concidering model software upgrade : need advice!

[Hoi]

I'm concidering to upgrade my model software, (money is no problem) so could i get some advice? i use wings at the moment and would prefer something thats easy to learn when you know wings(not necacary though) telling me why you think its the best would help too, thanks

[Forboding Angel]

blender

it's free

[Hoi]

as i said, price doesnt matter, i'm looking for the software that allows me to make the best models, for spring, and maybe later for other things than spring.

[Satirik]

zbrush ? http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 1721580218

?

[rattle]

Any modeler which OBJ exports are correctly imported into upspring. 3DS work fine too if you keep your different smoothing groups' geometry seperated from each other and use upspring's normal and merge tool.

Max's s3o exporter is half-broken (unwelds everything) so I'm not mentioning max here, even though at TA zoom you don't really see the difference.

Personally I'm fastest with wings than any other model app I tried so far (Blender, 3DS MAX, CINEMA4D). Rhino should work fine too and, according to Zsinj/flozi(?), the GUI is supposed to be superior.

[KDR_11k]

zbrush ? http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 1721580218

?

ZBrush is a tool for editing high-poly (several million quad) meshes. It only sees use in game development for creating normalmap base models.

[[Krogoth86]]

Well Spring doesn't require you to have anything special at all so I'd say even a 10 years old software should have all the features you need. Apart from that the techniques you use are pretty much the same for every piece of software so just upgrading your gear doesn't upgrade your results...

When it's just about modelling you should have a look at Silo. It imo is pretty much the best modelling tool out there and is rather cheap. The next update which currently is in open beta also will give you every tiny helper you might want for UV-mapping...

If you want to go for a big rendering suite well that would be quite a waste of money if you just want to do a bit modelling here and there but Lightwave gives you a lot for the money. You also shouldn't disregard Blender at all just because it's free. It has quite some power:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YE7VzlLtp-4

[Hoi]

what i like about wings is that it's very direct, i'm looking for something with good tools, and wings directness, while keeping a good view at the model, basicly i want it to be quick, clear, and have a good gui

[[Krogoth86]]

Then you really should go for Silo because it's just that. Well Modo might be worth a look too but it already is something different...

[Hoi]

checked modo, are the texture options some modelers have actually usefull for spring?

[[Krogoth86]]

What exactly do you mean with that? If you're talking about advanced settings for specularity, bumping, displacement and all that stuff this is totally useless for Spring as it just uses a simple UV-mapped mesh and that's it...

[Snipawolf]

Wings3d rules... I really don't see myself using anything else unless I switch to a new engine.

[Argh]

My suggestions, if money really isn't a problem:

1. Lightwave. Spring supports quad rendering for S3O, and potentially it's faster, IIRC. Plus, learning with a subdivision surface modeler would prepare you for learning normalmapping techniques in the future. Expect to read manuals for quite awhile, though, it's a lot different than modeling with Wings.

2. Rhino 4. Badass, lightning-fast NURBS modeler, with great tools for working with meshes. My brother has it (he's an architect), and it's quite a bit better than Rhino 3. You can do certain modeling operations in modelers like this quite a bit faster than you can with Wings, with practice. Once again, expect to read a lot, it's a very different modeler.

3. Get a copy of UVMapper Professional. It's quite cheap, and will make uvmapping quite a bit easier, with realtime previews, etc., and will get along just fine with PSP.

4. If you can afford it, MudBox, Deep Paint 3D and ZBrush are the high-end painter's tools, for serious 3D artists at the gaming houses. I can't afford either of them, and I found ZBrush annoyingly hard to use with a mouse, but that's just me. I've never used Deep Paint, but it looks very powerful- it'd sure be nice to do painting in realtime, what I do now is paint, preview in UVMapper Pro, then paint s'more... a bit slower, but it works.

