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3D Coat, Tips and Tricks. by Royce Edward Barber. This article will list many tips and resources, as I learn 3D Coat as a student and not a professional. Updated Dec 3 2017.
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Recent News: Version 4.8 released, here's the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fslO9iagxqs – and the 4.8 feature list: https://3dcoat.com/v48/
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Stroke Mode: At the top of the Voxel Tools bar is a thick S icon as default. This is also activated by pressing E. I use the Build brush to practice these Stroke modes. Stroke modes make tools react different with your pen pressure; handy for Drawing Tablets. Such as making a tapered line, or to draw in streight line segments. Has modes for Mouse users too, like drawing flat shapes and editing the shape to some degree afterwords.
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Rooms in 3D Coat…
The rooms are Paint, Tweak, Retopo, UV, Sculpt, Render. Each room changes the menus at the top of the screen. Sculpt room is the most important for learning. Go to each room to notice how the interface changes. Don't worry about UV, most features won't matter until you're advanced. If a Window or Toolbar disappears, you can go to the Windows menu at the top and reset the Room layout or click Popups to bring back just one area. Don't change the interface until your learn 3D Coat.
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Typical Workflow and Navigation…
In this article I may use “Tool” and “Brush” meaning the same thing. Go to File, New, Voxel Sculpting, and click an object to practice sculpting. Or instead of File, go to Sculpt Mode and notice the lefthand toolbar called Voxel Tools. Scroll down to Objects headline, then down a bit more for Primitives. Click Primitives and notice the shapes that show at the top of the screen. Press Enter to select a ball. To navigate, LeftClick+Drag an empty area to orbit around your object. RightClick+Drag an empty space to zoom in and out. MiddleClick+Drag to pan around the screen. If the object takes your whole screen, you can still click an empty space by holding Alt key while performing the prior commands. So LeftClick+Drag is then ALT+LeftClick+Drag. You'll later find that some tools require ALT to work. When hovering your mouse over a 3D sculpture, you notice your mouse has a circle around it, this is the brush size, and a wobble line through the circle which is your brush intensity. To the right of your screen is a huge menu called Alphas which means the shape of your brush. Further down at the bottom is your VoxilTree which shows you the objects and layers you're working on, and below that are some tiny icons to edit layers.
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Uses for the Voxel Sculpting toolbar…
* Smooth: During use of any sculpting tool, hold Shift to enable smoothing.
* RightClick+Drag to adjust the tool strength or size. A high strength is like putting effort and weight onto the tool. RightClick+Drag horizontal to adjust brush size. RightClick+Drag verticle to change the brush strength.
* The Build brush is just like in zBrush, it works great with brush shapes called Alphas.
* When sculpting, holding Ctrl will invert the brush, to carve a cavern into your object.
* Build tool always builds up the clay, while Extrude tool has a height limit.
* The Scrape tool is a putty knife, flattening your area. The SoftScrape checkbox slightly smooths the scrape edges, but is still more flat than the Smoothing tool.
* Pinch tool works less in Voxel because voxels are ade of points which can only go so far together. Surface mode lets you Pinch far greater.
* Smudge tool will push the clay object, wrinkling it like fabric.
* Moving an object: Transform tool can resize, rotate, and move your object.
* Wireframe, and Voxil VS Surface Sculpting: Press W to see the wireframe aka polygon triangles of your project. Your project is always made of triangles. When sculpting in Voxil mode, new polygons are created automatically, instead of the polygons stretching and looking blocky. The down side to Voxil sculpting, you end up with millions of polygons even in areas of little detail. Surface sculpting on the other hand, stretches polygons where less detail is needed. In the future, these two methods (Voxils VS Surface) will co-exist.
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Define the basic interface…
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Compatible Formats…
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Steam Specific Differences…
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Purchase Info, Prices, Licenses… (As of late 2017 and early 2018);
* Price and features listed here: https://3dcoat.com/buy/
* OS: All versions work on Windows/Mac/Linux, but not Android/iOS/etc.
* Versions: Academic is FREE use of Pro in any Academic building or specific Organizations, and can NOT be brought home or ever used personally or for ANY commercial purposes. Academic can NOT be used for any personal or commercial use, even if it's educational. Pro is $379 USD. Amateur is $99 USD and has limitations on Layers and Texture Size. Floating means your school will have a special license server which installs 3D Coat on multiple computers at the same time.
