Available for Windows, Mac, and Linux

Many, many new features.

See here for full details:
http://www.3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=3540

wow that is a lot of new features to get your head around

wow even the GUI looks more professional as it used to be in the earlier versions- nice stuff

edit:
yes!!! he even added a almost same feature as Silo for quick adding shortcuts:
http://www.3d-coat.com/files/Tut4/DefineKey.htm
you just hit the [end] key and then a combo while you hover over a menu item, kick ass - I will check this app. out

Haha Yeah the UI changes have been in since version 3.0 and the shortcut editing like you described is a little older I think, but still both are awesome features.

now he should just fix his features and gallery page with more professional content and not that programmer art/doodles also with the new GUI.
I think it would make better impression to many new users that are from the professional industry. Most other companies basically know how to do that,- making slick websites with demonstration screenshots that look like they were taken from a professional case.

It keeps getting cooler and cooler!! Can't wait to try the new voxel booleans.

I am starting to wonder tho ... with all these new features requests being implemented after someone asking "hey can you add that, just like in app X" ... there must be tons quite some patent infringement going on there, right? But at least IIRC voxels are safe since it's an old technique only refined. (correct me if I am wrong)

it would not be healthy for bigger companies to sue others in this industry because innovation (and not in terms of patents but actually whats made with it) so far has been the driven factor.

Almost every package these days uses catmull rom interpolation (subdivision, researched at pixar/ ILM), the way 3d data is handled (tris, quads, uv, faces, smoothing vertex, obj) and with all the GI and normal mapping tech in the last years they basically all copied each other and improved on it- thats why the whole 3d industry is blooming so great with lots of niche and special tools, unlike the print industry that quark xPress pretty much killed innovation wise in the past.
So until one company starts suing in this business I don't see much of a problem, because it has been peacefully most of the times, or did I missed some of those court fights in the CG area?

Well thats the thing, small companies can do pretty much whatever they want. But as soon as you start growing, it is more and more worth it to try and sue you ... (more money to get from the case)

For instance SAI most likely happily violates Painter and Photoshop patents. But for instance Corel couldn't steal an original feature from SAI since they would likely get legal trouble.

It seems like the 3D world is indeed more flexible on that regard (Lazystroke / Easymouse) wich is cool yeah. I hope it'll last, especially for small innnovative devs ...

Originally Posted by renderhjs

now he should just fix his features and gallery page with more professional content and not that programmer art/doodles also with the new GUI.

I agree that the main gallery could use some updates. Have you checked out the galleries in the forum? Some amazing work in there.

Originally Posted by pior

with all these new features requests being implemented after someone asking "hey can you add that, just like in app X" ... there must be tons quite some patent infringement going on there, right? But at least IIRC voxels are safe since it's an old technique only refined. (correct me if I am wrong)

From what I've seen Andrew is very careful about patents. People are often pointing out cool white papers they've seen and that's usually one of the first things he asks about. Voxels are not entirely new. Andrew used them to make environments at his previous job at a game studio. It has also been used in a program called Claytools which is very expensive, partly because it requires this hardware haptic device to sculpt with. I think Andrew also uses a different technique I think, a "marching cubes" algorithm. I couldn't explain any of that stuff though.

well just don't rip it 1:1 instead think ahead,- I think many companies have done that already even the big ones. Like mudbox that just like zBrush now can also take snapshots and store via metaData the camera positions in the file so that you can tweak the shot in photoshop and take it back in mudBox. Its the same as in zBrush but extended ahead with spec, bump,... layers supported.
And also the new PS comes now with tabs,- something (even though they own the patent for tabs, yes thats right) other applications had before. But also the 3d painting stuff in PS,- its not new and it was already available even as plugin (enzo3d).

I think many companies that do great are in a way proud of them anyways and they would not just copy something to have it as well but more to extend it- do it better give it their own spin. At least thats how I see it.


The thing that happened a few weeks ago to Microsoft and its openXML format in word is sad for them,- but when reading the whole story it seamed that the suing company (i4i) worked wit h ms together on the format,- but Microsoft ditched them at some point because they had something on their own apparently.
THe whole story is not yet clear and also what it means for software patents.

