Going commercial on the cheap?

Surfa · Apr 2010

At the moment I spend a lot of time doing mod work in between my studies with student software (maya and max) now these licences prohibit the use of this software for commercial use and well I can't afford the commercial license in my current financial situation.

So I was wondering what software was a good alternative for doing things on the cheap.

So far the software I have seen that fits these parameters are:
Silo
3d coat
Blender (tried this can't get used to it)

Are there any others I should check out.

Lamoot · Apr 2010

Depends which things you want to do?

Modelling, texturing, sculpting, animating, rendering.. ?

Surfa · Apr 2010

Mainly modeling and texture, I haven't done much sculpting and well the last time I animated something was back in the old gldsrc days.

Ben Apuna · Apr 2010

Can you afford $995? If so then Modo or perhaps Lightwave might suit your needs.

If money really is an issue you should really take a serious stab at Blender 2.5. Get the latest builds from http://www.graphicall.org/builds/

Another good option might be to get any old job if you can spare the time and just save up for Max or Maya + Photoshop. If you are already working and living on the cheap then this probably isn't possible.

Have you looked into converting your student license of Max into a professional license? Autodesk used to offer that as an option, IIRC it cost about 1/2 as much to go that route than to buy a pro license outright. Contact some resellers and see if they can help you out.

DrunkShaman · Apr 2010

Here are some good yet Affordable tools you can work with, under budget until you save enough money to buy the ones you are pro at.

Luxology Modo:

http://www.luxology.com/store/modo/

Zbrush

http://www.pixologic.com/store/

would come approximately $1500+SH

If you are looking for free ones, than Ben Apuna is right, download Blender 2.5 A2

http://www.blender.org/download/get-25-alpha/

If you get used to it *which takes only few hours* this tool becomes extremely user-friendly.

Racer445 · Apr 2010

You should be able to find a used, older copy of photoshop on ebay for relatively cheap. Just make sure it's legit, unregistered, and the seller knows how transfer the activation if it's been installed already.

low odor · Apr 2010

I heard wings3d is a good modeling tool..never used it though

Michael Knubben · Apr 2010

Wings3d is great for a many reasons, but I would not recommend it for game development. It's what I learned 3d with, and I still miss functions from it in 3ds max, but it doesn't handle high polycounts very well, and it can't handle single-sided faces very well (it applies a special material to them so it knows how to export them, but it's not nice to work with them in the program)

Surfa · Apr 2010

Racer445 wrote: »

You should be able to find a used, older copy of photoshop on ebay for relatively cheap. Just make sure it's legit, unregistered, and the seller knows how transfer the activation if it's been installed already.

I have legit adobe cs3 master collection (one of the perks of my friend working for adobe is cheap commerical licenses).

Wait I thought modo used to cost $595 what happened there?
But $995 is a bit out of range at the moment (really quite poor).

I will give blender another shot.

ZacD · Apr 2010

You can by used or older editions of software for cheap

http://cgi.ebay.com/Autodesk-Maya-2010-NEW-UNUSED-FULL-VERSION_W0QQitemZ170468323619QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item27b0b43123

yiannisk · Apr 2010

I think now that indie gaming has fired up there should be also indie licenses for content tools

Ben Apuna · Apr 2010

There is also a student license of Modo available:

http://www.luxology.com/store/education/index.aspx?contact=Education_Version

Luxology Store wrote:

modo 401 - Education Version for Students, Annual License = $149

also:

Q: I am graduating from school or leaving my faculty employment and I would like to get a Commercial modo License. What should I do?
A: After two years, any student or faculty member with an active modo Education License can upgrade to a modo Commercial License for the then current upgrade price (currently $395 as of July 2009).

So I guess that works out to $149 X 2 = $298 + $395 = $693 spread out over 2-3 years. That's not too bad for Modo.

rooster · Apr 2010

it sucks how you can't seem to buy older versions of max and maya. Maya 8.5 would be just fine for indie setups, and theoretically much cheaper.. but no

Artifice · Apr 2010

I'd vote for Modo if you're just looking for a well featured modeling package and can scrape up the cash. It's certainly cheaper than Autodesk products and you don't have to go subscription to get the latest updates, and is certainly competitive (if not better) as far as pure modeling goes. If you're familiar with Max and Maya, the learning curve isn't too steep. I agree with you on Blender, I've tried several times to get my head around it and it just doesn't agree with me. Modo is leaps and bounds more accessible for me. You can try it out for $25 for a 30 day trial version. The pay-to-play trial kinda sucks, but they refund it if you buy the commercial version.

http://www.luxology.com/trymodo/

Calabi · Apr 2010

I think they've improved wings3d's performance a bit, but probably still not up to par with others. Its still good for low poly though.

Carrara is another one. I got version 6 for free from a magazine. Its not that great for modelling with, but putting scenes together and rendering its ok for.

DazStudio is not often mentioned. You could do simple animations with this, the software is free, but you have to buy certain add on's, like for fbx export but the price I think is reasonable.

Neox · Apr 2010

Ben Apuna wrote: »

Have you looked into converting your student license of Max into a professional license? Autodesk used to offer that as an option, IIRC it cost about 1/2 as much to go that route than to buy a pro license outright. Contact some resellers and see if they can help you out.

at least in germany it is 1/5 of the price, it costs 5000 euro here and 1000 costs the conversion from edu to full price

Progg · Apr 2010

rooster wrote: »

it sucks how you can't seem to buy older versions of max and maya. Maya 8.5 would be just fine for indie setups, and theoretically much cheaper.. but no

I still use Maya 8 to this day. :P

Slum · Apr 2010

In my opinion, get modo. I've been using Max for 9 years, so I'm definitely a Max user, but I don't feel the value is there for somebody who wants to do game art on the cheap. Max costs $3.5k, compared to Modo's $1k.. If you're spending a bunch of money on software, you should feel you'll be supported well - that's one thing Luxology does damn well and something Autodesk is lacking. Modo is fully featured and really can do anything you throw at it. Unless you're a character animator or VFX artist, which you would need to move to something more refined for those areas.

