It's sculpting and morphing abilities are awesome, I love it, I actually use it combined with 3d Coat as well.. I love Blacksmith3D for easy Shrinking / Enlarging areas of characters, like you can make one character mesh and take that mesh, and tweak it, making the face larger, or body smaller or something similar and viola' a whole new character. I am actually using it on the game project I am working on now, where I have to have several different ghost like characters, and other monsters, and I have the reference images done already for one of each type of character / monster, and will start the rough modeling today, that's what else blacksmith3d is good for, you don't have to make such a detailed character, you can make just a rough model, even in the extreme like out of cubes, this is actually what the author of BS3D did, and then used BS3D to finish shaping it, etc.. into the Dragon character that you see on the title screens, and in the screen shots on the site... YES, I know it's hard to believe but that Dragon, started out as one Cube he told me, the rest was done inside BS3D, now I'm going to get a little more detailed inside Silo first, which is Another program I fully endorse, Silo is THE MODELING App imho.
Now to be clear Silo doesn't have tools for animating, stuff like this, but it does modeling, it is the best poly / organic modeling either at the face level or subdivision modeling either one it does, and what it does, it does really really well, I especially like the configurability of it, you can actually make silo Look and Act like any other 3D Modeling application, by applying custom button sets, menus, colors, even the keyboard / and mouse shortcuts can be modified as well, allowing Silo to in essence to morph itself into any other modeling app your used to using already.. Although, I think learning the default KB / Mouse Shortcuts is the best thing, this combined with Glenn Southerns Buttons / Menu / Color Custom setup, is the perfect combination for any new modelers starting out with Silo, now, silo is not new, but I actually found out about it by accident, when I searched for 3d Modeling books on Amazon, and then researched Silo via google after reading the book title about it, and boy am I glad I did, it is THE BEST KEPT SECRET in the Modeling World, Plain and Simple.. Until finding this app, I had been using Fragmotion 3D almost exclusively, for its poly modeling / user configurability, I loved it, so I didn't think there was anything better, until I found Silo, think of Silo as Frag3D only on Steroids, as far as the Modeling / Painting part, now certainly, I still use Frag 3D for Setting up the Skeleton Rig and Animating Models, this combined with the Character Animation Software that TGC Sells is the best way to go for Animating your Models Personally... But for Modeling if you like Frag3D / but need or want something with a little more pep / features, I must say go check out Nevercenters Silo3D... I promise you, you won't be disappointed...
Now Silo3D isn't updated like every week / or month like other apps, they only updated it rarely but when they do, it's a good update that fixes errors, and add features, etc.. other users on their forums complain because in the beginning they used to update it all the time, but now they have adopted a slower update schedule since they have other projects they also work on, and alot of the users complain and gripe about it, in the forums, but most of them still admit that there is NO better Poly / Subdivision modeler out there, and they just want something to complain about, and think that if they complain then Nevercenter will update it faster, which is not the case, as imho it is already good enough, lacking very little, and what it is missing, I can do without until they decide to add it to the program in time.. Like plugins or 3D Connexion input devices support.
I hope this helps you some, all of these apps have trials available if you would like to try them out.. I will upload some of the models / screen shots when I am happy with the progress of them.. Which should be sooner than later, sorry it took me so long to reply, but I have been busy, and away from the forums for a while.. Also, might I recommend the P-Active 19" LCD Pen Tablet Monitor, imho it is very good, the same or better than the Wacom Cintiq, and at alot better pricing I got mine for $825.00 from Amazon, and despite other customers issues, my tablet monitor from P-Active is perfect, no problems, I even got it to work in my multi-monitor setup when I installed one of the Wacom Cintiq's Drivers after installing the default P-Active drivers for 64bit Windows 7, and it works awesomely! For modeling and general painting of models or other things, there is no better setup for painting right on the screen, and at that price you could by 2 of them cheaper than 1 of the smaller cheaper Wacom Cintiq models, like there 14" is still more expensive than the 19" from P-Active..
Enjoy, and good luck in all your game Developing endeavors, if you need further help or info, please just ask, and I'll try my best to help you out..
Thanks,
StOrM3
PS. Sorry to run on so long, but I'm disabled, and when I take my pain pills sometimes I get long winded..
[PKE] Pain Killa Entertainment(tm) [PKE]
[PKE] Of All The Things I've Lost..[PKE]
[PKE] I Miss My Mind The Most! [PKE]
