Thanks a lot Pilou!

Roland Cat...Wow! Stunning paintings!!

Yes!

Long life to 3DC!!

Bye.

About once a year I'm considering buying 3D Coat once again, but it's hard for me to find a breakthrough reason to do so because I already work with ZBrush, MoI and Blender.

I'm not much into realtime PBR materials, as I'm not into gaming anymore (I used to be a full-time game designer in a far-away past, when 2D games still mostly ruled).

I use MoI for 2D shapes, hard-surface modeling and quick base meshes. Among other things I'm using Blender for Dynamic topology sculpting, and ZBrush for finalizing, automatic retopology and vertex painting.

I'm still looking for the holy grail of automatic retopology. I saw in the 3D Coat V4.7 features video last year that auto-retopo had been improved. Looking at the results it's more or less comparable to ZRemesher. What are your experiences with 3D Coat's autopo?

I've tried Instant Meshes, but it generates too many triangle dead-ends that remain visible after subdividing.

Thanks,

Hi Metin.

@You : "...'m still looking for the holy grail of automatic retopology...."

Well...I too :)

I think that maybe the only true method to get rid of retopology is this :)




Bye.

Great suggestion, Marco! Let's go back to basics! :D

Hi Metin,

If you don't have a really good UV Mapper, then that would be a really good reason to use 3DC. Another reason for me is to be able to quickly go from polys out of NURBS to voxelize, add distress, and then paint like



and create a color 3D print like

Hi chippwalters.

@You : "...If you don't have a really good UV Mapper, then that would be a really good reason to use 3DC..."

I totally agree!

IMHO 3D-Coat with this new version 4.8 (actually in beta test) it is increasingly becoming a killer app!

Under 400 USD it's really hard to find better alternatives.

And if you don't need exporting outside 3DC but what you want to do is a super fast production of prototypes and concepts,
I strongly suggest you the fastest workflow actually available inside 3DC :

1) voxels (also in surface mode) : modelling directly in Sculpt Room or importing models created outside (for example obj exported from Moi)
2) Apply Shaders in Sculpt Room
3) Use PBR builtin render.

No UV, NO retopo, NO texturing, NO exporting, nothing.

Of course, using that workflow you can't get photorealistic results, but in less than 2 hours you can create a complete
model, for example a of a medium complexity mechanical object, from scratch to render.

Cheers.

Thanks for the info Chip and Marco, much appreciated. The cannon looks great! This brings me on another possible reason to go for 3D Coat: how good is its capacity to auto-generate a hollow model with just the right wall thickness?

In ZBrush you can use the Dynamesh Shell function to create a wall thickness based on voxels, but in practice the Shapeways 3D print auto-check still finds weak areas with insufficient wall thickness, so ZBrush Dynamesh Shell isn't the one-stop solution I'm looking for.

Hi everyone!

Talking about again the old and ever green Bryce 7, I'm glad to tell you
that David Brinnen has completely redesigned from scratch his excellent https://www.bryce-tutorials.info/

Now is very cool!

Bye.

Return on a funny thing ! :) (free of course)
https://deepdreamgenerator.com

the original image (from a Moi object if I remember... :)
Render Free Simlab Composer Lite!

The original start image "paint" with the free Sysley.... http://www.stat.ucla.edu/~mtzhao/research/sisley/ or free FotoSketcher https://fotosketcher.com



You have 3 possibilities of nature styles - Deep, Thin, Dream : in one you can input your own images as support of style so infinite possibilities!

and a result with a standard style "Deep" (less 3 minutes)


with "Deep" + my own style (less 3 minutes)


With "Thin" + a style(s) standard (less 40 seconds)


With "Dream" (less 40 seconds) : the original concept of the computer vision in clouds! ;)
4 Possibilities : Standard, Spirit, Neuron, Valyrian, Your own!
Here standard

Hi Pilou!

Thanks a lot for this reminder.

Very cool results!

I added Fotosketcher and Sisley to my tool chest!

Bye!

The 4 possibilities of DeepDream section style (less 40 seconds)

Neuron


Valyrian


Spirit


My own (who is this one) https://s6.postimg.cc/pgbkjls41/shader01.jpg

Fascinating. It's got such a unique, distinctive look.

<< Fascinating!

Sure! And endless! :)
From a simple "French" Moi object! ;) (as you can see about the last icon's name)

Original

Then "thin"...

"3D Coat: how good is its capacity to auto-generate a hollow model with just the right wall thickness?"

Very simple with 3D Coat. In fact I would suppose voxels are the absolute best for complicated shelling as the voxel unit is so small and offsetting it mathematically is fairly simple (I believe). In any case, I've never seen any problems with even the most complicated shelling offsets...positive or negative.

It's one reason why I use 3D Coat for complex 3D Printing of models.

Thanks Chip! I'm going to reconsider buying 3D Coat.

Take a look to ZBrush too! ;)

Frenchy: I'm already a satisfied ZBrush user. :)

Chip and Marco: I've bought 3D Coat! I hope you're proud of me now. ;) I expect to spend the next few months not sleeping but watching about 8723984 3D Coat video tutorials, including yours, Chip. :)

Hi Metin!

@You : "...I've bought 3D Coat!..."


WOW! Excellent choice. For under 400USD you can't get better!

You will have a lot of fun with Moi and 3DC!

Ciao.