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On 16/12/2011 5:14 PM, Darren New wrote:
> On 12/16/2011 2:17, Stephen wrote:
>> On the other hand you can buy an old version (Poser 7) for about £50
>
> I got a free one on a CD in a magazine for about $3.50.
>
Yes, if you keep your eyes open you can save hundreds of thousands of
Pounds or Dollars.
--
Regards
Stephen
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Invisible <voi### [at] dev null> wrote:
> On 16/12/2011 09:35 AM, Stephen wrote:
> > On 16/12/2011 9:23 AM, Invisible wrote:
> >> It's news to me that there are modelling applications which are good at
> >> organic shapes. (Or, indeed, any shapes at all...)
> >
> > Have you not heard of Poser?
>
> Doesn't that cost several hundred thousand pounds?
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?222859-Black-scorpion
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?213098-Shark-Ride
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?167184-colibri
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?168926-Woolly-mammoth
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?225435-Dr.-Steel
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?212430-Larva
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?211074-Cello
you may continue crying, but now from sheer joy. ;)
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The advantage is only to have a full featured tool, the counterpart is that it's
slow (slower than Cycles, Yafaray for anything or even slower than Luxrender in
some scenes like those with Caustics)
Still, If you work on a big project with big numbers of duplicate objects that
you would rather place by script than by hand and you don't want your computer
to have to display them before they actually render, if on some of the shots /
area of the image, there's lots of effects such as volumetrics, subsurface
scattering, perfect spheres without polygons (Aqsis is another open source
renderer that can do that but not all the rest), etc. Povray can do it all,
while the afore mentioned open source renderers all have had issues with one or
the other features up to now.
The solid texturing capacities of povray are only very slightly superior to
Blender regarding the number of algorythm available. But for any organic
texturing that would need to be hand painted, POV-Ray is a pain, you have to go
through complex syntax to be able to map finishes, other than bump or diffuse
values. You cannot make tengeant space Normal maps.
The only reason to use a graphical 3D editor along with POV-Ray would be to take
advantage of both worlds, produce real work, with a lot of diversity and cover a
range of styles going from cartoon to photorealistic. People don't seem so
interested in that, since they don't contribute at all to Blender's POV-Ray
exporter :-P I guess they prefer to render spheres on checkered planes and look
down at graphically interfaced tools that would bring them more developers and
users.
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On 12/16/2011 9:26 AM, Invisible wrote:
> OK, let me be more specific: Clearly the likes of Pixar, ILM and so
> forth must have tools that enable you to model organic shapes. It's news
> to me that normal humans can get their hands on such tools.
The Big House apps are apparently developed in-house and with some
exceptions are not available to the general public.
I am working on a modeler which to exports POV-Ray .INC files of the
model, which can be posed if the proper variable are set before calling
the file. I intend to add scene-building in an upcoming version. I am
giving up video gaming for a year, starting in January, so I should have
a great deal more time for working on this.
http://evilsnack.byethost22.com/lionsnake.htm
It is presently at a level that some users would call "kinda sucky and
frustrating," but it's better than trying to model a head with
hand-edited SDL.
> (And, as you know, normal humans do not have hundreds of thousands of
> pounds.)
Which is why I'm writing one of my own, because I don't have the $$$ for
a high-class modeling app, either.
Regards,
John
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John VanSickle <evi### [at] KOSHERhotmailcom> wrote:
> On 12/16/2011 9:26 AM, Invisible wrote:
>
> > OK, let me be more specific: Clearly the likes of Pixar, ILM and so
> > forth must have tools that enable you to model organic shapes. It's news
> > to me that normal humans can get their hands on such tools.
>
> The Big House apps are apparently developed in-house and with some
> exceptions are not available to the general public.
>
> I am working on a modeler which to exports POV-Ray .INC files of the
> model, which can be posed if the proper variable are set before calling
> the file. I intend to add scene-building in an upcoming version. I am
> giving up video gaming for a year, starting in January, so I should have
> a great deal more time for working on this.
>
> http://evilsnack.byethost22.com/lionsnake.htm
>
> It is presently at a level that some users would call "kinda sucky and
> frustrating," but it's better than trying to model a head with
> hand-edited SDL.
