AbnRanger

I don't think I am at liberty to say who, yet, but the offer is real. I just spoke with Andrew (and Stas, previously) about it. This is one reason why I am asking here, so others in the community can provide their input about it. I personally think it would double the 3DCoat userbase, if not much more, nearly overnight, because this render is a super-heavyweight in the industry...including the Arch Viz industry also. It would elevate 3DCoat's credentials in this market, although Pilgway would have to spend the time to integrate it, though, rather than the vendor making a plugin for it.

In general, yes, but maybe this company's home country is not very far from Ukraine, and thus they have greater understanding and empathy of what Pilgway is going through, making an offer they normally would not. Just trying to take a guess at their motivation...it's not enthusiasm, although I hope it comes to fruition.

No one is saying the company would be offering it to Pilgway for free. Perhaps Pilgway received a very generous offer from said company and instead of charging customers extra for a license, they'll decide to absorb the cost in the price of 3DCoat? Perhaps the company also empathizes with Pilgway trying to operate in the middle of a terrible war, and wants to show some love and solidarity to Ukraine in this way?

Please send this request to support@pilgway.com, because I too have made basically the same request for years. Merging the Paint and Retopo Rooms make a lot of sense, as the UV room would then be the only logical place to work on UV's. Its current configuration is super confusing to new users. I think it's a big undertaking and Andrew perhaps doesn't think the benefit is substantial enough to do it. Nevertheless, the more the community requests it, the higher the priority it gets. By the way, don't worry about the warning of the poly count. The Retopo Room can handle a mid poly mesh just fine.

Normally, I would agree with your points, but I know I personally would love and use this render engine a lot if it were integrated in 3DCoat. The Concept Art market would be really stoked about it, because they could do most everything right inside of 3DCoat, including the use of the large library of materials this render engine offers. Just because you personally may be familiar with Marmoset and Unreal, it doesn't mean everyone else is and they may not want to be forced to learn yet another app or game engine, to do their work. That is the appeal of 3DCoat, actually....being able to do high level work at most stages of the pipeline, and hopefully that would include generating high end Character Model Sheets and Renders for clients and Art Directors to sign off on. If the objective is to send the model to a game engine, then it may not have as much appeal, but for Concept Artists and Character/Environment artists (for animation or product shots) especially, it would be big news, I am sure.

The UI will be divided for the foreseeable future because the code base is not something you can totally replace overnight. The workspaces are there for different stages of a typical studio pipeline and thus, I see no major problem with it. Some consolidation of a few workspaces, yes, but from what I understand it would take way too much development time for too little benefit....when there are hundreds of standing user requests for other features. Andrew has already done a LOT to improve the UI and there is more to come, but it will be an ongoing, incremental effort of improvement rather than a major overhaul.

Thanks for the info, but the question I raised isn't really about alternative OpenSource render engines. It's about integration of a major render engine that everyone knows well. This company also has a separate real time render engine. Perhaps that could be the one that gets integrated, instead. As for the work on the current render engine, I think that was shelved while the developer is working on something else.

I wanted to open a discussion about the prospect of 3DCoat adding full integration of an Industry Standard Render Engine, without an extra addon fee. Chime in if you agree or disagree. Perhaps, Andrew will see the results and make a decision based on the community response. So, I will ask the question directly, if 3DCoat 2025 came with a renderer such as Octane, Renderman, VRay, etc. (without additional cost)....and with it, perhaps some modest (Camera) animation functionality...how excited would you be, or would you disapprove (although bug-fixing/stability work will never stop)? Also, if you were/are someone who is looking at 3DCoat for the first time or haven't upgraded since the 4.X versions, would the integration of this Industry Standard engine persuade you to buy a license or upgrade?

Just to add to Digman's explanation. The SculptTREE panel indicates it is effectively a Hiearchy panel, much like the Outliner panel in Maya or 3ds Max. The LAYER panel is just like Photoshop's Layer panel. It stores paint information, as well as Sculpt/Depth information. We often say "layer" in reference to an object in the SculptTree panel, because it's the most descriptive name for it, because calling it an OBJECT would not be totally accurate, since you can have multiple objects on the same "Layer." So, I guess you would consider it an OBJECT LAYER.

