New(ish) 3D Paint App - Anyone Tried It?

http://www.3d-coat.com

I hadn't heard of this app before but it looks pretty promising. It seems to have a pretty good feature set and it'll work in conjunction with Photoshop. I couldn't find any info on the site about what object formats it'll import. Worth checking out for those looking for an inexpensive 3d paint program.

Has anyone tried this?

Interesting. Thanks for the link, Chip. I might play with the demo when I have a little time. At first glance, it looks like a fairly simple interface, and a good feature set for the money.

I must say, though, I'm a little put off by two things. First is their licensing procedure. You can't just buy the program and install it with an included serial number. You have to install the demo, which has limited features, and then you wait for them to E-mail you a serial number. So, after spending the money, you can't enjoy all the bells and whistles of your new toy for at least a day or two, and that's only assuming they actually send the S/N on time. I've never heard of a policy like that before.

And as if that weren't annoying enough, the S/N is hardware-specific. You get a new computer, you have to contact them and hope they believe you're really you, so they can whip up a new number for your new installation. However smoothly that might go in a perfect theoretical world, you gotta know that in the real world it's bound to be a formula for problems.

Preventing piracy is important, sure, but you don't do it by making things difficult for your paying customers. It's not like this procedure makes it any more crack-proof for the determined pirate. It just makes it more of a hassle for legitimate users (which some might argue actually encourages piracy, rather than prevents it).

Second, I got a bit of a sour taste in my mouth when I read the "warning" on their download page about "responsibility before God". 'Thou shalt not use this software "in the production of any lewd or obscene materials"'. WTF is that?

That line alone is what made me change this post from "downloading the demo now" to "maybe I'll play with the demo when I have time". As I see it, the only thing "lewd or obscene" in this scenario is that I have to read someone's narrow-minded preaching when I click to download a software tool. That is offensive.

But for anyone who doesn't mind those two things, it looks like it might be an OK program.

I wouldn't worry about it too much, personally. Many of the apps I depend on are that way. When my computer bit the dust recently I had to contact several vendors to tell them what happened and get new licenses. I didn't have any problems with any of them. They were all willing to take my word for it. Since the company that makes 3d Coat is nice enough that they'll give you an extra license if you want to use it on more than one coputer just for the asking it doesn't sound like they're very uptight.

If you take it for a spin let us know how it is. Looks like quite a bit of bang for the buck.

haha, I missed that part. How would they know? I noticed that the guy who's developing it is a former developer of the Cossacks series of RTS games which are among my all time favorites. Maybe he's super religious or something.

Well, even they admit there's no way they could know. But to me, that's not the point. I just don't want to be preached at. As I said, I find that sort of thing offensive.

But yeah, if I try it out (and I probably will), I'll definitely post about it.

I just find it funny. If I paid for it I'd use it for whatever types of projects I damn well pleased. In fact, I think I'd go out of my way to make a few obscene things with it, now that I know about their disclaimer.

Thanks for the link, Chip! It looks interesting (especially if it interfaces well with Photoshop). I'll be watching what people have to say about it.

Wow. one thing I noted is that, 3D-Coat supports the concept of 'splines' and at a very reasonable cost for what it does.

PhotoImpact supports splines in a similar fashion, asto objects but PhotoImpact was never this affordable and still has/had it's limits in path editing and closed curves.

Yeah, it has some really cool features. The helmet tutorial is especially impressive. http://www.3d-coat.com/tutorials/3d_helmet_1.html
I wish there was more info on the site about its integration with Photoshop.

Where are the copyright police?

If the fools want to tell you that you cannot use the tool to create what they believe to be ungodly material, then so be it.

If you are not willing to abide by that condition, then do not use the tool.

I read the TOS agreement when installing it and I believe what it was referring to are is 'Hateful and offensive' imagery.

I went searching one time for memorial type ribbons (Breast Cancer awareness, World AIDS Day Red Ribbons, etc.) and came across a site that offered a whole free gallery of ribbons for use from various artist. while looking through the gallery of ribbons offered I found items such as an AIDS Ribbon with the words "Gays = AIDS', stuff like that which (imo) was highly offensive , ungodly, and hateful. I e-mailed the site owner about it stating my take on the images, and ofcourse their reply was that the artist submitting the work had a 'right to expression' as did the site owner themselves.

So basically I think they are stating that they wish for you not to use the software for hateful and belittling , attacking images against groups of people (such as Neo-Nazi imagery). They don't want to take the flack for it later and I frankly don't blame them.

I don't think they are going to stop persons in the creation of 3D Anatomy (for say, Medical use) imagery on the other hand.

I tried it last night and loved it ( though it ran very slow on my machine due to my own fault). The interface is very progressive in it's approach and it has 'Mouse Over' descriptions for each function

I also played around with the UV Mapper wich supports unwrapping much like Blender, and other 3D rendering tools use.

So in short I'd give this a thumbs up. It has many tools packed into it. Thanks again Chip, for pointing us to this

Nah, you're just not wanting to accept that the guy is a little extreme.

He knows full well that he's not legally responsible for anything that's created by users of his program. He just believes it's his moral duty to dictate what people do with his program.

The program used to be called 3D-Brush and first surfaced on a 3D forum a few months back. Members of the forum discussed the TOS with the coder and he was happy to explain his "reasonings".

