Archive notice: This article was originally published on July 3, 2015. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
The first major new feature is Physically Based Rendering in 3D-Coat – PBR – explained by the makers of 3D-Coat) takes the properties of the material into account during rendering, for example diffusion.Thus metals and non-metals reflect differently – you can check this by looking at your reflection in the coffee spoon and your reflection in the notepad. (If you see a reflection in your paper notepad, we recommend a holiday, new glasses or a visit to your trusted psychologist Ed.)
The new materials are always available during texturing and cover a broad range of applications. Important: Materials in 4.5 leave the materials from the last release – 4.1 – untouched, and vice versa. This works with a new file extension – .pbrm instead of .xml. Old materials can, however, also be imported easily under Edit->Convert Materials.
The symmetry control has moved on a generation – all tools can now also work symmetrically if desired, and the symmetry dialogue is now dockable – so it is always to hand.
Other features include seamless painting across several UV meshes and AntiBump smoothing even for “high-frequency” details (e.g. exaggerated with the Noise Modifier ;) ). Compatibility/GGX/Blinn-Phong shading is now available in the Paint Room, along with HDR support for panoramas and more. Further information and a trial version at 3d-coat.com
