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Blender Tests and Impressions


CApruzzese

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1 hour ago, Igor said:

Seems to me you are starting to like Blender! 😊

I really am @Igor, but I have to be honest, there were several moments where I thought "Damn. why this isnt like it is in C4D?"
Their material manager is horrible... working on more than 10 materials in one project, having to scroll through all the options manually, and not simply dragging and dropping... feels like a very technical software, and not a creative one. 

Also, not having groups, adding one deformer/modifier to a whole group, instead, having to add things individually to each object in the scene.....linking.. etc.. just not fun. 

You probably feel some of those things in Houdini too no? Missing some things from C4D.

But yeah, being able to animate a character extremely fast, it is something I never experienced before in C4D, it is so freeing! And checking at the same time lighting, materials, etc...  it is a whole new deal.

Not sure if Blender is production ready for me yet.. But I feel that, at least for my short film, it could be a great starting point.

1 hour ago, DasFrodo said:

I've been playing around with Photogrammetry / Photoscanning in the last couple of days and I gotta say I'm impressed by how easy this has become.

I've tried two different softwares so far:

  • Meshroom (which is free and open source)
  • Agisoft Metashape (which is 170$ for the basic version)

Why am I posting this in the Blender thread? Because I rendered the scan with Blender and I really don't see a point opening up another thread for this 🙂

I think the results speak for themselves. Mind you, this is the second object I scanned and I didn't really prepare much for this at all!

 

Steinkopf_Render3.png.4dd0d53a370b0682448959c3fa23c350.pngSteinkopf_Portrait.png.b514fb5321587a01c181f9154ce139d2.png

 

Of course, the topology sucks, but that's not the point of these kinds of models, is it?

 

6540af6c-cc34-4279-ba05-b9bba984b603.jpg.9a3df9d3723ac69e9ee86e38c6a8996a.jpg

 

And here's the original:

 

a7e9359c-69f7-4c24-bd9b-7da66a77c484.jpg.31928b4a000cf6d1c346b8e57669e389.jpg

 

What you see here has been done with Metashape... I've tried Meshroom but it's increadibly slow and also way more complicated to use than Metashape. I'd say 170$ for a perpetual of a software that gives an absolute photogrammetry beginner these results is okay though 😉

 

The bulk of the time needed for this was just the computer calculating the result. All that I did was walk around the model with an iPhone (video recording) and trying to get every possible angle. I then extracted every fifth frame of that video as a jpeg, fed that into Metashape and let the software do it's thing. I'd say that's pretty user friendly.

 

For the curios, that's the final shots the software calculated. Not all shots that I fed into it were actually chosen by the software as "good enough" and / or "necessary":

 

5f5bc5c8-e016-44d9-8114-fde843d16648.jpg.44288c63e89f38be694ab1f897f38f27.jpg


This, is.. AMAZING!!!
You probably used an Iphone PRO right? It is the only one that has the multi-camera system?

The details you captured on this, this is the first time I see something like this!
I've seen a similar technology before, over these past few weeks, but nothing at this level of detail.

The topology sucks.. but it is a typical decimated mesh from Zbrush, super easy to retopologize on top of it.

Please, share more of thhese with us hehe!
 

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7 minutes ago, FLima said:

You probably feel some of those things in Houdini too no? Missing some things from C4D.

To be completely honest no, I found Houdini to be much more advanced on all fronts pretty much. There are some thing which would make experience even better in Houdini but those things are not something only C4D can do but other DCCs too. 

 

For me, in first month watching H tutorials was like, oh, C4D cant do that, oh cant do that too, oh not even that...at that point my eyes were opened much wider than before, at that moment I realized how much C4D lacks, while I was sure C4D is the best for a long time.

 

But at this point, I think its not fair to compare Houdini with any other DCC and vice versa, simply because its hard to compare when something is completely different and none other DCC is working in a way Houdini does. Before jumping to H people need to understand that everything will feel and act different in terms of workflows and how things are done. So if you are coming to H and expecting behavior like you see in C4D, Blender or Maya, you'll be disappointed, because it will challenge your way of thinking. Good news is that general 3D knowledge will be easy to transfer and even better thing is H will force you to understand 3D concepts even more deeply you ever did with other DCCs, which in a long run is a great thing. 

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51 minutes ago, Igor said:

To be completely honest no, I found Houdini to be much more advanced on all fronts pretty much. There are some thing which would make experience even better in Houdini but those things are not something only C4D can do but other DCCs too. 

 

For me, in first month watching H tutorials was like, oh, C4D cant do that, oh cant do that too, oh not even that...at that point my eyes were opened much wider than before, at that moment I realized how much C4D lacks, while I was sure C4D is the best for a long time.

