Loading...
> >

If you like to sculpt...

AllenArtAllenArt Posts: 7,175
edited July 2018 in The Commons

3D Coat is on sale until August 10th. It's not Zbrush, but close (and a whole lot more affordable for those of you on a budget). 3Dcoat.com Now if we could only get a Go3DC for DS. LOL

Laurie

Post edited by AllenArt on
«1

Comments

  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 15,410

    Thanks for the heads up!  I've been considering getting 3DCoat. Yes, there is sculpting, but the other features interest me as well.

    - Does anyone use 3DCoat for their UVMapping?  If so, any thoughts on advantages and disadvantages?

    - Does anyone use 3DCoat for retopo?  If so, any thoughts on advantages and disadvantages?

    - Does anyone use 3DCoat for painting PBRs?  If so, any thoughts on advantages and disadvantages?

  • Oso3DOso3D Posts: 15,100

    From the demo, 3DCoat has some uv management tools I haven’t seen elsewhere, or at least not as easy to use.

  • frank0314frank0314 Posts: 14,789

    Please keep the discussion focussed on the software, thank you.

  • dragotxdragotx Posts: 1,147

    And HumbleBundle has Silo 2 on sale for $55 in their store right now as well

  • ZilvergrafixZilvergrafix Posts: 1,385

    Someone here uses 3DCoat?, what is the learning curve comparing to Zbrush?

  • dragotxdragotx Posts: 1,147

    Silo 2 is $45, not 55, sorry

  • marblemarble Posts: 7,500
    dragotx said:

    And HumbleBundle has Silo 2 on sale for $55 in their store right now as well

    How is Silo for sculpting or is it purely a box modeller?

  • AllenArtAllenArt Posts: 7,175
    marble said:
    dragotx said:

    And HumbleBundle has Silo 2 on sale for $55 in their store right now as well

    How is Silo for sculpting or is it purely a box modeller?

    Can't compare to 3D Coat's sculpting capabilities...Silo is maybe a little better than Hexagon at sculpting?

    Laurie

  • kyoto kidkyoto kid Posts: 42,157
    ...bugger, even at 100$ off 3DCoat Pro is still to rich for my budget.
  • E-ArkhamE-Arkham Posts: 733

    Be warned that you can't get textures larger than 2048 out of 3D Coat unless you get the Pro version.

    There are things sculpting-wise you can do with 3D Coat that are hard or impossible to do in Mudbox, thanks to voxel sculpting... like cutting out portions of the mesh, and I feel it handles hard surface sculpting a lot better than Mudbox.  Both Mudbox and 3D Coat can paint over seams across multiple UV sets/models, which Substance Painter can not do, so that's helpful for fixing seams on characters.  3D Coat also has support for PBR shaders now, too, which Mudbox does not.

    Retopo wise, the auto-topo in 3D Coat and Mudbox are comparable.  As in, they both take some fiddling to get a usable mesh, and neither really does great for models that need to move (that typically requires manual retopology).

    I still find the Mudbox UI easier to navigate with, and generally prefer to work with that.  YMMV of course, for me it's just that I'm used to that Autodesk/XSI/Max style of manipulation

  • kyoto kidkyoto kid Posts: 42,157
    edited July 2018
    ...the one attractive feature of Mudbox is also availble at subscription that brings the cost down to about 6.60$ per month (80$ per year). A lot easier on a tight budget. Also looking at it for UV mapping as well as sculpting morphs. Just not sure about how smoothly it dovetails with Daz.
    Post edited by kyoto kid on
  • marblemarble Posts: 7,500
    edited July 2018
    AllenArt said:
    marble said:
    dragotx said:

    And HumbleBundle has Silo 2 on sale for $55 in their store right now as well

    How is Silo for sculpting or is it purely a box modeller?

    Can't compare to 3D Coat's sculpting capabilities...Silo is maybe a little better than Hexagon at sculpting?

