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I never gave up once on learning that UI
...I gave up at least half a dozen times until I don't know what; it just clicked.
...well I've done so at least ias many (if not more) times and I still feel I'm looking at a rock wall.
I wonder if you could set up a partition for an older version of Windows XP to run Hexagon. I assume you've attempted to use compatibility modes for improved performance. It's pretty clear that you and Blender simply aren't a match, so explore the possibilities to get what you know to work better for you.
My first modeling was with the program Cararra came from, Ray Dream Designer (well that, POV, Poser and Bryce.) I never used Cararra, but I really liked Ray Dream Designer. At that time I tried working with Blender but, well if anyone thinks it's confusing now... ;)
There used to be a couple other programs like Caligari Truespace kicking around back then but they died out. When Maya first came out there was a PLE (personal learning edition) available for free, complete with tutorials. I wish Autodesk still had that for Maya/3DS Max, etc... as I'd like to keep my hand in playing with the updated versions.
Here's the link to the 11 Awesome Blender Addons video. The first page with the broken video link does have the download links for the add-ons.
One way to make modeling easier is to let go of some of the 'rules' we learned, relax, and enjoy the process.
I have been watching some tutorials recently by an artist who taught himself and does some nice work, but... A lot of what he does would have been considered a sin not too long ago. He uses booleans constantly, uses ngons, leaves poly on back sides that aren't going to show, etc... And yet, his finished images look good. The reason he can get away with this is for multiple reasons. Most modern render engines can handle ngons now, an extra few polys are not near as much of an issue as they used to be, often textures are a bigger issue now, and booleans behave much better then they used to. There are still issues with some of these, and I wouldn't recommend these in models planned for selling, but in creating a picture, whatever technique accomplishes the goal is fine. Some of us get hung up on trying to do everything 'correctly' when taking shortcuts would get us to our goal much faster and with less stress sometimes. My point is, don't be afraid to play around, test out things that some might say "never do this..." It's important to have fun in life and, things change.
I remember Ray Dream Designer. Had no idea what to do with it. In 2010, right before I started learning Blender in earnest, I "borrowed" a copy of Maya. I followed the tutorials in the PDF that came with it. I rather liked it, but my conscience got the better of me. I saw Big Buck Bunny, which was made in Blender 2.46 and decided that it was more than good enough to learn. This was around the time that Sintel was being worked on and Blender's new interface was being designed. Softimage/XSI Mod Tool version 6 is still available for free, but I never got into it.
It really helps that retopo has gotten more and more automated too. There's been a big switch to the dynamic topology+retopoologize workflow the past few years, and even though I tend to be the fussy and exacting sort, een I find it kind of freeing for some stuff (rocks mostly, sculpting rock formations is kind of zen)
Oh and this is totally my favorite tutorial of all time
Ray Dream Studio, late 90s... made this big elaborate Martian living city (it didn't LOOK living, long story)
http://willbear.deviantart.com/art/City-abstract-51460767
Takes me back...
kyoto kid wings3D is free n simple to use
http://www.wings3d.com/
j cade Ya I'm a fan of sculpting n remeshing .fastest way to get good looking box models :)
Rorr: Have you used Carrara modeling? How would you compare it to Wings3d?
I have never really modeled any thing serious in either Carrara or Wings3d.
So I'm really not the one to ask but as far as I could tell Wings3d has all the box modeling tools any one would ever need for box modeleing.
Carrara didn't really seem to be geared for box modeling .thou I might have missed some stuff and newer tools might have been added since last I looked.
I have a lot of experience modeling in TrueSpace,Lightwave,XSI,C4D.
http://bloodstonemage.deviantart.com/art/RorrKonn-s-Chrome-Warrior-519843710
I don't know about Cararra but Ray Dream did do box modeling, along with a lathe type model method so I'd be pretty surprised if Cararra didn't (do box modeling.)
I love the demos of the automated retopo in zBrush. Haven't tried it out so I wonder if it works as well as the demos.
Sculpt and remesh is actually an alternative to box modeling.
guess I could have explain that better.about all I model is characters ,so I never use tools like the lathe tools .
zBrush remesher is killer but I think of it as the old polygon reductions tools that triangled every thing but remesher uses quads.
for characters you do have guild lines and you can break a mesh in to peaceses n boolean it back together in C4D.
but you lose some control of your meshes topology .it's fine for game meshes but I wouldn't recommend it for characters like V7.
ZRemesher is the bomb. It's come a long way over the years!
I haven't done it, but I'd be surprised if you can't do it in Carrara. Heck, you can start with lathe/extruded/metaball figures and skip several steps.
I had a thought .DAZ owns Carrara but Vicky's made in Modo ,so.
..Hexagon was just as unstable in XP as it is in Win 7.
..tried it, didn't like all the lack of contrast in the menus and couldn't figure out how to fix that. It also seemed that every other day there was a new update or bug fix issued to the point I felt I was spending more time uninstalling, downloading, and reinstalling than I was modelling.
If Hexagon were #1; stable, #2; 64 bit (which might cure some of the instability), and #3; had better UV mapping tools, I'd be happy as a clam and probably be uploading freebies on ShareCG. Hex's UI just seems so much more "natural" to me than the other alternatives mentioned (and yes it too has hotkey shortcuts but doesn't require one to know them "out of the box" like Blender does). It's a shame Daz is just letting it wither on the vine while they turn around and support, or become resellers for, other competitive software products.
