3d modeling software quality

Community Community & Industry Discussion
21

Well I’m not trying to stir up an argument as to the inclusion of Blender but rather to point out there is more involved as to choices as to inclusion as part of a much bigger asset and content pipeline.

Blender is well suited for small teams, or a team of one, to knock off the first game and then reinvest the profits into more advanced productivity tools.

To give you a different perspective I’m the asset and content manager of a fair size development team, large enough where we need an A&C manager, where what goes into the front end of the pipeline has to conform to the specifications and requirements to maintain the continuity of the asset inhand using 3ds Max as the cornerstone app where if continuity can be maintained there are no surprises on the back end when exporting the asset to Unreal 4.

With out going into details I’m the guy on the team that takes the time and puts the effort into testing applications like Blender and as tested it’s export abilities are lacking to the point that it simply does not play nice with preferred applications like 3ds Max.

Our decision to exclude the use of Blender was not based on assumption but on weeks of regressive testing in parallel with our current pipeline design and due to flaws added at the content level ultimately excluded Blender as to inclusion as a preferred application list due to the required post processing of simple mesh detail necessary to complete a fit to finish result.

Now it goes with out saying that Blender could be a valuable and productive application if they resolved the problems with the FBX exporter, and is the number one reason Epic “invested” ten thousand bucks in FBX export feature improvements, but in it’s current state Blender refuses to scale up as to the demands of DCC connectivity with in a much more complex pipeline design.

P.S.

Overall though there are low cost or even free alternatives if one takes the time to look for the duck, as in if it looks like walks like and quacks like a duck it’s a duck, there are a lot more suitable options that would scale as demands increase .

For example

With a Platinum account your wholesale price will be $105

With a Platinum account your wholesale price will be $14 but Daz3D has been know to toss this simple to use tool up for a freebie from time to time.

So the better solution is to be the guy on the team who window shops for the solution rather than settling for something because it’s free. :wink:

Will I reviset Blender in the future? Of course when the rumor is they have sorted out their FBX export/import issues and can scale from small to much larger projects and pipeline requirements. :smiley:

22

Trust me, I"m no ‘fan’ of blender per se, at least not until they fix edit mode, and preferrably also, unil they bring back ( not sure they can, no idea really) the sculpt brush that used to ( as I"m told by blender heads) conform to topology of mesh.

I’m a indie dev , a party of mostly one, but with a friend helping me out as he has time ,mostly atm to make a logo for our Organization.

My main tool atm, is meshmixer.

I"ve used blender off and on, but mostly off for all reasons stated, not without a nod from me about the importance of app leveling features of open source/free software )

I wouldn’t likely hesitate one nanosecond should I ever have funds for full maya/max because I do want the best tool for success. Bottom line for almost all of us, those at least committed and determined to make amazing things for whatever market they are in want those same options too. My heart is with oss not because I’m a dedicated enthusiast really , but because we all win when we all have the same tools awesome as they are, because then amazing things happen. The world isn’t there yet, but I firmly believe its coming and it should be spectacular :wink:

Cryengine is kinda there ( ue4 and others , right/near alongside in various degrees; we succeed and they do principles ) and I wish them wondrous success, and if the rest of the tool landscape were to get onboard something like that imagine what could happen. Autodesk admittedly is arleady doing something similar, and as noted, their incredible gift of meshmixer has enabled me to do things I"m very proud of, but it won’t take me all the way ( but what a journey, and a immnesively ‘appreciated’ one at that) .

I had no idea blender fbx was at that state, so ya I"m in lock step with your teams decision, couldn’t be more logical. I’m a blender fan to a extent, but in its current state, I"m not going to recommend it, and I don’t care who knows it.

GL sounds interesting keep us updated.

p.s.: forgot to mention I do have daz, I got in the door when that was free, but I’m not sure right off what V it is, I shall check. My needs are more specific atm, and daz would not be able to carrry them out unless it had what meshmixer has ( and alot more) .

24

To clarify: Blender’s sculpt brush does conform to the mesh and effects the mesh vertices as expected, same as meshmixer, it is only the representation of the sculpt brush which is different ;
Blender uses a 2d circle where-as meshmixer uses a sphere to represent the brush, in both applications the center of the represented brush is the center and the point of contact, regardless of the angle of the surface.

