A rigging software

[wckedsunny]

Does any one know of a good rigging software excluding poser,maya or max :qu:

I need a versatile software to be used only for rigging and posing. not even animation.

maya really sucks for high polygon mesh rigging.. :td:

any tips

[tez]

XSI foundation is fast for rigging but you wont get a program that only rigs.

XSI will model, texture, rig and animate and is at a fair price. If you want it just for posing wait till the next update comes out zbrush 2.5 , that alows rigging for posing. Iv been through all this lark and found 3ds max nice to rig in but xsi is even faster. Your better off getting xsi to make your base meshes use zbrush for detailing e.c.t and use xsi for riging and posing if you cant wait till next update which could well be some time yet.

[wckedsunny]

No Tej I cant wait for zbrush 2.5

I am creating a comic, everything is ready even models and backgrounds only reposing is required for characters.

So need to know if xsi interface is good enough so that I can learn it quickly?

Maya sucks and I have no max.

Obviously zbrush 2.5 is my choice but then we all are waiting for it ;)

any link to download xsi demo ?

[Reactor]

If you want something quick and easy to learn, try Carrara 5 over at Daz3d.com

[wckedsunny]

Reactor

I could not find demo of Carrara 5 at daz3d?

[Reactor]

Top bar -> Support -> Downloads -> Carrara Downloads

It's right there. If you have any troubles grabbing it, also have a look at Eovia.com (just bought out by Daz3D). They have the trial also.

[wckedsunny]

thanks

got it.

Will try it out

[wckedsunny]

BTW Reactor

I will be importing the mesh back into zbrush after reposing .

It wont create any problems na ?

i will be applying the same texture which I created in zbrush after importing the reposed model instead of creating displacement maps everytime.

I believe you are expirenced with Carrara, you must know it will work or not.

[tez]

I would not say Im very experenced with rigging but its not a simple quick process as I have been through the complete process from bones to fully riged and weighted in 3ds max. Athough its not for animation you still have to get the weighting correct and have the geomatry that deforms correcly. I had in mind just to rig for posing but it was not as easy as was expecting had bad weighting and deformation due a messy mesh. Poser is quite fast as riging goes.

If you do come accross a easy fast learning rigging posing program let me know il be interested.

[Frenchy Pilou]

Make Human (http://www.dedalo-3d.com/) and similar ? :rolleyes:

[billrobertson42]

There's also Messiah. Nice renderer too.

[wckedsunny]

guys

For rigging and posing

How much polygon count should be there in the model average ?

Isit that I AM having too many polygons thats why I am not able to work properly in maya ?

If I use any other software I believe its going to take a lot of time so I should try doing it in maya only.

[tez]

Look here at Messiah animate seems to be fast from what I read with auto weighting. Only downfall is the price which is more than XSI foundation.


http://www.projectmessiah.com/

[jantim]

Look here at Messiah animate seems to be fast from what I read with auto weighting. Only downfall is the price which is more than XSI foundation.


http://www.projectmessiah.com/
Messiah studio is only $299..that's pretty cheap !

jantim

[tez]

Your right that is cheap. I did a search and it came out for the animate version over £400 odd. Iv just been looking at the video tutorials on their site and am well impressed how posing can be done the second you bone the character.

Im downloading the demo right now to see how compatable it is with zbrush obj files.

[wckedsunny]

Messiah looks good to me lets see

[tez]

This program is nice and fast in ceating bones with instant weighting but as expected weighting problams are there with a zbrush built mesh. I created a very basic T pose man from zsphears exported him as low poly model. Now I know you gota export him with different rotation so hes standing upright but no flip x, y ,z for export had any effect, he always faces down when imported into messiah.

[Reactor]

I believe you are expirenced with Carrara, you must know it will work or not.

Providing you export it as something like an obj (something that keeps the UV information) things should go smoothly.

[wckedsunny]

Thanks reactor

Tej even in maya when I import the zsphere mesh it always faces down :lol:

[wckedsunny]

I tried running messiah workstation

I cant even see toolbar names on top of it.

need a graphic card to support it.

now either I buy a software or a graphic card :cry:

any other software ? :confused:

[MrJames]

Maya sucks and I have no max.
No it doesn't.

Anyway if you want a good rigging plug in for Maya, try 'The Setup Machine', its awesome... Just google it...

[wckedsunny]

MrJames

Softwares like max and maya suck because of thier horrible user interface.

