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User Manual Version 3.2 - 3D-Coat

1. 66 13 2 Benchmark 87 8 8 VoxTree Right click Menu 67 8 9VoxelMenu 69 14 FAQ Additional Tips 8 10 Shaders 2 2 70 14 1 For Your Information 89 9 Render Mode 15 Contacts amp Credits 9 1 Render Panel Functions 71 16 Printing this manual 10 Menu Panel 10 1File 74 10 2 Import 74 10 3 74 1024 75 222 277 10 6Textures 78 10 7 Symmetry 80 10 8 Windows 81 10 9Texturebakingtool 81 12 Customize Hot Keys amp User Interface 12 1 Customize Hotkeys 85 12 2 Customize User Interface 85 1 What s new in 3D Coat 3 2 Much improved ePanel now with depth control Render tab improvements Drastically improved voxel surface sculpting toolset Major Realtime rendering while speed improvments to these tools allow for faster sculpting tweaking render params Planar brush performs as a wood plane amp multiple colored light Chisel brush sources Muscles brush New polygon Reduction Toothpaste brush tool This will reduce the Barelief tool amount of polygons on Sf Freeze brush based masking tool for all other sur
2. a r ee eh 1 1 i 1 1 i I Th TL LE TEL CTRL LMB to mark the rota tion center point This mode can be used to multiply a pat tern drawn in one sector all around Center X and Center Y are the positions of the control point on the screen To change its position press CTRL and LMB in corresponding place Amount of sectors Amount of sectors when cloning a pattern in a sector Counter clockwise When enabled the sector will be cop ied counter clockwise Symmetrical copy Symmetrical copy lets you to copy a surface from one side of a model to make it symmetrical Press S and activate symmetry before using this tool This tool can be used on any of the three axes to copy symmetry Image left Copy using pen This lets you copy using topological symmetry You should set up topological symmetry before using this tool Topological symmetry can be defined in the Topologi cal symmetry tool by selecting two symmetrical faces Transform copy tool Drag the frame and select an area to be transferred The frame acquired can be dragged or rotated Use SHIFT to preserve proportions Use CTRL to drag vertices independently of each other Press ESC to cancel the trans formation and ENTER to apply it This mode is good to use in combination with frame circle and curve drawing press E to open the draw types menu The border width deter mines the edge softness when transformin
3. Contents New Start ated on the basis of grayscale image It will default to the merge tool so you can use the standard merge gizmo here Cut amp Clone This tool will let you cut and clone the volume of a voxel object based on the type of brush parameters It defaults to the drag rectangle pen mode and will copy the whole volume of the object underneath You can also adjust your border parameters with three different types Round Plane and Sharp Split This tool is very similar to the Cut amp Clone tool It has the exact same border settings The difference is that it tears a chunk of the object that you are operating on and creates its own object Layer in the VoxTree Merge This tool lets you import polygonal meshes to convert into voxels Let us first go over some of the basic functions of this tool Select mesh Selects a mesh stored on your hard drive Pick from retopo If you have something retopologized in the Retopo TAB then you can use the mesh to merge to voxels On pen Turns any merged mesh into a pen to sculpt with Note If you are using a high res object and then click that you ll be painting high res objects all over which will cause a lot of lagging Subdivide Subdivides your un merged mesh Transform Will change to the transform gizmo allowing you to transform the un merged mesh Shift X Y amp Z Shifts the un merged mesh along the selected axis inside a bounding box in local space Rig
4. Contents Droplet mode Increasing pressure decreases radius and grows depth and opacity Same width and depth Ignores pen pressure applied The next three modes are drawing with dots lines and curves Draw with separate dots This mode lets you draw point by point Draw straight lines from point to point this and the next mode press ESC to start drawing a line from the beginning or CTRL Z to return to the previous point Draw with splines from point to point The lines and splines drawing mode always uses crossing as opposed to additive drawing This continues until you switch from the line draw ing mode into another mode The next mode is unique in it s function and has no other sibling modes Stamp mode In this mode the stamp follows the mouse pen without leaving traces You can rotate the pen using and or MOUSE WHEEL under the corresponding adjust ments in the Preferences menu change pen size and see how the stamp is going to be applied onto an object We rec ommend using the Stamp mode with the Additive drawing 44 New Start RightSide PanelPaint Sculpt Retopo Mode Voxels located in the depth chan nel menu option disabled The concluding five modes are all drawing with contours Draw with rectangle Use a rectangle to define the drawn area This mode works with almost every tool You can paint freeze fill or make planes with the rect angle Dr
5. Render Menu Hotkeys Customize CUDA FAQ Tips Credits 26 94 Contents New Start Ignore backfaces This is a switch which toggles between draw ing on the back side of surface polygons and not This option is available only when drawing with the rectangle ellipse or contour 4 7 Paint Tools While in Paint Mode you can use a set of tools located in the left side panel You can also press SPACE for quick access below right Listed below are all of the painting tools in the left panel Draw with a pen The Brush icon is the default drawing painting method Draw with expansion The Airbrush icon is a mode of V drawing with accumula TOOLS PANEL Right Side Panel Paint UV Mode Sculpt Retopo Voxels tion It is highly dependent upon the draw by spots pen option Color Operations This tool has 10 different color adjustment options They are Desaturate color reducing When you press CTRL the opposite action is performed and it colorizes Saturate increment the chromatic level When you press CTRL the opposite action is performed and it desaturates Darken color darkening When you press CTRL the opposite action is performed and it lightens Lighten increment of brightness When you press CTRL the opposite action is performed and it darkens Sharpen sharpen the color Use CTRL to smooth Smoothing soft smoothing Use CTRL to sharpen the surface Increase hue Increase hue u
6. and you can even paint on it with a pen or an object Check the Airbrush mode when using Select with pen to increase the selection area smoothly After a selection is made a special posing gizmo will appear It has three states Rotate Scale and Translate You can switch modes by clicking on the long red rectangular bar at the base of the gizmo In each state the gizmo has set of parameters in the Params window Finally as with all tools in 3D Coat the pose tool respects symmetry as well as all selection modes like drag rectangle lasso etc Let s now take a look at some of the pose tool parameters ROTATE Render Menu Hotkeys Customize CUDA FAQ Tips Credits 54 94 Line This mode lets you draw a line based gradient for use with the pose tool gizmo It starts with your initial LMB click and ends with the release of the LMB Ring This selects a ring based gradient It starts with your initial LMB click and ends with the release of the LMB Sphere This selects a spherical gradient It starts with your initial LMB click and ends with the release of the LMB Select with pen Selecting with pen mode lets you directly brush on your selection The pen size directly affects the selection area Furthermore you can also smooth your selected area by holding SHIFT LMB This is a great way to select things quickly if you just need tiny little details selected This mode also has a special option Airbrush mode By using
7. Click OK twice to close the dialog boxes and then restart the computer for the change to take effect You can read more about the 3GB option here http technet microsoft com en us library bb124810 aspx http www vfxpedia com index php titleZFAQ 3GB Switch 91 94 Official 3D Coat web site Lead Programmer Andrew Shpagin Web designer Webmaster Viadimir Popelnukh Sales manager Stanislav Chernyshuk PR manager Denis Yanev Authors of the manual Luo Chen Marina Shpagina Dwayne Ferguson Daniel Yarmak Klaus Nordby and Javis Jones Manual design Klaus Nordby 92 94 You may of course also print this manual But you probably don t want to waste unnecessary ink Please follow these simple instruc tions to remove the grey background in this PDF document In Adobe Reader first move your cursor to View gt Navigation Panels gt Layers You should then see on the left side a new panel called Layers You will only see 3DC Manual or some thing similar Then click next to the icon to expand the Layer system You should see a layer named Gray background and right next to it a visibility icon represented by an eyeball Click the eyeball to toggle the visibility off All this is clearly shown in the images on this page Edit View Document Tools Window Help To Zoom Page Display Rotate View the transparency applied to pen educe or increase t
8. A PSD file will be saved and it will be loaded automatically after any changes As soon as you save the file 3D Coat automatically reloads the pen In Adobe Photoshop the pen image has the structure as seen in this image Each pen includes four Layers Color Height Map Depth Specular Map Specular and an Erase Mask Erase Let s take a look at these Layers individually Color This contains the pen color and its transparency mask The transparency mask affects the specular channel as well Specular Height Map This contains the pen height map Middle grey RGB 127 127 127 corresponds to zero height Darker colors corre Right Side Panel Paint Sculpt Retopo UV Mode Voxels spond to concave areas lighter colors to convex areas Specular White color corre sponds to maximum specular ity black color to the absence of specularity Keep in mind that the color map transpar ency mask gets applied onto the specular map too EraseMask This mask lets you erase the Layer contents on the mask before pen drawing This may be used to create pens which will not collide with each other when drawing An effective application would be interstice chaps on skin fabric Keep in mind that the erase mask affects the lowest Layer A few other things that you can do Edit as 16 bit TIF Edit the pen as a 16 bit TIF file in an external editor Adobe Photoshop by default A PSD file will be saved and it will be reloaded au
9. CAVAI 1 AT 2 AT EN N D gt 2 Y T NY 7 i D CA 1 J CY Y A C VV 2 L TP C 221 1 i Ciel C A e MA M ULM M wA 47 V IV IONAD 4 R J NM S i LM ii Pair arms Layer Material bject ge Use color tolerance Calor tolerancer ya I Fill with freeze la with smaoth Lines mode a Use in othar tools pndulstion type ox piam M SPN refs m E Iu r Aouad 5 1 n Iren oni aig 0 v niani NUR Modulate depth Depth modulator AEXtrusi ni Ei Modulate color preference 4Canvexity opacity E GA Convexity color 4CO ncaviby ppaciby Cancaviby color ry Modulate uu aConvexity specularity iCancavity sp rularity 100 Pores size Spots size Cracks width Edge contrast This parameter determines the smoothness of the edges in cube mapping Bump texture bump texture to be used in cube mapping Color texture The color texture to be used in cube mapping Name The name of a custom pattern p ii VA EP P e F7 FAA T Pm Je Pandar Mionii Lletl ovc iicteYmizo CIIDPDA LAC Tine radite ACT VIEIL ULACVS SLUJIT C V V PLE IRAN IVINM I A I INZ GCINN y 227 t Sl JI ELLY I I
10. Params Add new points into the spline by pressing LMB Use ENTER to apply with depth upon apply ing the text will be convex over the curve CTRL ENTER for con cave Use BKSP to delete the last point ESC to delete all points Click on the blue sphere to move it With the Putting text on the curve tool you are not only able to paint and extrude but you also Erase Freeze Planarize Set the absolute height You can place text along any polygonal surface along any contour Place picture along spline You can apply an image along a spline curve with this tool With this tool you can select images used for Depth texture Color texture Specular texture put pic tures along spline There are several settings and functions Number of tiles Specify the number of tiles You can see the difference with number of tiles higher or lower Falloff Opacity falloff Extrusion Extrusion of the 777777 whole texture A The other parameters the same as in Draw with spline With the Place picture along spline tool you are not only able to paint and extrude but you also can Erase Freeze Planarize Set absolute height B Render Menu Hotkeys Customize CUDA FAQ Tips Credits 32 94 Here is an example of using an image along a spline to freeze an area E m ERIS Eraser transparency 100 z E Erase Erasing the color depth or specularity in the current Layer The range o
11. User Manual Version 3 2 January 25 2010 Revision 3 2 Powered by www 3d coat com Copyright 2007 2009 PILGWAY Corp All rights reserved Table of Contents 1 What s new in 3D Coat 3 2 2 Getting started 2 1 Importing Meshes 2 2 Customizable Interface 2 3 Tabbed Popup Windows 2 4 Popup Window Menus 2 5 Navigation Panel 2 6 Camera Options 2 7 Viewport Reference Images 3 Right Side Panel 3 1 The Pen Tab 3 2 The Pen Options Tab 3 3 Pen Options in the Tool Bar 3 4StripsTab 3 5 Masks Tab 3 6 Materials Tab 3 7 Blending tab 3 8 Layers tab 3 9 Sub Objects Tab 4 Panel Paint Mode 4 1 Per Pixel vs Microvertex 4 2 Depth O O NN OO UI 10 11 13 14 15 15 16 16 18 19 21 4 3 Color 4 4 Specularity 4 5 Color Picker 4 6 E Panel 4 7 Paint Tools 5 Sculpt Mode 5 1 Thetools 6 Retopo Mode 6 1 Create amp Commands 6 2 Tweak amp Commands 6 3 UV TEE 6 4 Retopo Menu amp Tool Bar 6 5 Retopology Groups Layers 7 UV Mode 7 1 Modes 7 2 Commands 7 3 Selected General 8 Voxels Mode 8 1 What are Voxels 8 2 Volume Sculpting Tools 8 3 Adjustment Tools 8 4 Object Tools 22 23 23 24 27 39 41 44 44 45 46 48 49 49 52 52 54 57 Table of Contents II 8 5 Surface Mode amp Tools 64 13 8 6 Commands 66 13 1 CUDA Basics 2 2 2 2 87 87Voxlree
12. Vertices Mode Lets you Clear Invert Rotate CW Rotate CCW Flip U Flip V and Relax Edges Mode In Edges selec tion mode there are a few new tools They are To line Equidis tant Horizontal Vertical The following tools are for edges mode Select Edge Loop You can select an edge loop by double clicking on an edge or you may simply use an Edgeloop com mand in the Selected block With Edgering command you can select edge rings To Line This command places all selected edges along the line Equidistant This command places all selected edges along the line and sets equal distance between points Render Menu Hotkeys Customize CUDA FAQ Tips Credits Horizontal This command puts all selected edges horizontally Vertical This command puts all selected edges vertically Set seams This command marks selected edges as seams Del seams This command unmarks selected seams if there are such Faces Mode This selection mode differs from Vertices selec tion mode in four additional commands Hide Inv Hidden Unhide Unhide all Use this commands to show only selected faces in the viewport All other commands work the same as for Vertices Islands Mode This selection mode lets you operate with sepa rate UV islands You can translate rotate and scale vertically horizontally and proportionally an island with the help of Manipulator Note that you need to acti Select Manipulate vate the manipulato
13. clusters in real time and shows you the preview of unwrapped clusters immediately so that you can see the degree of distortion for every part You can see new clusters appearing in real time lest you should forget some seam before unwrapping 7 1 Modes Add clusters Click the LMB to add a cluster center directly on a polygon face Clicking again on the same face will remove it This tool lets you mark a seam without actually marking it as one allowing for a whole UV island to be split into parts without actually splitting them Mark Seams When you are ready to unwrap your mesh to create a UV map you must first of course select your seams That is where this tool comes in You can select edges with the LMB edge loops with SHIFT LMB and deselect with CTRL LMB Edge loops This tool is no different then holding down SHIFT LMB with the Mark seams tool The difference here is that you are not required to hold down the SHIFT key to select your desired edge loops Render Menu Hotkeys Customize CUDA FAQ Tips Credits 48 94 7 2 Commands Clear clusters Clears all UV clusters also called UV islands and seams Clear seams Clears only the seams of the current mesh Auto seams This function is mOSTLy self explanatory It will essentially create seams automatically with a best guess on what edges to select as the seams Unwrap Fits all clusters into the UV space Pack UV This will pack all unwra
14. file_002 3b Merge Object Merges additional objects into the scene Caution Don t merge objects with very different scales 10 2 Import Model for per pixel painting Imports a mesh to paint directly over pixels in a UV set This approach will give better quality of painting over a texture because the painting will be per formed directly over pixels in a UV set Use this for normal maps and texture maps Model for microvertex painting Imports a mesh for use with the microvertex sculpting and texturing tools Use this for displacement maps and vector maps Reference Mesh Imports the mesh to use as a reference for the retopology tool Big Mesh Imports a large mesh up to 16 million polygons This function requires two meshes a low poly reference mesh and a high poly mesh Both should have the same non overlapped New Start Panel Paint Sculpt UV Mode Right Side Retopo Voxels aaa Textures New Import Open CTRL 0 Export Open Recent Fa Use Original UV Browse gt Save CTRL 5 Save As CTRL ALT 5 Adjust Import UV Export UV Export SL Sculpt Map Texture UV Editor Save Incrementally CTRL SHIFT 5 Merge Object Import k Export gt Exit T Texture Baking Tool Calc Occlusion Offset Tool UV set First import the low poly mesh into scene using the usual import dialog then load the high poly mesh using this option Image Plane Loads a flat square object and applies color and depth images for bump
15. simply brush them in with your pen manually you can ward and forward in space The Lock icon near depth slider create a spline curve and apply the lets you vary the pen radius without variation of absolute pen strip to it Of course using a spline CLICK ON THE LINE PARTITIONS HERE strip so itis recommended you try it with 9696 A isSpecularity a curve first If it doesn t suit your needs or you require something a ee yt Dee a mx T 3 essure not dependent on color n more loose then you should try to manually brush it It also helps to use TO MINIMIZE THE RESPECTIVE Ul ELEMENT the Soft Stroke feature when manu ally brushing a strip depth In standard mode radius and depth are proportional Here you can see an excellent Minimizing on the Tool Bar You can also change settings on image with the proper use of a strip the tool bar such as falloff soecularity etc This can be done along a spline curve The bandolier by clicking in the immediate area around the setting you around the figure s shoulders was wish to minimize The image here shows the area to click to painted with the strip achieve this V N ALAS C44 pt D ENS ER Gee J D AN PME D AFARA r J At P ANIE T nr AE Contents New Start RightSide X PanelPaint Sculpt Retopo Voxels Render M
16. Command P Edit projections in Ext Editor Command Option P Layers operation Create new layer Command Shift N Duplicate layer Command Shift D Merge down Command E Merge visible layers Command Shift E Erase unfrozen Delete Navigate Screen Materials Mask Decrease brush size or WHEEL down or Move Materials Mask RMB on empty space click on model surface and drag left Rotate Materials Mask Increase brush size or WHEEL up or Command RMB on empty space Right click on model surface and drag right Scale Materials Mask Decrease brush depth or Command WHEEL down Shift RMB on empty space or Right click on model surface and drag down Change aspect ratio of Materials Mask Increase brush depth or Command WHEEL up Command Shift RMB empty space 9 Fight click on model surface and drag up Decrease brush smooth degree Shift or Model display in paint mode Shift WHEEL down or View relief only 1 Shift Right click on model surface and drag down Legend LMB left mouse button RMB right mouse button MMB middie mouse button WHEEL mouse wheel scrolling Standard Open 3b extension Command Import for Microvertex painting Command Shift Import image plane Command Shift M Save Command S In Point amp faces mode Add points LMB Tweak points Generate faces RMB Force generate triangle face Shift R
17. Airbrush This tool is great for very quickly placing horns and other protruding elements Unlike the Airbrush the Increase and the Clay tool it constantly grows underneath your brush as you press the LMB regardless of forward motion Build This tool is similar to the Increase and the Airbrush tool But while the Airbrush will continue to build while holding down your cursor Build doesn t do that You have to move Planar This tool new in version 3 2 acts just like a carpenter s it like the Increase brush However with the Build tool you wood plane does It will scrape the volume from the set set can use alpha pens and it doesn t smooth position amp normal of the brush cursor You set the brush cur Extrude This tool is very similar to the Carve tool but it is also sor s position amp normal by clicking and holding the RMB and strongly smoothed then dragging along the surface of a voxel object There are Sphere This tool is a very quick five modes by which you decide the position of the brush way to create bubbles bodies Pick point amp forward direction This will place the cursor at the etc The size of the sphere is last location you used the RMB facing toward the camera Airbrush Contents New Start RightSide PanelPaint Sculpt Retopo Voxels Render Menu Hotkeys Customize CUDA Credits 53 94 Contents New Start Pick point and forward direction Pick point only Pic
18. PEA t tef Re Y 7 Vw ih 2 tl Sl B a J lt Delete pattern Modulate depth Select this point if you want to modulate the depth when filling in Parameters Depth modulator Modulation value Extrusion The addition extrusion 1 means that surface 1 1 Hl will only press in only press out Modulate color Select the corresponding color operation and paint with it Vary the opacity to make the effect stronger or weaker Parameters Color preference This slider determines the preference of color use between color for convexity and concavity Convexity opacity Convexity opacity modulator Convexity color This color corresponds to convexity Concavity opacity Concavity opacity modulator Concavity color This color corresponds to concavity Modulate specular Select this option if you want to modu late specular channel Parameters Convexity specular Convexity specular modulator Concavity specular Concavity specular modulator To apply the new fill pattern you should specify texture of bump and texture of color optional They will be mapped on object using cube mapping with soft edges The screenshot below show the difference between usual cube mapping and map ping with soft edges In this way youcan texture objects seamlessly very easily It is easy to create materials like skin or pores Save Load fill parameters Using menu Store Restore you can store parameters of
