blender 2.8 vs 3ds max .. critical two issue..

avantchoi

Sorry for my poor english, I am not english native..
anyway,
these days I tried to learn blender 2.8 because I heard many good reviews about it.
I conclude to turn back to 3ds max because of some critical nagative aspects of blender after a month using it.

first,
I can not find 'edit poly' modifier equivalent function in the blender.  this is important issue when it comes to handlling spline(curve) and polygon at the same object. In blender, if I want to make a mesh from curve, I have to convert it and cannot turn back. there's no solution to change mesh to curve in same modifier stack.

second,
Lattice is not effective as much as FFD in 3ds max. because it always needs one or two more step to deal with it.
I like to use FFD, but blender's lattice is not comfortable like max.


This is totally based on my 1month experience so please get as an personal opinion.

musashidan

There is no equivalent of Edit Poly modifier in Blender. I am a long-term Max user learning 2.80 as well and unfortunately Blender's curve tools don't come anywhere close to Max's Spline tools. The great thing in Blender though is that you can work with isolated verts and edges in 3D space without connected faces. This is illegal topology in Max. This is a fantastic feature in Blender and this is how I get around the missing Spline tools from Max. I just work with verts and edges with a sub-surf(Turbosmooth) modifier. You can even extrude a vert/edge from a single vert and even extrude curve verts. There are also several scripts to quickly create pipe/tube geometry from edges.

Yes, Lattice workflow in Blender out of the box is terrible, but there are many addons to skip all the weird steps and have it behave like Max's FFD. Also, recently Maxivz released his Interactive Tools for Blender(you may know them from Max) and there is a Quick FFD tool that works on sub-object selections. Blender's features can be greatly improved with the many, many scripts that are out there, both free and paid(but very cheap)

Have a look here to see just how many and how varied the addons are for Blender:

https://blenderartists.org/c/coding/released-scripts-and-themes

Here is an ongoing Blender 2.80 for Max users vid tutorial series I've been putting out. You might find it useful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqKoUqbzn1Q&list=PLFR9irzqqKRp7rCwrRSKE9pIIxfj0Dl7G

avantchoi

yes.. there might be some addons about lattice but it is not fast as much as 3ds max. 
critically bad thing of blender modifier is that they only apply on object. but in 3ds max, modifier can apply on vertex, segment, polygon, and even group. this is huge gap between max and blender.

pior

@avantchoi : this is done through vertex groups.



As a matter of fact I'd recommend against comparing it with your app of choice on a feature by feature basis, as that could lead you to skip over things as fundamental as vertex groups here. The functionalities you are looking for are most likely all there - it's just that accessing them is done in a more "close to the metal" kind of way so to speak. Once you get into that way of thinking the app becomes extremely simple to explore. 2.8 actually makes things look less clear than before because of the crowded UI but the principles are all the same of course.

You will absolutely love vertex groups once you'll dive into skin weighting for instance. Imagine skin weighting being stored as simply as vertex color, without the need for any "modifiers" to edit it ; being able to pass the data to another model without even having to think about it ; being able to rename skin groups on the fly, and so on. Or even being able to cut and weld parts of models with blendmeshes wihout loosing any of the morph data. Extremely powerful stuff, which applies to all areas of the program.

beefaroni

Blender 2.8 has been great so far. I came from both Max and Maya and I've finished a few production assets with 2.8 now.

There are two features that are a bit lacking (extend edges + undo in large scenes) but otherwise it's been great. Really excited to see 2.81 forwards.

musashidan

The Quick FFD tool I mentioned above is just making use of vertex groups behind the scenes and, as I also said above, works on sub-object selections.

@pior is right, comparing features directly is detrimental and leads to frustration and understanding the differences in approach and concept. That's what I try to break that mindset in the videos. A few months back I was completely ignorant of Blender after 15 years spent in Max. Now that I'm comfortable I'm really enjoying 2.80.

Yes the modifier and spline workflows in Max are much better, but it's a tradeoff.

gnoop

   In Blender you could just select a vertex end extrude another one connected by an edge , then another one and so on, all while using very good  snapping to surface  option or shrinkwarp modifier.    Resulting edge loop is a Blender kind of "spline" still staying regular  mesh object. 

  It's kind of a big modeling advantage in general   from one side and  at the same time a disadvantage  since you could easily make non-manifold problematic geometry and Max wouldn't just allow you.

You can also select such edge loop,  make it separate object , convert it into real curve, set spline type to Bezier  and make it tube, half tube or bevel something alone.