Softwares like zbrush works so well because of thier terrific easy to use UI.

Give a noob( of both softwares) zbrush and maya and he will catch the former much faster then maya.

If only maya was so good there wouldnt have been any need to create other 3d softwares.

2 yrs back max and maya were the standard, today the balance is shifting to other softwares.

You may have lot of practice with maya thats why it doenst suck for you.

But it always suck for any noob as a lot and lot of time is required to learn it much more then any new softwares. :cry:

anyhow thanks for the "setup machine" will check it out.

[pixelsoul]

What other software besides xsi ? It's still pretty much the standard for animation


2 yrs back max and maya were the standard, today the balance is shifting to other softwares.

[tez]

Its down also to the factor of if you actualy want a legal copy in which case XSI foundation is the one to go for if you want rigging. Maya, 3ds max are way way to expensive for the everage person.

I got the tiral of 3ds max and loved it then went to see the price and then realized I had just waisted learning 2 weeks for software I cant afford, a mistake im not going to make again.

All I need is zbrush 2.5 for its rigging/posing and a simple base mesh program like silo, but who knows maybe I wont even need that when zbrush 2.5 comes out.

[wckedsunny]

softwares like maya and max are only for big production houses.

not good enough on a individual level.

Believe me even I am waiitng for zbrush 2.5 but my project cant wait till its launch.

Thats why looking for other softwares. no optiopn left :cry:

[MrJames]

softwares like maya and max are only for big production houses.

not good enough on a individual level.Time to get the chip off your shoulder mate. Maya and Max are fantastic, saying they suck just shows lack of understanding for some fantastic and innovative products. Not that I want this to get into a software flame war, so this will be my last post.

[tez]

I got on realy well with max but as said above its not afordable for the average joe.

I rekon that messiah could be dam good but cant find a dam manual.

[billrobertson42]

I tried running messiah workstation

I cant even see toolbar names on top of it.

need a graphic card to support it.

now either I buy a software or a graphic card :cry:

any other software ? :confused:

I have run the demo on my computer with an nvidia fx5200 (4th generation), which is a pretty old card. You can get them pretty cheap.

e.g. http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?DEPA=0&type=&Description=fx5200&Submit=ENE&Ntk=all&N=0&minPrice=&maxPrice=&Go.x=0&Go.y=0

But you can get a third generation card which will crush the poor 5200, for just a little bit more.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?DEPA=0&type=&Description=6600gt&Submit=ENE&Ntk=all&N=0&minPrice=&maxPrice=&Go.x=0&Go.y=0

Also, if you're using an ati card, make sure you have the latest drivers and you follow the tips about forcing the z-buffer depth to 16 bits or it won't really run at all.

I'm not sure what you mean about weighting, but here's a sample of what zbrush and messiah can do together. http://206.145.80.237/zbrush/pug/ZBrushUserMeeting_Taron.zip (from here http://pixologic.com/zbrush/interviews/pixomeeting.html). Using two programs together always involves some work on your part. The latest version of messiah has some new features to increase it's zbrush compatibility too.

disclaimer: I'm a hobbiest, and I know nothing of any value to anybody, and I haven't had any time to do anything serious with messiah, although it's pretty high up there on my list of things to explore when (hah!) I have time.

I have spent quite a bit of time looking around for something that I can use to pose figures though (like you), and if you don't need to animate it, I think messiah is the best bet to getting it done quickly and cheaply (at this point in time). If you're doing still renders of the same figure and the posing doesn't quite work as well as you want while you figure it out, you can always pull the figure back and to zbrush and do some manual adjustment very quickly. It has a nice renderer too and the animation capabilities give you a lot of things to play with too.

[wckedsunny]

Thanks billrobertson for that info.

anyhow someone tried this ?

http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=397&Itemid=

is it comaptible with zbrush ?

[pixelsoul]

LoL Well if you dont like maya and max you will definitly dont like houdini.. Master comes with a pricetag of $17.000.. And I am pretty sure it is as or even little bit more complex :p

[wckedsunny]

lols iw as still browsing through its pages , didnt still reached the price menu

that was shocking price:D

[tez]

I'm not sure what you mean about weighting, but here's a sample of what zbrush and messiah can do together.

.
Each bone has to control what parts of the mesh move/deform. vertices get assigned to the bones that the bone can or canot move. Also weighting can be applied by the strength or amount of Influence (http://www.influenceatwork.com/) the bones have to certain vertices. Weighting problems are comon and somtmes have to be tweaked for some time in my case lol. Bad weighting can make your mesh apear badly deformed like when you position the arm from a T pose down to your characters side, you may see the arm pits dip into the chest.