>
> > (And, as you know, normal humans do not have hundreds of thousands of
> > pounds.)
>
> Which is why I'm writing one of my own, because I don't have the $$$ for
> a high-class modeling app, either.
>
> Regards,
> John
There must be another reason why you're doing it because Blender is free for any
use and welcomes contributions with various levels of expertise, from core
modifications to Python scripting. (There's a lot of ressources around to learn
the necessary bits of Python, such as Gerard Swinnen's books, etc.
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On 12/20/2011 3:37, John VanSickle wrote:
> I am giving up video gaming for a year,
No you're not. You're just switching what kind of video game you're playing. ;-)
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
People tell me I am the counter-example.
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On 12/20/2011 7:54 AM, Mr wrote:
> John VanSickle<evi### [at] KOSHERhotmailcom> wrote:
>> On 12/16/2011 9:26 AM, Invisible wrote:
>>
>>> OK, let me be more specific: Clearly the likes of Pixar, ILM and so
>>> forth must have tools that enable you to model organic shapes. It's news
>>> to me that normal humans can get their hands on such tools.
>>
>> The Big House apps are apparently developed in-house and with some
>> exceptions are not available to the general public.
>>
>> I am working on a modeler which to exports POV-Ray .INC files of the
>> model, which can be posed if the proper variable are set before calling
>> the file. I intend to add scene-building in an upcoming version. I am
>> giving up video gaming for a year, starting in January, so I should have
>> a great deal more time for working on this.
>>
>> http://evilsnack.byethost22.com/lionsnake.htm
>>
>> It is presently at a level that some users would call "kinda sucky and
>> frustrating," but it's better than trying to model a head with
>> hand-edited SDL.
>>
>>> (And, as you know, normal humans do not have hundreds of thousands of
>>> pounds.)
>>
>> Which is why I'm writing one of my own, because I don't have the $$$ for
>> a high-class modeling app, either.
>
> There must be another reason why you're doing it because Blender is free for any
> use and welcomes contributions with various levels of expertise, from core
> modifications to Python scripting. (There's a lot of ressources around to learn
> the necessary bits of Python, such as Gerard Swinnen's books, etc.
Yes, there is indeed another reason: Blender's UI is still as obtuse as
a playground bully. I just downloaded, installed, and attempted to use
v2.61, and it was only because I remembered what I learned the last time
I tried Blender that I was able to do anything at all.
I think the cause may be a desire to make every feature as quickly
accessible as possible. But this is like having a few dozen people
talking to you at once when you in turn are trying to find and then deal
with just a few of them. When I'm editing a model's geometry, I neither
need nor want to see buttons for material editing, lighting set-up, etc.
I just want to edit the model's topology and quickly alter the view so
that I can see the model from any angle and at any scale I need.
For my own modeler I am trying to make things much more intuitive. The
ideal I am striving for is:
* When your mouse hovers over an object, that something is highlighted;
* A left click on an object selects it;
* Where appropriate, left clicking, and then dragging, moves or
otherwise modifies the highlighted object;
* A right clock on an object brings up a context menu with the most
commonly-used operations for that type of object;
* A left click in empty space starts a selection box for selecting
multiple items at once;
* A right click in empty space brings up a context menu giving access to
operations that use the current selection, or don't require an existing
object at all.
Other people may find the Blender UI to be no problem, but I prefer
something much leaner, so that's what I'm trying to build.
Regards,
John
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On 12/22/2011 2:21 PM, John VanSickle wrote:
> On 12/20/2011 7:54 AM, Mr wrote:
>> John VanSickle<evi### [at] KOSHERhotmailcom> wrote:
>>> On 12/16/2011 9:26 AM, Invisible wrote:
>>>
>>>> OK, let me be more specific: Clearly the likes of Pixar, ILM and so
>>>> forth must have tools that enable you to model organic shapes. It's
>>>> news
>>>> to me that normal humans can get their hands on such tools.
>>>
>>> The Big House apps are apparently developed in-house and with some
>>> exceptions are not available to the general public.
