Post one thing your favorite 3d app does well.
mod
Tech Talk is often a pretty negative place, always discussing problems, errors, and what people do not like about certain applications. Every once in a while solutions to problems here will bring a really cool feature in a certain app to light that others may not have known about, so lets try and bring that same mentality to this thread.
Rules:
1. Post ONE thing about your favorite app that you feel it does well, per day.
2. Do not tell us how this is done some much better in app X than app Y, simply explain the feature based on its own merits.
I will start!
In Modo, many of the standard tools for deformation(move, rotate, skew, tweak, twist, bend, smooth, etc) all function the same in the 3d/orthographic views as they do in the uv editor.
Rules:
1. Post ONE thing about your favorite app that you feel it does well, per day.
2. Do not tell us how this is done some much better in app X than app Y, simply explain the feature based on its own merits.
I will start!
In Modo, many of the standard tools for deformation(move, rotate, skew, tweak, twist, bend, smooth, etc) all function the same in the 3d/orthographic views as they do in the uv editor.
Replies
shift drag to extrude edges. It makes the process of prototyping very quick and easy and it feels real nice too, it feels fluid.
XSI
I enjoy the supra feature. The supra mode allows you to activate any tool at any time, and makes the the process of 3d modeling feel very fluid and smooth.
A nice feature in 3dsmax I use loads is the modifier sets, I know a few people who didn't know it existed so just putting it here in case someone else didn't realise it was there. It's the button on the most right underneath the modifier stack window
For example the shortcut for bevel is the same, either you are in polygon mode, or edge mode. or whatever.
this + context sensitive gesture based menu's which I can access in milliseconds (really helps when Uv'ing as well most), also prefer the UV'ing in maya than max.
Does Modo have this functionality?
Don't hate on me modo guys, but the two modo things listed (UV controls being the same, context sensitive commands) are features I love in Silo. My one thing, since James already said customization, which is the best, would be element selection.
Selecting loops and rings happens in milliseconds.
- doubleclick an edge selects its loop
- select one edge, shift+doubleclick one down the line selects edges in that segment
- same for rings: select one, alt+R (default) and you have the ring
- select two distant edges in the same ring, alt+R selects within that span
- keyboard shortcut for select loop also, just to mix it up sometimes
- everything works on faces exactly the same
- double-clicking single face expands selection (has shortcut for use over multiple selections)
- which means in UVs, double-clicking an island face expands to select the whole island
It's intuitive! Converting selection to another element is instantaneous as well (no need to dig through panes or open menus or whatever) and I can't live without the basic paint style selection for welding vertices or smoothing random groups of faces, etc.ZBrush: I've not really dived too deep into its features, but does its preformance count? I don't have the best laptop, but I'm still able to work with large amounts of verts.
MotionBuilder: Another program I haven't used a lot, but it seemed to do a great job transfering animations in a mixed pipeline.
X normal : Cavity Map from Normal
Photoshop CS4 :Rotating mode from R hotkey O_O!!!
It sure does MoP!
This is the one I was going to say....I also like max's viewport navigation controls, maybe it's just cuz I'm used to it, but I prefer them over any other app I've used.
I like flow-connect, too, which inserts an edge-loop that attempts to maintain the curvature of the mesh. It isn't perfect, it won't divide a cylinder perfectly (but close!) and has issues around cut-in lines, etc, but its totally awesome a lot of the time, doing something that would manually require a lot of vert tweaking.
I love being able to model with gestures, more apps in general should do this. It's like touch typing, you wonder how you ever did it the other way once you learn it.
i love splines and that you can trim and boolean them so easily.
-echoAllCommands 1
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TextPad
search them results ( Maya internal Scripts ) with "Find in files" "search subfolders".
= Maya's real Reference Guide.
Maya, UV work flow. So smooth to edit the mesh and then edit the UVW
and yes it's that awesome once you get into the flow of it.
saved my ass many times
Photoshop - I really like the color floater with the HSB sliders. I know a lot of people like the HSB box better, but I strongly prefer the sliders. It always makes me happy when programs include that option in their color picker.
I wonder if the same is possible to script in Photoshop?
ftw!
Modo: the Sculpt tools for modelling (not for sculpting), i use them for all
After using Max a lot lately I've gained a new appreciation for a lot of aspects Maya, and inversely, features in Max.
Maya:
Definitely the marking menus. Fast, efficient and endlessly expandable. They make it so that you don't have to have a billion customized alt+shift+ctrl hotkeys or an extremely long shelf.
Max:
The specific tools for the job and upfront nature of the program. Everything you need is there for you, obvious, and waiting to be used. It makes learning and using it a pleasure.
Maya - Everything else and scripting.
Build in scripting environment i.e no need to install anything additional (like previous blender releases). This includes a maxscript listener that can trace most of the commands you perform in 3dsmax and a visual roll out editor to quickly wrap up a gui for your script to test.
Great community that is willing to share, push and contribute like vertex monkey for modo scripts. One of the better communities for a commercial application.
Speed Speed Speed and the whole ideas in the app
Sliding keys or how they are called. Those shortcuts you can hold on your keyboard to adjust the tool and release the button once satisfied. Or if you are old school or need default values just release the shortcut at once.
Perfect blend of command type in ans mouse control construction. As soon as you need more control of a tool i.e rectangle tool and you want to have rounded corners you simply change the command in the command line. Even without scripting experience its extremely easy to adopt and understand.
Windows
win + r (run command shortcut) is my every minute favorite shortcut. I use it to launch all apps like PS or 3dsmax (just drop a shortcut to the app in your windows\system32 folder to start for example Photoshop with just 'ps' followed by a enter.
Its also extremely powerful to evaluate folder paths to copy them to your clipboard and then for example jump instantly within a application like Photoshop (in save or open dialog) to that directory by pasting it and hit enter.
I love these so much, i find my self using them accidentally in other programs ^^
Yes Modo works in much the same way. Easy to have a few files open and copy bits and pieces between them.
MODO has really nice snapping, It makes precise alignments a piece of cake.
MAX: I like the edge creasing and being able to adjust vertex weights prior to export to zbrush - nice way to define your basemeshes better early on.
Splines!
- normalize spline modifier which redistributes knots evenly along the length of a spline. This is so handly for so many things its brilliant.
- Array tool and Spacing tool. I uses these a lot and coupled with the above modifier its a quick way of distributing items along a spline evenly.
- Path deform!
I bundled all those together as they are part of a typical workflow.