Ex Modo users (using blender)

repete

Hello all

Would like to know your experiences with Blender as I have been on the fence for quite some time now. I know the UI will take some getting used to but are there any user based UI's worth checking out ? I have seen a few that do look interesting and I am not looking for a modo equivalent just a UI that helps with the game art workflow in general. I have customized modo to meet my needs (not an easy task) so I don't mind doing this for blender.

Also any decent vid tutorials for getting started with blender would be appreciated especially baking maps and exporting FBX flies. I am 100% focused on level design so any tips in that dep regarding blender would be welcome.

How is scripting in blender ?  is there also a macro system?

Cheers

Pete  

Yadoob

Hi,

As first advice, I would tell you to stick with default UI if you first want to learn and understand it so you can more easily rely on tutorials. There's still improvment you can easily do like installing PitiWazou Pie Menus (http://www.blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?348496-Addon-Wazou-s-Pie-Menus ), changing Right Click to Left Click selection in the User Prefs, emulate 3 button mouse... There's also some nice theme out there like Moyo theme : https://www.behance.net/gallery/6171125/MOYO-Free-Blender-Theme .

As for scripting, Blender uses Python so it's not that hard as a language but the API is kind of cumberstome. But on the other side there's lot of info on Internet. For macro stuff it's easier since you just have to create a text, write "import bpy" at the beginning and drag the top bar down to see every action you've made. I've wrote some script myself for Game ARt creation so you can take a look http://blenderlounge.fr/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=1438 :

 There's also template of scripts inside Blender for every type of script you need. 

You can bake map both with Cycles (raytracer, you have to plug a texture node n the node tree first) or Blender Internal (the older one).

The thing you need though is add-ons : UV-Square, Bool-Tool, F2, LoopTools, Texture Atlas, Bsurface to name a few that are quite important (all free).

repete

Thanks Yadoob

Been reading up on blender from this morning and it has been overwhelming, you can do so much with the software it's hard to fit my little level design ambition in there.

Digging the MOYO theme (reminds me of something) and the Pie menus !

Time to pull the trigger 

PS where is the user base at ? I guess blenderartists.org

Dataday

repete said:

PS where is the user base at ? I guess blenderartists.org

That is correct.
Sad to see you go... though I know a few users who end up coming right back. Keep in mind they are planning for a completely new keymap (current target is 2.8), so a lot of what you learn now may be temporary (in regards to muscle memory)... though I expect they will have an option for those too used to the old keymap as well.

There are also two threads you may want to check out first... both by the same guy but on each respective forum. Basically its a video breakdown between Blender and Modo, the good and the bad.
1) http://community.thefoundry.co.uk/discussion/topic.aspx?f=4&t=121134
2) http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?395328-A-MODO-artist-learns-Blender-Newest-video-6-Context-Sensitive-Behaviour

Yadoob

Yes there's a lot of variety inside Blender, it's fun to create your own workflow with it ! As for Level Design, you maybe need some archi function like the one hidden in the View (N) panel :



The user base is mainly on BlenderArtist, but there's also lot of knowledgable people here  

xrg

One not super well known feature is a fly-cam mode. It lets you run around like an FPS game and things. It can be pretty useful for level editing. Here is a BlenderGuru video demoing it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcZmyD9jkI4

Dataday

Just need to point out that Modo 10 now has that feature too, so its not really something to advertise having over the other. Just glad both apps have it though.

thomasp

the beauty with blender is that you can customize it down to it's core behaviour and appearance so much with rather simple scripting. the downside is that the default has so little in common with other apps in our field, roswell-alien-strange to me. what i do to stay tutorial-compatible is keep a default set of prefs around (in m case on a second machine but a separate blender install with a different version number should do since the prefs are saved in a version-labeled folder structure).
that way i can follow tutorials or check out some neat config for inspiration but not have to put up with the default and mess up the max/maya/UE muscle memory when using the app.

for a standard interaction behaviour you can check out this silo inspired setup: http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?352666-Input-Custom-Blender-Setup-Silo-Maya-esque

if you want to dig into building your own interface elements, there's the pie menu editor which is payware but AFAIK the only convenient way to build in a WYSIWYG manner: https://cgcookiemarkets.com/all-products/pie-menu-editor/

xrg

@Dataday - If you mean me, I wasn't advertising it as something Blender has over Modo. OP said "I am 100% focused on level design so any tips in that dep regarding blender would be welcome." -- I was responding to that. It's a feature that most Blender users aren't aware of, but is very useful for level editing.