>>>
>>> I am working on a modeler which to exports POV-Ray .INC files of the
>>> model, which can be posed if the proper variable are set before calling
>>> the file. I intend to add scene-building in an upcoming version. I am
>>> giving up video gaming for a year, starting in January, so I should have
>>> a great deal more time for working on this.
>>>
>>> http://evilsnack.byethost22.com/lionsnake.htm
>>>
>>> It is presently at a level that some users would call "kinda sucky and
>>> frustrating," but it's better than trying to model a head with
>>> hand-edited SDL.
>>>
>>>> (And, as you know, normal humans do not have hundreds of thousands of
>>>> pounds.)
>>>
>>> Which is why I'm writing one of my own, because I don't have the $$$ for
>>> a high-class modeling app, either.
>>
>> There must be another reason why you're doing it because Blender is
>> free for any
>> use and welcomes contributions with various levels of expertise, from
>> core
>> modifications to Python scripting. (There's a lot of ressources around
>> to learn
>> the necessary bits of Python, such as Gerard Swinnen's books, etc.
>
> Yes, there is indeed another reason: Blender's UI is still as obtuse as
> a playground bully. I just downloaded, installed, and attempted to use
> v2.61, and it was only because I remembered what I learned the last time
> I tried Blender that I was able to do anything at all.
>
> I think the cause may be a desire to make every feature as quickly
> accessible as possible. But this is like having a few dozen people
> talking to you at once when you in turn are trying to find and then deal
> with just a few of them. When I'm editing a model's geometry, I neither
> need nor want to see buttons for material editing, lighting set-up, etc.
> I just want to edit the model's topology and quickly alter the view so
> that I can see the model from any angle and at any scale I need.
>
Yeah, don't even get me started on how its "texture paint" only does
"vertex", "texture", and... I don't remember the other useless one, but
you basically can't paint on the thing worth shit, since it doesn't
treat the face as a canvas, just colors "parts of all adjoining", and
other mostly half witted things (this also means you can't, for example,
"color all faces that are on a single path, so I can do something with
them in photoshop, without guessing what the hell they belong to".
Texture may, sort of, all that, but it seems, as near as I could manage
to attempt to use it (man the steps are confusing...) just pastes the
texture "onto" the face, with no control over where, how, if it repeats,
or anything else.
They finally suppose mesh in Second Life, and I still can't do shit with
it, because, for me, the transition from modelling the damn thing, to
actually coloring in the lines may as well be the Grand Canyon. The
tools don't make any sense for the job, and if there is some way to
layer things, I haven't found it (though, I am told by some guru, living
in a server room, that this may be somehow possible, if I use to Force,
or something...). lol
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I just like to choose the best available open source alternatives - feature-wise
and *try to adapt* to them. I also like to combine them, and feel very sad for
all the proselytism from each and every community that leads them to ignore the
benefits from some other; mostly did you know that in the Blender community
almost nobody knows of the POV-Ray 3.7 version, they all believe that the
software has been stuck years ago and prefer to invest time into bridging
software like Sunflow, which has been declared dead by its authors, or Cycles,
which is declared immature for a long time to come yet by its authors, than POV.
I am glad that on the contrary you guys did try the latest version of Blender.
Your reactions show that Blender's main weakness is documentation, (POV, has one
of the best around, thanks to Jim H and other contributors).
But the feature set of Blender is truly complete, professional and stable enough
to complement POV in the open source world for someone flexible enough to learn
both. any example?
-It is incomparably more stable than k3D (which is simply not usable yet and by
the time it will be, Aqsis might be as good a rendering option as POV for it).
-Blender has a mesh paint system that could directly be translated into pov
object paint feature (sorry if I don't use proper POV syntax names)
-it has a smoke engine from which voxels can be exported and could match pretty
well POV, DF3 and media.
-you can use a graphics pen tablet to sculpt meshes like clay...etc
-you can animate anything
-it has good editing and compositing capacities to polish the finished work.
-it now can handle faces with arbitrary number of edges (BMesh Branch works,
currently being merged)
-it has an available (still drafty but open to contribution) exporter for pov
3.7 which is not the case of Wings 3D or other such serious open source modeling
tools around.
