I've published a video about texturing this sword on YouTube, so you can check it out!

https://youtu.be/JeEt613hBpM?si=l3wLdGZEz6cI6Amx
mila-?

https://youtu.be/JeEt613hBpM?si=l3wLdGZEz6cI6Amx

https://youtu.be/JeEt613hBpM?si=l3wLdGZEz6cI6Amx

Hello everyone!

I have just posted a 5 hour tutorial on carving/sculpting an African Mask in 3D Coat on my YouTube channel. Basically it covers sculpting, retopology, UV mapping, painting and baking in 3D Coat and ends with setting up a 5 second model spin in Autodesk Maya.

Please find the tutorial here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLc3rTNpK7xhA

I created it to address a perceived shortage of learning materials about 3D Coat as well as I thought some of the techniques I present may be of interest to some in the community.

I hope this tutorial will help and inspire you to create great work and even tutorials of your own to show the community.

Please enjoy!

Disasterous-Bobcat528

Hello! I’m quite new to this sub but I have been on and off the fence about getting 3dcoat for a while now. I started out as a 3D artist but working in technical 2D currently, so I want to get back to it again. I really like the handpainted art style and thinking of investing in 3dcoat to upskill myself.

I heard textura is good enough for this purpose but I would also like to get a software for sculpting because blender has its limitations and maxon sucks. Has anyone tried sculpting in 3dcoat? How was your experience with it vs blender?

Like the title says I used the 3D coat trial month to clean up a 3D scanned Triceratops and T-Rex skull. Took me a while to figure out the UI but I really liked the tools once I got the hang of it. Not a huge fan of the camera smoothing on the timelapse but I cut together a video of the usable parts lol

I spent extra time during the ZugZug competition rigging and animating the character. The rig was created using the Rigify plugin, which proved quite convenient for setting up additional bones. I switched the renderer from Marmoset to Blender, as creating an animated ethereal glow on the blade in Marmoset was difficult, while in Blender, animating the UV shift was sufficient.

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/WX4B4y
https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/lady-stoneheartcatelyn-stark-4e08d398df1e476bbb57c0a490f1201c

Made this sword based on a Pinterest concept, took around a week. My main focus wasn't sculpting or retopo, but practicing hand-painted texturing. CC is welcome!

#3dartist #stylizedart #gamedev #indiedev #substancepainter #propdesign #fantasyart #modelingsword #polycount #speedpaint #render #blender3d #handpaint #3dprop #cgiart

Hey everyone, I wanted to share the hand-painted texture work I did in 3DCoat for my stylized character project, Soul Mentor.

The goal was to keep the painted readability of the original concept while making the materials work inside Unreal Engine: armor, skin, cloth, tubes, glass dome, and emissive parts.

I used 3DCoat mainly to build the hand-painted color/value pass and refine the material separation before bringing everything into the final Unreal setup.

Full project breakdown here: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/zx2AZQ?notification_id=8160457774

Feedback is welcome, especially from anyone working with stylized or hand-painted character textures.

It has been a frustrating journey, and with my licence almost up, I thought I would just rant and feel a little better.

Not like people are actually going to read this (currently showing 300 weekly views with 9 weekly contributions on this forum), but if you're a dev, indulge me for a moment.

I mean well, and I really want 3DCoat to be up there with other software like Maya and ZBrush, but there are some basic Non-Negotiable things that you've gotten wrong that, in my opinion, make users like me not want to invest further and renew their licence. (full disclosure, i won't)

I also know that with everything going on because of the war, things are not easy for you. But after all, this is paid software, and as a paying customer, I do have the right to express my opinion (hopefully politely).

So here's what I think.

1. Finding information about 3DCoat is an absolute nightmare.

I've spent most of my one-year licence either not using the software because I couldn't figure out why something wasn't working, or watching tutorials that are 10–12 years old and then having to watch another and another caz what i was looking for was not covered. The tooltips are inconsistent and often poorly explained (hover over Blob and tell me what you see).
Even your own AI chatbot gives answers for older versions of 3DCoat and regularly points to options that don't even exist anymore. It's frustrating to spend money on a software, and then spend months searching for basic information on how to use it. Just try searching for the Bas-Relief tool and see how much useful information you can actually find. Litterally 2 videos on youtube, one of which is called BARRELIEF and I still didnt understand what it does.

