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All I saw is sculpt layers, did I miss something? 
Iâm talking the traditional multi level system that you can go up/down like in zbâŚ
does it have that?
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I have not tried 3D coat, I used Mudbox many many years ago and looks like it got almost no development since then, to become a robust and competitive piece of software.
As of now, I do only sculpting in Blender so I can mention these information for sure.
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For moving vertices around is very useful. Getting out of Mesh Edit mode and going to Sculpt Mode, is like 10x times easier and faster to work on. Rather than selecting vertices and using the transform tool, using the move brush is easier. â The equivalent in 3D Coat I expect to have some fundamental workflows for poly editing, such as subdivide and extrude.
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Sculpting in Blender is destructive. You can start from low poly meshes that are easier to manage and gradually increment the details with multires modifier. But you can only go this way, you canât go back and forth, you canât switch lanes to work in parallel. You better know what youâre doing before you do so. Which means is better to have worked on a project once to see where it fails and then repeat the process on a new project with a clean strategy. Blender lacks this dimensionality, the best thing you can go for is Multires modifier but since is also quite limited (canât be combined with other modifiers / wonât support textured meshes) makes things no better. â So the point is that you canât experiment easily and canât think in more dimensions to allow more complex and interesting techniques, you are stuck in only one workflow and you will have to do all things incrementally and gradually. â So definitely I am interested to see how working with multiple sculpting layers feels in 3D coat.
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Performance in sculpting is good in Blender, but still you will always feel the pressure to keep low polycount. If you give ZBrush in terms of performance a âtenâ then Blender would be a â3â. Some things simply are forbidden in Blender and must be avoided. Such as working on very fine details. â I will need to test the limits of 3D coat as well, not in strict terms, but at least should be quite easy to work with.
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Working with multiple objects in Blender. If you break a piece of work in multiple objects. Things are getting out of hand, regarding the origin of the objects. I donât know at this point if the âoriginâ of objects should be even a thing. It means that you will have to go through lots of tedious steps of fix the origins at some point which is very boring and unproductive. I mean that object origins have their own significance but when it comes to sculpting it just ruins everything, is only just one extra wall of difficult to manage.
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Texturing in Blender or texture painting in Blender is not even there. Aside from very basic pixel painting, is quite OK, to mark some important areas with a marker, at about rough 20% then complete the rest 80% and polish it on some other image painting software. The best thing you can do in this case is to have an auto-image-reload addon and hopefully see the texture updated in Blender as well. I am not saying that Blender should become a âKritaâ but giving it a bit of some 10 more features would make things much better, the 20% would become a 40%. â So in 3D coat I expect definitely better texture painting features. For this reason I had my eyes on Substance painter, but now since is toast 3D coat is almost the best alternative choice.
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With its Voxelsystem there are no classic incrementally built coarser subdivision levels beneath per default, so it has Multires-Proxies instead to acomplish deformations on different levels. Its there in 3DCoat for a pretty long time.
Not sure if and how much the system has improved in the most recent versions.
You might get an impression of it by scrolling through this video:
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Hmm, looks like they need a proper implementation of a multi level system⌠the way they do it is a little weird⌠
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Well yes it feels more convoluted, with its swapping between Voxelmode Surfacemode and ProxyLevels.
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The thing that I like about nomad is that it looks like itâs following the steps of zbrush very closely, without trying to reinvent the wheel or implement weird workflows⌠itâs learning from the best and thatâs it⌠
I wish blender did the same⌠
Damn, it even has the shadowbox⌠heheheâŚ
They should release a desktop appâŚ
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Shadowbox, haha, one of those tools that always feel very powerful, but you almost never use. 
3D-Coat has a really nice Shadowbox equivalent too by the way: the Sketch tool. I can see myself actually using that.
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Exactly⌠HeheheâŚ
Hmm, interesting⌠
⌠and looks like they are doing their best to get some attention⌠
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The multi level system is exactly what they would need. Their devs are capable, Iâm sure. But 3DCoat development felt (yes, past time) very cluttered until about a year or so ago when they overhauled a lot of UI changes and stuff like that. Also, the Voxel mode got a lot faster recently.
