3DCoat (AKA: 3D-Coat) is a digital sculpturing software (from Ukraine) that is specially designed for the art design work (i.e., details design) of game models. It not only integrates various real-time 3D model texture mapping and detail sculpture functions in one place, but also supports topology, volume sculpture, hardware rendering, and other important features. Moreover, it uses the normal mapping as window display technique, which greatly accelerates the speed to view and edit objects.

The most distinctive function in 3DCoat’s extended functionality is the convenient topology. Unlike ZBrush, 3DCoat’s topology supports a variety of manners. In addition, although 3DCoat’s UV mapping feature is not as convenient as some specialized UV software, it has already been pretty good compared with ZBrush and Autodesk Mudbox. Plus, the layer mapping function of 3DCoat is quite powerful too, at least it is much better than Mudbox and ZBrush.

As of writing this post, 3DCoat remains active updates, so that you will find that its official introduction content has been out of date. For another, its frequent update indicates that it is difficult to predict what kind of digital sculpturing/painting software it will finally become in the future.

// Key Features //

Feature	List
Easy Texturing & PBR	Microvertex, Per-pixel or Ptex painting approaches Realtime Physically Based Rendering viewport with HDRL Smart Materials with easy set-up options Multiple paint Layers. Popular blending modes. Layer groups Tight interaction with Photoshop Texture size up to 16k Fast Ambient Occlusion and Curvature map calculation Rich toolset for all kind of painting tasks, and more…
Digital Sculpting	No topological constraints. Sculpt as you would with Clay Complex boolean operations. Fast kit bashing workflow Adaptive dynamic tesselation (Live Clay) Dozens of fast and fluid sculpting brushes Boolean operations with crisp edges 3D Printing Export Wizard
Ultimate Retopo Tools	Auto-retopology (AUTOPO) with user-defined edge loops Fast and easy-to-use manual Retopo tools Possibility to import reference mesh for retopologization Retopo groups with color palette for better management Advanced baking settings dialog
Fast & Friendly UV Mapping	Professional toolset for creating and editing UV-sets Native Global Uniform (GU) unwrapping algorithm Multiple UV-sets support and management Support ABF, LSCM, and Planar unwrapping algorithms Individual islands tweaking Lastly, it is fast, easy, and fun to use

// Official Demo Video //

// Edition Statement //

AppNee provides the 3DCoat Professional Edition multilingual full installers and unlocked files, as well as portable full registered versions for Windows 64-bit, and Mac.

// Installation Notes //

for v2024.26 on Windows:

1. Download and install 3DCoat
2. Block this program with your firewall
3. Run program, click ‘Load License‘, and open the license file
4. Done

for Setup on Windows:

1. Download and install 3DCoat
2. Copy the unlocked file(s) to installation folder and overwrite
3. Done

// Prompts //

• DirectX version of 3DCoat runs faster on slower video cards
• OpenGL version of 3DCoat runs faster on Quadro, GeForce 4xx video cards

// Related Links //

• 3DCoat Official Gallery
• 3DCoat video tutorials
• 3DCoat Online Documentation
• 3DCoat v4.0 User Manual (PDF)

// Download URLs //

License	Version	Download	Size
for Windows
Professional Edition	v4.9.74	reserved	n/a
	v2024.26		858 MB
for Mac
Professional Edition	v4.8.32	reserved	847 MB

*** v2022.52+ only supports Windows 10+.

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