Member HevJudo Posted July 21, 2010 Member Report Share Posted July 21, 2010 Hi I thought I would introduce myself and ask a begineer question. My name is Andrew, Im a proffessional Environmental Engineer, I have a young growing family, and am working full time.. also.. I have no background in 3d art / animation. I have always been a keen painter (using photoshop and Corel X) and played around doing 2D animations in toonboom.. So in a nutshell, I work in an unrelated field and I am completely obssessed with 3D animation! I love it!! Ive spent the last 2 years playing around with Blender and have grasped the fundamentals (maybe just the basics) of 3D. I am looking at moving to Lightwave 9.6 because of the integration with 3D Coat. My question is aimed at those who use 3D coat mainly for animation. I want to be able to export my retopologised mesh (and diffuse, spec maps etc)yet also have a model that is completely animatable ie Body, eyes, eye lids... Now the body is easy.. but how do you create a model that you can export straight into lightwave that has a mesh that is useable for the eyes, eyelids, mouth and tongue? How do you separate these elements without having to remodel in lightwave? Sorry if its a stupid question, I have only been using 3D coat for a few months (and love it!) but I have kept my 3D coat models relatively simple because of this issue. All the best Andrew Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Javis Posted July 21, 2010 Report Share Posted July 21, 2010 Don't waste your time exporting out things like eyes from 3DC. Here's what I do: Sculpt a character in 3DC, only the body. Stop at the lips, do not sculpt the interior of the mouth. Also stop at the eyelids, do not model the interior socket. Use place holder shapes for things like eyes. Retopo the body and bring it to your modeler. Now model your eyes and things that are easier (eyes, teeth, tongue, eye sockets, interior mouth, etc.) to model, in your modeling package. If you wish to sculpt details, just bring them back to 3DC for those things. It's much easier this way, and frankly, a waste of time to be doing them in 3DC -IF- you plan to animate. If you're creating just a sculpture, than of course this isn't an issue. I hope this helps! PS - You should check out Messiah, I recently switched to it from LW (for rigging and animation) and have found it to be quite a pleasure, no BS to deal with in these two areas at all compared to LW. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member HevJudo Posted July 21, 2010 Author Member Report Share Posted July 21, 2010 Don't waste your time exporting out things like eyes from 3DC. Here's what I do: Sculpt a character in 3DC, only the body. Stop at the lips, do not sculpt the interior of the mouth. Also stop at the eyelids, do not model the interior socket. Use place holder shapes for things like eyes. Retopo the body and bring it to your modeler. Now model your eyes and things that are easier (eyes, teeth, tongue, eye sockets, interior mouth, etc.) to model, in your modeling package. If you wish to sculpt details, just bring them back to 3DC for those things. It's much easier this way, and frankly, a waste of time to be doing them in 3DC -IF- you plan to animate. If you're creating just a sculpture, than of course this isn't an issue. I hope this helps! PS - You should check out Messiah, I recently switched to it from LW (for rigging and animation) and have found it to be quite a pleasure, no BS to deal with in these two areas at all compared to LW. Thanks for the help - Ive seen you on a few forums now and you are always helpful! .. and I will definately check out Messiah. In terms of animation tools, for someone who is interested in making an animated short, do you have a preference for your tools.. For a while it seemed that all I needed was 3d coat and Blender / lightwave (and photoshop) but now Im looking for tools that will help me work as efficiently as possible with my limited time (which is why I found 3d coat great for modelling and texturing)? What are the main tools that you tend to lean towards? Thanks again Andrew Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philnolan3d Posted July 21, 2010 Report Share Posted July 21, 2010 Personally I use LightWave, 3DC, and Photoshop. I rarely see the need for anything else, although I have been playing with the MoI demo. