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3 Dimensional Chat / Blender, really as good as it sounds?

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jasonhtml
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Posted: 26th May 2006 16:41
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hi, ive been using Anim8tor for about 4 years or so and i looked at blender about 3 years ago and didnt like it. but, just recently, it seems to look better than before and i have some questions about it:

1. is it really any good? does it have any major problems?
2. can it model just as good or better than anim8tor?(id assume so)
3. it says that it can animate 3d models on the site... but do those animated models work well in DBP?
4. do they have to option for you to be able to change the controls so that i can make them anim8tor controls? im so used to them
5. what file formats can blender export? i couldnt find it on the site..

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Bahamut
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Posted: 26th May 2006 17:03
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1) In my opinion, yes it's really, really good.

2) Its capabilities are far higher than anim8tor. Whether you can produce better models with it is another question entirely. The blender interface is a hotkey-based one hand on keyboard, other hand on mouse approach.

3)The animation system is nice, but I've never tried exporting them to DB. I've heard there are problems with compatibility with animation.

4)No idea. Blender control system is much faster though once you get used to it. I don't even know what hotkeys I'm pressing anymore-they just get pressed.

5)There are several .x exporters, I believe each one has a different problem with it, though. The one I use exports objects textured (not materials) and smoothed. Not sure about animation-haven't tried it.


Try searching these forums for more info-there's a thread about blender about once a month.

Why not just try it? It's free, and a relatively small download.


The great thing about blender is that you're not limited to low poly. You can make high poly movies with particle effects (including hair) and liquids if you want. It'll just take a while.

IceBound
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BenDstraw
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Posted: 26th May 2006 18:06
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ive never used blender but from the looks of it its really good. probaly the best free modeler ive ever seen as far as the works that come out of it. or it could just mean blender has alot of talented artists who knows

God modelled man in his own reference image.
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Van B
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Posted: 26th May 2006 18:19
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I think that when you deal with free software, never ever expect good export and animation functions.

CharacterFX is dirt cheap and will do a good bone deform animation job on exported .3DS meshes - so if you can get your models into .3DS format then you can rely on CharacterFX.

Really, for modelling you need to find a package that you get along with - sadly this usually means spending thousands, so if you can get on with Blender then you'll save a fortune, but spend your savings on CFX for some really great DBPro implimentation. Heck set CFX to linear animation and it's practically WYSIWYG.

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Bahamut
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Posted: 26th May 2006 22:37
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Quote: "CharacterFX is dirt cheap and will do a good bone deform animation job on exported .3DS meshes - so if you can get your models into .3DS format then you can rely on CharacterFX."


This is a bit off topic, but sice you mentioned it, I was thinking about getting Character FX, but the site hasn't been updated in years, and apparently the maker isn't around anymore. Is it still available to buy?

IceBound
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Miguel Melo
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Posted: 26th May 2006 23:28
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Quote: "This is a bit off topic, but sice you mentioned it, I was thinking about getting Character FX, but the site hasn't been updated in years, and apparently the maker isn't around anymore. Is it still available to buy?"


Uncanny. I was just going to ask that...

I have vague plans for World Domination
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jasonhtml
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Posted: 27th May 2006 05:26 Edited at: 27th May 2006 05:27
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yes, i think u still can buy it.. i did buy it, but it is in much need of an update...

i guess ill just stick with the anim8tor+CFx combo instead of switching to blender since blender doesnt seem to offer any thing that would make me switch over...

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QuothTheRaven
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Posted: 27th May 2006 10:27
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I never like Blender. It has the most confusing interface of any program I've ever used, at least the version I used a year or so ago. I couldn't make heads or tails of it.

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jasonhtml
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Posted: 27th May 2006 19:59
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same here, thats why i currently dont use it

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zircher
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Posted: 28th May 2006 06:23
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A friend of mine on the HardSF3d list did a 30 days of Blender torture test. Once you get your brain/hand programmed to use the short cut keys the work flow becomes much better. But, the only way to learn it is to use it over and over and over again until it become second nature.

Personally, I loathe short cuts. They make my blood boil. Any utility or game that requires me to learn three or more key combos usually get deleted from my hard drive. Even with that bias, I recommend trying Blender. If it works for you, that's great. If not, there are lots of other economical tools that are more GUI based that may be your cup of tea. I prefer tools like DoGA CGA, Metasequoia, Milkshape 3D, and Character FX.
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greenlig
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Posted: 28th May 2006 07:13
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even though you use hotkeys ad-nauseum in blender, all the key combos are linked to actuall buttons. I'm fairly sure 95% of functions are accessable via menus, infact im sure of it.

