3D Coat - News

[Taros]

Pilgway hat die Texturierungs und Sculptingsoftware 3D Coat V.3.1 veröffentlicht.

Features der neuen Version in Textform:

- New, much improved user manual.
- Linux build available
- Improved masking & material systems. Masks and materials can now be distorted with your pen. Inverting a mask will also now work with voxels. Masks/material distortions can be saved to disk.

Painting mode changes:
- Global cavity detection in per-pixel painting implemented. It works correctly with external normalmap too.So, condition "more/less on cavity" will work work correctly with geometrical details, displaced details and external normalmap.
- Hue/saturation/lightness/brightness/contrast/gamma controls for materials

- Support of triangular meshes in topological symmetry tool.
- Drag&Drop in layers panel. You can merge, move, delete layers with Drag&Drop.

- Jitters behaviour improved - when brush stays it will not jitter at place, just one jitter per movement. It is important to make randomly oriented spots like poses. In older implementation one click was able to produce many spots, it was messy.
- Possibility to smooth with SHIFT over Normalmap layer even over seams.

Voxel sculpting changes:
- Create Volumetric Objects from Images. The Sketch tool, a new voxel sculpting tool, allows you to create a volumetric object based on 2 to 3 images.

- New layer structure for the voxel system. You can reorder and delete layers by drag and drop, increase resolution, rename layers by double clicking, create symmetry across a chosen axis.
- New voxel based Hide implemented. It allows to hide/unhide on per-voxel basis. It is very powerful tool not only for hiding but for hard surface modeling too.
- Create uniform extrusions and protrusions using the new setting “Run brush along curve” with the voxel curve too. This is great for mechanical or armor details where precision matters.
- New voxel surface work flow, by brushing just the surface of a voxel object, the responsiveness is much greater then editing the whole volume of the object. The other benefit is that you are allowed to edit thin volumes with out destroying it. For example, bat wings can be smoothed or sculpted without destroying the thin areas.

- You can now import and export voxel data for use in other applications. This will allow interoperability for voxel data with other developers. Also it could be useful to handle medical data.
- Improved baking system. You can bake not only normal maps as before, but now you can bake occlusion and materials from the voxel system to polygons.
- Hide tool on per-voxel basis (works in all modes - with pen, rect, lasso etc, respects masks). A combination of hide/unhide/ delete hidden is well suited for hard surface modeling.

- The voxel Pose tool now respects brushing methods. You can use drag rectangle, lasso and many other selection methods.
- Bend and twist tool to bend and twist objects precisely and accurately.

- Possibility to merge mesh as thin skin

- Possibility to merge separate objects in mesh to separate volumes.
- Possibility to rotate/jitter object in local space in On Pen mode in merge tool.
- Sub-objects with _negative in the name will be subtractive (optionally).

- Estimated polycount in merge and sketch tools implemented to get to know how much polygones will appear in scene after merging the object.
- Many new stamps for merge tool

Retopology changes:
- Retopo Layers. Now you can group your retopologized mesh sections together for ease of use, within the retopo tab.
- Possibility to apply symmetry for separate retopo layer.
- Ortho-projection issues in retopo tool had been fixed.

Interface and navigation changes:
- You can now frame the objects in the current scene within the viewport by using Shift -a.
- Improved 3D Connexion space mouse support. You can now lock the rotational axis of the 3D mouse if you choose to.
- Long paths in input fields will be truncated from the beginning, not from the end. In so way file name will be visible better. In case of truncating hint will show full path. Also we implemented RMB menu in that file control to be able to open file or browse containing folder. It is important for render and baking.
- Possibility to save/load hotkeys set separately from options.
- Possibility to create packages on pens for easy redistribution.

- "hard to click twice" issue for OSX fixed
- Possibility to collapse left panel items to remain only required tools instead of huge list.

Other improvements:
- Improved render system. You can now render any size image.
- Improved STL export from voxels. It is now much more responsive and stable with large meshes. There is now no limitation for polycount upon exporting.
- Possibility to merge in painting and voxel modes not only obj...lwo files but 3B scenes too. If will be possible from File->Merge or from Merge tool in voxels
- Algorithm for Apply UV was improved - if indices of vertices was messed, positions will be used to find correspondence.
- Possibility to swap Y and Z while all import export operations. It is important for Rhino users.
- Countless bugfixes and stability improvements, see full list there:
http://www.3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=2876


Die genannten Features mit Beispielbildern zur Version findet Ihr unter: http://www.3d-coat.com/forum/index.php? ... entry27689

3D Coat gibt es wie immer als Windows 32 Bit und 64 Bit Version, sowie für Mac und Linux. CUDA wird auch unterstützt.

