Which 3D-Software fits our needs?

JanH

Hello everyone,

we are a small team, working on a VR-Game in Unity 3D.
In the University we learned Cinema 4D in our courses and are still using it right now.

But in the last months we are sometimes getting trouble in our workflow (C4D (Low- & Highpoly) > Substance Painter (Stylized, Handpainted Style) > Unity 3D (URP))
Some people told me, that C4D is for sure not the right software to create models for realtime.
Some told me.. use blender.. some told me.. use maya and some other guys told me.. hey you must use 3ds max.

Right now i dont know what to use.. only that Cinema 4D is possibly not the right choice.
Is anyone of you in a similar situation and can give me some help, which software is a good choice for our needs?
The price for software doesnt matter.

i hope you understand my struggle and have some recommendations for us

Greetings,
Jan

oglu

Whats the exact problem with C4D?
Cause if you know how to use it i would stick with it. Learning a new tool in the middle of a project does crate a lot more troubles.

JanH

oglu said:

Whats the exact problem with C4D?
Cause if you know how to use it i would stick with it. Learning a new tool in the middle of a project does crate a lot more troubles.

I'm in the situation right now, that its hard to bake good working normalmaps in painter. I figured out, that i have to set a phong break (the phong tag smoothes edges in C4D) everywhere where i have a uv-seam.
Also its hard to find help for the workflow (C4D > Painter > unity) when im in trouble, because it feels like there are only few people using C4D in the case im using it for.

Right now its possible for us to change the software, if we can benefit from it in the future.

oglu

If thats the only problem just use Blender to fix the hard/soft edeges. You dont have to switch 100% today.
Switch over time.

gnoop

I  tried to study Cinema a decade ago and  came to similar issue  with inability to directly control/edjt  polygon shading, vertex normals, baking projection  and do reliable export  with edited vertex normals after that.      But I remember there  were a few 3dparty plugins  for  vertex normal editing  that could fix all this potentially .        I never tried those plugins,  gave up and abandoned the ship , switched to Blender  eventually .

Still those 3d party plugins might be solving your issue . Have just googled one  http://frostsoft.blogspot.com/p/fssoftware.html

I am curious to learn  if there is a solution for Cinema now   because  other than that issue I had been very much impressed,

ps, Vertex normals  is what control surface shading , hard/smooth edges and normal map backing accordingly   in 3d graphic.     Phong break is just weird fancy naming

JanH

Ill try it and give you some infos
Thx for now

JanH

Well. Its not working with C4D S22..

gnoop

  Somehow 3d soft devs never understood  gamedev   which is half of all CG if not more.     They basically cut off a half of their potential market share.        It took  more than decade for Blender  too.    I recall one of Blender devs asked at blenderartists :  "Why you all need this normal editing when Blender does it automatically".    I was amazed by the question itself and how far  they are from what gamedev need.   Thankfully somene sane did understand  and  now it's still not perfect but ok in Blender.    

   Not yet the case for Cinema my guess . It's pity  because  my impression was  that Cinema is like Houdini for human beings

kanga

I taught C4D for 4 years at a city college. It's a pretty good piece of software, but back then it was mostly geared toward motion graphics. Personally I found it alien, coming from 3DMax. At the time the C4D community was small and not that responsive.

What are you making the game for?  Are you doing it for fun, school, folio or money? If it's for fun or money I would choose Blender and Substance Painter/ Designer/Alchemist. If the work is for school and/or folio, I would choose Max/Maya for modeling.

gandhics

3dssMax.