What's the best tool for creating sculpted prims?

now that's a visual which made me laugh out loud

I prefer Wings as my free toilet plunger - but I am working on an idea for Carrara off and on, unsure if its going to work yet, we'll see.

I beg to differ. Do you own an American car? Guess what program your dashboard was made in. Depending on the age of the car, it was either done in Maya or in its predecessor, Alias. Maya is actually capable of extremely precise measurements, and is used for lots of engineering purposes. The European Space Agency actually uses it for developing Mars rovers. Granted, engineering is not its forte compared to some of the other things it does, but that doesn't mean it does it badly. I'd hardly define it as "hopeless". If any part of the pipeline fits that description, it's the attitude of the user, not the software itself in any way, shape, or form.

As for organics, uh, seen Lord of the Rings? Guess what program all the creatures, including Gollum, were modeled in. That's right, Maya. Here's an excerpt from an interview with Joe Latteri, the visual effects supervisor from the movie:

"WETA's creature pipeline is set up so that we can model, rig, and animate in Maya... Gollum's facial system is an amazing blend of the physical with the artistic. All of the shapes that gollum makes are completely based on the muscles of the human face and how they influence not only the surface of the skin but also each other. Each of those shapes is completely sculpted by hand...."

Now, I'll grant you that the paradigm is changing, or arguably has changed already, since the time those LOTR films were done, and now there are some different standards in place for what constitutes a "good" process for creating organics, but still, that doesn't mean Maya does it badly.

In fact, my understanding is that nearly everything in Star Wars III was done in Maya (and say what you want about whether or not you liked Episode III, but you can't deny that it's visually pretty fantastic), although I don't know a lot of details on what pre-existing character models, if any, may have been imported from elsewhere. ILM changed their pipeline to make Maya their primary platform between Episodes II and III. Before that, Maya was just another tool in their arsenal, and most of their stuff was done on proprietary software. Now, my understanding is that Maya is what they do most of their work in (although they're still using proprietary plugins).

Anyway, since the question here was about sculpties, I think we're drifting way off topic. For example, is there really much point in talking about programs like Modo, that can't even make sculpties (yet)? I've never used Modo myself, but it looks to be a great program; it's just not relevant here, at least as far as I can tell.

Once again, I'll stand by what I said earlier with regard to the OP's question about making sculpties. The necessary basics of Maya can be learned in a matter of hours, a completely reliable scuplt map exporter is in place for it (which LL will continue to develop and support), and there's nothing you might want to do with sculpties that Maya can't do. How does that not make it fit the description of the best program for the job, even if the presence of all its other features does make it an extreme case of overkill?

I don't really care about this debate, but just wanted to jump in here with the reason that I chose 3ds Max. It wasn't really about its features, which I haven't tried to compare to other programs.

Mostly, I chose it for its wide acceptance in the game industry. Some of the best tools for Ogre 3d are 3ds Max plugins. And when Multiverse came out, the first application to get support was 3ds Max.

In addition, I like it, but I'm sure I would like Maya or just about any of these other tools, too.

If I had infinite time and money, Houdini is really impressive for its completely procedural approach.

But the bottom line for me was my perception that 3ds Max would be the most useful skillset to transfer to other game environments.

Gollum was modelled in Mirai, the big brother to Nendo, and imported to Maya.

http://forums.cgsociety.org/archive/index.php/t-64268.html

http://dabble.com/node/11058687

the Dabble vid is the creator of Gollum doing his thang in Mirai

Next.

on that logic, you should be a big Wings supporter, as that's the program it's copying.

Thank you all very much for the thoughtful responses. Upon further reflection, I think I'm going to wait and see what LL does in terms of providing new types of sculpted prims. It may be the case that near-future changes in the sculpted-prim designs will make some packages more obviously suited for editing them.

Too, they've intimated that they may provide their own editor, which might conceivably make my question moot to a very large extent.

In the meantime, I'll keep beating on Blender while trying some of the other packages.

That's true, in the game industry. Max is used way more than Maya.

But if you're just looking for an easy quick way to make a sculpt map - Wings is the easiest. It's two clicks for a sphere, easy to use modelling tools and then bam export.

The texturing parts is where it gets a bit more dicey, but in reality, its not different from any other sphere prim in SL - they're all spherically mapped.

I've been getting feedback on the Zbrush texturing/sculpting to Wings, and that's a very easy pipeline for SL texturing, plus can crossover to a lot of other uses in SL. The only place where you're kinda screwed is if you're using an Intel Mac. Wings and ZB3 aren't really running well on them.

