1855 replies to this topic

[artman]

Just to add to the discussion...

 

I tried Mari and it choked on a 3 million poly mesh....so its a no go for me as even if Im doing gameart I like to paint the hipoly and then bake both color and normal map simultaneously. What Mari seems to be great for is vast amount of textures and very big sized textures.....which I dont need.

 

I like using Mudbox and then use 3DCoat clone brush on a slighly lower subdlevel,I use 3DCoat clone brush because its the only clone brush in all painting apps that does not sample the screen but the Uv sheet and I think its a pretty extraordinary V4 feature.I also do all my shader baking in 3DCoat as its much more straightforward and powerful than 3DS max "render to texture". Also 3DCoat got tons of little texturing tools that both Mudbox and Mari dont have...so most of the times I send a lower subd from MB to access those great tools....In a sense I work in Mudbox but I use 3DC as if it was Photoshop.

 

I think 3DCoat painting is really optimized for gameart (layered 4k/2k maps) and it gives access to interaction with normal map that is still unbeaten.

And vertex painting is fantastic for 3DConcept art which a lot of studios are doing more and more nowadays in Zbrush...I think if those people would be aware of how powerful 3DC vertex painting is they would do it in 3DC instead of Zbrush.A lot of people dismiss vertex paint as being useless  I think they are just unaware of of much it is currently used in production at the design/concept stage because of  its great adaptability to art direction changes.

 

I dont think 3DC will ever be able to compete with Mari regarding film industry...for ex:adding support for painting animated meshes would be pretty absurd to implement in 3DC IMO...I mean those kind of features are probably developed by entire teams of programmers and Mari is entirely dedicated to this kind of stuff anyway....it would be like asking Mari developers to add voxel sculpting or retopo tools...just my opinion here .

[AbnRanger]

I used to love Deep Paint 3D

T.

Me too. That was the 3D Texturing tool I was using when I decided to switch to 3D Coat (back when V3 was being first released). It's a real shame they let that app rot on the vine like that. They just stopped developing and they never created a single video tutorial to get users up to speed. Had to rely on a single video that 3DBuzz created for it. A lot features in it, 3D Coat has also...simultaneous (depth/spec/color) channel/map painting and Photoshop style layout

[bisenberger]

 

Mari = $1995

3D-Coat = $349

 

Mari = The Foundary

3D-Coat = Andrew

 

A double win for 3D-Coat in my opinion. Looking forward to the v4 release Andrew.

 

What about ZBrush?

 

***********************************************************************

 

ZBrush is cool too! $699, but so far I haven't had to pay  for an upgrade, and there have been some major upgrades since I first purchased it.

 

Edited by bisenberger, Yesterday, 04:09 PM.

[artman]

What about ZBrush?

 

***********************************************************************

 

ZBrush is cool too! $699, but so far I haven't had to pay  for an upgrade, and there have been some major upgrades since I first purchased it.

 

We are talking about painting...you can't do real texture work in Zbrush,there is no blending modes and polypaint layers are very rudimentary at this point.
 

[pixo]

As i mentioned earlier for freelancer or may be for video game, 3D Coat is may be more than enough.

3DCoat is an amazing tool, but for "Film industry" it doesn't fill the production standard needs.

Which is normal since 3DCoat is doing more than just texturing.

By the way Mari/Foundry support is amazing ... sorry to not be agree with you guys.

 

Kind,

Pixo 

Edited by pixo, Yesterday, 06:02 PM.

[artman]

webmaster: something is wrong with quoting on forum

[PolyHertz]

Speaking of painting in 3DC, I've added links to the top three painting issues I'd really like to see something done about in my Sig. If they bother anyone else please comment/vote on them.

[carlosa]

sorry but... freelancer, video game and TV commercials spots.

