A fully dedicated video-game 3D software ?

Hello,

I'm about to purchase my 3D tool personal license, and honestly, after hours of research on the net, I can't decide myself ...

For short, I'm searching for a software that got these features :

- very fast workflow
- easy character skinning and rigging
- perfect FBX support
- clear interface
- opened to architectural modelings as well
- stability
- full animation tools (bones, IK, FK, constraints, physics)
- and of course, a total compatibility with Unity3D importing process
- indie-friendly
- perenity. Which means a more or less clear video-game oriented roadmap.



For now, what I got on my mind about existing softwares :

- 3DS : fits all my needs, and in fact too much more ... It's a tool made for big industries, not for indies. Way too huge for what I need, which would not make a very good need/price balance. It's such corporate oriented that in France you can't find a clear shopping offer unless you want to contact the marketing service of 3 or 4 small unknown B to B enterprises ...

- Maya : same as 3DS, I can't even guess why those 2 products are still independant.

- Softimage : An interesting one, as I can read on different sites that several small game studios use it (Dead or Alive series, latest Metal Gear, for instance). Plus game-oriented mods, plus a growing quantity of pro gamedevs begging for this tool to their game studio. But as it's growing, I can't find very much infos about its concrete efficiency. And once again, I can't find a decent shipping service for it in France.

- Modo : A huge database of users are claiming this modeler beats every actual solution, but unfortunately, it doesn't support advanced animation tools yet. I would be able to buy a separate character animation tool for this one, if somebody could recommand me one that doesn't exceed 1000 €.

- Cinema 4D : This one's interesting too, but I can't find enough pro comments to make my mind about it. Plus the fact that its FBX exporter seems unstable.

- Blender : I can't stand its interface. I don't want to spend as much time into learning curve as in game dev.

- Cheetah 3D : doesn't seem very serious to me.





That's all I know for now.


Any advanced artist, with an already significant gamedev experience, could gimme an advice ?


Thank you people for your attention.

 

Since you state that this 3D tool is for personal use, why not work with Softimage's mod tool? It has all the features of the full application and is free. When you are ready to pursue commercial work, you can buy the retail version. Or you can determine (for no cost) that the Softimage workflow isn't right for you.

 

I have also been looking for a low cost solution to learn 3D modeling. Max/XSI is just way to expensive (and while you can use the XSI Mod tool for commercial products, you can only do that for XNA XBox 360). Maya is about half the cost of Max but still just a little to high. Cinema is a bit of a mix bag. I here good things and bad things but I don't like the way they charge for plugins. I would have to agree that the interface for blender seem terrible.

Modo seems like the most promising of the bunch. Very solid modeling tools. Animation is not there yet (still hopeful that 401 will bring at least basic FK/IK/Bones since you don't need the most advance animation tools for games but not counting on it).

As for a separate animation tool, the only one with a reason cost in Messiah with is 400 but I have no idea how good it is.

 

Your best bet seems Blender, wait for the next update and it will allow custom interface layouts, shortcut-keys etc.

Any of the others will require just as much learning if not more, Since your asking the question which one is best for you, maybe you should try them all out and decide for yourself.

It's the same with paint brushes, you pick the one you need for the job, there is no universal best paint brush.

 

The Mod Tool website plays up the XNA connection, but with Crosswalk, exporting to FBX works great.

The key is that the Mod Tool is a great no-risk way to learn with a full-featured 3D toolkit.

 

Thank you for your advices

Messiah seems to be the best partner for Modo. I'll give it a try.

I'll watch at Softimage Mod Tool, too.


*crossing fingers to see bones/IK/FK in Modo 401*

 

Now that's seducing me :

http://forums.luxology.com/discussion/topic.aspx?id=24450

 

Although I have been using Maya everyday for quite some time now, I lately find myself using Silo for most of my modeling. I have a license to Modo as well, but I prefer to model in Silo any day of the week. And since Modo's sculpting and painting tools aren't very good (compared to zbrush or mudbox), I often wonder why I bought it in the first place.