    Laurie

    Thanks. I'm getting re-acquainted with Hexagon right now but it still isn't as stable as I would like. The sculpting in Hex is similar to Blender's Proportional Edit but perhaps a litlle easier to work with. So if Silo can't offer somthing those two don't have then I'll stick with the free options. 

    As for 3DCoat - I had it on trial for a while a couple of years ago and found it difficult to get stuff from and back to DAZ Studio. Right now I'm only really interested in morphing rather than creating from scratch although I might progress to that one day (been saying that for years though).

    Post edited by marble on
  • FSMCDesignsFSMCDesigns Posts: 12,851
    kyoto kid said:
    ...the one attractive feature of Mudbox is also availble at subscription that brings the cost down to about 6.60$ per month (80$ per year). A lot easier on a tight budget. Also looking at it for UV mapping as well as sculpting morphs. Just not sure about how smoothly it dovetails with Daz.

    Subscription is never an attractive feature IMO.

    Thanks for the HU on 3Dcoat Laurie yes

  • kyoto kidkyoto kid Posts: 42,157
    edited July 2018
    ...well when you can't shell out hundreds in one lump without risking your account going into overdraught, it's better than not having the software tools at all. I used to dislike the concept as well until I found I could get Photoshop at 10$ per month (2 Starbucks Frappachinos) instead of it costing nearly three quarters of my monthly Social Security cheque. 700$ (the cost for the old perpetual license) is nearly 6 years of subscription service.
    Post edited by kyoto kid on
  • AllenArtAllenArt Posts: 7,175

    For 3DCoat tutorials, if you can get past the nervousness of this kid sometimes, he made me actually understand how to use it. No other tutes I watched made me get it LOL. So I recommend them :)

    Laurie

  • TaozTaoz Posts: 10,307
    kyoto kid said:
    ...well when you can't shell out hundreds in one lump without risking your account going into overdraught, it's better than not having the software tools at all. I used to dislike the concept as well until I found I could get Photoshop at 10$ per month (2 Starbucks Frappachinos) instead of it costing nearly three quarters of my monthly Social Security cheque. 700$ (the cost for the old perpetual license) is nearly 6 years of subscription service.

    Plus with some software you own the current version after a certain a certain number of months of subscription.

  • kyoto kidkyoto kid Posts: 42,157
    ...true.
  • dragotxdragotx Posts: 1,147
    blockquote class="Quote" rel="freni-kyn">
    dragotx said:

    I started actually using Studio fairly late in G3's cycle, but by now I have a good collection of things from genesis/v4 all the way through g8.  While I mostly use g8 models these days, it's not unusual at all for me to have characters from all generations in my scene, with clothing generations mixed all over the place.  I'm working on one right now that has a Genesis character, a g3 with a g8 dress (with dforce applied) and a g2 hair, and another g3 with g8 clothing.  I use whatever catches my eye at the time I'm putting the scene together.  But I've also purchased the extra utilities to make autofit work well moving stuff from generation to generation.  And when g9 comes out, I'll get the morphs for them when they release (release date will be the cheapest they'll be for quite some time) as well as the autofit utilities to add G9 into my workflow

    You know, I think I own all the utilities but how about a list, jist in case I missed something somewhere?

    The main ones I use are all from Sickleyield https://www.daz3d.com/sy-genesis-8-clones-for-genesis-3 https://www.daz3d.com/sy-victoria-4-and-michael-4-clones-for-genesis-8 https://www.daz3d.com/sy-ultra-templates-genesis-8-female-s There are a couple by another PA, butI can't find them right now, I'll try and find them when I'm actually at my computer instead of at a theater waiting for the movie to start
  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 15,410

    Thank you for the feedback, everyone.  Special thanks to @E-Arkham for the feature by feature discussion and comparison to Mudbox.