* Pro has volume pricing which varies. Floating License also varies on amount of units bought.
* Trial: Free 30 Day Trial (1 month).
* Deals: Holidays often have a discount.
* Places to buy: 3dcoat.com or Steam. Other places likely.
* There are also Upgrade options at discounted rates.
* Buying any version allows you updates to the latest version, as of writing this in Dec 2017. This may change in the far future.
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Similar Clay-sculpting Software…
* zBrush Core. zBrush has thousands of complex features. Sculptris is free but very limited. Modo. Meshmixer. Actual real clay.
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Internet Resources for 3D Coat…
* First, the basic forum rules: Mods watch like a hawk for self promotion spam or being off topic at all. The mods are laser focused on 3D Coat so carefully stay on topic and polite and you'll be fine. Use the search feature as much as possible or mods will nag at you. The forum is not a marketplace to sell your items, but if you have a few great tools to fill a need in 3D Coat then you can mention them where it's directly relevant to a topic. Spam is heavily frowned on. If banned, be perfectly honest and you'll likely be given a chance to explain what happened. Getting banned is horrific because you'll have ZERO access to viewing the forum at all.
* Official Home Page: https://3dcoat.com/home/
* Official Manual: http://3dcoat.com/manual/
* Official Forum: http://3dcoat.com/forum/
* Official Google+ Profile: https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/106474664209983631500
* Official Twitter from the Founder of 3D Coat: https://twitter.com/AndrewShpagin
* Official Site:
* Official Site:
* Official Site:
* Official Site:
* Official Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/584443851626267/
* Unofficial Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1445503902340238/
* Wikipedia for 3D Coat: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D-Coat
* Wikipedia for Digital Sculpting app list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_sculpting
* Wikipedia for
* Wikipedia for
* Wikipedia for
* Wikipedia for
* Official YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/PILGWAY3DCoat
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Excellent Explanation of 3D Coat by AlienMinefield…
* YouTube course Part 1 “Interface”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNs3ssJYWQA
* YouTube course Part 2 “Sculpt Room”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzdNADnrNnI
* YouTube course Part 3 “Sculpt Modes”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAvo5-HDfw8&t=3s
* YouTube course Part 4 “Voxel Sculpt Tools”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iomThMAz3lQ
* YouTube course Part 5 “Brush Options”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHOCtBCCltE
* YouTube course Part 6 “Symetry”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQYpYrzl_Lk
* YouTube course Part 7 “Voxel Adjust Tools”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYA5kpot3SE
* YouTube course Part 8 “Voxel Tools”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGW8alFcRfE
* YouTube course Part 9 “Curves”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aptJ5ylKKU4
* YouTube course Part 10 “Voxel Workflow”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=map6Pm3iiUI
* YouTube course Part 11 “Surface Tools”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5BC2AzVoD4
* YouTube course Part 12 “Live Clay”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfR4XbAdoMw
* YouTube course Part 13 “Surface Adjust Tools”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4RMv0lOTBc
* YouTube course Part 14 “Automatic Retopogoly”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9m6zosxeuA
* YouTube course Part 15 “Manual Retopology”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZHWsteFsho
* YouTube course Part 16 “Manual Retopology Continued”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z718fyd7Sis
* YouTube course Part 17 “UV Unwrapping”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdiyFkuNHh0
* YouTube course Part 18 “Texture Baking”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXvSbFhi5s4
* YouTube course Part 19 “Paint Tools”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQGnf6y9Grk
* YouTube course Part 20 “Paint Channels”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5UkTSJ7bew
* YouTube course Part 21 “Smart Materials”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFv5X5dXAEE
* YouTube course Part 22 “Texture Import Export”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aRbQSILGpc
* YouTube course Part 23 “Rendering”; Final: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_icS4sWN0o
* Related on same channel… https://www.youtube.com/user/AlienMinefield/playlists// .
* YouTube for
* YouTube for
* YouTube for
* YouTube for
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Keyboard/Controller Shortcuts…
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Misc…
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End of Article. More updates soon. 
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