.

3. Switch to a Voxel sculpting tool ("Grow" for example) in order to get out of the Merge Tool and see your model.

4. Pick a shader for your model from the Shader tool palette. I recommend PicMat_Grey_Clay because you can see the effects of your sculpting well.

5. Use voxel tools to sculpt your model (add dents to your car model)

6. When finished sculpting, change to Retopo room and choose Retopo-->Import and choose the same mesh you voxelized earlier. Select "Yes" to snap this model to your voxel mesh.

7. Create UVs (if necessary) with tools in UV section of toolbar.

8. Move your model to the Paint Room by choosing Retopo-->Merge with NM (per-pixel) or select a different option that suits you better. If you want a displacement map, choose a "microverts" option.

9. Once your model is in the Paint Room you will have your normal map in the Layers palette. Feel free to add layers and paint your model further. You can paint normal map depth, or diffuse color, specular, glow, etc.

10. After painting is complete, choose File-->Export-->Export Model to send your improved model out of 3D-Coat.

Good Luck!

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Another slightly different approach would be to go into the Retopo room, and in the Retopo Menu or in the toolbar, select IMPORT (find your mesh). Now hit ENTER to tell 3D Coat you do indeed want to keep it in the scene. You will get a prompt asking if you want it to snap to the Voxel Object. In this case, we don't have a voxel object just yet (next step in the process), so you click NO. Now switch over to the Voxel room and click the Merge tool (you could also just drag and drop your obj file into the MODELS pallet and 3D Coat will add it into the Pallet with a thumbnail assigned to it).

Once the object is merged, you could subdivide it to smooth it a bit before you hit APPLY or the ENTER key. Make sure the layer you apply it to has enough resolution to capture all the detail. If after hitting APPLY it takes forever to process, then you may have too large of a scale (more scale=more resolution) or your layer has too much resolution. It takes a few tries sometimes to hit that sweetspot. If your model isn't uber detailed coming in, it doesn't need umpteen million poly's (you can see the count at the bottom center of the screen), to start off with. If it's very basic in shape, maybe 500k-1mill poly's should be fine per object.

Add detail/resolution only as you need it, in order to keep your workflow going smoothly. If you try to go too high too fast will slow things down unnecessarily. Basically now, as you make very small changes, you can go to the Retopo room every so often to massage the Retopo Mesh to snap fit to the Voxel object's changes. If you need to make some large scale edits, then check out this video.

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Best way is to check "import without voxelising"box in merge tool, this way you get exact same mesh.especially good if model is lowpoly.

In surface mode you have great set of tools there but if you want to use Voxel tools then just click the S icon beside your layer....3DCoat will autmatically suggest you the best polycount to preserve all details.

This way you avoid all Scaling/resolution problems related to merging directly to voxels.

@AbnRanger: Your videos are great ,very clear and well spoken.

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this post is great! ty!

If i have the low poly with UV map made with another app... can i use paint PPP to add details using normal map ?

How do you decide to work with voxels/surface at voxels room... or normals at paint room ?

TYTYTY ! :)

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If i have the low poly with UV map made with another app... can i use paint PPP to add details using normal map ?

Of course, this is what PPP is made for.

How do you decide to work with voxels/surface at voxels room... or normals at paint room ?

Voxel/Surface = Big sculptting changes and details using wide array of tools,booleans ect...

(Uvs are only preserved in Retopo room and Paint/Tweak room and currently the new UpdateRetopo feature only work with Move/Pose tools.)

Paintroom=highfrequency details :skin pores,rock cracks,Stamps ect...normals maps are not made for "sculpting".

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How does the worlkflow proceed for the following situation?

When a model is imported into the voxel room and it is subdivided to look like the subdivided model in the original application (modo). Then in the retopo room the original (unsubdivided) mesh is imported over the subvoxel model.

See image.

post-1243-0-10880100-1344546160_thumb.jp

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How does the worlkflow proceed for the following situation?

When a model is imported into the voxel room and it is subdivided to look like the subdivided model in the original application (modo). Then in the retopo room the original (unsubdivided) mesh is imported over the subvoxel model.

See image.

Not sure I understand what you want to do, but perhaps this will help:

Snap your low poly to the voxelized high poly (select all vertices and use Snap in the toolbar). Then fix UVs if necessary. Then you can move to the paint room (Retopo-->Merge With NM per pixel) to finalize and export your model....Your low poly geo might not be adequate for a NM however, consider displacement with a microvertex option instead.

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Thanks TimmyZDesign,

I was concerned since the imported retopo mesh didn't conform that well to the voxel there might be some issues. I went ahead and merged with per-pixel and it came out looking really good.

This image shows a comparison of the voxel (that was subdivided when imported), the retopo mesh (that doesn't conform well to the top of the voxel), and the results of the merge with per-pixel.

I'll try the microvertex option as you suggested to see what happens.

post-1243-0-06867100-1344560174_thumb.jp

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