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Blender Tests and Impressions


CApruzzese

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As an anecdote about performance, when I was doing some legos with Studio 2.0, neither Blender or Maya could import the bigger ships, while C4D did it without issues. On the other hand, playback speed for characters in Blender is way better than C4D -But thats also because C4D has everything nested and modifiable, and Blender has more destructive tools (Like landscape tool, everything in C4D is modifiable forever if you dont convert it, while in Blender, just move the landscape and thats it)

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 9/5/2021 at 6:49 PM, MazurBr said:

Hehehe I'm pretty busy teaching 4 classes this semester (2 using C4D, 2 using Maya) so no time to create any online class. But I was actually thinking about doing something like this. Maybe some tutorials like "Maya for Cinema 4D users" - which is actually the first module of my 3D Animation II class (because I teach the 3D Animation I with C4D). Maybe I'll have the time next year.

 

Meanwhile, i can give you some tips I give to my students when they are transitioning from C4D to Maya:

 

- Understand that all the information that you would usually get in the C4D Object Manager tags can be found in Maya in the tabs of the Attribute Editor. This is probably the most important tip. 

- Everything in MAYA is a node (e.g. every single tab ini the attribute editor), just like in Houdini, but the nodes are hidden. So, when in doubt, check the node editor. Which can do a lot of what we can in Xpresso. 

- The Hypershade seems ridiculous complicated in comparison to C4D material manager. But you have to understand that the Hypershade is actually the Material Manager + Node Editor in one.

- Understand the concept of History and non-deformer History. Unlike C4D, Maya keeps track of everything you change in the original node of your model (you can see the node tree progressing as you model or rig in the Node Editor). You need to create the habit of deleting the History or Deleting the non-deformer history as you work. This fixes a lot of problems. 

- Maya UI is really tablet friendly, more so than C4D. Learn how to use the Marking menus and the Hotbox with a Wacom tablet and you will thank me. Also, weight painting is really good and intuitive in Maya because of this.

- The Maya UI and  tools are actually MEL (Maya Embedded Language) commands. If you select "Echo All Commands" in the Script Editor you can see almost everything that happens behind the scene in Maya with MEL commands. Thus it's MUCH easier to learn how to script in Maya than in Cinema4D. 

- HumanIK (the auto-rig, auto-retargeting, mocap solution in Maya)  is REALLY powerful and - if you are a generalist - can cover your needs for character animation 90% of the time even though professional riggers hate it. There is NOTHING even closer in C4D.

- Maya is VERY customizable since Maya 2016. You can setup everything in the UI to look like C4D if you want (e.g. I put my Outliner on top of my Attribute Editor to pretend I'm in C4D.). And the navigation controls are the same. 

- MASH can do everything that Mograph can do, but it's not as user friendly.

- Maya's Outliner sucks in comparison to Cinema 4D. It's not even close. You will have to accept that. It can be very frustrating. 

 

 

I am super late to this, but THANK you so much @MazurBr!!! 
I have printed these advices and will follow through very carefully! 
Thanks!!! 🙂 

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On 9/5/2021 at 5:49 PM, MazurBr said:

Hehehe I'm pretty busy teaching 4 classes this semester (2 using C4D, 2 using Maya) so no time to create any online class. But I was actually thinking about doing something like this. Maybe some tutorials like "Maya for Cinema 4D users" - which is actually the first module of my 3D Animation II class (because I teach the 3D Animation I with C4D). Maybe I'll have the time next year.

 

Meanwhile, i can give you some tips I give to my students when they are transitioning from C4D to Maya:

 

 

- The Hypershade seems ridiculous complicated in comparison to C4D material manager. But you have to understand that the Hypershade is actually the Material Manager + Node Editor in one.

- Understand the concept of History and non-deformer History. Unlike C4D, Maya keeps track of everything you change in the original node of your model (you can see the node tree progressing as you model or rig in the Node Editor). You need to create the habit of deleting the History or Deleting the non-deformer history as you work. This fixes a lot of problems. 

-

 

- MASH can do everything that Mograph can do, but it's not as user friendly.

- Maya's Outliner sucks in comparison to Cinema 4D. It's not even close. You will have to accept that. It can be very frustrating. 

 

 

 

 

Hypershade is more robust than C4D's material manager.   The fact you can open up multiple materials in the same node editor is a great thing.  It makes it so much easier to look dev.  It's also great for copy/pasting, shared linking of textures.  I've been harping on C4D's closed node editors for years

 

I wouldn't get too caught up in Maya's history stack.  It's bad.   For instance, if you a bevel, then extrude, then go back to the bevel to tweak, it glitches.  it's not meant to be procedural at all.   it's really seemingly there for undos.

 

MASH sucks.   it was half-assed because of Maya's architecture and Autodesk dropped the contract with Mainframe to continue fleshing it out.   It's less usable without the addition of true fields and better configurable effectors, like C4D has.   The mash editor is very wonky to say it best.   Also MASH can bog down Maya quite easily.   It also hasn't been updated since it was first introduced years ago, and even the beta forum for it is archived.  To this day, nothing can touch the flexibility and speed of C4D's mograph (which subsequently is used for more than just mograph).  maya still also doesn't have fracturing.  Even with bifrost development.. no fracturing (unless you buy SoUP which is overpriced these days.. and I think subscription too)

 

You forgot to mention the UV Editor/Toolkit.  It's a god send compared to C4D's bad UV editing capabilities.    Things like cut and sew tools are great.   the unfold and optimize tools (including "brushes) makes quick work out of problematic UV shells.  It's funny hearing people like EJ talk about how he never dealt with UVs in C4D until its tools were revamped about 3 versions ago.   I still don't like messing with UVs in C4D..  he needs to how other apps do it better, including Maya and RyzomUV.    Also, Maya's snapping tools just crushes C4D.   Simple things like constrained snapping to verts in an axis in the 3D viewport is a must.   Retain spacing.. same.     There are so many good things about Maya but also some bad stuff.

