haven't worked in 3d for 10 years. where do i start?
In my late teens and early 20s i got really into 3d modeling and was using lightwave 3d. my career has instead taken me back to my illustration roots and i havent used lightwave in at least 10 years. i'm interested in picking up 3d again for fun and make some items for dota2.
So im wondering where is a good place to start? im sure if i picked up lightwave again i could shake off the rust, but even back then lightwave was low on the radar and i wonder if anyone even uses it anymore. Maybe with so much time passing i should just try to learn something like 3d max or maya?
what do you guys think would be a smart way to get back into the swing of things?
So im wondering where is a good place to start? im sure if i picked up lightwave again i could shake off the rust, but even back then lightwave was low on the radar and i wonder if anyone even uses it anymore. Maybe with so much time passing i should just try to learn something like 3d max or maya?
what do you guys think would be a smart way to get back into the swing of things?
Replies
Personally I would learn Blender. It's gotten so much better and has some cutting edge features. But I'm not sure of the workflow for DOTA with Blender. I know it's possible from Max and Maya.
Since you are an illustrator going straight to zBrush might be a good option. I've seen many 2d guys take to it quickly. You can take your sculpt into another package to make a low poly and do the texture bakes.
There's a lot of options it's up to you.
thread on it here: http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=128706&page=4
Also, in my personal opinion, I think ZBrush is innovating way more than any other 3d program on the market right now.
I work on a cintiq already so if its better with pen input then all the better. Can i transition to maya/3dmax later easily? Way back in the day, i remember it being very hard compared to lightwave
For Dota 2 you'll definitely be using Zbrush or the less popular sculpting software, Mudbox.
And yes some of the main limitations modo currently has for game-art stuff is no cage-baking (Circumvented with pipelineIO, and export script that gets you into xNormal to bake quickly), unadequate viewport (circumvented by viewing in engine; marmoset toolbag). Like Blender modo also has built-in sculpting tools but they're not as powerful as Zbrush.
Lately, I've gotten addicted to hard-surface modeling in blender.
Once you get over the weird ass controls, and get some addons, it's blazing fast. Also, its pretty great for UV Unwrapping.
My only grief, and its a big one, is the horrible fbx exporter. Just seems to mess up my workflow.
I really hope Max will step it up soon.
I find Modo to be pretty slick when baking, i had less trouble with certain meshes baking in it than Max. (took me an evening to figure it out but worth it)
That said, I'd still recommend it simply because its modeling tools are top-notch. Any baking you need to take care of can be done in xNormal, and that's what I'd suggest anyway unless you're at a studio that uses some other solution.
I can agree, but the fact that there isn't any cage in Modo is the whole point ...
I'm not sure I get what you mean. Not having support for cage baking is the primary reason I don't bake stuff in Modo. If you use Modo's baking pipeline for anything that involves a lot of complex shapes or pieces of geometry that are in close proximity, such as hands or reasonably detailed ears, you're going to run into problems with ray distance and other annoying stuff that is simply not an issue with cage baking.
I don't use Modo to bake maps because it means I have to bake multiple versions of the same texture with different ray distances, and then I have to stitch those textures together and paint out various errors. I don't have that problem when I do a quick cage bake in xNormal. Ever.