3DCoat 4.8.14 released
Pilgway has announced a new version of its sculpting tool 3DCoat. Version 4.8.14’s headline feature is Instant Meshes Auto-Retopo integration, though users are warned by Pilgway not to expect too much at this point “It is about robustness and stability, but not about too great quality”.
Other features include VoxTree multiselection, the ability to highlight objects after selection, the addition of a calculator in each input field. improved pivot point management, the ability to unify UV sets with same names, an updated transform gizmo now with the option for non-uniform scaling in plane, improved FBX export and import with preserved nodes hierarchy, transforms, and pivots, faster Bas-relief & undercuts, and a number of smaller improvements and fixes.
3D Coat is available in 3 versions starting at $49 for a cut-down version for 3D Printing, an Amateur license that’s fully featured but cannot be used commercially for $99, or the unrestricted professional release for $379 ($568 floating). Find out more about the new features in this release on the 3D Coat website.
I still wish they would have worked more in 3Dcoat sculpting tools and innovate on every area, most people won’t use autoretopo, especially if they even say not to expect much from it. But while it is not a bad update, it seems like they worked on stuff that doesn’t really improve the user’s workflow much in the end.
For example, Maya has nice retopology tools and UV tools, just like others might do, so what would be the advantage to bring the mesh to 3Dcoat? I guess it is matter of preference but I wish they would have focused more on the important part of 3Dcoat, the sculpting.
Ivara, please make sure to send Andrew (Owner/Lead Developer) an email (support@3dcoat.com), stating what you just said. I have been asking Andrew for Sculpt Layers (in the Sculpt Workspace) for 4-5yrs now. It’s a high degree of difficulty, because of the Dynamic Tessellation aspects of that environment, and it will probably take a few months to complete, but it can be done and will be worth it for most users.
He says it remains a high priority, but then lets hundreds of small, easy to do, requests jump to the front of the request line. He needs to add it and some other sculpt-related additions before V5 is released, because otherwise, as you mentioned, it won’t have any big feature additions.
Part of that is because some “Johnny-come-lately’s” have sold him on the idea of creating scaled down versions for 3D Printing and now the 3D Coat Mod Tool. Those have taken the bulk of time over the past 2yrs, IMO.
I definitely second the Sculpt Layers feature for the Sculpt Workspace. It’s needed.
The second feature I’d like to see is an extension module scheme where 3rd party developers could create addons for 3DC.
As far as the 3DC Mod Tool, at 3DC’s price point an even more cut down version doesnt make much sense to me.
not sure how this follows tbh. maya has retopo tools so why would coat have it?
havent tried it yet but this seems to be AUTOretopo tool which is definitely of use to many and probably smart to release in earlier stages for more robust testing by the user base. sure there will always be more important features but since i bought coat i have never paid for an update which is something to bear in mind aswell.
fyi im using coat for texturing exclusively.
To be honest, once they pullished their PBR painting workflow, like one or 2 years ago, they should had close v4 series and begin with v5 so they could bill us. I got my v4 license 5 years ago more or less, best product for the bucks I must say. But I d rather prefer to pay so they can hire programers to develop uv,topo and sculp rooms.
For hardsurface, maya and modo might be better. But for complex topology the benefits on going to 3dcoat are
-Stability, rarely crash unles you make heavy operations, on a 1080 gtx you can make the topology of a 30.000.000 mesh without any issue
– speed and easy workflow. Drafting your loops with strokes then refining your topology gives you a fast, controllable way to work your topology.
– Good viewport for the task.
– unified worklow. You can draft your sculpt, make topo, uvs on the fly, bake and texture. Great for lookdev.
I agree, still a great topology tool, but having major dcc a topo pen tool this guys need to wake up. I only go to 3dcoat because I personally love to draft my loops with curves, and it has a great workflow for that. It lacks a usable quadfill tool, multicut, and his beveltool is too basic.
I think the major thing that 3dc is missing is a decent one material library. If it had a large library people would choose to use that over substance painter .and on the modelling side a large kitbash library would also be good as that is one of 3dc’s major strengths .
I use substance designer for library