As much as I like Blender I often find some of its features somewhat lacking, and feel envious of more focused commercial applications.
For instance, I've often found the sculpting tools in Blender too constricting. I really like that they added the features, and the sculpture tool itself is great. But the Multi-Res system that allows you to sculpt models at different subdivision levels is a tad restrictive. Once you've applied it, you are stuck with the base model as it is. I've recently downloaded the 30-day trial version of Silo 3D, and I'm seriously considering purchasing a license. It's sculpting tools are quite nice, and perform better on my system than Blender's do. And I adore the ability to go back and make changes to the base mesh without messing up my sculpting progress.
Open source is great for those who can't afford commercial software. But once you can, it's understandable to want to invest in one. I'll still be using Blender for animation, though. I've always loved how it seamlessly combines bone and shape animations.
Even Silo has its limitations when compared to applications such as Mudbox and ZBrush.
As much as I like Blender I often find some of its features somewhat lacking, and feel envious of more focused commercial applications.
I feel the same about every product I've tried. There is no perfect 3D toolset.
It's not always about price, either. We all have different wants and needs. Not everyone is interested in sculpting, not everyone is looking to be hired by a company that uses product X,Y, or Z.
I'm a hobbyist. I make little games. I'm not interested in making big sculpts with a trillion polygons, or rendering out movies. I just need something that I can make levels and low poly meshes in, and export them out to my own formats (which a built in scripting language helps with).
I actually found a little 80$ program called DeleD a lot more enjoyable to work in than 3DS Max for my low polygon environments. It didn't offer all the features (NOT BY A MILE), but it was focused on the type of work I was interested in, and it allowed me to make levels. In fact, 2 people have recently been posting DS spec racing track levels. There is no reason they couldn't have gotten in done in DeleD instead of 3000$ software which was complete overkill.
3DS Max, XSI, and Maya aren't really right for me. They are overpriced, and overkill. I would be interested in stripped down versions which focuses on the features I wanted, but these programs aren't sold a-la-carte. It's all or nothing, and they are targeted at large companies who can easily afford the expense. And that's fine.
But I don't have 3k to throw around every few years for these programs. Nor am I willing to buy a top of the line rig to run these huge programs, just for the little amount of work I actually do with them. I'm not trying to make Shrek here.
XSI Mod Tool offers me nothing. It's targeted for something completely different.
Carrara is a piece of Junk.
trueSpace is shit. Nothing in it works right.
gameSpace was half a shit.
Silo looked interesting, but I already had adequate modeling tools, and it offered nothing new. I may try the demo one day.
So I came around to Blender. It offers everything I want so far, and a lot more. The first few days were a bit painful, but once I got over it, I started to really like the program, and my workflow hasn't been any different than in other programs I have used. In fact, it's been sped up in some areas. It also offers me some things the others don't.
So far I love the UV Mapper. It works just how I always wanted the other lightmappers in some other programs I have used to work.
It's a tiny .zip file that takes literally 5 seconds to uncompress to a folder. Not some big gigabytes large install with DRM and dongles, and whatever useless gimmicks those other programs need to validate your license.
I'll always have the latest version, with painless updates.
It runs great on my modest machine. Uses up almost nothing unless I open a huge scene. It only takes a second to load up.
It uses python for it's scripting language, a general purpose language, and not some program specific half-baked scripting language. It's useful for a lot of things, and I can use my existing experience with it. Nothing wrong with learning MaxScript or MEL, but they are limited scope, dead end technologies.
So I don't think I've lost out on anything. So far it meets my needs almost perfectly.
Well, somehow this has transitioned from an XSI user outrage thread, to a Blender fanboy thread. As a somewhat long time XSI user, there is no possible way you're getting me to give Blender another try. To go from an application with a properly organized interface and reasonable hotkeys, to that mess...would require an unexplainable force of nature. I want to be a 3D artist. Not a rocket surgeon.
I'm a hobbyist. I make little games. I'm not interested in making big sculpts with a trillion polygons, or rendering out movies...3DS Max, XSI, and Maya aren't really right for me. They are overpriced, and overkill. I would be interested in stripped down versions which focuses on the features I wanted...
XSI Mod Tool offers me nothing. It's targeted for something completely different.
So I came around to Blender...
Not some big gigabytes large install with DRM and dongles, and whatever useless gimmicks those other programs need to validate your license.
I'll always have the latest version, with painless updates.
It runs great on my modest machine.
It uses python for it's scripting language, a general purpose language, and not some program specific half-baked scripting language.
So I don't think I've lost out on anything. So far it meets my needs almost perfectly.
