Ahhh, lightwave, used to be so strong, Shave and a haircut was first released on that platform, I haven’t been keeping up with that software, it really set the trend for organic modeling.
LightWave 9.6 currently has it’s own built in fur and hair system called FiberFX.
I also came across this cool little program yesterday called Animeeple where you can apply and edit premade mocap animations to characters available there or your own characters. the software is free as are many of the characters / animations, but you can buy and sell your own creations on their marketplace.
FiberFX is not worth using until it’s been fixed…It has bitten me on the butt in production and I regret ever given it a try…considering newtek actually made a demostration of it, I thought it was production ready. I now know how larry shultz feel.
douple post
That’s odd I haven’t really had any real problems with it.
BTW as far as it “used to be strong” don’t forget it’s still used in quite a few movies, and TV shows like Iron Man, 300, Battlestar Galactica, Firefly / Serenity, etc.
Edit: WOW, speaking of amazing LW work, I just came across this.
http://spinquad.com/forums/showthread.php?t=26414
Almost all LightWave.
still or animation? production or your own work? those factors play a role.
Animation, my own work.
Z Brush is clearly still the leader on the sculpting realm. You actually can make a very lot of things with it as it has a huge feature list and many things work very smooth, workflow wise and also performance wise. I like the fact that it works quite well even in slower machines it is very optimized.
Zspheres 2 are awesome tool, as well new brushes for hard surface stuff and noise. great ideas!
3DCoat seems very interesting, too. Everytime i see vids, i find new refinement and features, that, since are suggested by its users are quite clever and logic. Surely it could need alot of refinements to become smooth in performance as ZB (I think this also depends on the hardware you are on, since it supports things like CUDA as well )but give this guy some time… in just a year he brought in voxels, retopo, new UI and many other toolsand refiements
Voxel technology is very interesting. IMO it actually goes beyond the boundaries that polygons put in the workflow for organic modelling/sculpting.
you can make holes, booleans, cut the mesh and merge several pieces together, ad also build things with no problems of lack of geometry. they’re quite good for mechanical modelling as well.
3D coat has also good retopo tools, so this is a good aspect of the app.
same is for painting tools.
I actually woudn’t blame this app at all as some users seems to do. I remember years ago people looking at me as an alien when i tried to explain them what zspheres where. they just couldn’t believe Zbrush was SO powerful in doing some things, compared to traditional poly modelling.
Right now since it has so much advantages, many studios use also the workflow of building the maquelte with ZB and then retopo the model afterwards…
If interested I just did speed sculpting and speed retopo videos in 3DC. I didn’t actually do a completely finished piece in either one just an hour’s worth but the idea was just to give an idea of my workflow and I think it worked.
Sculpting:
YouTube HD: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53oSR_0_1H4
Vimeo SD: http://www.vimeo.com/6739821
Retopo:
YouTube HD: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nD7M-fVS4P8
Vimeo HD: http://www.vimeo.com/6750634
Id like to see something impressive done in 3DCoat, something in the vein of the stuff Southern did when ZBrush(or Silo) were young. I dont think that showing a lot of “speed sculpts” of questionable quality helps the program.
I think the program has a promising future but the way of showing the updates or any new model done with it here is really annoying.
I watched a lot of videos ever since Ive heard of it but lets just take this last one, with the orc head. Why would that impress anyone? Especially on this forum. There is at least one sculpt of that kind here each day, most of them of far better quality.
We are not alot to experiment with voxel sculpting:(.I hope soon some great sculptors take interest in topologically free sculpting.Great Zb artists like Pedro Toledo and Leigh Bamforth already did some stuffusing voxels but they are pretty busy peoples…I think this year more sculptors will come as it is so much closer to reallife sculpting than actual technology.
@silvaticus Ouch. Pretty quick with those insults. I specifically said it wasn’t finished, thus obviously not intended to impress anyone. I may not be the biggest ZB fan, but at least you won’t find me insulting others work that was done with it.
Will, I dont know where I insulted you. You just admitted its not finished, I judged it as it is. Maybe I should judge its potential greatness or something... With your reply you proved my point. If its not meant to impress why is it here? How does that help 3DCoat? Your frequent posts in this thread seem to be a way to advertise the program. My observation was that it`s not the best way.
I do like ZBrush but I wouldn`t call myself a fan. Not in the way that makes me loathe any other program. As I said in my first reply here, I would like to see more of 3DCoat and I was and I am willing to explore it and use it if it proves to be worthy.
willohmsford we had this a few posts before so you shouldnt be suprised
anymore.
I guess the main reason people get mad is because many cross read all
the cg forums and are by now pretty clear about the fact that you love 3d
coat.
The video shows the advantage polygons have over voxels pretty clearly.
The ability to move a little amount of polygons and affect many in a higher
subdivision level without distorting everything is a great plus.
The voxel sculpt you start already has such a high subdivision level(voxel level whatever its called :D) that you get a very mushy surface.
The ability to go from low to high is very important and the only thing
that reasembles real world sculpting.
Euh…Have you ever made real life sculpting?
You can go from low to high but not back.Just like voxels.
You can also cut,paste,merge in real life sculpting which you cannot do in traditionnal polygonal sculpting.Also if my boss ask me to sculpt an hires model out of a lowpoly made of tris, Zb and Mudbox smoothing algorythm would completely mess it up while working.There are insane bunches of squishy,muddy,blobby sculpts in Mudbox and Zbrush getting posted every day but the ratio of powerful experienced sculptors using it is also greater so the feedback is biased.
Just wait a little.
Point taken - no ****y comment to add
I will wait - how long is the question (****y comment added, im a terrible person)
I guess you know what word i wrote.
Perfect example of censorship gone wrong.
Videos are interesting ! I liked how he was able to cut a hole in the mesh with a boolean operation, something you cannot do with ZBrush. At all.
Also how he creates the neck at the start. It seems like working with real clay. That, and retopo tools.
BTW, every package has its strenghts. ZB for example, manages huge amounts of polys and you can go from low poly to very detailed mesh.
Maybe 3D Coat isn’t at the same level of ZB for creating very tiny details right now, but it has many nice ideas inside, and things can only improve in time.
ZBrush also has a nice masking feature that 3DC is currently lacking. I don’t know how fine you really need to but I’ve sculpted the pores on a characters skin. It’s not really the best work flow to sculpt such high details into the mesh though. What makes more sense is to get the mesh to about the level my orc was in the retopo video, then retopologize, bake the normal map, then start painting the finer details directly into the normal map. Why use system resources when you don’t have to? That’s what I’m doing as soon as I finish that retopo (should be done tonight).
As a user of both, I`d like to make my statements.
When it came to detail sculpting, 3DC is still no match for ZBrush.
Its abit sluggish, and doesnt have that much variety on brushes.
However, it`s a different matter when it came to base mesh.
Thus far, I`ve been trying to find the quickest way to make decent base mesh. And these are what I found out.
Even at a really Hires - deformation in ZB occur when the HiRes doesnt fit in with the LowRes, and the retopo is one hell of a hassle. However, 3DC also has its own problem, its not easy fixing thing in 3DC, For example, if I didnt get the proportion right in ZB, Ill just have to move the ZSphere armature, but when that happen in 3DC, lets just say it`s hard.
So, my workflow at the moment is
- Make something with the right proportion by ZSphere, export to 3DC
- Make things I want to add in either ZBrush, or XSI, merge it in 3DC
- When the rough shape is complete, retopo in 3DC, export to ZB
- Sculpt fine details in ZB
In personal conclusion, I don`t bet on neither for complete product.