So what is it, with all those rendering options available for it, that make POV
one of the best candidates for rendering its scenes? I can think of 4 points:
-Huge feature set
-The SDL
-The Documentation along with community of very knowledgeable and generous
expert users like Alain, etc.)
-Clipka
Sorry for all the other developers, he just added so much :-P
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On 12/25/2011 3:30 PM, Mr wrote:
> I just like to choose the best available open source alternatives - feature-wise
> and *try to adapt* to them. I also like to combine them, and feel very sad for
> all the proselytism from each and every community that leads them to ignore the
> benefits from some other; mostly did you know that in the Blender community
> almost nobody knows of the POV-Ray 3.7 version, they all believe that the
> software has been stuck years ago and prefer to invest time into bridging
> software like Sunflow, which has been declared dead by its authors, or Cycles,
> which is declared immature for a long time to come yet by its authors, than POV.
> I am glad that on the contrary you guys did try the latest version of Blender.
> Your reactions show that Blender's main weakness is documentation, (POV, has one
> of the best around, thanks to Jim H and other contributors).
>
Its not just documentation though, its also UI design, which I know is
being worked on, and logic of features, in some cases. I can open nearly
any image editor, and have a clue what I am doing. I can open most 3D
applications, and have some general idea what is going on. Blender does
a bloody lot of stuff in... odd ways. In terms of features though, I
biggest issue comes down to being able to color/paint on, faces. Why?
Because I may still be using an external editor, like Photoshop, to do
the texture, but I need to be able to, while in 3D, actually do the
markup. Examples: Which faces are actually part of which things on the
object? If I plan to put a panel/hatch, etc. on the side, where on the
side is it, and what is the side, in the first place? If I do place it,
which side is up, or am I going to have to flip it, and move it around a
bunch, before I know its in the right place? Its not enough to be able
to sloppily paint things, you need to have the capacity to say, draw a
box on one face, or even across several, so it shows up where it is
supposed to on the unwrapped UV map, and so you know what you are doing
in the image editor, when you get there.
Mind, this would be a lot easier too if you could have the unwrapped
mesh show, kind of like you would make a transparency cutout in
Photoshop, so that you could slide your image around "under it". I.e.,
move another smaller image around on the UV map, where the mesh
structure itself acts as a mask, to place it, before backing a final result.
For texture editing, something like that would be a lot easier to work
with, and make a lot more sense, than the sort of gross spray paint
effects available.
But that isn't the only case where things are just odd. A lot of it
comes down to things not working like the person who is trying to use
the feature *expects*, based on the use of other applications, or the
specific task they are attempting. I am sure, if I had been working with
it from day one, and the people that developed it, I probably wouldn't
find a problem with it. But then, people that used Wordstar couldn't
comprehend why anyone would want to use Wordperfect either, or people
that use EMACS for coding (and other things) see someone using something
like Scite. Documentation only sort of fixes the problem.
And, to be sure, it doesn't fix it at all if, for example, between 2.59
and 2.6, the book that was supposed to cover the new GUI features in 2.6
doesn't look anything like what the GUI ended up changing to. :p I ran
into that one while trying to work out how to use some of the texture
features. The explanation for what its supposed to do is confusing
enough, but things that are supposed to be there are not, maybe, in some
case, because they didn't make sense, and if you don't know what its
*supposed to do*, you can't tell if your doing something wrong, or its
working right, and just not doing what you thought it was supposed to.
Yeah, better documentation would help, but as someone that tried
following a relatively simple tutorial 2-3 times (on bending something
or other), without getting the same results (and this was using a
version that didn't have GUI changes yet), while thinking, "If I could
afford Rhino, I could do this in 10 seconds.", more documentation
wouldn't have been all that encouraging.
I like my learning curves shallow, for the stuff that should be simple.
I don't mind so much if its something no one else is doing at all, but
with Blender, all of it tends to be, "Why does this work this way, or am
I just thinking its supposed to work some other way, because that is how
everything else I ever used did it?" Makes for some hair pulling. lol
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