What is it that you believe XSI Mod Tool is targeted for? Let me inform you. It's targeted for gamers. For hobbyist. I've used it for DS games, XNA games, and Source engine games. It has those features that allow me to work on many tasks. It's free, and stripped down, but not heavily restricted for use in games. It doesn't render movies. There is no need for dongles. It auto updates. It runs perfectly on my old laptop. It uses python as a scripting language.
Take your ill informed and narrow opinions of available software to another thread, and take Blender with you. The rest of us want a future creating game content.
With that said, the whole cause of this thread has now sunken in. It really happened. Big business wins in the long run.
I'll give more attention to Silo and Modo, and otherwise use whatever else is necessary to get the job done.
ElysiumGX I was being sarcastic with my remarks. The last thing any program needs is that freaking compass and Autodesk buying them out. Pelt mapping as established by max sucks, waste of freaking time...
Pelt mapping as established by max sucks, waste of freaking time...
HAHAHAHAHA. When we upgraded from Max8 to Max2008, we had to buy Autodesk engineer time to re-compile their UVW modifier from Max8 for Max2008, because Autodesk decided they wanted Pelt to work differently in 2008 and 2009, and our artists fucking hated it.
What is it that you believe XSI Mod Tool is targeted for?
Modders and future XSI purchasers.
I can't make commercial use of my content. So it offers me nothing, as I'm currently touching up an old game I've been sitting on for awhile to look better on the 360 (it was intended as a low end PC Game). So the license isn't compatible with me. Simple as that.
A few months ago, I had made up my mind that I was probably going to pick up XSI Foundation early next year, but they pulled it. So I was almost an XSI user. I was going to use ModTool until then, and then upgrade. That's how I found out about Essentials in the first place. I was looking around the site for a paid version of ModTool. ! (I only say probably, because I was going to contact someone and make sure that I was certain on the limitations, and that I would be able to do a few things with it for sure...).
As for the rest, what exactly was I uniformed about? I simply stated why certain options weren't right for me, or overkill for my needs.
I'll give more attention to Silo and Modo, and otherwise use whatever else is necessary to get the job done.
You know it's the same team developing Maya still don't you? So long as the same team of Softimage developers are making Softimage that should speak for itself. Yes Autodesk has controlling power on decisions made for them but it's still going to be the same people rallying ideas and implementation. It won't be the same, but it might be worth waiting to see what happens.
what exactly was I uniformed about? I simply stated why certain options weren't right for me, or overkill for my needs.
Thanks for clearing that all up. I was only pointing out that you considered yourself a hobbyist, and stated that Mod Tool has nothing for you. And then you followed with listing all the things that Mod Tool does well. But when it comes to releasing a commercial product, yes, that changes things.
j_bradford: Yes, same team. New direction, already. Years ago Softimage split XSI into three separate packages, and one free version. Many suddenly became very interested in a tool that was already more versatile and stable than 3DS Max, but once had a price tag of $13,000. It was now an option and available to many fields. This year, for their own reasons, Softimage decided to kill off one of those options without prior notice to its users. And now, only a couple months later, Avid sells them off to a company that puts profit over user concerns. That's not something I look forward to. There's no trust. Autodesk let Gmax fade away, which would have been a great tool for students. MayaPLE isn't very useful for anything...aside from an introduction to a unique interface. All the while the industry complains of piracy issues. I'll wait and see what happens. Not getting my hopes up.
Thanks for clearing that all up. I was only pointing out that you considered yourself a hobbyist, and stated that Mod Tool has nothing for you. And then you followed with listing all the things that Mod Tool does well. But when it comes to releasing a commercial product, yes, that changes things.
Lack of clarity on my part. I consider myself a hobbyist, because I do it all on my own time. How I want. When I want, etc. When I sell my first copy, I'll be a published hobbyist.
I've been fooling around with 3D going on a decade and a half. (I can get all nostalgic about my doom modding days, when seeing your work in real time was a pipe dream, and you UV mapped a level blindly, counting on your fingers to line up the wall textures). I know what features I want out of a 3D package, and I know what stuff I'm likely to never use.
I see a lot of other people here doing low poly for fun, and they don't need a package that costs thousands of dollars for that. DeleD + Fragmotion will cover you there, and that's less than 150$ for the same results (I'm even beta testing DeleD 2.0 builds with animation, negating the need for Fragmotion).
Oddly enough, there are rumblings on the XNA forums about a special version of XSI Mod Tool that will allow commercial use, but it will be bundled with a new version of Torque for the Xbox, and the stand-alone Mod Tool will remain with the current license.
So you win some, and you lose some. :poly142:
Does ModTool allow use of a scripting language to write custom exports or behaviour?
