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BonoMan posted:Also semi related.. but I was surprised to find that windows preview pane supports obj. Nuts! I never knew this. 
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Dec 13, 2021 23:25
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Dick Trauma posted:I never knew this. Ditto.
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Dec 14, 2021 01:38
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Songbearer posted:I was wondering: Does anyone know of any reputable Blender render farms that deliver good results and aren't too arcane to handle? I've been absorbed in Blender 3.0 geometry nodes tutorials, and this guy plugs Renderro for cloud rendering. No clue if its good or not, but the price seems cheap if it's something you'd use regularly. I made this over the last 2 nights, using this tutorial and a hex texture machine I rigged up in Substance Designer.   It's a lot of fun, even if I'm far too stupid to follow the math 
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Dec 14, 2021 15:14
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Songbearer posted:Does anyone know of any reputable Blender render farms that deliver good results and aren't too arcane to handle?... Paying a monthly fee every once in a while to get some good quality renders done at a reasonable speed would be tickety boo with me - I dunno if you'll find any that just take a monthly fee (unless said monthly fee is purely converted into tokens/credits/etc that you use directly anyhow.) since pay-as-you-render is pretty much par for the course. I used Pixelplow ( https://www.pixelplow.net/ ) back in my student days a lot when I had to work with Max + V-ray, and was very happy with the service back them. (e: 2013-2016ish) Once, when a render failed, I got an email back from them pretty quickly about what the issue was ( Fellow students referencing in things with absurdly long paths when importing/linking in files.), and otherwise worked well. As for 'too arcane', I'm not sure how renderfarms tend to work with blender. But it should just be along the lines of exporting the scene and uploading it, then suddenly finished frames start popping up in a folder on your pc. Though I imagine some newer/bigger ones probably have tighter integration, or possibly some kind of plugin support. But I think just uploading the scene is the most common approach still? Alternatively if you have access to multiple pcs, I remember a buddy talking about CrowdRender ( https://www.crowd-render.com/ ), which'll let you leverage multiple pcs.
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Dec 14, 2021 16:19
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Looks like Maxon bought ZBrush. I guess this means the end of perpetual licenses. I also feel like the ZBrush UI will be a difficult sell for most Cinema4D users. I wonder if we can expect any changes there. https://twitter.com/pixologic/status/1470796885325918210?s=20
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Dec 14, 2021 18:24
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500 posted:Looks like Maxon bought ZBrush. I guess this means the end of perpetual licenses. Worst news I have heard in a while... nothing again Cinema 4D etc. but almost any time a giant corporation buys a competing software package it usually doesn't go well. Anyone remember Shake? No? Well... there is a reason for that. There are probably still some XSI users crying somewhere about Autodesk acquiring it and later failing to support it. Happens all the time.
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Dec 14, 2021 18:46
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gently caress this poo poo, although Maxon haven't ruined redshift yet I don't trust them with zbrush. I wonder why pixologic held on for this long only to sell now?
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Dec 14, 2021 19:00
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I thought maxon was part of Adobe already. The newest versions of AE also install a full standalone version of cinema 4d that pushes you to add it to your Adobe account as an optional extra.
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Dec 14, 2021 20:47
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sigma 6 posted:Worst news I have heard in a while... nothing again Cinema 4D etc. but almost any time a giant corporation buys a competing software package it usually doesn't go well. It's the end of free updates and perpetual licenses for sure. There's no way a corporation is going to leave money on the table, and Zbrush has been doing that for a while.
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Dec 15, 2021 01:36
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cubicle gangster posted:I thought maxon was part of Adobe already. Nah, C4d in AE is just a lite version, not the full thing. It works, but for the most part you're better off using the full version or Blender. One time I had a C4d lite render that took 2-3 days when I rendered through media encoder. It was only a simple scene too, so it's not optimised real well. I'd rather be using a GPU renderer anyway.
