SJM > Sculptris UI (Proposal)

[michalis]

Meanwhile, pixologic owns sculptris. This is the first.
Blender dynamic topology is here, another successful dynamic tessellation algorithm. Excellent parametric behavior of tools even at alpha stage. But here, you can have alost real time ~10 secs previews on a GI environment. Do you understand what this means? This is the second. And it looks like a knockout to me.
I have the feeling that sculptris is suddenly dead all right. This is so sad... (to all old trekkie funs... "it's dead Jim")

[holyenigma74]

i agree "its dead.."

i just wonder..
why did pixo buy it what was the logic?

[Serek]

why did pixo buy it what was the logic?

The reason is more than obvious. Be grateful this forum still exists and they keep letting us post here.

[justadeletedguy]

It's still the best Texturing app you can get for no bucks! Yea your stuck at 2048, but it's fast, easy, and accurate, as long as your UV's arent to stretched.!

[holyenigma74]

ya Sculptris can unwrap and texture heavily triangulated meshes..(this is where it shines)
, but you have no control over the seam locations.
(yea i know Sculptris can do quad meshes as well but like i said above no control over seams)

i'd rather just do it properly in Blender.

[justadeletedguy]

I gave up on Sculptris meshes long ago. Sometimes I still sculpt in it with a Quad mesh. It works good for making Daz Genesis morphs, or doing projects like my car. But I won't even bother trying to make and then retopo, instead I try and build a proper basemesh and then go from there. All my stuff is UV'd by me, and my "Paint model" is split into material parts, for easy hiding and masking in Sculptris.

[holyenigma74]

ahh.. i just uv mapped a base bust in Blender(marked seams etc..)
and open it in Sculptris..
it does work.

But..
what does Sculptris paint do that Blender cant?

As far as i see it,
exporting the .obj to Sculptris is just an extra unnecessary step in the workflow.

when blender gets vpaint it will be even better.. ,
but even right now its just as good as Sculptris IMHO.

http://vimeo.com/12077258

this is kind of an old video, but still works.. use it with gimp..
so.. like i said.. not sure what advantage Sculptris has as far a texture painting goes.

[justadeletedguy]

Sculptris is just faster and easier on my machine anyway, I don't do the "Projection Painting" in photoshop, I just load textures and alphas and go to town. I really like the Heightmask, Directional, and Combine color and bump options. You can rough up a surface in bump (like leather), then come back and use the Heightmask to add some shading, or use the Combine option on textures like brick, bark to really bring them out with bump and texture. The model never has to have millions of polygons, cuz your painting straight to bump (Normal Map), then you can use the Heightmask to bring the depth out even more. Sometimes I cheat and texture in Paint.Net, things like eyeballs, teeth, etc., and sometimes I build and UV-map to a Pre-made texture, things like Tires, chunky concrete stuff. You can make decent Normal maps with just image editor plugins, Paint.NET has a good one. But when I wanna Paint, I use Sculptris. Blender works, but there's so much going on, you have to load textures here, then click this button over there in another window, plus the display is gonna be plain color or you gotta set up Lights. Sculptris you just jump in and go.

[SeanJM]

Hey guys, out of respect for keeping this on topic, keep your talk of Sculptris being dead outside of this thread. And focus on seeing what you love, Sculptris--alive and kicking--much more positive to think this way.

[holyenigma74]

---

ok..

yea.. the Heightmask from geometry or bump is a great feature..
(admittedly i forgot about that! )

im still not sure its worth saving out an .obj just for that though..

everyone has their own workflows i guess.

[michalis]

@ SeanJM
OK, I'm receiving you loud and clear. (and orange)
Let me clear this. Your thread is very interesting and I call it excellent.

Your proposals on UI are interesting but this doesn't mean better than the standard, from my point of view.
You're trying to improve one of the best UI around.
I have seen your proposal in the past. At the time we were beta testers on the last build. I still remember how fast my hard sounded when I saw menus about retopology etc. I didn't realize that they were almost dreams of yours.
How happy I felt when visited the retopology thread of DrPetter...
I may use zbrush mostly but for some artistic reasons (difficult to explain here) I never felt quite at home (it's not a UI issue).

