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By PhotoSW - 8 Years Ago
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Hello everyone. Many of you know that I have struggled with many of the simpler functions of 3d animation. (Interfaces and meshes to be the biggest). I finally got my first real model done (merged head with another body and painted). A fellow forum member got me turned on to 3DCoat. Thanks Vidi! I promised another I would try Substance painter as well. 3DCoat is awesome and does very high quality stuff. It is so much more than painting, so I am leaving this out there for new IClone users about Substance Painter.
People told me it was more advanced and I should wait to use it. After struggling with that character for a month and 3DCoat painting seeming like I would retain it, I gave Substance Painter a try. All I can say is wow! This is the most simple 3D Program I have used so far. Texturing was amazing and the output of various maps is impressive. They give you several options based upon the animation or gaming platform you are working with.
The maps being labeled for our animation systems would have helped me earlier on especially. This is a new persons dream and I do not think I could ever give this program up. I made 3D lettering for my first video. I played around with the different texturing options and just threw something together. I told everyone here that I would probably not get into quality work right now. WOW, I impressed myself with this program and ten minutes being in it. My first render in Iclone and I am still about to stroke about how well those letters came out and the video in general. I assumed IClone was lower quality after seeing some people note some of its limitations. This looked better than a Pixar film! (Not being cocky about my work, I still don't know what the hell I am doing and it was an intro video 11seconds). I didn't think it was going to produce so well and realized that it was in quick mode and lower quality.
I truly think Substance Painter would be great for anyone new to 3D and IClone and that is not looking to do mesh work. The only issue I had was with the lack of control of painting the maps or on models. I forgot that I also did a whole model on there. It took me quite a bit more time than 3D Coat. I have not tried masking yet in either. 3DCoat does have a nicer "fill" system. Overall, both are great programs, but I thought I would share my experience for others. Both have Black Friday specials right now and heavily discounted. Also, please don't beat your head like I did and thinking your in Iclone is how it will come out looking. You will be shocked!
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By Kelleytoons - 8 Years Ago
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The best thing about 3DCoat are the tools for UV mapping (which Substance Painter does not have). Trust me, you will need those -- it's fine if your model already has UVs, but a lot do not (or they aren't correct) and even using the auto UV mapping from Coat will then give you something you can use in Substance Painter.
The demo of texturing with SP for use in iClone is all anyone really needs to know how powerful it is (or how much they will need it).
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By PhotoSW - 8 Years Ago
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Yes, I am always forgetting about the UVs haha. I am still shocked how well things come out so easily with IClone. Between Substance Painter and 3DCoat, I vow to never touch Zbrush again.
Kelleytoons (11/26/2017)
The best thing about 3DCoat are the tools for UV mapping (which Substance Painter does not have). Trust me, you will need those -- it's fine if your model already has UVs, but a lot do not (or they aren't correct) and even using the auto UV mapping from Coat will then give you something you can use in Substance Painter.
The demo of texturing with SP for use in iClone is all anyone really needs to know how powerful it is (or how much they will need it).
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By justaviking - 8 Years Ago
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Thanks for the great - and balanced - review of the two products.
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By PhotoSW - 8 Years Ago
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Thanks for encouraging me to try it. I need to figure out masking in Substance Painter. I was blown away by the results. I am still happy and it helps after all my struggles lol.
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By VirtualMedia - 8 Years Ago
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Great thread, on the fence about this one, I've found 3DCoat to be an amazing tool for hand painting IC Characters. Could someone kindly elaborate a little further of what if any advantages of having both apps would be for CC and IC? Particularity stylized character design... Would like to take advantage of this offer if it's worthy.
Thanks!
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By Kelleytoons - 8 Years Ago
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Did you watch this tutorial? It's well worth the watch if you are on the fence about Substance Painter:
As for characters -- I can't speak for humans, but I textured my robot using this approach, and in less than five minutes I had a pretty amazing version:
I would not want to be without SP (or 3D Coat, for that matter -- I needed it to unwrap the UV).
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By Jfrog - 8 Years Ago
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Do you known if you need a commercial licence for 3dcoat if you want to use the UV mapping tools for your own Iclone production that you intend to sell?
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By wires - 8 Years Ago
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Jfrog (11/26/2017)
Do you known if you need a commercial licence for 3dcoat if you want to use the UV mapping tools for your own Iclone production that you intend to sell?
According to the information provided on this 3DCoat product page - scroll down to the page bottom -you do require a commercial licence if you wish to sell assets.
