Blacksmith3D
cclesue
Posts: 420
in The Commons
What can anybody tell me about this App? I use Photoshop for my 2d work but was wondering if the ability to paint 3d stuff worth while. And for that matter what else can it do?
Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
224 S 200 W, Suite #250
Salt Lake City, UT 84101
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2024 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
I use it to fix seams (was rather difficult previous to this purchase) and do not make a characer without it. I also use it for tattoos, masks, make up (especially the eyeliners) as well as torso/head make up like Scion or Damen. I do not use it for morphing, but it says you can move the mesh around with brushes and export the model for that use, but I haven't been able to use it that way. It's essential to me for character making. You can import the mesh into the scene, then your photoshop maps, work on the figure, blend the seams and export the maps that are corrected.
You can also projection map/paint from photos or another figure/prop onto the base you import-but I'm no expert in that either. lol
I've been debating options to extend my tools, and there's this 'a bunch of hundred dollar' barrier I keep bouncing off of (for 3d Coat or Zbrush or whatever). I already have Hexagon and Carrara...
I've been looking at Surface Painter, which has a nice 'pay $10/month until you put in enough money to buy it outright' pay system. I REALLY like SP's system for generating textures, even better than some of the stuff I've seen elsewhere.
But Surface Painter is strangely incapable of managing seams, and it's not really a modeling app. (though, again, I have Hexagon and Carrara)
Which is where Blacksmith 3d comes in, with great 'paint across seams' elements, apparently. It's morph tools look like a great way to refine and polish the rough results I usually get out of Carrara. Also $9/month.
So, Hexagon + Carrara cost me about $80, and if I go with the other two apps that's $20 a month or so, vs. $380 for 3d Coat or $800 for Zbrush.
Seems a workable solution for the hobbyist without loads of money, and capable of doing cool stuff.
Brainfart one: It's _substance_ painter, not surface painter.
It's also $20/month, not $10/month.
Also also apparently I can't make monthly paypal payments from balance rather than an attached card, so... guess I'm not doing that.
I find myself tempted by it; I just wish there was an upgrade path from the Texture Transfer Item; Daz has nothing suitable (IMO) and without any support for Blender which would be my preferred option. I've done texture painting in Blender and it worked well, but the set up time was intensive; as it's a few years since I did that, I'm prepared to look at alternatives purely as time-wise I'm starting from scratch.
I've really enjoyed texture painting in Substance Painter, but the seams thing is a huge problem, particularly with figures.
I'm just conflicted by it all.
Does Blacksmith3d have procedural textures at all? That's something cool in Substance Painter, 3dCoat and others. For example, 'rusty corners' of objects?
In truth, I would use Substance Painter for stuff where the nature of the textures didn't matter as much and use another tool that allowed for painting over Uv seams for characters and clothing.
Well, looking at the cost (Blacksmith3D Standard 109,- / 3DCoat Amateur 99,- / Substance Painter Indie 149,-) those apps are not that expensive compared what one might spend in this store - at least in my case.
I went with Substance Painter for now as I like the model that each monthly payment can be used later to purchase a fixed license. Might also give Blacksmith a try but unfortunately one has to stay subscribed for 24 months to be able to use the money for a "previous version" license. Does anybody know what "previous" means here? 24 months equals $220 which would be too much if one ends with version 5 standard.
zBrush is another story, both regarding cost as well as the software itself. I bought it some months ago when is was heavily discounted once zBrush core was announced. Unfortunately I did not really get into it until now. It's just so different from every kind of software I used before.
I have Blacksmith 3d Pro and find it quite useful (not sure what the differences are between standard and pro). It doesn't offer procedurals, but projection painting is quite easy to set up (i.e. Using a photo to paint onto a 3d model) and use. It's also great for fixing seam problems. Compared to the other options mentioned, I think I would be the best inexpensive option for human figure texture creation, though 3dCoat would certainly work for this as well.
Keep in mind though, that the non-commercial version of 3d Coat does limit texture sizes to 2048x2048 IIRC. 3D Coat is on my list of applications to get, Just an FYI, Blacksmith Pro does usually go on sale a couple of times a year in the $120-$150 range, and 3D Coat always goes on sale between Xmas and New Years, with the full version being about $100 off, and the non-commercial about $79.
Edit: I think the biggest advantage of Blacksmith would be simplicity and ease of use for what it is designed to do compared to 3d Coat and zBrush, which do more, but also have a greater learning curve.
Yeah, those prices are for fairly hobbled versions. Texture maps below 4096 are just... not going to fly, IMO.
Poking at Blacksmith demo, I was surprised to not see Normals. Hrm.
FWIW, Pilgway (the makers of 3D Coat) usually have a big sale around June where the pro version is 100 dollars off. That might make it more attractive to some ;). There's also a discount on the non-pro version as well which makes it around 79 dollars or so. I got the pro version when it was on sale last year...still haven't gotten around to learning it yet...too much other 3D and RL stuff going on ATM ;).
Laurie
... 3d coat doesn't have a blur/blend tool?
Man.
It's like every tool has some amazingly obvious gap in their functionality. Heh.
Substance painter can't deal with seams, Blacksmith doesn't handle Normals (that I can see), 3d coat has extensive painting but you have to pipe it over to Photoshop for basic stuff like 'blend' which makes the whole seam thing a problem again, ...