19. Start paint over the model but also to perform non local opera tions like blurring and sharpening with brush Some operations are performed in space like painting filling aPPLYing curves some in projection like smudge All this is transparent to the user Most operations can be performed optionally not only on the visible side of an object but on the invisible too like aPPLYing curves filling painting rings rectangles and poly gons over the surface Exchange with other applications becomes really fast and has no quality loss so you can use 3D Coat in any stage of the pipeline for a final touch or to perform full texturing You can import a normal map and use it as a reference for texture painting Normal maps can be changed too you can aPPLY some smoothing not over seams or fade some areas t creates seamless painting and smoothing over textures This technology can be used for any kind of texturing low poly or high poly You can edit textures from 32x32 to 8192x8192 pixels large if you have 1GB or more of video memory It can be used in a very wide range of applications from graphics for mobile phones to high end game projects and films which require huge textures This technology supports tiled self inter sected and mirrored textures without any problems Here is a list of the advantages of per pixel painting over microvertex painting Much faster then microvertex painting Right Side Panel Pa
20. Turn on off Soft stroke Option 5 Clockwise rotate brush 9 Anti Clockwise rotate brush 0 Pressing out LMB Pressing in Command LMB Smoothing Shift LMB Increase brush smooth degree Shift or Shift WHEEL up or Shift Right click on modal surface and drag up Decrease Transparency O Increase Transparency P Decrease Specularity lt Increase Specularity gt Decrease Opacity of Specularity Increase Opacity of Specularity Pick tool Pick color V Pick layer H Symmetry Change the position symmatry plana TAB moving your mouse Draw with spline in Paint Curves in Voxels Add point to a spline LMB Draw pressed out curve Return Draw pressed in curve Command Retum Delete all points ESC Delete the last point Backspace Copy and paste part of surface Insert a copied part Command V Copy a part Command C Creation of a new pen from a site Command Shift C Freeze operation Toggle freeze view Option F Freeze transparent pixels Command D Invert freeze selection Command Shift Show hide freeze Command F Expand frozen area Command NUM Contract frozen area Command NUM Freeze border Command NUM smooth freezing Command Hide operation Unhide all Command X Expand hidden area NUM Contract hidden area NUM Retopo operation In Add split mode Add new polygon LMB Split faces edges Connect vertex LMB Escape from c
21. be undone Duplicate Layer Shift the Layer upward Lifts the selected Layer up Shift the Layer downward Lowers the selected Layer down Further more if you click the RMB on a Layer more options are available Layer Blending Go to the B ending TAB Duplicate Duplicate the selected Layer Flip Layer and Duplicate and flip Duplicate the Layer and flip it using topological symmetry Flip Layer Flip the Layer using topological symmetry Copy Blue to Red Copy the blue part of a mesh to the red part You can define blue and red parts in the topological sym metry tool Copy Red to Blue Copy the red part of a mesh to the blue one You can define the blue and red parts in the topological sym metry tool Merge Visible Merges all visible Layers Undo is unavailable Merge Up Merge this Layer and the upper Layer Undo is not available Freeze painted pixels The freeze value will be set equal to the Layer s transparency Freeze Transparent Pixels Freeze the transparent part of the Layer It is important if you want use the transparency mask Render Menu Hotkeys Customize CUDA Credits 17 94 LA L 1 gu 5 ck OR N of the current Layer on another Layer Use CTRL LMB on the Layer to perform the same action Apply Layer Mask Apply a Layer mask to Layer The Layer mask is a reference to another Layer that masks this Layer Apply Blending Color to Specular Transforms color b
22. can toggle between turning the depth on or off If there is an X over the sphere it will be toggled off More general informa tion about the how the icons on the top bar work is located in section 3 3 on page 13 The additive drawing option lets you activate deactivate the additive application option when drawing lines If Additive drawing is active two lines are drawn one over another Notably if the option is disabled a cross is made with objects drawn in the current Layer only A red line on the pen cursor displays the depth of relief lying Press the and keys or mouse wheel under corresponding adjustments in the Prefer 8 7 ences menu to see how the 75 477 7 depth changes If the pen is of Rilke ding complex shape less pressure should be applied to prevent steep overfalls of image height On a side note it would make it hard to present the entire object as normal mapped low polyg onal one heavy geometry distortions will be seen With the help of Smoothing slider you can change the level of smoothing By pressing SHIFT key green line will appear on the pen cursor and by pressing SHIFT and keys or mouse wheel provided corresponding adjustments have been made in the Preferences menu you can adjust the level of smoothing Pay attention on the top panel there are inscriptions Depth Color Specular Point the mouse cursor onto one of them You will see the menu as fol
23. color or material based on its closeness to another color By using the slider you can adjust this value The higher the tolerance the larger area and or more existing col ors it will fill Fill with freeze Instead of a color fill in the surface will be filled by freezing The Freeze degree slider is responsible for maximal freeze values Lines mode Lets you fill in by setting two points The vec tor between them is consid ered the main direction when Params using distortions If you have chosen the Fill with Layer Material Object gradient the surface will i Use TRE be filled with color gradi Color tolerance Be is ent from the main color to ad Fill with freeze secondary one Otherwise Fill with smooth the main color is used for Lines moda m filling in If the pen radius Modulation differs in the starting and 22221722 final point of the line then the modulation scale will smoothly change from the start to the final point You can use gradient filling in the fill tool in a much more intuitive way Modulation type In case the Use in other tools option is selected the modulation acts not only in the fill in mode but with the standard pen too There are are number of basic and user adjusTABle types of modulations available Without modulation Filling will be done without additional modulation Noise Random noise Gaussian noise Random modulation with Gaussian
24. correct normal map in this mode you may use Textures Texture Baking Tool What s the use of the Cavity painting Cavity painting lets you paint in the crevices of the surface without affecting the rest of the area and vice versa selected the command View gt Environment Shade but there seems to be no change why You can only use Environment Shade if you have a specu larity map in the model That means if you haven t painted specularity on the model you will not see any change Why is drawing with the SHIFT key so confusing Different sequences of the SHIFT key and the LMB will result in different effects If you first press and hold SHIFT and then draw with LMB the surface will be smoothed But if you first press and hold LMB and then press SHIFT and draw you will get straight lines just like in Photoshop How create a seamless texture using 3D Coat 90 94 It is easy to use 3D Coat to create seamless textures and bump maps Just go to menu File gt mport gt Ilmage Plane you may want to use Textures gt Offset tool as well You can read more about it on page What are the best practices regarding memory management and increasing stability When 3D Coat is run you can see the amount of free memory in the left bottom corner If this value becomes too low 200 300 MB the program can become unstable These tips will help you to increase stability 3D Coat consumes much memory fo
25. fill in to file located in nstal Dir User Data StoreData Fillers folder by default Here are a few things that are worth noting about the Fill tool You are not only able to use Fill tool separately but also can use itin combination with other methods For example we can use the Fill tool in combination with Material In the picture below we have filled in a certain area with Material using cubic map ping method On the edges we created freeze areas while the inside area was filled in Pay attention when lines modes and Fill tools are used in combination you can fill closed spaces with color gradient Another thing to note is that if your fill area is very large you may get a warning prompt from 3D Coat letting you know that it may take a while to fill If that does happen please be patient The application may appear to be frozen for a little while Eye dropper Pick the color and specularity from the surface of an object Use the hotkey V LMB to pick the primary color and V RMB to pick the secondary color outside this tool Use H to pick top Layer Use G to pick depth of pen Make planar This tool flattens the geometry on the object Use the LMB to make the surface inside the pen flat The pen shape is stored With a call of the Smoothing command the advanced Plane tool menu with a set of options opens 37 94 Normal source This option determines if the normal and Work mode Lets you choose between two
26. gizmo The area at the base sphere of the The following functions are for the Bend type gizmo from the tip is the area that will be affected Segments count Increases the number of segments Start Final angle Adjusts the begining and end of the wrap FowardStep Create a spiral staircase look it will literally spiral the object upward Overlap This tapers each segment where they meet The effect will vary depending on the object The following functions are for the Twist type Segments count Increases the amount of segments Twist angle Twists the current object around the gizmo Overlap Tapers each segment where they meet each other simultaneously increasing decreasing the space between It is great for creating coins and jewelry each spiral Axial symmetry This tool lets you clone the active Layer from Object Tools the Vox Tree with axial symmetry You set the numberof The logo tool lets you import any black and white picture copies in the Params TAB The gizmo works just like all the and convert it to voxels You can convert images that are in other gizmos Move the translate handler octahedron like the BMP TGA JPEG and PNG formats Click on the Logo to get an idea of similar things you can do with it You are tool and select an image When imported voxels will be cre strongly encouraged to explore this tool s possibilities Credits 57 94 f gp B Un ES Em 1
27. keys and mouse wheel provided the cor responding adjustments were be used as a mask for depth made in the Preferences menu To change the pen depth press and or the mouse wheel provided the corresponding adjustments were made in the Preferences menu You can do the same using the sliders in the top pen panel Choose a pen set radius to 20 and try drawing on the object Increase radius choose another pen shape and draw a bit more Use the T key to quick access the pen menu First press SHIFT and draw again You will see the surface become smoothed Change the smoothing intensity using the Smoothing slider First press and hold on LMB then press SHIFT and draw again You can now draw perfectly straight lines Click CTRL to draw cavities these cuts into the existing model You can rotate your pen Rotation parameters are from 1 to and or the mouse zd aye 360 degrees You may use hot keys wheel under corresponding settings in the Preferences menu to rotate the pen clockwise or counter clockwise You can see the red line rotating on the pen cursor when or is pressed If you choose an asymmetrical pen shape then this rotation shows the pen orientation 10 94 The Pen Options Tab Every slider has small mouse icon nearby Change it to pen icon if you want that parameter to depend on pen pressure Here is the list of parameters Depth modul
28. make volumetric and you can adjust the thick ness of this volumetric text Cloth This tool is a cloth simulator which you can use to drape a polygon mesh over another object There is a default Cloth with which you can test but you are not limited to this as you can also import an external polygonal mesh The parameters for this tool are Contents New Start RightSide PanelPaint Sculpt UV Mode Voxels Select mesh Prompts you with a file open dialog which lets you select a file obj LWO FBX STL ply and 3B on disk to use as the object to be draped Subdivide Subdivides the object you have imported It can be used before or after you run the simulation Start Reset hese two buttons starts and resets the simulation Pick from retopo If you have retopologized something and it is in the Retopo TAB then you can use this button to select that mesh as the object to drape To retopo Sends the recently draped mesh to the Retopo TAB for further retopologization Other Sets a number of other parameters such as the Gravity and the Friction of the draped object on the object you are draping over as well as the Cloth thickness For thickness the higher the value the thicker the cloth 8 5 Surface Mode amp Tools In version 3 2 of 3D Coat the surface tools have undergone some major changes Most noteably there are new tools and speed improvements To change to surface mode you must click on the C
29. mapped tiled textures Edit 2D images and add relief to them Using the Image Plane tool together with Textures and the Offset tool you can loop the textures Currently only square textures are supported This option is very useful to make tiled displacement textures SL Object Import sculpt map from Second life 10 3 Export Export Mode Export the current object in obj LWO STL ply formats You will be prompted to select either a low poly mesh or a mid poly mesh with 30k to 80k polygons and the normal map If you re in the Microvertex painting mode the Export menu will have additional options Render Menu Hotkeys Customize CUDA FAQ Tips Credits Save Specularity as Alpha in Normal Map Save Displacement Map to Alpha d 74 94 g B High poly Mesh Export w Microvertex Exports a high poly mesh with the number of polygons shown in brackets x4 x16 x64 times bigger Exit Exits the program 10 4 Edit Undo Redo Mesh and Texture Resolution Changes the number of polygons in the object and the size of the texture You can change mesh resolution multiple times like with other 3D software but you can also do it in percentages for example 50 Sync Layers with Ext Editor Lets you synchronize the current Layer with an external editor You can set the file path to the editor in the Preferences By default it is Adobe Photoshop The alpha channel will cont
30. modes setup point of the plane should be taken from the first click posi symmetry by picking two symmetrical faces or copy from tion or from the current point one side to another using the pen Plane extrusion Lets you make additional extrusions while Copy red to blue Copy the red part of mesh to the blue one making the plane It works like a clay brush You should define them before using this tool x Make planar Makes the surface planar Copy blue to red Copy the blue part of mesh to the red part Cut off Cut off parts over the plane You should define them before using this tool Fill mode Fill holes under the plane Flip Layer Flip Layer using topological symmetry Topological symmetry tool Topological symmetry lets you Copy freeze mask This is pretty self explanatory It lets you copy surface pieces if they have symmetrical face structure copy a freeze mask from one side to another using the topo even if they are not symmetrical geometrically Select the red logical symmetry tool face with left click and then select the blue face It is better Save Store symmetry state to symm file if they are adjacent Either way they should be symmetrical Load Restore symmetry state from symm file to each other This lets you define the topological symmetry Measuring tool This tool lets you measure distance between The settings for this tool are as follows two user specificed locations Here are the parameters ne Original mesh uni
31. on tr Use current color drap Here Render Menu Hotkeys Customize FAQ Tips Credits 93 94 We hope you enjoyed our manual Powered by www 3d coat com Copyright 2007 2009 PILGWAY Corp All rights reserved
32. preview window you can also manipulate your UV islands amp more directly By clicking the LMB on an island you ll then see a manipulator gizmo Selected islands will then highlight all edges of it s respective polygons inside the 3D viewport UV Preview Manipulator This manipulator lets you scale stretch rotate and translate whichever cluster you currently have selected You can manually place your clusters as you see fit before packing them into a UV map You must have the Manipulator tick box turned on to use this It can be used Vertice Edge Poly amp Island modes 1 ROTATE 2 SCALE VERTICALLY 3 SCALE HORIZONTALLY 4 TRANSLATE SCALE In block Selected you will find a set of commands that are related to the selections made in the UV preview window After applying the Unwrap command you may want to edit UV island in the UV preview window On the top panel you can choose selection types Vertices Edges Faces Islands Brush and Tweak Select vertices edges or faces depend on what type have you chosen with LMB If you hold LMB and drag the mouse you can select several vertices Vertices Edges Faces Islands Brush Tweak Contents New Start Panel Paint UV Mode Right Side Sculpt Retopo Voxels edges faces Use SHIFT to add an item to selection use CTRL to subtract an item from selection Depending on selection type operations in the Selected block may change
33. rendering the Whole screen or a Custom 7 size If you choose cus View size tom size you can then key Whole screen in the X and Y values of the Render size area you wish to render 1024 749 Render size Lets you selecta 827 12 size for the rendered image Ja 424421542 23 4Light scatteringe 0407 It is only active if you are S degreer 0 10 using a custom size from plane position the View size drop down Show DOF plane age you will probably need to also increase the Lightness list It will always be in mul Store alpha channel of your scene or it be be too dark tiples of the size you choose Es EET AO percentage The ambient occlusion changes your lighting 32 bit rendering fa Hide visual guides Render frames sequence Render result as the custom size Lightness If you increase the type A value of 0 gives you direct lightening a value of 100 gives you completely overcast lighting value of the AO percent Contents New Start Right Side PanelPaint Sculpt Retopo Voxels Render Menu Hotkeys Customize CUDA _ FAQ Tips Credits 71 94 Light scattering Adjusts the amount of light that will be scattered Higher values will give you softer shadows and softer specularity on shiny objects he TT DOF degree Depth of field hc i focus Produces a lens focus effect on your image Set the dista
34. speed up volume operations CUDA is supported by all the recent NVidia cards starting with the 8 series NVIDIA However the acceleration is hugely dependent on the num ber of processors available on the card The real advantage of CUDA over a 4 core CPU can be achieved only if the GPU has more then 64 processors otherwise the 4 Core CPU alone will yield a better soeed So there is no reason to use CUDA acceleration with some video cards even though they support the technol ogy like the GeForce 8400 9400 8500 9500 G100 G120 G130 and QuadroFX 1700 because they have less than 64 processors We can recommend any card from GeForce 9800GT it s very inexpensive and higher Acceleration speed is dependent not only the number of cores number but also on memory bandwidth CUDA gives the best speed advantage if you are applying masks and materials over voxel sculpture with big brushes The speed advantage depends considerably on the tool used 13 2 The Benchmark Here is the benchmarking info for a standard PC with a 4 core CPU Q6600 2 4 GHz GPU 9800GT We ran 6 tests using several types of drawing with a mask either enabled or disabled Draw with sphere CUDA thin pen 10 Avg FPS 31 3 Draw with sphere CPU thin pen 10 Avg FPS 30 5 Carve CUDA thin pen 10 Avg FPS 34 1 Carve CPU thin pen 10 Avg FPS 30 5 Carve with mask CUDA thin 10 Avg FPS 31 0 Carve with mask CPU thin pen 10 Avg FPS 26 4 Draw wi
35. the whole curve centered from your cur rent selected point on the spline The gizmo for the point will change adding a new large white circle around the rest of the gizmo This new circle will allow for viewport based rotations Spline presets There are other and hopefully self explanatory settings for this tool But one thing you should definitely explore are the spline presets These let you perform many unique voxel sculpting techniques and styles Please explore these and add your own by using external files in the obj or LWO formats Snake Clicking and dragging with the LMB creates a snake like shape in your viewport Its position is based on your first click and your viewport perspective As with the curves tool you can reset it with the Tube button You can select a number of profiles and of course also use spline presets Render Menu Hotkeys Customize CUDA FAQ Tips Credits 61 94 ON OBJECT One unique parameter for this tool is the Smoothing speed The snake will smooth along its entire length causing it to n 4 p gt y move The higher the value the more smoothing val ues 1 5 Spikes Functions exactly like OFF OBJECT the snake tool except that it tapers on the end point caus ing a spike like appearance sculpting with this tool outside of a Muscles Lets you easily sculpt muscle and tendon looking volume to create objects that look li
36. wrin kles The higher the reso lution of your object the better the details look This tool is commonly used to sculpt minute details onto an object It is affected by the Extrude direction settings MASK AREAS W SF FREEZE Render Menu Hotkeys Customize CUDA FAQ Tips Initial vertex norma AFFECTED AREAS W SF FREEZE Credits Absolute Extrudes the surface based on your pen Size Depth and Extrude direc tion settings while also maintaining the underlying surface details and topol ogy SfFreeze This tool which is new in version 3 2 is a very important addition to the toolset in 3D Coat It lets you mask with your brush a mask which you can then use with any of the surface sculpting tools It s simple to use and powerful You can also use common short cuts CTRL SHIFT I inverts your selection CTRL D deselects Rapid This tool s name is very descriptive as it s one of the fast est tools in 3D Coat to sculpt general shapes It is almost the opposite of the Gum tool in this regard as it doesn t respect pen alphas but only brush Size and Intensity Another great thing about this tool is that if you have two voxel object in the viewport that are overlap 2 ping each other in space it will E try its best to compensate by 77 building up the area between WY the two E 1070093 Contents New Start RightSide
37. Depth variation Opacity jitter Hitters W HI BI HI H Render Menu Hotkeys Customize CUDA FAQ Tips Credits Adjust light brightness By holding LMB and moving the mouse Move light By holding LMB and moving the mouse Rotate camera By holding LMB and moving the mouse To rotate camera without this control use ALT LMB or LMB pressed on an empty SPACE Zoom Camera By holding LMB and moving the mouse To scale the scene without this control use ALT RMB or RMB pressed on an empty SPACE Vary field of view RMB to reset it to default Set camera to default posi tion Toggle perspective ortho graphic projection en opt Strips n1 Camera Options You can switch between two custom navigations 3D Coat and Maya styles By default the 3D Coat style is set With 3D Coat navigation style you can rotate your scene by moving Refresh pens preview Pen Settings Add new folder Add existing folder Folder 25 way you zoom your scene m with RMB and pan with MMB Large p Huge HIT P u ny 4 a eT a pr TI E al d di E i i ky s Bre your mouse with LMB pressed Pen 210575 Se on the empty area In the same UL 9 x3 If you don t want to move your Contents New Start RightSide PanelPaint Sculpt Retopo Mode Voxels cursor aside you can always