From the coders mouth/fingers:



You can find the full thread over here:

http://forums.polyloop.net/misc-2d-3d/12954-3d-brush-app.html

Thanks for the link, 2k. I can understand the guy's reasoning but I wouldn't feel bound by his disclaimer if I purchased the software. There are valid legal reasons why a license agreement can dictate how many copies of the software you can make, forbid you to reverse engineer, and that sort of thing, but there's no legal basis for saying "don't use to make pictures of naughty bits." Can't blame the guy for trying since he obviously has very strong beliefs and I'm in no way offended by it. The important thing is he's made a very impressive piece of software that I may just have to add to my toolbox.

This could be very useful for clothing and skin makers. It handles painting on the seams very accurately and the tools are good. No more pulling hair out because of the awful uvw mapping on the avatar models!

I skimmed so sorry if someone mentioned this before. The file formats are at http://www.3d-coat.com/advantages.html and it seems to have the basics to work with a lot of programs including Maya, 3DS Max, Blender, Photoshop, PSP and GIMP.

I downloaded the demo and put the SL avatar mesh in it and made a few strands of paint appear on the surface.

How to get this exported out into a form that can be used in SL?

I was "hunting" 3D paint programs on the internet and found that one at about the same time as ENZO 3D paint. I haven't tried 3D Coat yet though.

So far I have tried the following:

Bodypaint - very good, learning curve isn't as steep as some others. Limitations of the UVW map and pixel stretching are everpresent though and there doesn't seem to be any workaround.

AVPainter - good. Best bang for the buck if all you do is make clothes for SL. I mean all of the other programs are in the hundreds and this one is under $20! I use it mainly for previewing and fixing items that need to be seamless across seams. UVW mapping and pixel stretch are still a problem

ZBrush - pretty good. The interface and tools are a little odd and unfamiliar (even to those who use Photoshop and a 3D app on a regular basis). BUT - the ability to increase the mesh area and STILL keep the UVW maps intact seems to be the solution to "Pixel Stretch" I am still learning though and it will be sometime before I include it in my workflow. I am currently experimenting on creating sculpties in it which maybe what it is ultimately used for (at least for me).

DeepPaint 3D - ok: I found this program to be a little bit too intense and somewhat confusing. After playing with it for about a week I gave up and started using ZBrush. Of course maybe I was just having a bad week.

ENZO 3D - plug-in for Photoshop - just ok: This program really only works with legacy versions of Photoshop that don't have the 3D previewer capability. I also found it very buggy and the program seemed to crash. You also have to have a pretty recent graphics card to run it unfortunately. Which seems odd since CS2 has been out for a number of years and the graphics card requirements are for those cards less than 2 years old. If you can get it to work you need to be aware that the 3D model needs to have a material already assigned - you can't "create" a material based on UVW mapping like the other programs. The Photoshop connection is what interested me the most and I think that if the bugs were worked out and if they made it fully compliant to CS3 it would be AWESOME! But still - the $300 they want is too much for something that has no proven track record.

Modo - I haven't tried it, but would love to. Chip - have you experimented with this program at all. Would love to hear your take on it. I have the seamless texture maker from Luxology and I can't say enough about it - so if Modo is similar as far as capability, it is probably worth the time to try.

I'm not familiar with their seamless texture maker, but I assume it's an algorithmic texture generator along the lines of DarkTree or MapZone? Modo has similar features in that part of its paint toolset is algorithmic textures (they don't require UV coordinates because they're generated in 3d space instead of 2d). I haven't picked up Modo but it's very tempting. It's really more than I need because much of what it does I have covered with other apps, but I've heard great things about it from people who swear by it. I have my eyes on that and mudbox. Right now though I just don't have a work need to justify either of them but if SL ever adds normal map support that would push me over the edge.

Anyone know how you export a texture from 3D Coat in a form to use in SL?

/me watching this thread anxiously since am complete noob to 3D and looking- hoping for an AvPainter type of Eureka moment in 3-D

Thanks for all the info people - will give it a total noobs try out as well.

I recently ran across Blacksmith 3D Paint http://www.blacksmith3d.com/index.htm I've installed it at work, but haven't had a chance to take a look at it. It's free with their demo suite.



It's called Imagesynth. It's not a procedural texture generator. It automates taking photos or images and making them tileable with an option to run a highpass filter. They had a free install of it in 3D World a few months back.

Ah, no idea if Modo has anything like that built in, but since they already offer it as a freebie it's not something you'd need really. Modo looks to be an extremely capable app, and likely great for texturing and baking. I'd love to add brush based sculpting to my toolset, and modo, zbrush, and mudbox are the top contendors. Mudbox looks to be the most capable for sculpting, but modo and Zbrush are better all-arounders since they also have built in pain but Zbrush is hindered by having an interface so far removed from standard conventions. There's a 30 day demo of Modo so you can always download it and give it a go. There's a free demo, but if you want to try all the features you have to pay $25 for the 30 day license. The real deal goes for $895. Too much when I don't have a specific need for it, but it sure looks pretty.

I left out a key bits of information: it works within Photoshop. Unless Modo uses Photoshop plugins I doubt it has it built in. It *was* a freebie on the 3D World DVD, it's $99 on the site.

I think I tried Blacksmith and found that it was difficult and buggy - but that was about a year ago? Not sure if this is the same program. So far AVPainter and Bodypaint are my favs for painting on mesh - specifically the SL AVI mesh. ZBrush is still quite usefull for messing around with meshes - but the painting feature seems to aggravate me more than anything. I think it's just getting used to the workflow. Man - I am getting old, I'm set in my photoshop way and I don't want to change.

You are right about imagesynth - it basically makes textures that are seamless by taking images and "Stamping" them but it uses an algorithm to combine them so they appear seamless. It works really well for "natural" texture and creates convincing textures. I do use it to create tiling image textures as well and I have found I can get away with it.