That is, if you can stand to watch it for long enough, as he starts out with claiming that Modo, Motion and photoshop 'if not copied, at least were inspired by' the Blender interface.
That is, if you can stand to watch it for long enough, as he starts out with claiming that Modo, Motion and photoshop 'if not copied, at least were inspired by' the Blender interface.
They have been on youtube for months. But not that detailed.
I try to watch some of their videos, but I never understand a word that Ton is saying.
I actually watched Ton's entire speech, hah. He's got a speech impediment, but I respect him all the more for daring to get up there and talk. Once you get over the sound of his voice, I actually find it pretty easy to understand him, especially when the notes on screen give you a general idea of the topic.
The interface video is pretty good altogether, but the beginning is really, really sad.
also, how have these been on youtube for 'months'?
The conference these were filmed at was from The 24th of october to the 26th (2008).
The interface video is pretty good altogether, but the beginning is really, really sad.
I'm just watching it now, and I can agree a bit with what they are saying. It's the idea of non overlapping interface where you just cut a bit off and assign it whatever functionality you want is catching on.
Also, how have these been on youtube for 'months'?
The demos of the 2.50 interface tests have been up forever. I think the first one was there in Jan 2008. I posted about them somewhere in the last few days, possibly the 2.48 thread.
haha they've invented the wheel, everyone just started to copy it, for things like cars and bicycles trains and stuff, well they didn't copy it they've got inspired by the blender wheel
Wow, I'm only about 60% through, but these changes are great. They have actually been under-hyping these things. Nice to see some of my big issues dealt with too. I hope they get rid of that god forsaken console window.
Your right about Ton. I didn't realize it was a speaking problem, I thought it was just a very thick accent. He seems like a cool guy. And he did speak up about all that stuff towards the end.
About the beginning of the video, I think it was just a poor choice of words. I have that problem a lot.
That is, if you can stand to watch it for long enough, as he starts out with claiming that Modo, Motion and photoshop 'if not copied, at least were inspired by' the Blender interface.
"So there are a lot of great things about it". Audience laughs
Your right about Ton. I didn't realize it was a speaking problem, I thought it was just a very thick accent. He seems like a cool guy. And he did speak up about all that stuff towards the end.
Replies
Even Silo has its limitations when compared to applications such as Mudbox and ZBrush.
It's not always about price, either. We all have different wants and needs. Not everyone is interested in sculpting, not everyone is looking to be hired by a company that uses product X,Y, or Z.
I'm a hobbyist. I make little games. I'm not interested in making big sculpts with a trillion polygons, or rendering out movies. I just need something that I can make levels and low poly meshes in, and export them out to my own formats (which a built in scripting language helps with).
I actually found a little 80$ program called DeleD a lot more enjoyable to work in than 3DS Max for my low polygon environments. It didn't offer all the features (NOT BY A MILE), but it was focused on the type of work I was interested in, and it allowed me to make levels. In fact, 2 people have recently been posting DS spec racing track levels. There is no reason they couldn't have gotten in done in DeleD instead of 3000$ software which was complete overkill.
3DS Max, XSI, and Maya aren't really right for me. They are overpriced, and overkill. I would be interested in stripped down versions which focuses on the features I wanted, but these programs aren't sold a-la-carte. It's all or nothing, and they are targeted at large companies who can easily afford the expense. And that's fine.
But I don't have 3k to throw around every few years for these programs. Nor am I willing to buy a top of the line rig to run these huge programs, just for the little amount of work I actually do with them. I'm not trying to make Shrek here.
XSI Mod Tool offers me nothing. It's targeted for something completely different.
Carrara is a piece of Junk.
trueSpace is shit. Nothing in it works right.
gameSpace was half a shit.
Silo looked interesting, but I already had adequate modeling tools, and it offered nothing new. I may try the demo one day.
So I came around to Blender. It offers everything I want so far, and a lot more. The first few days were a bit painful, but once I got over it, I started to really like the program, and my workflow hasn't been any different than in other programs I have used. In fact, it's been sped up in some areas. It also offers me some things the others don't.
So far I love the UV Mapper. It works just how I always wanted the other lightmappers in some other programs I have used to work.
It's a tiny .zip file that takes literally 5 seconds to uncompress to a folder. Not some big gigabytes large install with DRM and dongles, and whatever useless gimmicks those other programs need to validate your license.
I'll always have the latest version, with painless updates.
It runs great on my modest machine. Uses up almost nothing unless I open a huge scene. It only takes a second to load up.
It uses python for it's scripting language, a general purpose language, and not some program specific half-baked scripting language. It's useful for a lot of things, and I can use my existing experience with it. Nothing wrong with learning MaxScript or MEL, but they are limited scope, dead end technologies.