I also bought a license to Cheetah when I first started out and I think it is an excellent package for hobbyists. I wouldn't personally use it anymore because I have come to love the power of Maya's Hypershade material editor and Mental Ray renderer.

Max and XSI are both really good as well, but they are too expensive for my needs. Maya Complete is a little cheaper, although I am looking to change my pipeline because I don't want (cant afford) to pay for the next Maya version. Hopefully the upcoming Modo 401 release will have better animation, because it is a really affordable solution for freelancers and I really like the company who makes Modo. I will learn to love Modo if they introduce character animation soon.

Long story short...... I prefer Silo for modeling, Zbrush for sculpting, Maya for everything else (hopefully Modo 401 will replace Maya for me) . Oh, and Headus UV Layout for all my UV needs.

 

If you can afford maya, then I would go for this. But don't forget that in order to learn properly, you also need to buy some tutorial dvds and/or books. This can easily sum up to a few hundred bucks more.
All 3D tools have a rather steep learning curve. When you have mastered one tough, switching to another is not such a big deal. So the best would be you try them all out for yourself seriously. Then decide.
Just out of my personal experience: I am right now learnign blender, there are superb free tutorial videos at blenderunderground. For me the interface was also the reason why I did not go into blender earlier, but then I just went trough these videos and I can tell you that the interface is actually quite well designed. You just can't see this if you just start to tinker around with blender. But believe me, after some hours with these videos, everything is quite logic, at least not more complicated than for exampel in maya. For character anim, there are good books and dvds available at blender.org, and as said, 2.5 will have a better interface anyway. To make it short: Give blender a spin, just work trough these tuts I mentioned, and then see if you still don't like it ;-)

 

If you get Modo 302 now, you'll be entitled to a free 401 upgrade. Luxology is boasting about really good COLLADA support. I suspect that the new COLLADA plugin will support advanced import and export for animations, since they have a dedicated developer working on it. 302 had a basic COLLADA exporter, so I'm guessing the new one does animation.

Neah that's nothing. Check this out: http://www.luxology.com/modo/401.introduction/ and click the More >> button for even more.

The thing that sold me on Modo was the GBs of training videos that it comes will and all the training material available on the site. And that the interface didn't look like Blender.

 

Yeah I checked those pages, but they're mainly promoting rendering of static objects, so not a very wide use in gamedev

 

+1 for Blender, just watch those videotutorials before you decide to forget it:

http://blenderunderground.com/

I am a pro artist making my life with Blender for years now. I also purchased an expensive 3D app. at the begginning, as a proof of my own seriousness (lol). I took my first look at Blender when it was not even Open Source, and also disliked very much the UI at first. But sometime after that, when it was first released as OS, I gave it a second and deeper look and I realized it was a very powerfull and well designed tool. Nowadays I know for sure I don´t need any other tool for my game work, and I seriously doubt you can get better results for games with any other 3D tool than with current Blender.

You will spend about the same time learning Blender than any other symilar tool (maya, Max, LW...). And you will be able to build exactly the same models and animations, with the same perfect integration with Unity.

Let yourself know some more about Blender before you decide to invest in expensive app. It is worth every hour of learning.

 

Well, without the awful interface, there would be one more irrational thing that disturbs me with Blender ... :roll:

It's the way objects are manipulated. There some lack of flexibility in the way you can simply rotate an object, for example. Seems like clutchy for me ...

Plus the way vertices are represented, don't feel as much precision as in 3DS, for example.
In fact, all in Blender feels like there's lack of precision to me.
The way tools are organised, too, feels like you have to cross hundred of miles with your mouse before reaching the right tool.

Plus other irrational bad impressions.

I swear, I tried it. But can't shake it.

 

No problem, but that´s a pitty

Anyway, if you like best 3Dmax, take a last look at this: a customized Blender UI file specially built by the well known Max user Daniel Lara (currently a very active Blender user too) for Maya and 3DMax users:

http://www.daniel3d.com/pepeland/mi...rface/MaxMaya_interface_style_for_blender.zip

Maybe this pannels organization fits better with you...