[wckedsunny]

Guys how many of you have tried reposing in zbrush only using zspheres ?

any good result with it ?

pls share your experince

[tez]

Pose to pose method works and have have good results from it. it can be a tad tricky but iv done ok with it. Il be happy to show how well its works for me using this method.

[Bingo_Jackson]

I use PMG Messiah studio, and am pretty happy with it. Would definitely recommend it over Carrera for your stated needs. The workstation price at $299 is great for anything that gives you a Global illumination/Radiosity renderer, but too bad they dont appear to be selling "Messiah:animate" anymore which was the rig/animation tools without the renderer...that was even cheaper.

Zbrush and Messiah work well together, and theres been develpment on the messiah end to specifically improve Zbrush interaction. The bones work well, and theyre very adjustable and pretty accurate on their own. In many situations you probably wont have to wrry too much about weight maps, especially, if youre just swapping in and out of ZB where you can touch up mild distortions.

However, PMG has a very different way of doing some things, and the program is not without its learning curve (unless you were weaned on it when it was a staple LW plugin). The node based rendering and texturing in particular, is very interesting, but not for everyone.


And finally, in all honesty, Im not sure how much life PMG has left in it from a development standpoint. Im not in any postition to know, but I dont know how succesful theyve been, and development, while it still continues, is sort of a slow crawl. Anyone more informed can feel free to correct me on this...this is just my impression.


In addition to the features promised in the next ZB version, about which little of practical value can be assessed yet, the new version of Silo promises some typically Silo-esqe accesible rigging and bones also, and thats due very soon. It might be worth waiting on a major purchase, especially if your needs are simple.


Hope this is helpful.

[tez]

Id like to get to know Messiah studio more but there isnt a manual with demo?

[Bingo_Jackson]

The "manual" is not so much a manual as it is a collection of formatted help docs. I dont have the demo download to be sure, but I would check in the docs folder.

And the dedicated Messiah forum at CG talk would probably be your best bet for an interactive knowledge base of users:

http://forums.cgsociety.org/forumdisplay.php?f=92

[billrobertson42]

There's a windows help file that comes with it that is enough to get you past the "oh god where do I click" phase.

*edit* regarding the suitability of pose 2 pose. I think it can work, but I also think it will require a good deal of patience. Check out the thirty-one page thread (http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=21407) on experimenting with it to get good results.

*edit edit*

In addition to the features promised in the next ZB version, about which little of practical value can be assessed yet, the new version of Silo promises some typically Silo-esqe accesible rigging and bones also, and thats due very soon. It might be worth waiting on a major purchase, especially if your needs are simple.

I don't think bones are on the plate for Silo 2.0.

[Bingo_Jackson]

I don't think bones are on the plate for Silo 2.0.


My mistake, Bill's right. They are "in development", but have not been announced as a 2.0 feature.

[wckedsunny]

I just got hold of this-

http://www.pom.tv/pomcharactersetup.html#

Any one tried it ?

[Atwooki]

TSM 'Setup Machine' for Maya

- As Mr. James recommended in post #26 earlier (if you have Maya)

Quick 'n easy setup with auto skinning etc. for $99

http://www.anzovin.com/TSM2Maya/

C.

[pixelinfected]

no one talk about animation master, a cheap software born to do charater animation and character in general, i see a lot's of great thighs did in this simple software, and cost only 299$
had radiosity, hair, good rig system, good posing system, good ik, TSM if you want, and more

check www.hash.com

[wckedsunny]

How good is it with zbrush exported meshes ?

Anyone tried it ?

[madrenderman]

i play with it in past and i think is simple to use, but from many years Lightwave3D is my main tool for animation.
in general i can tell you that messiah is a very good tool, but depend of your experience with it and with pose to pose.

[pixelsoul]

i though am was only splines ?

[wckedsunny]

Guys I ahvent rigged before in my life so just tell me soemthign which will be easy to learn, But then I will have to learn those softwares as well.

Theres no- individual rigging setup on this planet ?

[pixelsoul]

Guys I ahvent rigged before in my life so just tell me soemthign which will be easy to learn, But then I will have to learn those softwares as well.

