Less linear workflows

[polyxo]

I know there are tremendously many different options to use 3DC in the various states of 3D-Content-Creation, especially when Geometry gets juggled back and forth

between various programs now nicely aided through numerous App-Links...

For projects however which start from scratch in 3DCoat currently there's a pretty determined order of how things have to take place:

• Start in the Voxel-Room with low Density-Volumes which you gradually refine.
  
• Over time increase the Voxel-Density, for any crisp Detail change over to the Surface-Mode.
  
• Switch back to Voxels to repair Topological errors which occured while editing the triangular Surface-Mesh
  
• Finish up all Voxel Room activities by a final pass in Surface Mode and (depending on your needs)do an automatic or manual Retopo
  
• Take care of UV's unless you plan outputting to Ptex.
  
• Paint Colour, Specularity and possibly other Render-Maps inside the Paint-Room. Also - if required -add "high frequency" surface-detail inside this workspace .
  
• Export model and Maps for Rendering/Animation/Compositing
  

But what if at some late state in Production greater changes are required?

If your general shape is alright, everybody finds the paintjob you did is tremendous and should definedly stay like this...

However... your Boss/Client wants some larger portions added/removed completely changed in Shape.

I'm not working in Games or Film, but I guess drastic changes - even pretty much at the end of a production-chain - are a reality whatever your 3D-Industry may be.

What happens then?

Going back to Voxels, making the Geometry-Changes, doing another Retopo and another UV-Set currently is probably our best bet.

There might be tricks which allow to partially re-use the UV's of the original model and one then hopefully one can bake quite a bit Paint back on the

altered model (but by losing all existing Layer-Structure, no?).

Sorry Experts - I am sure I missed a nifty option here or two, but you will agree that these are pretty complex workflows, nothing which came to a Beginners mind

(= a permanent source of errors and frustration).

My point is:

One can not alter the Geometry and quickly show the client a Mock Up how the existing Texture would roughly look on the new model and simply smooth out areas which got messed up

through the change. Send out some Screenshots: "Is it now more the way you imagined Mister?" Being able to do exactly this however without having to think about UV's and Topology-Flow

before really necessary (exporting/rendering) is an extremely powerful feature and surely one reason why many people consider Zbrush so flexible.

Raul has now entered the Developer-Team and brings along his Adaptive Tessellation Techniques.

I wonder if this major new technology should not be a reason to rethink the existing stare Room-Structure. I know, lots of work has been invested by App-Link developers and

many people have now adjusted to the way things work in 3DC... Still I think less overall Complexity and more Flexibility would well be worth larger changes.

***

Some basic considerations:

Maybe I'm wrong - but isn't it so that we really only can't paint Textures when our Model is in Voxel mode as it a fundamental limitation of its cube-based nature?

But Painting was already (theoretically) possible when switching over to Surface-Mode, right?

If that assumption was correct: Wasn't it theoretically possible to store Paint-Information created in Surface-Mode when applying a Voxel-Operation (e.g. Boolean Operation) and then to

switch back to the Mesh-Representation with most of the Paint still in place? So that we didn't have to irretrievably decide where to stop with Voxels and where to start with Bump-Painting?

I'm not saying that 3DCoat should return to just a single workspace as it used to have - I'm just proposing a profound evaluation of the current Room-Concept with the idea of Non Linear Workflow in mind.

Opinions?

[AbnRanger]

You have the Sculpt Room sitting right there, ready to make large structural changes, without having to lose any fine details (baked to a displacement/normal map)? What's wrong with that? It's not as full-featured as the Voxel Room, of course...but it's far from useless. I certainly understand there are plenty of areas for improvement, but I also think much of the userbase exaggerates any shortcomings 3D Coat may have or perceived (wrongly) to have.

It sounds like Andrew was/is open to mirroring the Surface tools/engine to the Sculpt room in the near future...but until then, you do not have to go back to Voxels to make changes to either the mesh or the details.

[polyxo]

I really wasn't saying that 3DCoat doesn't allow for drastic changes on existing models. Of course it does.

My point is that everything which exceeds pushing polygons around is pretty challenging.

In case you need to add larger features or to remove greater portions of the model, when Boolean Operations are

required the Sculpt-Room will not help you.

Having Paint information independant from UV's and underlying Topology could make our work quite a bit more flexible.

Attached is a little sample model which comes with Zbrush. This animated Gif illustrates what I do with it in about 10seconds.

This Model wears shaders in this case but it could just as well carry a hand-painted Design.