Let's talk about my dreams, just a bit.
A 3d sculpting app capable for real time raytraced GI textured preview as sculpting.
This is of great importance for the art of sculpting. It's again not the right place to explain further.
This is impossible for today's technology of course, maintaining performance etc.

I found sculptris in a hibernate stage, basically it just supported OSX and shortcuts like zb. (I was supporting this if I recollect right !!! LOL)
After a year, still in hibernation...

Suddenly a new experimental branch of blender comes.
With an excellent sculpt UI, simple, beautiful and effective.
. Parametric tools of great quality. (better than sculptris)
. Dynamic topology of great quality. Indeed, it looks like it solve some sculptris major issues.
. The shocking ability to just jump in cycles and render in a few seconds.
. All the support of edit mode, snapping, shrinkwrapping, topology, a real UV editor (which also receives a great update right now)
. All the animation support.

Which made me happy these days.

I'm out of topic you may say.

On topic is to make pixologic to have a look at sculptris, right?
1. they can keep it as a freeware, as it is, an entry level of zbrush.
1b. they can just fix this ridiculous "more than 24 edges on vertex" and let you work using the fine goZ as an assist to the new topology zb4r4 implementation*
2. they can start serious development and make your dreams come true. (with some use of your fine proposals). A better stand alone application that is easy to learn and use.
3. they can adopt all DrPetter's dynamic tessellation method into zbrush and kill sculptris for good (I doubt if this is even possible)

*1. 1b. After the new rapid blender development, I doubt if this gonna work. The majority of sculptris lovers are blender users.

[holyenigma74]

fix the Zbrush UI then i might give the trial another go.
until then i will avoid it like i did to old Blender 2.4 because of the bad UI.

just about everyone that i talk to says that Zbrush UI stinks,
(and these are people that are really good at it and even teach it!)
why doesn't pixo fix it? that UI is a mess

[michalis]

I like the zb UI, not among the guys or girls you mentioned, for sure. I'm not a teacher of course.
blender, zb UI... you could probably reconsider. Is it that hard? I did hate myself when I tried zb and blender, I did this for one year. I know how it feels. Now I can't live without them.

[justadeletedguy]

The Zbrush UI is customizable, as I understand, you can build your own menu, put anything in it, dock it on the side, even have it pop up, and you can set keyboard shortcuts, and even build little scripts for repetitious motions (like loading texture sets). But it takes time to learn, just like Blender or Maya or anything else. The common Noob just doesn't bother read the manual or at least watch the "Getting Started" vids. It's the same with Sculptris. The too-many connections issue is a problem, but we've found the simple answer, and I post it here and there like I did the other day.

At second thought, I don't see the TABS as being a good idea. Tabs usually indicate places you can jump back and forth from. In Sculptris you cannot come back to Sculpt after Paint. Retopo is a feature that's doubtful that Sculptris will ever have. A basic tris to quads will not really fix the portions of the mesh that are dense to the portions that are not, Blender's quad remesh leaves you with a higher polycount than you had in the first place if you keep your detail. For the longest time 3DCoat was the only software to have Auto-retopo but now Zbrush too. And UV-mapping is automatic, doesn't need a Tab.

Which means you're back to buttons, and you know what I think about buttons!

[SeanJM]

@ SeanJM
OK, I'm receiving you loud and clear. (and orange)
Let me clear this. Your thread is very interesting and I call it excellent.

Thank you, this is what I do for a living and I get paid well for it--so I hope it's excellent. :-)

Your proposals on UI are interesting but this doesn't mean better than the standard, from my point of view.
You're trying to improve one of the best UI around.

Simplicity is great and I think that's what makes any UI great.

I have seen your proposal in the past. At the time we were beta testers on the last build. I still remember how fast my hard sounded when I saw menus about retopology etc. I didn't realize that they were almost dreams of yours.
How happy I felt when visited the retopology thread of DrPetter...

I remember that day when he first posted it, I was pretty excited. I also thought that he was going to implement other ideas I had from our design days.

I may use zbrush mostly but for some artistic reasons (difficult to explain here) I never felt quite at home (it's not a UI issue).

I think that the main issue ZBrush doesn't feel at home for me, is that Dynamic Tesselation really is like clay, you can start from nothing and just keep going without any left or right turns to get to your destination--it's pretty much a straight line from idea to finished product.