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reputable Contributor AbnRanger Posted July 21, 2010 Reputable Contributor Report Share Posted July 21, 2010 Well, the new auto-retopo feature Andrew is currently working on, will change that routine. Currently it is easier to do some things in an outside application. This Auto-Retopo will change a lot of things. I mean you can take a decorative element, for example, made in Photoshop (output to black and white image) use the Logo tool to make a voxel shape, auto-retopo, take it into Paint to texture it up with some wear and tear...and it's much faster than trying to achieve the same result in Max, Maya, LW, Blender, etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member InfoCentral Posted July 23, 2010 Member Report Share Posted July 23, 2010 For animation I would second the use of Messiah. A lot of Lightwave and Modo users go this route. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Javis Posted July 23, 2010 Report Share Posted July 23, 2010 Thanks for the help - Ive seen you on a few forums now and you are always helpful! .. and I will definately check out Messiah. In terms of animation tools, for someone who is interested in making an animated short, do you have a preference for your tools.. For a while it seemed that all I needed was 3d coat and Blender / lightwave (and photoshop) but now Im looking for tools that will help me work as efficiently as possible with my limited time (which is why I found 3d coat great for modelling and texturing)? What are the main tools that you tend to lean towards? Thanks again Andrew Isn't that funny though? Always needing a better tool for the task at hand. Right! I am still using LW (For modeling), but frankly it is old and outdated, I am having such a hard time using it for anything other than modeling. It is still a decent modeler, so I can't knock it there. But not to start a this VS that war, LW can't do quite a few things. When I started looking to do more advanced things (lattices, advanced rigging, half decent character animation), LW wasn't the tool for the job. XSI was great, but than sold to Autodesk... So I stuck with LW for a little longer, and then remembered Messiah, so I picked up the demo, and haven't looked back since. Messiah can do so much, and, it's REALLY easy to use, especially if you're family with LW or Modo. That's not to say of course that if you use another application and go to Messiah you'll be lost, it uses lots of standard terminology. Though, I guess my point is, use what works, and what works quickly and easily. If you're looking for a REALLY amazing character rigging, general rigging, and extremely great animation package... And all for a good price, than Messiah is it. My biggest beef with LW, si that the rigging tools take forever. You can't manually control the order of evaluation for things on a rig in LW. In Messiah, you can, and you can control even more. Need animation layers? Messiah has that too. Need lattices for cool squashy car tires? Done. Micro-poly displacement? Got that too. Anywho, Not too sound to enthused, but I am really, truly finding Messiah and 3D-Coat to be a rather unstoppable combination. In response to your question on packages that I use: 3DC for nmap, displacement map, color map and spec maps Photoshop in tandem with 3DC for projections and UV painting, and stand alone for UV painting and touch up LW and Wings for modeling Messiah for shading/surfacing, hair/fur, rigging, animation and general VFX After Effects for compositing, putting together my final animation stills, and motion graphics stuff Those are the main ones I couldn't work with out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member HevJudo Posted July 23, 2010 Author Member Report Share Posted July 23, 2010 Isn't that funny though? Always needing a better tool for the task at hand. Right! I am still using LW (For modeling), but frankly it is old and outdated, I am having such a hard time using it for anything other than modeling. It is still a decent modeler, so I can't knock it there. But not to start a this VS that war, LW can't do quite a few things. When I started looking to do more advanced things (lattices, advanced rigging, half decent character animation), LW wasn't the tool for the job. XSI was great, but than sold to Autodesk... So I stuck with LW for a little longer, and then remembered Messiah, so I picked up the demo, and haven't looked back since. Messiah can do so much, and, it's REALLY easy to use, especially if you're family with LW or Modo. That's not to say of course that if you use another application and go to Messiah you'll be lost, it uses lots of standard terminology. Though, I guess my point is, use what works, and what works quickly and easily. If you're looking for a REALLY amazing character rigging, general rigging, and extremely great animation package... And all for a good price, than Messiah is it. My biggest beef with LW, si that the rigging tools take forever. You can't manually control the order of evaluation for things on a rig in LW. In Messiah, you can, and you can control even more. Need animation layers? Messiah has that too. Need lattices for cool squashy car tires? Done. Micro-poly