Theres no- individual rigging setup on this planet ?
I really doubt there is an really easy way to rig and skin.. but there are lots of tutorials and dvds covering this topic :tu:

[HoserHead]

Actually, Houdini's Autorig might be exactly what you're looking for (assuming you're rigging a biped). There's no bones or anything you need to worry about, just positioning the controls and then painting the weights on the skin. Takes a lot of the work out of rigging.

Sidefx.com has a free personal learning edition too. (It's called Houdini Apprentice.)

[lemonnado]

XSI Foundation is a great package and the best character animation package around. And I tried pretty much every one.

However, animating a character is an art. And it is NOT easy or simple.

BUT if you wish to 'rig' a character/beastie to pose it, and maybe wiggle it's tail or some simple animation like that. Then you can do that within minutes in XSI if it is a biped or quadped.

XSI has ready made 'guides'. A Guide is a structure which you can pose into your mesh. Once done you can convert that into a fully functioning rig with the push of a button.

Then with another push of a button you can envelope your selected character with that rig.

After that the mesh is controled by the rig. You can grab handles and lift a foot while the leg follows correctly or select the hip controller and laugh your a** off while you make your character dance the hulla hopp....

With XSI foundation you would also get a really cool render engine. Cinema quality. Maya and Max ues that as well.

In any case.... be forewarned... there is no simple button within XSI. It will take a bit time to get used to things. But a simple geometry import and riging it so you can pose the thingy. That is REALLY easy.

Creating materials with the render tree, and then creating sophisticated animations and then tuning that is not easy. But there is no other program which supports you better than XSI in performing that animation task.

If you can wait a while and you are not under pressure. I would wait and see what the Luxology guy's are up to. Brad Peebler is usually a very verbal character in the scene and lately they have been awkwardly silent regarding Modo compared to previous activities. Due to the fact that I saw animation with Modo life on screen in late 2005 I am sure that they will have something in a 'resonably' short period of time. Looking at the inovative modeler and renderer I am sure that it would be something to consider. However, those are only speculations.

If you need something now go for XSI.

Cheers
Lemo


PS:Once you enter the realms of animation the whole game becomes expensive as you need more and more tools to be efficient. And you will have to calculate in a steep learning curve as the game changes from still pictures to animations. Lighting starts to flicker all of a sudden, textures start to shift, geometry deforms oddly, materials behave badly, and your dead lines switch from goose bumps to crushing panic attacks... Which means you invest a multiple than the license cost in tutorials and third party advice. Don;t consider animation a hobby unless you try to switch from your frequent domina visits to something more painfull.

PPS:Houdini.... yes... nice.... but once you import your mesh you cannot export it again to ZBrush or another format with the free aprentice edition. It's one way. Still.... might be interesting to explore if you can spend the time and you can stay in the houdini environment which they give to you to explore.

[wckedsunny]

Thanks Lemo for that long info. :) ;)

I think yes, XSI will be the best solution for me and my comics if zbrush 2.5 is sheduled for launch in christmas of 2007. Well we all hope thats not the case.

I am liking the concept of "Guides" - its sounding to me the way zbrush sounded to me for 3d mdoleing the first time round. later I realized I can even create illustrations.


For my first comic issue I am using zphere resposing method,but then you know how tiring, time consuming and imperfect that method is.

After the launch of first issue , i will dig up some time for learning XSI and then buy it ,if it works well for me.

Btw I dont need to even export any textures- i just wanna export my model , repose it and then reimport it in zbrush.


lemo- the reimported model will have any uv probs with texture? ( of the original zbrush model)

[lemonnado]

I'll make a small tut about that. Zbrush to XSI and back to Zbrush. So you can see how easy or complicated that is. The UV's are staying intact. Nothing changes. However, XSI has a great modeling app build in as well. But I don't want to complicate things. As mentioned, I'll make a very simply recording of a crapy XSI mesh dropped into XSI and then 'rigged' there and posed, saved and put back into ZBrush. Just as proof of concept.

Lemo

PS: Also keep in mind that the 'guide' rigs are 'relatively' simple. BUT you can learn how to create your own rigs as well. But honestly....... without a lot of time and engineering aspirations I'd try to stay away as long as possible from that. For me... the guides (which have quite some quality (foot roll etc)) are doing a great job. Even if ZBrush 2.5 comes out, it won't let you animate your 'thing....'.

[womball]

How good is that quick enveloping in XSI? Does it produce muscle bulges?

