Hexagon
sarge74
Posts: 121
I would like to dable in modeling and use what I create in Daz Studio, probably my favorite software ever (thanks Daz team for the years of fun). I've been trying to wrestle with Blender, but am having trouble importing to Studio. Is Hexagon an easier solution? I'm not looking to create photo real animations, just pics of some armor and space ships. I see its not free anymore but if it will be something not too difficult to model in and then render in Studio, I don't mind buying it.
Advice anyone?
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Comments
Hex is good for training wheels, but there are a few things it doesn't do, or didn't the last time I used it on a regular basis.
Its the only modeler I use. I use it to make clothing, props and sets for my renders. Its an older program and some have moved on from it. You should pay a visit to the Hexagon forum and read up on what people there think of it and its pros and cons.
Used Hex for years and am about to move onto another platform, but which has a similar UI... just lots more bells and whistles and 64 bit support.
i still use hex, mostly for morphs but i have created props and some clothing in it. It's getting long in the tooth but is a good modelling program. Many other programs you may run into will have much more complicated UI and do much more than just modelling, which may make them more time consuming to learn. Hexagon is very lightweight and inexpensive compared to a lot of other solutions available.
It is going to depend on if you just want a modeller, or want something to Rig and animation etc etc etc
Silo is getting support again, and is a dedicated modeller without a ton of other features to bloat the software. That may be an option to try as it has a 30 day trial.
The Daz/Hexagon bridge is one reason I doubt I will leave Hexagon for making morphs. The bridge takes away the whole export/import process so you don't have to remember what settings and find files on your computer and stuff like that. But once you get the right settings for other programs it should be too bad.
I sure appreciate the helpful comments, Dark Spartan, Sky, Scatha and Larsmidnatt. I am only looking for some simple modeling capabilities, no rigging, no animation, no morphing. Like I said, I want to create some space ships for DAZ Renders and maybe some armour pieces that I would parent to parts of M4.
Any other suggestions or advice would be appreciated. Thanks
I use it for the majority of my work, it's a solid basic modeler and the bridge between DS and Hex is really nice. If you model something in Hex you can send it dirrectly to DS as a prop.. and if you want to make a morph for something in DS you can send it to Hex, move the polys around, and send it right back to DS with a nice little pop up box to name your morph.
Hexigon is a pretty decent striaght foward modeler. With the bridges, it's easy to send stuff back and forth. I have used it to make several props, as well as morphs.
However, there are some stability issues, so save your work often. There are some tutorials in the Hex sub-forum that even include the crashing in the tutorials as a joke. The biggest issue I have with Hex however is UV mapping. It can be done, but is a pain, and I've heard many others say, they'll model in Hex, and UV map in something else.
If you can wait, it occasionally goes on sale for 70% or more off. and even has made it into the freebie bin once in a while, but if not, I find for the price, it's a decent deal, and compared to Blender, it is a cakewalk to learn.
Hope this helps.
Compared to blender anything is a cakewalk to learn ... the UI is a user's nightmare come true.
My biggest beef with Hex is that it's still 32-bit, granted that with LAA you can use more memory then 2Gb.
There's at least 20-30 professional PAs that use Hexagon to create content for sale here at DAZ. It's a decent intuitive modeller, and easy to learn.
I use Hex for all my Vertex modelling. It's a wonderfully elegant interface even if it is kind of long in the tooth and needs updating badly. When I get a new laptop this fall I hope that Hexagon will still work on it, otherwise I'll keep using this laptop for modelling.
I wish Daz had thrown their resources into developing Hexagon 3 rather than Genesis 3.
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Hexagon has a nice clean, unconplicated, and intuitive UI For myself however, the stability issues have been a nightmare, even using LAA. It really needs to be brought into the 64 bit world, the bugs cleaned up, and the UV mapping improved.
The only way to know what will work for you is to try it. Anyone can tell you something is intuitive or needs this or that tool or is even well-documented. Nothing a program has is of any use if in the end you find yourself unable to use it. Keep in mind all programs have a learning curve. Access to tutorials or places where you can get answers is a real plus. So you need to try it for yourself, never go on what anyone tells you because I have programs I was told were easy and I can't understand them and others I was told were horrible and I use, with ease to this day. Also, some programs seem horrible till you get the hang of it. And once you master one 3d program, you have a good possibility of understanding others. Your mileage will undoubtedly vary. :)
Hexagon has been on my computer for years yet I have never gone beyond a first-steps tutorial. It crashes with such regularity that I shrug and think - not worth the effort. I don't know whether the Mac version is particularly bad but I'm sure it also crashed when I used to have a PC with Windows 7.
I'm trying to familiarise myself with Blender but mostly, at the moment, just use the Sculpt tools which are quite ZBrush-like. The interface is daunting and I have not yet tried it for modelling. I don't do much of that anyhow but I would like to start.
I've used Hexagon since it was first introduced. There was a period of time when it was severely broken on the Macintosh platform, but the current version, 2.5.1.79, works much better. It is a bit touchy, and will crash, especially if tools are used improperly. So saving frequently, and incrementally is wise. (Especially while learning its idiosyncrasies.)
Most of Hexagon's capabilities have been ported over to Carrara, which is more stable, so I don't use it as much as I did. But Hexagon still has some features that don't exist in Carrara, so I go back to it from time to time.
At $20, even with its faults, it's a valuable tool. (I think it originally cost a couple hundred!)
...as a 3D modelling tool, Hexagon is more focused than Carrara (or any other 'full featured" software that includes modelling) as that is all it needs to do. I feel that is one of its major advantages and why it should needs to be be updated.
most of the programs people suggests for modelling do way too much, cost a lot and aren't so simple. I don't want to pay for features I don't want to use, and if the first thing the program tries to do is sculpt or work with voxels it's probably not what I want. They could be great programs, but...sometimes you just want what you want and nothing more.