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Dec 15, 2021 01:52
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the_lion posted:Nah, C4d in AE is just a lite version, not the full thing. A standalone copy of cinema4d appeared in my start menu, it brought the full package with it. I haven't used it because I'm not registered but it seems like it's potentially the full install.
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Dec 15, 2021 02:46
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cubicle gangster posted:A standalone copy of cinema4d appeared in my start menu, it brought the full package with it. I haven't used it because I'm not registered but it seems like it's potentially the full install. You are correct, I just booted my AE 2022 up. If you have a C4d license, it's the full thing. For 14 days you get to trial the full thing, then it reverts back to C4d lite if you don't. Mostly, I'm excited that I can use all my cores in AE without having to rely on bgrendermax with AE 2022.
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Dec 15, 2021 06:37
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I've been looking into texturing tools. As it is, I'm not using any dedicated texturing software. I'm just using Photoshop. Painting every map separately is not ideal. I make this kind of thing:   The textures do all of the heavy lifting there. The bare model looks like this:  I intend to start doing higher poly work, but I will still need to draw things. A significant chunk of the work that goes into this is drawing a ton of custom tiny labels and panels. I've huffed a lot of Homeworld fumes. That means I get limited mileage out of procedural and scanned textures. A little, but it's not something I want to rely on. I tried out Substance Painter (...I would like to get rid of Adobe though) but its basic image editing tools are limited. You can't make selections, transform, or copy stuff around, among other things, at least not in an easy way, and from looking at how people work in it, doing something like a simple label involves going to a separate image editor and then importing that into Substance. I can think of no reason Substance shouldn't have these basic tools - you could just as well be drawing on the texture right there and not need a separate application. Since I'm doing a lot of this, Substance feels like it'd be very clunky to me. I'm guessing the clunkiness of this is why you see models using default Substance alphas even when that's maybe not ideal. I'll still give it a proper try later. I also briefly checked out Quixel Mixer but it seems even more centered on slapping premade materials on models to the point that the only painting tools are "brush" and "eraser". So far I've found two pieces of software that seem to do what I want, i.e. combine multichannel 3D/2D painting with a solid set of basic drawing tools: Mari, and, uh, Procreate, which is a mobile app exclusive to iOS. The latter is right out. Mari has a free noncommercial version with technical limitations that don't really affect me, so it's an option, but the commercial version is unattainably expensive for me and although what I make is generally noncommercial it would bar me from ever taking commissions, which is not ideal. It's also scary and imposing, but I can probably deal with that. I'm curious if I've missed any options, workflows, or something else, or if I'm thinking about this all wrong. I figure not a lot of people end up in a place where their two options are an ultra-heavy duty VFX software suite and a mobile app. Elukka fucked around with this message at 13:57 on Dec 15, 2021 |
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Dec 15, 2021 13:52
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Personally as much as it aggrieved me to be facilitating Adobe's reign of terror I just can't imagine texturing stuff without using Substance Painter. My previous attempts with editing textures using GIMP and stuff were diabolical, but even when I began 3d modelling towards the end of 2020 I decided that I would try and find a better way of doing things or else I would've given up. Quixel was really confusing to me but goddamn if Substance didn't do exactly what I wanted it to despite having no idea how to use it. Since I had very limited knowledge of UVs from years back I relied on Blender's smart UV stuff to unwrap my things for me, which made everything horribly messy and editing it in traditional image editors would have been a bastard. Where Substance excels is that even with clumsy technical skills like mine it can pretty intelligently figure out what you're attempting to do. Thing is, I experienced exactly the sort of thing you're discussing - it feels like you have to take three extra steps to accomplish something that would be trivial in external image editing programs. It's a learning curve, but once you find your way around it I can't imagine doing it the long way would be any way preferable except as a demonstration of technical ability. I hate to give an Adobe product props like this but I think I would have given up on 3d modelling if I had to faff around with textures forever since I only really care about the artistic side of things