I was using blender, and I still sometimes do, but its edit mode is a nightmare on anything much higher than 68K tris ( not to mention, having NO sculpt brush that conforms to topology ) and its a known issue so avoiding blender for now at least, its a very good idea hate to say it.
When and if those issues ever get fixed in blender it would be worth it if you can get past the UI etc, till then I’ve been using Autodesk Meshmixer.
Its been a literal life saver for me . There is a edit mode that would prob. serve you adequately as it has me.
The docs are adequate if not complete,but their new doc section is very handy.
I highly suggest starting there, as its super easy to learn and you’ll never regret one second.
If you grow past meshmixer, and you can get by within the current maya lt tri restriction of 100k I think it is, you could do far far worse , for $30/mo and you could wait until you are ready, before taking the plunge to make sure your time is well spent.
Good luck and make sure you’re having fun and time will fly and you’ll prob be very happy with your results.
Unfortunately, due to circumstances, I still haven’t been able to give these tools a try yet. I have however activated the modo trial (it’s a 30 day trial now), and I’m gonna try and use it this coming week (even if it’s just an hour at night before bed) before it expires. Don’t make the same mistake as me though. I downloaded the tool and activated trial and had a day set aside to use it… only to realise there was about 5gb of more content to download. I’m not sure how essential these packs are, but I didn’t want to risk it and get a bad first impression. So I lost my test day.
What I did do however just now was to watch the first part of the modo introduction tutorial. If you are in the same situation as me, I highly recommend giving it a look. It’s 32 minutes long and can be found here: https://www.thefoundry.co.uk/tv/watch/series/77/54153065/
And I have to say, wow. Everything he says and does just makes so much sense. The UI is simple and logical and powerful. Keyboard shortcuts are used, but it’s the right type and amount of shortcuts. Even though I haven’t actually used the tool, I feel like I’m more proficient in this tool already than I was in Blender. Keeping in mind that it is of course easy to make things look quick and simple when you know exactly what you are doing, but still. The idea behind everything he did and said just seemed to make perfect sense to me.
In other words, unless I find working in this tool to be cumbersome for some reason, I’m pretty confident this is the tool I’ll be buying/leasing. I’m sure for what little I’ll be doing, I could probably manage in any of the free tools as well, but I don’t mind paying a little bit for good software (even if it might be a bit overkill for my purposes) if it makes it more enjoyable for me to work with during my precious spare time.
This update might seem a it premature, but I might not remember to update this thread and thought I should at least share that link with anyone else in a similar situation.
This is absolutely true. I learned to model and animate using Maya. I liked Maya but I like Blender’s price. I forced myself to learn Blender, with some minor changes to key commands, and now I love it.
Blender is as powerful as Maya. Unless you are actually looking to work in the industry, and not as an indie person, I highly recommend learning Blender. All the 3D programs are very similar, what you are actually learning is the UI and the viewport navigation.
You can work in industry with blender. If you have the skills to complete tasks assigned. Its not like aaa studios have blender restrictions.
New blender competes with most expensive softwares and excels at 3d modelling. Its not as easy with animations and vfx as some softwares but capable of delivering in the hands of someone with more experience.
When you search for an easier alternative for Blender, then there is Bforartists nowadays.
Bforartists is a fork of Blender. It has the same feature set and is also open source and free. But comes with a better and improved graphical UI, a new keymap with Left click select, hundrets of new native icons, icon buttons in the tool shelf to redcuce scrolling, a configurable toolbar with icon buttons, improved layouts, and much much more.