Moho Forum

Okay, zbrush is in the maya1/max weight class, also a professional artist friend of mine said so...but at 500 bucks ( for me) is expensive.

The v1.55 demo is, I believe, still there for free and I don't recall it having much in the way of limitations. Not as meaty as v2, bit still a pretty cool tool to have. Well worth checking out.

I think it's fair to say ZBrush (like most 3D apps) still has a pretty steep learning curve. Is it expensive? Pixologic's updates are usually pretty significant, and they have yet to charge for them (in my experience), so keep that in mind. Great product, great company.

Best -- Greg.

Expensive? it dipends by the point of view: for my is an hobby, so 500 bucks are expensive. For people who made cg for main job , zbrush maybe a good deal.

I find the ZBrush demo a bit complicated for me but I use it from time to time to make brushes for Paint Shop Pro. You can't save the 3D formats or use the ZSpheres modeling -which looks very cool- but you can save stuff to PSD.

In spite of my wooden brain I do intend to buy it as soon as I can afford it. There are a few video tutes around what I have seen makes it seem to be one heckuva tool.

yeh zbrush 1.55 is very complicated interface, when yo buy it you get 2.0 and its _alot_ nicer, zbrush is very different from other 3d apps, because its not your runofthemill modeller, its actually a 2.5D painting software, which you just happen to be able to model in

For your purposes, I still suggest just learning the basics about 3D modelling, because theres no magical app thats going to do it for you until you understand how its actually working.

i can recommend "cybermotion 3d-designer". it is quite easy to understand and you r able to create a lot in a small time compared to other professional programs like 3dsmax, maya and milkshape.

.r.a.e.t.e.a.d.m.b.a.a

Look into Mudbox. It cost's 299 an was made by the Lord Of The Rings Team.
http://www.mudbox3d.com/

I've been creating 3d objects using iClone 2.

If I understand you correctly, this would really fill the bill, because assembling things with its 3d primitives is easy and fast to the max.

Note that I haven't found the patience for learning more serious 3D applications, but this is working for me.

See here:





The tradeoff is that you are given quite low precision in moving, sizing, and aligning objects. In addition, building up objects is a one-way process. Once you've created a merged object, you have no further access to its constitutent parts.

Don't be put off by the obvious lack of polish on the surface of these objects. You can map textures to your heart's desire, as well as opacity, bump, and reflection. I'm not using most of these because my plan is to use my 3D animations as morph targets for 2D cel-style images.

(In fact, the house I'm showing features a deliberately simplistic clapboard+window texture. I could have installed a 3D window model I purchased, but chose not to incur the overhead.)

Another benefit of this is that you're already working in an application specifically designed for human animation.

Human's, post reminded me of the free version of sketchup (http://sketchup.google.com/). Its very easy to use and is great for architecture, but you can't export the mode the 3d models in the free version. They work great if you want to build an environment, export to a jpeg to photoshop for repainting.

I found the modelling task very easy , at least in comparision with rigging and animating. There is not 3D software , in my price range, that allow a smooth rigging and animation like Anime Studio.



A test model for gaming

I purchased Hexagon 2 when Daz discounted it, if you looks for an very easy to use modeller Hex. may be the rigth choice.

Speaking of DAZ... Carrara Studio is pretty easy to use for most purposes. The texturing and animation tools in it are reasonably powerful for the price, but modelling can be somewhat awkward in it depending on the version used.

I'd probably look for a used version of Carrara Studio Pro v5 or a new, inexpensive copy of v4. (v4 includes a printed manual) A lot of previous Carrara users are not fans of DAZ, so odds are good you can probably find a good deal on used copy of v5 from one of them.

anim8tor is free and has lots of
tutorials. seems to be a good
product

human wrote:I've been creating 3d objects using iClone 2.

If I understand you correctly, this would really fill the bill, because assembling things with its 3d primitives is easy and fast to the max.

Note that I haven't found the patience for learning more serious 3D applications, but this is working for me.

See here:





The tradeoff is that you are given quite low precision in moving, sizing, and aligning objects. In addition, building up objects is a one-way process. Once you've created a merged object, you have no further access to its constitutent parts.

Don't be put off by the obvious lack of polish on the surface of these objects. You can map textures to your heart's desire, as well as opacity, bump, and reflection. I'm not using most of these because my plan is to use my 3D animations as morph targets for 2D cel-style images.

(In fact, the house I'm showing features a deliberately simplistic clapboard+window texture. I could have installed a 3D window model I purchased, but chose not to incur the overhead.)

Another benefit of this is that you're already working in an application specifically designed for human animation.

Human,

Were you successful in doing lighting and texturing in iClone and importing that intact into moho? (Oops, AS?)

I haven't had much luck with apps getting the lighting, etc. baked into the model, though I haven't spent much time with the latest blender yet.

jorgy

jorgy wrote:[Were you successful in doing lighting and texturing in iClone and importing that intact into moho? (Oops, AS?)

No, that's not how I use 3D. Note one thing I forgot to explain about iClone--it absolutely does not support export of 3D models in any format used by other applications.

I plan to generate dummy movies from 3D and use the keyframes as references for 2D animation. I'll have 2D models that contain the desired textures, color, lighting, created with Illustrator.

My actual tool for mapping 2D to 3D will be pixel-based morphing software (MorphMan 4). By using pixel morphs, I don't have to manually coordinate the mapping of hundreds of different shape and color vectors.

I'm not sure yet exactly when my footage will go back to vector form, but this will happen very late in the pipeline.