38. Layer By painting on multiple Layers and stacking them together you can achieve some very complex looking texture work Here you can drag and drop Layers to do a number of things such as to the trash can to delete as well as reordering You can also rename a Layer by double clicking it If you know Photoshop s Layers functions 16 94 you already know much of this Still let s take a look at some of the parameters in the Layers tab Blending dropdown list This offers a variety of blending modes most of which exactly corresponds to Photoshops Depth dropdown list This allows a number of blending options between Layers for the depth channel They are Add Sub tract Choose Maximum Magnify and Supress You are strongly encouraged to try each one out Visibility By clicking on the eyeball you can toggle the visibility of a Layer to be on or off At the bottom of the Layers tab window we see six icons Add new Layer Add a new Layer It is automatically made the current one X Standard blend Add depth X Blending Name Layer 0 Lock transparency Depth modularore 100 Color opacity 100 4Emboss powers 0 Contrast 0 Brightness 0 iSpecularity contraste 0 Specular brightness 0 Linked layer Dont mask Inverse linkage m es b Contents New Start Right Side PanelPaint Sculpt Retopo UV Mode Voxels Delete this Layer Merge the current Layer with the lower one This operation cannot
39. MB In Strokes mode Draw freehand strokes LMB Draw spline Command LMB Connect break existing strokes Save as Command Alt 5 Save incrementally Command Shift S Undo Command Z Redo Command Y Copy Command C Paste Command V Apply operation Retum Escape from operation ESC Swap background and foreground color X Viewport Rotate Option LMB or LMB on empty space Zoom Option RMB or RMB on empty space Pan Option MMB or Option LMB RMB Fit items to viewport Shift A Reset camera to default position Home Toggle Full screen standard Option Retum Toggle Orthographic Perspective view NUMS5 Turn on off 2D Grid Command Front view NUM Back view NUME Left view NUM4 Right view Top view NUM Bottom view NUM1 Add camera shortcut Command Up Delete camera shortcut Command Down Switch to previous camera shortcut Command Left Switch to next camera shortcut Command right View non shaded 2 View specular only 3 View wireframa 4 View shaded 5 View law poly 6 View low shaded 7 Model display in voxel mode View wireframe in voxel mode W hold on Quick menu Hot box Space Draw mode panel E Symmetry menu 5 Color picker panel B Color channel panel C Depth channel panel D Specular channel panel R Quick panel Brush panel T Material panel Layer panel L Brush control Hide show brush circle Capslock
40. N SS SE 4 1424 the Offset tool window where offset values be speci fied U offset V offset and texture shifting horizontally and vertically in accordance UV Manager If there are several objects in the scene separate objects can have a separate UV Use this command to manage them You can group several materials into a single UV set Contents New Start RightSide PanelPaint Sculpt Retopo UV Mode Name def surf mat Texture width 2048 Texture height 2048 Materials list that are part of the UV set Material name def surf mat Delete Add Texture Baking Tool This lets you bake details to a normal or displacement map This can be used even when the surface topology doesn t match perfectly between your reference mesh and low poly mesh This tool is quite detailed and has it s own section below please see that section for further information Calc Occlusion Allows calculating the global illumination from many spotlights that are distributed over the half sphere The grey scale results will be written to the current Layer So it is better to create a new Layer and set the color opera tion Modulate or Modulate2X The Calc Occlusion tool is especially optimized for high polygons several millions it is fast but it still need some time with high polygon counts Occlusion parameters The global illumination from many spot lights distributed over
41. PU cards SLI for 3D Coat to hide them The most important factor for CUDA performance is the num f you are new to 3D Coat ber of cores it should be 120 or more Video RAM is impor it isn t recommended that tant also because it determines the maximum texture size you hide the hints because that can be edited in 3D Coat Every pixel takes 8 bytes so these will really be helpful you can easily calculate the maximum size of the texture that for your study But you can can fit into the GPU s memory We recommend you buy cards hide the hints anytime you with at least 1 Gb of RAM even more is even better want just go to the menu Do need to uninstall 3D Coat every time I install your new Edit gt Preferences gt Show software upgrades hints and uncheck that Contents Start RightSide PanelPaint Sculpt Retopo Voxels Render Menu Hotkeys Customize CUDA FAQ Tips Credits 89 94 checkbox You can turn on or off the big bottom hints sepa rately by using Show big hints on the bottom panel using Vista XP 64 bit 3D Coat does not respect Wacom pen pressure What should do 3D Coat works well with 64 bit drivers Get the latest Wacom driver here www wacom com downloads drivers php Can move rotate scale the objects but not the camera Yes you can In the Sculpt mode of tools panel select the Select Move command then you can select the object you want to move rotate
42. Paint Sculpt UV Mode Voxels Windows Help Popups Color Picker Sliders 2 Color Palette Reset this page to default Navigator Reset all pages to default Presets Store this page layout Layers Restore this page layout Layer Blending Store Workspace Tools Palette Restore Workspace Sub Obiects tion You can always reposition tabbed windows until you re satisfied with their locations You can create a floating window by dragging the tab away from the tabbed window group it once occupied Let go of the mouse and it will float as its own independent window You can dock a floating window back into any cluster of win dows by dragging the window and dropping it when you see the blue line 2 4 Popup Window Menus Many menus in 3D Coat have a small downward pointing arrow in their upper right hand corners When you click and hold your mouse cursor on them they pop open to reveal menu specific options Let s say that you prefer larger icons when viewing Pens Open the popup menu on the Pen tabbed window and choose Large to change the display size of the preview icons 2 5 Navigation Panel The navigation panel is located on the top right corner of the viewport You can do many things with it but first let s take a look ree pee Depth modulator Adjust light ambient By hold ing LMB and moving the mouse Rotation amplitudes Radius variations
43. Panel Paint or colored parts depending on mode selected Blocking masks the action of feathers Freeze mode is an operation opposite to selection Choose the freeze mode and draw on an object Notice that you draw with a freeze Press SHIFT to smooth out the edges of blocking This drop down list provides for a surface freeze mode selec tion When the pen goes along the surface it gets blocked in accordance with the condition you choose in this menu There are five blocking modes in total Freeze all Block with a touch of pen or mouse click default mode Convexity Block the convex parts of the surface Params Freeze mode i am ol EE LL LEN y I z p at z pum EC BEI DE cue a nr m NH UE Da i i MULIERE iat Freeze all COnvexity concavity not key color key color Sculpt Retopo UV Mode Voxels Concavity Block the concave parts of the surface Not key color Block all except the color currently selected Key color Block the color currently selected There are four sliders on the top bar for the freeze tool Contrast This parameter increases the contrast of freezing Details Level of details when blocking relief parts When this value decreases the freeze tool will be more sensible to details Smoothing degree Sets the smoothing degree Freeze degree Controls the level of the opacity of freezing Blocking can be saved to a file and l
44. PanelPaint Sculpt Retopo UV Mode Voxels 8 6 Commands There are only a few Commands in the sidebar but they are all very important Let s look at them Increase resolution This command guadruples the number of voxels in the current object Layer This lets a Layer thave much more detail You can view the resolution of a Layer in the Vox Tree directly before the Layer s name If it has only the name that means the Layer s resolution has not been increased Clear This command clears the current Layer in the VoxTree of all voxels It is useful when you wish to keep the current Layer s name and resolution but not the voxels Smooth This command uniformly smooths all of the voxels of the currently selected object Layer in the VoxTree 8 7 VoxTree You now have the ability to drag and drop Layers to do many things such as moving a Layer to the trash reparenting by dragging to a Layers sign or simply reordering the Layers to organize them Let s look at this Collapse child Layers The minus next to any Layer lets you collapse any child Layers it may have Render Menu Hotkeys Customize voxTree E E Root Volume 1 x Volume 2 me 2 4 SG CUDA FAQ Tips Credits Contents Root This is the base file or scene You cannot edit this Visibility By clicking the Eyeball icon you can toggle the visibility of a Layer on or off Cube Wavy line These icons toggle betw
45. S eee eee fo T EE F rerl tons grid background and so on You can also turn on off 3D button style Gradient menus After all these done just save the xml file and all the new customized information RE WOE d MATE D RIS are stored You can load it any Pri time on your own systems or share it with your friends and colleagues Simply press the but ton Save in the Preferences panel You can even change the icons of the tools to your own just go to the installation folder of 3D Coat In the subfolder path textures icons you will find the source PSD files of the icons they are Baseicons PSD and Smal llcons PSD open the PSD file NE in Photoshop and create your Juan Carlos Monte Lau ery T own icons When finished save them in the DDS format keep the name and replace the origi nal Baseicons DDS and Smal Icons DDS The next time you start 3D Coat it will load all the new custom icons RE LOE ES WHE P fo m Ln l C P bg rendered Carrara 6 Contents New Start PanelPaint Sculpt Retopo Voxels Render Menu Hotkeys Customize CUDA FAQ Tips Credits 86 94 13 CUDA 13 1 CUDA Basics 3D Coat uses CUDA acceleration for voxel sculpting only Voxel sculpting requires more computing resources because it handles pictures in volume So we decided to use CUDA to
46. Start RightSide PanelPaint Sculpt Retopo Create Add split They are as detailed for Points these are also the general com mands for most of the other tools ads Import This lets you import mesh for retopologization Strokes Cap Export This lets you export your retopologized mesh in obj LWO STL and PLY formats Snap This snaps the retopologized mesh to the underlying mesh if you have modified the underlying mesh in anyway Split rings Move vertices Slide mesh For example each polygon is divided by 4 UV V Relax This relaxes the current retopologized mesh Subdivide This tool is self explanatory It subdivides the Clear This will clear the retopologized mesh in the scene EE Symmetry This will aPPLY symmetry for the current reto pologized mesh allowing you work on one side of the mesh The settings for the Select tool for Edges are as follows Relax Spin Spins the selected edge counter clockwise Spin back Spins the selected edge clockwise Extrude This will extrude a selection of edges It can only be used on edges on the exterior of the retopologized mesh Split Lets you run an edge loop along a selection of edges Delete Point and click to delete edges Edge loop Quickly add an edge loop by hovering UV Mode Voxels Render Menu Hotkeys Customize CUDA FAQ Tips Credits 41 94 over edges to get a preview Use the LMB and cl
47. ace Makes a hull using surface extru sion It is fast but can cause aRTIFacts on complex topologies Extrude Extrudes a whole object You also have to set the Extru sion parameter Transform Transforms a whole object using a special gizmo Apply axial symmetry Applies axial symmetry of any kind to the object Quadrangulate object Quadrangulates an object and drops it to Retopo Mode Quadrangulate and paint Ouadrangulates and drops an object to Paint Mode with microvertex painting mode 68 94 Quadrangulate for per pixel painting Quadrangulates and drops an object to Pixel painting mode with per pixel paint ing mode There are a few things to note about the quandrangulation tools is a good idea to enable symmetry planes to force symme try during quadrangulation assuming you want a symmetri cal object If the object is not fully symmetrical the program will keep symmetry only whenever possible If you do not like the auto retopologized mesh you can always go to Retopo Mode to manually adjust the mesh to suit your needs Also when using this function 3D Coat will automatically create a new sub OBJect in the Paint tab for each object Layer in the VoxTree Flip Flips the current Layer on any axis X Y or Z Merge to Merges a copy of the current Layer to another Layer Move to Moves the current Layer to another Layer Subtract from Subtracts an object in the current Layer from the object in anothe
48. aced into the clipboard if itis disabled then the depth texture will be placed into the clipboard in case the depth is disabled for editing then the specular texture will be placed there Hence you can copy and edit in a different graphics editor any of the channels depth color or specular If you press CTRL SHIFT C a new pen is made from a surface part and added to the pen list When you press CTRL SHIFT V the mirror reflected part is pasted Bear in mind that copying and pasting are pen turn sensible Copying and pasting objects with the help of hot keys is not limited to Copy Paste tool but is possible in any other mode Save Save the clipboard image into a file Load Loads the clipboard image from a file Using these func tions you can create a library of stamps Load a plane or a cube for example draw a button or a rivet then save it to a file As with depth so the color and specular will be saved too Draw with spline Upon activating the tool the Param TAB will be activated There are many parameters for the curve tool Curve profile First let s take a look at the Curve profiles Uniform The curve with no linear modulation sharp on edges Obtuse flatten The curve flattened on edges Arrow One kind shape of arrow Arrow back One kind shape of arrow Double arrow One kind shape of arrow Arrow mod One kind shape of arrow Back arrow mod One kind shape of arrow Double a
49. ain the transparency mask With this command the image editing program will open automat ically with your file Then you can edit it and jump back to 3D Coat by pressing CTRL 4 S Edit All Layers in Ext Editor Edits all Layers in an external editor You can set the file path to the editor in the Preferences By default it is Adobe Photo shop This image editor should be able to edit PSD files The texture will be stored with Layers to the PSD file then the image editor will start You can edit the texture and even add new Layers When you save the file 3D Coat will automati cally reload it Edit Projection in Ext Editor Edit the current projection in Adobe Photoshop or any image editor using Layers You can set the file path to the editor in the Preferences By default it is Adobe Photoshop This image editor should be able to edit PSD files The projection will be stored with Layers to the PSD file then the image editor will start You can edit the projection When you save the file 3D Coat will automati cally reload it Preferences Autosave The slider Autosave time adjusts the time interval for autosaving The autosaved file has the name autosave 3B which is located in the folder User Data External 2D editor The application in this file path is used to edit 2D images This editor must be able to edit PSD files so usually it would be Adobe Photoshop but it could also be Corel Painter for in
50. ainting Replace scene with patch Bake texture Save retopology state Restore retopology state gizing meshes This makes it easier to retopologize your meshes with problem areas and to have multiple retopology versions of the same object Much like all the other Layer tabs in 3D Coat they function like the Layers in Photohop You can click and drag Layers to reorder them drag them to the Trash icon to delete them hide amp show them with the Visibility icon etc Let s take a look at the Retopo Layer tab Layers As you see in the screenshot you can have more then one Layer to retopologize if you wish They can be reordered by drag and drop they can be dragged to the trash if you Contents New _ Start RightSide PanelPaint Sculpt Retopo Voxels Render Menu Hotkeys Customize CUDA FAQ Tips Credits 46 94 LLL t longer need Double clicking a Layer will allow you to rename it Visibility Each Layer has its own visibility icon allowing you to toggle them on or off There are icons along the bottom of the tab as well and they are New Layer Trash can Subdivide Lets you to subdivide the whole selected Layer Symmetry copy Copies an entire Layer symmetrically Retopo groups Symmetry must be active RetopoGroupl for this to work RetopoGroup2 Select all faces Selects all polygon faces of the cur rent Layer Move selected faces to cur rent Layer Delete Laye
51. airbrush mode you can also smoothly selected areas instead of hav ing a hard edged selection It makes for tidy deformations around the edges of your selection 1 BASE 2 TIP 3 GIZMO SWITCHER 4 GIZMO HANDLERS Special note for Select with pen This is worth mentioning twice as itis very useful With the Pose tool you can use almost any of the selection methods in the Pen mode bar like drag rectangle lasso etc You can also subtract your selection by using the tool normal while holding the CTRL key Object If you have multiple objects in your vox tree this mode can come in very handy Simply click on the object you want to deform using the Pose tool and it will place the entire volume as your selection Move With this tool you can literally move the surface area within your cursor Press and drag LMB to move the surface within the cursor relative to the screen view Use CTRL to move the surface along the normal It also works with the alphas of a pen so then different alphas give different result Hide This tool has undergone a massive change You can now hide on a per voxel basis This lets you the sculpt with your brush the areas you wish to hide while it also respects other selection methods like drag rectangle drawn contours etc This new method of hiding makes it much easier to create all hard edged surfaces for objects The tool also has a few other functions which you will find in the Voxel menu They are U
52. allows further editing and options These options are Pen Settings Delete pen Save to PSD TIF Load from PSD TIF Edit in ext editor Edit as 16 bit TIF gt NewFolder Pen settings Go to the pen options TAB Delete pen Save to PSD TIF Store the pen to a PSD or 16 bit TIF file PSD is more intuitive TIF is more precise The TIF file can contain 7 chan nels RGB Alpha Height Specular and Erase mask Read about this channel structure below Load from PSD TIF Load a pen from PSD or 16 bit TIF The TIF filess can con tain up to 7 channels The TABle shows how different Normal Color E SE E aie m m mM Contents New Start PanelPaint Sculpt Retopo Voxels Render Menu Hotkeys Customize CUDA FAQ Tips Credits 11 94 Contents New Start numbers of channels will be handled CH Channel HT Height A Alpha Spec Specular amp Erase Mask 1 treated as A amp HT 2 1 2 3 CH 1 2 3 RGB 2 A H 1 2 3 RGB 4 A H 5 CH 1 2 3 RGB 4 A 5 H 6CH 1 2 3 RGB 4 A 5 H 6 Spec 7 CH 1 2 3 RGB 4 A 5 H 6 Spec 7 Erase mask NOTE In the case a PSD file has no structure as described it will simply be unrecognized by the program Edit in ext editor Edit the pen in an external image editor Adobe Photoshop by default
53. also can hide the whole object by selecting the object you want to hide For example if there are several sub objects in the scene you can use Hide Sub Object to hide a specific object as in the picture below If there are only one object in the scene Hide Sub Object will hide that object You can also hide faces by their specific material use Hide Material Select one material from this menu and all the surfaces with that material will be hidden 8090 PEELE 200 Smoothing degree 100 The other commands self explanatory Freeze Surface tool This is a mode of freezing surface parts to pre vent their subsequent change Freeze mode can be condi tional for example for relief flat Render Menu Freeze degreer 100 Hotkeys Customize CUDA FAQ Tips Credits 33 94 Contents New Start Freeze EE Windows Help Activate Freeze Tool Toggle freeze view Show Hide Freeze ALT F CTRL F Freeze painted pixels Freeze Transparent Pixels Freeze Surface Freeze Border Freeze Sub Object Freeze Material CTRL NUM Unfreeze Sub Object Unfreeze Material Unfreeze All ETRL 0 Invert Freeze Selection CTRL SHIFT I Smooth Freezing CTRL NUM Sharpen Freezing Fill Unfrozen INS Erase Unfrozen DELETE CTRL NUM CTRL NUM Exp and F roze A 2 Contract Frozen Area Store Freezing State Restore Freezing State Right Side
54. an be viewed with real time pre view and they can be applied not only to the current Layer but also to all the Layers Import UV Imports an object that contains a UV set The new UV set will replace old one Export UV Exports an object without textures This command could be used in pair with Import UV You can export a UV set adjust it externally and then import it again Export SL Sculpt Map Export a Second Life sculpt map Texture UV Editor With the built in 2D texture editor you can draw in 2D and 3D windows simultaneously You can paint in 3D and the results will be shown in the 2D window simultane 78 94 ously and vice versa You can select one UV set in drop down list left top of the 2D Texture editor window to paint in it Offset tool You should load only square images with this tool It comes in handy to create tiled textures with bump and specular Once a square object is loaded you will be offered File Edit View Textures Symmetry Layers Freeze Hide Windows Help Pressure not dependent on color Soft stroke 8 00 par Radius 36 EZ 5 Depth 50 Z Smoothing 100 amp Transparency 100 Specularity 100 Sculpt Retopo UV Voxels Render Texture editor 222 Reset Wireframe Color d Plane Ter W e Ls adii x i EN aa P d fa 1 f F i P f 9 j f i f 41284 i LUNS RON ES ea fas ED P