rather than the technical, and even then I'm not the best artist in the world. But I want a car to look like a car, paint it as such, put dents and scratches and rust on it, add procedural dirt and little ornaments and Substance just... lets me do it. You can even make tiled textures using it which is a huge help when it comes to landscapes and stuff. All I can recommend is spending more time in there, gritting your teeth and learning what the walkarounds are for problems you're running into because ultimately it just makes the whole process a hell of a lot less painful. I'm in no way an experienced 3d artist though so maybe I'm a muggins for being so into it, but the results just speaks for themselves. The biggest things that helped me get results out of Substance Painter was getting my brain around masks and mask generators. Bake your mesh maps in the Edit menu so the generators can figure out your object's geometry, Make a fill layer, make it the right colour, metallic & roughness and what have you, add a black mask by right clicking the layer, then the wand. Add a generator, choose Mask Editor, ramp up the texture opacity and brightness in Curvature and add one of the procedural textures into the texture slot and play around with it. You can add obscene levels of detail really quickly like this by including height maps and so on in the fill layer and using the masks to add the geometry for you. Songbearer fucked around with this message at 16:41 on Dec 15, 2021 |
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Dec 15, 2021 16:31
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Elukka posted:I'm curious if I've missed any options, workflows, or something else, or if I'm thinking about this all wrong. I figure not a lot of people end up in a place where their two options are an ultra-heavy duty VFX software suite and a mobile app. You could look at 3D Coat's Textura, I know it exists but I haven't tried it.
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Dec 15, 2021 21:16
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Anyone have any opinions on the Tour Box for 3d work? Specifically Maya and Zbrush? https://www.tourboxtech.com/en/ It's a little on the expensive side IMO. Was hoping to use it as a keyboard shortcut / macro device but have heard mixed reviews, especially in regards to Zbrush.
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Dec 17, 2021 06:25
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Embrace tradition https://twitter.com/mametchl/status/976596696237928448?s=21
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Dec 17, 2021 06:38
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I have been looking at a few of these things over the years. Logitech has one. I think Razer too. No idea if there are left handed vs. right handed ones though. I guess Zbrush made a big deal out of supporting the space mouse or space puck but those things are even more expensive! Also - although I feel like both questions should maybe go in the hardware thread: What are you guys using for resin 3D printers? Raf Grassetti seems to advocate the Mono X and another artist recommended the Elegoo Saturn. Any strong feelings about 3d printers or one handed keyboard / navigators? sigma 6 fucked around with this message at 22:13 on Dec 17, 2021 |
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Dec 17, 2021 06:56
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sigma 6 posted:I have been looking at a few of these things over the years. Logitech has one. I think Razer too. No idea if there are left handed vs. right handed ones though. I guess Zbrush made a big deal out of supporting the space mouse or space puck but those things are even more expensive! After you buy a 3d printer you can make your own keypad. edit: I didn't mean to run by shitpost so here's: The 3D Printing thread which focuses on general 3d printing in both resin and FDM and whatever else. The 3D Printing for tabletop thread which has a lot of folks using resin to make miniatures but there's a lot of other stuff. Here's an actual 3d printable keypad (Bloko 9) that requires some switches, a raspberry pi pico (the microcontroller), and a little soldering but not much. It's meant for FDM but if you got a resin printer big enough you could probably do it. The designer is charging more for the model than the raspberry pi pico costs but hey, it's an option. There's probably a lot of free ones on thingiverse but they may leave all of the microcontroller programming up to you. This adafruit macro pad kit is pretty neat looking but requires some assembly: https://www.adafruit.com/product/5128 There's tons of these things around if you search for macro pad, from the prebuilt to the DIY. Rexxed fucked around with this message at 17:41 on Dec 19, 2021 |
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Dec 19, 2021 09:37
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anyone has a good foundation tutorial series at hand for Substance 3D Painter? or maybe can answer the question straight away: I'm looking for a SSS material setup or a basic material setup in general alowing to add SSS but I'm failing to find the option for it except going through Substance Designer.
