Mudbox Drops to 10$ a Month
Just wondering if anyone has noticed that Mudbox is now 10$ a month ($495 outright purchase). For the price differential (about 40% cheaper outright, 6.6x cheaper if perpetual), maybe now it competes better with z-brush? I have used Mudbox a lot and preffer it to z-brush already, but I would be interested in what Z-Brush users think. For 120$ a year, I cant see how it wouldn't be a tempting offer.
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We used mudbox for a bit at work and I found it to be incredibly buggy. I was really happy when we moved on to ZBrush. Mudbox is great if you're taking a base mesh and creating something higher poly out of it as opposed to making something from scratch. Also they layers tended to work better for texturing in Mudbox from what I remember, but as a whole, I still think ZBrush is superior.
Mudbox doesn't even come close to the feature set in zbrush and the value just isn't there either. I bought Mudbox for $600, thinking I would switch over but never did. That $600 went up in smoke a few months later when I was faced with having to re-buy it. If I would have switched I would have been buying mudbox over and over again.
Mudbox has some neat features, I like its ease of use and zbrush is a bitch to learn and work with, but mudbox just doesn't hold up.
At this point I feel like I should re-buy zbrush or at least be charged for the next major upgrade, but do I feel the same way about Mudbox, hell no.
zbrush was about 20 minutes for a nice rock.
I think I will stick
I have a question, is z-brush still 2.5d? Mudbox uses traditional methods (normal/bump/displacements) as well as subdiv geo. The 2.5d thing really threw me for a loop. Never quite understood it. Mudbox was so approachable, day 1 i made cool stuff.
I think they lost a sizable chunk of their audience when they killed the original Mudbox forums, released mud2009 and then basically told their community to fuck off if they wanted a clone tool without getting the next major release.
I don't see Mudbox being around much longer, AD just never cared enough to really push it in the directions it needed to go.
I always wanted to learn it, but all the "behind the scenes" videos of game studios I've seen always shows someone using Zbrush so it kinda scared me off.
Add that, you got comments here saying Zbrush is much more powerful to work with.
Basically on depends on ZB, while they introduce cooler features it also gets even more cumbersome to work with and convoluted with each iteration.
Those saying Mudbox won't be around much longer are wrong. Mudbox is heavily used in VFX because of it's workflow.
Maybe he's been trying to soak up users for the last decade, become the standard, and then make a killing on the 5.0 upgrade. Who knows?!
Yeah I'm not a fan of Autodesk either. Instead of buying so many competitors and having redundant software that spreads R&D too thin, they should invest more in less products to keep up in the industry. They dropped Softimage for that purpose so maybe they're finally learning. Hopefully we see a higher rate of development for 2016 products. But really that may be too long for me to wait.
@perfect_paradigm : MayaLT is supposed to be following that method. More frequent smaller updates. If it proves popular who knows if they wont spread the philosophy. Looks to me like AD is making the changes people have been asking for. Not sure why so much hate for AD. I love their products.
@Kraftwerk : Ive heard of that, glad to hear its a decent app. I may check that out... Anything it is especially good at?
I bought 3DC and upgrades are free
Mudbox can be the next Softimage fiasco... sad.
But that in itself is the wrong question to be debating in the first place.
authentic Well i didn't dig to much into it yet because so far i never really seriously sculpted but if you need a good alternate to ZBrush i guess that would be it. The sculpting is a lot fun so far and the UI not as weird as ZBrush when i messed with the trial, also love the 3D painting way faster then with C4Ds Bodypaint. Retopology is also very easy to get into from what i tried so far. Just avoid "About 3D Coat" you will facepalm bigtime.
Just because a program can make good art, doesn't mean that the features are not left behind in comparison to other programs. Mudbox has it's own features which are good and no one should be saying you can't make quality art, but in comparison to ZBrush's feature list it is very far behind. Not to mention Pixologic has a history of updating their product for free whereas Autodesk has a reputation for overcharging for every update and still leaving in major bugs.
The subscription price will be fine for people who haven't used a sculpting program before or just can't afford the entry point of ZBrush. I can't fault AD for that, they're making good effort to get their product into more people's hands. If you're going to compare features however, ZBrush blows mudbox out of the water, hands down. It's not even a competition, in my opinion.
I'm not going to get into a feature war between Mudbox and Zbrush, because like for like comparisons often end up providing an unreflective and an unbalanced view. Mudbox may not have some of the exact and precise features listed that Zbrush and the like have, but it might have similar ones that deliver the same result. You don't have to go very far to fine some excellent work produced with Mudbox that easily matches and that of other packages, that proves that Mudbox is actually, more than capable.