[lemonnado]

It's fairly simple by default. The skin's deformation is controlled by a weight map. That's it. If you wish, you can create extra expressions and control more bones or deformations with that. You could link an angle to a bulge deformer and when the arm twists it also bulges the muscle. But by default the system is a weightmap based deformation. The advanced rigs which come with the XSI foundation make it a steal....

Lemo

[wckedsunny]

Thanks Lemo :) Will be waiting for the tutorial ;)

Animation is not in my books at this point of time, but then its always good to know a rigging tool, it may come handy for small animations like waving hands, or tail etc.

Pls give me link of its website.

[lemonnado]

Here we go..... Please don't download it if you have 'only' a MAC. XSI won't run on the MAC.... If you have an Intel Mac and would like to check it out, be my guest! XP runs on a MAC and thus XSI would do it as well.

http://www.neophysics.com/images/crappyrigging.rar

(16MB and 15 minutes funny Lemo english)

Disclaimer: This is a crappy tutorial. Just quickly thrown together so you can actually see how quick you can get results with the XSI ZBrush combo. I am not a professional rigger nor am I an animator. So the recording can cause brief periods of digestive problems and or blindness if you are a professional in those trades.

If you are mildly 3D CG challenged, as I am, you will at least see that it WORKS and not read about it in a weird newsgroup full of plant's of the product in question ;-).

Enjoy! And if you got any value out of it and will buy XSI Fnd because it's the best deal for what it does out there, then write an email to Will Mendez at Softimage who is giving Lemo such a hard time with the annual Maintenance fee ;-).

Enjoy and have fun!!!
Lemo

PS:besides a few other ramblings and omissions I did NOT hide the guide... I only hid the top NULL of the guide because I did not select the entire hirarchy before hiding it. So it all looks much cleaner in 'reality'. But if you are in the same situation, you can see that you can still see something in all the controller, guide, mesh, skeleton rig cluster mess.

PPS:Animating the guy to wave at us would take only another 5 minutes using a few keyframes and deformations.


PPPS:recording made with camtasia. Codec if necessary, can be found on the techsmith.com website.

PPPPS:XSI is made through a magic process by Canadian Elves hidden in a Montreal Basement wearing hodded sweatshirts and sold by Will Mendez a nice fellow New Yorker who has been banished from the states for charging to much for maintenance contracts. Their Website is www.softimage.com.

PPPPPS: There is a free XSI 4.2 version called MOD TOOL on that site. You can do what I showed but you can only save in the demo-format. But you can also render.... So download that, see how you get along with it and take it from there... And .... Mod tool means that if you own Valve's Halflife for example... you can save it in the Valve format and import your stuff into the Game eingine. You can create set's in the Game engine and have yur characters run around.... I leave the rest to your fantasy and the Valve/Softimage website.

[wckedsunny]

Man I heard of this website before, How did I missed XSI ? ;)

btw lemo I am still downloading it- the tutorial can be crappy but still worth a lot to many like me who are looking for such rigging softwares for zbrush models.

I will call for Ryan or Aurick to place this in tutorial forums and in wiki. it will be real good, instead of searching it here in some thread which will be lost in threads of hundreds in coming months.

Anyone there - Ryan - hello - :D

Better if its converted in a pdf as well.

[tez]

cool little tut kind if you for putting this up. I was shown how to do this by my friend a while back after spending days learninig how to rig in 3ds max. Only trouble I had was the weighting. Takes so little time to get it to this stage but ages to weight correct. Of corse having the edge loops, edge flow correct helps alot. A T pose man will help a good deal.:tu:

[lemonnado]

Na, for a tutorial 10 more minutes would be invested well.... This is just a little info... Hope it creates ideas.

Cheers
Lemo


PS: C4D and LW are also on the less expensive side initially. But once you start to use it you will have to buy a few plugins and might upgrade and quickly be on the expensive side. Really.... no better deal than ZBrush plus XSI. That combo does it all.

[wckedsunny]

Well its still downloading.

I checked the softimage site, the mod size is 200 mb, man That will take lot of time even if use DAP. :confused:

Its 6 am here, I will put it on download when I sleep.

ya currently I am living with USA timings, best way to talk with you people, but very bad effects on the body clock system lols :) permanent Jet lag.

Let me check it Lemo, if i understand it, and when I get time for xsi, I will create one proper tutorial on it( but its few months away for sure).

