blender is free and i can do many things with it like modelling, preparing uv mapping, texture painting and unity integration. if i have buy another software like lightwave, will i have myself more comfortable on doing this processes? i am asking this question to who used both blender and another software. i know there are many threads asking which one better. many messages are from who use just one software and they say it is better. i expect hearing something like “i can model a human face faster with maya”, “i can paint a body with lightwave”.
if i will quit blender, i want to use new software for a long time, because learning takes long time.if you do not use all features of your software, you do not use full power of it. maya and 3dmax are about $3000. lightwave is $1500. does it worth to pay this?
Its a balance between various things that will vary between people. Your budget, existing knowledge of using certain software, and exact feature requirements are key, along with personal preferences as to what sort of user interface works best for you.
Blender has plenty of features these days, so the first question is what you need from another package that you cannot achieve in blender. Try other packages and see if they seem easier to use, and whether the features and increased ease of use justify the spending of quite a lot of money.
Personally I tend to have more time than money, so my tool choices so far, as a mac user are Cheetah3D, blender, Groboto and Zbrush. I would probably have saved up to buy a higher end 3D package by now except I haven’t needed to yet, and quite a number of the more exciting and sophisticated features that high-end packages have to bring 3D scenes to life are not really very suitable for creating assets to be used for realtime 3D anyway. But one killer feature may be enough to justify the price for some people, e.g. if you want to get into making a lot of great character animations then having powerful tools to do the job makes a lot of sense.
A lot of people are going to recommend a particular app because they have invested time and money into it themselves and they are very comfortable with how to do certain things in it.
The other major consideration comes down to team situations, when you have other people working on your 3D assets their own choice of file formats, applications and workflows needs to be taken into account.
Like elbows said: If you’re working in a team you might want to consider which software fits you the most in a different way than as an idividual. Blender absolutely has the capabilitiers to be used in a team. If you’re in need of the .max format - then there you go. Anyways:
If you are familiar with a software then it will probably your weapon of choice. May it be blender or anything else. You should not expect to be able to work faster and more efficient just because you paid big bucks for something. Maybe you dislike Blender and simply love Modo for example. Then go for Modo. It’s difficult to say, though. Every (and I mean every) 3D software has different advantages and disadvantages over the others. Be it modeler, rigging tools, animation, texturing, the price, the documentation, stability … every has it’s own problems and awesome features.
If you want an awesome modeler: take a look ad modo
If you want easy to get into software: Cinema - also runs solid as a rock but is behind current tech in some places - especially materials. i also find the modeler to be a bit clunky. Still I’m a C4D user and I like it very much so far. Certainly has it’s lacks but so far I can live with them.
If you want complete features and can live with an overwhelming feature set to learn: Maya or Max (also expensive) - at least Max comes at cost of stability, as well.
Seriously. Go and try the separate demos. And take your time for each one - don’t download them all at once. You’ll be using one or two at best and never get into it.
Another approach would be to have a look at the features on the various sites and then go to an independant forum (this one, Polycount, CGSociety, …) and ask about the specific features. Then try and decide.
Personally I’d say: If you’re going to spend money don’t just go for Lightwave because it’s commercian and thus has to have advantages over blender. That’s the wrong approach. If you’re going to spend money check you fancts and then decide based on your bank account
my main purpose is to prepare assets to unity. i model, i prepare uv map and use them in unity. i am 39 now. when i was around 20 i learned 3ds max intermediate level. i studied 3d, opengl programming at university. for 6 months i study blender and for 9 months unity seriously. i want to make iphone/ipad games. at this level blender is enough for me. in fact i have no much time to use and compare others. 1 years ago i examined both unity and udk for 1 month. then i decided to buy unity and i am still happy with it. i am happy because my profession is software programmer and unity is perfect as object oriented programming. now i have no time to make such comparison for blender and max,maya.
i have these tools;
Unity IOS Pro
Blender 2.62
Photoshop Elements 9
iMac/Mac OS
@elbow,
why do you use both blender and cheetah 3d? for me learning 2 different gui and shortcut system is bad.
ZBrush has good features. can you use everything generated by zbrush in blender or in unity?
character animation is important for me.with rigging and using ri shapes animation is not so easy. do you suggest better?
@motionblur
yes what i want is a powerful weapon and you are right, spending money is not my main objective
i also compare project list of these products. lightwave have several big film projects. i know no big production that blender is used.
i also believe that even you have a Ferrari, a better driver with worse car can win the race.
Edit: also what is important for me to use software on both windows and macos. i personally use macos at home.but at work i have windows. blender is good for this. it is free and multi platform.
I ended up using both Cheetah 3D and blender because it was quite a long time ago and I really hated the older blender user interface. So I learnt Cheetah fairly well. But as there are certain things that blender can do better than Cheetah, and blender UI is not so bad these days, I have reason to use it sometimes.