As for the other issues you mention: for rotations try using the transform widgets, they are very simylar to standars. And you can setup the vertices apearence at the user preferences window. Just remember, once you set it all up like you like best, use Control + U to save it as your default.

 

Now that's some very, very useful tips UI resources !
Thank you Gus, I think I won't be the only one interested

 

Something's bugging me about Cinema 4D ...


Why are there only a very few pro gamedevs using it or talking about it, when we browse the net ?

I'm looking at its interface right now, it's very nice, clear and eye-candish. Renderings seem ok, too.
Rigging doesn't look more complicated as in other softwares ...


So, why the unpopularity ?

 

Because it is a vicious circle....all the game studios use Max/Maya, so all the schools teach Max/Maya. It doesn't seem to matter how good a software is, Max/Maya will always be the most popular. I learned Maya because thats what they taught at Gnomon. I think many people use Max/Maya just because it looks best on the resume.

 

This CGenie article is an interesting view of the 3D app marketplace. I don't know how scientific it is, but the numbers "feel" right.

http://cgenie.com/articles/104-cg-community-survey-upgrades-09.html

 

The main (well, MAIN :wink: ) problem i've with Blender is this:

( http://unity3d.com/support/documentation/Manual/HOWTO-ImportObjectBlender.html )

If you are modelling a simple object (a character or the like) that's ok, import the model, search the texture and drop on the model.
But, what if you have a complex escene with hundreds of objects (namely a level map)? Am i supposed to search and drop any texture on its model?!

Anyway, i'm a noob in both Unity and Blender, so i'm maybe missing something... is it the way it seems?

 

That's actually not the case...if you have your textures in your project first and use those to UV map objects in Blender, then the model will be automatically have those textures applied when imported into Unity.

--Eric

 

Oh, that's great 8)
But then... you mean the documentation is wrong (or uncomplete, at least)?

 

My problem with Blender is that most of the export and import scripts don't import multiple uv sets.

There's a core Mesh structure in the Blender API that only allows 1 uv sets. And the scripters use that API and add the single uv limitation to their own scripts.

There's an alternative structure that allows multiple uv sets, but it's not used much.

I found the right API structures, I just need a Python/Blender Wiz to hook it up:
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?p=1307908#post1307908

I ended up writing a custom importer for Modo to load multiple uv sets via OBJ.
http://forum.unity3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=19061

 

Just to feed the non-existing hype : I tried Cinema 4D R11 tonight, and it's really, really good.

Everything a gamedev needs is here.

And for Unity devs, C4D supports Jscript ...

I think this will be my license final choice.

 

Curious, what does this have to do with Unity development? You mean it supports a similar syntax that unity supports?

 

Curious, what does this have to do with Unity development? You mean it supports a similar syntax that unity supports?

 

Does Silo export to FBX yet? And does it support 2 UV sets? or are you having to go via another UV creation route and fbx export steps?

 

I export out of Silo in .obj format and bring it into Headus UV Layout, and then into Maya for materials and rendering. When I need to do 2 UV sets I use Maya for that. Silo has no need for .fbx format really, because it doesnt have animation or even a proper material editor. So another package is pretty much necessary anyway. Silo is just a great pipeline tool. I have never even tried their UV tools yet, so I dont know much about them and if they support 2 UV sets.

 

Exactly, which means we could directly test some basic homemade functions
(until I'm wrong)

 

Cinema 4D is an awesome Tool when it comes to visualization and Rendering. The spline and deformer tools are very intuitive and fast to use - the polygon modeler has some workflow flaws, IMO. You can correct that by asigning your own keyboard shortcuts but that's very time consuming (I simply live with the standards now).
Depending on how much 3D experience you have Cinema4D is probably the best starter drug. It's easy to grasp on the surface (lots of drag and drop) and astoundingly deep if you are willing to look for the feature you need. In fact I was proven wrong more than once when I was thinking that C4D simply wouldn't have a specific feature I was looking for - oftentimes it's there but hidden the more specific it is.

