What do you model with?

Auldbenkenobi

Hey everyone, bit of a wall of text coming but here goes.

So, around February last year I got my first 3D job (With an online retailer, not games, but hey, I'm living the dream!) and after a few months of finally having money to save, I splashed out and bought an entirely new PC. Now, at work we model using Cinema 4D, as down the line, it's easier for MoGraph to use it in conjunction with After Effects. Why we model in it, I don't know, but it works and I've gotten used to it.

This means I haven't used 3Ds Max at all for a good number of months. The combination of new PC and modeling all day in Cinema meant it's only now that I've been thinking of reinstalling a 3D package and doing some personal 3D stuff again.

On to my question. What do you guys use predominantly for personal/professional work and what would you recommend. I've always used Max but reinstalling it the other day reminded me why my last PC got in such a mess. The license key I had didn't work(when as far as I can tell it should have as it's an Educational License they provided), Autodesk's website is horrible to navigate and when I uninstalled Max again in frustration at trying to get it to work it leaves stuff behind that I then have to go rooting around for and delete manually.

I'd like to branch out a bit, and have looked at Modo and, of course, there's always Blender or Maya I suppose. I'd like to get some opinions I guess and see what other folks like. 

I'm itching to get into personal 3D work again, but Max just seems really unappealing.

R3D

I tend to stick with whatever programs I'm most comfortable with and/or I look at potential employers and see what they use.

If 3ds max isn't your flavour, I'd recommend trying out Modo or Maya like you said, you've basically covered the popular choices.

There's no real wrong answer imo, it's like asking if you should draw with a black pen or a blue pen. They fulfill the same purpose.

Auldbenkenobi

True that. I'm asking more to get opinions rather than asking which I should use. I've never gone beyond Max before now so it'd be nice to go into another package with some idea of how it handles or whatever.

ExcessiveZero

Auldbenkenobi said:

True that. I'm asking more to get opinions rather than asking which I should use. I've never gone beyond Max before now so it'd be nice to go into another package with some idea of how it handles or whatever.

Personally I used max for years and started using modo and I am infatuated with it, makes max feel to me like abandonware, it by no means is perfect and some thigns are way more fiddly then max but in my mind it is the future without a doubt.

AtticusMars

I use Blender and ZBrush and I like them because they're good.

Joopson

Maya's a pretty complete package, and 2016.5 and 2017 were huge updates, compared to the same updates for Max. New UV packing algorithm, for instance, is a god send.

I'd personally recommend that. Just because it's more common still than Modo. If you hate Maya even after trying it for a while, maybe try modo or even Blender.

ambelamba

I started out with Modo without much knowledge in hard surface sub D modeling. And I jumped right into sub D modeling. Not a wise move. 

Now I am jumping into Maya because the VA might pay for Gnomon school, and Maya is the main tool taught by Gnomon. Seems like playing with Modo actually helped me understand Maya faster than starting straight into Maya instead. 

Also, Modo has relatively smaller collections of tutorials, which makes me struggle to learn it myself. I might go back to Modo AFTER I get proficient with Maya. But with the Modeling Toolkit in newer versions of Maya, I might stick with it.

Millenia

Knowing both Max and Maya covers pretty much every studio's pipeline out there (doubt there are any that would force you to use Blender or Modo), so it's good to have at least workable knowledge of both.

I personally much prefer Max for its modifier stack centric workflow that allows you to work fairly non-destructively, but Maya does excel in certain areas.

.Wiki

Still doing a lot of stuff in softimage. Did a lot of things with max when i started with 3d and now i´m trying to learn zbrush.

kanga

Oooooh when Max goes wrong its epic. My version still works but I use Blender and zbrush for modelling as well.

musashidan

Max for me since R4. Fantastic all-round package and so straightforward to use. But I would say that, wouldn't I?
Zbrush since R1.52 and can't imagine life without it, basically. Enough said.

Have used both Modo and Maya for several projects. Maya was great to animate with(after some initial cursing at why it didn't do shit that Max does) Maya for modeling however......no thanks.(althought it certainly looks to have improved since I used it in R2012)

Modo is a pretty slick, modern(in Maya/Max terms) package with a decent workflow but, I couldn't take it seriously as the viewport fps was laughable with just a few 100K polys in the scene causing horrible lag and slowness, even on a decent workstation.. That was back in R901 so maybe it has improved somewhat.

