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Listerine posted:Well I went there to check it out in person, and I talked to the guy about academic licenses and how upgrades work, and his description made it sound like I could get a discounted academic license and if I didn't pay the maintenance I'd just be stuck with that version going forward. Which seems fine to me since I'm just doing simple stuff. But then I went to the website and it lists educational licenses with annual rates that expire if you don't renew; I'm not a big fan of renting software and my pockets aren't deep enough to afford $2k. I'm kind of bummed out. I'd probably do 500-600 for a permanent academic license. I'll have to see what their salespeople say. Autodesk likes to pull that crap too. In fact, that is why you have to "subscribe" in order to get updates which can cost a lot of money. Although the initial academic bundle is very cheap through places like Studica.com, the updates are where they get you.
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Dec 13, 2013 20:01
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Odddzy posted:After a few tests things are going nicely but I'm getting some weird stretching on the CameraGemini projected textures mask. Although I'm pretty sure the problem resides inside this panel when I modify the face angle blending values, changing them doesn't do any changes to the texture. Won't you always have that stretching when you're projecting something on a sphere? Is it still stretched on a cube?
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Dec 13, 2013 20:03
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GOT VIRUS FROM MP3 posted:Won't you always have that stretching when you're projecting something on a sphere? Is it still stretched on a cube? Not as much but it's still stretching in some spots, i'm still trying to understand some of it but it's coming along. I think i've got it now, it's basically just because the default tolerance, if set at 85 degrees is a bit too close to the other side of the camera. It's looking better now though. Odddzy fucked around with this message at 00:02 on Dec 14, 2013 |
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Dec 13, 2013 22:46
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I started texturing. I'm not doing too hot. The difference between 2D patches and a full 3D model is tripping me up, I hope I get better at it. Also the face looks really bad at the moment, I might have to redo the whole head. Two questions: Is there a way to merge UV meshes between objects? Right now I have each mesh on a different UV map, making exporting a bit of a hassle. And can I select multiple objects in edit mode? I want to scale up the head but I'm not seeing any option to select both objects and entering edit mode with them.
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Dec 14, 2013 00:33
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horriblePencilist posted:I started texturing. Try making a quick and dirty occlusion map or something and place it in multiply mode over your top layer, it's good in the first stages to use something that indicates where your volumes are and is more legible than uv maps until you get a bit more used to reading them.
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Dec 14, 2013 00:57
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Also not a lot of people realize that even if you're doing something super low poly it helps to start with a high res sculpt of your character. You can bake down a lot of information for a diffuse-only/mobile style model, it'll be a breeze to texture, and you'll have a high res available if you want to uprez it for marketing purposes. This is pretty much what Riot does these days for all their LoL stuff.
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Dec 14, 2013 03:47
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sigma 6 posted:Autodesk likes to pull that crap too. In fact, that is why you have to "subscribe" in order to get updates which can cost a lot of money. All Autodesk software is free for students.
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Dec 14, 2013 04:31
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I missed that post earlier. I've heard 2 separate anecdotes (one first hand) from back in the day about them sending AutoCAD reps to architecture schools who later handed copies out on the sly. Everyone graduates, their hiring bosses buy AutoCAD. Its a smart move to make it available to people who don't make money off it, and then overcharge whoever is. Its an extension of that. They don't care how you learn it, so long as you do and end up having to use it in your professional career. Then you're subscribed for LIFE, be it you or an employer. its just about the only thing autodesk gets absolutely right and is directly responsible for their vast market share. e: although the foundry making a dota version of modo available on steam just this past week is great and along the same lines, its a fantastic business move. So many modders are going to have an easier path towards a career with modo being their tool of choice. Give it a few years and all of a sudden game studios are buying shitloads of copies for all their new hires. e2: this very afternoon vlado dropped a preview of vray for modo on the forum too. For years he said he never saw the point, but since the foundry stepped in development has been in progress. Early days, but its promising news for modo users. cubicle gangster fucked around with this message at 07:44 on Dec 14, 2013 |
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Dec 14, 2013 07:22
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keyframe posted:All Autodesk software is free for students. For faculty and staff at educational institutions, it's like 300 bucks for the ultimate creation suite, which is a permanent license but doesn't include upgrades or maintenance or any of that. It's a different classification from student.