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Dec 19, 2021 17:43
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Rexxed posted:After you buy a 3d printer you can make your own keypad. Hey - thanks for the info! Didn't know those threads existed. I didn't want to print out my one handed keyboard. The two questions were separate. As in: Does anyone own a 3d resin printer and or can recommend one? Also same for the one handed / ergonomic peripherals. A vertical mouse has been very useful over the years and saved a lot of pain / RSI so I am thinking about getting one with a trackball to cut down on "mouse miles" and still be ergonomic. I just want one with the most programmable buttons. The idea being my left hand is for drawing / sculpting and might right hand is on a keypad / trackball for macros. That tour box looks cool but I have heard it doesn't always perform well with zbrush.
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Dec 20, 2021 22:59
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haldolium posted:anyone has a good foundation tutorial series at hand for Substance 3D Painter? I might misremember, but you have to choose an sss material instead of the regular pbr metalness one to view the sss in viewport. either that or use Iray. Also, don't forget to add the sss channel to the mat.
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Dec 29, 2021 04:11
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I'm sure you've all seen it reported, and it's no surprise but Pixologic changed their upgrade policy, no more perpetual upgrades. https://support.pixologic.com/article/163-upgrade-policy "ZBrush perpetual customers who purchased prior to December 29, 2021, are entitled to free updates for one year following their purchase. No free upgrades will be included for customers who purchased a perpetual license after December 29, 2021."
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Jan 8, 2022 21:40
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Listerine posted:I'm sure you've all seen it reported, and it's no surprise but Pixologic changed their upgrade policy, no more perpetual upgrades. Maxon's gotta make back what they spent to buy Pixologic. Here's to $300/year maintenance for ZBrush. :-\
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Jan 9, 2022 00:25
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There's no revenue like recurring revenue
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Jan 9, 2022 09:32
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It will be worth it though because all the extra revenue will mean they can invest in improving the product so much more
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Jan 9, 2022 09:50
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EoinCannon posted:It will be worth it though because all the extra revenue will mean they can invest in improving the product so much more Ha ha ha hahahahahahahahaha! Thanks, I needed that laugh. They won’t invest unless it’s absolutely necessary. That money’s going to Nametschek and they’re going to squeeze as much revenue out of it with as little investment as possible. That means minimal staff to pay and small yearly updates to keep customers paying for the software. I don’t see major innovation happening for Zbrush for a very long time. One only has to look at what they’ve been doing with their other software since switching those over to subscription only to see the future of Zbrush. It would have been better if Pixologic had just started charging for updates themselves. I know a private company would have invested in their product more with extra revenue than one that is beholden to a parent company to maximize profits for their shareholders. autojive fucked around with this message at 16:32 on Jan 9, 2022 |
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Jan 9, 2022 16:30
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EoinCannon posted:It will be worth it though because all the extra revenue will mean they can invest in improving the product so much more Can they? Yes. Will they? Probably for the next year or two while all the original folks that care about the product are still there. Once those people have started to move on to other things I'm expecting very little to happen with it.
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Jan 9, 2022 16:53
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I'm pretty sure EoinCannon was joking. But you never know. Maxxon isn't quite Autodesk. Here's hoping.
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Jan 9, 2022 17:03
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BonoMan posted:Maxxon isn't quite Autodesk. Not quite Autodesk... more like Adobe. They hired a former Adobe executive as their new CEO and ousted the company founders. It wasn't soon after that they started moving toward a full subscription model and considering what Adobe's done so far with Substance, I don't have any high hopes at all for a fair pricing model for us. Subscription prices for ZBrush will go up, perpetual licenses will go up and I'm betting at least 25-35% of the full price as a yearly maintenance cost.