So, then it often comes down to how the package is used, and who uses it.
They made many improvements for Maya 2015, but still I'm disappointed that they missed so many obvious "small" things.
I can list more specific issues later, but I really hate the new bright neon move, scale & rotate manipulators. It's very uncomfortable on my eyes so I can't use 2015. The yellow and green is so intense it has an aura, at least on my monitor. It's very distracting too. Is it only in LT version?
1) Mudbox doesn't have a Dynamesh equivalent.
At least not that I've found. If it's there they don't make it easy to find, which goes against their user friendly UI principles. It has "decent-ish" retopo tools, similar to remesh, but it doesn't have an easy way to stretch polys far off of a surface then quickly redistribute density. You can't loop that extrusion back to the surface and have it merge and redistribute.
[ame="
This is great for stuff like:
Tattered cloth
Long hair with volume
Tendrils and tentacles
2) So for example...
...if you're doing a venom type character with lots of crazy globby stringy bits floating off, in Zbrush you can pull out those shapes from the surface (using snakehook) and it makes big ugly unusable polys but only for a second, in Mudbox this is where you kind of stop and scratch your head. But in Zbrush you run dynamesh and now they are just as dense as the rest of your mesh and you keep going. You can then loop that shape back so it penetrates the original mesh or connects to another glob, then Dynamesh will connect them and even out the polygon distribution. You can keep doing that as wild and crazily as you want. Dynamesh can also combine a few different objects (sub-tools) into one which allows you to make some really cool and amazing shapes.
I haven't really found a way to do that kind of stuff in Mudbox, it has auto-retop which is kind of on par with 3DCoat or Wrap-it but doesn't work across separate objects and can fudge up the edge flow unless you spend time painting guides? It just doesn't seem as free wheeling and creative.
3) Mudbox seems to stick to the old workflow?
Create a basemesh in another app, that is pretty much fleshed out(hopefully you don't plan to deviate from that original plan that much). Sub-divide and sculpt micro details. Send it back to the app it came from and bake? Maybe they've improved it since I last looked at it? But the baking tools where horrible.
4) Then there is the price point problem...
That I talked about earlier. Plus it's been all over the place since autodesk took it on. It's been a few hundred bucks all the way up to $3k and now they are trying something new. It makes me wonder is their software as wildly unstable as their price? Do they have a plan, if so what is it? Can I count on this software being around? IF so how many times am I going to have to rebuy it?
Then they squashed the fledgling community...
Like others have talked about they didn't really give them any kind of space to collaborate and encourage each-other. Those are the spaces where people push new ideas and new features. ZBC has been a HUGE part of driving Zbrush's success and getting people the knowlege they need to use it effectively. Pixologic understood artists and their deep need for constant approval and affirmation.
Autodesk seems to do the programery BS they always pull... Don't get me wrong I like that Mudbox doesn't have wonky perspective, I like that I can work with standard navigation controls, I like that it's traditional 3D not some 2.5D voxel-ish weirdness. I like that it has P-Tex and doesn't need a really dense mesh in order to paint on it. I like that it has an amazing viewport but when it comes to sculpting it really isn't "like digital clay". Pixologic has worked hard over the years to make their app pretty much just that, digital sculpting.
With all of the community and marketing douchbaggery, it's like Autodesk was trying their best to shake off as many users as possible?
Zbrush hasn't done anything that ugly or boneheaded to their community. That kind of customer loyalty is hard to come by and Pixologic knows it and deeply appreacates it, its one of the core reasons why people forgive Zbrush's flaws.
For me on my monitor it is a nice bright green (y), red (x) and yellow (z), but not by any means neon. Maybe your monitor is set too bright or is not color corrected.
None the less, in Maya and MayaLT you have 100% control over basically every UI element. Under Window > Preferences > General > Manipulators : you will find size adjustments for manipulators. Under Wondow > Preferences > Color > Inactive > Modeling you will find the manipulators color adjustment. Make em whatever size and color you like. Check out the below link for a screenshot.
kindesigns.com/UI.PNG
it is funny that you posted that image. it was created with 4 different tools combined:
"Modeling in Silo and Maya. Sculpting and textures done in Mudbox and rendered in Octane Render."
http://www.cgfeedback.com/cgfeedback/showthread.php?t=5279
however, if i wanted to do the exact same thing in zbrush, i could do 100% of it inside zbrush without ever leaving the tool for once. everything in that image could be created inside zbrush, textured and rendered.
so if we compare the tools purely from sculpitng feature capability, Mudbox is far far behind.
it didnt have to be that far behind and had lot of potential but i dont really know what happened. may be it has something to do with Autodesk not keeping all the original Skymatter devs on board.
