Sculptris to 3dCoat

[themightyflog]

I was looking at 3dcoat and liked the autotopo feature. Could I take a character made in sculptris and do the Autotopo in 3d coat?

[SeanJM]

Yes. You will need to tweak it though anyways. FYI.

[themightyflog]

Tweak how?

[themightyflog]

I was looking but still can't find the answer. I just hate using Zbrush to retopologize.

[markycapone]

try using topogun, I don't like zbrush's retopology either. I love how topogun works, and it's only 100 bucks.

[banjaxedmdt]

I was looking but still can't find the answer. I just hate using Zbrush to retopologize.

Export an obj from Sculptris, then import into 3D-Coat using the "Import for Autopo" option in the file menu. After that you just follow the onscreen wizard that tells you what you need to do. Stage one is painting areas of density, stage two is drawing guide to help it work out poly flow. There's often an element of trial and error involved in getting a decent result which is why I prefer to do it manually by importing the object as a reference mesh and putting things where I want them to be.

[michalis]

The advanced mode:
(because 'import for retopo' uses ~200k vox mesh and you wont be happy if hands-fingers is the case)
open 3dcoat, go to voxels room, under voxel layer palette / import-merge.
Enlarge the mesh watching vox density count. Go for ~2M tri faces.
enter. say yes to keep scaling !! (the previews enlargement had to do with density only) - funny UI but works fine.
turn symmetry on. (probably)
Now smooth the mesh, then under vox layers palette / right click, autopo.
Paint density areas and use loop guides. A 3-6 k target cage works in most cases.
mark seams in the end (this will bring the UV tools on palette - funny UI as I mentioned above)
there're som good tutorials in 3dcoat forum.
Have fun, it's a great retopo tool.

[themightyflog]

awesome guys! Thank you very much for the help

[michalis]

I found this good presentation here, may help to understand the whole 3dc concept.
http://www.maxunderground.com/3d_coat_review

[chriswilmer]

I think, entirely in the spirit of keeping Sculptris super intuitive, you should be able to glue parts of your mesh together simply by bringing them close together (as if you took two wet pieces of clay together and pressed them together).

As a concrete example, imagine using the "grab" tool to pull out a long snake (or hair, or tentacle) like object out from a sphere. Then, you should be able to loop this snake/hair/tentacle so that the tip of the snake comes back around and touches the original sphere and merges with it. You should now have a sphere with a "handle".

I envision this working in a similar way to metaballs used in Blender and other programs... and also it should be something that you can turn off as you might not want your meshes to merge.

This is probably impossible to code... just saying it would be cool and intuitive!

[michalis]

@ chriswilmer
I really understand what you're asking.
3DCoat for instance, voxels mode, can do this easily, unfortunately all the time and using a ridiculous posing tool.
Real clay is a little different, it's real anyway.
What you mostly ask is holes, topologically speaking. Easy, just construct something with the holes you need in blender, just a 2d plane with holes and extrude. Never mind about precision, just the holes you need. Import it in sculptris and work.
BTW try a alpha b-spheres or skin modifier blender build. A little tricky for the moment (some faces may have wrong normals) but superior to z-spheres as it produces holes alright.

[justadeletedguy]

Sculptris can also do a plane, Geometry does not have to be manifold! That is it can have true holes!! Just export to meshmixer and cut out whatever you want, then back to Sculptris to continue on. If you just gotta cover the holes, export back out to blender and fix it. I like Meshmixer for the Smooth-Select. makes for some nice usable extracts, clothing, armor, whatever. And .... You can Retopo in Blender just as fast as F#%k!n around with 3d-coat or Topogun, seems like it takes longer to fix the Auto-retopo than it does to do it by hand!!

[michalis]

I also forgot this.
Constructed and sculpted in sculptris only. Just rendered in zb BPR.
Using grab tool and turning on off symmetry.
twins or a bicycle something. LOL

[holyenigma74]

...... You can Retopo in Blender just as fast as F#%k!n around with 3d-coat or Topogun, seems like it takes longer to fix the Auto-retopo than it does to do it by hand!!

+1 i agree! i was messing around with topogun and 3d-coat the other day(both trials, versions i dont own either)

3d-coat would "work", but would need to be cleaned up, and if exported without cleaning up would leave Ngons and crash Blender on import.
(i dont know if 3d-Coat has a feature to not create ngons)

Topogun, was totally useless to me as it kept crashing..
totally unreliable application IMHO.

In the end Blender, can do the same thing..

[michalis]

(i dont know if 3d-Coat has a feature to not create ngons)

It doesn't but under retopo menu/select faces/select ngons. Now you have to fix them manually. If it's a symmetrical mesh, it's easy, if not, a PITA then or you end up with a tri and a quad.
A fast way is to import it in zbrush and ask for zb2 compatibility but not the best.
Always a request in 3dc wish list...

BTW I don't quite agree that 3dc autopo is useless, I even developed a working pattern that produces nice clean loops (not spiral nonsenses). In any case this is to help more sculpting in zbrush and not for animation stuff.