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Jan 9, 2022 21:07
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Sorry, yes I was joking. I make most of my living with Zbrush and this is a really bad thing to happen
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Jan 9, 2022 21:15
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autojive posted:Not quite Autodesk... more like Adobe. They hired a former Adobe executive as their new CEO and ousted the company founders. It wasn't soon after that they started moving toward a full subscription model and considering what Adobe's done so far with Substance, I don't have any high hopes at all for a fair pricing model for us. Subscription prices for ZBrush will go up, perpetual licenses will go up and I'm betting at least 25-35% of the full price as a yearly maintenance cost. Yeah I was speaking more to the abandoning of things. They'll definitely have to squeeze whatever dollars they can. But I'm at least hoping they do actively keep advancing it. It seems like Adobe is actually taking substance somewhat seriously.
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Jan 9, 2022 21:17
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Speaking of Zbrush, I just notice a very weird an amusing thing I'm working on a character and I create a new layer on my mesh so I can test out a facial expression I create the layer, then click on rename layer and type in "face" It automatically changes to the word "poly" I guess in 3d jargon they are synonymous but what the hell
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Jan 9, 2022 23:20
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autojive posted:Subscription prices for ZBrush will go up, perpetual licenses will go EoinCannon posted:Sorry, yes I was joking. I'd be curious to know what alternatives you think you could go to? I know a lot of folks talk up 3D Coat or Blender, but they never seem to be the folks that live in Zbrush full time.
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Jan 9, 2022 23:30
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EoinCannon posted:Speaking of Zbrush, I just notice a very weird an amusing thing I have no experience with ZBrush, but I wonder if this is like how in SolidWorks you can't name a variable "thickness" because that word is reserved for sheet metal projects. Doesn't matter if you aren't using any of the sheet metal tools in your model; you still cannot use that word. It doesn't even tell you what's going on. It just fails and says "error in formula." 
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Jan 9, 2022 23:38
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Yeah there really isn't anything on the same level as Zbrush, unfortunately.
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Jan 9, 2022 23:39
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Yeah my muscle memory and workflows are so keyed into the feel of zbrush now I don't know what I'd do if I couldn't use it for modeling I'd have a go at something else I guess but I'd think about getting out of 3D, I'm too colour blind to do lighting or comp and too stupid for any kind of TD work, maybe animation
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Jan 9, 2022 23:48
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Listerine posted:I'd be curious to know what alternatives you think you could go to? I know a lot of folks talk up 3D Coat or Blender, but they never seem to be the folks that live in Zbrush full time. I know I may sound like a doomsayer but I'm just really salty about Pixologic selling to Maxon. It may not be as bad as what Autodesk would do with it but it won't be all sunshine and roses. My office uses Maxon products and I've seen how they've changed their acquisitions over the last couple years to sub-only and increasing maintenance costs for perpetual owners every year. I have a personal copy of ZBrush so I'm not looking forward to paying Maxon what will turn into yearly increasing maintenance to try and force me into subs. I may be wrong but I have a feeling it's going to pan out this way. It won't be happening right off the bat, but it will be this way a couple years down the road. If it does happen this way, I won't stay up-to-date with it and just use the latest version I have for my hobby use until it no longer works with my OS. If it stops working, maybe Blender will be good enough for what I want... who knows? Edit: Someone found this link to a pricelist on a third-party seller site stating the planned upgrade price to ZBrush 2022 to be €579. That's insane. €210 less than a new license. 2021 looks to be my last version. autojive fucked around with this message at 04:12 on Jan 12, 2022 |
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Jan 10, 2022 04:52
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I'm working with a sculpt that is 3.5 gigs in size. What's the best/easiest way to scale that down? I brought it into meshmixer and that crashed it good. I need this for 3D printing, and am not a 3D sculptor myself so I'm a bit lost.
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Jan 15, 2022 00:23
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You can just scale it down in the slicer.
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Jan 15, 2022 01:24
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