Blender3D - GIMP - WINXP - DBPro
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jasonhtml
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Posted: 28th May 2006 07:16
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well, i guess my question is pretty much answered and ive desided not to use it... since it offers no great benefits and has .x exporting problems, i wont bother and ill just stick with the anim8tor+CFx combo

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zircher
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Posted: 28th May 2006 22:19
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I'm sure it true, greenlig. But, I've never heard of anyone being productive just using the GUI. I've made several stabs at it over the years without much success. All the tutorials that I can recall are short cut key driven.

It's like the opposite of Windows. Sure, you can operate Windows without a mouse pointer, but nobody teaches it that way.
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Uncle Sam
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Posted: 31st May 2006 00:48
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Quote: "Blender, really as good as it sounds?"


nope

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greenlig
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Posted: 31st May 2006 03:10
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blender sounds like "free, powerful, capable of great stuff" then yes, its as good as it sounds. The interface boggles windows fans. Thats about it.

http://www.elephantsdream.org/ 100% blender

now THAT is good

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Bahamut
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Posted: 31st May 2006 03:46
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Quote: "nope"


Care to elaborate at all?

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jasonhtml
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Posted: 31st May 2006 05:01
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bad .x export

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Mucky Muck Ninja
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Posted: 31st May 2006 06:31
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The only thing the .x export can't do is animation. Other than that, i have no problems with blender.

"It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes."
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jasonhtml
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Posted: 31st May 2006 06:33
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well, animation was kinda the thing i wanted

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Baiame
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Posted: 4th Jun 2006 23:19
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As it stands now, how well do animations carry over to .x, md2, or .3ds? I kinda need to use Blender for animations in my game (AND I'm in a limited-time compo). I already made a decent base model for all humans in my game, but I want to be sure I can use Blender for animating as well (I almost finished rigging my model and sorting out the vertex groups).
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Mucky Muck Ninja
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Posted: 5th Jun 2006 01:07
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I don't know about .md2, but blender really can't export animation to .x reliably. Until the exporter improves, i would reccomend modelling in blender and animating in FragMotion, Character FX, or something similar.

"It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes."
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Delfir
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Posted: 9th Jun 2006 18:31
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ok I just downloaded Blender and I saw the funniest thing. When you press space, there's an "add" option. There are many subcategories of add like, cube, plain, sphere, all that jazz, but then at the bottom there's a "monkey" option. I was like what? So I clicked it and an actual 3d model of a monkey head is inserted into the development environment. I'm sorry, I just thought that was hilarious.

Don't take life too seriously... no one gets out alive.
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Mucky Muck Ninja
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Posted: 10th Jun 2006 02:50
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Yup, that is Blender's mascot, Suzanne the monkey. In earlier versions after clicking add>monkey, a single option appeared which said something like Oooh Oooh, which you clicked to produce the Suzanne, but that is gone now.

"It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes."
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transient
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Posted: 11th Jun 2006 09:39 Edited at: 11th Jun 2006 09:40
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Blender's directX export works fine.

Use this plug-in http://www.ben.3rdimension.co.uk/

If you need to get your character into FPSC then you'll need to go through Fragmotion and convert it to directX binary.

I'm not sure if this is necessary for DBPro.

Blender's character animation tools currently dwarf those of other programs mentioned in this thread, but whatever works for you is always advisable.

As for shortcuts, I personally use them wherever possible, and I can't understand how you could ever be truly productive with any software package(including Windows)without using them a lot, but that's just my opinion.
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ionstream
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Posted: 12th Jun 2006 00:53
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The people who make Blender 3D care about making the best possible render, so you'll find great modelling tools, but relatively poor game support. However, they have been making many improvements on game related aspects (for example, the UV mapper). So go ahead and give it a try, but don't do what many people do and give up when they see the window.

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transient
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Posted: 12th Jun 2006 05:24
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Blender has it's own game engine, which I think is their priority.