So I don't think I've lost out on anything. So far it meets my needs almost perfectly.
What is it that you believe XSI Mod Tool is targeted for? Let me inform you. It's targeted for gamers. For hobbyist. I've used it for DS games, XNA games, and Source engine games. It has those features that allow me to work on many tasks. It's free, and stripped down, but not heavily restricted for use in games. It doesn't render movies. There is no need for dongles. It auto updates. It runs perfectly on my old laptop. It uses python as a scripting language.
Take your ill informed and narrow opinions of available software to another thread, and take Blender with you. The rest of us want a future creating game content.
With that said, the whole cause of this thread has now sunken in. It really happened. Big business wins in the long run.
I'll give more attention to Silo and Modo, and otherwise use whatever else is necessary to get the job done.
HAHAHAHAHA. When we upgraded from Max8 to Max2008, we had to buy Autodesk engineer time to re-compile their UVW modifier from Max8 for Max2008, because Autodesk decided they wanted Pelt to work differently in 2008 and 2009, and our artists fucking hated it.
I can't make commercial use of my content. So it offers me nothing, as I'm currently touching up an old game I've been sitting on for awhile to look better on the 360 (it was intended as a low end PC Game). So the license isn't compatible with me. Simple as that.
A few months ago, I had made up my mind that I was probably going to pick up XSI Foundation early next year, but they pulled it. So I was almost an XSI user. I was going to use ModTool until then, and then upgrade. That's how I found out about Essentials in the first place. I was looking around the site for a paid version of ModTool.
As for the rest, what exactly was I uniformed about? I simply stated why certain options weren't right for me, or overkill for my needs.
You know it's the same team developing Maya still don't you? So long as the same team of Softimage developers are making Softimage that should speak for itself. Yes Autodesk has controlling power on decisions made for them but it's still going to be the same people rallying ideas and implementation. It won't be the same, but it might be worth waiting to see what happens.
-A professional XSI user.
Thanks for clearing that all up. I was only pointing out that you considered yourself a hobbyist, and stated that Mod Tool has nothing for you. And then you followed with listing all the things that Mod Tool does well. But when it comes to releasing a commercial product, yes, that changes things.
j_bradford: Yes, same team. New direction, already. Years ago Softimage split XSI into three separate packages, and one free version. Many suddenly became very interested in a tool that was already more versatile and stable than 3DS Max, but once had a price tag of $13,000. It was now an option and available to many fields. This year, for their own reasons, Softimage decided to kill off one of those options without prior notice to its users. And now, only a couple months later, Avid sells them off to a company that puts profit over user concerns. That's not something I look forward to. There's no trust. Autodesk let Gmax fade away, which would have been a great tool for students. MayaPLE isn't very useful for anything...aside from an introduction to a unique interface. All the while the industry complains of piracy issues. I'll wait and see what happens. Not getting my hopes up.
I've been fooling around with 3D going on a decade and a half. (I can get all nostalgic about my doom modding days, when seeing your work in real time was a pipe dream, and you UV mapped a level blindly, counting on your fingers to line up the wall textures). I know what features I want out of a 3D package, and I know what stuff I'm likely to never use.
I see a lot of other people here doing low poly for fun, and they don't need a package that costs thousands of dollars for that. DeleD + Fragmotion will cover you there, and that's less than 150$ for the same results (I'm even beta testing DeleD 2.0 builds with animation, negating the need for Fragmotion).
Oddly enough, there are rumblings on the XNA forums about a special version of XSI Mod Tool that will allow commercial use, but it will be bundled with a new version of Torque for the Xbox, and the stand-alone Mod Tool will remain with the current license.
So you win some, and you lose some. :poly142:
Does ModTool allow use of a scripting language to write custom exports or behaviour?
http://river-valley.tv/conferences/blender_conference_2008/#0101-William_Reynish
That is, if you can stand to watch it for long enough, as he starts out with claiming that Modo, Motion and photoshop 'if not copied, at least were inspired by' the Blender interface.
I try to watch some of their videos, but I never understand a word that Ton is saying.
The interface video is pretty good altogether, but the beginning is really, really sad.
also, how have these been on youtube for 'months'?
The conference these were filmed at was from The 24th of october to the 26th (2008).
The demos of the 2.50 interface tests have been up forever. I think the first one was there in Jan 2008. I posted about them somewhere in the last few days, possibly the 2.48 thread.
Damn, these videos are long!
great start
About the beginning of the video, I think it was just a poor choice of words. I have that problem a lot.
Audience laughs
Overall I think he's delusional...
he'sh like the dutcsh vershion of Shean connery.