  • DestinysGardenDestinysGarden Posts: 2,553
    AllenArt said:

    For 3DCoat tutorials, if you can get past the nervousness of this kid sometimes, he made me actually understand how to use it. No other tutes I watched made me get it LOL. So I recommend them :)

    Laurie

    I don't think he's nervous, and I don't think he's a kid, but a guy who rambles a bit and didn't write down a script. But I'll second the recommendation for his tutorials. I was watching some the other day trying to figure out how to bake a normal map from a high res sculpt to apply to a low res model. I still didn't quite nail exactly which buttons to press in what order to get that to happen, so yeah a Go3DC for DS would be amazing!

    I use 3DC for texturing mostly, and I love the ability to set up your own materials, create brushes (alphas) for painting or sculpting, and paint images directly on your model.

    To answer a couple other questions, I've used the retopo and the UV functions a few times and find them straight forward with good results.

    On a related note if sculpting is the goal, I got an email from Pixologic stating that ZbrushCore has been updated with some new features and you have until 01Aug18 to lock in the legacy price of $149.99. The price is going to go up to $179.99 after that.

     

  • TaozTaoz Posts: 10,307

    But I guess ZBrush is still the ultimate choice, if you can afford it. Or what?

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 109,675
    Taoz said:

    But I guess ZBrush is still the ultimate choice, if you can afford it. Or what?

    For what? While ZBrush can be used for texturing it isn't, especially for figurs like the daz humans, best in class. It probably is for sculpting, though again if you want to end up with normal or displacement map ZBrush alone is not without its awkwardness

  • AllenArtAllenArt Posts: 7,175
    marble said:
    AllenArt said:
    marble said:
    dragotx said:

    And HumbleBundle has Silo 2 on sale for $55 in their store right now as well

    How is Silo for sculpting or is it purely a box modeller?

    Can't compare to 3D Coat's sculpting capabilities...Silo is maybe a little better than Hexagon at sculpting?

    Laurie

    Thanks. I'm getting re-acquainted with Hexagon right now but it still isn't as stable as I would like. The sculpting in Hex is similar to Blender's Proportional Edit but perhaps a litlle easier to work with. So if Silo can't offer somthing those two don't have then I'll stick with the free options. 

    As for 3DCoat - I had it on trial for a while a couple of years ago and found it difficult to get stuff from and back to DAZ Studio. Right now I'm only really interested in morphing rather than creating from scratch although I might progress to that one day (been saying that for years though).

     

    marble said:
    AllenArt said:
    marble said:
    dragotx said:

    And HumbleBundle has Silo 2 on sale for $55 in their store right now as well

    How is Silo for sculpting or is it purely a box modeller?

    Can't compare to 3D Coat's sculpting capabilities...Silo is maybe a little better than Hexagon at sculpting?

    Laurie

    Thanks. I'm getting re-acquainted with Hexagon right now but it still isn't as stable as I would like. The sculpting in Hex is similar to Blender's Proportional Edit but perhaps a litlle easier to work with. So if Silo can't offer somthing those two don't have then I'll stick with the free options. 

    As for 3DCoat - I had it on trial for a while a couple of years ago and found it difficult to get stuff from and back to DAZ Studio. Right now I'm only really interested in morphing rather than creating from scratch although I might progress to that one day (been saying that for years though).

    I never really considered what Hex does as "sculpting" really....it's so much like the morph brush in Poser and I guess that's why I liked it :)

    Laurie

  • SickleYieldSickleYield Posts: 7,649
    Richard Haseltine said:
    Taoz said:

    But I guess ZBrush is still the ultimate choice, if you can afford it. Or what?

    For what? While ZBrush can be used for texturing it isn't, especially for figurs like the daz humans, best in class. It probably is for sculpting, though again if you want to end up with normal or displacement map ZBrush alone is not without its awkwardness

    Zbrush plus Substance Painter is the best combo I've so far found for everything but skin when it comes to 3d texturing.  I would sculpt the small details in Zbrush, export to a very large obj, bake normals from that in Substance Painter, and in Substance painter I'd paint the diffuse and add damage, and then Substance's final normal map adds those damages to the baked map.