If you've worked with other 3D software the unwrapping takes some time to get used to. I learned to love it, though. Blender's LSCM and ABF mapping algorithms still remain with more stretching than the C4D version. Also C4D has more tools and the famous Bodypaint (which can be very helpful when it comes to ironing out seams on your model).

On the gaming side of it all C4D lacks, though. It's still one of the few programs where there's not even a plugin available to bake high-to-lowres normalmaps (C4D handles large models very well, though). The FBX exporter is unfortunately very flawed (not more than one UV map per model - even though supported INTERNALLY, joints could be working - according to another thread here - I didn't manage to get them to work, yet).

Texture baking is terribly slow - and the advanced methods like GI are in the most recent version buggy (plus you need the advanced renderer). Especially AO sometimes takes forever.

Cinema4D's working structure is created for small to mid-size companies. I can't say too much on this myself as I've mostly been working in small teams or alone with the program. It's what i heared from colleagues. Working on larger scenes apparently is still 'developable'.

Cinema 4D is (IMO) mostly uncommon in the games industry because that's where it's the least used tool. Most companies work either with Max or Maya - especially Max since loads of toolsets have been developed for it. Among many other reasons ... too many to get into. C4D is mainly used in rendering and (pre-)visualization, architecture, stills and so forth. It became at least one of the more common tools in Germany over the last few years.

Cinema 4D is also modular - which means you can (or need to) buy all the modules you need separately (like animation, special rendering, etc.).

Oh yeah - the material editor doesn't support nodes. If you have complex material setups you might want to keep that in mind - it's nothing to worry about in games, though.

I'll stop it here as I could go on and on about that but the bottom line is (and let me tell you I've been looking for the perfect 3D program for years): There is no perfect 1-for-all solution. Modo seems like a perfect program for you if you want to create static meshes and bake materials and create normals, sometimes.
If you can live with a few quirks and are willing to work around issues every now and then Cinema 4D can be a very rewarding program as the drag-and-drop interface really is one of the more intuitive ones pout there (the opposite of blender, I'd even like to say). It can also be a very frustrating program if you think something should work easy - and then it doesn't.
On the other hand it is by FAR more reasonably priced than Max and Maya are outside of the USA. And the guys at Maxon are very customer-friendly people.
You can feel that the focus of the program is not on games, though. I won't deny that.

 

I have an old license of Maya 4.5 and am planning to upgrade to a new program. This thread has been a great help so far.

I have basically ruled out Max, Maya, and XSI due to their price tags.

My short list is down to Lightwave and Modo (which I just discovered thanks to this thread). Does anyone have experience and an opinion to share about Lightwave? Thanks.

 

A thought here from a 3d hobbyist's point of view. Cinema 4D is a fine choice and appears to be a great value, but trust me as a hobbyist the value of Cinema 4D is not a great as it might seem.

The core version which includes BodyPaint is indeed a wonderful value. It has most of what is needed for basic operations. But Maxon catches you with their modules. Once you get core, you will likely want to get Mocca for character animation, you will likely want to get Hair, you will likely want to get this and want to get that. At some point all of these modules catch up with you and before you know it you are paying as much or more than MAX or Maya.

Additionally Maxon's upgrading policy gets very expensive. Especially if you own core and one or two or more modules. You pay to upgrade your CORE license and then you pay for each module that gets an upgrade. It's definitely more cost effective to pick one of their bundles and keep on that track but even upgrading their bundles gets very pricey. You can pretty much count on $400 or more each and every year or every couple of years just to keep current. Granted you may not need to and its your choice, but all the same, new features tend you make you more efficient in your workflow and the longer you wait to upgrade the more you pay in the end.

This is probably a moot point for anyone who does this 3d stuff for a living because the cost of one or two jobs will pay for upgrades and keep you current. That's why I am posting this as a hobbyist. I own the R10 XL bundle personally and can't keep up with the pricing of the upgrades so I am looking at alternatives. I still might consider one more C4D upgrade because the MAC and PC licenses are the same with R11. Since I recently moved to MAC there is some value in getting a MAC license via the upgrade to R11.

