"RL" 3D Modelling

Hi there.

No doubt this topic has been discussed somewhere in the forums, but with over 300 matches, couldn’t seem to find the answer.

My question is this :

Are there any commercial software packages that work virtually the same as SL's building software???

In other words, if you were to approach a company claiming to be proficient in 3D modelling but only really had SL experience... could you state any other "known" development tools that you can use?

Hope this makes sense... simply, am wondering if a RL career change is possible from what can be learnt in SL.

I used to use Bryce for a long time before coming to SL. It is also based on "primitives", but the similarity stops there
You may want to give it a spin - http://bryce.daz3d.com/55index.php

I use an oldie but goodie called Organica - because it works with primitives almost exactly the same way as SL. However, assuming you can still even buy it, it hasnt been actively updated or anything in years (thats no bad thing - it's a great little app!) and if it's still the same price it was, it's pretty pricey in comparison with more fully featured 3d apps.

Looks like Organica's website has been down since 2002, but apparently it's still for sale here:
http://www.filmwareproducts.com/Impulse/Organica/
I tried to locate a copy of the demo but every site I came across on google was pointing to the original company's website...

I don't know what happened to Impulse. They used to sell products for mah buddy Alan Lorence, author of the incredible ParticleIllusion. They parted ways a while back, and he took ParticleIllusion in his own direction with his new company Wondertouch. They really didnt have a whole lot of inventory that wasnt Alans, but Organica was one of them, and they were all stale, in so much as there was no active development or support for them even then. So they prolly just packed it up.

Of the tools I have used or seen the one that feels like it would be most intuitive to an SL user is Caligari TrueSpace. The last version I used was a long time ago, but the interface does not look to have changed much.

You would probably get more mileage out of some experience with 3DS/XSI/Lightwave. All have fairly decent educational prices, if you happen to qualify for them.

The short answer is most likely "no".

Companies looking for 3D modelers tend to be either looking for surface modelers or solid modelers. The tools in SL remind me of solid modelers, but SL's toolset is a very long way from what solid modelers can do today. Consequently, SL winds up being more than a little unique imo.

You can find a listing of learning applications and free 3D software over on the Core forum here. There are a number of surface modelers available, but learning editions of solid modelers are a bit more sparse. There's a new one out there from Alibre which might be of interest. And on the surfacing side - from an employment perspective - the Alias StudioTools PLE and/or the Rhino demo are imo the best options for one industry (manufacturing) and one of the tools mentioned above (and I'd include the Maya PLE) are good for other industries (film/videogames).

3DOM is a decent one...

http://threedom.sourceforge.net/

prims, and stuff... pretty SL-ish

Or.........

sell both kidneys....

buy Maya....

ask yourself what a nurb is...

feel your brain melt...

Bah. Who needs Maya? Download Blender!

Personally, I use Blender and Anim8or to do the bulk of my 3D work. Most commercial programs handle "primitives" well enough. Most also let you do stuff similar to Second Life via "deformation lattices."

Honestly, if you're looking for a good place to start, download Anim8or and the manual right now. The tool is extremely user friendly, yet powerful enough that I still use it.

Both of these are completely free.



... oh, and offline building for SL is sort of a backburner project of mine. I'm still trying to collect the mental stamina to build it after working four months straight on my Game Dev entry.

Edit: PS, be careful around Caligari. Once you have their demo, they basically spam your inbox until the cows come home. Personally, I think their software would work well, but I can't recommend it against the free (and open-source!) alternatives.

Respectfully and strongly disagree. Blender is a great tool but for potential employment in the near-term, I'd not recommend it. Additionally, it makes a difference what kind of work someone wants to get into. For CAD, it's absolutely the wrong tool (and I'm not even sure what happened to the BlenderCAD development effort). For entertainment, it's really Max/Maya/XSi/LW.

The industry standards simply cannot be ignored. And with free learning additions, it doesn't make sense to ignore them.

Huh? Blender is definitely not a place for beginners to start, which is why I linked to Anim8or instead with that quote. Anim8or is a good place to get your feet wet learning the ropes of mesh mechanics and simple NURBs.