1. The UI layout is absolutely terrible.

Sure, you eventually get used to it, but for 2026 I think it's unacceptable. It feels like every new feature added over the years was just shoved somewhere into the UI without much thought, and the result is a hot mess. Settings are scattered everywhere. Some are in the top bar, some are hidden in menus, some are on the right panel, and others only appear when you select a specific tool. Example: The UV tools —you don't even see many of the options until you click on a UV tool, and they don't even look like a submenu. Don't even get me started about UV sets. When something stops working, you end up playing detective trying to figure out which setting you accidentally changed. The software makes simple things more complicated than it should be.

1. Unable to completely reset settings.

In other software, resetting a value is often as simple as deleting it, leaving it blank and it automatically reverts to Default. For someone new to 3DCoat, this is vital. Being able to easily reset to the default should be available everywhere because it's easy to accidentally change a setting and then forget about it. I know that some settings can be reset by right-clicking and selecting "Reset to Default," but this isn't consistent across the software. Some settings don't seem to reset properly at all.
For example, I accidentally changed the AUTOPO "Capture Details" setting from 50% to 100% and completely forgot about it. It would usually take less than a minute (with 50% set as the value) but then now the software to hang for any Autopo (caz it was set to 100%). I tried resetting everything to default, but the setting never changed back. It was only after asking ChatGPT what the default value was that I realized what the problem had been. That litterally took me 2days to figure out. A reset should actually reset everything.

1. Let's talk about another UI disaster. If you accidentally close the Material Preview window, turning it back on requires going to Edit then Preferences then Viewport and unchecking "Hide Material Preview." For something that is almost mandatory when texturing, that makes no sense to have to go to preferences to have it turned on. Then there's the whole Shaders vs Smart Materials situation. Having two separate systems that seem to do very similar things is confusing, especially for new users. You can use shaders in the Sculpt Room, but not in the Paint Room, while Smart Materials work differently again. Why not just have one unified system? It feels like unnecessary complexity where things could be much simpler and easier to understand.

2. This is, in my opinion, the biggest problem with 3DCoat.

A few years ago, I remember seeing videos promoting 3DCoat as an all-in-one solution for asset creation. Now I'm seeing videos questioning whether 3DCoat can sustain itself long-term. There is a reason why even people making tutorials will do either or - model in 3dcoat and then go to substance painter or model in another sofware and then come to 3dcoat to texture. Something must be wrong somewhere right?
I recently found out that 3DCoat has been commissioning artists to create tutorials and artwork, which is great, but I think the bigger priority should be fixing the learning resources. Hire someone to completely overhaul the tutorial page. Create proper playlists for each room that walk users through every tool and explain what the settings actually do. From what I've seen in comments and discussions, I think most users would rather see the existing version improved and properly documented than get another batch of new features. (That said, the upcoming procedural texturing feature does look very promising.)

My biggest fear is that if the community remains small, it points to a lack of funding, which ultimately increases the risk of the software either being bought by a larger company or being shut down altogether.

And yes, I used AI to shorten and proofread this, so if you actually made it to the end, you didn't have to suffer through my original wall of text.

Ok thank you for listening.
(I'm probably gonna start going back to Plasticity and good old blender but if i dont say anything, then how will you know, Mr. Dev)

Cheers!!

Made a little lesson in the modeling room

For this month's ZugZug studio contest dedicated to the A Song of Ice and Fire universe, I redesigned Lady Catelyn Stark as a Heartless. In the books, she's transformed into a living dead woman, resurrected from a painful death and thirsting for revenge for her family. I didn't base my work on her appearance in the show, but created my own, incorporating recognizable features. I used a previously unfamiliar handpainting technique, which I really enjoyed—it's a shame I haven't used it for most of my career. In my portfolio on ArtStation you can find additional angles, as well as an interactive presentation from Sketchfab. (https://www.artstation.com/artwork/WX4B4y)
The results of the competition are not yet known - it has been extended until the 12th, so there is still time to finish something, but I hope that I will catch the attention of the competition organizers - it would be really cool to win something using a new texturing technique for me

Hey all,

I bought a 3D Coat license a while back because it looked like a tool that could do it all, but I haven't had time to use / learn it properly. Now I need to...

I've started a game project and want to use 3D Coat for hard-surface modeling, props, characters, and texture painting. I'm looking for a course or tutorial series that's to the point. I need to kind of apply it straightway. and I don't want to spend weeks watching videos 😃

I do scifi/alien stuff with it. I am seasoned 3d artist. I kind of know the basics of 3dcoat, but id like to use it right from get go.

Any recommendations? Paid or free, both fine. Bonus points if you've personally gone through it.

Thanks.