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Dec 14, 2013 07:38
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Listerine posted:For faculty and staff at educational institutions, it's like 300 bucks for the ultimate creation suite, which is a permanent license but doesn't include upgrades or maintenance or any of that. It's a different classification from student. No it is free for faculty and mentors as well. I just did it and downloaded everything there. It is yearly license like the student one and it is free. There is no point in getting a permanent non-upgradeable, non-commercial license anyway. Especially if you are a teacher. keyframe fucked around with this message at 18:29 on Dec 14, 2013 |
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Dec 14, 2013 18:27
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cubicle gangster posted:e: although the foundry making a dota version of modo available on steam just this past week is great and along the same lines, its a fantastic business move. So many modders are going to have an easier path towards a career with modo being their tool of choice. Give it a few years and all of a sudden game studios are buying shitloads of copies for all their new hires. It's my sincere hope that The Foundry's involvement with modo will help shift the balance of power a bit in the 3D landscape. As a modeling tool I find it much more pleasant to use on a day to day basis than anything in the Autodesk stable, and it's probably less intimidating for new artists as well. The V-Ray news is exciting as well, though I haven't even really gone too in-depth with modo's built-in renderer. Still, I've spent a couple weeks so far with the trial version and am seriously considering purchasing a modo license with their special holiday pricing (40% off, comes out to about $900).
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Dec 14, 2013 18:46
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How good is modo compared to Blender for "general" 3d work? I currently use blender in combination with Zbrush, but if my interest in 3D modelling continues I wouldn't mind paying for a more proffessional program. It's really annoying that there are no "non-commercial hobbyist" licensing terms. What is missing from the Steam version of Modo since it's that cheap?
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Dec 14, 2013 18:59
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HardCoil posted:How good is modo compared to Blender for "general" 3d work? I currently use blender in combination with Zbrush, but if my interest in 3D modelling continues I wouldn't mind paying for a more proffessional program. It's really annoying that there are no "non-commercial hobbyist" licensing terms. Significantly better, if you compare packages with no plugins it's the best general 3d tool out there. export is limited at 7k polys max. it's intended to create models for use in games - and grants a license to sell those models. Everyone, watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGA73iBDLMA it's incredible
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Dec 14, 2013 19:51
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HardCoil posted:How good is modo compared to Blender for "general" 3d work? I currently use blender in combination with Zbrush, but if my interest in 3D modelling continues I wouldn't mind paying for a more proffessional program. It's really annoying that there are no "non-commercial hobbyist" licensing terms. You can export to dota and sell your models there but it is non commercial for everything else (also 7k fbx export limit for everything else). Modo is a decent modeler but it is near useless without plugins and scripts. If all you need is a good modeler get Silo instead of Modo steam edition. I can't emphasize how bad modo is without some vital free scripts you wont be able to run with the steam version. Once you install the seneca and ethereal scripts it becomes an amazing modeler but without those I wouldn't model in it.
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Dec 14, 2013 19:57
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Thanks, that's really good to know. At least the scripts are free. I think I'll continue with Blender for a while and look at modo again next time there's a sale. Buying the steam version doesn't make sense with the limitations you outlined.
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Dec 14, 2013 20:14
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cubicle gangster posted:Everyone, watch this: This is fantastic, and really interesting to see how the scenes are built.
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Dec 14, 2013 21:06
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cubicle gangster posted:Significantly better, if you compare packages with no plugins it's the best general 3d tool out there. I love when people put serious loving effort into VFX reels. That one is a stunner.