 

work using 3D-Coat is faaaaaaaaaaaaaaast

 

 

Mari... well...if you need to paint 20 layers groups, with 15/20 layers every group, using 4K +8K textures... just for a SECONDARY actor... yes

[PolyHertz]

Well only being able to handle up to 2k maps is fine for the moment, but very soon assets that used to have 1k and 2k maps will be using 4k and 8k instead, thanks to the upcoming console generation having tons of high speed memory (or at least PS4).

[Javis]

webmaster: something is wrong with quoting on forum

 

 

Hey man. I believe they are the same colour. I'll alert Vladimir.

[Javis]

Hey man. I believe they are the same colour. I'll alert Vladimir.

 

 

 

 

 

 

As a temporary solution, you can change the theme, it is on the very bottom left of the page.

[Tser]

We are talking about painting...you can't do real texture work in Zbrush,there is no blending modes and polypaint layers are very rudimentary at this point.
 

 

I do lots of Polypainting in ZBrush and I use the Layers to create multiple layers of polypaint which I can easily blend together at any transparency amount for each level, then when I am satisfied, I bake them all down, the only thing I can't do is use different blending types like multiply, subtract etc, but I never really need those anyway.

T.

[polyxo]

And vertex painting is fantastic for 3DConcept art which a lot of studios are doing more and more nowadays in Zbrush...I think if those people would be aware of how powerful 3DC vertex painting is they would do it in 3DC instead of Zbrush.

 

The conceptual advantage of Zbrush, over 3DCoat  is its non linear workflow, that also get's visible when painting.

When one starts using colour or textures in Zbrush one does not require UV's nor good topology. Yeah that's typical for Vertex Painting,

but in contrast to 3DC one here can do this on the roughest concept sculpt as well as on a super detailed final model. All Vertex Paint

information can be losslessy converted to textures, not only for diffuse colour.

 

3DCoat does not allow you to add final sculpt detail in its Voxel room, that's supposed to happen in the Paint Room.

In contrast to Zbrush the Geometry detailing and colouring process is separated in three stages (Voxel, Surface, Displacement Painting),

which even happen in three separate workspaces.

 

3DCoat requires you to decide that your Voxel model has reached a state which justifies switching to the Surface Tools, after some work

here one rather should no more go back. Once in Surface workspace one again has to decide when your model is refined enough to go through

the retopology and UV process. Only afterwards one may paint with more than the colour channel and add very small detail to the model - but that's no more Vertex Painting. 

 

Once one has converted to an optimized low res version in 3DC one can no longer easily change the underlying model proportions dramatically,

add new Detail to that model or remove stuff. One after such changes certainly can not maintain existing multichannel Paint information (at least not without

going through baking operations). As interesting as the program is: 3DCoat really works in a very linear fashion.

 

All this is hooked up very differently in Zbrush, the user does not need to follow such rules. That to me marks its advantage in Concept Development processes.

[artman]

 

The conceptual advantage of Zbrush, over 3DCoat  is its non linear workflow, that also get's visible when painting.

When one starts using colour or textures in Zbrush one does not require UV's nor good topology. Yeah that's typical for Vertex Painting,

but in contrast to 3DC one here can do this on the roughest concept sculpt as well as on a super detailed final model. All Vertex Paint

information can be losslessy converted to textures, not only for diffuse colour.

 

3DCoat does not allow you to add final sculpt detail in its Voxel room, that's supposed to happen in the Paint Room.

In contrast to Zbrush the Geometry detailing and colouring process is separated in three stages (Voxel, Surface, Displacement Painting),

which even happen in three separate workspaces.

 

3DCoat requires you to decide that your Voxel model has reached a state which justifies switching to the Surface Tools, after some work

here one rather should no more go back. Once in Surface workspace one again has to decide when your model is refined enough to go through

the retopology and UV process. Only afterwards one may paint with more than the colour channel and add very small detail to the model - but that's no more Vertex Painting. 

 

Once one has converted to an optimized low res version in 3DC one can no longer easily change the underlying model proportions dramatically,

add new Detail to that model or remove stuff. One after such changes certainly can not maintain existing multichannel Paint information (at least not without

going through baking operations). As interesting as the program is: 3DCoat really works in a very linear fashion.

