Non-Organic Models

[dasir]

sculptris....its all about organic modelling at the moment. No doubt about that.

When it comes to hard sorfaces maybe an easier way of thinking outside the box is thinking about deliviering sculptris data more or less seamlessly into other Apps, such as Blender, Maya, whatever.

.obj format ist a good start for that. Why not hand over these data on the fly - I am dreaming of realtime updated meshes .....

[taron]

There are certainly a few things that would greatly benefit from some improvements and I'm sure they will be addressed. I, too, would love to have some more power over my model, which involves getting more strictly defined forms out of my model as well as some sort of "edge angle" define for the limitation of influence of tools, particularely flatten. The most important improvement there, though, will be the masking behavior. Currently if you defined a mask, you couldn't just globally grab and pull the outlined shape without getting a very destroyed set of edges. Not sure how to address that yet, but this would clearly be a big leap!

Piece by piece, I could imagine that it will end up being just as versatile as actual clay, or nearly as that... it certainly has the potential.

[link3000]

I still don't see a point in limiting Sculptris to only organic modelling just because other programs can handle non-organic modelling. Those other programs aren't nearly as intuitive, and not nearly as fun to use as sculptris.

[thwak]

I see both sides of this argument. And they are both right.

Jun 3, 2010 19:52:58 GMT 1 link3000 said:

Those other programs aren't nearly as intuitive, and not nearly as fun to use as sculptris.

That is their point, I believe. The more functionality that is added, the more complex and cumbersome an interface becomes. The beauty of Sculptris is its simplicity.

With that said, I agree with the folks here who have pointed out that in real sculpting with real clay, you are not limited to organic shapes as significantly as you are with Sculptris' current toolset. I would like to see more flexibility in this arena.

But I also want it to stay simple and fun...

[polyhertz]

dasir: So you want something like GoZ (ZBrush+Max) for Sculptris+Blender?

taron: Sounds like you want to see 'Group Loops' based on mask.

Personally I think that Beautify should dissableable for even when using DT. The mesh form should NEVER change unless the user tells it to. Hard surface isn't feasable in Sculptris not just because of the lack of tools for that purpose, but also because your forms cant be held when DT is on. Want to add a few more cuts to that sharp edge? Sorry, we cant do that unless the sharp edge gets relaxed out at the same time.

I'm glad the 'disable beatify' at least exists for when not using DT, but it really needs to work across the board. My assumption is that its not dissabled for that because the tesselation algorithm relies on it heavily to make sure the new edges don't crumple together when being created. But the tessellation algoritm in general needs improvement it seems because their are still oddities with what it creates sometimes.

Ideally you would never have to worry about the detail slider. It would adapt itself to make sure it was adding the correct amount of detail at any time so that your brush strokes never left any ridgid areas. Only with the removal of beautify and absolute independance from the detail slider will it truly feel like working in clay.

edit: For those that don't know, setting beautify to 0 in the config.txt also helps beyond just turning it off in options.

[polyhertz]

Yes I am aware how relax works, I've been using it for years in other apps before Sculptris came around. The difference is that in every app its been an optional tool, not a mandated function. If done correctly though tessellation should NEVER result in overlapping faces, that's something that should only occur if the user does it on purpose via inflate/grab/etc.

Imo DT should be applied as if it were a local subdivide with smoothing off as opposed to using its current system witch uses a custom subdivide algorthm (that divides unevenly) with smooth enabled, and then adds a relax ontop of the smoothed subdidivision to compensate for the uneven division. It's fine to have such a system while the algorithm is still more or less a WIP, but its a stopgap measure that needs to be removed once DT no longer results in uneven division and 'micro-clusters'.

[link3000]

thwak - It does seem to be their point, but it's a bad one. They're assuming that more features = more complexity and therefore less fun. It's a huge assumption to make, especially in the case of a closed source project that has a dedicated developer.

[thedugan]

Hey, my first post....I usually lurk for weeks, but this thread caught my eye. If one is looking to do mechanical things, I use a shareware program called DOGA L3:

www.doga.co.jp/english/

[link3000]

Thanks for the link, Dugan, but I think this thread is more about non-organic sculpting in Sculptris rather that other programs.

And welcome to the forums!

[kemmler]

I think there's also an interesting dynamic between people who already are comfortable with a full-featured 3D package, and see no need to duplicate features across packages - i.e. in my case I use blender, and I use sculptris because the sculpting in sculptris is so much easier and enjoyable than in blender. However, I don't care whether sculptris can do anything else, especially things I might otherwise use blender for. I think other people that are coming to modeling through sculptris would like an increase in features, since sculptris is like their 'home base' in the 3D world.

I don't think this would change the debate at all if it were true, I just find the idea interesting. I guess it will be interesting to see what drpetter decides to do in the future. IMO improving some features to be more flexible/capable would be fine, adding a few new features would be fine, but adding a lot of new features might decrease the appeal of the program.

[polyhertz]

It's all about features that're transparent to the end user. Optimizations, bug fixes, things like that are completely transparent, where as things like marquee masking, redo functionality, etc. require no ui additions at all. I don't believe that DrPetter wants Sculptris to be feature-poor, he just wants to have a minimalist UI that doesn't intimidate newcomers. During the beta he showed numerous times that if a suggested feature required no additional UI he would more readily implement it (in fact several suggestions didn't get implemented specifically because they required additional UI).

[link3000]

I know I came to Sculptris because it was one of the first programs I could model in without extensive training and conditioning. It could be an option to keep the current layout, but have the option of expanding the menu to allow for non-organic sculpting?

Side note: Now, instead of typing "sculpting", I type "scultring".

[theferrymanhymn]

[Cyahnidde]

theferrymanhymn, how is that even POSSIBLE in Sculptris?

[theferrymanhymn]

Jun 16, 2010 2:25:01 GMT 1 Cyahnidde said:

theferrymanhymn, how is that even POSSIBLE in Sculptris?

I'll make a platonic solids tutorial next week. (kidding)

I used the Reduce brush...If you leave Wireframe on you can see just how much you reduced...If you keep reducing you might/will end up with shapes like those.

^^