55. andlers Draw Draw with pen Use CTRL to cut into and SHIFT to smooth the surface Collapse Collapse a part of the surface Use CTRL to expand the surface Expand Expand a surface part Use CTRL to collapse Shift Shift the surface along pen motion in screen space Tangent Shift Shift the surface along pen motion in normal plane Smudge Smudge along the surface under the pen Flatten Flatten the surface under the pen Smooth Smooth the surface with the pen Artist Brett Simms IMAGING 40 94 6 Retopo Mode 3D Coat offers the most powerful set of retopology tools in the 3D industry These tools let you quickly and easily change the existing topology of a model 3D Coat can be used purely as a retopology tool Just open a reference mesh and start retoplogizing it by covering it with new polygons If the reference mesh is textured 3D Coat will be able to bake not only the geometry but also all texture maps onto the new topology 6 1 Create amp Commands This tool section lets you create a newly retopolo gized mesh Each tool in the retopology section will be covered here as well as most of the commands for each tool Add split This tool lets you simply add edges by pointing and clicking in the location you would 2201218 like to add the edge Select This tool has three pri mary modes allowing you to select Points Edges and Polygons Each of these modes has further func tions New
56. andy when creating strips as described below With the slider in the right lower corner you can adjust the model s level of dipping into the background plane which determines the zero pen level Edit View Textures Soft stroker 800 Sculpt Retopo 3 3 Pen Options in the Tool Bar Some pen options are on the top menu bar You ll notice that as you change your tool so will a portion of the menu bar These options are Soft stroke Pressure Dependencies Radius Smooth ing Depth etc Soft stroke In this mode strokes will be more accurate because of an additional smoothing of their trajectory Radius This lets you change the size of your pen in the viewport with a slider or by manually keying in a value Falloff This lets you control the brush with with a fall off curve giving tighter control over the area the brush will affect Depth This lets you to change the intensity of the depth of your strokes with a slider or by manually keying in a value Transparency This lets you change the intensity of the color channels transparency up and down with a slider or by man ually keying in a value Specularity This lets you change the intensity of the specularity channel up and down with a slider or by manually m 2 keying in a value Smoothing This lets you change the intensity of the smoothing up and down with a slider or by manually keying in a value Channel Toggle Icons 3D Coat has three c
57. anipulator rotate move scale vertically horizontally proportionally B Splines Use B Splines by default In this mode the spline will be smoother and will not go through the control points Use it with vertex sharpness to get various forms Edit points TABle Set numerical values of each control point In this window you can also set the type of each control point 491000000 E NM 650 000000 320000000 Sharp BSpline 455000000 388000000 Sharp BSpline 600 000000 444000000 BSpline Ok Contents New Start RightSide PanelPaint Sculpt Retopo UV Mode Voxels B SPLINE 2 POINTS 1 3 SHARPENED SPLINE B SPLINE Sharp makes sharp corner at this point B spline simple spline if unchecked Scale Set the scale factor and press the OK button or ENTER Rotate Set the angle of rotation and press the OK button or ENTER Flip horizontally Flip the whole spline horizontally Flip vertically Flip the whole spline vertically Save Save the spline to a file Load Load a previously saved spline from a file There is one final draw mode it is unique in its function Paint over source polygons This mode lets you fill in whole single polygons A few more settings for the E Panel l wayah Border width This slider is responsible for the border width when drawing with the rectangle ellipse or contour
58. ator It is used to specify the standard depth for each pen in use Rotation amplitude The amplitude of additional random pen rotation E Radius variation The degree Pen Strips of random pen radius variation L in percentages ill 190 Depth variation The degree of Rotation amplitude 000 random depth variation in aRadius variation 0 00 percentages Depth variation 020 O itv jitter Ji fOpaci Opacity jitter A000 pacity jitter Jitter Opacity 000 Jitter Jitter of the pen Random flip X Random flip l l Rotate along motion direction Random flip Y Flip pen ran Skip eraser Fade on edge Use spacing Draw by spots With this option Spacing 100 moving pen will draw with separate spots as opposed to Stretching lines Rotate along motion direction With this option the pen slopes in the direction of motion If you rotate the pen manually the angle of rotation will be added to the inclined angle as a result of the pen s motion 2h Random flip X Flips pen ran domly along its y axis Skip eraser Don t use eraser Layer of the pen Use spacing With this option drawing with pen move ment will be done with patches placed at equal intervals from each other Spacing Set spacing distance By pressing RMB on any of the non standard pens you will see the advanced menu which
59. aw with contour of lines Press to add points Press on the ini tial point or double click to finalize the contour Press ESC to cancel the contour BKSP to delete the last point Double clicking will close the contour Draw with continuous contour Press LMB to draw a contour Draw with ellipse Use an ellipse to define the drawn area Draw by closed spline B spline Add spline control points with the LMB Press ESC to finish Near the control poins you will see a small spline menu button Press it and you ll be able to choose different options Apply Apply a spline action You may use ENTER instead With CTRL pressed it will counteract Clear Clear all control points Render Menu Hotkeys Customize CUDA FAQ Tips Credits 5 5 E PANEL Detach from surface This a command detaches any control point that is being attached to a surface a control point becomes attached if you add it while the cursor is over the surface Add points Use this command if you pressed ESC after adding control points and then you decided to continue Press ESC to finish Edit points This is a default mode after you ve finished with adding control points Hover over a spline in the place where you want to add another control point when you see a red point press LMB to add it Drag any control point with LMB Use RMB over any control point to toggle vertex sharpness Transform all Transform the whole spline with the m
60. ch them in that drop down list Overlapping UVs You can have overlapping UVs within 3D Coat with no problems occurring E Params fp Volumes 8 Voxels Mode 8 1 What are Voxels Almost all other 3D sculpting programs are polygon based which means that they work only with the surface of 3D objects they manipulate a skin which has no thickness But voxel based sculpt ing programs work with the volume of 3D objects they manipu late a kind of solid mass This approach lets you sculpt without any topological constraints it lets you build up complex objects from nothing and to endlessly add and subtract volume mass and easily punch holes in the objects This approach gives you total freedom in your 3D sculpting With voxels you can work like an old fashioned real world clay based sculptor one who never needs to think about dreary technical things like polygons and topol ogy and who therefore can just freely and easily express himself If you need to sculpt an ear an arm or a leg simply start putting together lumps of digital clay So what are these voxels anyway The word voxel itself is a contraction of volumetric pixel Mathemati VoxTree zo cally voxels are numerical values 0 1 placed in a cubic grid The object s surface is located where the value is equal to 0 5 The picture on the upper left illustrates this principle In summary voxels are points
61. e Ctrl Shift M save Ctrl S Save Ctrl Alt 5 Save incrementally Ctrl Shift S Undo Ctrl Z Redo Ctrl Y Copy Ctrl C Paste Ctrl V Apply operation Enter Escape from operation ESC Swap background and foreground color X Viewport Rotate Alt LMB or LMB on empty space Zoom Alt RMB or RMB on empty space Pan Alt MMB or Alt LMB RMB Fit items to viewport Shift A Reset camera to default position Home Toggle Full screen standard Alt Enter Toggle Orthographic Perspective view NUMS Turn on off 2D Grid Ctrl Front view NUM2 Back view NUMB Left view NUM4 Right view NUM6 Top view NUM Bottom view NUM1 Add camera shortcut Ctrl Up Delete camera shortcut Ctrl Down Switch to previous camera shortcut Ctrl Left Switch to next camera shortcut Ctrl right Change aspect ratio of Materials Mask Ctrl Shift RMB on empty space Model display in paint mode View relief only 1 View non shaded 2 View specular only 3 View wireframa 4 View shaded 5 View law poly 6 View low shaded 7 Model display in voxel mode View wireframe in voxel mode W hold on Quick menu Draw mode panel E Symmetry menu 5 Color picker panel B Color channel panel Depth channel panel D Specular channel panel R Quick panel Brush panel T Material panel M Layer panel L Brush control Hide show brush circle Turn on aff So
62. e CTRL and dragging a point to rotate the whole curve and you can also use SHIFT and drag ging a point to move the entire curve In order to draw with a spline we shall determine a spline of sev eral points first When pointing the cursor onto one of the blue dots it gets highlighted By mouse clicking you can capture it and AP USL Depth jitter Params l uU l drag into a new position Click What to do l Paint and extrude dot Splines are handy to use Erase together with stripes to care Freeze fully draw a chain or a string of rane Ee riveting Click ENTER to apply Set absolute height the spline onto the object LMB Rotation jitters to add new points to the spline qoos aen Lush Use ENTER to draw a curve Sem CTRL ENTER to draw a curve with inverse depth Use BKSP to delete the last point ESC to delete all points Curve Profile There are many curve profiles you are encouraged to test them all out They range from arrows to rounded ends but of course there are many more Use spacing Points will be set along the curve with some spacing and jittering It lets you make new effects with curves Curves will be drawn correctly even if their knot points are far from each other and the surface between them are quite curved With the Draw with spline tool you are not only able to paint and extrude but you also can Erase Erase the current Layer along the curve Freeze Fre
63. een volume mode and surface mode Volume mode is represented by the 3D cube icon surface mode by the Wavy line icon Add Layer The plus sign next to any Layer will add a new child Layer If you add a Layer to the root it will have no parent Layer name Each Layer is represented by a horizontal bar By double clicking the bar you can change the Layer s name Layer resolution If you have changed the resolution of a Layer there will appear a number representing this change like 2x 4x etc Now let us look at the icons on the bottom of the VoxTree Empty note Creates a new child Trashcan Deletes your currently selected Layer 2 empty notes Duplicates your currently selected Layer Ball Edits the currently selected Layer s shader properties 2 empty notes w grid Duplicates the currently selected Layer s resolution and transformation settings Nothing else will be duplicated This is useful when you need a new Layer with the same settings but not the same voxels Double sided arrows This icon is for the Symmetry copy tool If you have sculpted on one side of a volume object you can use this fuction to copy all your work to the other side of the New Start RightSide PanelPaint Sculpt Retopo UV Mode object It works on any axis as long as you have symmetry turned on along the preferred axis Grid Increases resolution Down arrow note This icon duplicates your currently selected Layer and decreases its TT resolut
64. ence image can be placed on any axis of your choosing x y or z You can even assign a different image Ree ee RET to each axis so you can have a h E E w ine hes wla MENS ode 3j view of your artwork no matter which axis you happen to work from Let s take a look at how to assign images to the z axis Click on the arrow next to the Cam era controls then select Back Contents New Start RightSide PanelPaint Sculpt Retopo Voxels Render Menu Hotkeys Customize CUDA FAQ Tips Credits 9 94 en 3 Right Side Panel 3 1 The Pen Tab Let s take a look at the right side dockable panel The first is the Pen tab Choose a pen you like from the list of pens This is a list of all the default pens within 3D You can add your own pens in GA PSD or ABR format the pen format used in Adobe Photoshop Press on the Folder icon to add a pen The pen added will appear in the list of pens available You can usea 3D model as a pen A pen can be colored provided the image contains an alpha channel In this case the alpha channel will You can use CTRL or SHIFT to select several pens and you will then see several pens selected in the preview these willbe used m m randomly In the pen selection mode you can adjust the pen fur ther To change the pen radius or the use the
65. enu Hotkeys customize CUDA FAQ Tips Credits 14 94 3 5 Masks Tab texture work with this feature It is great when you have an Masks are used as a way to specify an area for sculpting or texture image that doesn t match the mesh exactly You can then painting for pen depth and transparency The idea of a stencil is use this tool to shape the image to match the mesh more the basic principle The mask and materials can be moved and precisely so that you can then paint with a material or mask TENIEN GOONS As you can see in the image the jaw line nose and silhouette Flipx FlipY A TEES of the head have been shaped with the distort image feature S Reset Places the texture in its initial position Distort maga A Clear Save Load Distortion With these options you can clear Clear distortion j 4 save and load your distortions Save distortion Mapping Method There are two methods you can use here From Camera and Cube Mapping From Camera lets you Load distortion rotated independently using new navigation controls Masks and project the method through the viewport If the Cube Map materials can be rotated precisely 45 degrees by using SHIFT ping application type is selected the material preview will be Pay attention if you choose to display mask material in at displayed on the pen only as opposed to full screen when least one of the channels depths and or colors and or specular From came
66. er it and hitting the DELETE key This tool will only work with tris and quads Cap With this you can cap any existing hole in your polygonal We rn i 2 m E Lr E m Ec Wm mesh by pressing the RMB over it It will create trian gles only It is best used for the end of a pointy object such as the tip of a sword Or spear pointy ears or tails Strokes This is a very powerful tool in the retopology arse nal With it you can quickly retopologize cylindrical objects such as arms legs and other similar items You can draw lines by clicking and dragging the LMB There are a few commands local to this tool Clear Clear all the drawn lines eee Smooth Smooth all current a a T drawn lines Delete Delete your currently selected line Here is a more in depth look at it all FIRSTLy we ll start by making some strokes in the viewport to cover the whole of this leg When that is done a spline will loop around We ll create a few loops to have some area to create polygons in Next we ll create a perpendicular line within the confines of the area of the mesh opposed to the previous lines You ll notice Contents New Start RightSide PanelPaint Sculpt Retopo UV Mode Voxels that line is a green color instead of orange Green lines mean that it is discontinuous Orange lines mean that is is continuous and makes a full loop around to co
67. er setting Edit custom shader s parameters if it has them Import Merge points cloud Merge set of points as a sequence of a small spheres Merge object Merge 3D object in any of these file formats obj FBX LWO STL and PLY Export Export scene Exports the whole scene as a set of sepa rate objects Export object Exports the current object Export pattern for merge Exports the current object to be used as a pattern for the Merge object tool Export curve profile Exports the current object as a profile for a curve Clone Clones and transforms an object Clone with symmetry Clones with symmetry and transforms Clone and degrade Clones and decreases density twice Clone space density Creates space with identical density and transformation It is important if you want to use the Copy tool without loosing quality Increase density 2X Increases the selected object Layer s density twice Object will decrease twice Decrease density 2X Decreases the selected object Layer s den sity twice Object will increase twice To global space Moves the object to 0 on all axes This is great when you need to move something directly into the center of world space to allow for a more perfectly symmetrical object when you apply symmetry Extract skin Make hull using voxels Makes a hull using the voxel algo rithm It takes more time to calculate but works well for com plex topologies Make hull using surf
68. extures Import Imports diffuse specular normal and displacement maps in TGA BMP PNG JPG or DDS format and Layers color in PSD format Export Exports diffuse and specular maps in BMP PNG JPG or DDS format normal map tangent space for low poly mesh in TGA format displacement maps in TIF format and Layers color in PSD format Note When you choose Import Export displacement a context window will appear In the drop down list there are four items for map type Use Original UV This option is important for models with over lapped UV clusters for example with mirrored UV s In this case you should load the model with the Keep clusters option on UV coordinates will be changed in such a way that tex ture clusters will not overlap each other Models and textures will be exported with the original UV set if the option Use Original UV is checked otherwise they will be exported with the new UV set Save Specularity as Alpha in Normal Map Saves the specular channel to a normal map as an alpha channel Save Displacement Map to Alpha Saves the displacement to the alpha channel of the normal map Adjustments There are many Layer adjustments commands such as color to specular invert color invert specularity set height to zero make transparent remove specularity smooth current Layer sharpen current Layer hue satura tion lightness CMYK transform color space brightness contrast RGB All of them c
69. eze along the curve CTRL ENTER to unfreeze Planarize Planarize the surface along the curve 31 94 Set absolute height Apply the plane tool along the curve and then apply the usual extrusion It looks like setting the abso lute not relative depth along the curve Placing text along a curve Using this tool you can select the font for text input the text so as to change the parameters of the curve the text is applied along Ignore back faces When this option is activated you draw only on the visible parts of the surface Closed curve Draw a closed curve Flip text Flip the whole text Depth modulator Modulator impacting the entire curve depth Width modulator Modulator impacting the entire curve width Opacity modulator Transform the current set of points to circle if possible To circle Transform the current set of points to a circle if possible To line Transform the current set of points to line if possible Subdivide Subdivide the curve Equalize Set an equal distances between the points Toggle hardness This mode lets you toggle the hardness of the vertex in a spline by clicking on the vertex ESC cancels this mode Save Save text and font in a txt file placed into nstallDir UserData StoreData Texts by default Load Load text from a txt file located in InstallDir UserData StoreData Texts by default Contents New Start RightSide PanelPaint Sculpt Retopo UV Mode Voxels
70. f erasing depends on the slider for Eraser transparency Eras ing only effects your cur rently active Layer Hide Makes selected polygons hidden To hide the necessary parts of a surface use this command Pressing a pen hides parts of the surface by painting on the model Pressing with CTRL shows previously hidden surface areas CTRL X to unhide all NUM or NUM makes the hidden area wider or narrower K Hide Parameters Using the additional Hiding menu EE 2 Activate Hide Tool Hide Sub Object Hide Material Unhide Sub Object Unhide Material Unhide All Invert Hidden Faces Delete Hidden Faces Permanently x Hide Sub Objet GG CTRL X Select sub object Sub object rivet lock2 Expand Hidden Area Contract Hidden Area NUM Store Hidden State Restore Hidden State ret_button sub frame lock barrel Contents New Start RightSide PanelPaint Sculpt Retopo UV Mode Contrast default Cancel you can save load hidden areas as presets In these instances you will also have a drop down list so that you can select between these presets Hide Menu Furthermore you can access the more advanced functions of the Hide tool in the main menu in the top tool bar For convenience you can also undock this menu like any other menu and place it in an easy to access area With this menu you are not only able to hide surfaces by paint ing on the model but you
71. f explanatory You can reset the cur rent Page or all pages to their defaults save your page or whole Workspace layout to a file and also load it when needed Texture baking tool This tool lets you bake details to a normal or displacement map even if the surface topology doesn t match between the two meshes you wish to bake the reference mesh and the low poly mesh Here are some detailed steps to use this tool For a Displacement map Turn on Uses current low poly mesh Smoothes mesh Preserves positions Turn off Uses original positions Input mesh Fa Use current low poly mesh instead of external mesh 4 Use original positions of mesh Smooth mesh required to get displacement Preserve positions of vertices while smoothing UV sub patches smoothing For a Normal map Turn on Uses current low poly mesh Turn off scan depth scan depth Create padding Uses original positions Smoothes mesh You ll need to have Use current low poly mesh and Smooth mesh turned on with Use original positions turned off To get a displacement map you should set the Smooth mesh option Render Menu Hotkeys Customize CUDA FAQ Tips No smoothing Texture width 2048 Texture height 2048 Credits As you can see by the normal maps images here the right one is more detailed then the other It was gener ated using the Texture Baking tool the left one was done with a simple export function beca
72. face tools your mesh based on per Improved the surface sculpting Flatten brush centages If no mesh exists New voxel Free Form Primitives it will create a triangulated mesh on the fly TaS rh Much improved voxel bak N F UV U NWRAPPING ing tool When baking from voxels to Pixel Painting objects i each voxtree object will have a sub object Layer created automatically Added new and hugely improved UV Editing Tools Added ABF Unwrapping method for creating UVs Improved the functionality of the Voxel Curve tool Improved functionality of the Splines mode in the E panel Contents New Start RightSide PanelPaint Sculpt Retopo UV Mode Voxels Render Menu Hotkeys Customize CUDA FAQ Tips Credits 4 94 2 Getting started 2 1 Importing Meshes With the middle column select pick one of these OBJ files that Import object for per pixel painting This approach has no limitation on tiled self intersecting and mirrored UV sets Also it will give you better quality of painting over texture because of paintina will be performed directly over pixels on UV set Initial subdivision No subdivision you can see in the menu from the screenshot below Or select file menu and click on File Import Model for per pixel painting then choose the sample OBJ file it is in the Samples folder Upon importing an object you will be prompted with the follow ing image There are many options you w
