3D Coat

efflux · November 18, 2008, 07:14:58 AM

In 3D Coat you can also bucket fill layers with colours but not just colours, entire textures. You have various styles of gradients that you draw onto the model so when you bucket fill - the entire texture can gradate into another texture. It is ways more powerful than Mudbox in this respect. Maybe very good for displacement painting but £450?

efflux · December 13, 2008, 11:02:14 AM

Check out some of the stuff on this page.

http://3d-coat.com/v3_voxel_sculpting.html

People are going to flock to this app. ZBrush? Mudbox? No chance.

moodflow · December 13, 2008, 11:41:54 AM

Efflux, this is a fantastic find! I gave mudbox a try and loved it, but this looks amazing.

Lucio · December 13, 2008, 06:15:12 PM

thank you very very much about this find. it's going to be a lifesaver

also thanks to will for mapzone

efflux · December 13, 2008, 07:10:51 PM

3D Coat is the most amazing I've ever tried. It's in a bit of a flux at the moment with the UI which will be much better in v3.0 when it's finished. To my mind this is the app that ZBrush and Mudbox aught to have been. The only real disadvantage (if you can call it that) compared to ZBrush is that it utilizes Open GL instead of being like ZBrush and using the CPU. This obviously means you need a decent graphics card but given the advances with graphics cards now this is becoming much less of an issue.

I tried Mapzone. That's a cool app as well. In fact could be very useful with TG2 because of the beautifully intricate natural textures you can get. It didn't do what I initially imagined i.e. create procedural textures. You have to do that yourself or use their preset files but you need to make them roughly tileable first. The beauty comes in the way you process those files. You can make all kinds of amazing permutations of textures from one texture or several. It's very cool. It even ties in with 3D Coat nicely as well because you can create multi layered photoshop format brushes for 3D Coat for controlling colour, displacement and specular in the same brush. Mapzone is great for creating those layers. It also gives you good feedback on what the texture will ultimately look like with displacement etc.

efflux · December 13, 2008, 07:50:17 PM

In fact I love 3D Coat so much I would buy a new computer just to run it. I don't know how that plays with Linux Wine though because I want a 64 bit Linux system but Andrew (developer) has mentioned he would like to do a 64 bit Linux version. The guy who ported 3D Coat to Mac can also do a Linux version. The Mac port took a few months. Makes you wonder about ZBrush v3 taking years to go to Mac. They don't need to port ZBrush to Linux though. It works better under Wine than it does in Windows.

freelancah · December 19, 2008, 06:02:40 AM

Thanks for the introduction to this program. I tried the trial and bought it. The price is very cheap compared to rivaling apps. Also seems like my graphics card is going to get a run for it's money since it's CUDA supported!

efflux · December 19, 2008, 09:47:23 AM

Mine doesn't have Cuda. It's a Quadro but just a little too old to have Cuda. I also find I get crashes if I choose the menu with the fancy open GL shaders but I'm on Linux so that's probably an issue.

efflux · December 19, 2008, 09:51:48 AM

By the way. Anyone wishing to try this app is best to get the alpha of v3 because that has the voxel sculpting which is the most superb aspect. You can download that at the 3D Coat forum.

Just one more point. A version of this app actually has a tree generator. I think this has been added in the latest alpha version but I never tried it.

freelancah · December 19, 2008, 10:54:39 AM

I'm going to explore more of the alpha next year. What I already tried was awesome. I wish I could try more of it now but I dont have a computer that is capeable to handle the program with me here, since I'm not home anymore..

otakar · December 19, 2008, 11:27:03 AM

The Tree Generator does look interesting, though from the images posted it seems leafs are always oriented one way, which greatly detracts from realism. May be ok for distant trees, though and it sure is a nice freebie for 3DC customers.

http://3dbrush.kriska.hvosting.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=1003

old_blaggard · December 19, 2008, 02:16:30 PM

Wow, this is amazingly fun. I might have to buy it

. Is it a better idea price-wise to buy version 2 now and then upgrade to version 3 or to hold out until version 3 comes out in the next couple of months?

efflux · December 21, 2008, 09:00:40 AM

I think version 3 will be $200. I don't know what the upgrade will be but I expect it will be around the same cost no matter what you do.

My opinion is that against the cost of ZBrush and Mudbox then 3D Coat compares great because with the saved money you can invest in a better graphics card which will not just be for 3D Coat.

I assume the leaves are made of large textures with transparency so hence flat. I haven't used that tool yet but probably won't anyway. The guy who developed this app originally developed games so this is why everything is designed for maximum efficiency which helps with all aspects of the app. For a games developer 3D Coat is perfect.

freelancah · December 21, 2008, 12:30:22 PM

From what i read you might save around 20 bucks by purchasing earlier. I read it in some thread on the forum..

efflux · December 23, 2008, 04:23:56 PM

I just noticed this thread is now linked to at the 3D Coat site along with many other threads at well known software forums. All positive stuff. I guess I've promoted the app pretty well on this thread but I stand by it. I think it's fantastic.