2015 release is 99% same as the 2014 extension 1 release.
2014 release is 98% same as the 2013 release.
and so on.
so far the only significant release in mudbox seems to be around 2011-2013.
anyways, it is good to see a price reduction.
now if only you guys actually added some new sculpting features then more people would be interested. just for a moment, forget about p-tex, posing, dynamesh, meshmixing, retopology and all the other bells and whistles.
please just focus on pure sculpting capability.
many years ago when i was in mudbox beta, i posted several ideas(with detailed mock up images) which were purely about sculpting. there are so many ways sculpting is restrictive inside mudbox.
just think of simple stuff. something as simple as drawing a straight line or an arc with a defined radius from a point is not possible. something as simple as tiling your brush stroke is not possible. brush customization is so far behind (look at Mari or Photoshop). have more options for altering the brush alpha dynamically. make it possible to combine alphas in one brush. add some advanced brush stroke tiling options.
for such basic sculpting feature improvement, Autodesk shouldnt really depend on our feedback or put features up for vote somewhere. just add them. that's what development and progress means.
i could go on and on but no one cares so why bother! that's why i left the beta program, no such feedback was being implemented or even considered.
that being said, i still use Mudbox for majority of my sculpting work mainly because of the ease of use and level of accuracy in the viewport display. i dont really need all the other tools inside zbrush but that is just me. however, i doubt how long i can stay away from zbrush. may be zbrush 5 will be it the time to switch if they finally make zbrush 64bit.
@ Authentic - are you affiliated with Autodesk in any way ? just wondering.
Well, obviously the ending of Softimage has people frazzled and for good cause. It probably feels like a slap in the face to have a tool you have used for years to come to an end. That said however the same people complaining that AD killed Softimage are the same people complaining that AD has too fragmented a product line and that updates dont happen often or substantial enough. I feel people cant have everything both ways. I really likes SI but honestly, if Maya and Max get better and more frequent updates, I think in time we will be happier for it. Also, AD seems to be responding to Public Opinion and are doing the things that people asked for. Mudbox is now super affordable at 10$ a month, Maya LT just had a drastic price reduction as well. I personally approve of their efforts as it directly benefits me and those using their software by a great deal. They also have put MayaLT on steam. I think that proves their willingness to change their ways for the better.
As for the feature failings of mudbox, I think you may want to check out 2015 features and updates. Maybe not all, but a bunch of the problems you mentioned have been fixed. There are now some good retopo tools built in though they are for the most part automated and offer only a few adjustments so it either works for you or does not. I am not a Pro Sculptor as I am really just an indy game artist and make mostly Low poly assets. I use modbox to add patinas, minor sculpting (scratches, dents, dings etc) and it has become my goto app for texturing everything I make. The paint tools are just great for me as are the sculpting tools.
The old fashioned workflow still works great for me... Model in max, unwrap in MayaLT and Baking / texturing in mudbox. (I personally love the baking tools... easy fast and efficient).
My biggest issue with Mudbox is simply that it is very difficult to have one mesh with both hard and soft edges. I hate having to add ring loops and the crease tool (though a step in the right direction) does not work as well as I expected and is rather cumbersome a process. I wish it just respected smoothing groups. Maybe in a future update.
@MM Yes, I am loosely affiliated with them. I am friendly with a few of the devs and have done projects for them before including tutorials and the like. I'm not being paid to have this conversation though if that is what you mean. Just happen to be a big fan of Autodesk. Ive used Inventor for years (engineering software), Max is my lifeblood, MayaLT is my goto unwrapping program and backup modeling tool. Ive used and like their products from day one. I used to be a Lightwave guy and once I switched, my workload (so many more jobs) and work quality (the tools are just faster and easier to use) increased exponentially.
well then you are not really in a position to judge how far behind Mudbox really is if you are not doing any heavy duty sculpting all the time.
if all you do is the basic sculpting and painting, then most of the time mudbox is not even needed. you can get away with crazybump, ndo, knald, or just photoshop.
It's like they bought up their competition to put them out of business but don't have the heart to immediately kill them off. It's like they are trying to be compassionate corporate raiders, that torture their products until they give up on life?
That's the crappy thing with the way they do business, a successful stand alone product could keep its team going and keep the innovation flowing but it's not enough for Autodesk so they shut it down or just stall out hoping that people just keep up their subscription or keep buying it year after year.
I honestly don't care about SoftImage. I feel for that community (wherever it is at). I only briefly used it to try out FaceRobot, it wasn't cool enough to keep me interested in the entire package.
As for Mudbox2015, I'll have to grab the trial and check it out, but I don't see that many improvements that would raise it up to the level it needs to be.