The workflow in C4D is also a mixed bag. Some of it's good and efficient and some of it is really awful. So I would definitely encourage anyone interested to download and try out the demo. You might find you absolutely hate it, or love it.

Hobbyist priced 3d apps are becoming few and far between. Especially on the MAC. At this point I am looking at upgrading C4D, upgrading my Lightwave, Silo for modelling and Blender for animation/rendering. Modo is also an option although personally I can't stand its UI. I think rotating text labels/buttons should be out lawed. Modo is also pricey considering there is limited animation functionality.

Sorry for the novel length post!

Cheers,
Jeremy

 

Modo is a great tool, but I caution against buying it on the basis of rumored features. It may one day become a great all-around software, but it isn't that today.

 

Another thumbs up for Blender! I'm amateur at 3d graphics but over the years have spent way to much money on tools like:

Truespace (a crash-fest)
Softimage XSI (too expensive to keep up to date, now they dropped low-end pricing)
Cheetah3D (call me strange, but hard to learn interface!)
Houdini (I like the modeling tools, but expensive. I just had the Torque indie version)

I keep coming back to Blender and each time I am more impressed with the tools and the documentation. Blender has really improved a lot! Another cool thing is that you can import/export ~ 30 different 3d formats, something the commercial vendors don't offer in their low-end / indie packages.
edit: for this reason alone, Blender might be useful to have installed.

 

I use Modo a lot as a programmer in my art pipeline for concepting and to verify assets from artists.

It works well for me.

I think the script engine rivals blender. True both Blender and Modo can use perl and python. However, as you use the Modo UI, your command history populates and all the actions can be copied to a script file and rerun.

The reveal page added some more news content today about animation in the 401 release:
http://www.luxology.com/modo/401.animation.part.1/

 

Now things are getting interesting!

 

Not that interesting, in the modcast they state that there will be no character animation(envelope,skinning,bones,rigging), all they are doing is laying the ground work. Its good news but not for the near future.

 

I'm glad that I purchased Softimage back when I did. Given today's pricing and the limitations of the lower-priced tools discussed in this thread, I don't know what I would buy if I was just starting out now.

 

I have to admit when it comes to bones, I used Blender for bone placement and the handy Ogre exporter to export an armature.

 

Have any of you taken a serious look at Carrara 7 Pro?

It has every feature you would need to create game models, animations and full levels - and is not very expensive.

www.daz3d.com

I own Silo 2, Lightwave 9, and older version of Maya, Vue 6 Infinite and some other 3D apps, but I prefer Carrara for its ease of use and learning curve, very powerful feature set, excellent community and extremely competitive pricing (hell, you can get a free copy of Carrara 6 Pro in some of the 3D mags). Oh, and it supports Collada (dae and fbx).

Just thought i'd let you know.

Mike

 

I've been using Cinema 4D for 3 years now since r9.5, currently on r10.5

After trying every other 3D app I found it the easiest UI to navigate and understand, plus it has a very good plugin developer network that produce some amazing things. My only real frustration with C4D is is lack of multi UV set export via FBX currently. Creating the Lightmaps is quite simple in C4D and having just purchased Cheetah3D I have the ability to get my multiple UV sets from C4D into Unity3D.

I avoided BodyPaint until about 8 months ago. I had a one on one training with Thomas Pasieka for an hour or so, then followed with 3DKiwi's 30 hour Bodypaint DVD and could not be without Bodypaint anymore.

I love the non desctructive behaviour of the C4D toolset. The only downside for C4D is its pricing for users outside of the USA.

I have the Studio bundle, however for Untity creation the XL bundle is the best solution and cheaper.

 

555 Video tutorials links on how to use Blender showed up on filmmakeriq.com:

http://filmmakeriq.com/general/featured/555-blender-tutorials.html

 

Awesome

 

All these guys using c4d are probably on older versions and unfortunately those versions aren't very well supported by Unity (not to mention the fbx exporter in those versions is flawed).