73. ft stroke Alt S Clockwise rotate brush 8 Anti Clockwise rotate brush 0 Pressing out LMB Pressing In Ctrl LMB Smoothing Shift LMB Decrease brush size or WHEEL down or Right click on model surface and drag left Increase brush depth or Ctrl WHEEL up or Right click on model surface and drag up Decrease brush smooth degree Shift or Shift WHEEL down or Shift Right click on modal surface and drag down Increase brush smooth degree Shift or Shift WHEEL up or Shift Right click on model surface and drag up Decrease Transparency O Increase Transparency P Decrease Specularity lt Increase Specularity gt Decrease Opacity of Specularity Increase Opacity of Specularity Pick tool Pick color V Pick layer H symmetry Change the position symmetry plane TAB moving your mouse Draw with spline in Paint Curves in Voxels Add point to a spline LMB Draw pressed out curve Enter Draw pressed in curve Ctrl Enter Delete all points ESC Delete the last point Backspace Copy and paste part of surface Insert a copied part Ctrl V Copy a part Ctrl C Creation of a new pen from a site Ctrl Shift C Sync with photoshop Edit all layers in Ctrl P Edit projections in Ext Editor Ctrl Alt 4 P Merge visible layers Ctrl Shift E Fill unfrozen Insert Erase unfrozen Delete Fill by mask Ctrl Insert Freeze operati
74. g By disabling channels depth diffuse specular you can transform the remaining channels only In the transform mode the surface area is erased from its old place and copied onto the new one In order to simply copy without deleting do not tick the Erase old position option It is possible to transform whole block of visible Layers and paste them merged or separately You can select what to copy not only with a rectangle but also by using the freehand selection drag rectangle etc The options for this tool are Depth modulator Additional depth modulator for the trans formed area Opacity modulator Additional opacity for the transformed area Specular modulator Additional specular modulator for trans formed area Export Export to a PSD file Import Import from a PSD file Edit Edit image with an external editor that supports PSD files By default it is Adobe Photoshop Save Save transform parameters and image to nstal Dir User Data StoreData Rects Load Load transform parameters Copy Paste You can copy parts of a surface to the clipboard by using CTRL C and then paste them using CTRL V If the cursor is not on an object it will be pasted to the same place Sharp The curve it was copied from Images in the clipboard can be edited in another graphics editor then copied back to the clipboard and pasted onto the object surface If the color channel is open for editing the color texture is pl
75. g tabbed popup windows around We will discuss how to undock and dock tabbed windows and even how to cre ate floating windows Tabbed windows are flexible in that you can change their widths and lengths and also their locations This can be helpful if you re using 3D Coat on a notebook computer and need to have as much screen real estate as possible to model or to do texture work Simply place your mouse along the edge or border of a tabbed window and when your cursor turns into a double headed arrow drag your mouse to resize the window To show a tab that you may have closed or to explore tabs available for your use go to the Window menu From here you can choose a tab to reveal in the interface A great way to learn about the tools in 3D Coat is to open tabbed windows and to explore all of the functionality in them Moving a tabbed window to a new location is easy You may want to move a tabbed window into another cluster of tabs A good example may be to drag all windows that deal with colors or pens into their own cluster so you can quickly find them Place your mouse over the tab and drag it to a new loca tion Let go of the mouse when you see a blue outline The posi tion of the outline will determine which part of the window the tab will occupy Let go of the mouse and the tabbed window will dock where the blue out line appeared Don t worry if Materials Mask you placed it in the wrong loca New Start RightSide Panel
76. ght sources the better the quality of lighting but the 1 1 16 light 500 ces 128 light source Contents New Start RightSide PanelPaint Sculpt Retopo Voxels Render Menu Hotkeys Customize CUDA X FAQ Tips Credits 80 94 Windows Help Reset all pages to default Store this page layout Restore this page layout Store Workspace Restore Workspace axes or simply toggle the visibility of the symmetry plane By default symmetry is not activated You can also change the posi tion of the symmetry plane by pressing and holding the tab key 10 8 Windows Popups With Popups you can show any popup window in the viewport easily There are many popup windows and all of them are useful Some of the popups are already located in their TABs in the right side panel Sliders View any of the available sliders for all tools that use one Pressure not dependent on color 50 Smoothinge 100 aT p n Decrease Opacity 0 t this page to default Increase Opacity P Decrease Angle q Increase Angle 0 Decrease Radius Increase Radius Decrease Degree 5B Increase Degree Decrease Smooth Degree SHIFT Increase Smooth Degree SHIFT Decrease Specular Opacity Increase Specular Opacity Decrease Specular Degree Increase Specular Degree Swap Colors New Start RightSide PanelPaint Sculpt Retopo UV Mode Voxels The rest of the options are sel
77. gized mesh into scene All details from the reference mesh will be baked into a new object Additional extrusion can also be applied A UV Render Menu Hotkeys Customize CUDA _ FAQ Tips Credits set is required but if you have not assigned a UV set it will be generated automatically Merge hull in scene Merges outer mesh over reference object into scene This function works like Merge into scene but is optimized for a multi object reference mesh It prefers outer points while baking surface Merge raw patch Merge a raw patch into the scene No baking will be performed This command can be used to merge a new object without projecting details from the reference mesh Merge for per pixel painting Replace scene with patch Bake texture Bake texture onto patch This operation requires a UV set Save retopology state Load retopology state And we have these items in the top tool bar for the Retopo tab Z bias Adjust the z bias to get a better look at the retopologized mesh pre view Additional extrusion You can extrude the retopologized mesh This is a great way to make clothing for your characters 6 5 Retopology Groups Layers 3D Coat has a Layer system for retopolo Retopo Windows Help Import retopo mesh Export raw object Use current low poly mesh Unwrap Clear mesh Subdivide Apply symmetry Smooth retopo mesh Merge into scene Merge hull in scene Merge raw patch Merge for per pixel p
78. hannels that you can paint at any given moment They are from left to right Depth Color and Specularity These icons will upon LMB clicking toggle the channel on or off If the channel is off you will see a large X over the respective icon If you hover over each icon you will notice that there are a few more options 13 94 for each which can also be controlled with RMB dragging Pen opt Strips Tab With the help of the Strip menu you can select the shape of a up down or left right RMB and dragging your mouse up down will change the intensity of your pen RMB and drag ging your mouse left right will change the size of your pen Mouse Pen and Lock Icons These two icons indicate what mode Strip to be applied along the drawing trajectory This may be your style is currently in You can toggle from one to the other simply by LMB clicking on the icon The Mouse icon locks used to draw decorative edges or a chain The red pen pressure to whatever value you have in the respective X sign means no strip will be setting the icon is next to The Pen icon allows for pen pres applied along the trajectory Just as with pens you can click on sure directly from your stylus The Lock icon willlockthe on Folder icon to add a new strip screen size of the pen It is convenient when you want to There are a number of ways that you can apply a strip You change radius of the pen by simply moving the model back
79. he transpar Reading Mode Full Screen Mode accordingly You can see that Je segment color changes on pen Menu Bar cursor The segment acquires Toolbars d olor and its size depend Navigation Panels Attachments d Bookmarks Line Weights Review Tracker 4x Comments Automatically Scroll Shift rCtrl H How To Read Out Loud lt Layers l Tree Pe Se ee ee PS Ee Se eee Contents New _ Start RightSide PanelPaint Sculpt UV Mode Voxels 3DC Manual Paqeliner Bottom menu Images Text 6 6 8 8 m The Transparency slider is the tra color while drawing You can reduce ency using hot keys O and P acc depending on transparency the segm lE Guides and Grids 2 9 5 LP ie blue on tr Transparency F Use current color drop a You should now see a white background in this document and can print it using much less ink If you want to save even more ink you can also hide the layer named Images and only print the text parts of this manual 5 3DC Manusl Pageliner an Bottom menu ES Images ES Text The Transparency slider is the tra color while drawing You can reduce ency using hot keys O and P acc depending on transparency the segm Grida T 5 ts e Guides and Grids J Narr UU LJ ede blu Bg X e La Ha
80. ht Side PanelPaint Sculpt Retopo Mode Voxels Presets This tool hasa number of presets you are encour aged to explore them Some of the more advanced functions of this tool are Merge separate volumes Merges each sub object to its own unique Layer in the Vox Tree Respect negative volumes If an un merged object has _nega tive somewhere for a sub object inside the file this function will subtract this volume when merging it with other sub objects You should know in advance when you are going to use this feature as negative is a prerequisite It is great for creating greebles and nurnies Let s take a more detailed look at this feature Thanks to our users Tinker and Daniel Yarmak for the descriptions pua 2 params ANA IO CIE ing application usually witha series of arbitrary extrusions To 9 81 62659 Greebles or nurnies can be created in any 3D model make your models look more F Cut amp Clone NETUS m Merge as skin interesting and unique you would probably want to create your own greebles Details with Shift X Render Menu Hotkeys Customize CUDA FAQ Tips Credits Paint Sculpt Retopo UV Estimated polycount oge Merge to separate volumes sais espect negative volumes eec mes T Eus mu E 58 94 angled surface look better than surfaces all parallel For easier placement of details on a model crea
81. icking to add the edge Edge ring This is the same as Edge loop however it runs per pendicular to the direction of the edge loop function And finally we have the Select tool for Polygons Delete Deletes selected polygons You can also achieve this by hovering over a polygon and hitting the DELETE key Subdivide This is the same as for polygon mode or any other subdivide option in 3D Coat Hide This tool makes it easier to retopologize in very tight areas If you are running into a problem simply select the polygons in question and hit the hide button Invert hidden This will invert the polygons you may have previ ously hidden Unhide This will unhide all polygons previously hid den Quads The basic use of this tool lets you select an edge of a polygon and then drag out and click the placement of the edges for a new polygon There are four different methods of use for this tool and they are are fairly similar You are encouraged to try each one They are 2 clicks method Parallel Direct and Trapezoid Points amp Faces This method is quite handy when starting out on your retopologization You place points with the LMB and once there are qualifying areas to place polygons you only need to use the RMB to place the polygons You will see a blue outline of where the polygon will be placed You can move the points by using the RMB to click and drag it around You can also delete a point by hovering ov
82. ill see in this prompt They are as follows Initial subdivision Set initial subdivision of the object for a smoother look if needed UV mapping type Keep the original UV or use Auto mapping File View Textures Windows Help Pressure not dependent on color Soft stroke 800 Za Radius 27 0 Ly x La Depth 53 Z lt Smoothing 100 Z sTransparency gt 100 ZZ sSpecularity Paint fata OZ Co eh x c SEN XM o ME Please choose a tool to start UV mapping type Keep W UV set smoothing Auto smoothing groups UV set name Texture width Texture height UV set smoothing This option works only if you have chosen to subdivide the model during import Auto smoothing groups This option allow you to create smoothing groups automatically By specifying a value in the Maximum angle option responsible for the maximum angle between faces when the edge becomes sharp it is necessary Voxel sculpting Sculpt without any topological constraints and make complex details from nothing You can change topology as you wish This approach gives you an absolute feeling of freedom in sculpting It is not based on surface deformation but on volume building and filling Feel like a true artist here don t think about polygons and structure just express yourself as an artist Per pixel painting Paint over low poly meshes with color displacement and specu
83. in 3D space that contain information on volume and color Great as voxels are you should also under stand some of the limitations of this technol ogy For instance objects can t be too thin in a voxel form If you want to make a very thin surface like cloth you should increase the resolution of the voxel object or use the new Surface mode for voxels This can be done by clicking on the Cube icon next to the particular Layer you would like to work on and it will then change to a wavy line The wavy line represents the Surface mode 8 2 Volume Sculpting Tools When you re in Voxel Mode there is a robust set of tools that you can use for sculpting and to perform different operations They are located on the left side tool panel You can always call the tools panel by pressing SPACE anywhere on the screen As with any other panel you can pin it for your convience Increase Increases or decreases the surface beneath the cursor None 00000000000000 O O O O O O O O oO O O O O O O O of 7 O ooo To oot Jo 7000 Jo oo 7000 7 0 o o0 oooc gt 0 oo oc ooo oooo so 200 075 00000000000000 0000000000000000 00000000000000 oo00000000000020 0 0
84. int Sculpt UV Mode Voxels Supports tiled self intersected and mirrored UV sets micro vertex painting supports only non overlapped texturing Takes up less memory than microvertex approach Gives good precision in painting operations without any additional blurring The only disadvantage in comparison to microvertex painting is that per pixel painting does not support vector displacement only normal displacement Sometimes this makes it an essential point so we leaved both approaches in place For example using the microvertex approach to paint on baked voxel sculptures gives you better results These are the advantages of per pixel painting over projection painting Render Menu Hotkeys Customize CUDA FAQ Tips Credits 20 94 The possibility of affecting pixels on the back of the model for example filling blurring and aPPLYing overall effects The painting quality does not depend on the distance from the object to camera More precise painting what you see is what you get The key advantage over the usual texture painting in space is the possibility of blurring pixels under the brush because every pixel has neighbors 4 2 Depth Before you find out how each tool works in Paint Mode you should know about painting in Depth Color Specular channels and also to know about color picking and types of drawing Point the cursor at the purple hued sphere and click By clicking here you
85. ion by a factor of 2 0822 This is useful if you havean object Layer with too high 220425265 resolution youneedto 52522 reduce it for easier editing Be aware that you will lose details Clone X note Clears the selected Import Export Clone with symmetry object Layer in the Vox Tree of all voxels It is the same function as the Clear tool on the left side tool bar 9 as discussed in the Com Bran erm mands section Extract skin Extrude VoxTree Right Transform click Menu Apply axial symmetry There are many functions in the right click menu inside of the VoxTree Some of them Quadrangulate for per pixel painting Flip are unique to this menu most Merge ta however are not They are as MCI follows Subtract from Change parent Voxels Render Menu Hotkeys Customize CUDA Clone and degrade Clone space density Quadrangulate object Quadrangulate and paint FAQ Tips Credits Decrease object 2X increase density 67 94 Delete Deletes the selected Layer Add sub object This is the same as clicking the icon near the Layer s name It ADDS a Layer that is a child of the cur rent Layer Rename Type your own name for the Layer instead of the default Volume X Merge 3B file Merges an external 3B file the native format into the scene Shader Changes the shader You can do it also in the Shaders TAB Edit shad
86. jects These are just some of the methods with this tool that you ll soon discover You are encouraged as with all other tools in 3D Coat to dive in and find out what tools and techniques work best for you Brush This tool lets you move vertices based on your brush size and intensity using the LMB You can also smooth the ver tices with your brush using SHIFT LMB 6 2 Tweak amp Commands This set of retopology tools lets you tweak the current retopolo gized mesh in the viewport Please notice that the commands for each tool in this Tweak section have very similar commands to those listed above in the Create amp Commands section If there is a unique command it will be listed with its respective tool Delete polygons You can delete polygons with this tool simply by clicking them With the CTRL key you can also delete all connected polygons Delete edges With this you can quickly delete edges edge loops and edge rings Hover your mouse over the desired selection and click the LMB Collapse Hover your mouse over a selected edge and click the LMB to collapse all connected points of that edge to one location With CTRL LMB to apply this to an entire edge ring Split rings This is exclusively an edge loop tool Hover the cur sor over an edge where you would like to apply a new edge loop and click your LMB Move vertices Also known as a tweak tool some packages it lets you quickly move a point edge polygon edge l
87. k point and direction Pick point and direction local Navigate Pick point only This will place the cursor at the last loca tion you used the RMB only Its direction is based on the settings in the parameters TAB Pick point amp direction This will place the cursor at the last loca tion you used the RMB and its direction will be based on the average normals of the voxels that your brush covers Pick point amp direction local This will place the cursor at the last location you used the RMB and its direction will be based on the single normal of the voxel your brush is centered on Navigate Lets you navigate the viewport This can also be done while holding the ALT key Now we ll continue with the other tools Scrape This tool is not affected by pens just the Size of the brush and the Intensity It s Right Side Panel Paint Sculpt Retopo UV Mode Voxels very similar to the Flatten tool it flattens the surface beneath the brush Vox pinch This is great for mak ing very nice tight edges cavities and peaks You can better see that on the pictures below Vox follow This tool drags the surface topology along with the brush It s great for producing wrinkles on a character or a piece of clothing Adjustment Tools Pose tool This tool is great for quickly changing the rotation scale and translation of a selection You can determine the selection in several ways You can use a line ring sphere
88. ke shapes You can achieve many different effects by for instance wings There are a number of settings in this tool Smoothing Speed Lets you adjust the rate at which your stroke is smoothed Stick to ground Forces your stroke to STICK TO GROUND OFF append to the surface of the object instead of smoothing right through it STICK TO GROUND ON Muscle types Select between two different types Muscle and Tendon In the image on the previous page you T TEST 01 MiCROVERTEH MODEL AND TEXTURE OLIVER THORNTON STICK TO GROUND OFF 62 94 can see from left to right Tendon Muscle 2 and then Muscle 1 Toothpaste This tool shares all of the options with the Mus cles tool except the muscle types Its function is similar to its name it is just like applying toothpaste to a surface A big advantage is that it respects Pen alphas so you can use it to create some rather unique rake brushes Primitives This tool has undergone a big change in version 3 2 While retaining the oldrer primitives Sphere Cube Ellipse Cylinder Cone Capsule Tube N Gon and the Gear there are now Free Form Primitives ffPrimitives These robust and powerful primitives let you create very complex shapes with just a few easy tweaks of the vertices edges or faces of the lattice cage There are a number of preset ffPrimitives and you can also create your own using obj files see more on tha
89. lar channels With this method you can paint directly on your mesh to a texture map this is ideal for low poly game assets It is NOT limited to low poly models you can also paint high poly meshes too up to 1M polygons You can import a normalmap to use as a guide Microvertex painting With per pixel painting you can t achieve too high of a displacement Microvertex painting method is better suited for vector displacements With microvertex painting method each face will be subdivided dependant on individual proportions Paintaing will be performed over new vertices to activate the Auto smoothing groups option To use this option turn the Auto smoothing groups on UV set name Enter UV set name Texture width Set the texture width Texture height Set the texture height a gt d J fe te 7 A i j Wb Show on startup choose interface theme Continue with the last saved file Lion34final3b Layers LE TTE ESL ES Please open a recent 3DB file or select an object to detail fps 40 Free 2019 Mb Contents New Start RightSide PanelPaint Sculpt UV Mode gt Note If your video card has less then 256 Mb of RAM you should avoid textures larger than 2000x2000 f you choose File gt Import gt Model for microvertex paint ing and you have selected a file we recommend t
90. ll axes When using the function Apply to whole curve there will be an outer white ring which allows for viewport based rotations In addition to the standard curve tools described above there are now 4 modes Extrude Lets you extrude new hierarchies from the existing point of a curve Simply click and hold the LMB then drag in the direction you want to create the extrusion Holding SHIFT will default to the new Rotate mode It can also be activated with the Q key Move Lets you move points of a curve individually Adding the SHIFT key will move its child or parent hierarchy depend ing on the direction of the manipulator arrow It can also be activated with the W key Rotate Lets you rotate the child or parent hierarchy of a point with viewport based rotations It can also be activated with the R key Scale Lets you scale the child or parent hierarchy of a point It can also be activated with the E key NOTE You need to click the LMB to edit a point ESC to stop editing a point When using one of the four new edit modes you do not need to have a point selected Simply hold SHIFT or turn on Invert SHIFT action and you ll see green cones they let you edit the point and its hierarchy Finally the affected direction of the hierarchy is the larger side of the green cone These tools allow for quite a number of things including pipes chains basic character or creature shapes and bodies and so on Here are