 I actually find it kind of easier and more straight forward  than Max splines.   The only thing I miss is ability to use real-world UV on MAx splines.    Blender ones need  regular vertex intervals  to have proper UV along spline objects.   

BTW,  Shrinkwrap modifier in Blender is greatly superior to MAx conform tools

Blender displace modifier is immensely more convenient than MAx ones.  In MAx I couldn't even do proper terrain displacement reading actual geotiff or exr  height values  without much of height guessing.   

Blender array modifier works better than Houdini in some cases  and with MAx such live arraying in masse could just hang it forever.

I don't use Blender 2.8.   Its viewport seems  slower than 2.79 and the interface is worse and more complicated than before imo.    Still it introduced nice manual vertex normal editing and face weighting better than what I saw available for MAx with plugins only.

In general I find Blender to be  simpler, easier and more elegant  even lacking few options

   

 

Justo

Speaking of extrusions between Max and Blender...What are "the Blender ways" to achieve these sorts of shapes?



I know I know, Blender doesnt come with edge extrusions. I know of Maxivz's script which allows this (only in Move mode as of this date), but it's all based on addons, while I was looking more for something that is natively supported and goes along more with Blender's way of making things. 

My only guess is to make the whole object first, cut the loops, inset and not move the selection, then scale in two axis?



This works, though only if you know before hand the full length of your object first...I guess it's just a matter of rethinking your design mindset, but I was hoping there were tools which allowed for more experimentation/flexible workflows...?

gnoop

 know I know, Blender doesnt come with edge extrusions.

?????      It does       select your face or edge ring, hit E , than S, Shif+Z and move mouse away

E is hot key to extrude anything.  S - scale, Shif+Z  for XY plane only.       In Blender 2.79 it is also Ctrl+ left click to extrude in screen space.

.Wiki

Justo said:

Speaking of extrusions between Max and Blender...What are "the Blender ways" to achieve these sorts of shapes?



I know I know, Blender doesnt come with edge extrusions. I know of Maxivz's script which allows this (only in Move mode as of this date), but it's all based on addons, while I was looking more for something that is natively supported and goes along more with Blender's way of making things. 

This works, though only if you know before hand the full length of your object first...I guess it's just a matter of rethinking your design mindset, but I was hoping there were tools which allowed for more experimentation/flexible workflows...?

Just press E for extrusion and then scale, move and rotate it.

xrg

Justo said:

Speaking of extrusions between Max and Blender...What are "the Blender ways" to achieve these sorts of shapes?

You can do that with hotkeys. E, S = Extrude Scale. E, Z = Extrude and move along the Z. (this assumes default controls)

Seems kind of difficult to do with the active tools, though. If I get time I might bring it up with the developers.

pior

"I know, I know, [...]"

@Justo : besides the confusion about edge extrusion, your second  gif shows that you are attempting to grab components on the object itself in order to perform mesh editing operations. You pretty much need to unlearn this habit as you are wasting time and effort because of it. Instead you want to make your selection, activate the tool you need (say, bevel or extrude) and then move your mouse away from where it currently is, on the imaginary axis between the current selection and the cursor position or on the axis filter if available. That's what the dashed line and the colored axis lines are here for. 



That's why object and tool interaction in Blender is imho objectively superior to anything else out there - it's just way more efficient than having to click and drag directly on the model/selection or having to mess with sliders.

Also it follows that you don't need to the manipulator for this kind of stuff - neither for visual feedback nor for interaction. 90% of your work can be done without it.

And yeah of course edge extrusion is here :

Justo

Thanks a lot for the tips guys! Absolutely mistaken when I assumed to know Blender didnt have this sort of functionality hehe

TheGabmeister

Justo said:

Speaking of extrusions between Max and Blender...What are "the Blender ways" to achieve these sorts of shapes?



I know I know, Blender doesnt come with edge extrusions. I know of Maxivz's script which allows this (only in Move mode as of this date), but it's all based on addons, while I was looking more for something that is natively supported and goes along more with Blender's way of making things. 

Here you go. I made a quick GIF on how it's done in Blender. As previously mentioned, just press E to extrude any component. The nice thing is that there's no need to point your cursor on the transform gizmo if you use the default shortcuts.

pior

I'll be the nitpicker on this : 

"The nice thing is that there's no need to point your cursor on the transform gizmo if you use the default shortcuts."

This is actually incorrect - the defaults keybindings have nothing to do with that, as this is true for manually (re)assigned shortcuts too. I know this is a very minor difference in semantics but I think it is important to clear this up as that seems to be a widespread misconception, effectively making people think that they have to stick to the defaults in order to use the app at its full potential - which is not true at all.