As for Photoshop, Adobe doesn't sell older versions directly, but there's nothing wrong with buying an unused (sealed!) boxed version online through ebay/amazon/etc. CS1/CS2 are still very reliable and capable versions, and you can find them cheap online.

Divine Rage · Apr 2010

Blender is an awesome program. I've been using it for years.

FYI, 2.5 builds do not have a bevel operator, nor do they have the skin face/edges script. Appearantly both of those won't be redone until Bmesh is implemented.

Surfa · Apr 2010

Well it seems everyone recommends modo and I have tryed it before and it was very decent but I at the moment $1k is probably too much (also seeing as I broke my wacom).

Also I am covered on the photoshop front.

But I am trying blender at the moment. I will see how this goes.

vcool · Apr 2010

Since Blender is open source, is it still ok to use it for commercial purposes?

Just wondering.

jipe · Apr 2010

Ben Apuna wrote: »

Have you looked into converting your student license of Max into a professional license? Autodesk used to offer that as an option, IIRC it cost about 1/2 as much to go that route than to buy a pro license outright. Contact some resellers and see if they can help you out.

This used to be an option, but apparently with Autodesk's switch to packaging all their educational software in the "entertainment suite", there is currently no upgrade option from educational to commercial. I have been going back and forth with a reseller and Autodesk for over a month now... nobody there knows what's going on and they are incredibly reluctant to let me give them money, which strikes me as a tad ridiculous. I have never had to convince a company to let me become a customer.

Ben Apuna · Apr 2010

jipe:

That's lame

I hope you can sort it out with Autodesk. Converting to pro for a discount was a great deal and I hope they bring it back.

Lamont · Apr 2010

I'd totally give you my 3DS Max 6 lic (comes with character studio) for cheap. But Autodesk won't let me activate it, so I doubt they will let you.

2D - Artrage
3D - Modo/Lightwave. You can find Modo or LW for less than $400 bucks from a user (I might be selling one of my lic in the future). But the ONLY problem with both of these apps is how they deal with smoothing. It sucks balls.

Ben Apuna · Apr 2010

Yeah smoothing... Modo currently sucks at it. I've made some suggestions along with some other users over on the Luxology forum about this and it seems to have gotten the attention of the developers. More voices added to this issue might get it fixed sooner...

Now that you mention it Lamont, it seems to be a trend lately with the bad economy that people are selling thier Modo licenses. If anyone is interested they should keep an eye on the Luxology forum for more such announcments.

BoBo_the_seal · Apr 2010

Silo + Zbrush. Some of the guys here use silo over max for modeling.

- BoBo

James Edwards · Apr 2010

Ditto. I own copies of Modo, Maya and XSI and use Max at work but anything I model in polygons still gets made in silo - even at work, despite having access to 'higher end' tools. It's still the best modeling experience for me - even if it isn't updated that often. Combine it with blender to cover all your other bases and then put your money towards your favorite sculpting app and you'll stretch your tools budget much further. Give the freebie 'sculptris' a try too. Depending on how much sculpting you actually do it might be good enough to get by with for now. It has a really good feel to it even at this early stage in its development.

Also, Blender is a very capable app. Don't let the fact that it doesn't work the same way as maya color your efforts with it. It has a lot to offer if you have the patience to learn it.

LetterRip · Apr 2010

vcool wrote: »

Since Blender is open source, is it still ok to use it for commercial purposes?

Just wondering.

Yes it is entirely legal to use it for commercial purposes. Pretty much all open source software can be used commercially.

Regarding bevel - yep 'selective bevel' is missing for 2.5a2, also the bridge tool is missing from 2.5a2 (it was ported to 2.5 but was removed from recent builds).

You might consider using wings3d for modeling or silo or hexagon if you need a cheap modeler and aren't comfortable with Blenders modeling tools or the specific items it is missing.

You can use Blender for everything else though with little loss compared to other 3D applications.

Regarding sculpting - you can actually get reasonably far with Blenders sculpt tools - on decent hardware it can do poly counts of 45 million quads.

http://eat3d.com/blog/metalliandy/blender-25-sculpting-45-million-polygons

The brushes are still clunky, and things like masking and hiding currently haven't made it in. It is also missing nicities such as layers, and some things like applying a modier to multires broke in 2.5x (should be back soon - there is a patch in the tracker).

By the end of summer it should be quite comparable to other sculpting software (right now it is behind in a number of areas, but there are patches and development code I know of that fixes many weaknesses).

Note that the 45 million quads you have to be aware of quite a few tricks such as turning on VBO, disabling double sided, starting with a model with real geometry (ie not just a cube with multires on it).

Surfa · Apr 2010

I have been trying silo out and it seems to have a beautiful work flow for modelling but it seems to be very buggy. After setting a viewport image the viewports disappear after a couple of minuets.

But at the moment I think I might go silo (if the bugs are fixable) + zbrush + blender. Then when I start to get some more money in modo.

eld · Apr 2010

Another recommendation for blender here, once you get over that first learning step you'll find it to be an extremely capable application, with great things ahead of it.

Been using it in all my jobs now, lowend and highend.

Going commercial on the cheap?

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