Agreed with the above comments on either keeping your Max knowledge sharp or learning Maya, or both, for the industry relevance factor.

No matter what you choose they all have their pros/cons/frustrations/gems/etc. Once you get comfortable in a package and have essential workflow scripts/custom UI/hotkeys/etc set up, then life is good.

NoRank

I like to use max because it allows me to use some modifier stacks, which kinda reminds me of photoshop and it's layers stacks. But idk, other than that I used blender and maya and both are pretty good, thought I personally like to use 3ds max.

And zbrush ofc.

musashidan

Yamanote said:

That said, it would be nice to read what users of other applications consider unique regarding specifics   in the applications that makes them stick around.

With Max/Maya it's the simple fact that they are deeply embedded pretty much in every industry pipeline in Games and VFX. They're what most artists that have been doing this a long time 'grew up with'.(and of course the sadly lamented XSI)

musashidan

Yamanote said:

That said, it would be nice to read what users of other applications consider unique regarding specifics   in the applications that makes them stick around.

With Max/Maya it's the simple fact that they are deeply embedded in pretty much every industry pipeline in Games and VFX. They're what most artists that have been doing this a long time 'grew up with'.(and of course the sadly lamented XSI)

Auldbenkenobi

Fantastic insights, thanks very much everyone. I have been told to switch from Max to Maya in the past, so I think I'm going to give it a shot and get familiar with it, and an extra skillset on the CV wont hurt, if I put the time in.

RyanB

Yamanote said:

I'm stuck with Blender because I can't justify the expense of anything else unfortunately.

You can get a free student version of any Autodesk product with an email account at a recognized school. 

Sunray

Maya and Zbrush.

FourtyNights

I've always used Blender since the day one I started 3D, and it's easy to install in a studio environment, because it can be run as a portable application and there's no license issues since it's free. BUT, I'm at least keeping Maya and Max close in order to import my character models to them and set them up for riggers.

For sculpting I use Zbrush, because of its super responsive brushes and they feel amazing on a tablet (naturally), and it has so many other extremely useful tools...

...instead of sticking in Blender with sculpting, because its brushes doesn't feel good and sculpting tools lack simple features such as polygroups or even a topological move etc., and Blender gets slow in higher sub-d levels.

ambelamba

Sunray said:

Maya and Zbrush.

Not the most convenient modeling tool but Maya is the industry standard.

What I am not sure is whether modeling scripts/plugins are OK when learning the basic of modeling. Maybe not. They are meant to be shortcuts. 

I believe that the workflow/pipeline is all different from studio to studio, and I am not sure how each studio handles the workflow between Maya and Zbrush. Individually, some people prefer modeling all the nooks and crannies with sub D modeling. I wonder if adding the details through Zbrush with custom alphas is considered a lazy approach. I think many modelers do, but from the eyes of employers, do they prefer 'hardcore' sub D modelers to people relying on shortcuts? I am not sure.

musashidan

ambelamba said:

Sunray said:

Maya and Zbrush.

Not the most convenient modeling tool but Maya is the industry standard.

What I am not sure is whether modeling scripts/plugins are OK when learning the basic of modeling. Maybe not. They are meant to be shortcuts. 

I believe that the workflow/pipeline is all different from studio to studio, and I am not sure how each studio handles the workflow between Maya and Zbrush. Individually, some people prefer modeling all the nooks and crannies with sub D modeling. I wonder if adding the details through Zbrush with custom alphas is considered a lazy approach. I think many modelers do, but from the eyes of employers, do they prefer 'hardcore' sub D modelers to people relying on shortcuts? I am not sure.

Good that you've spotted this yourself. One man's 'relying on shortcuts' is another man's 'I've modeled a hundred different nurnies and I can do it in my sleep, so I'll use an insert brush to speed up my workflow'.
In order to utilise these 'shortcuts', they are only beneficial - to you as an artist -  if you already are skilled/knowledgeable in the first place.

Definitely do the work first. It's like the difference between somebody who can write code and a 'script-kiddie'.

CreativeSheep

The door was left open so I couldn't resist