Just sayin'

Justo

pior said:

besides the confusion about edge extrusion, your second  gif shows that you are attempting to grab components on the object itself in order to perform mesh editing operations. You pretty much need to unlearn this habit as you are wasting time and effort because of it. Instead you want to make your selection, activate the tool you need (say, bevel or extrude) and then move your mouse away from where it currently is, on the imaginary axis between the current selection and the cursor position or on the axis filter if available. That's what the dashed line and the colored axis lines are here for. 

As for modeling tools, I completely agree with what you say. There is no need to move the mouse to the selection - in fact, this is not recommended as far as i understand, since the amount of precision you get with some tools will be relative to the distance at which you execute the tool, from the mouse cursor to the selection. In other words, if my mouse cursor was right over the face when i execute Inset, the smallest movement will greatly affect the face, whereas if i had activated the tool a longer distance away, I will get way more precision (and using Shift gives even more control too). 

Whoa, I just tried E. So it moves in screenspace huh, unless I press X/Y/Z/other keyboard constraints. I don't know how to feel about this, seems like my hand would be dancing around the keyboard each time I need to extrude...I think it's just smarter to hit E, click immediately after, then move with your gizmo.

Justo

pior said:

I'll be the nitpicker on this : 

"The nice thing is that there's no need to point your cursor on the transform gizmo if you use the default shortcuts."

This is actually incorrect - the defaults keybindings have nothing to do with that, as this is true for manually (re)assigned shortcuts too. I know this is a very minor difference in semantics but I think it is important to clear this up as that seems to be a widespread misconception, effectively making people think that they have to stick to the defaults in order to use the app at its full potential - which is not true at all.

Just sayin'

Exactly. I'm thinking right now what would be the most optimal way of going about this, or whether these keyboard constraints are not as convenient as just using the gizmo.

...I can't come up with any attractive solutions though. Even if I place all XYZ constraints together so that my fingers dont move as much, it's still a ton of keyboard presses rather than one click with the gizmo. Every user will decide based on their preferences I guess, but to me the ergonomic exp of this op kinda scares me. 

And it's kinda sad, because there is a part of me that sees the potential here - not having to rely on the gizmo, keeping the eyes on the model, being immersed exclusively in that design mindset. I think the only way I could embrace such a behavior, is if after pressing E Blender would automatically snap movement to one axis, based on the mouse cursor and viewport position. Then I could hold certain keyboard keys to open the movement to two or three axis.  

EDIT: I just realized at the end I was describing the exact behavior of Maxivz' smart extrude tool lol. As awesome as it is though, it does not allow for two-axis-movement unfortunately.

pior

"I think it's just smarter to hit E, click immediately after, then move with your gizmo."

Well ... 

Justo

pior said:

Well ... 

 I don't know what you're trying to prove though. That you can do a lot and very fast by not relying on the gizmo? I agree yeah, but I don't think you get the right amount of control during those extrudes for some actual production work. I can see that polystrip in your gif being all over the place. Unless you're looking to make abstract art that you don't know how exactly it's all gonna look like in the end, I don't see the use for that, unless you're skipping all the snapping that comes after that operation...

...Unless you press the keyboard constraints as you extrude, which goes back to my previous argument of how-much-worthy-is-it-really-vs-the-gizmo (we're posting too fast and missing a late post before submitting a reply is easy ).

pior

It's alright, you'll figure it out with practice Just don't rely on your mind's eye/imagination/assumptions too much with this sort of stuff - nothing beats testing things out thoroughly.

Prime8

Justo said:

...
My only guess is to make the whole object first, cut the loops, inset and not move the selection, then scale in two axis?



...

Even though unasked, quick tip for this action. Inset has a depth value which acts like an extrusion, press Ctrl+Mouse or Tab for manual input of the value, or adjust later in the options.

Udjani

I have been using blender for more than a year for hard surface and i didn't had to use the gizmo once, you can use snap in some not so common situations and where you need precision, and i would recommend change the default Inset hotkey, having something so useful in ''I'' is madness.

Jekyll

Justo said:

...Unless you press the keyboard constraints as you extrude, which goes back to my previous argument of how-much-worthy-is-it-really-vs-the-gizmo [...]

Secret Blender trick № 214 – You can lock the axis while doing extrusion by pressing the middle mouse button.
See also: 
https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/editors/3dview/object/editing/transform/control/precision/axis_locking.html

Also, Extrude constraints itself automatically along the face normals of the selected faces – But, no faces, no face normals. So it's probably easier to just cap the cylinder (F) and then do the extrusion.