91. ll operations will be applied in screen space so you should try to place modified place at the best view position This tool is intended to move only small details over the Layer so don t use it to move large sections Smudge Smudges the Layer along motion Collapse Collapses the Layer Expand Expands the Layer NOTE You must click the LMB to apply the last two operations Clone tool This tool is quite versatile so please read and test it out carefully to learn more about it Press CTRL LMB to mark a source point for copying Then draw using LMB You can copy not only with a round pen but also with the frame and contour pen press E for brush types Additional options in the Clone tool menu Top Left Image You can clone with a number of methods they are Translation In this mode press CTRL LMB to select the source point Dx The horizontal shift of source point Dy The vertical shift of source point Mirroring Copying with mir ror reflection of a plane Press CTRL LMB to select the point for the plane to go through See below Inversion Copying with inver sion against the point Press CTRL LMB to mark the cen ter point of inversion Center mman X and Center Y positions of AO N pivot point on screen Press Koi sux CTRL LMB in the correspond ing places to change it Clone sector Copy a sector rotated at a selected angle m 7 ry against the pivot point Press 28 94
92. lows Pressing on a the grey X sign first in the list you will forbid changing the correspondent channel when drawing be it depth diffuse or specular By choosing the second icon in the list you will enable editing in corresponding channel however without overlaying additional texture in this channel You will draw with a pen not distorted by material If the texture is chosen there are also folder icon and material icon Pressing the folder icon lets you set another texture in corresponding channel for the current material If you set the texture for diffuse channel bear in mind that the texture alpha channel is used as additional mask when laying color 21 XO py Try choosing the first icon in the depth channel and draw a little then opt for a square with texture and draw The difference will be obvious To access these menus press D depth menu C color menu R specular menu Use the key to quick access the semi transparent panel containing the parameters for all the three channels in a compact form you can pin it anywhere in your workspace On the right is a very good example of the use of depth to paint a displacement map by Juan Carlos Montes Color Place the cursor to the Color icon By pressing the grey X sign you will prevent drawing color for the current texture By pressing ont green sphere icon you will enable editing of the diffuse channel but with
93. lso perform a screen based rotation using the large outer circle A few of the other options for this tool are Move only gizmo Lets you make adjustments exclusively to the gizmo This helps when you need to place the gizmo in another location Leave rotated axis This is great for when you need to rotate an object multiple times while retaining its previous rotations Position amp Axes 1 2 amp 3 These parameters let you manually key in the position and rotational coordinates Scale X Y amp Z These parameters allow you the manually key in scalar modulations Reset axis space These two functions let you reset an object s axis or local space Wrap You ll find this tool is quite versatile It lets you twist and bend the currently selected object Layer in the VoxTree This is very important each function of each of the WrapType s will alter any of the other types end functions So you are strongly encouraged to test this tool out to find out what best works for you That said the following descriptions are based on the use of a default sphere so let s take a look WrapType Drop down list with two methods Bend and Twist Bend will bend or wrap the current Layer around the base of the gizmo Twist will rotate the current Layer around its pole Credits 56 94 Barelief This looks at the exist ing volume of an object and extrudes to create new volume based on the posi tion of the
94. mely TGA and BMP Don t overwrite files Pre vents overwriting of files during a sequence render ing Closed spline Use if you have several camera short cuts set up in the scene In this case the Camera flight trajectory will be closed Rays per frame Sets the maximal number of rays per frame during rendering The rendering time is proportional to this value Frames to render Sets the number of frames to render Counter clockwise Sets trajectory direction clockwise or counter clockwise Render sub sequence Check if you want to render or re render only some frames of a sequence You must set the first and the ast frame to render As mentioned in the beginning of this section do not hit ESC to cancel a render if you still wish to use the image You must wait until it is complete if you wish to have a final useable image Canceling the render will not do this Patience is a Virtue Antialiasing T t Render sub sequence Start Artist Deadmanz21 73 94 Contents 10 Menu Panel 10 1 File New Clears the current scene and creates a new one Open Opens 3D Coat s native 3B format Open Recent Displays recently open files Save Saves file Save As Saves files in 3B format You can rename the file or place it into another directory Save Incrementally Saves the file with an iterational file name for example file 001 3b
95. must be in format of BMP DDS JPEG or TGA The grey X sign means no using of the material Quick access the Materials menu by pressing key Select any material from the list and do some drawing In the example below we only want to paint color texture on the model so depth and specular channels are disabled You can enable every channel when needed All of the controls for masks as detailed in that section are exactly the same for both masks and materials alike You can see the power of the Materials in the picture below 3 7 Blending tab This tab contains more parameters then the simple blending drop down list allowing for more advanced use Let s take a look Lock transparency This lets you draw on a Layer without chang ing its transparency Essentially it lets you edit the current colors on a Layer without adding more Depth modulator Color opacity Emboss power Contrast Brightness Specular contrast Specular brightness Linked Layer This drop down list enables you to mask the cur rent Layer with another Layer The transparency and depth of the current Layer will be modulated by the selected Layer transparency Inverse linkage An inverse Layer opacity will be used as a mask All parameters can be changed but for this you must change values on a corresponding scale 3 8 Layers tab Here we see the list of Layers Layer 0 Layer 1 etc effects with Layers and modes of operations with a
96. n nect back to itself Now let us take a look on the top toolbar we ll need to select a number of segments You will get ring of polygons with corresponding number of segments Now we ll try something a little different instead of drawing lines around a mesh let us draw a grid look within the mesh instead of slices as before Now press the Enter key and you will have the area you surrounded with the strokes created as polygons Now let s demonstrate one more method here We re going to draw a circle within the confines of the mesh to create edge loops or circles Then we ll draw a perpendicular stroke to the circles that we previously created and then hit the ENTER key You ll notice that it automatically cre ated our entire loop based on the Number of segments set ting in the top tool bar similar as before with the first demon stration we gave for cylindri Render Menu Hotkeys Customize uro 7 ELT TM Ty a EN TT is 4 a p Sait Gas cartina CPU T A TEIL ade E T a alor d L mi aU LIT IE via X ELT T Le ek a DIS CUDA _ FAQ Tips EEF IA gt J XU E oa 4 mt j 4 E Ws 7 o Credits tS hi MUCmY i Ls wit hr i porch Fs BT TM 3 111 UNES PIE ESI 30r 3 E Dx s 43 94 cal ob
97. nce from the DOF plane where objects remain in focus DOF plane position Moves a red plane forward or backward to set the center of the depth of focus Use the slider above to set the distance from the plane in front and back where objects should remain in focus Show DOF plane Shows a focus plane where the details will look most sharp during DOF rendering Store alpha channel Renders also an alpha channel To use this option you must choose TGA as the output file format If you are rendering an image sequence the TGA format will be chosen automatically Anti aliasing Smoothes the edges of your rendered objects Keep it checked 32 bit rendering Use this option only if have good enough graphic card GeForce 8 9 or better 32 bit rendering pro vides a higher quality render by allowing for an infinite num ber of rays Render result Choose the image format and a folder to store your rendered scene Only apples if Render frame sequence is unchecked Render frame sequence Renders a frame sequence rotating around the object or along the camera path If checked an additional parameter will appear Folder to store images The name of a folder that will be LAZOVSKTY PAVEL AKA PALSAN created to store rendered frames The folder is placed into Install dir Renderedlmages Please note that you cannot change this default path 72 94 Save lossless images Saves images in lossless formats na
98. nhide all Unhides any hidden voxels Voxels Windows Help Inc resolution Symm copy Clear Smooth all Unhide all li Accurate smoothing Grow on pen motion 55 94 WITH HIDDEN BACKGROUND LAYER Invert hidden Inverts hidden voxels Delete hidden part Deletes any voxels you have hidden Separate hidden part Creates a new Layer in the vox tree and places the previously hidden voxels into the newly created Layer To continue with the other tools they are Cell Hide This hides cells of voxels based on your brush size Unlike the other Hide tool it does not allow sculpting or seperating hidden parts to create seams and other objects Copy To use this you must have two Layers in the vox tree It is preferable if one of the Layers is empty but it doesn t need to be In your other Layer there must be a portion of a vol ume object you wish to copy with this Layer visible and your empty Layer active you can brush along the surface of the background object This will copy the brushed areas to the previously empty Layer It is a really quick way to create objects based on a character s surface topology like body armor clothing etc Transform This tool lets you rotate scale and transform your cur rently selected Layer By grabbing one of the gizmo handles you can constrain to whatever axis you clicked on You can Panel Paint Sculpt Retopo UV Mode Voxels Render Menu Hotkeys Customize CUDA FAQ Tips a
99. no extra tex E N fa tisti Jian ca los Montes A wr ie SO 1 ture overlaid the channel If the 4 ransparency Contents texture is selected you ll see Place the cursor on the drop down list to see the following also a folder icon a texture you can determine the rules of color selection for drawing imbued square Press on the folder icon to replace your texture You can draw with a main color or you can use a mixture of the The Transparency slider is the transparency applied to the main and background colors pen color while drawing You can reduce or increase the transpar ency using the hot keys and P accordingly You see Use current color Use the current color to draw that depending on transparency the segment color changes Use randomly one of two colors Use one of two colors current on the pen cursor The segment acquires a blue color and its size or secondary randomly to depends on the transparency draw Use current calor Use randomly one of two colors Use random color between two Use current color New Start RightSide PanelPaint Sculpt Voxels Render Menu Hotkeys Customize CUDA FAQ lIips Credits 22 94 Use random color between two Use a random mix of two main colors Here is an example by Juan Carlos Montes which uses Color Specularity Point the cursor on the Specularity icon By pressing on the red sign you will preve
100. noise applied Wavy surface Wavy surface y sin x Strips Strips that are perpendicular to the main axe Saw Saw like shape Hexagon A correct hexagonal grid will be used as the volume texture when modulating 35 94 Random spheres Space filled with random spheres will be used as the volume texture when modulating Pores Generation of pore like surface Spots Generation of pimpled surface Fractal N1 Volumetric Perlin noise Fractal N2 Square of Perlin noise Fractal N3 Perlin noise limited by planes Fractal 4 cracks Resembles cracks Fractal wood N1 set of distorted planes perpendicular to the view direction Fractal wood 2 A set of distorted cylinders To set the cylinder axe go into the lines mode Fractal tree N3 Wood with knot imitation Custom Rough skin Add custom This lets you create your own custom modulation type Depending on the modulation chosen in the Modulation type menu you will have the ability to adjust a number of parameters for each one They are as follows Peak position The position of maximum Scale Scale of modulation Anisotropy The degree of stretching or compression of details along the direction selected If no direction is set then itis a vertical axis Switch into the lines mode to specify the direc tion Width of jag The relative width of jag ossis M a ry Lou asta IN ud eee m 2 2 2 IN
101. nt drawing with specularity By choosing the shining sphere icon you will enable drawing in the specular channel but with no additional texture overlaid in the channel The question mark folder means that no extra specular chan nel texture is to be overlaid while drawing has been selected If the texture is selected the question mark folder is changed into a specular texture square Press on the folder to replace the specular texture for your current material With the help of the Specularity slider you can change the reflective qualities which are applied while drawing The hot keys lt and gt or mouse wheel under the corresponding adjustments in the Pref erences menu allow changing the Specular parameter quickly The Opacity of the specularity slider is responsible for changing the transparency applied to reflective qualities The hot keys and or mouse wheel under the corresponding adjustments in the Preferences menu provide for decreasing or increasing the specular transparency Here is an example image with great use of the specular painting tools in 3D Coat by wailingmonkey below ASpecularity Opacity of Specularity Artiat wailingmonkey Color Picker Now we need to learn how to use the color correctly For this point the cursor on the Color icon on the left tools panel and click on a square under the Color inscription By doing so you will see a panel which lets you pick a c
102. o 0000007007009 005 000 52 94 of the pens having any effect on it just the brush size and the intensity Press LMB and move the mouse to increase CTRL RMB to decrease On the top panel the Growth power controls the intensity of the increase and the Thaw power dependent on the size of the brush You can also make it dependent on the pressure click on the icon near the Sphere extrusion slider The maximum size will be the maximum size of the brush You can create separate spheres and long controls the intensity of the decrease pill shaped cylinders rounded at the ends Fill Fills any cavities that you apply the brush to It s useful 2D Paint This tool paints on two axes which you specify by right when you want to make cavities less deep but not fully level clicking anywhere Notice first that as you rotate the view with the rest of the surface It sometimes requires very high and move the brush it s moving along the two axes When intensity settings to fill areas you change it it will always face the camera Pick any pen Clay Lets you place strokes quickly onto your voxel sculpt you like and just draw It also has an important option on the It will also simultaneously smooth the surface after you ve top tool bar Double sided With this checked you can paint brushed it as does the carve tool double sided strokes Carve Lets you place high peaks and deep gauges quickly on your mesh but with no smoothing
103. o start with sample obj in the Samples folder As with the previ Render Menu Hotkeys Customize CUDA FAQ Tips Credits 5 94 of polygons Carcass resolution polygons rj Smooth object Mapping type UV sub patches smoothing Preserve positions Ignore smoothing groups Invert normals Auto smoothing groups UV set name Texture width Texture height Contents New Start ous method you will see a number of options which you can specify upon importing your object Millions of Polygons This is responsible for mesh resolution the number of millions of polygons after mesh smoothing during the loading This amount should be greater than the amount of pixels in your texture image These polygons are used to create normal maps on the fly Carcass Resolution Polygons The mesh consists of two levels of detail carcass mesh mid poly mesh and high resolution mesh Usually you will see mid poly mesh in the viewport with the normal map created using high poly mesh Smooth Object You can also smooth the object while opening the file For this case let s tick Smooth object Mapping Type By default the UV mapping type is Keep UV For this option of course you must have a pre existing UV mapped mesh and it remains unchanged but if you want you can change it For this example we will leave it as it is Right Side Panel Paint Sculpt Retopo UV Mode Voxels UV Subpatch Smoothing This option lets yo
104. oaded In this way you can create a set of handy blocking outlines for your model If you saved at least one file subsequently you will have a drop down list offering a selection of files Of course you can also access many more options for the Freeze tool in the main menu of the top tool bar Freeze the surface Freeze all the surfaces with the current con dition Invert freeze selection The frozen surfaces will be unfrozen and the surfaces which were not frozen will be frozen Toggle freeze view There are six modes with which you can view the frozen area The difference between each is purely visual Many of the other commands are self explanatory as well and you are strongly encouraged to explore each one Fill If you are familiar with the fill tool in Photoshop or other photo editing programs then you should be quite famil Render Menu Hotkeys Customize CUDA FAQ Tips Credits 34 94 mm EE iar with this tool already It lets p ri E T I r Wi T DA E you fill self contained areas A based on a number of param eters you can specify There are three main parameters by which you can fill Layer Fill the whole Layer Material Fill the material of the object Object Fill the sub object There are sub options for this tool as well that you can use with each of the three main filling methods Use color tolerance This lets you fill in your
105. of the different methods for painting within 3D Coat There number of them each with their own positive and negative sides The first we ll talk about is per pixel painting It was introduced into 3D Coat for the first iteration of version 3 Version 2 used microvertex painting In this latter approach every face quad only allowed was represented as a patch NxM vertices N and M could be different for every face Every vertex had color and coordinates in space so every kind of displacement was allowed However this approach was limited because it was very difficult to edit meshes with non quad faces and projecting a patch to texture resulted in a loss of quality so it was difficult to import a texture edit it and then export because the after export texture appeared to be slightly blurred So we decided to implement per pixel painting Here are the basic points of this technology Painting is performed not over vertices but over pixels on the texture directly It looks like every pixel on the texture is represented as a point in space Every pixel contains any number of Layers of color opacity normal displacement and specularity Every Layer can be blended with the previous one using well known blending operations for color and displacement Every texture point in space has its neighbors in a per pixel representation It is important because it lets you not only Artist Juan Carlos Montes 19 94 Contents New
106. olor Within this panel are further options for other color pickers You have five different color pickers the last one lets you pick a color from any image you load This color will paint the square you pointed at It shows the current color You can choose the second color too click on an icon right next to the first color icon in The color box on this pic ture the first color is green the second is black The second color is used in the diffuse channel while you work with the drop it tha Eirini down list Apart from the stan oe REPEAT E ee Pea dues eee DAR e e fF Contents New dard set of color options the Pick color window contains various color selection modes HSL and IMG selection from image For the latter there are additional buttons available There are further options for the image color picker panel Manipulator Icons With the icons on the left top of the image color picker you can pan zoom or reset the position of the image Select Select an image from file Paste Paste an image from the clipboard and use it like the cus tom picker Image Drop down list If you have more than one image you can select them from each of these by clicking here in the list Palette F Delete all Load moe Inse Save Edit color m Palette Skin Colors aco Palette Web Safe Colors aco Palette Windows aco Start Right Side PanelPaint Sc
107. on Toggle freeze view Alt F Freeze transparent pixels Ctrl 4 Invert freeze selection Ctrl Shift Show hide freeze Ctrl F Expand frozen area Ctrl NUM Contract frozen area Ctrl NUM Freeze border Ctrl NUM Smooth freezing Ctrl NUM Hide operation Unhide all Ctrl X Expand hidden area NUM Contract hidden area NUM Retopo operation In Add split mode Add new polygon LMB Split faces edges Connect vertex LMB Escape from current snapped point ESC Tweak edges vertex RMB In Select mode Select single element LMB Add select Shift LMB Subtract select Ctrl LMB Select edge loops L Select edge rings R Slide selected edges RMB Tweak selected vertex RMB Subdivide selected faces Insert Add points LMB Tweak points Generate faces RMB Force generate triangle face Shift RMB In Strokes mode Draw freehand strokes LMB Draw spline Ctrl LMB Connect break existing strokes Ctrl LMB Generate faces based on strokes Enter Clear strokes ESC In Brush mode Smooth vertex spacing Shift LMB PC keyboard updated to 3 1 00 3D Coat 3 1 default hotkeys al 415 option Yd command control m Collapse selected edges Backspace Delete selected element Delete Sync with photoshop Edit all layers in Ext Editor
108. oop or edge ring Select the mode you would like to use in the top tool bar size your brush accordingly and move around your selection Slide edges Slide a selected edge between its two parallel edges by clicking the LMB and dragging 6 3 UV Mark Seams When you are ready to unwrap your mesh to cre ate a UV map you must first select your seams That is where this tool comes in You can select edges with the LMB edge loops with SHIFT LMB and deselect with CTRL LMB Edge loops This tool is no different from holding down SHIFT LMB with the Mark seams tool The difference here 44 94 is that you are not required to hold down the SHIFT key to select your desired edge loops Clear clusters Clears all UV clusters also called UV islands and seams Clear seams Clears only the seams of the current mesh Auto seams This function is almost self explanatory It will create seams automatically with a best guess about which edges to select for seams Unwrap Fits all clusters into the UV space Pack UV Packs all unwrapped UV clusters onto the UV map When this operation is complete you can edit the islands on the UV map You can then perform many essential functions which require a UV map Save Load You can save and load the seam and cluster informa tion of the current scene so it can be edited later Note that this does not export or import a UV map More advanced tools for editing p your UV maps directly reside in