Be creative
Chris

[Taros]

Das offizielle 3.2-Update ist seit ein paar Tagen raus und das gibt es bereits in der laufenden Beta:

3.2.02 [beta]

- First version of Ptex implemented. Supports export/import in standard formats, ptex files export/import is not supported
- possibility to change local resolution with Ptex.
- support of big 3B files to open (>4GB)
- Normalmap strength in per-pixel mode can be corrected with Depth modulator slider in layer blending panel

-> Demo Downloadlink

[alonzo]

dann will ich mal ein Update posten

3.2.03 [beta]

- I made much much better algorithm for limit subdivision surface directly after importing model for microvrtex painting and Ptex. Model after import will look much closer to the limit subdivision surface.
- Increase resolution in Ptex improved - faster and more efficient. Expand/contract selection is add to this tool.
- Many small improvements inside Ptex - displaying textels count, better management of local subdivision.
- better padding for PSD files export
- Fade on edges in pen options will act on all pens simultaneously

[Taros]

Version 3.3 ist raus -> Haben wollen (Für registrierte User)

Liste mit den Features in Version 3.3 -> Lesen wollen...

[Taros]

Kleines Info zum kommenden Release:

AndrewShpagin:
Multiresolution for voxels is done. It is well multicore optimized. You will be able to degrade object, modify low poly mesh and combine together low and high frequency details. On my thought it is even better then usual multires because usually mesh could be degraded only to initial polycount but in our case... any mesh can be degraded to any degree.

Falls sich jemand, wie ich, fragt wozu es gut sein soll ein Mesh weiter herunter zu drehen, als bis zum Basemesh: Stellt Euch vor, Ihr lädt ein Mesh ein, das eingescannt wurde, und zu dem es kein Basemesh gibt. Und hier ist der Vorteil. Ihr könnt in 3DC das Teil reduzieren, so lange ihr wollt, es bearbeiten und wieder hochschrauben, ganz ohne Basemesh. Interessante Sache.

[Neox]

ui da wurd ein großer voxelnachteil "mal eben" weggebügelt

[Taros]

ui da wurd ein großer voxelnachteil "mal eben" weggebügelt

Also mal eben nicht, er hat immerhin zwei oder drei Tage daran gearbeitet... ich glaube, es war sogar eine Woche...

[Taros]

Es kann losgehen:

Updated to 3.3.03 (Win only, Mac & Linux - probably tomorrow)

- Multiresolution for voxels is done. It is well multicore optimized. You will be able to degrade object, modify low poly mesh and combine together low and high frequency details. On my thought it is could be even better then usual multires because usually mesh could be degraded only to initial polycount but in our case any mesh can be degraded to any degree. This is for example scan data that has no lowpoly initial proxy.
- Corrected message in Retopo menu - Apply symmetry to all layers, new item is there - Apply symmetry to the current layer
- The problem with symmetry in voxels resolved - http://bit.ly/9diTKu
- Solved problem from the previous build - resizing texture clears layers contence.
- The bug with normalmap baking (voxels->ppp) fixed - http://bit.ly/ddLx5b

[Taros]

Phil Nolan erklärt ganz gut die neue Multires-Funktion in 3D Coat. Meiner Ansicht nach bedarf sie noch etwas Entwicklung, aber es funktioniert schon ganz gut.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5MzzBOmTeM

[Taros]

Updated to 3.3.05 [beta]

Changes:
- Well known "faceting" problem while baking to MV/Ptex of higher resolutions solved in both - voxel and surface modes. All looks very smooth after baking. Also baking and snapping quality to voxels in surface mode improved essentially. [Anm. von Taros: SUPERWICHTIG!]
- Obsolete links to images in image picker will be removed because it can cause crash at startup.
- Edges highlighted in viewport will be highlighted in UV preview window too - http://bit.ly/9bNZze
- Several small improvements: SL import corrected, new buttons in UV tool - Restore UV and Auto Scale (read hints)
- I made SHIFT constraint to work well in retopo strokes mode
- I made support of picking color from clipboard. In so way you may pick color from Photoshop and Leigh's reference image app. If clipboard has 6 hexadecmail digits 3D-Coat treats it as color.

