If you're doing mechanical parts, have you looked at MOI3D? MOI is fantastic for mechanical shapes. It's basically an artist-friendly CAD-like modeler. The current beta even supports Windows 8 Pro's touch gestures.
I use it with 3DC and it works really well. MOI can export OBJs and does a very good job. The issue is, it doesn't create anything that can be subdivided using Catmull-Clark. So the solution is to export a high-poly object and then re-topologize it in 3DC. If you don't need to have your object as a Sub-D, you can just export from MOI directly to Softimage. The problem with 3DC for mechanical stuff is - it's really not accurate at all. You can use it for "kit bashing", but if you need to represent an object with any amount of accuracy, it can get frustrating. -Paul On Fri, Jul 12, 2013 at 3:22 AM, Tim Leydecker <[email protected]> wrote: > Thanks for the insights, folks. > > Personally, I´m terribly bored of the caveats of polygon modeling workflows > in the creation of reasonably accurate surfaces that are supposed to both > subdivide correctly and still be clean enough all-quads in their basemesh. > > It takes forever to create holes, bevels or intricate intersections and > corners. > > Resorting to a Voxel based approach for the creation of complex > intersecting shapes > using "tooling-objects" or even "auto-watertightened" partial scans stuck > into each other > sounds like a holy grail. > > Of course, you end up having to represent those voxels as polygons again > and if > subdivideable basemeshes are desired, end up with the same holes you need > to retopo > but at least there is already a shape to try to match... > > I´m currently creating mechanical parts that only need to meet accuracies > of 0,25-2,5 Millimeters > and it still takes roughly 90% of my time to make them work when using > catmull-clark subdivision > on the basemesh. Every intersection is a pain. Every corner needs careful > support. That can´t be right. > > It would at least be motivating to see the ideal (voxel) shape earlier, > then try to capture > that shape with a subdivideable polygon cage instead of trying to both > create the shape and > adhere to the needs of representing a surface using subdivideable polygon > modeling. > > I´m really looking forward to getting to use 3Dcoat and see what those > voxels can do. > > Even if only to clean up the 3d scan data of my girlfriend at first, she > already > has very specific shape requests... (in the 0,01-0,1 Millimeter range, I > dare guess :) > > Cheers, > > tim > > > > > > On 11.07.2013 14:09, Paul Griswold wrote: > >> I've been using it since it was 3D-Brush & it's always been great with >> Soft. There is an addon that'll let you send objects directly from >> Softimage to 3DC and back. >> >> The only negatives I can think of are - 3D Coat creates clusters for your >> surfaces, even if there's only 1 surface for the whole object. So the >> object's surface is Scene Material >> & then there's a poly cluster with the actual surface applied to it. 3DC >> doesn't handle objects using 3rd party materials like Arnold's Standard >> Shader. So if you send an object >> from Soft to 3DC that has a Standard material & then bring it back, >> you'll get back an object that just has a Phong attached with the textures >> wired in. An important thing to note >> there is - it keeps the material name unless you rename it in 3DC, so it >> will replace your original material. >> >> 3DCs interface & workflow are a bit clunky IMHO. It doesn't work very >> well on dual monitors either. None of the windows can be dragged outside >> of the main 3DC window. The only >> solution would be to build something similar to Softimage's dual monitor >> layout, where you've just stretched the window across 2 monitors. >> Unfortunately the last time I tried that >> it screwed up the camera in 3DC because the camera was set up to always >> be centered in your window - stretching it across 2 monitors and placing >> the viewport on 1 monitor made 3DC >> think you were pointing your camera to the right (or left). I wish >> Andrew would hire a really good UI designer to build an entirely new >> front-end for 3DC, but I'm sure the >> die-hards would have a fit if that ever happened. >> >> 3DC has a great Photoshop connection (CTRL-P) that sends all your layers >> over to Photoshop & lets you use all it's tools for texture editing. >> >> Voxels and retopology are stunningly good & easy to use. >> >> Andrew is really responsive to bug reports & feature requests and he's >> always given me the impression he's there to serve his customers & make >> them happy. >> >> -Paul >> >> >> On Wed, Jul 10, 2013 at 11:51 PM, Raffaele Fragapane < >> [email protected] >> <mailto:raffsxsilist@**googlemail.com<[email protected]>>> >> wrote: >> >> I can't speak for the interaction with Soft, but for retopo >> everywhere I look 3DC is getting hailed as really damn good. >> We used it on a project here to clean some of the biggest, most >> irregularly sampled, largest surface ever LIDARs. >> >> Talking LIDARs big enough that they would take minutes of surveying >> driving through natural reserves on a Jeep, with enough detail be able to >> tell what jacket the people who >> got picked up in it were wearing. The laser shadowing holes, since >> you can't exactly drive into protected areas, were frequent and big. >> >> If it can deal with that, it can deal with pretty much anything. >> >> >> On Fri, Jun 28, 2013 at 6:26 PM, Tim Leydecker <[email protected]<mailto: >> [email protected]>> wrote: >> >> Hi guys, >> >> >> anyone using 3dcoat with softimage here? >> >> How well do the voxel modeling tools work, would you >> consider it comfortable to use 3dcoat to clean up raw >> scan data (with holes) into solid volumes? >> >> Does 3dcoat play nicely with softimage in general? >> >> Anything you´d find important to point out? >> >> >> Cheers, >> >> >> tim >> >> >> >> >> -- >> Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship >> it and let them flee like the dogs they are! >> >> >>