Let's talk about my dreams, just a bit.
A 3d sculpting app capable for real time raytraced GI textured preview as sculpting.
This is of great importance for the art of sculpting. It's again not the right place to explain further.
This is impossible for today's technology of course, maintaining performance etc.

There must be a way to Sculpt with a real time GI--you have nailed something though, real time GI in sculpt mode would be amazing.

I found sculptris in a hibernate stage, basically it just supported OSX and shortcuts like zb. (I was supporting this if I recollect right !!! LOL)
After a year, still in hibernation...

Suddenly a new experimental branch of blender comes.
With an excellent sculpt UI, simple, beautiful and effective.
. Parametric tools of great quality. (better than sculptris)
. Dynamic topology of great quality. Indeed, it looks like it solve some sculptris major issues.
. The shocking ability to just jump in cycles and render in a few seconds.
. All the support of edit mode, snapping, shrinkwrapping, topology, a real UV editor (which also receives a great update right now)
. All the animation support.

Blender is the great equalizer, given enough time and talent--it can democratize 3D authoring tools and be a real force. I have played with the Dynamic Topology branch and it's quite good, makes me want to pick up a new computer so I can really push those polygons. Everything you said, plus, it's 64 bit. :-)

Which made me happy these days.

I'm out of topic you may say.

On topic is to make pixologic to have a look at sculptris, right?
1. they can keep it as a freeware, as it is, an entry level of zbrush.
1b. they can just fix this ridiculous "more than 24 edges on vertex" and let you work using the fine goZ as an assist to the new topology zb4r4 implementation*
2. they can start serious development and make your dreams come true. (with some use of your fine proposals). A better stand alone application that is easy to learn and use.
3. they can adopt all DrPetter's dynamic tessellation method into zbrush and kill sculptris for good (I doubt if this is even possible)

When I first started working on Sculptris, I saw the only real threat to it being Pixologic--now I look at the acquisition and I think it was probably the best thing that could have happened. I really don't know what's going to happen for Sculptris, all I know is that I'm good at what I do, I'm designing an application that I want to use--and life is weird and wonderful, so you never know right?

*1. 1b. After the new rapid blender development, I doubt if this gonna work. The majority of sculptris lovers are blender users.

Blender is a fine replacement for the Sculptris of today--which you all love. What about the Sculptris of tomorrow? I don't know, :-)

The Zbrush UI is customizable, as I understand, you can build your own menu, put anything in it, dock it on the side, even have it pop up, and you can set keyboard shortcuts, and even build little scripts for repetitious motions (like loading texture sets). But it takes time to learn, just like Blender or Maya or anything else. The common Noob just doesn't bother read the manual or at least watch the "Getting Started" vids. It's the same with Sculptris. The too-many connections issue is a problem, but we've found the simple answer, and I post it here and there like I did the other day.

And often it takes years for someone to get comfortable with these tools! It's a large investment of time.

At second thought, I don't see the TABS as being a good idea. Tabs usually indicate places you can jump back and forth from. In Sculptris you cannot come back to Sculpt after Paint. Retopo is a feature that's doubtful that Sculptris will ever have.

I think you should be able to. Textures can be stored as a vector cloud in 3D space instead of 2D space, so if you paint far away from the model you get a certain detail level and the closer you zoom into the model the higher the painting detail. So you paint and come back and make changes and your textures can be re-projected onto your model when you come back to the Paint tab. (There may be some issues and stretching, gaps etc...)

Paint is then applied to a UV mapped model, but you can keep your paint history in your Sculptris file.

A basic tris to quads will not really fix the portions of the mesh that are dense to the portions that are not, Blender's quad remesh leaves you with a higher polycount than you had in the first place

indeed.

if you keep your detail. For the longest time 3DCoat was the only software to have Auto-retopo but now Zbrush too. And UV-mapping is automatic, doesn't need a Tab.

You being doubtful about it having retopology tools. I don't know--but I'll design them anyway, :-)

UV mapping--I like to think that just by the nature of UV mapping *not* being sculpting, it needs it's own tab.

Which means you're back to buttons, and you know what I think about buttons!

I don't really know what you think about buttons, I know how I feel about buttons. Show me your perfect Sculpting application, open up Inkscape or GIMP and create something too. Show me what you think.

-- MONDAY --



No more fly out panels! Modifier panel... :-)