Looking for recommendations on software for hard-surface, game-ready modeling
polycounter lvl 5
Hey everyone,
I've been working as a motion graphics artist for awhile, and I've been using Cinema 4d during that time. I'm about to go back to school to get into game design, and I'm looking to learn software that might be more industry standard for games. I won't be graduating for 3 years, so if any of you think you can see into the future and know if Modo or Blender will be more standard by that time, then I suppose I'd keep those in mind. The school I'll be attending primarily uses Maya, but we can use whatever we want.
What I'm looking for:
1. The fastest workflow possible for hardsurface weapon and props creation for games (consoles/PCs)
2. Can handle fast Sub-D and non Sub-D modeling.
Question I have about that is: Will Sub-D modeling be relevant in 3 years? It seems like it's slowly going away, but it also seems like every major company is still using it today.
Features like Box Cutter/Hard Ops for Blender, Mesh Blend for Maya look awesome, and I'd like a software that has the ability to do that kind of stuff.
Coming from Cinema 4D, there are some things I really like about it. I like the hotkeys (press M for modeling tools, second key for specific tool - sort of like Zbrush brush selection). I like the selection tools: Ring selection, Loop Selection, Fill selection, etc. I like how you can sort of do a non-destructive workflow up to a certain point.
A lot of the current artists that I love seem to use 3ds Max, one being Alex Senechal (but he said in an interview that he would like to switch to Blender from 3ds Max.) I also love Mark Van Haitsma, Ivan Lavretsov, and Vitaly Bulgarov.
Any thoughts on helping me make my decision would be great! Thank you!
I've been working as a motion graphics artist for awhile, and I've been using Cinema 4d during that time. I'm about to go back to school to get into game design, and I'm looking to learn software that might be more industry standard for games. I won't be graduating for 3 years, so if any of you think you can see into the future and know if Modo or Blender will be more standard by that time, then I suppose I'd keep those in mind. The school I'll be attending primarily uses Maya, but we can use whatever we want.
What I'm looking for:
1. The fastest workflow possible for hardsurface weapon and props creation for games (consoles/PCs)
2. Can handle fast Sub-D and non Sub-D modeling.
Question I have about that is: Will Sub-D modeling be relevant in 3 years? It seems like it's slowly going away, but it also seems like every major company is still using it today.
Features like Box Cutter/Hard Ops for Blender, Mesh Blend for Maya look awesome, and I'd like a software that has the ability to do that kind of stuff.
Coming from Cinema 4D, there are some things I really like about it. I like the hotkeys (press M for modeling tools, second key for specific tool - sort of like Zbrush brush selection). I like the selection tools: Ring selection, Loop Selection, Fill selection, etc. I like how you can sort of do a non-destructive workflow up to a certain point.
A lot of the current artists that I love seem to use 3ds Max, one being Alex Senechal (but he said in an interview that he would like to switch to Blender from 3ds Max.) I also love Mark Van Haitsma, Ivan Lavretsov, and Vitaly Bulgarov.
Any thoughts on helping me make my decision would be great! Thank you!
Replies
Studio - Maya/3DS Max. In the end those two platforms have established pipelines. PERIOD. They might let you use other stuff but that's a IF so why risk it? Not to mention you get those two for free if you go to a school so seems like a no-brainer to me.
And, Zbrush complicates things a bit because it's a pretty different workflow.
If I get a year in, and I need to switch to different software, that's fine, but I'd like to start off strong.
3ds Max is used by soooo many skillful people. The only thing that concerns me is that a lot of people seem to think it's not the fastest workflow anymore.
It doesn't really matter what you use, it's down to how you use it. - bulgarov was stubbornly trucking along with xsi on a laptop ten years ago and still smashed out work that made everyone feel pathetic..
Whatever you choose though, You should make sure you're competent at a basic level in maya as well. It's a shit modeller but it's used far more widely than anything else across most creative industries and should be considered a basic skill.