.
....hmmm somewhere I have the last release version of TrueSpace (before Microsoft got their hands on it) on a DVD. Need to go looking though the desk drawers tomorrow..
I've tried to follow this thread but I may have lost the point. My main interest in a program like Blender is to do stuff that I can't do in DAZ Studio. So, for example, I export, sculpt and then save it for import back into DAZ Studio. You can probably tell from my mini workflow that I'm restricted to tweaking a few morphs or fixing clothing poke through.
But I get the impression that most serious Bender people would sneer at DAZ Studio and do everything in Blender itself. So I wonder why this particular discussion is going on here. I don't see much talk about what you do with your models once you have learned the interface and the modelling techniques. I don't even touch the modelling tools - I just use the Sculpt menu. Someone pointed to a tutorial about making towels. I'd love to be able to make somethihg simple, like a blanket the conforms to a person on a bed or a couch. I'd like to be able to make that in Blender and use it in DAZ Studio but most of the tutorials I've seen about Blender only describe how to do it all in Blender, right through to the final render. Yet, I am aware that importing an object from Blender is only the first step in getting that object to be what you want it to be in DAZ Studio. Then there is another learning curve for rigging and weight mapping, etc., etc.
In short, Blender doesn't seem to be for the occasional user in the way that Hexagon is for some people (not for me because it crashes on my Mac within a few minutes). So when you ask, who says Blender is hard? Well, I do for one.
I used Blender the other day to change the Victorian shoppes scene. So I exported the prop from Daz. In Blender I added a pitched roof and chimneys. I then Remapped it- so that I could use my own UV maps. I then reimported it into Daz. I also used the smoke simulator to render smoke for my chimneys which I then added in photoshop to the final scene. It's a vital cog in my work flow.
kyoto kid just cause there's a update don't mean you half to get it.
truespace 4,5 was not the most stable app.I had moved on to LW buy the time of TS6,7 .
I think 7 was the last version.if ya can't find ya disc TS is on the web for free.
but I don't know how stable it will be
marble every thing you see in the store including Vicky was made in 3rd party CGI Apps.
Max,Maya,LW,Modo,C4D,zBrush,Blender,Carrara,Modo,3Dwings,3Dcoat, etc etc
There would be no IRADIUM or Poser with out them.So they have every thing to do with IRADIUM.
You or kyoto kid may be the next Artist premiered in DAZ's news letter with killer V7 out fits .
but all app's are the same first you learn C4D or Modo or Blender etc etc Modeling ,Mapping.
Then you learn to texture in 2D app like Photoshop or Gimp or Mangna Studio or 3D app's like Maxon or zBrush etc etc.
Then you learn zBrush or MudBox or 3DCoat or Blender sculpting and normal maps ,vector maps etc etc.
and then you learn IRADIUM.
Easy ;)
Being able to quickly model little items for a scene is a great skill to learn (and saves you a lot of money on props) but I think most (?) people start by just changing the things they already have to fit their purpose. "Kit-bashing" is a gateway drug to modeling.
Here's another example to add to bradrg's, from a scene I am working on now. I am using Carrara, so I don't have to do any importing/exporting since it uses most DAZ and Poser conent natively, and can just use the modeling tools right in my scene but you could also do this sort of thing by exporting to Blender or any other modeling program, making the changes and sending it back to studio. I am using one of the West Park sets that we've all seen in a million renders (because they are awesome
) but I wanted it to be even more broken down than it was, so I used Carrara's vertex modeling tools to remove one of the doors and lay it on the floor, tilt another so it looks like it is half off it's hinges and to "break" one of the ceiling lights so that it is hanging down from one side like it might fall at any moment. You can't really tell in this screenshot but I warped the floor a little so I can add some standing water across just part of it too. It took me about five minutes to do all four and will add a ton to the atmosphere of the final image.
Yes, there are some Blender users who would sneer at DAZ Studio, but why would that prevent more reasonable people from using Blender as part of their work flow including DAZ Studio and many other programs? I have utmost respect for artists who can create everything from scratch, but there is no denying that purchasing well made assets from DAZ3D can save artists huge amounts of time, which might be a bigger priority for many of us. Perhaps I'm just getting too old to give a rats @$$ what fangirls/boys in any particular community might think...
In the last week or so, I've finally nailed down creating character morphs in Blender. While I do use the sculpting mode a lot, my knowledge of mesh editing tools is very important. I've noticed that mesh symmetry can and does get altered even with X axis mirroring. Being able to enter mesh edit mode and select the ring of center vertices of the figure (Alt-right click) allows me to center these vertices perfectly on the X axis. I can also use proportional editing with topology mirror. Mesh editing isn't just about adding polygons. And then there's knowing how to turn on wireframe visibility when using matcaps. And there's also knowing how to add a subdivision surface modifier to view the base mesh for topology issues without altering the mesh. And so on. Start with what you know and build on that.
It seems a 3 button mouse is vital for blender and includes a wheel also, I only have a 2 button with wheel mouse, so I changed the setting to emulate 3 button mouse but I still can't pan around the scene and if I press the scroll wheel it goes to main screen of laptop so I can switch windows of open programs. Is there no way of panning around without the 3 button mouse?