The Tweak Room is deprecated/legacy, meaning it won't be further developed as it has long been planned to remove from the app. I have asked Andrew to merge PAINT Objects with RETOPO/MODELING meshes, so that users can work with the same low poly models in the Paint and Retopo/Modeling workspaces. Right now, they are completely separate meshes. You can copy Paint Meshes to the Retopo/Modeling workspace > make edits to the mesh > go to BAKE menu > choose UPDATE PAINT MESH w/ RETOPO MESH. Yes, that is a work-around, but merging of the two mesh types is obviously a major undertaking, so it may be a long time before we see the merger...even though Andrew (Owner/Chief Developer) knows it would be beneficial.

In general, when a software vendor has a sale listed for a specific period only, we have to act (make the purchase) within that time period in order to receive the discount. It's like Black Friday or Christmas/Holiday season sales. We have to buy within that window of time. I am not sure if a sale will be extended to you at the end of your trial period or not. Perhaps Oleg can chime in on that?

It's very simple. When you buy a (perpetual) license, you get not only the latest version available (to download) at the time of purchase, but 12 months of free updates. After that 12 months expires, you cannot expect the company to issue you a refund because you found a bug. My latest paid update to Modo is v12. They are now on 17. I cannot use 12 today and complain to the Foundry that I found a bug in v12 and thus they owe me a free copy of the current version (17). That is absurd. I can point to other applications (Camtasia, ZBrush, etc.) and make the same claim, but they will politely tell me that support for past versions lasts only as long as the stated length of free updates. On ZBrush 2022, if I find an issue today and contact Pixologic, they will tell me to upgrade to their latest version because I am no longer entitled to free updates. Pilgway has not misled or cheated you. They are good people and would not cheat anyone, even if they legally could. And regarding the Academic programs listed, I am not sure what your point is, exactly, but why would or could someone from North America sue Pilgway, when Pilgway only lists the institutions that have SENT THEM EDUCATION LICENSE REQUESTS? They don't have to list 3DCoat (or any other software) on their curriculum, for it to used in any given 3D course. As an example, look at the Art Department page (under Game Art/Animation) for California State-Fullerton, here: Bachelor of Fine Arts in Art - Department of Visual Arts | CSUF (fullerton.edu) It doesn't mention ANY specific software. So, how does Pilgway know that 3DCoat is taught there? Because an instructor from that institution sent them an official request for multiple education licenses. Again, you have accused the good folks at Pilgway of lying/misleading and cheating you. They wouldn't and haven't.

What about it? I was addressing your comments about Pilgway allegedly misleading/cheating you, somehow. If you don't like how something functions, contact support (support@pilgway.com) and try to make it easy and clear what your problems are with it, as it helps them diagnose and understand the important details of the problem more quickly. Maybe a screen recording or at least a screen grab + detailed explanation how to reproduce it. The following is a link to a series that covers at least one of the new spline-based modeling tools, among some other newer modeling tools. EDIT: The developer of the Retopo/Modeling tools has a number of videos, demonstrating many if not most of his tools. They are in Russian, but you can play subtitles in your preferred language on the Youtube videos (click the Gear icon > Subtitles > Auto-Translate > select your preferred language. There will probably be some more English video tutorials about the Modeling tools, soon. 3DCoat Modeling tool "Unify of Surfaces" (youtube.com)

You are missing the point. There is a broader pool of training content for Blender, Maya, 3ds Max, Modo, C4D, ZBrush, Substance, etc. from 3RD PARTY RESOURCES. Blender foundation gets DONATIONS to continue it's development...from the community and also from larger corporations. That business model is not one that can work for most software applications. Furthermore, whether Blender is opensource or not, is not relevant to this discussion. You have asserted that Pilgway has somehow cheated you and is not providing training content to your personal standards, despite the fact that there are hundreds of tutorials on their Youtube Channel. Painting tool tutorials are in the PAINT tools playlist. Sculpting tools videos are in the Sculpting tools playlist, and so on. If you want to know more about a given subject or task, search in the playlist associated with it. You can also look to 3rd party resources. Have you looked through the playlists on Anton Tenitsky's Youtube Channel? There are scores and scores of 3DCoat tutorials there, plus he is a partner of Pilgway in this area. Here is another good 3rd party resource: 3D Coat for Concept Art Tutorial - Voxel Sculpting (youtube.com)

It doesn't matter. I was merely using Blender as an example that ALL software has a more robust 3rd party pool of training resources, than what the company itself can provide.