I strongly disagree on your note regarding standards unless you happen to like throwing money at the problem or advocate working as a low-end artist for a game farm like EA, a prospect that frightens me.

Nearly every program on this list covers the same bases, meaning the only difference is where they're placed on the interface and what plugins you need to download. In terms of raw experience, Blender is definitely the lowest barrier to entry for the highest reward, and if a company would shirk that experience, I wouldn't work for them, either.

Realistically, if that's the problem, jumping from Blender to any of the tools listed is very easy because, again, they tend to do the same things. The standards are there.

And, frankly, I would think a strong portfolio speaks far louder than "I've used this tool" on a resume.

Edit: I'd also like to add that it depends on what field you plan on going into, as stated. If you're dealing with real-world CAD and documenting/designing tools, Blender is definitely not the way to go. But, because you listed 3D Studio Max, SoftImage Xsi, Maya, and LightWave with the note, I'll assume you're thinking general computer graphics software here.

Given the use I get out of Blender versus the Maya PLE, I personally feel that using the former would be a better idea. But you're welcome to your opinion.

Guess I have a little more research to do.

I was kinda hoping that SL modelled their building on an offline 3d package...but guess not.

Would be good if they released a stand alone version that you can import objects into and demo to others..without having to be online..though I know that one has been discussed before... (I think..lol)

Thanks for feedback - has given me somewhere to start.

Huh? "throwing money"??? The PLE's are FREE downloads.



Given that the Maya PLE is equal to Maya Complete and a FREE download, and StudioTools PLE is equal to the professional equivalent used in many design offices and also a FREE download, the bang for the buck is not in Blender's favor here.



I think jumping to/from the other entertainment 3D apps is still a significant issue; easy perhaps for some, but not for many. And you're assuming Entertaintment (videogame/film) 3D. I didn't see an industry specified in the original post. There is a huge difference between the interfaces of these apps and 3D CAD applications. In fact, many Alias users never figure out Pro/E... and vice-versa.



To what kind of portfolio are you referring? Let's not mix apples and oranges.

There are 3D people who are neither artists nor designers and they require no portfolio in the artistic/design sense. I've interviewed these kinds of people. It's the technical proficiency with a particular tool that was the focus of my questions. So if we're talking 3D skills portfolios, then we're talking people who use the tool to interpret someone else's design and the company conducting the interview is likely looking for someone to use the software they have in-house. I've heard of perhaps one company besides the original developers that uses Blender as their primary in-house tool; and would venture those that do use it are small and rare (and perhaps located in places like Brazil).

Then there are those who are designers who also use 3D (I'd fall into that category). Many of my fellow designers don't even use 3D; they use Illustrator or some other 2D tool and then send the orthographics overseas for interpretation (quite often poorly done - I've had clients do this with horrendous results). Furthermore a check of the job listings on Core will show that companies often ask for highend tool experience (often unrealistically asking for both CAD and a surface app, like Pro/E + Alias) in addition to a strong designer portfolio, or they ask only for PS and Illustrator experience because they intend to outsource the 3D work.



I listed both:

"For CAD, it's absolutely the wrong tool (and I'm not even sure what happened to the BlenderCAD development effort). For entertainment, it's really Max/Maya/XSi/LW."

I realize you're partial to Blender (and I'm a big fan of the app), but I think you might want to take a look at what the market is asking for before you recommend it as a tool to learn in this case. Furthermore, anyone going into 3D needs to be aware that the market is quickly becoming saturated with technically-capable "jockeys". Anyone looking to break into this field might want to read a couple of threads over on Core:

http://boards.core77.com/viewtopic.php?p=37314&highlight=#37314
http://boards.core77.com/viewtopic.php?t=582

There are ways to get into this field, but it's increasingly difficult if you're in the U.S. and trying to compete with those in India and China.

I'm still not seeing the relevancy of this argument, nor am I interested in turning this into a contest for which of us has the biggest... you get the idea. So I'm going to try to make this as concise as possible.