I'm using c4d R11 and Unity 2.5 and I have an almost flawless pipeline (just some quirks with material naming). The only thing is that c4d's fbx exporter spins the axis 180 degrees on the y axis when exported. Luckily, this is only visually and doesn't affect animation/joint placement/model orientation.

I've tested c4d for almost all scenarios and it seems to work. Joints, keyframe animation, materials, textures, uv maps, etc. For low polygon modeling, c4d is great, but c4d doesn't have a proper polygon reduction tool built in (unless you call that sorry excuse deformer a proper tool ). Which is why this plugin exists. http://www.cinemax4d.de/simplemakerpro/smpro_us.html

Your call, but I've seen posts saying that Maya has some problems importing it's files. :?

 

I think the 180 degree thing is a Unity issue.

By default in most 3D apps, when you look at the Top Viewport and move an object downward (-Z) the object moves closer to your camera in the default Perspective Viewport. In Unity's Top Viewport it works opposite. It's like Unity's Top viewport is working in reverse.

 

The second guy down in this thread talks about the fbx exporter. Although, it may also be a Unity issue too.

http://www.c4dcafe.com/ipb/index.php?showtopic=42514&hl=maxon

Actually, I think all those apps (c4d included) have it backwards. In Maya, the z axis faces you when you bring up the default perspective view. And Unity's coordinate system is based on that. When I make objects in c4d I sometimes realize that my model (characters especially) is facing down the -z axis. You want the axis to be positive z because animation can behave better when you know which axis your character is facing.

 

It definitely would be nice if there was some kind of deal in progress that would allow Unity users to qualify for competitive upgrade pricing on medium-to-high-end 3D software packages (or competitive upgrades to Unity Pro from a qualifying 3D software package).

To sweeten the deal further, Unity's developers and whatever 3D software package's developers could cooperatively develop a reliable import/export system where one app can access and modify the other's natively as needed.

 

I think Cheetah3D has been discounted too much in this conversation. I see a lot of discussion about issues and concerns with other apps that I don't think you have Cheetah3D.

I haven't done a complete survey of apps, once I saw Cheetah could do everything I needed for game development, and was easy to use and had a reasonable price, I bought it.

The wiki said this was the only app with total native support from Unity, and that's been my experience. No export / import process, I just edit the files in cheetah and save and unity picks up the updates.

It does UV mapping, is extensible via javascript (and there's an active community of support out there), it does texture baking, and its straightforward.

I don't need an app whose purpose for existence is to give me photorealistic skin and hair, as that's not practical for games. Most of the other apps seem focused on this kind of work.

Between good modeling, uv mapping, animating, kinematic and baking tools, I don't know of anything I would need that's not in Cheetah. (And that may tell you my level of expertise-- maybe there is something I'm missing.)

There's a free 30 day trial so you can download it and check it out.

If I do, eventually, have to spend "real money" on a "real tool", about half that cost will be the learning curve. Cheetah has saved me the cost of a real tool already with lack of learning curve, so its a no-lose situation.

 

Up until now, my Unity assets have all been created in Blender.

But I decided to dig into Cheetah3D a little more over the past couple of days, and I have to say, despite being a Blender user for YEARS, I'm enjoying the way that Cheetah seems to work with Unity just a bit more seamlessly.

It also has totally painless light-map baking that "just works" in Unity. Seriously, it couldn't be any easier, and the multiple UV support is great.

Right now, I'm modeling some pre-lit elements in Cheetah and dropping them into my existing Unity scenes, and Cheetah is working VERY well in this capacity.

Next up, I'm going to do some character animation in Cheetah/Unity, and compare the workflow to what I've already got going in Blender/Unity.

Blender is already pretty good at this, so we'll see how it goes.

But for now, I think I'm going to start doing my game environment work in Cheetah.

 

Good luck with your character animations in Cheetah, you will need it for sure

 

One issue I have with Cheetah3D myself, is that it's user interface does often come off as feeling extremely modal at times, compared to most other 3D apps. It can be a bit unsettling if you aren't expecting it at first. Aside from that, it's definitely not a bad little app for most Unity stuff.