Reputable Contributor digman Posted August 1, 2013 Reputable Contributor Share Posted August 1, 2013 I devoting some time this year to learning Blender and was just wondering how many other 3DC users work with Blender has well. I'm finding the longer I spend in Blender, the more I like it. Some applications are the other way around... I just found out that the sculpting can be used with the Shape Keys... Nice... great for muscle deformation... You can go into edit mode and do the moving there but sculpting the deformation feels more intuitive... Shape keys with sculpting also great for bulking your your character back up at it's rest position because your subdivision shrinks your model proportions... Things like this make me like Blender even more... Quote Link to comment https://3dcoat.com/forum/index.php?/topic/14895-who-uses-blender-here-at-the-3dc-forums/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carlosan Posted August 1, 2013 Share Posted August 1, 2013 <---- My work using Blender: http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?302863-Cif-Active-Gel-Commercial-3D-100-Blender http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?302929-Oxi-Gain-Graphic-for-advertising Quote Link to comment https://3dcoat.com/forum/index.php?/topic/14895-who-uses-blender-here-at-the-3dc-forums/#findComment-97878 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Contributor Malo Posted August 1, 2013 Contributor Share Posted August 1, 2013 Since 2.43 Quote Link to comment https://3dcoat.com/forum/index.php?/topic/14895-who-uses-blender-here-at-the-3dc-forums/#findComment-97881 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Contributor TimmyZDesign Posted August 1, 2013 Contributor Share Posted August 1, 2013 I am also learning Blender. I have been following along with tutorials on Blender Cookie. At first I almost decided to give up! This is because all of the tutorials use the Blender hotkeys, and I was using the Maya preset which has different hotkeys. It was very annoying because many of the Blender hotkeys did not have a Maya preset equivalent. Then I went into the hotkey preferences and manually set it up so that I would have Maya viewport navigation but still retain the Blender hotkeys. The trick was to figure out which Blender hotkeys interfered with the Maya navigation and create alternate hotkeys for them. Once I did that, I was finally able to move on and really start learning Blender. It is my opinion that the viewport navigation problem is probably one of the biggest reasons why more people do not use Blender. I had to dig for quite a while in the Blender forums before I was able to figure out how to fix it to work the way I wanted. The developers really need to pay attention to consistently updating and maintaining the Maya preset if they want Blender to become more popular. Unfortunately there are a lot of Blender users (and developers) who argue that Maya users should just learn the Blender navigation and get over it. I think that kind of attitude is just plain wrong. I believe that all 3D software developers should make as many viewport navigation options available to their users as possible. In any case, now that I have things working the way I want, I have begun to discover all of the magical treasures that Blender has to offer! The feature set is huge! As far as 3D-Coat and Blender goes, I have noticed a possible issue. It seems like the OBJs from Blender import into 3D-Coat with broken normals. How can we fix that? I haven't tried the Blender Applink yet. Does the Applink have the same problem? @Digman: Are Blender's Shape Keys a form of Pose Space Deformation? I watched some tutorials and I wasn't able to tell if it really is or not. In other words, I can't tell if they are just the same things as Blend Shapes/Endomorphs, or if they are something more than that? If they are true Pose Space Deformation then if you sculpted poses onto the mesh, then those sculpted poses would be activated every time the character moves into that same position during an animation. The sculpted poses would also gradually be activated as the character moved into the position, and then would gradually disappear as they left it. If that is how they work, then the Shape Keys function as true Pose Space Deformation. I could of course test this out myself, but I haven't really gotten to that stage yet in my studies. Quote Link to comment https://3dcoat.com/forum/index.php?/topic/14895-who-uses-blender-here-at-the-3dc-forums/#findComment-97882 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reputable Contributor digman Posted August 1, 2013 Author Reputable Contributor Share Posted August 1, 2013 @ Timmy, Darn, I lost all my other words, oh well, I will give you the short version. Yes, they do everything you said... Shape keys can be keyframed or driven by drivers like an armature in a rig... I have a creature model who is squatting, the quads bulging out more and as he comes to a standing position they lose their bulging gradually. You can blend shape keys as well but I am not that far along yet. Here is a simple tutorial but effective to get help grasp the idea of how a shape key driven by an armature driver work. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3JWNIkwBZ8 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So there is no confusion, the sculpting I was talking about was regular sculpting that only displaces the current polygons... Quote Link to comment https://3dcoat.com/forum/index.php?