Zbrush is brilliant for doing certain things. It depends what you are trying to model, how you like to construct models (is sculpting more appealing to you than more traditional techniques), do you like to paint your models in the way zbrush allows? There is a thread about how to use brush to create 3d assets that are suitable for use with Unity, it requires some careful consideration and learning a few things about getting suitable low-poly models normal maps out of zbrush, and the zbrush user interface is a bit wacky in places. You could do certain types of animation in zbrush but its mostly not at all ideal for that sort of thing, I would expect most people take their models into another package to rig animate them.
I still don’t think you have explained exactly what features you need that makes you look for another package at this stage. If its character animation then yes there are some packages that have very good tools, but I think that this sort of thing is still quite a difficult area for lots of people to deal with, it takes certain skills and probably lots of time and patience no matter what package you are using.
@elbows
i agree that blender interface is better with version 2.5.
my workflow is model,prepare uv,rig,animate. i dont complaint about blender. i just to know what gains me on choosing another tool.
its look like i should go on blender and improve till i have a bottleneck using blender.
Yes it has worked with Unity for a very long time, and Unity even supports cheetahs own 3d file format (although fbx’s exported from cheetah should also work and retain their rigging and bone animation). I found it easier to use than blender, but people vary and I still ended up buying some training videos when I wanted to learn stuff like character rigging properly with Cheetah3D.
So much depends on exactly what you are trying to do with the software that I find it a bit hard to give definitive answers. For example right now I am going back to blender because I want to bake some fluid animation into a series of meshes and then use them in Unity, but I really doubt that this is something people do very often for use in realtime 3d games etc.
Certainly when starting out with this stuff or wanting to take it to the next level, I think gaining sound knowledge about a variety of important aspects of 3D modelling animation for use in realtime 3d applications is more important than what tools you choose to achieve this, and I would not want to spend any large sums of money until I knew about the important issues and workflows. For example as well as the bone-based animation, there is also animation that is not handled by bones, but rather morph targets (also known as blend shapes). Unity doesn’t really support this directly, but there are scripts and packages on the asset store which can handle these sorts of animations, and its a good idea to find out about these Unity solutions and what 3D packages they work well with. MegaFiers is what I use, and finding the right tools workflow for working on models, rigging them and doing bone animations, and then being able to add morph-based animation for things like facial animation, and how to control all of this in Unity, has been a very valuable learning experience for me. I was very happy to find ways to do it all without spending out big $ on other 3D apps, Id rather spend the money in the Unity Asset store adding functionality to the realtime environment
I would be very happy, but doubt that pure BMesh integration will make modeling better in Blender this fast. BMesh is the code base where future tools can build on. But those tools needs to be developed first. I need existing tools to work with though, not promises. How long fulfilling promises can last can be seen at BMesh itself. It was promised to be integrated since years, it was the Duke of Blender development.The good news is that they start to merge it into the trunk now. Which is finally somehow close and in reach, but still not final.
All big 3D packs have demo versions. Try them. Have a look if you are comfortable with and what benefits you have from using them. Watch modeling videos from the different packages. Nothing better than own opinion and experience.
Hm… since you have some programming skills, I personally would recommend you to try is… Houdini
But to say more…I’m in some kind similar situation. Now I’m using Blender
(and I know it from version 1.63 or 1.43 - when C-key was required for raytracing mostly for UV’s,
creating rigs, and character animations. But after this years with blender I’m a bit tired.
But don’t get me wrong - it’s a great piece of software. But in my opinion there’s many features that are
incomplete, added because “rest of the world” has it. Ok… UV unwraping is great in blender (maybe best)
But now I’m thinking about some other software, that is more “complete”, and since I personally don’t like 3ds max,
XSI was in my mind. But when i tried Houdini (free apprentice version - without FBX export) I changed my mind.
Commercial version (Escape) without particles, fluids and physics costs - $1995, full $6695 but what is more important
is the philosophy behind It could be very effective for creating assets for games but with a different approach.
And programing skills can’t take it to another level. Most important thing is procedural approach.
You can always go back in what you created, change it and watch different result.
And no, it’s not a 3ds max modifier stack It’s much more, but my english is to weak to explain this
When (soon !) version 12 is out I try to raise some money to buy Escape
But as the others said, the best way is to try the free version - of course available for Mac OS too
Node-based procedural stuff can be quite interesting, and a good fit if your brain works that way, and for some tasks more than others. Some of Houdini’s most visually wonderful features are not especially well suited to creating assets for games, but Im sure some of the Houdini tools would fit. Those aspects, such as character animation and modelling are not the bits of Houdini that I know much about, Ive got more experience with a realtime offshoot of Houdini called Derivative Touch Designer.
Yes mariusz, that’s true… There are free versions of XSI and Houdini, just as long as the OP’s not doing any commercial work. He could look into either Houdini Apprentice, or XSI Mod Tool as his alternative options to Blender if he so chose to.
Of course, for the next few days, I believe DAZ was still offering Hexagon, DAZ Studio 4 Pro, and Bryce 7 Pro free if he needed those to help him…those in tandem, should be pretty good for what he’s wanting to do. See no problem with that route, either.
and you are right, spending money is not my main objective