What modeling software has been used to create most products in the store?
spaltoz
Posts: 24
Hi Everyone,
I've been longing to be a PA in Daz3D store and learning on how to model a prop or a character. It is amazing on how they made all the products in the store and they all look great by just looking at the sales pages. Right now, I['m using Hexagon 2.5 and Blender 2.77a. Will these two softwares are sufficient enough for me to create props or characters that are good enough to be accepted into the Daz3D store? Thank you all for your help in advance.
Reggie
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yep, those two should be fine for creating any mesh similar to what you see in the store. Modeling is only a part of the creation, then there is texturing, rigging, packaging, etc. Keep in mind it's not the software that makes a great product, it's the person using it. Learn to get the most from your tools and you'll do fine
Theer are PAs using both Hexagon and Blender.
I think the high-end modeller of choice for a lot of PAs right now is Modo. You can get Modo Indie on Steam for $10-15 a month. Silo is another not very expensive option that does get used often. And yes, there are definately PAs that use Hexagon and Blender. It is the end result that counts, and not the tools used to get there. Good luck.
Thank you all for your answers. These will give me the motivation to start my first product. You are all awesome! God bless.
Reggie
Just out of curiosity, are there any PAs out there using Carrara to create content?
- Greg
I know a few vendors not at DAZ use Carrara.
Tango Alpha here does though
I have 3DS Max but enjoy making items in Hex. In fact, for the past few years, I've used Hex entirely.
www.Daz3D.com/DzFire
Isn't it Carrara is own and made by Daz? But how come none of the PAs use it to create their products at Daz3D?
Reggie
PAs use everything. I also use Zbrush, 3d Coat, and Substance Painter and the GIMP. Other PAs use both cheaper programs like Hex up through the more expensive ones like 3ds Max (as DZ already said) and Maya (which I think BlueBird3d uses) and Modo and Lightwave. It all has to go to Studio in the end; only end results matter.
As pointed out, the user interface plays a big roll on how well you get along with the modeling software and they can really vary. I have tried most modelers out there and hexagon and me did not get along, same for carrara. 3DSMax is my choice of interface
We use Silo and Modo
I use Silo for all my modeling except for when I need to do 3D text. For that I use Hexagon as it has a built in tool for it.
Yup. Carrara 8.5 Pro. I also use the Indie version of Modo, which Destiny'sGarden mentioned above. I do have Hexagon, although I've never got it to work reliably on my Mac. Oh and Substance Painter, which has a rather neat "hire purchase" licensing method. (ie after you've subscribed for x months, you own it)
User Interfaces are a very personal thing. I find Carrara to be very intuitive, although others don't (conversely you'll often hear me screaming in frustration at Daz Studio, and don't get me started on Blender!) Pick something you're comfortable using. Even after months of using it, it takes me longer to create something in Modo than it does in Carrara (and often I'll switch back to Carrara just because it's quicker, especially if I'm on a deadline)
All modellers will do most things, especially the basics. The way they do it may be different, and it's often the refinements and small details that set them apart. But as SickleYield said above, it all goes into Daz Studio in the end, and that's what matters.
Well said everybody. Since I don't have enough funds to buy me a decent modeler, I'm using Hexagon and Blender for now in which the Hexagon has bugs on it and Blender is somewhat challenging to learn.
Almost all my environments were built in Hexagon. Best $1.88 I've ever spent.
Carrara supposedly has the same modelling toolset as Hexagon but the UI is significantly less user friendly. I have the pro versions but only use it for physics not modelling.
Thank you for convincing me to use my Hexagon as my platform to make myself an environment or other props. I also spent $1.88 when it was on sale together with the Hexagon tutorial. It was well spent as you have mentioned. I will use Hexagon for modeling and for the rest Blender.
I'm a 3DS Max and ZBrush guy. For example, for the Hunting Drake, I made the rough, base mesh in 3DS Max, about 1k polys, then took it into ZBrush and shaped and formed it, then retopologized. Back in Max I made the inner mouth and the eyes, to create the finished geometry. After rigging, I jacked up the sub-d level, then took it into ZBrush to make the HD morph for him.
As for "most"? I doubt there's a majority rule, I don't think there's any program more than half the PA's use, unless you count Photoshop.
Don't feel bad about using Blender, it's a much more powerful tool than people tend to give it credit for because it's free. As for the interface, it's really not that bad, providing you aren't already familiar with another program. No 3D program is going to be a cakewalk.
