3D Coat 2022.28 released

I cannot really say how the tools compare nowadays. It’s been years that i have used both actively. And both have evolved since then. But in my active time it was more a complement instead of a substitute.Retopo was for example ways better solved in 3D Coat than in ZBrush. And texturing and UV mapping was plain amazing in 3D Coat. I heard it still is, despite Substances being the standard nowadays. Other things were better solved in ZBrush. Especially around sculpting.

The biggest problem for some studios that i heard of was always that 3D Coat isn’t really the most stable software to some.

Zbrush is better because “it’s industry standard” not because of real case scenarios, you don’t get people truly trying them both, because they have a job and they use Zbrush, so they will not test 3DCoat when their company pays for their Zbrush necessities.

I mean I have seen amazing artists using 3DCoat, but not many, and that’s the problem.

The main difference about 3DCoat and Zbrush is Voxels vs Polygon sculpting, if people truly gave an opportunity to 3DCoat and the Voxel sculpting, they would probably like it, but is it necessary? not really.
What I mean is Voxels are nice and allow to push even more millions than Zbrush would do (with the proper computer obviously), you can scale up better with better hardware 3DCoat than Zbrush, but 3DCoat workflow changes a lot that I believe that’s the reason many don’t really want to use it.

Blender is more close to Zbrush than what 3DCoat is for sure.

Zbrush is good because they have so many tools and ways of masking all around sculpting, while Blender is all over the place and improves stuff little by little about sculpting. But you don’t need fancy brushes and you don’t need many of those features for most stuff, some probably will take you longer to do in Blender or 3DCoat, but if an artist is good, they will do anything with it. I mean, think about real sculpting, you get different clays for different people but the tools are similar, some people will do amazing stuff with less tools than others but doesn’t mean the tools or the clay are better.

3DCoat’s problem is the workflow for sure, understanding the voxels to polygons and then to voxels again and how to make clean sculptures like you can in Zbrush, people like to go and do the subdivision level for the details after their sculpture, and that’s something you don’t get in 3DCoat, you get layers but not real subdivision levels you can work for detailing your sculpture. You can get the same level of sculpture but the radical change of workflow is something some people are not going to mess, that’s why Blender has the advantage of being closer to Zbrush even if it has less features than 3DCoat and Zbrush.

But 3DCoat is amazing if you got the great computer to push the millions of polygons. 3DCoat also reworked the brush engine so now it is better than 2 years ago. Andrew also seems to try to get 3DCoat brushes as close as Zbrush. Of course, the radical change from surface to voxel make some brushes act differently even if they are suppose to do a similar task.
But I would say the disadvantage of 3DCoat is not having subdivision levels, but it can push the same detail if you want, brushes tend to feel better in the ‘industry standard’ and to be honest now it is more a psychological thing than a reality, but even if true that Zbrush brushes still feel widely superior like some people claim, 3DCoat can do amazing job and you can push the same detail if you want and you have the good computer.

I used to like 3DCoat, I liked it more for the texturing, it was always better than Substance Painter the only advantage Painter always had was Substance Designer and being standard for the materials and all that, and sometimes the retopo, then I wanted to use it more for sculpting because because of the announcement of Pixologic selling to Maxon, and it was fine and I was enjoying it but because I won’t like or support Maxon with my money. But then the war happened and then we got what we got today, of course about Pilgway I can understand their position, but companies like Maxon, Adobe, Autodesk and others being clownish about the whole situation makes it just too stupid so I decided to just learn Blender and live a simpler life without worrying it too much if I might get affected by clown companies who get tons of money and they affect me directly and indirectly with their dumb decisions, some features are not there but it can do anything you want if you want, it only takes longer.
3DCoat is amazing though and I used to be active in forums and tried to help people, but then it is what it is now and I wish it was different so I could keep using it, but since I don’t have to answer anyone for my decisions anymore I guess I don’t care much about 3D software that much, and I will not use some software from now even if I can, because I just bend my arm and change my decisions back and submit to a weird human society and their agendas.

I am sure this 2022 version is working great and while the software seems to be in beta stage always and sometimes beta works better than stable because Andrew fixed something but doesn’t push the updates until much later, still I always liked the active development. And while some stuff I suggested 5 years ago still never got implemented like a more customizable and better exporter like Substance Painter had (another strength of Painter), I still thought 3DCoat was amazing to use, better than Zbrush in some stuff, but for example lacking in something important like like the subdivision level workflow.