#Need your opinion
8 messages in this thread
Hi. I need your opinions. My 15th birthday is coming up in about a month, and
since their isn't a whole lot I want besides and few CD's I can get one big
gift(around $300). So, I am thinking about getting an IPAS. My question is,
which one will give me the most bang for my buck? I would like to get into
character animation, but can't get bones Pro and metaballs, so I was also
thinking about getting Martin Hash's 3d-animation($200 i thin). Anyone use it?
How is it?
Merci Beaucoup(thank's a lot)
Jason
<<.. but can't get bones Pro..>>
🙁 It's one of my favorite..
Is it really that good? Do you think it would be good to get? Whats the
smooth.pxp thing that comes with it? If I can find a good enough price, I
might be able to get it. I have $200 myself right now, which I was saving for
NT, but I think my Dad's going to eventually buy it anyway. I think he was
kinda dissapointed with Win95.
Thanks for the input
Jason
> I think he was kinda dissapointed with Win95. <
A fashion of these words shall likely grace the epitaph of Win95.
— James — Choreo Motion —
Jason,
As to your birthday gift, I may have an idea. If you have around $300 to play
with, you may be closer to Metaballs *and* Bones Pro than you think. Bones Pro
can be had for around $375 these days. There is an article in the premiere
issue of 3D design about Blob Sculptor. A freeware metaballer that makes DXF
models that can be used with 3DS. They claim it can be found in Compuserve (Go
Cadence, 3D Design Library 19). The article also describes how to use it with
3DS.
Hope this helps, I know how it feels to have ideas and lack the tools to get
them to the screen.
Terry
I as matter of fact, I just downloaded the blob sculptor. From what I've
heard, Bones Pro supposed to be pretty spectacular. I have to look into it.
Thanks!!
Jason
P.S. Whats the Smooth.PxP thing that comes with Bones Pro?
It's funny because, after spending more than $2500 over the past year, two
nights ago I was looking back. Knowing what I know now, I asked myself… If I
could only have purchased one IPAS over that time, which would I choose? The
answer was Bones Pro.. hands down. The fact that smooth comes with Bones Pro
reenforces that decision in my mind. Smooth is almost worth the cost itself.
It's not that the other IPASs we'rent good (except one.. which I won't
mention), it's just that bones is the answer to so many problems when doing
character animation with 3DS R4. I've never used a Metaballs program, so I
have no way to compare.
Jason,
>> What's the Smooth PXP…<<
Smooth allows you to smooth out sharp angles in your mesh. I use it a lot after
a boolean. It has a "Blend" option that will only smooth concave areas of your
mesh. It also has a "Selected Vertices" switch that will allow you to just
smooth certain areas of your mesh, which I find very handy. I'm not sure if 3DS
smooth works with the selected switch or not. It's a good routine that I use
for more than just organic shapes. I just finished doing a LOT of geometry for
the Industrial part of my reel, and smooth helped out a lot on connecting
piping to and from pumps and such.
Another good routine to have with a metaballer is Optimize. It has saved me
Zillions of hours render time. Not to mention, I don't think I could have made
the critter I did with Metaballs and came even close to staying in the 64K face
limit without it. On the last project I had to bend a lot of pipe, so I did a
lot of tesselating to get good smooth bends. Then Optimize would bring the face
count down from over 50,000 to from 2300 to 6000 depending on what angle I
thought I could get away with.
But, with any luck, you already have that. I don't think I would trade Bones
for it. If you are interested in organic animation, I think bones is a must
have. It not only works great with IK stuff, you can get some great facial
(lips, eyebrows, nose, etc.) movements with it. You can expand the bones to
make a portion of the mesh swell, to simulate breathing for example. It's good
for other things too, like good whip actions on banners or ribbons. Any single
mesh you want to deform. I agree with the other answer you got (Stephen?), if I
had to pick just one, that would have to be the one. Glad we don't have to
though. <g>
Terry