Blender is intimdating for novices, so if you're delving into 3d for the first time maybe one of the shareware modellers would be better.
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greenlig
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Posted: 13th Jun 2006 08:03
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the game engine is most definitely NOT the priority, the animation, render and editing tools are. things like material and the fluid simulation are things high on the list. The game engine is a secondary part carried mostly by thirdparty coders, but of course Ton puts it all in blender.

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transient
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Posted: 13th Jun 2006 12:45
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Please calm down and read the post again.

I was responding to the assumption that blender's directX export was useless, which I don't personally agree with.

I was saying that, game-wise, Blender has it's own game engine so this would be their prioity (over other peoples game engines).

It was just a suggestion, anyway. For all I know they love other peoples game engines and want to have babies with them.
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Bahamut
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Posted: 13th Jun 2006 13:11
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Well, most people who use blender use it for high poly artwork. I hate to say this, but a DB compatible .x exporter is probably pretty low on the to-do list.

IceBound Melodic rock/metal band with loads of lead guitar, clean female vocals, and more guitars! What more could you want?
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Delfir
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Posted: 13th Jun 2006 18:28
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Blender is awesome, I've only had it for a few days and I'm already comfortable with it. Not because it's the best 3d modelling program out there, but because it has free tutorials that make sense and explain everything. Any program, no matter how good, is useless if there are no understandable tutorials out there to explain things, or ppl who can explain things, and no one uses Gamespace, it's new and expensive and ppl would rather use something free. I paid a lot of money for Caligari's Gamespace, which I do not doubt is a better program than Blender. However, the pdf manual that comes with it is useless garbage and I couldn't find any good online tutorials for it.

Don't take life too seriously... no one gets out alive.
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greenlig
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Posted: 14th Jun 2006 09:52
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@transient -

Sorry about that. I re-read my post and realised it sounded really angry even though i didnt intend that. Lol i sounded like a right goon. Also, re-reading yours helped.

Apologies.

To all needing exporter - Transient posted a link a few posts back and that should work fine.

regards,

Greenlig

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transient
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Posted: 14th Jun 2006 12:00
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No worries.

Blender is cool. I guess that's the point we were both making anyway.
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Miguel Melo
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Posted: 15th Jun 2006 02:24 Edited at: 15th Jun 2006 02:31
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Blender is cool I agree. I have been using it on and off since... oh... 1998/99? I even chipped in €50 euros when the time came to release the source.

HOWEVER, I find that if I leave Blender alone for 2 or 3 months, when I come back I have to "work my way" back in again.

Since I'm not an artist but rather a coder, leaving a 3d modelling app collecting dust for a while is sadly a common occurence. When I pick up Blender to concoct some kind of programmer art after a while, I'm all dexter with it. But after long'ish spells away coming back is fairly hard work. All softs are like this, but I find Blender especially so.

Lately I've been using Hex 2.1 and I'm really enjoying it. And somehow, I expect when I take my sabbatical from it, when I get back in a few months it will be faster to re-pickup than good old Blender.

But, hey, Blender does rule - and if you are planning on using it consistently I think it's as safe a bet as you can have!

PS - And it's probably the most programmer-vibed 3d modeller around. Somehow that interface just reeks at being a coder's project - if I had ever done a 3D package (I did a couple of sprite editors in machine code for the C64 and MSDos ehehe) it would certainly look and feel as awkward as B.

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transient
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Posted: 15th Jun 2006 04:29
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I use Hex as well, and it's modelling tools are the best I've ever used (I've never used Z Brush though).

You can export from Hex into Blender as a .obj file, so they're a good match. You could probabaly also import Hex's displacement maps into Blender too, but I haven't tried this yet.

I have problems using Blender after a break as well, but I put this down to the fact Blender's a bit weird compared to other 3d programs.

At least that's my excuse.
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Bahamut
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Posted: 15th Jun 2006 13:33
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Quote: "And it's probably the most programmer-vibed 3d modeller around. Somehow that interface just reeks at being a coder's project"


For some reason, I've always viewed Blender as very mathematical. I'm often placing vertices by number rather than with the mouse.

Has anyone else noticed that the co-ordinates are wrong though? The centre of the grid is not (0,0), and if you snap the cursor to the grid, the cursor is pointed a bit to the side (Yes, I work down to 3dp to ensure the greatest accuracy possible - especially after I've already duplicated one side of the model in order to maintain symetry).

IceBound Melodic rock/metal band with loads of lead guitar, clean female vocals, and more guitars! What more could you want?
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