First, PLEs are exactly that - Personal Learning Editions. I personally own and use a copy of the Maya PLE, so I feel I can speak to this issue. Most of the features are, indeed, there (modelling tools especially), but many of the backend features, including access to certain imports, exports, and plugins, are not.

During my time with the Maya PLE, I became quickly frustrated because it would not "talk" to any of my other tools. Furthermore, these editions are free, but not in the sense of freedom. You're not allowed to publish or sell anything created with these editions, and most place watermarks on the final render or use other such "branding" tactics.

The original post strikes me as one from a hobbyist wishing to toy with what the industry has to offer. Telling such a person to work with tools that are ultimately hundreds or thousands of dollars in overhead isn't realistic. Industry professionals might agree, but hobbyists (as I am myself) will not.

The argument that does hold water here is that companies are more amiable to people that use the tools "in house." This is somewhat analogous to choosing Adobe Photoshop over the GIMP, even though both do almost exactly the same thing.

The problem with such an argument is this again keeps the sort of corporate "tunnel vision" at heart and does not address what may be better in the long term. If you're pursuing a lower-level career in the field, by all means run with what's popular.

Engineering tools like Autocad are completely different animals. From a hobbyist perspective, these are worthy of nothing more than a footnote until the basics of 3D design are understood.

As for being partial to Blender, I certainly am, and with good reason. What is there works, is free in the sense of freedom, cross platform and accessible (it runs on my Xbox, for crying out loud!), and is a good learning environment for more advanced concepts of 3D design. In creating an artistic portfolio (renderings that convey a sense of skill), getting work out there, and adapting to a tool that's very accessible for small business and hobbyists, Blender is clearly a good solution, which is why I suggested it in the first place.

Anything else falls on the back of personal opinion, which really isn't worth debating here.

I interpret the initial post differently - "Hope this makes sense... simply, am wondering if a RL career change is possible from what can be learnt in SL" - this imo is more serious than toying around.

If the intention is in actually making a career change (a big deal imo), then realistically I assume we're talking about either gaining employment inside a company using established tools or consulting for them. I do not in this case take career change to mean starting a business selling 3D models (see the links to the threads in my previous post) or toying with the tools in a hobbyist sense. And the ability to move the data out to other applications is not a big deal compared to learning an app. Not once did I ever ask a potential employee if they knew how to export a model. It's a minor concern in this regard.

As to watermarks, companies who are serious about hiring talented 3D modelers simply don't care. That question has come up on CGTalk at least twice that I can recall, and the overwhelming response from the Hollywood pros was essentially "We don't care about it so long as you can use the app".

If Casanova is thinking about starting a business and selling content, then I'd agree that Blender and some other free applications (like Wings3D) are worthwhile considerations. If not, then as much as I like Blender (and I've stopped maintenance on Maya bc I do believe Blender will meet my needs in a few years) I have to call it like I see it.

OK, as long as we are on the subject, how do you guys feel about 3D modeling/animation as a career in general? What advice would you give enthusiastic SLers that are thinking of making a career of Maya, 3d Studio Max, etc? Are there good job opportunities and a good salary? Or is it the type of profession where you tend to get used and abused?

I can't speak from personal experience in that area, but I do keep up on that segment for personal and professional reasons.

From my reading it appears that there is a big push in Asia to train 3D technicians and some big name studios (e.g. Pixar, Disney, etc) are either expanding or opening offices over there iirc. I also recall some recent news about game developers moving over to South Korea (considering the market over there, it's no wonder). It certainly mirrors the Industrial Design community in this regard, in that many Western companies now team with, for example, CAD bureaus in India or with OEM/ODM's in China (who have large staffs of CAD people). Consequently entry-level jobs in the U.S. are harder to come by (and the number of graduates in the U.S. has ballooned recently as well, compounding the issue). And the unfortunate news about EA's California facility indicates there's enough abuse to go round.

But within ID there's plenty of jobs in the West for senior designers and design managers, since these people typically manage the lower-level resources - now in the East. Additionally, there are now jobs opening up in the East for Western design management types. The problem appears to be that while it's an expensive option to hire a Westerner, companies in Asia are still selling to a Western market and if they are going the ODM route, more and more they need to hire a Western designer. As products are effectively bottomed out from the price/feature point, about the only differentiator left is design (see this graph).