displacement? Got that too. Anywho, Not too sound to enthused, but I am really, truly finding Messiah and 3D-Coat to be a rather unstoppable combination. In response to your question on packages that I use: 3DC for nmap, displacement map, color map and spec maps Photoshop in tandem with 3DC for projections and UV painting, and stand alone for UV painting and touch up LW and Wings for modeling Messiah for shading/surfacing, hair/fur, rigging, animation and general VFX After Effects for compositing, putting together my final animation stills, and motion graphics stuff Those are the main ones I couldn't work with out. Well.. after two days of 'will I.. wont I', I purchased Messiah!! It was on sale so it was great timing - $999 down to $599 so thankyou for the hot tip.. I was very impressed with the tools that it has, and I can also use it with Blender! And Blender 2.5 beta was released today so I feel like my tool set is coming together. Ive never used After Effects (although I have always heard great things about it) but, I think I will stick with Blender for compositing as well. If anyone gets the chance get a copy of the 'Big Buck Bunny' DVD and the Blender compositing book.. Amazing to study those as it also includes all the production files of a great short animation. Anything to help someone with no formal 3d education is great.. Anyway - thanks again for the advice. Andrew Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reputable Contributor AbnRanger Posted July 23, 2010 Reputable Contributor Report Share Posted July 23, 2010 Well.. after two days of 'will I.. wont I', I purchased Messiah!! It was on sale so it was great timing - $999 down to $599 so thankyou for the hot tip.. I was very impressed with the tools that it has, and I can also use it with Blender! And Blender 2.5 beta was released today so I feel like my tool set is coming together. Ive never used After Effects (although I have always heard great things about it) but, I think I will stick with Blender for compositing as well. If anyone gets the chance get a copy of the 'Big Buck Bunny' DVD and the Blender compositing book.. Amazing to study those as it also includes all the production files of a great short animation. Anything to help someone with no formal 3d education is great.. Anyway - thanks again for the advice. Andrew Blender has some really good rigging/Character Animation tools as well. I don't think it will be long before many small-midsize studios stop ignoring it and at least mix it into their pipeline in some capacity. It's fluids are a great alternative to expensive plugins for 3ds Max. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philnolan3d Posted July 23, 2010 Report Share Posted July 23, 2010 Blender will need to fix their UI issues before studios will even look at it. Some users will say it's fine but most will have to agree it's the #1 reason people stay away. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reputable Contributor AbnRanger Posted July 23, 2010 Reputable Contributor Report Share Posted July 23, 2010 Blender will need to fix their UI issues before studios will even look at it. Some users will say it's fine but most will have to agree it's the #1 reason people stay away. They did fix it, Phil. 2.5 was a complete restructure of the UI Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philnolan3d Posted July 23, 2010 Report Share Posted July 23, 2010 I've tried it, still not fixed IMO. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Javis Posted July 30, 2010 Report Share Posted July 30, 2010 Well.. after two days of 'will I.. wont I', I purchased Messiah!! It was on sale so it was great timing - $999 down to $599 so thankyou for the hot tip.. I was very impressed with the tools that it has, and I can also use it with Blender! And Blender 2.5 beta was released today so I feel like my tool set is coming together. Ive never used After Effects (although I have always heard great things about it) but, I think I will stick with Blender for compositing as well. If anyone gets the chance get a copy of the 'Big Buck Bunny' DVD and the Blender compositing book.. Amazing to study those as it also includes all the production files of a great short animation. Anything to help someone with no formal 3d education is great.. Anyway - thanks again for the advice. Andrew How are you liking Messiah? Did you check out any of Weggs training? You should definitely also check out Joe Cosman's training for Messiah. It's all for animation, and how to use animation layers (clips) in Messiah, I think you'll find it very useful! I'm sure you know this by now, but just in case, here is the link to their store: http://setuptab.com/index.php?action=store Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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