 

 

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@MazurBrand @johanal, one quick question.

One of the things that bothers me a lot in Maya, is that I cant find a reset PSR or that does a similar thing... 
In Blender is quite easy, alt+g,r,s  returns the objects to their zeroed values. C4D has the reset psr that returns everything to zero..
But in Maya, we have the Freeze Transformations, that does exactly what I imagined...  set every transformation to zero.
But Reset Transformations, which I imagined would be the logical "return to zero state" does something completely insane, which is to throw the pivot of the object right at the center of the world...  and maybe moving it slightly.   This is one of the things holding me back animating in Maya.

Any solution hehe? 🙂

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@Pinin I wish I could get my hands on a semi-affordable 3080 card. Still way overpriced.

 

Going to check the local computer stores later this week: it seems cards are becoming available once more, but only if customers visit locations in person to check out inventory.

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51 minutes ago, hvanderwegen said:

@Pinin I wish I could get my hands on a semi-affordable 3080 card. Still way overpriced.

 

Going to check the local computer stores later this week: it seems cards are becoming available once more, but only if customers visit locations in person to check out inventory.

Here in NY it is easier to find one if you buy a computer that comes with it, rather than try to buy it alone.

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2 hours ago, FLima said:

@MazurBrand @johanal, one quick question.

One of the things that bothers me a lot in Maya, is that I cant find a reset PSR or that does a similar thing... 
In Blender is quite easy, alt+g,r,s  returns the objects to their zeroed values. C4D has the reset psr that returns everything to zero..
But in Maya, we have the Freeze Transformations, that does exactly what I imagined...  set every transformation to zero.
But Reset Transformations, which I imagined would be the logical "return to zero state" does something completely insane, which is to throw the pivot of the object right at the center of the world...  and maybe moving it slightly.   This is one of the things holding me back animating in Maya.

Any solution hehe? 🙂

you can do a mel command and store modify > reset transformation and tool settings > reset pivot

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1 hour ago, MJV said:

Here in NY it is easier to find one if you buy a computer that comes with it, rather than try to buy it alone.

Yes, here (Vancouver, BC) as well. But I just got a wonderful new workstation right before all the prices shot up; I had expected (hoped) to save up a little, and then it was too late!

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1 hour ago, FLima said:

Oh! Thanks!!
But I have no idea what to write on a mel command... so scary! 
There is no default way to do it? 

ok let me walk you through it, its super easy

 

just open in windows > general editor > script editor

 

then.. you will see two windows ,one with a lot of commands and one empty..

 

do the following to see how it works...  create polygon primitive cube

 

polyCube -w 1 -h 1 -d 1 -sx 1 -sy 1 -sz 1 -ax 0 1 0 -cuv 4 -ch 1;

 

that command will appear on the window, just select it as if you would do a copy/paste and drag it into a maya shelf, save it, and it will create a button.

 

Delete your polygon primitive and click on the button.

 

Now that you know how to do a mel script, this will be trickier because the command for reset transform isnt registered on the window, and also I know how to do it in python.. so bear with me. On Script editor, go to Python on the botton window and copy this command

 

import maya.cmds as cmds
cmds.move(0, 0, 0, ls=True)

 

Then select all, and drag it onto a shelf, and save it as python. It will create an icon on the shelf. Move your object and, click on the saved icon.

 

This two will do the trick for rotate or scale, just add them to the script below (just dont import maya.cmds twice) or create a button for each.

 

import maya.cmds as cmds

cmds.rotate(0, 0, 0)

 

import maya.cmds as cmds

cmds.scale(1, 1, 1)

 

 

 

 

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3 minutes ago, luchifer said:

ok let me walk you through it, its super easy

 

just open in windows > general editor > script editor

 

then.. you will see two windows ,one with a lot of commands and one empty..

 

do the following to see how it works...  create polygon primitive cube

 

polyCube -w 1 -h 1 -d 1 -sx 1 -sy 1 -sz 1 -ax 0 1 0 -cuv 4 -ch 1;

 

that command will appear on the window, just select it as if you would do a copy/paste and drag it into a maya shelf, save it, and it will create a button.

 

Delete your polygon primitive and click on the button.

 

Now that you know how to do a mel script, this will be trickier because the command for reset transform isnt registered on the window, and also I know how to do it in python.. so bear with me. On Script editor, go to Python on the botton window and copy this command

 

import maya.cmds as cmds
cmds.move(0, 0, 0, ls=True)

 

Then select all, and drag it onto a shelf, and save it as python. It will create an icon on the shelf. Move your object and, click on the saved icon.

 

This two will do the trick for rotate or scale, just add them to the script below (just dont import maya.cmds twice) or create a button for each.

 

import maya.cmds as cmds

cmds.rotate(0, 0, 0)

 

import maya.cmds as cmds

cmds.scale(1, 1, 1)

 

 

 

 

OMG! I thank you so much, for taking the time to explain and show these commands to me. 
Damn.. people here at the Core4D are really far in the game 🙂
I will try tomorrow morning this right away.  I will keep you posted!

Thanks ❤️ 

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