DAZ Studio Pro 4, Bryce Pro 7 and Hexagon 2.5 now for FREE

[MrTAToad]

Indeed - unfortunately video opens into a seperate window...

And only works in Windows...

[mentalthink]

Hexagon it´s a very powrfull modeller and texturing and Sculping don´t was too much expensive but it´s a powerfull tool, Some time ago I think in buy it...

About bryce it´s the best Envoirement modeler... I think can be export a normal map, and the whit a very low polygon terrain you can have a very definied terrain...

About Daz I don´t try, I think it´s like poser but whit a set of thounsand models you can buy appart...

Thanks Rudiesco about the info... it´s very and pretty useful.

[erico]

The actual rendering took days - mainly because I forgot to change to the camera when rendering and had to restart it, it crashing after moving the timeline (and having to restart)...

Days? It also seems you have some volumetric cloud going around, this can be time consuming if taken into calculation of heavy lights, image projection, o radyosity bla bla. To get that time smaller, you will need to do a lot of tests to figure out a way around things, brute force on renders can make even a picture take days of render time.

About crashing, if not on a too often ocasion (lide 3d max), you will end up figuring out what exactly crashes it and go around, like photoshop, word and all other programs.

As for what Crivens said on the fact 3d takes over the machine, that is true, rendering takes over everything, even windows.
Maya render can freeze the machine completely. Can´t even see internet while rendering.

One thing that can be done, it to assign a certain number of processors or threads to the render and keep one or two free, so you can keep on working. 4gb memory should be enough to work models and render for games on a simple level. As you dwell into the 3d further, you will learn shortcuts to use less memory and speed up render without compromising quality...but takes an everyday messing with it.

All work on HIT THE DECK was done on a dual core(2.5mhz) laptop with 1.5gb memory and a single core ancient PC with 2gb memory.

edit: understand that these specs are not enough to install max or maya though...lightwave didn´t see a problem and other 3d packages like blender either, don´t know much about these ones.

[MrTAToad]

No, it was originally due to the fact that I had anti-aliasing on (which trebled the time).  Then I found out that it was just rendering one scene continually and had to re-start...  And various other problems...

Once sorted the complete 1 minute animation took several hours

[Crivens]

I seem to recall Gernot saying that you could't run a video behind other imagery. Has this changed?

I don't really know how to do video directly on GLB. Personally I would just extract all images from a video (I'm only talking about a short effort) and use that. Much more control then.

Cheers

[MrTAToad]

One last one :

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezEhkI2ZUnw" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezEhkI2ZUnw</a>

Bryce 7 does tend to crash often (perhaps its not totally Windows 7 compatible), so you should save often

[erico]

That is really nice!

[MrTAToad]

Thanks!

[aonyn]

Hi All,

I can't speak for all 3, but hexagon is my regular modeler, and yes, I use it sometimes with GLBasic.
Works fine, and is a fast easy modeler.
I use it alongside several others, including Modo, Wings3D, AC3D, DeepMesh and others.
They all have good and bad points.

Additionally, I use Carrara, which is also from Daz, and the companion product for Hexagon (actually Hex is the companion for Carrara).
Between the two, and a few nice 3rd party Carrara Plugins, there is not much you can't do with them.

Bryce I have played with in the past, and while I personally would not choose it as a modeler, it would be nice for quickly making heightmap based terrains, and could probably also be used for rendering nice skybox or skydome textures.

That said, Carrara has similar capabilities in both areas, and I use Carrara, so have not loaded Bryce in a long time.

To the point, yes, at the very least, Bryce and Hex could be useful with GLBasic, and Hexagon I highly recommend - despite the fact it can be buggy - though I have found few if any 3D design apps which are bug free, especially considering the price point.

Regards,
Dave

[erico]

I love to discuss 3d apps...so forgive me

Lightwave is my thing, fast and furious and easy(about 10 years ahead of competition), but a bit expensive nowadays, a lot less then the others, and not free.

But the point, every package has something and every user has a goal.
The best package, is the one that the user can achieve what he wants.

So, there is no best package? the point is the user?
Yes, then again, the user can never do it all, he can do this or that really good, but not all.

We do have to team up.

I´m impressed by Tatoads output, I don´t know if he had any prior expose to 3d packages, but I take it that if he came out with those outputs between the time it came free to now...heck, it must be an easy one! (never as easy as lightwave though )

[mentalthink]

The very good tool of those three are Daz...

Well make an human male or female... it´s a very high time cost... for me about a week or five days... and well this guys in the screen are perfects... have another tool ... you have to pay... it´s decimate... this makes your guys to the low poly mode... and well you can animate and export to .fbx... I think Blender can import .FBX... (Animate in DAZ it´s a kid game), you have a very impressed 3D human model or another kind of organic meshs, walking, jumping, dancing only in a few cliks...

Ps: I try the .fbx in .max, and I don´t know what I do bad... but only export the animation in the pelvis bone... I read in some sites, and tolds don´t have too much complication... but well for me don´t works yet... If I succes this point I kae a little tutorial, I think make real humand into Glbasic for FPS of something similar can be awesome... now we don´t have excuse... 3 goods tools and Free!!!
 

[Moru]

I always liked POV-ray :-)

Runs on an 8 MHz Atari with 1 MB memory. Well it used to at least, not sure about todays versions

Ok, so the simplest scenes takes hours but at least you don't need any sort of artistic vein. It's all programming :-)

[mentalthink]

HI Moru I touch Pov-Ray only one time... Awesome... but it´s 100% impossible for me...

The quality of the render... aftre 10 years comes to the desktop common users... and well hours and hours... give thanks to Good about Cuda´s... it´s the best new technology I look from I satarted making 3D 15 years ago...

[okee]

I'm dabbling with Daz at the moment but it seems to be mostly geared towards figure rendering
What's the best 3D software to use for creating interior scenes for an adventure game ?
I need something where i can import a variety of models, render and then export as a png image
with quality something like Haunted Mansion

http://www.noeman.org/gsm/iphone-ipod-touch-games/119589-haunted-mansion-1-1-iphone-ipod-touch.html

[mentalthink]

Hi for Make this kind of graphics, you can use any suite of 3D , perhpas cinema, Blender, Lw, or Max,XSI those are the more greters and commons in the market... and use an render Engine capable whit Global Iluminations... another soft for painting Textures, like BodyPaint, or Zbrush or Coat3D, and well Optimizing the image files and the , models whit the minus number of polygon possibles... GLbasic I think can have this quality of render, in the images don´t shows avanced Shaders... perhaps in some devices like Palm Pre... we don´t have a bump map working... but on iPhone runs very well...

This kind of graphics not are too much complex... but you have to try and try again for make a convincent lighting...

Some powerfull render engines are. Final Render, Vray, or Mental ray, but a little slowly...