    For skin...  Well, I still suck at compositing photos.  The best I ever could figure out was manually painting the normals in Zbrush, then painting a sort-of-related diffuse in 3d Coat.  I've never made a character skin that turned out well for a humanoid.

  • Hermit CrabHermit Crab Posts: 876

    Thanks for that link to tutorials, AllenArt.  I've had 3D Coat for a while now and have hardly scratched the surface of it, to my shame.  I was telling myself that I need to look at 1-2 tutorials a day and try to duplicate what is being taught.  These might be exactly what I need.

    Thanks also E-Arkham.  I think auto-retopology asks a lot of any software but I got a good feel about 3D Coat's other retopology tools (from tutorials - I haven't needed them yet).

    I'm not in the market for Zbrush, Mudbox, or Substance tools so I can't make recommendations to anyone weighing up these options as alternative purchases.  But I have zero regrets about owning the non-commercial version of 3D Coat.  If I ever needed the commercial version I'd pay for the upgrade in a flash.  Just taking a look at the tutorial topics in the video link given by AllenArt confirms that it is great software to have all those features.  The Line tool seems to be somewhat similar to Zbrush's Zspheres and I want to concentrate on it to start with.  Then on to finer sculpting.

    I use Hexagon when I feel in the mood for making models but I got Silo in a sale some years ago in case Hexagon was finished.  I haven't used it but Silo has a retopology brush.  I believe the user just draws a grid over the model in the way a grid could be drawn with a felt-tipped pen over an actual plaster-cast.  That way a low-poly mesh can be created.  But I don't know whether normal maps can be made in Silo from the hi-poly version.

    I'm only a hobbyist with no aims to use top-of-the-range software.  The other programs I use are Carrara, Poser, Iclone and Daz Studio (sometimes).  But I'm very happy to have 3D Coat because I lean towards being creative in 3d and I think it will serve me well.

  • Hermit CrabHermit Crab Posts: 876

    @ SickleYield: your post appeared while I was typing mine, so nothing I said was a reaction to what you wrote.  You have way more knowledge of these things than I have.

     

  • SickleYieldSickleYield Posts: 7,649
    Marcus Severus said:

    @ SickleYield: your post appeared while I was typing mine, so nothing I said was a reaction to what you wrote.  You have way more knowledge of these things than I have.

     

    Every individual experience is valid when it comes to what programs work for you artistically.  I wouldn't be in this market if you could only start in it with expensive programs, lol.  When I started I had Blender and the GIMP, period.

  • TaozTaoz Posts: 10,307
    edited July 2018
    Richard Haseltine said:
    Taoz said:

    But I guess ZBrush is still the ultimate choice, if you can afford it. Or what?

    For what? While ZBrush can be used for texturing it isn't, especially for figurs like the daz humans, best in class. It probably is for sculpting, though again if you want to end up with normal or displacement map ZBrush alone is not without its awkwardness

    For me personally sculpting is not something I expect to be doing a lot of (but who knows), but I'd prefer a single program which can do both sculpting, and particularly texturing and UV mapping fairly well. Exporting/importing between different programs is something I find very annoying, so the ZBrush bridge for DS makes ZBrush especially appealing to me.

    Post edited by Taoz on
  • kyoto kidkyoto kid Posts: 42,157
    ...you mean "appealing"?
  • Hermit CrabHermit Crab Posts: 876

    That's good to hear, SickleYield.  Setting cost aside, I have a certain reluctance to wish for the best, professional tools.  They can do so much that I would feel overwhelmed but would still be drawn to chasing after the latest improvements.  Based on results achievable, I would love to buy Vue (to give an example) and become proficient in it.  But I think it must need so much computer power and time to render as well as another learning curve for me that I tend to curb my ambitions instead.  The same goes for Zbrush, Modo and so on.  That's just me.

    It's a totally different story, though, for those making a living from 3d, whether alone or in a team.  And those who have mastered so many skills definitely deserve their reward.

Sign In or Register to comment.