And if one needs more fine control while moving things around, holding Shift usally does the trick.

musashidan

As mentioned Blender is a different modeling paradigm than Max. Shift+dragging an open border and using transform gizmos is my preferred method in Max over extruding/insetting faces(I also use a script to cycle transform gizmos with spacebar like UE4),  but in Blender the quickest way to do this(your example) is: E+rightclick>S>E......repeat.... 2 hotkeys right beside eachother and 1 mouse click.

musashidan

@Justo Part 9.1 of my Blender 2.80 for Max users is up and looks at some of these concepts in relation to Max

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAmLf_VAP7k

Poly_Nut

For ffd the bsmax addon cover your back with the ffd 2x2, 3x3, 4x4 and they also work in edit mode. Nasser is doing an amazing job at bringing valuable tools to Blender. With this you will also get the align tool, the clone tool and almost all the primitives with parameters and you can draw them anywhere on the screen just like in max.

This guy is very talented and he give it all for free so i think he deserved more attention.

There is also many other features and you can follow his work here : http://nevilart.blogspot.com/2019/02/bsmax.html

monitorhero

Hey guys, currently I am doing the reverse and coming from Blender to 3dsMax (work related). I noticed that the Turbosmooth behaves differently than the Subdivision Surface Modifier in Blender. In this thread I read that both use Catmull Clark algorithm though.

https://forums.cgsociety.org/t/turbosmooth-subdivision-algorithm/1510465

Adding a simple plane in Max and Blender shows that the plane in Blender gets rounded around the corners. Also that you can't add free floating vertices is a pain in Max.

Does anyone know how to get the same thing done in Max with a subdivided plane?

coven

Can you show what you are talking about in Blender?

monitorhero

Like this. The mesh gets smoothed all around in Blender.

PolyHertz

monitorhero said:

Also that you can't add free floating vertices is a pain in Max.

 In Editable Poly, or an Edit Poly modifier, go to vertex subobject mode and press the "create" button. After that you can click anywhere to create free floating vertices.

Eric Chadwick

Also, Turbosmooth is ancient, only there for backwards compatibility. 

Use OpenSubdiv instead.

monitorhero

PolyHertz said:

monitorhero said:

Also that you can't add free floating vertices is a pain in Max.

 In Editable Poly, or an Edit Poly modifier, go to vertex subobject mode and press the "create" button. After that you can click anywhere to create free floating vertices.

Thank you that's great.

Eric Chadwick said:

Also, Turbosmooth is ancient, only there for backwards compatibility. 

Use OpenSubdiv instead.

Blenders and Max Catmull-Clark implementation are both ancient and I see them getting used everywhere even today.
What is the difference between OpenSubdiv and Turbosmooth? Anything I have to look ou for?
Also Blender 2.8 has no OpenSuddiv implementation currently.

srsface

With OpenSubdiv you can change the Vertex Boundary setting to "Interp. Edges" to make the plane get fully rounded. Also might wanna turn off "Isoline Display" to see the new edges.

monitorhero

I just tried the Create technique but all it does is give me free floating vertices. But how can I connect them to each other? In Blender you can create an edge between those verts anywhere you want. Seems pretty useless unless I am missing something here.

coven

Turbosmooth is much older and doesn't have all the features OpenSub Divs do. 

OpenSubDiv uses weighting on the edges and vertices to adjust the sharpness. You can adjust the crease weights within editable poly, edit poly, and we also have two creasing modifiers. Crease Modifier which drives all the weights the same, and CreaseSet Modifier which allows you to create crease sets that you can individually set weights to.

You can also use the Data Channel Modifier to automatically generate crease weights based on say the edge angles. Here is a vid showing that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RL7Ylm0TVkw

For connecting edges between vertices, that is an illegal process for the mnmesh library. Can I ask what you are wanting to do with edge connected vertices? Would the splines be something that could replace that?

monitorhero

Thanks for the explaination Coven. I will try to use OpenSubDiv from now on.
Regarding the edges. It lets me do stuff like retopology and first build the mesh without actually creating faces. Or I want to redirect my edge flow. Or just put in some verts as a guide and later connect them. I have mutliple use cases for it. It feels a little limiting inside 3dsmax

PolyHertz

Once you've created the free floating verts you can go into the face subobject level and enable 'create' there to create faces from them, or use the ribbons 'Step Build' modeling tool.

coven

Yep, there are a ton of cool tools in the ribbon like what PolyHertz said. You could also use splines and generate patches from them (Surface splines).  Splines are very powerful.