If you watch the video in my post, he paints mesh tubes onto the cape then adjusts them and merges them into the cape and runs dynamesh to clean up the topolgy. He is working, like a sculptor would by adding clay to the surface and then smoothing it out, its incredibly quick, simple and effective.
Mudbox whatca got? An inflate brush? <<crickets>> I see.
Looking over the 2015 features...
Better interop with Maya
Sweet I use max. So do a lot of people. Why is Maya interop important? what is mudbox missing that it needs its BFF to do?
Layers as groups
Great window dressing. They cloned a 5yr old feature from photoshop, congrats... /partyhorn
Caliper tool
Neat! Now we can measure stuff, what else does it do?
This doesn't even seem like feature filler. This fruit is hanging so low its on the ground.
Symmetrical Retopo
Really? Shouldn't it already do that? Seems more like a bugfix than a cool new feature.
Mudbox as a design tool falls apart.
Mudbox as a detailing tool works pretty well.
Zbrush as a design tool works great.
Zbrush as a detailing tool works pretty well.
(Even with the wonky UI, perspective and oddly reinvented wheels)
Quoting myself from the other thread about the new subscription model :
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=134612
So nope, not going to pay for it anymore - I'll stick to my shitty buggy 2012 (as in, consistently crashing when saving a scene with texture information in it, and unable to display mirrored UVs properly) that I paid way too much hard-earned cash for. Had they introduced a solid mesh creation system in 2015, I miiiiight have gone for it, but it still sounds to me that are just offering a mere automatic remeshing option, which doesn't come close to dynamesh in terms of usability.
Of course, Mudbox is great for sculpting on top of a established/imported base meshes, no doubt about it. I would actually argue that it is even much better than Zbrush at that, for the simple reason that its viewport feedback is much more accurate than Zbrush's. So, in a lot of production scenarios, it is still a valid option. However it really falls short at everything else, and as a very early adopter that truly saddens me.
For instance, when a sculpting program released in 2014 is not letting the user split out parts of a model into separate sculptable chunks, it's simply a sign of the devs are just not trying hard enough or not having their priorities straight. I would be happy with a rudimentary duplicate/delete unwanted parts/cap holes/autoremesh workflow, but as far as I know it is still not possible
Sometimes I get kind of nostalgic of the 1.07 release
i been also using mudbox from the beginning as well (early skymatter beta versions), so has been few of the other people who posted here in this thread.
just trust me when i say mudbox brush system is NOT advanced and NOT enough customization options are available.
i could write up a 5000 word essay and give you all the possibilities of the brush system, compared to other tools like Mari and Photoshop, both of which have more advanced brush system than mudbox.
for example, one simple thing you cant do in mudbox brush setting is free rotate the brush alhpa.
this has been suggested by many people and have been suggested long long ago.
this should be a common sense feature, it should not require online votes, myfeedback polls or any of those bullshit. if the devs cannot understand the importance of this feature then all of it is pointless.
anyways, i can list many many such common sense features that are missing from mudbox brush system. but, i dont have time to type more since no one cares.
I also care.
following the brush movement is the absolute bare minimum of a feature. one shouldn't even bother mentioning it as a feature.
photoshop had this feature 20 years ago i believe. 20 years...
So my problem is the feature where the manipulators change to super bright when manipulator handles are occluded by selected geometry. Anyone know a way to disable it?
Oh btw a few other small things on my Maya wishlist:
1. Give Target Weld ability to merge to center so it can fully replace inferior Merge Vert & Edge tools.
2. Display layer renaming should work the same as renaming animation and render layers.
3. Tab drag select feature would allow faster selection if our eyes only had to track a small bright icon rather than small tip of big brush icon.
I think I have a list of over 30 more small things of equal to greater importance than those 3, but I resolved most with scripting. I may make a video demonstration of all them later.
Granted Blenders Dyntopo isn´t that much optimized and caps now at similar polycounts like Sculptris but Mudbox is lacking in the sculpting area and should be with its current functions abandoned.- no matter how affordable Autodesk prices Mudbox.
3dcoat and Zbrush both have everything between the hobbyist to big studios market - no wonder because those tools are amazing!
Blender got and gets more seats in the hobbyists, freelancers and small studios
because it is from its available functionality the swissarmy knife of 3D programs
which means that Mudbox has to find its own niche to survive the foreseeable EOL XSIing death.
maybe Mudbox can find its niche with trying to piss on the high priced and as it seems awesome Mari.
But to be good and a serious competition, you have to be trusted form the customers and you have to be reliable and Autodesk is prone to miss those important things regularly.