Thanks Lemo - but I am still waiting for good lightning/rendering tutorial in zbrush ;);););)-

I mean I still dont know how to use lights at all.I just position them and increase decrease the intensity- your view on that will be really helpfull- catch you in that post. :D

[wckedsunny]

lemo I think it deserves to be in tutorial section. :tu: :tu:

For many noobs like me it will be like basics of rigging as well.

how well it will work with a high poly mesh ?

If instead of creating a displacement map, I wana just export a 2.2 million polygon character into xsi, will it work this smoothly ? and sytem requirements to do so ?

i wont be animating so its like just run with the high polymesh one and repose it as fast as possible - well can it be done ?

Why every animation software imports zbrush models inverse- i mean they dont like zbrush or its pixol theory or what ?

[lemonnado]

At SIG SoftImage showed a group of 6Mio Polygon models animated with reasonable performance on a 32Bit system.... So... yes... with 5.x you can pose your 2.2 Mio Mesh. HOWEVER, you will need to max ot your Memory (32 Bit = 4GB on board).

Lemo


PS:With the 64Bit system I did some REALLY insane renders.

PPS:Yes Tez. But if your Geometry is ok, then you can paint the weights in XSI in 'realtime'. I animated a Bird and to fine tune the mesh was not a big deal. If you have the Essentials Version, then you can also use 'GATOR' to transfer a lot of information from one mesh to a completely different mesh. THAT saves time. Check out GATOR at the Softimage Website.

[wckedsunny]

Now I dont have even 2 gb of ram.

So displacement maps are required, meaning more work- time consuming, :confused:

One more reason Zbrush 2.5 is required to be launched sooner. ;)

[acmepixel]

Thanks for posting this Lemo. We Mac users are (well, a lot of us, anyway) very excited about finally being able to run XSI on our Macs.

I remember when Softimage only ran on SGI or Alphas. (Back in the Jurassic Park production days).

It was then, and looks like it remains to this day, the best rigging/animation package for humanoid posing and movement. I like Messiah, but for this thread topic, it's a bit pricey.

Although Lightwave is still the best ''bang for the buck''. all-around value when comparing complete 3D suites. (Max, Maya, C4D, Messiah Studio, etc.).

I'm still partial to Cinema 4D, myself.

The only downside to XSI, as I understand it, is that there is no upgrade path to the complete system, from Foundation. Maybe that has changed.

Well, to keep on topic, thanks again Lemo, for posting all this good information about XSI and ZB :tu:

[tez]

lemo (http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/member.php?u=36730) just wondered if you would be so good as to make a small video on weighting in XSI. It apears that it may be faster than when I tryed it in 3ds max.

Id like to see the common problems ironed out like joint folds armpit bad deformations e.c.t. I was once looking at getting xsi and still would if I could see that the weighting system wasnt a nightmare as I may have thought.

Personly I always thought that zbrush created meshes didnt have good enougth topology to be succesfully riged for animation? As we can see in the 2.5 update ryan showd how he had to add edge loops in certain places for correct deformation for animation. Of corse a base mesh can be made in xsi anyways so thats not a problem.


Thanks.

[lemonnado]

I'm still partial to Cinema 4D, myself.

The only downside to XSI, as I understand it, is that there is no upgrade path to the complete system, from Foundation. Maybe that has changed.



In the meantime I have a complete seat for C4D. It has more over all power than XSI and I get faster where I want to get with it. BUT, it is pricey. The animation part however is nill compared to XSI. It does not even come close. It is possible to animate in C4D, don't get me wrong. But the precision and the ease, the corve editors and anything around it are way more pronounced in XSI. C4D's strength lies in it's rock solid stability and it's generalized functions. Hair and other cool components are affordable.

I had no problems in upgrading from Fnd to Essentials and did that within the first year. The reason why I upgraded was the addition of rigid body physics compared to Fnd and the Compositing Software which saves one from buying After Effects or a similar program. Also certain expressions can only be created in Ess but that was not my concern. I pretty much did it because of the compositing software which is a tree based compositor and can be used for stills as well as for animateions/movies.

But Softimage is definitely NOT cheap when you look past the Fnd license.

I can barely justify my Essentials License.

Cheers
Lemo


PS:If I have am moment I'll post a short weight paint mov. It's as easy as vertex painting in ZBrush. The smoothing brush is great.

[wckedsunny]

lemo only a quote ----no reply:rolleyes::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:

[lemonnado]

Give an old man time to finish..... will ya ;-)
Lemo