I personally think the SubD/MultiRes workflow is what makes ZBrush as powerful as it is. Apart from that and maybe the ZGrab feature or how to create quick alphas, I prefer 3D Coat, actually.
They would need to apply the 80/20 principle to the most used tools tho, streamlining the workflow a bit more instead of giving you every option the program can give you.
Edit: I am currently monitoring the ZBrushCentral forums, and in the thread about ZBrush/Maxon there was this comment by âgremlinâ, a long time ZBrush artist:
The biggest concern a lot of people have is the missing SubD workflow.
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Not multi level but equivalent:
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Yeah, the traditional multi-level subdivision workflow would be very welcome in 3DC, but I work this way now:
- Block out basic forms using primitives and splines.
- Shape the forms in Voxel mode.
- Add details in Surface mode (with very effective dynamic topology refinement).
- Use Autopo or send high-poly mesh to Blender and use Quad Remesher.
- In Blender use Multires and Shrinkwrap modifier to reproject details and do a last round of refinement.
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Jep, I am currently trying to get a figure sculpture done as good as I can in 3D Coat only. 1 and 2 are identical so far, but Iâm trying to use the ProxySliders until I have a feeling that I âmasteredâ them until I go into surface mode. This program is insanely capable.
Quad Remesher was one of the biggest but best investments I ever made for Blender. Such a great retopo tool.
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Sorry me again, i dont like to bother anyone with multipost. excuse me.
sidenote: you can Reproject inside 3DC too, if needed
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Thanks @carlosan. Iâve been viewing 3DC video tutorials all week, and canât get enough of it. Learning is half of the fun, the other half is applying the gained knowledge.
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I hope they implement it soon enough⌠itâs a mustâŚ
Right⌠And I got that same feeling just by looking at some videos posted hereâŚ
I hope 3dc devs will change some of those weird workflows and UI in the futureâŚ
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I just 
the Spline along curves functionality in 3DC. Itâs like ZBrush Insert Mesh Curve brushes, but more controllable.
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Yes I saw this, also he said:
The Pixologic Discord is FULL of Blender Users since the whole Maxon Announcement. they want nothing more than to destroy Zbrush in every aspect, cause they think of Zbrush dies, suddenly Blender Sculpting will âGet Goodâ somehow. anytime anyone even MENTIONS Maxon or Zbrush in there, someone (Usually 3 or 4 people) will pipe up with âBLENDER IS FREEEEEEEE!!â like that makes a difference to anyone who wants to use a Quality product for their job lol.
âŚid rather hit the high seas than use Blender for Sculpting. absolutely TERRIBLE.
Is it necessary to start an app vs app war ? I donât think so, each one has its pros and cons, we use the ones that best suits our creativity. Workflow is the key.
As he said later: Well, im currently buying 3DCoat, cause i figure its just one more tool in my belt. even if i donât use it for anything but Retopology, but i donât see it being better, or even nearly as good as Zbrush, sorry but just my opinion. id rather keep my 2022 license till something MASSIVLY better comes along, than downgrade to sculpting with 3DCoat for no reason. i mean, i got everything i need in 2022 anyway.
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I didnât agree with everything he said or I wouldâve clearly stated so. Maybe the current workflow IS actually better, but nevertheless I couldnât really figure it out as easily and I used 3D Coat before ZB. I think you might have read and heard lots of users ânot really getting itâ over the years. Like I said a few posts ago, I think Pilgway goes in the right direction now.
Itâs not about app vs app for me, I just want to continue my work and finally got to the point where I can make my clients happy with good quality sculpts in a specific time frame, but in ZBrush. Weâll see. Been sculpting all day in 3D Coat and itâs great. Just trying to find my way through it.
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this is a very valid point. I basically did the same after Softimage died (2015).
Kept using it until 2019 - until Houdini provided more pros than cons compared to it. Still miss it, but i also fell in love with Houdini.
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