Are plugins and mods a bad thing for new users?

JudgeJacket

Hi people! Very glad I came across this informative, helpful community and eventually joined. Pleased to meet you guys!

I'll try to keep my inquiry short-like as I'm not the best of talkers. The answer's probably very simple. If there's a similar thread of course, I have to apologies.

So.. I'm a new Max user, having only started 3 months ago. But I like to think I've adapted fairly well so far and am able to create simple models that are gradually getting more complex. It's a very slow journey of course and I'll always be browsing around online or in books, looking for new tips and tricks to expand my understanding. On these searches I come across all sorts of fantastic plugins, scripts and recommended modifiers, a lot of them free, that amaze me at how efficiently they can cut out everyday problems and improve your workflow.

My question as a newbie is, even though I see the awesome benefits that all these add-ons would bring me to help speed up my use of the program and such, should I just stick to doing things the old, default way with what tools are already available and deal with the problems and headaches that come with it? Or should I not be concerned with that so much and just get on with making things the best way I can with whatever tool and plugin helps?

Boyso

I'm by no means an expert, and I use a few plugins too, but the way I see it is that a user should know how to do it without plugins, the good old fashionned way before moving to plugins. If you move to a production, by all means, use whatever you can find to speed up your workflow, but if they don't allow x plugin for whatever reason, you can still efficiently do the job without.

Justin Meisse

use plugins & customize, the program straight out of the box is not optimized for your specific workflow.

Zpanzer

By all means use anything you can! As long as it doesn't effect your general understanding of how to model, light, texture etc.

Plugins like quadchamfer and quadcap(and his new awesome turbosmoth!) fixes things that we shouldn't really need plugins for since it's a basic feature in nearly all other 3d apps then max, however they fix a row of problems that helps me out nearly everyday!

JudgeJacket

Thanks a lot for the responses guys! I'll take each on board. So basically what I gathered is there's nothing really stunting about letting the plugins do a lot of the inbetween work so long as I at least have understanding of what it fixed, how and to be flexible? Alrighty! Can do.

And yeah, I recently had my eye on Quadchamfer and those other projects! Definitely considering. It'd be a nice idea to customise Max to my needs anyway. Absolutely.

Thanks for the clear up, fickle though it was!

JudgeJacket

Yeah, I hear you Perna. That's kind of why I asked really. It's more of a... "With only three months, is it too early to be considering shortcuts this far ahead?" I still intend to solely master basics as my main focus for the year.

Ace-Angel

This early on, as other have said, it is indeed too early to start considering plugins.

At the same time however, I wonder how true this can be for people who can muster a software faster then other peeps.

I mean say anything you like about crutches, but I couldn't imagine every using, say Max, without Outliner, especially if I'm trying to organize my scene since the default Max Scene Helper is just horrible in more ways then one.

Snacuum

Yeah basically you get plugins and scripts once you've used the vanilla program enough to say "surely there's a better way to do this"

Andreas

Too early. What if you get work in a studio that doesn't use those plug-ins? Best to learn the vanilla program first, then when you are feeling its short-comings are slowing you down, integrate plug-ins into your workflow.

Zpanzer

But then again, since they added the Graphite Modelling tools, how many external plugins are used anymore for modelling? I can't see why plugins like Quadchamfer and Quadcap would have any large impact on how you do things, they just fix what is broken in Max as a standard but works like a charm in nearly all the other 3d packages.
Come to think of it, 99% of my plugins and scripts actually are just additions to 3ds max's particle systems, texture maps and rendering capabillities.

DrunkShaman

Justin Meisse wrote: »

use plugins & customize, the program straight out of the box is not optimized for your specific workflow.

This pretty much answers your question. Everyone uses it so its not a bad thing.

ariofighter

Andreas wrote: »

Too early. What if you get work in a studio that doesn't use those plug-ins? Best to learn the vanilla program first, then when you are feeling its short-comings are slowing you down, integrate plug-ins into your workflow.

I'd have to agree. You don't want to become overly dependent too early on a plug in to get your work done. Once you have the basics down, usually much longer then 3 months in, you can start playing with plug-ins that are tailored to your pipeline. The danger is getting to a studio, or school, that can't afford the plug-ins you need and you are lost without them.

JudgeJacket

Valid points. In which case, I'm fine with not jumping the gun. Will just stick with simply customising the way I use Max and leave the fancy stuff for when I've truly got some solid experience within the program. Even the mentioned plugins and features that should really be in Max anyway. lol, can't hurt to find out WHY they're desperately needed.

That indeed sounds sensible. Appreciate every response!

JudgeJacket

To the guys who recommended I go for them anyway. Thanks also. Would dearly love to! But this just seems likely to help me understand things a little better within the program.

Ghostscape

Andreas wrote: »

Too early. What if you get work in a studio that doesn't use those plug-ins? Best to learn the vanilla program first, then when you are feeling its short-comings are slowing you down, integrate plug-ins into your workflow.

If it is reasonable, the studio will buy them.

we have a lot of folks that use Diamante Tools and dRaster NEX tools, and so we buy them for them. The speed increase those plug-ins offer more than make up for the cost over time.

It is perfectly OK to use plug-ins. What you shouldn't be doing is being reliant on cheap tricks and effects to replace artistry.