I want to seriousely learn how to model to create my game assets (levels, props and characters). I own Lightwave 9.6 and already played around with it a bit, but not seriousely. Also, I did some tuts in blender, and also went ok with it (no probs with it’s UI).
Now I don’t know which I should really learn. Both of them “feel” ok to me; I can imagine to get along with either of the two.
However, I read here in the forums that Lightwave has a few shortcomings when it comes to exporting to unity (FBX). Specifically, I read that it does not support multiple UVs. What does that mean? I know, it means not being able to export more than one UV map, but what are multiple UVs used anyways? Which other shortcomings do either of the two have and what does it mean? I am looking for little explanations.
Then for the learning part: To learn how to model, texture and animate in them, which one is easier, or for which one there are more useful tutorials?
Regarding blender, with 2.5 it will change it’s UI, so would it be better to wait anyways until 2.5 is out? But then most of the tuts would be “outdated”?
Hope you see a little my dilemma and I would be grateful for any advice.
The only time I end up using multiple UV’s is when I want to blend more than one texture over another, such as when I might be using a 3D mesh for a terrain. Otherwise I don’t use it that much. I myself would be interested in learning other uses for it though.
Any answer I might give would be subjective, so I won’t touch this one. As for my learning experience with Blender, it took me a couple of days of solid effort to get the concept behind it and I’ve felt productive with it ever since. I’ve used some of the tutorial snippets I found on the internet, but haven’t ever really followed anything more than that. I have used the “blenderartists.org” forums extensively for help. There are so many helpful users that my questions are often answered in minutes.
It’s going to be at least another year before the final working version of 2.5 is released, so I wouldn’t recommend you wait. When it does come out, you’ll be in the same boat as every other Blender user as far as learning the new GUI so I wouldn’t worry too much. From what I’ve read, you will have the option of keeping a lot of the old interface if you want it, just with more options to modify it. And, just because 2.5 is released doesn’t mean that 2.49 and earlier versions will become defunct. It’ll probably be another year or so before everyone’s made the switch. The nice thing is, any future update or upgrade will cost you exactly $0.
thanks a lot for answer. I am tending more towards blender, mainly because it seems that it can be used more or less without problems with unity. Regarding the second UV set…would normalmaps also be put into a UV-map?
I do everything with Blender. Never used Lightwave, but I’ve heard a lot of Blender users state that the workflow is somewhat similar.
Multiple UV’s are often used for a texture UV, as well as a lightmap UV. I’m sure there are other uses, but none that I personally am aware of.
As to which to learn, well, that’s a bit tricky. True, Blender 2.5 will have a new user interface, but most of the core concepts will be the same. If you master Blender 2.49, you’ll be good enough at modeling to be able to transition to 2.5 without too many problems.
The final version of Blender 2.5 won’t even be available until January at earliest. There is an upcoming Beta0 scheduled for this month, but it is not production ready.
So if you choose to go with Blender, you have time. And even when 2.5 does come out, you can still stick with 2.49 for Unity’s sake.
There are only two times I’ve needed to use a 2nd UV map:
One, as Loken described, is when using a lightmap. The other is when I wanted to bake a texture on top of another texture or material in Blender.
There’s a 3rd way that I will be using in the future and that is while painting textures ala the Zbrush method (I posted a thread on this a week ago). I’m still learning this technique, and it’s pretty cool.
Otherwise, I just use a single UV map for just about everything else.
I have a couple of them and they are pretty decent as far as learning Blender goes.
However, I do recommend stepping back and learning about basic 3D modeling concepts before delving too deeply into Blender though, or else you may find yourself quickly overwhelmed.
Granted these are mostly directed at character modeling, but they do briefly touch base on basic modeling concepts.
If nothing else, the internet has a ton of tutorial materials on basic modeling techniques scattered all over the place. Even sites like YouTube host a wealth of video tutorials on this topic that might just help you out.