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Dec 15, 2013 01:23
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keyframe posted:No it is free for faculty and mentors as well. I just did it and downloaded everything there. It is yearly license like the student one and it is free. There is no point in getting a permanent non-upgradeable, non-commercial license anyway. Especially if you are a teacher. Okay, that must be new since last time I bought a education version then, my mistake- do you have a link handy? I wouldn't mind getting the new 2014 versions if they're free for academics. Oh- do you have to be teaching CG to qualify, or just be a teacher at an educational institution? keyframe posted:If all you need is a good modeler get Silo instead of Modo steam edition. Silo hasn't been updated in ages though- it's great for that cheap price point, but Nevercenter doesn't seem to be investing any effort in developing it, so it's a bit of a dead end to buy it now. One thing I did like about it a lot was iterative saves, not sure why that isn't an option in any software anywhere, really. Listerine fucked around with this message at 02:58 on Dec 15, 2013 |
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Dec 15, 2013 02:55
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Listerine posted:Okay, that must be new since last time I bought a education version then, my mistake- do you have a link handy? I wouldn't mind getting the new 2014 versions if they're free for academics. Oh- do you have to be teaching CG to qualify, or just be a teacher at an educational institution? This is the website: http://www.autodesk.com/education/student-software You pretty much check the "I am a mentor" option when signing up, they don't even check. Then go and download any Autodesk software you want.
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Dec 15, 2013 04:38
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cubicle gangster posted:Significantly better, if you compare packages with no plugins it's the best general 3d tool out there. That was hella cool. The shot at 2:47 and the breakdown of it is one of my favorites 
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Dec 15, 2013 06:58
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Listerine posted:Well I went there to check it out in person, and I talked to the guy about academic licenses and how upgrades work, and his description made it sound like I could get a discounted academic license and if I didn't pay the maintenance I'd just be stuck with that version going forward. Which seems fine to me since I'm just doing simple stuff. But then I went to the website and it lists educational licenses with annual rates that expire if you don't renew; I'm not a big fan of renting software and my pockets aren't deep enough to afford $2k. I'm kind of bummed out. I'd probably do 500-600 for a permanent academic license. I'll have to see what their salespeople say. Drop me an email at jack.greasley@thefoundry.co.uk
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Dec 16, 2013 15:25
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keyframe posted:Yea I think I will go take a class there see how it is. Glad you like it.  I'm just about qualified to answer any questions anyone might have about Mari. forelle fucked around with this message at 15:41 on Dec 16, 2013 |
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Dec 16, 2013 15:26
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forelle posted:Glad you like it. Whoa nice to have you here Jack! I will keep asking if you have stairs in your house over at CG Talk and Foundry forums from now on.  Speaking of question, do you think Mari would run on a Surface pro 2? I am not planning on doing 8k texture paints on it but more around 1-2k range. Was going to download the trial to give it a go later this week. From what I remember Mari needed a lot of hard drive space to use as buffer, which is my main worry.
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Dec 16, 2013 20:11
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keyframe posted:Whoa nice to have you here Jack! I will keep asking if you have stairs in your house over at CG Talk and Foundry forums from now on. It seems the surface has an intel integrated GPU which isn't currently on our tested list. We have had Mari running (surprisingly well aside from driver bugs) on intel hw but this isn't in the shipping version iirc. Getting Intel support is something I'd very much like to do. The hd requirements are really just for vfx production sized assets. 10gb or less should do for smaller assets. Give 2.5v2 a go with the latest intel drivers and let me now how you get on. If there are problems submit them to support@thefoundry.co.uk and I'll look at getting them fixed. Normally this involves getting the driver team on the GPU vendors side involved which is fun.
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Dec 16, 2013 20:49
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Cubicle Gangster, i've been trying to use the tutorial in a test scene to a low res texture and see if it can be applied but I have got no luck on that front right now. Is it currently impossible to render to texture with the camera gemini projection cameras?
