If you own any of E-Frontier’s software (Vue,Poser, etc.) you can side grade and purchase Amapi Pro 7.5 for $150.00 USD. Amapi retails at $800 USD.
The bad news is that they layed off thier entire dev team…Some of that team have been with that app from the beginning. I’m sorry to hear about that.
One last little tid bit I have found in the past few days is that DAZ is going to be releasing Carrara6/Pro soon. There is info about this on their forums about this, but you need to register in order to view it. Visit www.daz3d.com and click on thier community tab.
In a nut shell, vastly improved open GL, hair/fur simulation, non linear animation, direct X import/export, some interesting creating an ocean as a terrain, displacement sculpting, They are giving little sneek peeks every day, and if I have time I’ll give you guys some updates. They have some videos up at youtube, here is thier link to member page. http://www.youtube.com/user/WWWDAZ3DCOM
Maybe some of you will find this useful. Have a good one -B
I think of DAZ as a dead software ReAnimator of sorts. “Zombie” apps like Carrara (Infini-D+RayDream), Hexagon (Amapi+Carrara modeler), Bryce and Mimic died years ago. But Daz has a huge hobbyist comunity and these re-packaged products are a smart move for them.
Now they are even resellers for Zbrush.
It’s sad that Amapi never caught on. They tried to invade Rhino’s turf and got stomped.
Next, I wonder who will buy/salvage Strata?
The new Daz|Studio 1.7 is actually an impressive effort. Especially for a free app…
As for Amapi’s future, I think it’s in the hands of Daz now. They own Hexagon which uses Amapi’s engine as it’s core. So I imagine they will try to get the full rights to the entire Amapi code set. I don’t think E-Frontier can compete. Their only pro app is Vue Infinite and the pro community is somewhat pissed at them for the big promises and lack of follow-through. Not to mention the bugs.
I still have a copy of Amapi 3.5 lying around somewhere. When they raised their price from around $150 to $800 I just had to laugh. I’ll have to take another look now that it’s back to it’s original SRP.
Your welcome. You should give Hexagon a shot though (if you need a good modeler for home). It is by far not a Zombie app, and reminds me more of a silo/wings hybrid than anything else.
I have to add that Hexagon is a very fast modler despite its bugs which seem very few now v2.2 is out. I mite check that Amipi pro out as v got poser 7, nice little discount there.
As for Carrara6, this looks very promising, il keep my eye on this one.
That is bad that thoes guys have lost their jobs. And im sure bad for them to see a application go for a meer $150. Athough its so cheap, I still cant quite see what this has over Hexagon, I havent used Nurbs modling before though.
Im on the look out for a cheap high end renderer more than anything.
I dont feel very comftable with XSI interface personly, and id like to have cloth and hair. So far, to have these features in a rendering package, Lightwave 9 looks to be the best value. Im currently using poser 7 for rendering as it does have cloth and hair, and all over rendering features your expect from a renderer, athough it dont give the best results, its more than enougth for a hobbiest.
well you talked about a cheap “high end” renderer. poser/lightwave arent high end. mental ray is, especially the skin shader is awesome and of course you cant expect hair and fur for 500 bucks.
the “xsi ui” is maybe not the best for artists but it works and it is clean. you cant tell me that the “lightwave ui” is better.
Lightwave 9 I would say is high end, just check out the renders produced by it. Of course Mentalray is known for its quality. As for the UI on Lightwave, yes in some areas I have found it to be real anoying but somtimes its down to lack of use and understanding of a program that brings on these feelings.
When trying to render in LW its not easy to set the camera up due to the movment it has. I cant render direct from my perspective camera which is way anoying. Some key combos are way to long and Hexagon which often gets slated, puts lightwave to shame in these areas.
In XSI I found that the saving and loading method akward, having to always direct XSI to find what I want in its own navagation system for files. On the rendering side of things I could not get anythink worth looking at rendered, it seems id need a great understanding of XSI implimentation of MR to get even a bog standard render that 3Ds Max could do with no adjustment of any settings. Of course id learn it if I brought it, but it seemed at the time, when I was demoing all these programs id always go back to Max to get the fastest results. I took like a duck to water to Max material section, I found plenty of tutorials to get me around max, where as XSI I found nothink but out dated tutorials that was hard to translate to the version I was using. Posers Firefly, with all due respect got used by many people happy to pose a model and hit the render button to produce a toy like render which could be identified only to poser.
I did come accross some more seriouse artest that used poser, and the results where quite exceptional. The hair and cloth system is fast enougth in poser 7 to warrent using it. The cloth and hair is only found in the highest version of XSI and unfortunatly XSI foundation has no way to add hair or cloth.(shave and haircut ). 3Ds Max has hair and cloth which makes this best value for money between the two applications, but Lightwave still boast the best overal value for results for the cost ratio. Its been a long time since I checked out XSI so will have another look to see whats improoved and whats avalible on the tutorial front. There still is the issue of hair from which, trans maps and poly made hair just cant match real hair found in poser 7.
Often is the case the artest behind the renderer produces the best results but its nice to get somethink decent looking, at the early stages of the learning of such programs.
If you know XSI well enougth maybe you could point me in the right direction to show me otherwise.
i can show you nice blender renderings, but that doesnt make it “high end”
mental ray is high end and needs good understanding and knowledge. i´m definitively not very good with mental ray but for 500 bucks i´m willing to learn this damn renderer
lightwave is good for freelance stuff or maybe advertising (tv) but high end is something different to me. its a good app but its more expensive than xsi afaik and i dont like the ui.
there is a nice mini xsi mental tutorial (picture) for good skin recently posted in the forum.
btw we shouldnt discuss this in an amapi thread, its a bit “off topic”
Here in the Uk I can get XSI foundation for the same price as Lightwave 9.2 which is why im torn between them. LW does have hair with the ability to add a even better hair plugin and a special skin plugin. The equivalent would be XSI Advanced which actualy cost more than 3Ds Max 9 that also has hair.
I had a good look at the new XSI today and looks like they have added a few extras in v6. I downloaded the new demo and after a good few hours I got no where. I just wanted to set up a texture and displacment map and the manual didnt help one bit. Normaly with new apps I like to play for a while as I normaly find what im after within no time. The rendering setup in XSI just throws me way off, lol. Not because its complexed but because I cant find the basic things I need, like to sellect the output render as a BMP. The imported mesh looks totaly black and I think I remember it was due to cluters or somthink, or even the normals? Digital Tutors have a good selection of XSI training so thats a added plus.
Anyways this is going off the thread title so I apologize to the thread starter.
XSI Foundation (and Essentials) does have Softimage Cloth, but not the faster Syflex. Ben Rogel has made a hair/fur pluggin for Foundation/Essentials that he sells for $85. http://www.shaders.moederogall.com/
For those that are looking for an excellent NURBS modeler that uses some of the new features that were to be included in Amapi 8, checkout ViaCAD Pro 6. It even has better NURBS features that are not included in any version of Amapi Pro. Price is around $149 on Amazon.