 

But at this point, I think its not fair to compare Houdini with any other DCC and vice versa, simply because its hard to compare when something is completely different and none other DCC is working in a way Houdini does. Before jumping to H people need to understand that everything will feel and act different in terms of workflows and how things are done. So if you are coming to H and expecting behavior like you see in C4D, Blender or Maya, you'll be disappointed, because it will challenge your way of thinking. Good news is that general 3D knowledge will be easy to transfer and even better thing is H will force you to understand 3D concepts even more deeply you ever did with other DCCs, which in a long run is a great thing. 


Yeah, I think for your situation specifically, Houdini is a whole different beast, and the most powerful software on what it does. No comparison really.
For me, it is still a bit difficult to grasp having to move to a different software...   I still love working on C4D a lot, in spite of all these horrible decisions with subscription model, and what not...

I will give Houdini a shot once I finish my two current projects. I have a friend who just started working with it, and visually, what he is doing... it is absolutely amazing.

-----
By the way folks,

Here is the final render from my Jurassic Park Scene.
The goal for this test was to see if I could replicate a bit of the "stop motion/miniature feel" that I want for my short film, not using Redshift.
And it worked superb. Eevee is not perfect, but definitely a great step in the right direction.
 

 

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1 hour ago, FLima said:

This, is.. AMAZING!!!
You probably used an Iphone PRO right? It is the only one that has the multi-camera system?

The details you captured on this, this is the first time I see something like this!
I've seen a similar technology before, over these past few weeks, but nothing at this level of detail.

The topology sucks.. but it is a typical decimated mesh from Zbrush, super easy to retopologize on top of it.

Please, share more of thhese with us hehe!
 

Hehe, no. It was just an iPhone XR. It was the thing I got around me with the best camera without having to set up a DSLR or something.

 

I gotta add, those ULTRA fine details you see on the mesh (in the material, not the geo) is a bump that I added afterwards... by itself the texture is not very highres for closeup shots like this but I am 99% sure that's due to my lack of patience. If I took a DSLR and made these photos instead of using the video (!!!) function of an iPhone and just straight up exporting the frames from the video the result would have been much, much better.

Visit my Portfolio on Artstation.com & Follow me on Instagram

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1 minute ago, DasFrodo said:

iPhone XR

I forgot is XR different from X or they are the same. I have as far as I know iPhone X but I am not sure can I do photogrammetry. :306:

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11 hours ago, FLima said:

I really am @Igor, but I have to be honest, there were several moments where I thought "Damn. why this isnt like it is in C4D?"
Their material manager is horrible... working on more than 10 materials in one project, having to scroll through all the options manually, and not simply dragging and dropping... feels like a very technical software, and not a creative one. 

 

 

I think they're working on a proper Material Manager at the moment, thank god. 

 

I've been trying to learn Blender and while its an incredible product I still find myself missing the C4D user experience. However Blender feels like a much more complete program and Eevee is incredibly good. 

 

Is Redshift RT going to be C4D's answer to Eevee? Do other 3D apps have an equivalent to Eevee, or is Blender way out in front in that regard?

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@Chris Phillips@FLima

They are working on an integrated asset manager. The first version is planned for the V3 release in October.

Keep track of Blender's development:

https://code.blender.org/2021/06/asset-browser-workshop-outcomes/

 

And I whole-heartedly agree that this is really going to simplify life for artists in Blender. C4D always got this part right.

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1 minute ago, Chris Phillips said:

 

I think they're working on a proper Material Manager at the moment, thank god. 

 

I've been trying to learn Blender and while its an incredible product I still find myself missing the C4D user experience. However Blender feels like a much more complete program and Eevee is incredibly good. 

 

Is Redshift RT going to be C4D's answer to Eevee? Do other 3D apps have an equivalent to Eevee, or is Blender way out in front in that regard?

Omg.. didnt know about the material manager!! That is great news!

If they add that... possibility to group things... linking light, and I think it will be more and more production ready. 

about the render, I dont think Redshift RT is going to be as fast as eevee.... not sure... because eevee has more like a game engine behaviour: no global ilumination, but rendering of shadows, etc..
And I dont know any other 3D app capable of realtime render like eevee.

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2 hours ago, FLima said:

no global ilumination (in Eevee)

 

A special SSGI build of Eevee is available here:

https://n0451.gumroad.com/l/PgyXc

 

And real-time raytracing is also in the cards. Eevee is receiving an update/rewrite in the upcoming V3 release with native SSGI.

 

And various other nice additions. Good times ahead!

https://code.blender.org/2021/06/eevees-future/

 

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