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Dec 16, 2013 22:47
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Why are you rendering to texture? I just render as normal from that camera with a dirt/edge tex override. Most of the time i dont even bother with the camera projection method - i'll simply ad a uvw map, go into the top/left/front whatever viewport and take a screenshot. Scale it up to a few thousand in photoshop, crop into the orange border and draw a couple of lines to test allignment/adjust the uvwmap accordingly. you can collapse these down too, so you can move all the parts after the maps are created. cubicle gangster fucked around with this message at 00:04 on Dec 17, 2013 |
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Dec 17, 2013 00:01
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The render to texture was just to verify if this technique could be used for detail baking on game textures. I know the technique kind of loses it's edge since it requires UV's in this case but was just an idea to have seamless noises/masks and faster renders with the help of an automatic unwrap. Also, on the Mech, i've done an animation on it and applied cameras to the different parts that move to see if it would avoid slipping textures, unfortunately, all the cameras are fighting each other now so that idea won't work. Either now I try to use the UVW map technique instead or do a buttload of passes but that wouldn't really stand in a sane pipeline. Edit: I don't know why I thought the UVW mapping technique woudn't work for animation purposes though, I'll try it out tomorrow and see if it's working along with that idea in mind! Odddzy fucked around with this message at 01:37 on Dec 17, 2013 |
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Dec 17, 2013 01:10
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So I was talking to a friend and they showed me something absolutely mindblowing. I mentioned 3DS Max 2014 and they asked if it had "Opensubdiv" yet. I didn't really know what it was, though.Formatted Excerpt From Chatlog posted:Friend: autodesk and pixar teamed up to make gpu-efficient catmull clark subdiv So I asked what the advantage of it was to normal stuff like turbosmooth, and mentioned that these days I see people abuse turbosmooth and similar things waaaay too much, even yesterday I saw a tutorial from a Digital Tutors "professional" where he turbosmoothed the poo poo out of everything with incredible unneccesary polygon counts and added way too many edge loops to get stuff creased right. I'm of the opinion subdivision is basically abused these days (mostly because I'm into games where you don't get as many polys though). He replied by showing me what Opensubdiv is, with this video (hopefully it starts at 26:15, if not please adjust) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFZazwvYc5o&hd=1&t=1575s This part here, at 29:08 is a little bit ahead where it's into more complex examples, but you can really see, even with the very simple box example at first, this tech is astounding  It's been available for such a long time and pixar uses pretty much only this, yet it hasn't caught on for some ungodly unknown reason. This near-revolutionises how modelling is done today, especially with the uprising of extreme-highpoly models. Not necessarily applicable to sculpting or anything, which is a good chunk of models, at least, so there's not as much needless waste in that area (other than just Too Many Polys in general, but at least you can optimise sculpts fairly easily), but for everything else, this would save absolutely everyone so much time and effort. And headaches. And edgeflow. And polycount. And basically everything. Insanely rad. Chatlog posted:Friend: creasing and weighting are the big points behind catmull clark subdiv Also a quote from the video, "In the old days, before we had any of this,". It's not even close to new technology, it's just nobody knows of it 
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Dec 17, 2013 14:50
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That is astounding. Anything I can do to remove the wrangling of hundreds of loops and edges is extremely helpful. Thanks for sharing!
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Dec 17, 2013 15:47
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Do you guys have any good techniques for objects through a scene for some CG enhancement/replacement. I've done camera solves before, but now I have a plate of a girl with a hole in her stomach who turns to face the camera and I'd like to add in a side wall to the hole. I'd rather not try to track the whole thing by hand. It's only 100 frames. Camera is locked off. Would I reverse engineer it of sorts? ... Track her as if a camera was rotating around her and in reality the camera moves instead of the object? I'm tired and it's breaking my brain!
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Dec 17, 2013 17:10
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BonoMan posted:Do you guys have any good techniques for objects through a scene for some CG enhancement/replacement. Do you have the internal geometry? Like a Zbrush sculpt of the "insides' that you want to show? You may be able to track the girl's movement using Syntheyes or something, it's basically an inverted camera track, then attach your "hole" geometry to the tracked points syntheyes gives you, use your green as a mask for the CG. If it's just 100 frames though, you could probably just hand-animate the girl's CG body into place, render it out, and use the green hole again as the mask for your CG. You mentioned your camera is still which makes this a whole lot easier, if your camera was moving you would have to track, or animate your camera movement, and your actress movement. As it stands you only have to do the actress. bring back old gbs fucked around with this message at 18:42 on Dec 17, 2013 |
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Dec 17, 2013 18:07
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Whoa, people don't know about creasing? Really? I guess it was because we had Pixar people coming in and mentoring us, but my program at university used creases and catmull/clark subdivs for our films. They're great tools as long as you set and keep selection sets organized. Maya was always losing crease settings as you had to change UVs or whatever, so you don't want to have to keep selecting your creases by hand over and over to reset them.