5. For low-poly modeling for animation, good old 'Max (or whatever they're calling it, these days, see Discrete's website) is nice, if only because it has the smartest mesh-reduction algorithms I've ever seen. I used to use their kinda-free tool, GMAX, and if only it hadn't been purposefully crippled on file import / export, I'd still use it.

Also, I should note... if you can spend money on software, consider investing it in hardware. You don't need an uber machine to do good work, but it helps if you've got something reasonable and enough RAM (a gig or more, these days), especially with stuff that's complicated, high-poly, or uses large skins, such as the stuff people do with normalmaps.

Lastly, PSP is fine, and will work with just about anything you'd use to do uvmapping with. While PhotoShop is great, and I've heard lots of great stuff about the newer versions (I'm stuck with 7, until I feel like spending cash I'd rather spend on things I actually need), you don't really need them to do good work. Same goes for tablets and touchscreens- they're all very handy, but aren't necessary.

Mainly, though... if I were you... I would learn Wings more thoroughly, and get the basics down before branching out into new software and spending any money. You're in the learning stages, Hoi. New software would put you back to square one, frankly- you'd have to re-learn how to do everything again. I'd concentrate more on the actual process of bringing imaginary forms to life, frankly.

If you're interested in developing your skills and maybe doing this for a living someday, nothing is going to teach you better, imo, than doing stuff the hard way, one vertex at a time, until you can build whatever you want to, fast.

It's very hard to teach people with bad, lazy habits how to model effciently, when they're used to letting software do all of the work. Better to learn the right ways, now, then use fancy software to do the initial work faster... and you'd know how to use Wings for final tweaking, such as collapsing un-necessary verts, etc., which is something it's well-designed for.

And also keep in mind that many of the great modelers whose work you've seen here are all working in Wings- Smoth and Guessmyname and whole host of other folks. In the end, it's not the software that makes the work, it's the artist. While I prefer different tools, because they do a few things a little faster, everything has good points and bad ones- there is no one, perfect application for game mesh modeling, in my opinion. So, if I were you, I'd save the money, or spend a little on UVMapper Pro, and maybe some hardware, if your computer's a little slow, but I wouldn't shell out a lot for software until you're very comfortable with the basics.

[Snipawolf]

Yeah, there is NO point in swamping yourself under hundreds of pages of tutorials and manuals when you've barely got wings3d. You'll probably want to learn about normal maps and displacements and the other things that go into more advanced engines at your own pace while still working with Spring.

I have to say that Spring is a nice choice for a beginning modder because of it's ease and simplicity.

[KDR_11k]

Well Spring doesn't require you to have anything special at all so I'd say even a 10 years old software should have all the features you need.

No, it lacks the gun to blow your brains out due to the frustration caused by the user interface.

[Gishank]

In my personal opinion, i'd choose Max, over anything else, mainly, even though pricy, it's fast, unlikely to crash, has a good viewport (XD), and imports / exports most formats (with the ability to obtain a variety of addon format exports/imports)

[Pressure Line]

In my personal opinion, i'd choose Max, over anything else, mainly, even though pricy, it's fast, unlikely to crash, has a good viewport (XD), and imports / exports most formats (with the ability to obtain a variety of addon format exports/imports)

if you are going to buy max you may as well buy models off turbosquid or wherever

[KDR_11k]

So Maya has fallen out of favour again / got abolished or why does everyone talk about Max instead?

[FLOZi]

Spring supports quad rendering for S3O, and potentially it's faster, IIRC.

No.

[Argh]

Er, last time I checked the code, if a model is all quads, it's handled as quads... no matter what the format. I don't think S3O forces it to triangles until you export. Dunno, maybe I'm wrong about that one, I just remember reading that bit of code one day and going, "huh, too bad I can't take advantage of that". Anyways, Lightwave is a valid choice for various reasons.

Lastly, Maya would not be my choice for people wanting to do low-poly work, imo. It's super-powerful, but I think it's massive overkill for doing mesh animations with lower polycounts. It's really geared more towards the FMV people. But you certainly can use it for that purpose. If you can afford a copy