 

All this is hooked up very differently in Zbrush, the user does not need to follow such rules. That to me marks its advantage in Concept Development processes.

 

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You are not forced to go that way...I never used voxel  sculpting on any of my models.I use only Liveclay .

I do not agree at all with you and I find zbrush much more linear actually ....in 3Dcoat you can pose,move multiple objects at the same time while in zbrush you need to step down to a lower level to do that using the very poor plugin Transpose master,in 3Dcoat all those tweaking can be done straight on the original mesh.

3DCoat is also is much more flexible  regarding vertex painting.

In 3Dcoat vertex paint you can paint colored specular.....in zbrush there is only diffuse.

There is also absolutely no 3D texturing tools... lightbox and projection master...are just projecting tools.There is no 3D clone brush...only zproject brush and pmaster clone brush which are both 2d.

Interaction between vertex paint and photoshop is extremely rough compared to 3DCoat.

In 3Dcoat you can add local resolution using Liveclay to get more vertex painting resolution at specific places....

You can losslessly transfer you color to Uvs as well in 3DCoat.....

 

and I  dont undertsand when you say;

"Once one has converted to an optimized low res version in 3DC one can no longer easily change the underlying model proportions dramatically,

add new Detail to that model or remove stuff. One after such changes certainly can not maintain existing multichannel Paint information (at least not without

going through baking operations)."

Its absolutely untrue you can tweak the lowres version as you wish and no paint information is loss.

 

 

 

[polyxo]

 

Hi Artman,

I do not agree at all with you and I find zbrush much more linear actually ....

 

Yeah, there's probably always different ways to look at things. I'm afraid we have to agree to differ

 

In my answer I only concentrate on one of the aspects.

 

and I  dont undertsand when you say;

"Once one has converted to an optimized low res version in 3DC one can no longer easily change the underlying model proportions dramatically,

add new Detail to that model or remove stuff. One after such changes certainly can not maintain existing multichannel Paint information (at least not without

going through baking operations)."

Its absolutely untrue you can tweak the lowres version as you wish and no paint information is loss.

 

 

 

I was talking about radically changing the HiRes object and still maintaining existing Detailing. 

 

 

I don't work in figurative Design but say I was in charge to develop some Character.

After some hours of work I could have a first study. It could show considerable Detail in the face, I could have used procedurals

on certain areas, maybe the clothing,  the figure could use Ambient Occlusion for all sorts of effects,  it could even already have

convincing looking hair. Using multi layer shaders I had fine grained  control over specularity, sss and other render effects, usable

with the internal renderer. Still at this point I did not have have to think about topology or UV's or textures.

 

When my figure now looks what I imagined to be Axerix but the Director has a look over my sholder and says "I love these proportions

and this facial expression but you know what? This face should not be Asterix but rather Bonemine, the wife of the Major."

 

Then without further ado I could convert the guy to a woman and present the second concept model soon after.

 

One could refine the pore structure in the face, inflate the lips and make them glossier and reshape the entire body.One could  recomb

hair to make it look more female, edit the procedurals used on clothing etc. All this could happen in the same workspace, on the same

underlying topology, every aspect of the model which wasn't changed stays intact.

Edited by polyxo, Today, 12:24 PM.

[Tser]

The way I have been working in 3DCoat is to create a high detailed model, retopo it, create UV's for it, merge to scene then paint it, then export the retopo mesh with the displacement and Colour maps, where as in ZBrush I work the other way around, I start with a low rez UVed model created in Softimage, import it into ZBrush where I step up the subdivision levels, refine the details and sculpt until I'm satisfied, then paint, when finished, I use Multimapper to generate the displacement, colour and cavity maps and sub displacement level obj I need which also exports the lot and at any time I can easily go back to any of the displacement levels of the poly mesh and make any changes needed in a few mins, then export again at any time, this is not so easy with 3DCoat.

T.