109. pped UV clusters onto the UV map When this operation is complete you can then edit the islands on the UV map At this point you can perform many essential functions which require a UV map Update Islands When you have an existing island and further mark a seam on that island causing it to become two you will need to perform the Upd Islands command to carry that information to the UV Preview Tab so that you will then have those two UV islands selecTABle in the UV Preview Tab Apply UV set Clicking this will apply the currently defined UV set to the current mesh Save Load You can also save and load seam and cluster informa tion of the current scene so it can be edited later Note that this does NOT export or import a UV map Further advanced tools for editing your UV maps directly reside in the Selected portion of the of the retopology tools These tools all require a selection in the UV Preview window To select a cluster or island simply click on one with the LMB 7 3 Selected General Clear Clears the selection Invert inverts the selection Rotate CW This will rotate the selected island clock wise Rotate CCW This will rotate the selected island counter clock wise Flip U This will flip the U of the UV map Flip V This will flip the V of the UV map Relax or Strict Applies a light smoothing across the selected cluster or island to relieve stretching or pinching UV Preview Tab Inside of the UV
110. problem to re assign the hotkey to whatever new hotkey you would like Customize User Interface The Ul layout of 3D Coat is fully customizable By default there are three UI themes included in the installation They are Dark Grey and Light You can change this by going Right Side PanelPaint Sculpt Mode Voxels 4Screen space grid size aGrid subdivision Background type Background image Sky box image Top background color Bottom baskground color Screen grid color Grid color Interface color Headers color Text and white icons color Edit area color Edit area border color Edit area highlight color Active tab color Passive tab color Tab background color Active tab font color Headers font color Buttons color Highlight color Hint background Hints text color Ej 3D button style Ej Gradient menus to Edit gt Preferences gt Load and you will then be directed a folder named OptionsPresets There are 3 xml files in it and each of them is corresponds to an interface theme To load the themes simply select one xml file and click Open You can of course edit many more parts of the Ul and create your own UI theme and save it as an xml file Just go to Edit gt Preferences Here you can customize the color of text interface background header but Render Menu Hotkeys Customize CUDA FAQ Tips Credits 85 94 Reese pr 4 ee J Boh ete E
111. r This will delete your currently active Layer H Sn HH LEE DX Contents New Start RightSide PanelPaint Sculpt Retopo Voxels Render Menu Hotkeys Customize CUDA FAQ Tips Credits 47 94 File Edit View Textures Symmetry Hide Windows Help def surf mat f End Paint Sculpt Retopo Commands Clear clusters Clear EE uw 1 Voxels Render 7 UV Mode In 3D Coat version 3 2 the UV tools have undergone a very seri ous change You can now edit not just islands in this mode but also polygons edges and vertices themselves There is also now a brush mode so you can tweak your UVs to your liking with a brush allowing for smoothing and other quick manual UVs You may have noticed that some of the tools covered in this section are also in the Retopo mode section but do be aware that there are some unique tools to this mode and unique information so please don t skip it They are important for use of the UV tools in 3D Coat You can now specify which unwrapping algorithm you wish to use There is the older LSCM unwrapping and the newer ABF unwrapping When you mark a new seam 3DC unwraps new Vertices Edges Faces Islands Brush Tweak fa Select fma Manipulate uv preview le checker Segments num 707 0 _fps 45 Free 1842 Mb Pointers 74 690 Contents New Start Right Side PanelPaint Sculpt Retopo UV Mode Voxels
112. r Layer that you select This is a very power ful function in 3D Coat it allows boolean subtractions of one object Layer from another Change parent Changes the current Layer to another Layer or to the root 8 9 Voxel Menu Like most of the other major Tabs or Rooms as they are also called there is also an accompanying menu We have already covered most of these options in previous sections Any repeated New Start RightSide PanelPaint Sculpt UV Mode Voxels functions are here only for your convience Let s take a look at them Increase resolution This command guadruples the number of voxels in the current object Layer This lets a Layer thave much more detail You can view the resolution of a Layer in the Vox Tree directly before the Layer s name If it has only the name that means the Layer s resolution has not been increased Symmetry copy If you have sculpted on one side of a volume object you can use this icon to copy all of that to the other side of the object It works on any axis so long as you have symmetry turned on along the preferred axis Clear This command clears the current Layer in the VoxTree of all voxels It is useful when you Inc resolution 5ymm copy Clear Smooth all Unhide all Invert hidden Delete hidden wish to keep the current Layer s name and resolution but not the voxels Smooth This command uni formly smooths or relaxes all of the voxels of the cu
113. r highly detailed objects so it is important to allow 3D Coat to use as much virtual memory as possible So please adjust your virtual memory settings as shown on this picture this is taken from 32 bit Windows XP things will be simi z Virtual Menor Driva Mauma Lana P a lar with other OS versions Go to MyComputer gt Properties gt Advanced gt Performance gt Advanced gt Virtual Mem ory gt Change Please set this number to 4096KB 3D Coat erste ne supports even larger virtual memory ranges If you are using 64 bit Windows you will be able to use up to 4GB of virtual memory So using 64 bit Windows with 3DC is the best choice If you are using 32 bit Windows you can ordinarily use only 2 GB of virtual memory but you can increase that size using the special 3GB option in the file boot ini With that option you will be able to use 3GB of memory with 3DC How can find and safely edit the file boot ini Right click My Computer gt Properties The System Properties dialog box will appear e Click the Advanced tab Inthe Startup and Recovery area click Settings The Startup and Recovery dialog box will appear Inthe System startup area click Edit This will start Notepad and open boot ini Inthe Operating Systems section add the following switches to the end of the startup line that includes the fastdetect switch 3GB Save the changes and close Notepad
114. r on the top bar Check the Select and Manipulate check boxes Also Keep the Select check box always checked unless you don t want to select anything Unwrapping Methods These commands are important as any mesh you create will need to be unwrapped if you wish to paint a texture or do any such work The are ABF Angle Based Flattening ABF is a newer one and is used for better used for organic meshes LSCM Least Squares Conformal Maps Meshes in 3D Coat are unwrapping with LSCM by default This method is also used for organic meshes but unwraps inorganic meshes quite well too Planar This projects across the arbitrary axis so you may use it if you need Brushes mode this mode you operate with the brush which size and be changed by holding RMB pressed and moving the mouse aside With the LMB click and drag you can manip ulate the mesh under brush Use SHIFT LMB to smooth the mesh Use CTRL LMB to pinch the area under the brush Use SHIFT CTRL LMB to expand the area under the brush Tweak It lets you drag vertices edges or faces around in a very easy way Simply move the cursor over a vertex edge face until it becomes highlighted and then drag it with LMB Checker Options The mesh can be displayed in one of three ways with no checker with simple checker with complex checker Multi UV Support Another drop down list on the left of the top bar is Choose a UV set list If the mesh has a multiple UVs you can swit
115. ra is selected On the right there is a slider respon see more detail about them below a new panel shows up on top sible for transparency when viewing the Masks material Using this panel you can manage the Masks material preview Opacity of preview Percentile based opacity controls parameters Adding a new mask or material Hide Show Auto Hide show auto hide full screen view of tex is done exactly as you do with ture You can switch mode with the hot key H Pens and Strips Unlock Lock Lets you scale and texture automatically while scaling and moving the model 3 6 Materials Tab Flip X Reflect texture mirror like across the horizontal axis The Materials menu contains Flip Y Reflect texture mirror like across the vertical axis three channels depth diffuse Paint This mode lets you paint with your material or mask and specular On each channel Distort Image In this mode you can distort your mask or mate can put your own texture rial directly with your brush You can do some very unique By choosing a material and A V f alat s D AFARA j NA ANA lr M a C D AAAA A i N 23 Y LI Aft LX IC pictn a ry A Y 1 it co Sculpt Voxels Render Menu Hotkeys Customize CUDA FAQ Tips Credits 15 94 texture you will see the whole screen filled with this texture You can add your own materi als by choosing the Folder icon material
116. re map used for Show model with environment map Slightly lower shader quality Select this option if you experi ence performance problems Use multi core optimization Use MRT Uses multiple render targets to speed up real time normalmap updates 76 94 Pen sensitivity Adjusts Pen sensitivity if you are using a digital pen Camera zoom speed Camera rotation speed Freeze pattern scroll speed You can change the freeze preview patterns in the freeze menu MOUSE WHEEL Which parameter to change with MOUSE WHEEL CTRL MOUSE WHEEL Which parameter to change with CTRL MOUSE WHEEL SHIFT MOUSE WHEEL Which parameter to change with SHIFT MOUSE WHEEL ALT MOUSE WHEEL Which parameter to change with ALT MOUSE WHEEL Here is a list of suggested parameters for the last four options Normal maps export Selects the standard for normal maps exporting 3D Max or Maya Padding When you export textures you will be asked if you need a border around This option lets you answer the question automatically New Start RightSide PanelPaint Sculpt Retopo UV Mode Freeze pattern scroll speed the texture clusters padding Voxels Padding width Used when texture exporting 3DConnexion options 3D Coat supports the 3D SpaceNavigator from 3DConnexion You can find all the options to control your 3D mouse here View Relief only Displays relief maps only in the viewport Flat shade Displays a flat shaded vie
117. rightness to the specular channel Invert Color Inverts the color of this Layer Invert Specularity Inverts the specularity of this Layer Fill Unfrozen Fills the unfrozen parts of the Layer with the cur rent color and specularity Fill by Mask Fills the Layer with the current color and specular using its current transparency mask Set Height to Zero Sets the height to Zero on all the Layers Make Transparent The Layer will become fully transparent Remove ER The specular channel will be set to Zero Depth modulator Rotation amplitud 0 E Radius variation variation EOS E n EUN 27 oe Opacity jitter 0 3 e c ig Random flip X i Random flip Y Rotate along motion directi m Skip eraser Fade edge E Use spacing Spacing 3 9 Sub Objects Tab This tab displays all imported meshes into a Layer system If you are familiar with the way Lightwave deals with Layers then this should be immediate apparent in its function Essen tially each Layer is an object and can be toggled on off for a number of things like its vis ibility or locked unlocked for editing Or you can also delete the object directly in this panel You can also rename an object by double clicking its name Artist SIMMS IMAGING 18 m Per Pixel vs Microvertex Before we start painting on any meshes we should discuss some
118. rrently selected object Layer in the Separate hidden part VoxTree fi Multicore den voxels Show info Invert hidden Inverts any hid fi Incremental render fa Highlight Accurate smoothing El Grow on pen motion den voxels Delete hidden part Deletes any hidden voxels Render Menu Hotkeys Customize CUDA FAQ Tips Credits 69 94 Separate hidden part Creates a new Layer in the VoxTree and place the previously hidden voxels into the newly created Layer Cast shadows Enables shadow casting based on the global light inside the viewport It is purely aesthetic Incremental render Renders only the parts of the object that have changed since your previous render thus giving a large boost in performance This option is off when shadows are on as shadows are dynamic and change the appearance of the rendered object Highlight Toggles highlighting if it is turned on for your selected VoxTree object will be highlighted a different color When off there will be no visible change This efffect is dependent on the shader Shaders DeleteShader Construct new shader Cala 2 gt Y Edit current object s shader settings Refresh this preview Refresh all previews i CI Contents New Start RightSide PanelPaint Sculpt Retopo UV Mode Voxels Accurate smoothing Provides more accurate smoothing at the expense of performance Shader
119. rrow mod One kind shape of arrow Arrow mod1 One kind shape of arrow Back Arrow mod1 One kind shape of arrow Double arrow mod1 One kind shape of arrow Sinuous One kind shape of arrow Ignore back faces When this option is activated you draw only on the visible part of the surface Closed curve Close the curve 30 94 Use spacing Points will be set along curve with some spac ing and jittering It lets you make new effects with curves gt Toggle hardness This mode lets you toggle hardness of the vertex in spline by click on he vertex ESC cancels this mode Profile parameter This parameter affects the linear curve profile in case you selected the sharp or obtuse profile Depth modulator Modulator impacting the entire curve depth Width modulator Modulator impacting the entire curve width Opacity Transform current combination of points to circle if possible To line Transform the current set of points to a line if possible Subdivide Subdivide curve Equalize Set equal distances between points Store Save curve to a file with curve extension placed into InstallDir UserData StoreData Curves by default Restore Load curve from a file with CURV extension located InstallDir UserData StoreData Curves by default gt Moving the whole curve Use the 3 icons on the right bot tom of Params menu You can rotate move scale the entire curve NOTE You can us
120. s The shaders tab is pretty straightforward You simply RMB click to select a new shader to apply If you RMB click a shader you ll see a few options Choose texture Texture Color_Modulation Opacity 100 SpecularityForBaking BE Cancel DeleteShader Deletes the shader you clicked Construct new shader Lets you create a new shader The new shader will be based on the shader you clicked Select default shader Applies the shader you clicked as the default shader Whenever a new volume object is created it will have this new default shader applied Edit current object s shader settings This is pretty self explan atory Please check out each shader s specific settings Refresh all preview s These two options refreshes the shader TAB It is helpful if you have trouble with a newly created shader not showing up as a selection Render Menu Hotkeys Customize CUDA FAQ lips Credits 70 94 9 Render Mode In this section we shall discuss all that relates to the Render tab in 3D Coat First one important point do not hit ESC to cancel a render if you still wish to use the image You must wait until it is complete if you wish to have a final useable image Cancelling the render will not do this The render engine must be allowed to continue its work until the render is complete 9 1 Render Panel Functions Render Initiates the render of your frame or frame sequence View size Lets you choose between
121. s default state Reset scale angles These two tools will reset any scaling or rotations you have applied to the selected curve Hardness To use this you must have a point on a curve selected then by pressing this button the selected point will become 1 9 sharp and pointed Closed Closes the spline curve between the first and last points ig W Move E Scale on the spline You can of course Run brush along curve Stick to ground Jagged line Snap to symm plane Invert SHIFT action still add or remove points while using this function Del curve point These two Fa Extrude same radius _ _____ _ functions allow you to delete Profile 3Add scaler Apply to whole curve Splines Chains OK Pentips Plants Simple Resetscale Reset angles el cun Delpont You can also hover over a point 0 Gearal toad onacurve and hit the DELETE Hemisphere key Profile scale 100 Clear all Clears all curves from Add rotation 0 the scene New Start RightSide PanelPaint Sculpt UV Mode Contents Voxels Save Load You can save and load entire sets of curves for use at a later time or for distribution to other users Profile This drop down list contains a number of profiles each will change the overall shape of the spline curve Apply to whole curve With this any rotations scaling or trans lation will apply to
122. scale How adjust the pivot point In 3D Coat the pivot point is dynamic and based on the currently picked point where you cursor last pointed on the model But you can set the pivot point manually using the F key Also please see the Camera menu it lets you pick the best pivot mode What s the difference between the normal maps standard used in 3ds Max and Maya The green channel is reversed You can select the normal maps standard in the menu View Options When should I use the DX version and when the GL version t depends on your hardware 3D Coat has two Graphics Modes DX DirectX and GL OpenGL the GL mode usu ally runs much faster than DX mode on professional Quadro graphics card while the DX mode will run faster on consumer level game graphics card What s the difference between Depth and Sculpt mode n 3D Coat there are two types of sculpting modes one is image based and another is mesh based Depth is image based sculpting in this mode you are drawing the depth by creating a vector displacement the normal map and displace ment is generated on the fly If you want to get hold of the normal map just save it it s not necessary to wait a long time for baking because the normal map is generated in real time When you enter Sculpt mode you enter the mesh based sculpting mode In this mode you you re really changing the vertex positions of the mesh If you want to get
123. se CTRL to decrease hue The transparency determines the degree of hue change Decrease hue Decrease hue use CTRL to increase hue The transparency determines the degree of the hue change Subst hue Substitute hue from current color instead of hue in current Layer Hue amp Saturation Substitute alternate hue and saturation from current color instead of hue and saturation in the current Layer For example draw on an object using color then choose the Darken command Draw again on the object in the same place to see how your current color darkens Try different color opera Render Menu Hotkeys Customize CUDA FAQ Tips Credits 27 94 B tion modes as this function is highly dependent on the color channel s transparency Magnification or reduction of Layer height Choose the opera tions on the Layer height increase or decrease When draw ing itis only the current Layer height that is changed Press CTRL to perform an inverted operation As with the pen shape so the line and material are taken into account when drawing There are two operations for this tool holding CTRL will invert their function Magnification The Layer height is increased while drawing Reduction The Layer height is decreased while drawing Degree of change slider This is responsible for the degree of height change Shift Layer in tangent space This tool lets you smudge col lapse and expand the area under your brush A
124. se a major non can best avoid it free version upgrade Painting over large single faces will be much slower then I am unable to register every time I enter serial number over divided faces So try to avoid too big faces in UV space and press Register 3D Coat restarts and asks for the serial Divide large faces whenever possible number again How exit this loop lam getting the error message The application failed to start Checkif you might have copied to the clipboard extra char because d3dx9 38 dll was not found What should do acters or missed some characters Gotoour Download page lookfor the DirectX 9c download Check that the serial number is for 3D Coat Version 3 often and install it Even if you have DirectX 10 installed you need users are entering serial numbers for Version 2 Version 3 to update DirectX 9 DirectX 9 and 10 are independent so serial number begins with 3DC3SN this procedure is quite safe If you are under Vista x64 please ensure that you are running I want to upgrade my video card to speed up 3D Coat What 3D Coat as an administrator should I choose If the problem still persists try to delete the file License dat Using modern nVidia cards is best due to CUDA You can from the 3D Coat installation folder manually choose from NV 8800GT lowest price to GTX 285 and higher There are too many texts hints in the interface is there a way There is no reason to use multiple G
125. selection Select with pen rectangle Smo nth Save Lead or curve Use CTRL to sub tract a selection SHIFT to mm Nm add a selection Select with gradient Selection is done with a gradient Clickto Drag points In this mode you can add control points drag determine the start position of the gradient and then click them rotation and scaling can be done also Each point lim again to determine the end point its the surface modification Use the DELETE key to delete Select objects Select the whole object with LMB a selected point Select several points simultaneously using Move Move the selected area the SHIFT key The available parameters for this tool are as Rotate Rotate the selected area follows Contents New Start RightSide PanelPaint Sculpt UV Mode Voxels Render Menu Hotkeys Customize CUDA Credits 39 94 E B jii y p E E M E A T n if zc Ex fs a E ee a 3 r 1 Move Hotkey SHIFT W Move the selected area Rotate Hotkey SHIFT E Rotate the selected area Scale Hotkey SHIFT R Scale the selected area Delete all handlers Edge hardness Increase this value if you want to transform more hard edged pieces Show selection Show which selection corresponds to the selected point Save Save the handlers positions to file Load Load handlers position from file and add the handlers to the existing h
