Merry Chrismas!


Several days ago I have got to know that I can buy Space mouse ( http://www.3dconnexion.com/ ) in Ukraine. Many peoples asked me to make the support of that divice, so I have decided to buy it. The price was twice but anyway we have decided to buy it. But when we have come to that shop, they proposed us to take it for testing without any payment. In so way yesterday I have got Space Traveler. I was excited by that device, I have understood that it could be used not only for navigation but also for parameters variation. It has 6 degrees of freedom, so I can change 6 parameters. It could be really useful for 3D-Brush users. So, in couple of hours I have made navigation support - it was extremely easy. I like it! Several hours more - and variation of parameters was done. If you will press the key on space mouse it enters into vary mode (the icon on the top shows that you are in that mode). You can see it below:
The right picture shows what will happen if you will push the ball forward. In so way you can change:

Radius - zoom forward/back
Depth - pan vertically
Opacity - pan horizontally
Rotate pen - spin
Focal depth - tilt
Specularity - roll

I was excited with that, I like new navigation and how easy now to change pen parameters. I have decided to post new version. There was some other interesting changes. Now you can select several pen shapes simultaneously and paint with random pen. Also yo can store it into new presets window. In so way you can make hairs or skin details in very easy way. The screen below shows how looks multiple selection and presets panel:


Have a joy!

I have done the new version, 2.02 SP3. It is in beta state, but I think it is stable enough. The link is below:http://www.3d-brush.com/files/3d-brush-2-02-sp3-en.exe

Now I am working over feature requests. Recently the FBX import was done. It is important because it saves properly the smoothing groups. 3D-Max <9.0 and Maya are not able to export correct OBJ files with smoothing groups, so FBX import is important for MAX & Maya users. 3DMax 9 is able to export/import correct OBJ files, but not everyone have Max 9.0.

The other important feature - ability to export low-poly meshes with original positions of vertices. It is mostly important for users that use Auto-mapping.

The pallette window is now resizable and can be closed if necessary.

The new important feature - presets window. You can store there full state of pen shape / radius / depth / strip shape / material / filler / color / smooth and restore that settings any time by one click. It can speed up work much.

The new navigation bar is implemented, it can be useful for those peoples who use pen.

The old annoying bug is fixed - undo in line mode was sometimes incorrect.

Some peoples had a problem with input dialog - it also was fixed.

The update is coming soon! Please vote in right panel.

2.02 is done! You can read about list of changes on site http://www.3d-brush.com/. I want to tell there mostly about two new features - topologocal symmetry and quick uv - mapper.
1) The topological symmetry.
If object have symmetrical polygons structure, the topological symmetry tool could be very useful. It does not requires that object should have geometrical symmetry. You need to pick two symmetrical faces to define that symmetry. It is something like tangent symmetry in Mudbox, but differennce is that in 3DB starting faces could be not adjacent. For examle, if you have two disconnected objects, like eyes or seats in car, you can define that symmetry anyway. But now you can not draw directly with that symmetry, you can flip layer, duplicate with symmetry or copy from one part of layer to other using that symmetry. May be it is good, because there will be less lags during painting :)
2) Quick UV-mapper
It is experimental tool, this is not fully-functional, complex mapper. It is very simple, but I hope very convinient tool. The main idea - to make uv-mapping interactive and quick. Every cluster will be unwrapped using LSCM unwrapping algoritm. When yo mark new seam or new cluster 3DB unwraps new clusters in realtime and shows you the preview of unwrapped cluster immediately, so that you can see the degree of distortion of every part. You can see in realtime when new clusters will appear, so you will not be able to forget some seam before unwrapping. You can see below the screenshot of this tool in action:

There is 3 modes in this tool: mark centers of clusters, mark seams, mark edge loops. In the last two modes you can mark seams by click and unmark them with CTRL+click. The first mode is something new. You can mark centers of clusters like it is shown on the screenshot:

The next milestones - I want to implement FBX support, texture baking, space mouse support (if I will be able to buy it) May be someone can send to me that mouse? It is so difficult to get it in Ukraine!