American cars aren't exactly equivalent to sculpt maps, and neither are multimillion dollar motion pictures.

And I hear, there are other programs better at modelling cars than Maya, and more industry standard, too. SolidWorks and Autocad come immediately to mind.

The architectural industry is dominated by Autocad - not Maya. I sure don't see anyone using Autocad pushing it as the best method for sculpts.



assume a lot?

the only reason Maya got an exporter first is because that's what Qarl knows. That's no guarantee that LL is going to expand in that direction - in fact Qarl has stated he hoped the community would jump to the challenge and LL has stated they want to do their own inworld editor. And there's companies and individuals interested in making lower cost alternatives - we'll see more and more available for sculpts, for a dizzying array of programs.

Oh well, since some guy on a forum somewhere said it was made in Mirari, I'll just dismiss the printed book sitting on my shelf that talks about how Gollum and many other LOTR creatures were created on Maya. The Internet always tells the truth, after all.


I never said they were. You're mot making any sense, Hypatia. The comment about cars and such was in response to a specific quote by someone who said Maya couldn't be used for that purpose. It goes without saying that that has nothing whatsoever to do with sculpties.



And your point is? Sure, there are other programs that are more dedicated for engineering. Again, that goes without saying. Also again, my reason for mentioning the dashboard thing was in response to a specific quote claiming that Maya couldn't be used for engineering. It can, and it is. That doesn't mean there aren't other programs that are used too, or that Maya's even necessarily the most common in that arena. It's not, and I never said it was. I only referenced one particular task for which engineers do use it in order to prove that it is engineering capable (actually two, if you count the Mars rovers). So again, what's your point?


Again, what the heck is your point? First, AutoCAD is not even applicable for sculpties at this time. Second, whether or not it is the predominant tool of choice in the architectural industry has absolutely no bearing on whether or not it would be the best tool for sculpties.

I didn't recommend Maya because it happens to be an industry standard. I recommended it for exactly the reasons I stated. It's easy to learn, easy to use, it's officially supported by LL for sculpties, and it happens to be the program sculpties were invented for. What wasn't clear? I've said the same thing like 5 times now. What language would you like me to translate it into?


Not sure why you're so convinced that Wings is the only program that works that way. Wanna know what the procedure is in Maya? It's one click for a sphere (or possibly two, depending on your preferences), easy to use modeling tools, and then bam, export. Sound familiar?




Look, if you like Wings or anything else, good for you. If you don't like Maya, or if you don't care to know how it actually works, that's your prerogative. The original question here was what's best, and that's obviously a matter of opinion. And that's all most people, including me, offered here initially, opinions.

When someone mentioned they were having trouble learning Maya, which I consider to be such an easy program to get into, I offered some advice, and some examples of the kinds of things that can be made right away by beginners. Then when someone else made a few comments that weren't true, I submitted corrections to the facts. That's all. I didn't bash other people's choices as you're starting to do here. I'd encourage you not to go down that path.

You're free to believe that Wings is the greatest program in the history of the world if you want to, and no one can take that away from you. If you want to encourage others to check it out, simply present your reasons for why you like it, and that's enough. There's no need to belittle others just because they have different preferences than you.

Even if there is work being done, there is no intent to use such work as a de-facto inworld editor. There is more intent to use... something like a plug-in.

One only has to take a good look at the land below the avatars feet to notice meshes similar to sculpties. The image format, the sculpt map, is an innovation built on top of data formats and capabilities that already officially existed.

SL trees are very cool!

did you watch the video? That was Mirai in that video, not Maya

edits - since CGTalk isnt good enough for you :/ - here's another article they talked about

http://mag.awn.com/index.php?ltype=search&sval=Two+Towers&article_no=1650&page=2

as you can see - Mirai and Maya are being used together - and Mirai was used for the sculpting. Not the animating. They talk about the system they developed there, yanno, the one that they mentioned on that CGTalk thread - yanno, that forum that only industry people read, and SL forumites know nothing about...

There's that interview running around about Gollum, its not exactly news.

You are simply wrong.

Weta Digital these days uses Mudbox for sculpting. They use Maya for putting together the motion picture, but not to build morphs and detail characters.




I'm making about as much sense as you are - Maya is not used by a lot of studios for modelling, but is used for compositing the motion picture. The original comment was about Modo, which has a method for exporting to sculpts that works quite fine btw. And Modo, like Mirai, shines brighter as a modeller and many studios use it side by side with Maya.





