74 replies to this topic

[John Kearney]

I have done my fair share of moaning about the brushes on this very forum but today I take my hat off to you Andrew - you've made some truly astounding leaps over the past week.

I feel that the updated brushes will do wonders for 3D Coat. I believe all of my colleagues will view it differently now that it's on a par with the competition in terms of sculpting performance. It feels silky smooth and more importantly, predictable. There are no longer any unexpected lumps and bumps that need to be corrected. I'm honestly blown away by the improvement and think it's the best update to this software for a long time!

After testing for a while, I still feel that some default values need to be tweaked but the important thing now is that there's a really solid foundation on which to build. It's no longer a case of changing values to try and avoid inherent problems, but instead changing them for pure artistry.

Well done Andrew, I think you've just given 3D Coat a massive boost in the right direction.

[human0id]

Ok, the Crease Clay Brush needs just some manual tweaking to work fine. When used with a bigger radius (5 and up) it mess up the mesh quite a bit, mainly if you make very slow strokes. It may works better on dense meshes, I've tested it on a 1mio polys sphere. Anyway, fast strokes a pretty nice.

Andrew may I ask you to put the Inflate Clay Brush on your to do list. It doesn't have to be on top, maybe somewhere in between
In my video I showed you the example (post #3), the Inflate Clay doesn't grow anymore. Digman pointed out that stamping is still possible with higher depth values, but I liked the way it grows in earlier versions. Just press down your pen and let it grow. When you are using the brush without falloff, you don't get a sphere shape anymore, it's more like an egg or elliptic sphere.

[run]

Yup, DX brushing is now working great on both my systems too.
It's kind of amazing how well it works my old machine. Big thanks Andrew.

One minor thing I've noticed is that whenever I start 3DC pressure sensitivity
for pen radius is always toggled off.

-Jeff

[Taros]

3.7.11B: Strokes in DX version still dotty, when painting fast. In GL version perfect!

[digman]

I deleted my other post for now, what I was talking about can wait, polishing the new current brush routine is more important...
Confirmed: dotting effect on slow strokes no a problem in DX mode.
Well done Andrew...

[Andrew Shpagin]

One minor thing I've noticed is that whenever I start 3DC pressure sensitivity
for pen radius is always toggled off.

-Jeff

I set that mode to be default - when only depth depends on pressure.
It is more suitable for sculpting, especially when someone do it first time.
Of course you may set other mode..

3.7.11B: Strokes in DX version still dotty, when painting fast. In GL version perfect!

Please show screenshot.

[digman]

LC InflateClay has another problem of not dynamically keeping your detail as your brush size gets smaller as in Version 3.7.10A.

Settings for both versions the same.
First brush in e-panel used in both versions.
Appox 500,000 tri polygon surface mode object.
Brush cursor is stationary. (not moving)

Best way to test is get an alpha that has an image and use the same settings in both versions.
In the Linux version 3.7.10A who can hold down the mouse buttton and your detail grows under the cursor.
In the Windows version 3.7.11B you have to keep clicking the mouse button and the detail is never clear and sharp as the Linux 3.710A version
If you keep clicking the mouse button to raise the detail, you do get some dynamic detail but the image starts to blob out...


See picture for reference.

I will wait on a polishing suggestion for the inflateclay brush till this gets fixed...
I do want to post suggestions for Voxel, Surface, and LiveClay brushes, been busy...

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[randomguy_j]

Hey guys,

Has anyone here tried using the blob brush in voxels yet? It isn't responsive at all for me it seems. (I know this forum is for brush improvements but if the brush doesn't work at all that counts right? If not, let me know and ill move this to another post.)

[digman]

Confirmed the Blob brush does nothing....
I think you can post here, if a brush does not work, it's rather hard to polish it...

[SimonWM]

I'll try to explain this. I find that the smudge tool is very unpredictable and weak. After some time it starts burning your color and it stops smoothing. It starts showing the color underneath too sharp. I've link a video below so you see what I mean.

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=VVKXIFBO4Tk

[kay_Eva]

I'm astonished by how rapidly the brushes are improving!

Andrew once you're done, perhaps consider improving the shaders too?

Anyway the brushes extremely nice.

[digman]

This is a 2 part post:

First Part.
DX version.
Voxel Mode:
The Voxel Clay brush appears to suffer from some lag still compared to the airbrush and build brush on faster strokes.
First three strokes are with the Clay brush,
The second and third set of brush strokes are with the Airbrush and Build brushes.
500,000 tri sphere.
Now this might not be as noticeable on a powerfull computer.


Second Part is a polishing suggestion (picture inculded, voxel clay brush on the left, surface clay brush on the right)
The voxel clay brush lays down it's strokes in what I call a wormy fashion which makes it hard to build the voxel surface in a clean fashion
The surface clay brush does a good job of laying down it's strokes so they blend together as you build.

Polishing suggestion:
Make the voxel clay brush lay down it's strokes closer to how the surface clay brush lays down it's strokes.

Future Suggestions:
Once you are done fixing the current set of brushes plus polishing them including both voxel and surface mode, consider adding some more voxel brushes as they are falling behind the surface and LC brushes in having a wider range of different kinds of brushes.
If possible have a general voxel brush where we can make our own voxel brushes as you can with the LC general brush.

All these suggestions are based on the great quality of strokes we get now. Thank you!!

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[artman]

@Digman:Voxel clay brush rely heavily on Smoothing value,changing smoothing values will dramatically change effect you can get with it but of course it will never be as cool as SF clay brushes tough.Also activating Cuda smooth boost should give it a very noticable kick.