If I assume that the above is true for the entertainment industry (and that's probably a decent assumption), then the real path for most people to success imo isn't technical proficiency - it's artistic talent (Note: given someone like Jeffrey's technical abilities I'd not limit people like them to this; there are always exceptions). This makes sense imo. A few years ago I could charge 4x's what I can charge now for complex CAD creation. The growth in overseas competition has forced my fees down. And better UI and lower software cost has fueled the growth in competition. But fees for creating original designs continue to rise. Any technician can copy an existing design. Not anyone can create a compelling new design. I'd suggest you read this article. It's about Industrial Design, but I think it applies to other areas like Entertainment.

Consequently, I think Westerners entering now in either area - manufacturing or entertainment - should focus less on technical skills and more on artistic/design skills (they should still have them of course; I'm talking about prioritizing one's skillsets). I won't get into the "do I need to draw" thing here as you'll find plenty of discussion about that on other forums (both Core and CGTalk have threads that get into it). I'll be the one arguing that drawing is/can be a mental exercise as well as illustrating.

Wow Csven, thank you very much for that!

Good posts, Csven. I think we agree now.

On the nature of a career change versus hobby, you're probably right. I actually read the first half of the post and completely missed the comment relating to RL work. On this I feel the need to apologize.

------

On the nature of jobs in the field, this brings up a major tangent that I feel is relevant, seeing as it's something that's been years upon years in the making.

I agree with the note regarding growing competition, particularly overseas. This actually applies to most technical fields that are saturated or can be outsourced, especially marketing, IT, and lower-level coding and art tasks (hence the diatribe on my part).

Staying on topic, I personally feel the 3D field will be dominated by smaller businesses in the long term, much as is happening in Second Life. We're seeing a notable shift in the industry, first from the smaller houses that pioneered the field in the first place, then to the giant megacorps like EA and Hollywood industry. As I see it, with more and more jobs moving overseas, selling content and experience (design, if you like) will be far more lucrative than funneling something through a given program in a technical sense.

Hell, the folks behind Daz Studio are doing that already:
http://www.daz3d.com/studio/


The problem right now in the industry is precisely what I've brought up and Csven mentioned in his last posting. Too many of these companies are focused on whether the employee can use their specific tool, and if so, for how many years. This is due largely to approportioned budgets, licensing, and wanting to cut training costs while maximizing profits or market share. The problem there is it also breeds what I called "corporate tunnel vision" earlier.

Now, this environment is just great for employers, especially ones that use Maya. Because Maya has become so institutionalized (all of my friends in college are forced to learn it), it creates a climate where the employers literally have the pick of the litter when they go to hire. But, for the potential employee, it means you're having to compete with thousands of other people for what is probably a lower-paying job.


Which is why I come off as such a Blender zealot, and again, must apologize. The reason I choose lesser-known software is fairly simple - it makes you a larger fish in a smaller pond. By filling a niche instead of going after what's popular, it means more digging for a job, but as a result the position will likely be far more lucrative.

And this niche behavior is something that I see on the rise, both on the internet and in Second Life itself! If we're going to create a metaverse here (that need not be Second Life), suddenly there's going to be a monumental demand for 3D content like avatars and just general stuff. And, because the standards are basically the same, that market will really not care what program it came from. A mesh by any other name is really just a mesh.


At any rate, we stand poised on a major leap in our history, ready to jump off in the next five or ten years (roughly the time it takes to fully learn the field, IMO). The way you grasp that is really up to you. If one is mindful of the current job climate, then Csven's earlier advice is really the way to go. But five or ten years down the line, I know what tools I'll probably be using.

PS. I don't plan to make tech proficiency into my career. That's just for the hell of it.

I suspected either you didn't fully read his post, or you don't give yourself enough credit - most people do not jump between apps easily. Or both.



Chris, the person who posted the entry to which I linked that has the graph, was an Experience Designer with Motorola (and I see they're hiring more). It's a relatively new term within ID, but very much relates to issues of consumer satisfaction and user-interface. In a broader sense, it signals a growing acknowledgement that there is more to a product than (a classic example) how many buttons you stick on the blender.