25

Sure.

The reason it would be nice to place Blender on the preferred list is because it’s free and another option to save some money. If not for a few unsolvable issues it would just be another app that fulfills the must be able to export to 3ds Max with out decay in detail.

More as a part two to the first question we make use of a number of different applications across a stable FBX network.

Daz Studio
Z-Brush
MotionBuilder
3ds Max
Unreal 4

To go into full detail would require writing a book but in context we are licensed to use Daz Studio and Daz3d originals as part of our player model development so we currently harvest assets from D/S to 3ds Max, which fixes the skin weight problem, and from there the base is exported to Unreal 4.

From Daz Studio our character artists can use the goZ bridge to “send to” Zbrush where the base Genesis 3 model is edited to preference as well as any custom clothing is made to fit the character model edits and sent back as a package to D/S and use morph loaders to inject the character edits as well conform the clothing. Over time the total number of assets compound and what fits on one player model can be formed to fit a different character model with little effort.

From 3ds Max the component model being assembled in 3ds Max can be set over to MotionBuilder for authoring the required animations including lip sync as the G3 is already rigged as to the necessary joints or can also included any morph targets as part of the D/S tool set.

Since Unreal 4 also supports FBX export this creates a DCC pipeline where one app can talk to another with little or no decay in asset resolution with the result of increasing tool availability as a sum total of all application available to the pipeline.

The key as to how all this can even work in the first place is due 100% in the fact that the FBX specification of the listed application function as expected in the first place and does not introduce their own problems as part of the export/import process.

Well I’m not sure if Blender has solved their import/export problems but has always been a problem with and using Blender and it’s inability to maintain DCC out of Blender into a different editing platform. Before getting into some details the reason I expect as to the reason Blender has fewer problems is because Epic has made sure that there was “fewer” problems.

As to fitting in with our pipeline as described some of the problems we have run into are.

Flipped face normal. Uncommon faces would be flipped that only shows up after the object has been xformed reset so if you forget to do this will result in black back facing in Unreal 4.

Dead or broken smoothing groups. 3Ds Max uses per surface smoothing, and as far as I know is the only 3d app that does this, and can be fussy to the point that if broken will not accept any kind of smoothing attempt and just easier to rebuild the object.

Missing faces. No idea why this happens but is not uncommon for imported faces to disappear.

The number one issue I’ve found and mentioned is pipeline scaling and the above book is an explanation as to how the pipeline will scale up as the ability speed to push out content increases as all things work in harmony with one another. A hitch in the pathway adds time to find and fix it when it should not be occurring in the first place. :wink:

.
Hint:

Maybe Epic should do a twitch cast with a bit of an explanation as to how they use their DCC pipeline.

26

REgardless , without visual feedback, liike meshmixer, scullptris and even zbrush has, its not the same, and counter intuitive, hence my comment :wink:

I don’t like not having the visual feedback, I feel like I"m sculpting blind, and it never turns out as well.

I know I read it on BA forum, that ‘conform to topology’ was removed for some reason and not sure when it was going to be put back in, so do you have info regarding when it was put back in, and how to ‘turn’ that feature on? I prefer it, even if you don’t.

Visual feedback is very important, as meshmixer proves nicely , or why would they offer their tools as such ? There must be a reason for it no ?

The main point of my comments , is the terrible edit performance, for which atm there is no remedy, short of them re-writing the GL code to current, according to BA forum.

sculpting - Is there any "Show Brush On Surface" option in sculpt mode? - Blender Stack Exchange , admittedly thats’ 2015, but has it been added back in for those of us who want it, and as that thread indicates,I"m not the only one :wink:

27

Meshmixer only provides visual feedback of brush diameter, not falloff or profile, both applications would benefit from a “fully 3d” brush profile.

I have had a play with meshmixer, with a view to using it in conjunction with and replacing aspects of blender but unfortunately was unable to find any advantage.

I am hoping this is because I am inexperienced and lack intuition, please help me discover the wonders of meshmixer. How exactly do you use it to replace blenders shortfalls?