/topic/14895-who-uses-blender-here-at-the-3dc-forums/#findComment-97887 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member gbball Posted August 1, 2013 Advanced Member Share Posted August 1, 2013 I use Blender and 3D coat as my main 3D applications...I also started using Nvil as a dedicated modeling software. I learned Maya in school, but for some reason it just never clicked with me. I was very determined to learn Blender after Big Buck Bunny came out a few years ago, but I had a lot of trouble, it took me a while to really wrap my head around it. Stick with it though, it's well worth it. -G Quote Link to comment https://3dcoat.com/forum/index.php?/topic/14895-who-uses-blender-here-at-the-3dc-forums/#findComment-97888 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member manticor Posted August 1, 2013 Advanced Member Share Posted August 1, 2013 I learned blender to see what it was like and it's very good but much prefer xsi and modo for modelling.I only use it for the fire and smoke when I'm doing fx work ,blenders fire system is phenomenal Quote Link to comment https://3dcoat.com/forum/index.php?/topic/14895-who-uses-blender-here-at-the-3dc-forums/#findComment-97889 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member jcue Posted August 1, 2013 Member Share Posted August 1, 2013 I'm no expert (advanced noob actually) but I really enjoy working with blender. It took me a while to get use to the interface and the controls but it was well worth it. Quote Link to comment https://3dcoat.com/forum/index.php?/topic/14895-who-uses-blender-here-at-the-3dc-forums/#findComment-97891 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member DavidF Posted August 2, 2013 Member Share Posted August 2, 2013 I use it a lot since 2.49b. I've also used it professionally a lot. It's a great program, I would love to use it in all productions. Quote Link to comment https://3dcoat.com/forum/index.php?/topic/14895-who-uses-blender-here-at-the-3dc-forums/#findComment-97893 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Contributor TimmyZDesign Posted August 2, 2013 Contributor Share Posted August 2, 2013 Here is a simple tutorial but effective to get help grasp the idea of how a shape key driven by an armature driver work. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3JWNIkwBZ8 Wow, great video! Thank you! This looks like it could become very labor-intensive though (if I were to use those kinds of drivers all over a character rig), but the results would probably look very good. Could those kinds of shape keys also be sculpted at a high poly level (showing more detail, like smaller muscle groups flexing on the character's back for example)?...I could also see this working very nicely in conjuction with the Chronosculpt tool that was just released! Quote Link to comment https://3dcoat.com/forum/index.php?/topic/14895-who-uses-blender-here-at-the-3dc-forums/#findComment-97895 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member Pix Jigsaw Posted August 2, 2013 Advanced Member Share Posted August 2, 2013 Blender and 3D-Coat are my primary applications Quote Link to comment https://3dcoat.com/forum/index.php?/topic/14895-who-uses-blender-here-at-the-3dc-forums/#findComment-97898 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member pagankmck Posted August 2, 2013 Member Share Posted August 2, 2013 I started using Blender, before I even heard of 3D coat. Quote Link to comment https://3dcoat.com/forum/index.php?/topic/14895-who-uses-blender-here-at-the-3dc-forums/#findComment-97899 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member bisenberger Posted August 2, 2013 Advanced Member Share Posted August 2, 2013 I'm also learning Blender. I found the early tutorials on http://www.blendtuts.com/blender_tutorials?field_level_value=All&page=4 very helpful. There is a lot to like with Blender and it keeps getting better all the time. I started with max then switched to modo now switching to Blender. The main reason I switched from the other applications was their marketing strategies. Little chance of that happening with Blender. Quote Link to comment https://3dcoat.com/forum/index.php?/topic/14895-who-uses-blender-here-at-the-3dc-forums/#findComment-97911 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member michalis Posted August 2, 2013 Advanced Member Share Posted August 2, 2013 SInce 2.49 Don't look at me David, LOL. Quote Link to comment https://3dcoat.com/forum/index.php?/topic/14895-who-uses-blender-here-at-the-3dc-forums/#findComment-97943 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member Nossgrr Posted August 3, 2013 Advanced Member Share Posted August 3, 2013 (edited) I use Blender, 3DCoat, Gimp and Unity 3D.. That's pretty much my pipeline. I went through the exact same thing as TimmyZDesing, I followed the CG-Cookies tutorials but couldnt get used to Blender's Navigation. When you selected the Maya config, you lost the Blender hotkeys so a couple of months ago I decided to bite the bullet and spend some time customizing the Navigation to be like Maya while retaining all of Blender's hotkeys.. That's what did it for me, I absolutely love working in Blender now. I dont know why that config is not part of Blender by default. @bisenberger, isn't it crazy what's appenning with AD? XSI is pretty much dead now and Max.. Well who knows where Max is heading. Edited August 3, 2013 by Nossgrr Quote Link to comment https://3dcoat.com/forum/index.php?/topic/14895-who-uses-blender-here-at-the-3dc-forums/#findComment-97959 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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