Absolute brush seems to be works correctly over Remove stretching stokes now.
I just found out "Remember pen shape" in preferences,thanx Andrew i didn't know we had this option,I guess I missed a few updates.
Invert on/off seems to be remembered correctly now.
Interpolate does not tough ,Remove strecthing and smoothing value is also not remembered when switching between brushes.
Also it seems only LC brushes can be duplicated and renamed,this should be applied to all brushes and we need also way to save/load those brushes externally for sharing.I have made some very cool hard surface brushes for 3dcoat users,much better than MahcutA and MahcutB Zbrush brushes..

[digman]

@ Artman, you are right,

The tool tip that pops up by the selection box saids that smoothing is enabled when you hold the shift key down. I thought it was just for smoothing out a stroke after you completed it or your smoothing amount when using the smooth brush.
Now, I see that if you increase it pass 100% that it directly effects the strokes too. Nice...

If it is a feature it is not clearly documented and I missed that one...

Yes, cuda enabled would boost the clay stroke but I just wanted to show Andrew without cuda there is still some lag...

Edit:
It looks like Andrew fixed the saving of created LC brushes settings when changing the general brush settiings in the lastest beta. I will post if I find it overwriting them again. 3.7.11B

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[artman]

Off topic but useful infos: I remember one of you (Artman or Digman, sorry I can't remember) saying that he was using only a proven set of brush in liveclay to avoid tears and mesh explosion. Would you care to post a list here ?

I'm pretty sure the issue i've been having lately are related to the use of some bugged brushes (I suspect wrinkleclay since I added it as my default pinch before going back to normal pinch). Posting a list to narrow the field would help.

not me..

I hardly get tears and explosion unless I use resample,clean up memory or any of those weird new options,sometimes also if I use Symm copy in Sf mode but as far as brushes go I dont get any and I use mostly MUD2,Pinch,Absolute,Creaseclay,reduce +Tangentsmooth,

[digman]

That was me, BeatKitano...
I started using only a small set of brushes because of tears or possible tears in surface mode. It would happen the most often when switching between using LC brushes then using a surface mode brush. Sometimes there was no going back and fixing them unless you save the file every minute.

I posted a mantis bug report about the Rapid2 Brush a few months ago tearing the mesh but Raul left back to Cuba. The Rapid2 and Clay brush both tear the mesh in version 3.7.10A, not right away but you stroke over the same area and then ouch there is the tear.There were others but I can not remember now.

I would have to test each brush again to see if I can get it to tear the mesh with the new brush routine for version 3.7.11B
Which ones tear with you now?

The below I use 90% to 95% of the time.

A brush created with the LC general brush with custom alphas. The brush is duplicated each with it's own name and alpha for different types of sculpting.
Formbuilder, HeavyCrease and Smoother. I'm working on creating other brushes as Artman is doing as well...

Pinch brush (custom alpha) It works great with a large falloff (65%)
InflateClay, but it needs some fixing now in the current brush routine.
CreaseClay (custom alpha). I used the pinch brush to clean and tighten the edges, very similar to the video you posted.
I think Surface mode Flatten is ok too but I will test in the new version.

I'm with Artman using the clean memory and others are well, like rolling the dice. Sometimes LegacyFix will save a mesh in the current version, but as the label said use at your own risk...

I have been having some problems with mesh explosions as well, which will need to be documented. We all can test at times but know one wants to test all the time...

To Andrew, you are busy so the above is not a refection of your desire to have a clean running program, you are only one man handling a large complex program.

[digman]

GeneralBrush is creating errors in the mesh shown in the video.

Settings are in the included picture.

Using Dx version 3.7.11B
No falloff.
No focal shift.
Depth 50%
Brush (second brush in the e-panel)
Last Alpha on the top right
Radius 7, though I sure you could choose another size.
250,000 tri sphere

This error happens on parts of the mesh surface that are not very thick. Once the mesh reaches a certain thickness you no longer get the error. (see video)
In Linux version 3.7.10A 64 bit non-cuda there are no errors using this brush or created brushes.

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[TimmyZDesign]

Finally downloaded and tested 3.7.11b Windows 64 DX Cuda sculpting! These improved brushes are a lot of fun to work with!

Mud2 brush with NoiseDegree at 0% is very similar to feel of Zbrush Claybuildup brush! Yay!

I did this quick test sculpt from a sphere in about 45 minutes. I did everything with "brush pressure only affects draw depth" activated.

I used:

Voxel: Grow, Smooth, Clay, Extrude, Move.
Surface: Draw, Smooth, Pinch, Extrude, Mud, Mud2, LiveClay, CreaseClay, SmudgeClay, WrinkleClay, Move.

All tested brushes worked very well except SmudgeClay which had a very big lag.

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[artman]

It seems Reduce and Decimate brushes can creates some holes/spikes issues,can anyone reproduce?

[Taros]

I set that mode to be default - when only depth depends on pressure.
It is more suitable for sculpting, especially when someone do it first time.
Of course you may set other mode..

@Taros:
Please show screenshot.

Hi Andrew. Strange. I had the problem at my clients workstation at their office.
I tried to reproduce the dotting with the current DX version at my workstation here at home, but all worked very well in DX mode and also in GL mode.

Maybe it is an graphic card issue? I use an old GeForce 8800 GT at my clients pc and an GeForce GTX 460 at my homeoffice here.
I will try to reproduce the dotting on monday, when I am back in the client office.

Best wishes
Chris