I have been using Cinema 4D for quite a while now and I can’t live with the fact, that it doesn’t export multiple UV sets.
What I want to know from you Cheetah and Modo users is: which programs integrates best with Unity, concerning texture baking, multiple UV setups, animation etc.
Do they offer they same functionality concerning game development or is one of them missing something important?
PS: I would love to test Modo, but they don’t offer a demo yet…
I had a tour around the Modo website the other day, partly due to the same reasons. (I have the full C4D package, but also find Bodypaint a bit unwieldy and lacking when it comes to UV functions).
However, as far as I can tell, Modo only offers extremely basic animation functionality, an area where C4D has matured in recent years.
Is this true, or is it simply missing from their website? Are there other worthy alternatives (besides Maya, which I’ve never really liked)?
I also have the full Cinema bundle, but only the inexpensive educational version…
Cheetah is interesting because it’s so much cheaper, and for the 129 bucks it costs, you can use it commercially.
Bodypaint is okay, but in my last project I badly missed some basic functions. The automatic functions are great but if something has to be done by hand → :x
Here’s a link to a thread about this topic, and there you’ll find a link to a public beta of the new Cheetah3d update, which includes texture baking/lightmap capabilities. I haven’t tried it yet, but people are pretty happy with it. Cheetah also does multiple UV sets that import into Unity.
I have both C4D and Cheetah and have had the same C4D issue with multiple UV sets. I can tell you that Cheetah’s character animation is GREAT! And it integrates seamlessly with Unity. Cheetah is all-around easy to use. Anyway, here’s the link:
Yea I commented on that to Martin (the save issue for the demo) before I bought it and I guess he’s comfortable with the current system. BUT anyway I did buy it and I think you should just go ahead and get it, you won’t be disappointed. It integrates excellently with Unity, and if you read the Help system completely its quite simple to use. However, I haven’t used Modo, so I don’t know if it’s any better, but compared to Lightwave which is what I had before Cheetah is a dream.
Yes, it’s a joint-based system. The only thing I haven’t tried is to create a ragdoll in the ragdoll wizard using character joints. I’m curious to know if this is possible, if anyone’s tried it yet? Or are the character joints to be treated like hinge joints and set up for ragdoll-ness outside the wizard? But that’s another thread topic…
No native Unity support for modo, afaik. Does modo inport / export FBX? Collada?
The latest Cheetah features are great, and the Unity integration works beautifully. Martin has done an amazing job; he deserves huge kudos, and big sacks of money.
But for me, Blender is the master tool. Yes, the curve is a bit steeper, and the interface is not for everybody, but it’s worth every bit of time you spend with it. Runs everywhere, mature and stable, very deep featureset, and of course, it’s free as in speech and beer. And the FBX exporter supports skeletal animation. What’s not to like?
What an amazing piece of software… I guess I’ll have the full version tomorrow… still testing
Concerning Modo the manual says: “Unity imports from Modo through their pipelining features using fbx. In Modo 201, simply save your modo scene as an .fbx file to the project folder.”
But no animations so far. Maybe with the next major update?
OK we use Modo here. I have found that its Unity pipeline is equal IMO to Maya’s. It’s FBX exporter works, it supports 2 UVs seamlessly. It has the best baking pipeline full-stop. Better then any other app I’ve used.
The new features in 301 are great… buuut… it’s animation support is very basic. Channel based animation only, no bones. It does support the MDD format for baking point animation in other apps. But in my tests that point animation isn’t baked down and exported out in the FBX export process. So Unity can’t use it at all. But if all you need to do is basic hard-body animation, like doors opening, boxes bouncing, etc, etc then Modo 301 is a great tool. Because it supports painting, sculpting, baking, fantastic UV editing… and it’s modeling is at least equal to Lightwave’s Modeler, and it plays nice with Unity. No problems.
However, if you need character animation… then maybe Cheetah is the best compromise between power, cost, and Unity integration.
For Character animation and baking, cheetah was made for unity. Theres also a few features which superceed Maya too. For example cheetahs split tool lets you copy faces to create a new object in a single click, and its vertex weighting tool is 5x easier to use than Maya.
It currently doesnt have particle effects and I dont think it has inbuilt physics, but for game dev, unity does all that anyway.
But yeah like I said for animating characters? A dream come true. Multiple UVs? easy, though Maya might have a couple of fancy tools that cheetah doesnt have there.
I use Zbrush, Silo, and Cheetah for my pipeline. But Modo 301 looks like it could combine my Silo/Zbrush needs into one app.
I love Silo’s low poly work flow and I wrote the Zbrush tutorial for EZ ZShpere Hands “with decent topography” so I’m going to stick with what I own for the mean time.
Oh and Cheetah is a pleasure to use - once you set up your short cuts. And learn about the dragging features around in the GUI to apply things. A bit of a secrete work flow - but works nice.
I am with polytropol, go with Blender. Modo and Cheetah are both very nice modellers, but if you want full character animation abilities neither of them will do. Blender has everything you will need for game character creation. Very good modelling and UV tools, great animation controls and a perfect workflow with Unity. And it is not only free but also Open Source, multiplatform, very stable and very customizable.
You will read a lot of complaints about the default Blender UI, as I myself did at first. But if you are seriously looking for a good 3D aplication, just spend some time learning how it works (there are a lot of tutoriales about Blender) and you will find it is really well designed, and a pleasure to work with it once you get it. And I needed much more time to get used to Maya than to Blender.
I picked up the joints/vertex weight painting and animation in all of a matter of minutes. Not to mention my animations go directly into Unity no problem.
Being as new as they are, Cheetah basic animation tools are very well designed, but both the key editor and the f-curve editor are currently lacking some kind of hierarchical view of all the keyframed bones, the ability to copy/paste keyframes and groups of them, and some symetry tools for the animation (copy and paste reversed). And the f-curve editor would also need to allow the user to actually edit the curves with control points and handles, just like any bezier tool does.
Those are some animation tools essential for good character animation. Blender gives them all to you, and then a lot more. And the animations goes into Unity with no problems too: currently by exporting to fbx, but I bet directly for next Unity 2.
Gus you can use handles in the fcurve editor in cheetah, and affect the tangents of animation curves, but your right about the hieracal view of all keyframed objects.
I believe thats called a dopesheet, and is on Martins todo list, along with an overhaul of the materials system, which will be interesting, as the current one works great.
Ops, my fault, I am sorry. It is true, you can use splines in the f-curve editor. But the lack of a dopesheet (Action window in Blender) is still the main issue.
Cheetah is all-around easy to use. Anyway, here’s the link: