http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJbC1ruBYds&feature=PlayList&p=A9BBC146B49D017D&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=2

This one covers the latest version of Wings3D as well as all the advanced 
options. Very informative.

Thought you might like to know.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   The question in today's corporate environment is not
   so much "what color is your parachute?" as it is
   "what color is your nose?"

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"Darren New" <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote in message 
news:4b85d263$1@news.povray.org...
>
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJbC1ruBYds&feature=PlayList&p=A9BBC146B49D017D&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=2
>
> This one covers the latest version of Wings3D as well as all the advanced 
> options. Very informative.
>
> Thought you might like to know.

Excellent! I'll check it out as soon as I get home and away from this @#$% 
firewall...

--
Jack

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Captain Jack wrote:
> Excellent! I'll check it out as soon as I get home and away from this @#$% 
> firewall...

Going to the Wings3D forum, I find
http://nendowingsmirai.yuku.com/topic/2136/t/AutoUV-tuts-amp-helpful-info.html
with a whole bunch of links I haven't checked out, too.

And after smashing my head for about 2 hours trying to figure out why the 
texture maps are messed up, and then discovering it works if I mirror them 
about the vertical axis, I remember that one of the models in the tutorial I 
was using had the UV mapping messed up in the model, and I had changed the 
shader to mirror the textures on the (one, tutorial) model I was using. Ouch.

Now, if I could just find a usable, free modeler that can do bones and 
animations, I'm golden. :-)  I just may have to try getting back into 
blender again if there's no better suggestion.  Does DAZ5 support that sort 
of thing? I downloaded it but haven't tried it yet.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   The question in today's corporate environment is not
   so much "what color is your parachute?" as it is
   "what color is your nose?"

Post a reply to this message

"Darren New" <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote in message 
news:4b86d9a7@news.povray.org...
>
> Now, if I could just find a usable, free modeler that can do bones and 
> animations, I'm golden. :-)  I just may have to try getting back into 
> blender again if there's no better suggestion.  Does DAZ5 support that 
> sort of thing? I downloaded it but haven't tried it yet.

Dunno... I use Carrara and Cinema 4D for rendering and a little modeling, 
but neither one is free. They both do bones and animation, though. I find 
Poser's bone system hard to use, but it's at least a little less expensive.

I've been hearing great things about the new interface with Blender 2.5, so 
it might be worth checking out. I never could do rigging in it before, or 
remember which hot keys did what, but maybe it's gotten easier.

--
Jack

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Captain Jack wrote:
> Dunno... I use Carrara and Cinema 4D for rendering and a little modeling, 
> but neither one is free. They both do bones and animation, though. I find 
> Poser's bone system hard to use, but it's at least a little less expensive.

Well, cheap would be OK too. I have money. I'm just not going to spend $3K 
on a modeling program when I have no artistic abilities. :-)

> I've been hearing great things about the new interface with Blender 2.5, so 
> it might be worth checking out. I never could do rigging in it before, or 
> remember which hot keys did what, but maybe it's gotten easier.

I did a character with bones and an animation (based on tutorials) in 
Blender. It wasn't excruciating, but it was bad enough that I have to 
believe someone has done better. Whether that "better" is less than 
"enterprise/professional" price range, I can't say.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   The question in today's corporate environment is not
   so much "what color is your parachute?" as it is
   "what color is your nose?"

Post a reply to this message

"Darren New" <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote in message 
news:4b86e11c$1@news.povray.org...
>
> I did a character with bones and an animation (based on tutorials) in 
> Blender. It wasn't excruciating, but it was bad enough that I have to 
> believe someone has done better. Whether that "better" is less than 
> "enterprise/professional" price range, I can't say.

In my experience, rigging is hard, no matter what the tool, or how "high 
end". A lot of the expensive tools don't make it particularly easier, but 
they do add more options. For example, it's often harder in cheaper tools to 
combine rigged joint rotation with object deformation or morphs. Some of the 
professional packages have "muscle" objects that will automatically deform 
the skin as a bone its attached to rotates.

Rigging and modeling don't have to be in the same program, though... I know 
lots of people that model in Wings, Silo, Hexagon, and/or ZBrush to make a 
finished model before taking it to another program to rig.

Carrara isn't insanely expensive, especially if you get the discount 
membership (Platinum Club) at Daz. I got the "Pro" version, which has all 
the bells and whistles, and I like it the best, but there are cheaper levels 
of it. They've got a new version in beta now, so there'll probably be sales 
coming up soon. When the last version (7) came out, they gave away free 
copies of version 6 in some magazines. There's a good user forum at Daz for 
Carrara, and a less active one at Renderosity.

Cinema 4D has a much more intelligent rigging system that can guess where 
you want the bone influence to go, and that's pretty nice. C4D is really 
expensive, though. They had a sale last year where people with a competing 
product could get it for the upgrade price, so I picked it up then. It does 
make a lot of what I was doing with Carrara much easier, though, and I 
really do like it.

I think that Anim8tor is still around, and free, and it has some sort of 
rigging system. I think it can do modeling, too, but I can't remember if its 
models can be exported or if they have to stay inside it's environs.

CG Society has good user forums for several specific software tools, as well 
as general forums on all sorts of CG concepts, including a rigging forum.

--
Jack

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Captain Jack wrote:
> In my experience, rigging is hard, no matter what the tool, 

I'm not surprised. Also, I expect modeling is hard if you only use one tool 
for all your modeling. For example, Blender seems OK at characters, H:AM 
even more so perhaps, but they both are pretty bad at (say) architecture. I 
have to imagine there's an easier way of doing architecture. Wings comes 
close, but you still have to be hiding walls so you can see the inside, and 
you still have no way of making a ladder without overlapping stuff somehow.

I've played with H:AM, giving up only because it was so crashtastic. It was 
pretty nice once you got the hang of it.

> Rigging and modeling don't have to be in the same program, though... I know 
> lots of people that model in Wings, Silo, Hexagon, and/or ZBrush to make a 
> finished model before taking it to another program to rig.

Yeah, that was what I was considering.

> Carrara isn't insanely expensive, especially if you get the discount 
[snip]

Thanks for the info. I've saved it. :-)


-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   The question in today's corporate environment is not
   so much "what color is your parachute?" as it is
   "what color is your nose?"

Post a reply to this message