126. some of the parameters of this tool Fill Inside Fills the entire space between all points to create a solid volume object throughout the entire space Run brush along curve Lets you perfectly indent or protrude areas along the spline It has a number of options which are all self explanatory please explore these settings Stick to ground Forces the points of your curve to be constrained to the surface of a volume object you click on Jagged line By default the curves tool will create a smooth TCB spline But with this option you can create a inear spline essentially creating pointy intersections Snap to symm plane Forces newly created points to be created on the symmetry plane when you click on or near the plane Invert shift action This exclusively effects the four new curve modes By default in any of these modes you must hold SHIFT to perform their alternate functions This option will invert this setting so that by default you use the alternate functions and the normal default methods require you to hold the SHIFT key 60 94 Params Q Extrude amp R Rotate Filled inside Extrude same radius In the Extrude mode this option creates a new point with the same size as the point that you extruded from By default a newly created point is the size of your pen cursor New curve ADDS another curve to your scene in addition to your existing curve s Tube Resets the curve back to it
127. stance This editor will be called by the functions Edit Sync Layers with Ext Editor Edit All Layers in Ext Editor and Edit Projections in Ext Editor Near plane modulator Tweaks the camera near plane to be able to move it closer to the surface Show hints Hides or shows hints Hints are located at the bot tom of the viewport 75 94 Axis Shows or hides the axis Show Focal shift in the top panel Show Focal shift slider in top panel Show Falloff in top panel Show Falloff slider in top panel Compact interface Toggles between compact full interface Show import thumbnails on start page Show interface thumbnails on start page Also you can specify Screen space grid size 2D grid size Grid subdivision 2D grid subdivision Background type Vertical gradient Background image Pan orama Background image Sky box image Top background color Bottom background color Screen grid color Grid color 3D grid plane color Interface color Headers color Text and white icons color Edit area color Edit area border color Edit area highlight color Active TAB color Passive TAB color Tab background color Active TAB font color Headers font color Buttons color Highlight color Hint background Hints text color 3D button style Uses 3D style for buttons Gradient in menu Uses gradient style for menu Environment sphere map Chooses a sphe
128. t below A few of the parameters for the new ffPrimi tives are as follows Transform as whole Gives you the ability to translate rotate and scale using the default transform tool Local Symmetry Enables local symmetry of the ffPrimitive which gives you more creative freedom and control Misc ResetPrim Lets you reset any changes you ve made to the object EditPoints Allows numerical values for each visible point of the lattice cage Inner Outer Radius amp Thickness are only applied to some of the ffPrimitives such as ffDisc and ffTube they allow for the radius of the inner section or outer sec tion of the tube and the thickness of some of the primitives with keyable values The dropdown list also has a few more options usually different obj files with different cages for similar shapes such as ffDisc When holding CTRL you can constrain the movement of your selection along its normal li FlipSpline Thickness rotation fm Apply to whole curve pe os eee ENE E Deaan em QW me C CILIA Oy ey ee ee J en Text Lets you place text along a spline curve and create text in voxel form Its parameters are identical to that of the Curves tool so you should already be familiar with it after reading that section above It has a few unique features You can select a font for your text you can of course type in the text you would like to
129. te a contour for the detail an object with the name negative which subtracts automati cally from the model and leaves a slot for the detail It s important to turn on Respect negative volume in the Merge Params tab to permit contour exclusion Because the negative volume width is larger than width of the detail we get an interesting effect There is a joint between the body and the object Load the greebles using the Merge tool Use the On pen mode and the 9 and 0 keys to rotate the brush Sketch This new tool is a very important addition the the toolset It lets you create a volume object with 2 or 3 images if you use 3 images the voxel object will be more detailed Please try this new tool out itis greatfor creating basic shapes for a more detailed objects very quickly This tool has a few opera Contents New Start RightSide PanelPaint Sculpt Retopo UV Mode Voxels Render Menu Hotkeys Customize CUDA FAQ Tips Credits 59 94 tions all of which self explanatory please explore the options for this tool Curves The Curves tool is easily one of the most powerful tools in the voxel arsenal as it lets you place spline points directly into your scene with the LMB To edit an existing point sim ply click with the LMB To escape from editing a point hit your ESC key This tool also uses a gizmo for transformations The arrows will translate the boxes will scale or stretch the inner white ring will translate on a
130. th sphere CUDA thick pen 40 Avg FPS 13 6 Draw with sphere CPU thick pen 40 Avg FPS 10 4 Carve CUDA thick pen 40 Avg FPS 18 3 Carve CPU thick pen 40 Avg FPS 10 3 Carve with mask CUDA thick pen 40 Avg FPS 14 3 Carve with mask CPU thick pen 40 Avg FPS 7 2 87 94 The largest advantage of CUDA over CPU only is visible when a mask is used The faster FPS numbers means of course more speed 9800GT is a very low priced card but using a GTX260 or later or a QuadroFX with a large amount of cores will give the best speed It is cheaper to buy a good video card than for example a Core i7 processor We can also recommend buying a video card with 1GB or more of memory because it will allow you to edit really large textures in 3D Coat CUDAS efficiency is limited on very large brushes so when reaching a particular radius CUDA will be automatically disabled in tools like the Airbrush Increase Build and Smudge On a scale of 1 1 itisa radius of around 65 The surface and object tools are not getting any advantage from CUDA Artist ghib Contents New Start RightSide PanelPaint Sculpt Retopo Voxels Render Menu Hotkeys Customize CUDA Credits 88 94 14 FAQ Additional Tips 14 1 For Your Information gt No you can install the update siMPLY by overwriting the Sometimes my painting operations become very slow How existing installation at least until we relea
131. the Selected portion of the retopology tools These tools all require a selection in the UV Preview window To select a cluster or island simply click on one with the LMB Rotate CW Rotate the selected island clock wise New Start RightSide PanelPaint Sculpt UV Mode Voxels Rotate CCW Rotate the selected island counter clock wise Flip U Flip the U of the UV map Flip U Flip the V of the UV map Strict Applies a light smoothing across the selected cluster or island to relieve stretching or pinching 6 4 Retopo Menu amp Tool Bar Of course any good tool has more to it then meets the eye The retopology tools are no exception You can find the menu in the top tool bar under Retopo Below are listed all of the functions in this menu Import retopo mesh Import an external mesh to continue a retopologization started in another 3D modeling program Export raw object Export a retopo mesh to continue work in another 3D modeling program Use current low poly mesh A reference mesh can be imported to retopologize big objects made in another 3D modeling program They can contain reference to textures In this case the objects will be colored color will be used in baking and merging into the scene Unwrap The same as Unwrap in Mark seams mode Clear mesh Clear the whole mesh Subdivide Subdivide the whole mesh Apply symmetry Apply symmetrical mirroring Merge into scene Lets you merge a retopolo
132. the half sphere will now be calculated The grayscale result will be written to the current layer For best results first create a new layer and set the color operation Modulate or Modulate2X This calculation can take a long time Light sources Sphere hemisphere Lighting render target Into new layer Lights count 13Post smoothing steps j a i Voxels Render Menu Hotkeys Customize CUDA FAQ Tips Credits 79 94 Light sources distribution of lights longer its calculation The maximum value is 256 the mini 1 over hemisphere mum value is 16 2 over sphere Post smoothing steps Sets the amount of post smoothing 3 over hemisphere sphere steps after occlusion calculation Lighting render target You must choose a Layer where the occlusion calculation is placed You can choose to add a new Symmetry Layer automatically or overwrite the current Layer In the Symmetry 3D Coat is used when drawing sculpting or reto first case do not forget to delete a new Layer for the light pologizing on objects For quick access press the S key In this calculation Also a new color option To time is added for menu you will find a number of settings You can toggle on off a new Layer In the case of rendering the former Layer all of symmetry turn on a specific axis for symmetrical work X Y or Z its color information will be deleted Lights count The more lights the longer the calculation The more li
133. tomatically after every Creating a pen from a 3D object change gt NewFolder This lets you copy the selected pen s to a different folder Pen Tab Drop down List On the right side of the TAB you ll see an arrow point meee v ea 5 Render Menu Hotkeys Customize CUDA FAQ Tips Credits 12 94 File ing down By clicking this there will be many more advanced options Refresh pens preview Pen Settings Goes directly to the Pen opt TAB Add new folder Creates a new folder Add existing folder Add images from a folder with pictures A new pens strips folder with the same name will be created You should select at least one file in the folder and all files from the folder will be added to list Note In Folder menu you can switch between folders you have created Icon Size You can also change the size of the icons to a number of sizes They are Tiny Normal Large and Huge Create a pen from a 3D Object By clicking on the Folder icon in the Pen Tab you can import a number of 3D file formats to be used as a pen In the image on the right you can see the editing viewport for importing a 3D mesh The model can be rotated and scaled Rotate the model by pressing LMB move the model with SPACE scale it with RMB rotate within the screen frame with ALT LMB You can choose the texture size and the image proportions The use of non square pens is especially h
134. ts You can define the units of measure ment and measure line length Units to display You should choose the units to display There are parameters in these combo boxes Meters m Mil limeters mm Centimeters cm Kilometers km Foots ft Inches in Yards yr and Miles mi Scale The scale can be used to transform units Usually you don t need to enter this value manually Length The length of the red line Contents New Start RightSide PanelPaint Sculpt Retopo Voxels Render Menu Hotkeys Customize CUDA Credits 38 94 A Params Work mode The sculpt mode has a number Scale Scale the selected area of tools to move your mesh Smooth Smoothe the selec with some basic deformers tion This lets you reshape your mesh Expand Expand the selection Clear Clear all selections l Flatten The tools Move Drag the surface piece Use CTRL to drag along the average normal Select Move Use this mode to select surface parts and Wide Make the intermediate uu area of a selection wider Contract Contract the selection Increase Grow the selection value by 10 Save Save the selection to file Load Load a selection from file modify them move rotate ECT or scale The available Drag points Select action parameters for this tool are Draw ERE as follows ii Rdrdusss 100 Select with pen or rectangle Flatten Show
135. u smooth sub patched UVs Preserve Positions With this option you can specify the initial vertex positions to be saved compensating for their shift when smoothing by extra pressure Ignore Smoothing Groups This lets you import meshes without normals data In this case the model will be smoothed after the import Invert Normals Check this option if you want to invert the nor mals of the model Auto Smoothing Groups This option lets you create smooth ing groups automatically By specifying a value in the Max angle option responsible for the maximal angle between faces when the edge becomes sharp it is necessary to acti vate the Auto smoothing groups option UVSet Name Texture Width amp Texture Height are the same as above for per pixel painting 2 2 Customizable Interface Like many other applications 3D Coat lets you customize your workspace to suit your needs You can hide or show windows move tabbed popup windows around and even dock undock them or turn them into floating windows If you don t need or want to see a particular window simply close it You can always restore it to the interface through the Window menu at any time Customizing your workspace makes 3D Coat work for you in the way which best suits your needs and workflow Render Menu Hotkeys Customize CUDA FAQ Tips Credits 6 94 2 3 Tabbed Popup Windows Let s take a look at how you can work with the interface We ll start off by movin
136. ube icon in the VoxTree for the Layer you would like to edit in surface mode you will then see a Wavy line icon which represents surface er l Shaders Params mode Surface mode is much Toe faster for sculpting than the Bog Volume1 B 05 Volume1 regular volume mode G 05 Volumel ge 05 volumel f 05 volumel Only the surface mode tools will be available while Render Menu Hotkeys Customize CUDA FAQ Tips Credits 64 94 Contents FLATTEN editing in this mode plus with the Pose Move and Transform tools Some of the surface tools have counter parts from the volume sculpting tools There are a num ber of unique tools in this mode as well which we shall discuss below Draw The draw tool is great for quickly sculpting horns or things like that It is similar to the the Air brush tool but it only operates on the surface of a volumetric object Pinch This is great for making tight edges cavities and peaks as shown on the picture below It is indentical to the Vox Pinch tool but it only operates on the surface of a volumetric object Shift This tool drags the surface topology along with the brush Its great for producing wrinkles on a character or for mak ing cloth It is indentical to the Vox Follow tool but it only operates on the surface of a volumetric object Flatten This tool has been improved in version 3 2 and now allo
137. ulpt Retopo UV Mode Voxels Palette F Palette d Palette F Ix In addition for a fast choice of color you can press and hold the B key when calling it this way you open the downsize Pick color window the same as when calling from the Windows Popups Color picker RMB to disable enable the use of color It is equivalent to choosing a white color You can pick color directly from a surface point the cursor on a corresponding place and press V You can also pick a color from a color Palette window there are three preset palettes Click on the drop down list Left there are 3 preset palettes Middle and you can both load and save an ACO color palette file You can also right click on a color to change the color s prop erties Right 4 6 E Panel Place the cursor on the E Panel menu here you can see 15 draw ing modes available The first five modes are used with a Wacom tablet and most of them are self explanatory Change pen width and depth This depends on the pen pres sure applied while drawing Depth only Width remains the same but depth differs Alter pen radius This will change the depth and opacity depend ing on the pen pressure Render Menu Hotkeys Customize CUDA FAQ Tips Credits EX sc c Border width Ca AM m Lz r C ar p cal a a m oui na anes l i z E Ignore back faces
138. urrent snapped point ESC Tweak edges vertex RMB In Select mode Select single element LMB Add select Shift LMB subtract select Command LMB Select edge loops L Select edge rings R Slide selected edges RMB Tweak selected vertex RMB Command LMB Generate faces based on strokes Return Clear strokes ESC In Brush mode Smooth vertex spacing Shift LMB Notice There is no Insert key on Mac keyboard But there are 4 items were mapped with Insert key To use those items via hotkey please redefine hotkey for them In layers operation Fill unfrozen Insert Fill by mask Command Insert In Select mode of Retopo operation Subdivide selected faces Insert Split selected edges Insert Mac keyboard updated to 3 1 00 3D Coat 3 1 default hotkeys 3D Coat is fully customizable and it is quick and easy to do All Ul settings hotkeys and other customized information are stored in a small XML file allowing for easy distribution of all custom ized presets Customize Hotkeys To define a hotkey is very simple All you need to do is point your cursor over the item you would like to set a hotkey for and press the END key you will then see this prompt Contents New Start You can now press the key s you would like to assign to the func tion Keep in mind that nearly every button or menu item you see in 3D Coat already have a custom hotkey If a hotkey is already used it is no
139. use ALT LMB RMB MMB to navi gate the scene There is a set of options to customize the background You can also customize the navigation according to you own prefer ences These options are mOSTLy self explanatory but the ones that are not are detailed below Add camera shortcut Information about the camera position and current material placement will be stored It can be used for frame sequence render ing Delete camera shortcut Delete last used or added shortcut Switch to previous shortcut Switch to previous camera and material shortcut Switch to next shortcut Switch to next camera and material shortcut Pivot Points There are a num ber of options to set a pivot point for scene rotation Choose whatever best suits yOU Setting up Backgrounds If you d like to assign an image to the background Render Menu Hotkeys Pp rev Background Customize Camera Custom navigation Customize navigation Front Back Left Right Add camera shortcut Delete camera shortcut Switch to previous shortcut Switch to next shortcut Rotate around pick point Rotate around world center Rotate around last draw point Rotate around object bound box Rotate around custom point CUDA Credits 8 94 Use background image gt stdimage d ds of the interface you can choose VETT one from your hard drive Open ground Choose ref image for Z axis Once
140. use displacement is calculated as the difference between the object in the scene and the sculpted geometry Check Use current low poly mesh option if you want to project on the current mesh In this case it is better to check Use original posi tions and Smooth mesh if you want to have displacement and uncheck them if you want a normal map only Contents New Start RightSide PanelPaint Sculpt Retopo Voxels Render Menu Hotkeys Customize CUDA FAQ lIips Credits 82 94 s l le 5 6 7 ese mm 3 a a Layers operation Create new layer Ctrl Shift N Duplicate layer Ctrl Shift D Merge down Ctrl E Navigate Screen Materials Mask Increase brush size or WHEEL up or Mova Materials Mask RMB on empty space Right click on model surface and drag right Rotate Materials Mask Ctrl RMB on empty space Decrease brush depth or Ciri WHEEL down or Scale Materials Mask Shift RMB on empty space Fight click on model surface and drag down Split selected edges Insert Collapse selected edges Backspace Delete selected element Delete Legend LMB left mouse button RMB right mouse button MMB middie mouse button In Point amp faces mode WHEEL mouse wheel scrolling Standard Open 3b extension Ctrl Import for Microvertex painting Ctrl Shift Import Image plan
141. w in the viewport Specular only Displays only your specular maps in the viewport Show displaced mesh Shows actual mesh displacement The vertices of the mesh will be displaced along the normal in correspondence with the displacement map Wireframe Shows the wireframe of the model Low poly Views and edits low poly model with normal map Smooth Shade Enables Smooth shade hotkey 5 Low Smooth Shade Enables Low Smooth Shade hotkey 7 Environment Shade This is the default It displays all the maps you have applied in the viewport Grid Turns on off the 3D grid plane in the 3D viewport Axis Shows hides the axis Grid 2D mode Turns on off the 2D grid of the screen Snap to Grid Snaps to the 2D grid This is usually used in conjunc tion with the Curve tools draw with spline putting text on curve and putting picture along spline With Snap to grid on Render Menu Hotkeys Customize CUDA FAQ Tips Credits 77 94 you can snap the points of the curve to the 2D grid and draw very exact shapes Snap to low poly vertices Snaps your pen to low poly vertices Helpful when you are retopologizing or texturing Orthographic Projection gles perspective orthogonal projection Adjust subpatching Improves the visual appearance of mesh displacement using subpatches Subpatching is a grid NxN on every face Use this option only if you are certain your video card is powerful enough 10 6 T
142. ws for a more predicTABle behavior It flattens the area underneath your brush based on brush size and intensity Chisel This tool is new in 3 2 As you stroke along the object with your brush it will chisel away at the surface SfClay Surface clay lets you quickly place strokes onto your voxel sculpt The dif ference between this tool and the Carve CHISEL New Start RightSide PanelPaint Sculpt Retopo UV Mode Voxels sculpt Average normal View direction Along X Along Along Z Vertex normal brush is that it will also simultaneously smooth the surface after you ve brushed it It is indentical to the volume Clay tool but it only operates on the sur face of a volumetric object SfFill Surface Fill is a great way to fill in small holes and gaps in your objects The higher the intensity the more it will quickly fill the area under your brush Extrude Direction Settings A few of the new tools in version 3 2 have this option It allows for user definable extrusions The extrusion methods are Average normal View direction Along axis X Y or Z Vertex normal amp Initial vertex normal This setting is unique to the following three tools SfExtrude Extrudes along the surface under your brush based on your pen Size Depth and Extrude direction settings Gum This tool is great for making nice details on a mesh It is unique for the surface tool set It s the fastest way to make skin pores and
143. you have clicked the the top menu open Edit menu you ll then navigate your hard drive for an image to use gt Preferences Scroll down and locate the Background type along the z axis The image you select will appear 3D Coat s option and click the drop down arrow to select the Use Back main window Also a pop up ground image By default you will see a backdrop thatlooks with positioning and like a star field You can of course choose your own file scaling tools will appear Use Use background image Vertical gradient clicking in the file requester field the tools along your image or Is pan orama the Reference images pop up top Viewport Reference Images menu to resize reposition or Choose bottom color It s easy and fun to open up 3D Coat and without any references show and hide the image You M Choose background image at all just start creating models But sometimes you ll need tocre even change the opacity of ate a model for a client that needs to conform to exact specifica the image so it s easier to focus Choose panorama image tions Many times a client will provide turnarounds of characters on your modeling tasks Choose ref image for X axis or ask you to create them Choose ref image for Y axis Choose ref image for Z axis Edit images placement This is where placing the viewport reference images comes in handy The refer

User Manual Version 3.2 - 3D-Coat

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