There are mostly small changes to improve stability and general usability.

[Taros]

Eines der wichtigsten Beta-Updates:

Updated to 3.3.07A [beta] (Win+Mac, Linux - soon)

Changes

- I made multithreaded merge. The merging procedure was rewritten almost from scratch to be scalable. It works much faster, consumes very low amount of memory and produces better quality of the mesh. Also I worked couple of days over making all surface-merging-based tools like move, pose, surface->voxels transition to work clean and I hope I succeed with it. It is most important part of all voxel sculpting.
- I made possibility to choose texture resolution if you want to export ptex as usual model+texture. Look it in change local res tool.
- There is new checker in Ptex export/import menu - "Flip ptex quads" for better compatibility with renderman.
- There was lags in voxel tools when something big was changed due to Undo info saving. I made saving much faster, it speeded up many tools.
- Retopo meshes will be automatically cleaned up to avoid non-manifold topology that caused hang-ups during unwrapping and many other problems
- I made that if you are trying to save file to write protected location you will be warned to prevent loss of data.
- CTRL+SHIFT in merge tool will lead to intersection.
- Smoth with SHIFT will work correctly in Move tool.
- I made possibility to change the color of wirefrime (preferences).
- Retopo mesh will be optionally shown in render room to help in making demo reels
- correctly working cavity in PP mode.

There was many core changes, so be careful and keep backups even if I have tested and checked all carefully.

[Taros]

Re-uploaded to solve mentioned problems in 3dc forums + correctly working cavity in PP mode. Now version: 3.3.07A

[Taros]

Es bahnt sich eine kleine Revolution an, zumindest für alle die auf Retopo angewiesen sind:

Aus dem Twitter von Andrew Shpagin von pilgway:
"I made several steps toward nice auto retopo - routine to calculate cross fields as described there - http://bit.ly/b4bWYE"

[Noren]

Interessant. Bin mal gespannt, wer das als erstes in brauchbarer Form liefern kann.

[Taros]

Als erster? Wer macht das denn noch?

[Gorm]

Die Blendercommunity lässt da bestimmt nicht lange auf sich warten 8)

[Taros]

Achso. Das Dokument gibt es aber schon eine ganze Weile, über ein Jahr meine ich, wenn nicht länger.

Aber sollen sie mal machen.

[Noren]

Gerade weil es schon seit einer Weile draussen ist und durch die Foren geistert, ist anzunehmen, dass nicht nur der 3d-coat Mensch auf den Trichter gekommen ist, dass das eine recht praktische Sache waere. Von offiziellen Ankuendigungen weiss ich aber nichts, falls der Eindruck entstanden sein sollte.

[Taros]

Twitter News von Andrew Shpagin zur kommenden, neuen Quadrangulierungs-Routine:

# I made next big step toward quadranguation. It was maybe the most complex step on my sight - global parametrisation.

# It is not all, I still need to solve boundary problem, but I don't think it is too big problem. There is shot -



Für alle die neu in dieser Sache sind:
Das Beispiel wurde voll automatisch retopologisiert. Hier wurde nichts manuell erstellt.

[MartinH.]

berechnet der sowas anhand von highres daten ohne topologie, also z.b. voxeln? und kann man die auflösung bestimmen?

[Taros]

Die automatische Quadrangulierung ging bisher immer von Voxeldaten aus. Dies ist aber kein Problem, da man in 3D Coat jedes externe Modell als Voxel anlegen kann.

Und ja, man wird die Auflösung steuern können. Vielleicht nicht a la "Ich will x Anzahl Polys", sondern mehr nach Genauigkeit. Aber es ist immer noch eine immense Erleichterung.

[Neox]

wenner da noch die userguide sachen reinbaut wird das sicher abgefahren cool

[Taros]

Jow, aber Eines nach dem Anderen... bin gespannt wie schnell die Berechnung wird. Ich hoffe, er macht es gleich MThreaded.

[Taros]

Es wird langsam :
http://twitter.com/AndrewShpagin/statuses/18985924260

At least I done seamless parametrisation of the whole mesh that easily leads to auto retopo. All goes well, but sometimes non-quads appear.

It was most complex part of all calculation - to make the parametrisation seamless.

[MartinH.]

ist das immernoch ein projekt hinter dem nur ein einzelner programmierer steckt?