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By illusionLAB - 8 Years Ago
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Jfrog (11/26/2017)
Do you known if you need a commercial licence for 3dcoat if you want to use the UV mapping tools for your own Iclone production that you intend to sell?
It's virtually impossible for any software company to enforce any sort of commercial restriction as production pipelines are complicated - especially something like UV mapping which can be handled by dozens of other programs you may already have licenses for. The goal of these sort of restrictions is to stop a Game or VFX company from buying 50 "amateur" licenses because they only need it to do 'simple work'. 3DCoat is such a powerhouse of a tool, that if you're doing 'real' work you will want/need the Professional version anyway - 2K texture and 7 layer limit is their way of making the software almost useless to "the big boys". With the price currently at $279... think of it as $79 for PBR painting, $100 for sculpting/asset creation, $50 for retopo and $50 for UV mapping.
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By Jfrog - 8 Years Ago
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With the price currently at $279... think of it as $79 for PBR painting, $100 for sculpting/asset creation, $50 for retopo and $50 for UV mapping.
I agree that the price is really affordable for someone that use all of its features . I haven't time to look at the software possibility now since I am already all over my head learning
Iclone, 3dxchange , CC Character creator, Hitfilm Pro, Daz studio, The Neuron Axis software, Mocha pro VR, soon to come substance painter,and others... ;)
I spent a lot this month but is this promo about the lowest it gets during the year?
As for characters -- I can't speak for humans, but I textured my robot using this approach, and in less than five minutes I had a pretty amazing version:
Really nice paint job Kellytoons!
Thank you and everybody for your valuable inputs!
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By VirtualMedia - 8 Years Ago
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Thanks for the shares MK, so a workflow would be to export to 3DCoat then export Model / UV's over to SP?
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By justaviking - 8 Years Ago
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@Jfrog: Re commercial license...
An important distinction is selling "content" versus selling "output."
For example, selling a movie you make with iClone is different from selling iClone avatars or props.
That is why you do not need the "Pipeline" version of iClone to make movies, but you do need it to send items into a game engine.
So from what I can tell (based on this thread) you would not need the commercial license.
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By illusionLAB - 8 Years Ago
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3D Coat discount is as good as it gets... I think he usually does a Christmas/New Year's sale too (same price). You can buy the amateur version and always upgrade at a later date. I have both 3D Coat and Substance Painter, and frankly I only use SP for some of it's 'unique features'. 3D Coat is not as pretty of an interface, but the painting is just as comprehensive and, in my opinion, much easier to use - SP needs around three steps for tasks that 3DC does in one. Also, I'm no expert with Substance Painter, but as far as I can tell there is no way to paint 'across' UV maps - the biggest problem being painting across the neck/body joins on CC characters. If someone knows how to do this in SP please share! ;-)
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By justaviking - 8 Years Ago
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It sounds like I should investigate 3D Coat some day, but wow, my head is so full of stuff right now, each time I put something new in, two old things fall out.
It's true that Substance Painter cannot paint across UVs today. They are well aware of it and a aggressively working it, but apparently it requires some significant rewiring of the inner workings.
One thing SP does that's pretty cool, especially if working on large texture sets, is you can work at a low-res (such as 1k) and then export at a higher res (such as 4k or even 8k - though iClone is limited in what it can accept). That's because of the way SP stores your brush strokes, and can recompute them at different resolutions any time you wish. I don't know if 3D Coat does that, but it can really help on system performance.
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By mtakerkart - 8 Years Ago
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Just a precision:
3DCoat non commercial liscence is limited to 2k texture export and 7 layers to work.
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By illusionLAB - 8 Years Ago
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As it happens, 3DC has just had an update to v4.8 which includes painting at 1K and exporting at 4K.
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By Kelleytoons - 8 Years Ago
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VirtualMedia (11/26/2017)
Thanks for the shares MK, so a workflow would be to export to 3DCoat then export Model / UV's over to SP?
You can work any way you want -- if you need UVs (and unless it's a commercial model you will) then you need 3D Coat to generate them. After that you can stay in 3DCoat (as some here like it better) or move to Substance (which is my new favorite painting tool). While I agree the painting can be easier in Coat, SP just has so many cool ways of working with the surfaces and respecting the UVs that for my own work it's much more suitable.
But I'm sure glad I have both -- and with the sales this time of year there is no excuse for anyone serious in 3D work not to get them both.
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By Jfrog - 8 Years Ago
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Thanks for the feedback everybody. I bought 3DCoat!
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