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Dec 17, 2013 20:14
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BonoMan posted:Do you guys have any good techniques for objects through a scene for some CG enhancement/replacement. At worst, it's a couple of hours of work tracking it in.
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Dec 17, 2013 20:23
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mutata posted:Whoa, people don't know about creasing? Really? I guess it was because we had Pixar people coming in and mentoring us, but my program at university used creases and catmull/clark subdivs for our films. They're great tools as long as you set and keep selection sets organized. Maya was always losing crease settings as you had to change UVs or whatever, so you don't want to have to keep selecting your creases by hand over and over to reset them. All I knew about creasing was how worthless it was in Max. I'm not sure I've ever used anything except a 0 or 1 crease, the latter only when I was too lazy to add loops. e: If you've never used Max, that's the min/max. On a scale of smooth to crease, with a big weird area of gently caress in between. Handiklap fucked around with this message at 02:35 on Dec 18, 2013 |
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Dec 18, 2013 02:33
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Handiklap posted:All I knew about creasing was how worthless it was in Max. I'm not sure I've ever used anything except a 0 or 1 crease, the latter only when I was too lazy to add loops. Hahaha yeah. It's not that I didn't know about creases, it's just that I'm a max user, my company uses Max, and using creases in Max is an exercise in frustration to the point where they're pretty much unusable.
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Dec 18, 2013 18:08
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ImplicitAssembler posted:At worst, it's a couple of hours of work tracking it in. Yeah I just ended up hand tracking it.
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Dec 18, 2013 18:15
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Jewel posted:
OpenSubdiv IS relatively new, it only earlier this year made it into version 2.0 (version 1.0 was late 2012). 2.0 introduced ray intersection, which I believe is pretty much a prerequisite to implementing it in any path tracer and Maxwell just introduced it with Maxwell v3 earlier this month. It is very cool, but it's more of a usability thing than a revolutionary advance. You'll be able to actually accurately preview subdivs in a gpu viewport, maya at least is loving abysmal at displaying creases in the viewport, and it allows super cheap gpu displacement which I assume is a pretty big deal for game development guys. They've already shown it running in a maya environment like a year ago so it'd be surprising if it wasn't a big 2015 feature or something. Dr Solway Garr fucked around with this message at 01:06 on Dec 20, 2013 |
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Dec 20, 2013 00:39
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You can have my edge loops when you pry them from my cold dead hands.
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Dec 20, 2013 00:51
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Dr Solway Garr posted:OpenSubdiv IS relatively new, it only earlier this year made it into version 2.0 (version 1.0 was late 2012). 2.0 introduced ray intersection, which I believe is pretty much a prerequisite to implementing it in any path tracer and Maxwell just introduced it with Maxwell v3 earlier this month. Disagree with it not being revolutionary. It is a pretty huge deal and is one of the most amazing things to happen to CG in a while imo. Also there seems to be some confusion in this thread. Open sub-d is not the catmull clark creasing some people in this thread seem to be discovering for the first time. That has been in Maya and Modo forever now. You can actually do your creasing in modo and the models will crease correctly in Maya on viewport and when you render. It is a nice tool when you are using it with falloffs in Modo. You can do things like go from hard edge to soft edge falloff over a row of edges, which is incredibly hard to do with edge loops or traditional modeling. What makes open sub-d great is being able to animate fully displaced and detailed models with absolutely zero hit on frame rate. As far as Maya is concerned you are only displaying the low poly cage. All the magic happens in the GFX card.
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Dec 20, 2013 04:55
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I think the people who don't see how important it is aren't the ones it'll affect. It has no bearing on anything I do and I didn't (don't) get it at all until a friend who works in film explained the importance of it to me (and im still not sure I totally get it, but I'm going to take his enthusiasm as significant) there's been a discussion on the vray forum going on a couple months now about developing a system to control vray better, and its been succinctly written up in a very easy to follow guide. everyone who uses vray, read this http://www.cggallery.com/tutorials/vray_optimization/ it will eliminate all doubt about removing noise from renders, and potentially speed them up a fair bit. Its mandatory reading tbh, not something you'll need all the time, but something you need to know you can turn to. cubicle gangster fucked around with this message at 07:08 on Dec 20, 2013 |
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Dec 20, 2013 07:02
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