Best Investment - tools, software, etc
polycounter lvl 6
Do any of you have something you bought, downloaded, found, that just helped your work flow immensely. Any addition that's had a big impact on what you do or how you work. I'm talking programs, hardware, tools, anything. Just something that has had a big impact.
I think for me one of my best investments was finally breaking down and getting a Wacom tablet. I honestly don't know how I went so long without it. I absolutely love it. So I'd say its had a pretty big effect on alot that I do.
Next addition would be Xnormal. What a great program. Easy to use, and has given me much better results than anything I've baked in Maya. Its taken what was once a huge headache and made it so much easier.
Lastly would be Zbrush. I just wish I was better at using it and could really utilize it to its full potential, but you cant beat the bang for your buck.
So plug away on your favorite items. Hopefully I can find some new groundbreaking / lifechanging things from your replies.
I think for me one of my best investments was finally breaking down and getting a Wacom tablet. I honestly don't know how I went so long without it. I absolutely love it. So I'd say its had a pretty big effect on alot that I do.
Next addition would be Xnormal. What a great program. Easy to use, and has given me much better results than anything I've baked in Maya. Its taken what was once a huge headache and made it so much easier.
Lastly would be Zbrush. I just wish I was better at using it and could really utilize it to its full potential, but you cant beat the bang for your buck.
So plug away on your favorite items. Hopefully I can find some new groundbreaking / lifechanging things from your replies.
Replies
http://boards.polycount.net/showthread.php?t=55102
Tons of great tools in there
weirdly enough they all seemed to make a dramatic improvement to "work work"
It's definitely the biggest investment I have made in one purchase but worth it imo.
If I could have afforded the 21 I would have gone with that instead, but I honestly believe there is more value in the 12wx. Only hurtle I had to overcome is getting used to the lower resolution. (I'm used to 1900x1200 and the cintiq 12wx is 1280x800).
But I couldn't live without it now!
Brad, do you not use it as a second monitor? When it's not right in front of my to draw on, I have mine next to a 1920x1200 23" LCD. It is small, but EVERYTHING I used to do with a regular Wacom is better. By the way, Amazon seems to sell them for $100 less than anywhere else.
A software choice is DarkTree (and the Simbiont plugin for Max). It's almost like having Maya's Hypershade in Max.
I actually have 2 8800gts vid cards and I use all the DVI slots. So I have 3 24" 1900x1200 monitors in a row, and the 12wx right below them in the center. It works quite well because the Cintiq is small enough that I can see over it when its propt up and see the other monitors. If it was just slightly taller, it would be in the way of the other monitors.
So yeah, I use it for sculpting high poly, and painting in photoshop and bodypaint. But occasionally I switch it so it maps to the other monitors with that shortcut button, so I can see and work on other monitors.
For a monitor junkie like myself, this setup is pretty ideal.
DirectFolders I'm not familiar with. I'll have to check it out.
You know I had two monitors for like 2 days, then my oldest decided to just completely take a shit. Never had any problems with it leading up to that, then bam, denied of 2 monitors
a second monitor is also crazy useful.
Second would be my wacom tablet, and 3rd would be my mouse, i cant stress enough how much having a nice comfortable mouse improves my work flow, i feel crippled when i go to school so i bring my own mouse with me every time.
in terms of the computer hardware it also depens on what you do. For example if you dont ever bake things or render, or generally dont do many processor intensive procedures then having a super fast cpu wont make a huge diff for you, but if you do bake and render, and other things then having a nice cpu like an i7 will really help save you time, mine saved me hours and hours of baking over the course of a semester. Regardless of what you do i suggest having 6 gigs or more of ram, i have 6 and i love being able to have photoshop maya and zbrush open at the same time, and still be able to use all of them, it also seems to make a big difference in how many polies you can load into maya as one mesh and still use it. And having a nice gpu never hurts although to be honest most the apps we use dont really take advantage of the gpu very well but some do, like if your using UDK it'll make a huge difference, but when modeling in maya it seems to make no difference at all. at least ive never noticed it getting faster seems like every card i get maya still runs relatively slow. Anyways a single, current gen mid level card would be great like a gtx280 or ati equivalent. would be plenty for graphics work plus you could play all those great pc games.
software wise it realyl depensd on what you do a lot. If you are into doing characters a lot i think having topogun and uv layout to go along with your modeling, and sculpting package is just super useful. Hell i even used topogun to retopologize a hard surface model so its quite useful. For the most part though its about making yourself as comfortable as possible and having access to whatever tools you need to get the job done. True you can do 90% of what you need to in max or maya but for me i find that i work fastest by bringing my assets into whatever app i need to when the time arises. For all in one packages i think that modo is getting really good, has great modeling tools, and uv tools, plus the 3d painting brings it to a new level of usefulness, It has a very fast surface sampler, and tons of other interesting features, i guess the only drawback is that its a young app, so not a huge selection of user created tools, and its not as widely used as max or maya, but its still a really great app if you need as many features as you can on a budget.