I wish you luck, Daz needs more PAs who are willing to take a chance with more niche based products, and that's not a slam on the PAs they already have, which do great work, it's just that you're going to see a lot more experimenting from people who aren't creating solely to put bread on the table. Hope to be doing the same as well down the line after I learn a bit more.
Don't let the price fool you, Blender is astoundingly powerful and stable and has far more resources than most if not all it's competitors. Blender is updated on a fairly regular cycle and bugs submitted are often worked out overnight and posted in betas the next day. Blender has nearly all the features you would find in packages like Modo, Maya, 3DMax, and Sculptris just to name a few. Blender has a litany of developers all over the world who contribute to it's continued success and vision. The one caveat to Blender is that it is not possible to learn it without tutorials. If you opening up the app and trying to guess how it works your wasting your time. Fortunately there are a seemingly endless supply of them on the web, most of them free.
And the interface is very good IMHO, most dismiss it as too convoluted but after using the application for some time it has become evident it was designed purposefully and with insight, however this does not become evident to the causal user and in no way could it without putting in some hours with it.
One thing that made Hexagon more stable on my Windows PC was making it large adress aware with this free software, so it could use more RAM:
https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/large-address-aware.112556/
Many PA's use marvelous designer for clothing? im in the process of learning that at the moment
I think that Wilmap is using the lower priced version to create her free wardrobe items ... I think the price for the "Commercial use allowed" version is quite high.
What a lot of people overlook with Blender is that spending a month+ learning to use it is a real cost.
Whether that cost is worthwhile is enormously specific to your situation. If you have a fair amount of money, it might be worth springing for something with an interface you grasp more immediately.
Also, the thing about Blender is that that cost is a gamble. With, say, Octane or something, I can download a demo and see how it works for me somewhat. With Blender, I can't see if it works for me really until I've put days of tutorials into it. It's almost like an app that has no demo.
Now, it's a gamble that might really really pay off. Or not.
While I am not a PA, I was on a crossroad about a year ago when I wanted to do more than what DazStuido offers.
I had 2 choices at that time. One was Carrara 8.5. The other was Blender. I chose Blender in the end because I considered Carrara 8.5 dead. It did take me a month or so before I was getting comfortable with it.
Once I got comfortable with it though, it was hard to believe it was completely free.
I honestly tried learning Blender first via a tutorial but I hit a snag in the UI that did not agree with my brain and that was the camera movement at the time so I jumped ship over to Hexagon and then later to Silo. Blender is a very powerful all-in-one package but personally if you only need to use it for modeling and nothing else its overloaded and too complicated.
Matty: I'd be curious about your impressions of Hexagon?
Being 32bit software, I found it crashed a lot until I downloaded "Large Address Aware" and made it handle more RAM. Even then, for me, I found it to be unforgiving at times when i wanted to do something simple. Also I could not remember what icon was what for the different tools. But that is just me. I only keep it around for 3D text. If i did not need it for that it would not be installed.
Silo on the other hand does not use icons for any of its tools, they are all labeled which makes perfect sense to me. I also find it very user friendly. If you JUST want a modeler that makes sense, personally, Silo is worth the investment even at full price. One of its strengths is that its primary functions overlap between tools so you dont have 600 different tools kicking around that are only used for one or two things. I am not a pro modeler though so I have not used every feature and I dont know how they compare to larger apps like Modo.
I've used a lot of modellers, but to date I still find the most intuitive to be Lightwave 3D. It's pricey, even with a student edition, but I personally find it very easy and powerful for doing 3D modelling, UV mapping, and more. The rendering engine in it is pretty good too, but I'm on a pretty old version at this point, so the renders are pretty primitive compared to the new version.
Blender could be awesome, if they'd just take the time and update the GUI and interface. It's powerful, but horribly clunky and unintuitive.
3DS Max is good, but way overpriced. I find it less intuitive than LW.
Modo, Silo, Rhino, Maya, Houdini, Cinema4D and a host of others that I've never tried I can't comment on.
Hexagon is also pretty unintuitive. Like Blender, it needs a major GUI update....and a few fixes.
If they ever made a Lightwave3D <-> DS bridge, I'd be in heaven.....
Wasn't Modo created by some former Newtek (Lightwave) people? Can anyone comment on how the two compare? Sounds like Modo is favored over Lightwave's Modeler now?
Hexagon, Marvelous Designer, Z-brush, UV Layout, Photoshop, and Blacksmith 3D.
Hex, PS, and UVLayout get the most use, in that order.
(I occationally use Poser to split morphs or drape something in the cloth room since it works on .objs)