Dataday

xrg said:

@Dataday - If you mean me, I wasn't advertising it as something Blender has over Modo. OP said "I am 100% focused on level design so any tips in that dep regarding blender would be welcome." -- I was responding to that. It's a feature that most Blender users aren't aware of, but is very useful for level editing.

No worries, I meant it only as clarification in case the impression was made that such a feature was missing in Modo, thus making Blender more appealing. I find it a bit odd that the OP wants to leave Modo when the game's update just happened, but if they have a reason for doing so (such as financial) then I can understand Blender's appeal. Either way it should be known that the feature mentioned is in both.

PollySong

The biggest thing that keeps me in modo is the workplane (and the preview). I keep asking this in threads once a year or so, hoping something's changed: is there something like a workplane in blender now? Also I use "2D" snap a lot, i.e. if you're in a front/left/whatever viewport, can you snap in just x+y for example, not in all 3 dimensions?

Yadoob

AFAIK workplane is quite MODO specific and it's currently not in Blender (and not in roadmap neither), try next year
As for 2D snap, it's the default behavior in the orthographic Front/Back/Top,... views for move and rotate. I also use the Shift+(X,Y,Z)+(X,Y,Z) with custom orientation quite a lot in blender to act like a working plane.


Also to answer the very first question of this topic : 

Frankie

Obviously not even close to workplane but you can select a face then hold shift and press the numpad to change view and align view to that face and then do some operations from that aligned view, including making primitives.

gif if it helps: https://www.dropbox.com/s/gr9hgyunm2ueih5/view align.gif?dl=0

repete

I find it a bit odd that the OP wants to leave Modo when the game's update just happened

There is nothing new in modo 10 that I desperately need and for my purposes modo is becoming bloated with new features while the fundamentals i.e. core modeling tools are being left behind in the shadows. Some of the important tools I use have many issues which cause much frustration and the workarounds have become very tiresome.

I have no problems learning a new 3D package and the most important aspects for me are solid and accurate tools that simply work as they should. Time to take Blender for a spin and broaden my horizons and it wont cost me a cent apart from a few plugins. Not saying goodbye to modo just yet but I really do need a break from it and since modo got me into 3D art it saddens me to say that.   

repete

Thanks for all the tips so far guys

Getting my hands dirty tonight !!

pior

Hi there -

Here are the two videos I used to learned blender. From there I asked any further questions I had on BlenderArtist and within about a month I was operational, with a then fully customized program.

https://gumroad.com/l/VHMCw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12fqTUyDts0

Good luck.

Dataday

repete said:

I find it a bit odd that the OP wants to leave Modo when the game's update just happened

There is nothing new in modo 10 that I desperately need and for my purposes modo is becoming bloated with new features while the fundamentals i.e. core modeling tools are being left behind in the shadows. Some of the important tools I use have many issues which cause much frustration and the workarounds have become very tiresome.

I have no problems learning a new 3D package and the most important aspects for me are solid and accurate tools that simply work as they should. Time to take Blender for a spin and broaden my horizons and it wont cost me a cent apart from a few plugins. Not saying goodbye to modo just yet but I really do need a break from it and since modo got me into 3D art it saddens me to say that.   

Having used Maya, Blender and Modo... I can't possibly imagine what kind of core modeling tools Modo is missing compared to the others. Not saying you shouldnt go and explore other software, you should... helps round out the expectations as to whats good and whats not so good in the tools we use, but for the core modeling stuff... Modo has really been one of the best most complete modeling packages I have seen so far.

Now for the non core stuff... or what I would consider non core... have you popped into the direct connect section on their official forums? Assuming you have access to it of course. There is a little surprise as to what is coming with 10.1 and it has to do with modeling. Mix that with the Fabric Engine 2 and well we start getting into XSI territory