Intro to 3d Coat: [Retopo Tools and Tips] 

Yeah that's fair, these are some of my oldest tutorials and it's reaching the point where I should just remove them as with each new 3DC release there's more things that get changed.

Thank you for the kind words! I'll be doing more 3d coat stuff soon, is there anything in particular you think you'd benefit most from seeing?

Hey Todd, first of all thank you very much! If I'm understanding you correctly then there are a few ways you could approach this: First up is relying on auto-retopo features (instant meshes recommended), a few tries in either auto or manual mode can usually yield very passable results. This isn't pre-defined of course, as it means making a new mesh for each of your deformations, but if you can work like this, it would probably be the quickest. For a predefined retopo mesh that needs to change based on deformations. This would be easy if you're making the sculpt deformations afterwards, since 3d coat's move tool has a "Conform to retopo mesh" option. So you start with a sphere, make a retopo of it (import, manually model, or auto-retopo), then go back to the sculpt room, use the move tool and enable the "Conform to retopo mesh" checkbox in the upper menu. Now when you deform the sculpt, the retopo will follow. If your deformations are already done, say you've got 6 blobby looking sphere sculpts already made, it gets a bit trickier to do this solely in 3d coat if your end result is wanting to use the same retopo sphere. You can change retopo meshes in the tweak room, but only if they're already baked, or imported. So not super ideal for what you want by the sounds of it. If this last option is what you need, let me know and I will try to go into a bit more detail for how you could do it. Also if I'm way off the mark here, feel free to throw more details at me.

@@PolyToots thank you very much for taking the time for such a detailed response. I very much appreciate it. I will give those a try and see if it gets me where I need to be.

Glad you liked it!

Radial symmetry can be quite fiddly, you have to make sure your object is centred to the symmetry (having it centred to the world is the easiest way to do this) or if your shape allows for it, use the "pick from bound box" option in the symmetry pop-up (S-key). Then just make sure you're using the correct axis.

@@PolyToots How do I make sure I'm using the correct axis and how do I center my object to the world? I pressed "pick from bound box", but the program is still ignores the symmetry I turned on.

I have the same issue only one point appears even though I see 32 segments.

@@tomoprime217 I think in another comment Kim Jong said this was fixed by disabling Virtual Mirror Mode (somewhere in the symmetry menu at the top bar I think). Honestly I'm not even sure why that feature exists, it's the cause of so many issues to begin with.

PolyToots I could not find the setting you mentioned. What’s odd is that even though I only see one point at a time if I draw four and make a quad it then draws symmetry. However there is a tiny gap between the adjacent face edges as if I am seeing duplicated vertices. Thanks for trying to help on day like today.

Can you point to a bit in the video where I'm doing something that isn't working for you? Can't quite work it out from your description.

@@PolyToots Sorry for being so vague, I attached a screenshot of what I meant to explain it a bit better: imgur.com/a/PKyy42v So, in your video at about 4:27, you seem to be able to kind of snap vertices in between the mirrors, but for me it just feels like the vertices get to exactly the point where I click, so the vertices just float loosely. I even tried to find some way of trying to move the vertices to make them snap but I can't seem to get that working. I did notice that my mirror snapping wasn't 100% in the video, but even increasing this to 100% didn't seem to work for me.

@@buddhathegod I have the same problem

Pretty strange, is your symmetry origin point offset a bit perhaps?

I think I was having a similar problem. The solution for me was to turn off 'virtual mirror mode' in the retopo menu (you won't see the menu unless you're in the retopo workspace), and to use the 'quads' tool instead

Hey, that sounds a lot like your symmetry axis might be incorrect, try switching it. You'll only have 3 options, X, Y or Z... one of them has to be right! There's also the possibility that your symmetry origin isn't in the right place, this can happen if the object isn't at the root of the world (0,0,0). I'd be willing to bet that a combination of the transform tool (and resetting positions) and the symmetry pop-up window can solve the problem you're having. But I can't go into specifics without seeing your exact issue. Feel free to upload images or a video if you're still getting stuck, and I'll take a look for sure.

It's hard to explain haha :D drive.google.com/file/d/1o_8SNl2j6kpzJ8XxbPCTkV3i3-aUhRjB/view?usp=sharing tell me if you need another video format to watch it The position in world is 0,0,0

Thanks! I think I know what it is, if you go to your Retopo menu at the top, make sure "Use Virtual Mirror" isn't turned on. When you disable it, it will remove any symmetrical geometry you've created on that layer, but from that point on, you should be all good! Hope this is the solution.

Thanks! That was the solution :)

Another question, what are you pressing to split the Faces at 7:08 ?

Hey Kim, in the retopo room look for a "Virtual Mirror Mode" in one of the drop down menus at the top of the screen (I forget which one it is in). That might be causing you some issues. Otherwise your best bet is to ask on the 3d coat forums.

I did not import anything. The "VoxTree" contains the sculpt layers, created in 3d coat. Nothing imported.

Nobody should be telling you that only I can help, that doesn't make any sense. You've got a weird issue that is either user error or a bug. The only thing I can think of is your object scale, or the scene measurements, or some snapping option (no idea what) But I really don't know man. I'm sorry you're encountering this issue, but I'm not the guy who can help you, as you can see in my video, it works fine for me.

No it's been built in to 3d coat by default for a while now. What version are you on?

@@PolyToots I use latest version 4.9.02 I've installed it 2 weeks ago. Other issue is 3D Coat crashes each time I want to do AUTOPO ;/

@@grzegorzwiecek7413 Hmm, sounds like they've broken something with the update then! If you have time, I recommend going onto the forums and letting them know about your issues.

@@PolyToots Thank you, by the way I like your tutorials a lot ;) have a good day !!

did you ever find a fix for this?