True, but if you caught some of the threads on CGTalk discussing the vendor announcements out of Siggraph, it's apparent that 3D apps are becoming increasingly similar. There were plenty of comments on SoftImage's move toward some UI features associated with Maya, for example. And within CAD, Pro/E and SolidWorks continue to look more and more alike (I'm unsure about Catia and UGS and the rest, but suspect some similarity is surfacing in those as well). In the end it means this comment -



- is going to hold regardless, in all likelihood. But who cares? Paint brushes and oil paints in convenient tubes and pre-stretched canvas for the masses isn't yielding any more painters; if everyone in Europe had been given the tools, I'm not sure we'd have gotten any more Goya's or Picasso's. In one of those threads on Core there's a comment:



Doesn't matter how well someone can push poly's... if they can't figure out which shapes are "nice" or attractive to buyers, all the technical skill in the world won't make it better. Same is true of 2D graphics. Good design is good design.



Agreed. And one of the reasons I've been so interested in the Long Tail.



haha. It won't matter which tools we use I don't believe. These 3D tools will start looking like paintbrushes. Hence my comment that people might consider the artistic side. The 3d market is already crowded. At this point and in the future it'll be the people who can sculpt in 3D that will stand out.

ALL that said, I should add that just because SL's tools are relatively simple, doesn't mean the ideas are simple. And because there are limitations, doing something well is just that much more extraordinary. If someone wants to tackle a near-term career change, by all means go for it. If there's hesitancy, then grab Blender and get ready for some of the other markets to arrive - like those starting to show up within the videogame industry where developers have started buying content (3D models and the like).

Glad that was of some help.

Once again - thanx for all the replies....

I suppose the nitty gritty of what i was originally asking, is that if I have learnt (am learning..lol) how to build here in SL to a good standard... Could I use that as "experience" or would i just get a blank "WTF is SL?" look??

And do you think its possible to get hired without having any other software experience?

Thanks Csven. Excellent, excellent replies.


In my opinion, Second Life should (ultimately) be a place where those standards can go on to be used elsewhere.

But for now, I tried talking about Second Life to a few professionals, and you guessed it: "What's Second Life?"

The world might just not be ready. Yet.

I don't like answering that question because I don't like the answer I have to give. Let me say this: the Second Life toolset will almost certainly improve. And virtual world product development is on the horizon (ref: UGS PLM). Anything is "possible". But right now it's unlikely because it's all too bleeding edge for most RW companies. I'd suggest your best bet is to look in the Employment forum right here - there are some companies using LL's technology on private islands and they sometimes look for people familiar with SL's toolset.

Long term however... if you're serious... I'd suggest besides developing your design skills, start to become familiar with different 3D concepts. Hang out on CGTalk (imo the best 3D forum on the net); osmosis is a wonderful thing. Grab Blender and Alibre's new freebie and if nothing else develop an understanding of this medium. That way, when/if the time comes, you can make an informed decision on a career change.

How about trying to be a big fish in a big pond?



This isn't true. Show me a job that requires Blender (frankly I'd be amazed), and I'll show you 10 jobs that pay the same price for Maya skills. If your a superstar modelling with Blender, you'll get paid like a superstar and if your a superstar modeller in Maya, you'll get paid like a superstar. However there are far more Maya oppurtunities out there and many businesses are unwilling to pay for your learning curve (unless it's an entry level position).

The only reason to use Blender is because it's free. Blender is Gimp, Maya is Photoshop. If your really serious about a career in 3D modeller, learn Maya. You'll come off looking like a professional, have far more job oppurtunities and can still use your transferrable 3D modelling skills to backtrack to Blender should an oppurtunity arise.

If you aspire to be an average modeller, then yes, you might find yourself being a dime a dozen CG artist, in the same way as if you aspire to be an average coder, average entertainer, or average circus clown. But if you are passionate and want to continually learn to become a better artists, don't be afraid of outsourcing or the other employment competition out there.