(rubs his head)
Ended up going with Substance Painter. Other than the seams, I love how everything else works with it. So hey.
I'm really surprised no one mentioned Mudbox 2017 as an option. In the US at least, you can get a monthly subscription for $10/month or an annual subscription for just $80. Mudbox is probably a bit easier to learn than ZBrush and has very similar features for 3D sculpting and texturing.
Now, I've heard rumors that Mudbox support is dying and that the functionality of the software is going to be incorporated into Maya, but I have no idea if that's true.
I have the standard version of blacksmith3D and I am near certain it can export at 4096x4096. I am not at home now so I can not check to be 100% certain.
It does according to the comparison with pro chart.
Hi there I got a year subscription to Mudbox fpr $70 dollars last year ,but was hardly able to use it because it keeps crashing all the time I just gave up.I am on i17 cpu so just beaware of the crashing problem.
I also have the standard- it exports at 4096 x 4096. I make normal maps in Photoshop with the Nvidia Normal Map Maker plug in, which is free.
The main difference between Standard Blacksmith and Pro is that you are only allowed 3 Layers in the Standard version while the Pro is unlimited and I believe the Texture Converter comes with it. I think there are a few minor other things that may be different, but for me, that's the biggest, but not enough for me to upgrade to the Pro version since I already have TC.
I upgraded to Pro recently so I could do bigger texture maps and have more than three layers. I snagged it on special, from memory.
The multiple layers comes in handy for lots of things. I did Dale on 6000 x 6000 textures but then resized them to 4096 x 4096 because I was worried people would baulk at the file sizes, and normal maps are already huge.
If there are other differences, I haven't noticed them yet. :p
I've been working with trials for both Blacksmith 3d and Substance Painter. Neither one will do what I want for a specific project, but the issue is the UV, not these products. I'm so impressed with both, for different reasons, I've decided to get them both. I like the subscription model with Substance; Being able to purchase the current version outright after 12 months makes the complete set affordable, and the software I'll get will be the same version I'll have gotten used to.
But I don't like the subscription model with Blacksmith 3d. You have to subscribe longer before you can purchase. And you get the previous version, not the version you've been using.
Anyway, there's a sale going on at Rendo, and all Blacksmith 3d products are half off until June 25th. Looks like I'm going to be adding another purchase to my Paypal Credit… And so thankful for that 6 months with no interest and no payments!
Ever since I read that Blacksmith3D can port older texture maps to newer figures, I've been wanting to grab it when it goes on sale next. I have a handful of characters that I've portied to Genesis 3/8 using Morph Loader, and it would be nice to port their textures too. For my own use of course! I just like having more posing regions.
Would probably be cheaper to use the cayman studio product to make V4 textures work on G3/G8.
Blacksmith does other things as well...
If all you want to do is convert textures from one generation to another, their Texture Transformer can do that. And there are addons to convert to G3, which is also usable on G8. Those addons work with both TT and Blacksmith 3D. Now if you already have Cayman Studios legacy UVs, you might be interested in the two over at Rendo for under $9 each right now. They are for using V4 and G2F on Genesis 3 Females.
But as @tj_1ca9500b mentioned, Blacksmith 3D does a lot more than just converting figure textures. I would have purchased it without the texture conversion feature, but I'm not unhappy it has that built in.
Well aware, have used it before. For your specific purpose that you posted about about, just thought I would add another option in case you were not aware.
I've used both options for getting other textures onto current figures and both have pros and cons..
I do appreciate you pointing out the other product though. I was thinking more along the lines of Genesis 2 to 3 and 8, and maybe Aiko 3... And of course the V4 era characters.
I'm slowly learning how to create stuff from scratch in Daz. I've been photoshopping for years, but painting texture maps inside of a modeling program is new territory for me to explore.
Edit: Just checked. 50% off...
I got Blacksmith3D standard free durring one of the giveawayoftheday things. It sat on my pc for a while, I opened it once or twice and decided I'd probably never use it so I uninstalled it. Now I can't find my download to see if I can get it installed again since I found I could really use it to convert older textures to newer models... Doh!
Blacksmith 3D Standard does not have the Texture Transformer, the Pro version does. Alternatively you can buy the Texture Transformer Version 2 as a standalone, to get full use you may also need to buy the Add-On packs for various figures. Check out Blacksmith at Rendo for more details. Currently 50% off.
yeah, still pretty expensive :(
I'm interested in this sale. Blender can also paint across seams. Is there anything about Blacksmith that makes it easier?
If you use both Blender and Blacksmith3D, where do you find the latter to be more easy/powerful/helpful?
I don't use Blender (on my definitely need to learn list), but do have Blacksmith. Probably the biggest advantage to BS3D is that it is designed to work with Poser/DAZ content with very little work on the part of the user. Blender is porbably more powerfull/flexible with what it can do, and with some of the commercial paint add-ons does some amazing things. What I like about BS3D is it is designed to do just what it does, and does it very well, and is very simple to learn compared to other avalable options. It also does very well with morph creation for genesis figures, including being able to import existing morphs, and creating your own individual dialable morphs within BS3D.
If you are unsure, download the demo and give it a test drive. There are several tutorial videos to get you up to speed quickly. That's what I did several years ago, and quickly realized that even though it wasn't as feature rich and expandable as some of the other options, it's focused tool set was perfect for what I needed (and it has features that the other options don't, that are geared toward a DAZ/Poser workflow).