What is your point? You started comparing the apples to oranges, not me

Sure, I can use a sledgehammer to drive a nail in the wall, but don't you think a simple hammer might suffice sometimes




I am not saying Maya is bad, for working in film there's nothing better - I am saying that if all you are wanting to do is make a few sculpties, and want something easy to work with - I'm saying that the barrier to entry (the price) for Wings is right as well as the barrier to learning (the workflow) - Wings is recognised for having one of the better UI's out there - for people to experiment, before investing in a very expensive piece of software that for most people here may end up being a very large paperweight - or worse - downloaded enmasse by people as warez.

I've used Maya and I've used Wings, as I have used a lot of different programs. I wasn't that impressed with Maya's modelling tools compared to a lot of other lesser expensive packages - I can produce things a lot quicker in Silo and Zbrush actually, and without the lumps people are experiencing here with Maya

If you have the need for Maya - by all means get Maya. But I am saying that it shouldn't be touted as the preferred method for importing to the game, considering the cost and the inability for most people to pay that cost, and I am unsure even if its exporter is better than the vertex exporter that is available for wings - the exporter for Maya is dependent on the uvmap whereas Wings is not. Maybe the best for NURBS - but I have my doubts if its the best for polygon meshes.

the best tool is the one you like the best!
i use Lightwave
-LW

No I don't own an American car. They don't sell them in backwater countries like where I'm at. Car designers typically use Studiotools for conceptual design and it is an industry standard. So, specifically, while Studiotools is written by the same people who made Maya, it has more tools suited for automotive and product/industrial design, one of them being precision controls. Some prefer Rhinoceros.

When they hit the manufacturing side, CATIA is a common choice. Solidworks, Solidedge, Unigraphics NX and Autodesk Inventor are also popular. I have not heard of any engineering firm that uses Maya for production. If it is used, it is used for visualization purposes, as you mentioned, the European Space Agency. Basically, the pretty pictures used to show the press and the public. While possible, it is not feasible to assemble precision components together, especially such a thing as a rover using Maya. Hence, it is hopeless, in a sense that its an unsuitable tool for certain disciplines.

On the architectural side, architects prefer to use software with proper precision and dimensioning tools. These include being able to specify exact offsets and dims and also the ability to snap properly to nodes, vertices, tangents, etc easily. So you would see architects using things like Revit, Sketchup, Form-Z and such. All of them behave more CADlike.

As far as I know (from people at WETA whom a friend interviewed), the WETA guys use all sorts of things, and have a well developed technical team which we individuals don't have to support us. Some of their artists use ZBrush for more complex organics nowadays. These are then ported into Maya where it is rigged for animation. Gollum himself isn't that complex a model in the first place.

So basically, the type of software as a tool needs to be catered for the intended purpose. Sculpties aside, no ammount of talent or attitude can compensate for ill suited tools.



It just so happens that Qarl wrote the script for Maya. Doesn't mean that everything else suddenly becomes unsuitable for making sculpties. Some people are really just happier and more efficient using something simple. Or maybe they prefer a different interface.

I know of people who are using 3ds to model and using Maya only to generate the sculpt map. So, in a sense, if money is no object, then people have a choice of using Maya just as part of a pipeline for export, no matter how costly.

Good point.

I'm looking in the ZBrush tutorials: http://www.zbrush.info/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

It tells you how to create a ZSphere or import a mesh from OBJ, but it doesn't tell you how to delete a Zsphere or imported mesh.

The tutorial shows how to create an ImagePlaneX, but it doesn't tell how to get rid of it.

Hmm.

Most 3D applications all have a very steep learning curve to master them.
Not only are they difficult to learn, they can be expensive. If all you're wanting to do
is Second Life Sculpted Prims, wait.

These applications are extreme overkill if this is all you're wanting to do.

Did I mention the steep learning curve already ? lol

I own and use the following:

Softimage | XSI v5
Rhino v3
Z-Brush v3

None of which have exporters available for sculpted prims as far as I know.

I also have an entire bookshelf full of aftermarket training material. I've probably spent
as much in aftermarket training material from Digital Tutors and Gnomon as I did on the
programs. . . . We won't even talk about the texture DVDs . . . . .

Bottom line is, give this stuff a chance to mature before you decide to take the plunge
into the realm of 3D creation.