Ouah 3Dcoat came a long way. It's fantastic for secondary mechanical details. VOXELS! Oh yeah!



Fascinating workflow changes ahead!

3D Coat rox. I use it for all my re-topology work. The voxel tech has really come a long way, it works wonders for merge/welding highpoly organic assets together, something booleans couldn't dream of doing. It has transpose too!

Originally Posted by pior

Ouah 3Dcoat came a long way. It's fantastic for secondary mechanical details. VOXELS! Oh yeah!



Fascinating workflow changes ahead!

Very cool! Was the orange part added with Cut & Clone?

Originally Posted by philnolan3d

Claytools

i have that useless piece of hardware here, support it and i'd definitely buy me a copy of 3coat :P
damn i would love to use it with mudbox, zbrush or another modern software, the new update looks good, way better then the last time i tested it

That looks interesting pior, how is it different from adding detail in mud/zbrush? only been using it for retopo so far, haven't even gotten into voxels yet, great program

Neox: I never said haptic devices was useless, just that it made the package more expensive. Apparently Andrew has one and is looking into implementing it. 3D Connexion support is already in there.

Kite: I just made this quick video a few seconds ago that shows some things that can't be done with polygonal sculpting.
http://screencast.com/t/GMXm6yFDk

ah ha! that's very cool. need a hole in a mesh? just draw one. definitely play with that

Yup, of course the brush tools will punch all the way through too, just hold Ctrl while brushing to carve in and keep going in until you reach the other side.

Originally Posted by pior

Ouah 3Dcoat came a long way. It's fantastic for secondary mechanical details. VOXELS! Oh yeah!



Fascinating workflow changes ahead!

Damn this program is starting to looking appealing. The hard surface work here looks more efficient than with Zbrush. I'm probably gonna raise the 7th level of hell for stating that but I could never get really good results doing HS on Zbrush.

love the style pior, yeah the toolset is really powerful and diverse, in fact it is so diverse that I havent even had time to play with it all yet. Just when you think you know what a tool does someone like pior or this dude tinker( http://www.3d-coat.com/forum/index.p...pic=2378&st=40) goes ahead and does something different with the same tools.

OBlastradius Id say it is quite powerful for hardsurface but you do have to increase voxel res to get smoothness and you cant decrease voxel res so you cant step up and down and also its easy to end up with very slightly curved or lumpy flat surfaces that you really wanted completely flat...sometimes it feels a bit like sculpting with a hot knife and a block of butter hehe

as a matter of fact it is possible to step up and down voxel res! Just by transpose-scaling the object!

Originally Posted by pior

as a matter of fact it is possible to step up and down voxel res! Just by transpose-scaling the object!

there we go, another purpose for a tool that I hadnt realised existed haha thanx pior I gotta try that when my pc is working again

bought it a while ago, and meddled around with v 3.0.
i created a 9 million poly model forest with voxels, and tried to make it into a polymesh for painting, but well, i guess i don't completely understand how i'm supposed to work the interface.
model file ended up at 300mb, and doing anything was so slow and unresponsive it was impossible to work with it.
it works better with 4 million polys, although its still slow.
i think you're supposed to rough out the shapes with voxels, and then convert it for displacement painting for the final detailing.
had some slight problems with the brush jumping from one place to another, causing streaking as well.
overall though, the voxel brushes have had a huge update, and are much more responsive.
now i just need to finish up all this other garbage, so i can play around with it properly.

Another fun fact if you did know was the quadrangulation, say you sculpted a prop for your game, something that won't need a good polyflow for animation. Like a statue for example. I took Stanford's Lucy statue and had it retopo'd, then baked normal maps, a texture map, and displaced in under 4 mins. (I timed it) and maybe 3 or 4 mouse clicks.

Hey phil, would you mind posting a screengrab of the orginal high, and the final low with normals, but with a regular blinn-like shader. At the moment it is impossible to tell if the app did a good job :P

Would quadranglation work on a voxel object?