1.   Why do I need 3d-coat?

You may ask: "Why do I need 3d-coat when there are such cool applications as Zbrush or Mudbox?" 3d-coat is not designed for creating a human body out of a sphere or a cube. The main focus of the program is detailing and texturing of objects already roughly shaped in another 3D-package. Here you work initially on detailing level equal to 3-5 million of polygons. The use of normal mapping as opposed to geometrical splitting allows to considerably increase the editing and object viewing speed. It is common knowledge that shaping an object doesn’t take long – up to a few hours maximum. However the detailing and texturing are both lengthy, taking 3 to 10 times more then modeling the draft itself. 3D­-Coat is designed specifically to speed up this part of the technological process. The program contains tools for sculptural modeling, provides for a considerable change of shape, however detailing remains the key function of 3d-coat.

 

The key features of 3d-coat:

 

Painting textures and sculpting. It combines painting layered textures and sculpting in one easy to use interface.

 

3D Layers. Every layer consists of a colour, specular, transparency and displacement channel.

 

Easy to use. 3d-coat has easy and intuitive interface. Every control has a diplayed detailed hint, so you can master 3d-coat very quickly. With it you can paint a 3D-Model as easy as in a 2D-editor.

 

Copy/Paste. You can transform parts of the texture, copy/paste, draw with curves, or splines.

 

Paint tracks and stitches. It has a simple to use method to paint tracks and stitches.

 

Connection with Adobe Photoshop. It can work in a deep connection with Adobe Photoshop (R) or any 2D-editor that can edit PSD files.

 

Adaptive subdivision. The main difference between 3d-coat and other sculpting software is its adaptive subdivision algorithm. Usually sculpting programs divide every edge in 2 parts, so it is very difficult to work with long polygons. 3d-coat however subdivides every edge in the source mesh depending on its length. So long polygons may be subdivided in a proportion of for example 9:147. You can change mesh resolution multiple times (like other software usually does), but also in a percentage, for example 50%. You paint in 3d-coat on the vertices, but the adaptive subdivision makes the subdivided mesh very uniform. It is preferable that the mesh has no overlapping UVs, but 3d coat can generate its own UVs if neccesary.

The usual workflow in 3d-coat is:

 

-You load a mesh of 1-100 k polygons with rough details modeled. You can additionally import a displacement texture with smaller details drawn in.

 

-3d-coat subdivides it up to a selected level (0.3-16 millions of polygons). Every polygon is subdivided separately depending on its proportions. At any time you can change the mesh resolution (see Commands->Change mesh resolution). Subdivision can be based not only on multiple times as in other sculpting software but also on a percentage. It is better to increase (not decrease) the resolution during the edit process, as this is more predictable.

 

-Paint displacement/color/transparency/specular per new vertex.

 

-Export normal map/displacement/color/transparency/specular textures.

Displacement is exported using the difference of a vertex's position and its position on Layer 0.

 

The technology of 3d-coat:

 

3d-coat generates a normal map "on the fly" to display fine details. It displays a base mesh of 40­100 K polygons but the normalmap makes it look like 1-16 million polygons. You can edit textures up to 4096x4096.

 

Detail features list:

 

-You can edit geometric details, color and specular.

 

-Working with the layers containing geometrical details, so as color and specular. You can apply the following effects on layers: camber (emboss), transparency, shine, contrast, brightness and modulation of geometry. It is possible to specify a type of color operation when applying a layer ­for example, multiplication.

 

-Geometry editing is transparent for user, meaning small details get automatically transferred to normal map, while large ones modify the geometry. This makes the number of polygons on object in editing rather insignificant. It is completely unnecessary now to create objects of 4 to 5 million polygons as detailing is created partly with texture and partly with geometry.

 

-Instead of creating objects worth 5 million polys you can edit objects of 40-50 thousand polys. As details are hidden on texture, the equivalent resolution of the object is equivalent to a number of pixels on the texture map.

 

-High operating speed owing to low number of polygons on objects edited.

 

-Cover an object with a material made of map of depth, color and specular. Creating new materials is easy.

 

-Possibility to draw with complex-shaped brushes (like a tattoo), setting your own shapes of pen.

 

-Possibility to draw with brushes of ABR format (Adobe Photoshop format of brushes).

 

-Possibility to change mapping type - UV-map generation.

 

-Calculation of global occlusion with an opportunity of taking it into a separate layer.

 

-Possibility to draw along splines setting depth and width of pen for each point. This said, you can set longitudinal shape of pen similarly to a seam on fabric or leather surface.

 

 -Possibility to draw along splines setting depth and width of pen for each point. This said, you can set longitudinal shape of pen similarly to a seam on fabric or leather surface.

 

-Different types of mapping for material application – from camera or cubic.

 

-Possibility to fill in self-contained parts of a set color with material similarly to flooding in image editing programs.

 

-Several types of modeling approaches available – vertex and pixel.

 

-Seamless object texturing.

 

-Export of objects and textures.

 

-Current layer depth map export/loading.