I have made new tool - topological symmetry. Sometimes models have no geometrical symmetry, but polygons structure is symmetrical. If it is so you can flip some layer or duplicate layer with symmetry flipping. To define the topological symmetry you should select two faces in that tool. It is better if they are adjacent. But it is not strictly required. They both should be symmetrical to each other.

Also I am working over quick-uv tool. It was done on 60% month ago and then freezed. Now I have decided to finish it, because it could be really useful to perform quick and easy model unwrapping. I think that today or tomorrow I will finish all that stuff and upload the new update.

Also 3D-Brush will become multilingual. Now there is new menu item - Language. You can select 3 languales - english, russian or chinese. It is very easy to add new localisations. So if you want to see 3D-Brush on your native language, yo can help us in this question.

Many bugs was fixed and feature requests was done.

So, please wait for the new update - 2.02 is coming soon!

I have made the update 2.01 sp2. The list of changes

1) 5 types of color pickers - movable and resizable. Recently I have posted screenshot of that pickers.
2) Stability improvements, many bugfixes. I have looked all bug reports that I have received and fixed almost all issues. Thank to all who have sent bug reports to me!
3) Focal shift slider. It is on top panel. Also you can assign that mouse wheel will change it (look Options).
4) Flipping sliders on top panel (Focal depth & smooth degree are also there now). Recently I have written about this in my blog.
5) Storing last folders.
6) Annoying "Factor of depth" dialog during the model export removed
7) Many symmetry issues fixed
8) Now you can make your own custom fill patterns in Fill tool. The screenshots are below.

To create the new fill pattern you should specify texture of bump and texture of color (optional). They will be mapped on object using cube mapping with soft edges. The screenshots below show the difference between usual cube mapping and mapping with soft edges.

In so way you can texturize object seamlessly in very easy way. It is easy to create materials like skin or pores. I have add a sample material - something like dino-skin.
9) There in essential improvement for drawing with materials with cube mapping. The preview has become much more convinient, the cube mapping algoritm is improved so that object will be mapped seamlessly. I have written about it in previous section.
10) Clone tool and Sculpt tool now uses alpha even if it is not round.
11) Fill bugs fixed. There was conflict between Fill tool with depth channel and sculpt mode.
12) 3DB stores window position. When you will close 3DB it stores the window position. When you will run it again it will be restored at the old place.
13) The new option during import - preserve positions. I have written about it in one of previous posts.

The link is below:www.3d-brush.com/files/3d-brush-2-01-sp2-en.exe

I have made focal shift. You can manage it using key '~' or slider on top panel. Do you know what is floating panel? (use '~') It is shown there:




You can also assign focal shift change to mouse wheel in options. But when I have add the focal shift slider to the top panel I have understood that there is too many sliders. So I have made "flipping sliders" - now you can minimize/restore every slider on the top panel like it is shown on the screenshot below. The slider will be replaced with the button with the first letter of slider's name.
Also I have fixed bug when during filling using depth channel there was bugs in Sculpt mode. Also, Color pickers are now resizable and dockable. I have almost done more convinient preview of texture moving using cubic mapping. It was very inconvinient to move/scale texture in cubic mode because when you press RMB the preview of pen disappears. Now there is floating patch over the surface. Another important improvement - cursor shape depends on place where cursor is. Cursor changes it's shape over sliders, navigation controls, flipping sliders, movable windows headers, over surface and so on.

During several days I have replaced standart Windows color picker with the custom one. I have made 5 types if pickers. I like to do something to the end :) The images are below:

The other feateure - import meshes with original positions preserving. Like you know, Catmull-Clark algoritm changes positions of vertices because of smoothing. I have add an option "Preserve positions". In this case in every stage of subdivision points will be moved to them original places using some additional interpolation for new points. This is not 100% solution because sometimes it breaks ideal smoothing, but sometimes it works really good.

Today I plan to make many bugfixes and implement "Focal Shift" for pen.

I am Andrew Shpagin, the developer of 3D-Brush. This is my personal blog devoted to the development of 3D-Brush. This blog is created to give fast and non-official information about 3D-Brush. I will post there daily news, what I am doing now, what features are under development this moment. It could be really interesting for everyone who is interested in 3D-Brush.