Jeff H1

He uses Autodesk Fusion 360.

Both standards had been around for a while. Both have been around for a bit. Some of the issues are how individual renderers and their features get ported into MaterialX and MDL and not corporate politics or $ that thing at the end of a word. Some of the best open source stuff has come out of alliances, which is useful in shaping where the standards go. Look at OpenGL, USD, Vulkan, OpenVDB, ABC. Regarding gITF, it turns out it just never took off. Sites like Sketchfab are just using WebGL and WebVR, cgtrader with Toolbag (WebGL viewer). Subsequently most current browsers support WebGL. It goes to show some standards never take off. Of course, not everyone has the same ideas about what the standards should be so some just choose to go their own path. For instance, Blender decided to walk away from the established VFX Reference Platform back in February. Sometimes corporations have their own vision of what their customers want and it can either work in their favor or shoot them in the foot. MaterialX will continue to get support as I know Autodesk and SideFX are invested, with Nvidia still working with Adobe and Epic for MDL. MDL has grown some legs with Omniverse though. It just comes down to the DCCs and the individual renderers supporting translation between their formats and MaterialX/MDL while continuing to advance their own software which can be a task. I just liked telling coworkers I was exporting a whole lotta .ASS. That was the process of transferring Arnold shaders between Maya and C4D via their .ASS file naming conventions.

1. Forger is mainly for Ipad use. It won't go away. 2. C4D Sculpt is old and outdated but useful in certain instances. I doubt it will ever be updated as maxon would rather you buy a subscription to Zbrush (or they would rather you use Blender for sculpting). We've been able to push from C4D to ZBR via GoZ for a while now. There's also a Quick Copy Paste addon to quickly move between C4D, Blender and Maya. https://ihordmytrenko.gumroad.com/l/dLYcO 3. Zbrush is the primary sculpting tool. 4. Zbrush Core is a cheaper alternative to ZBR with many things missing. Pixologic developed this years ago. I still have it but don't use it because it's so limited. 5. Zbrush Core Mini is even more stripped down and FREE meant mainly for complete newbies, including kids. Check out the comparison between Core and Mini; https://www.maxon.net/en/zbrushcoremini-compare My guess is they are keeping core and mini to attract different price points and hopefully have people move up to full ZBR.

Yeah it's a known issue regarding AE. It's just best not to open it while rendering. Also, it may be beneficial to render via commandline or with something like deadline. There's usually extra overhead rendering directly from your DCC.

actually EVEE next is on the back burner based on a stream for 3.4 alpha from a couple days ago. it's also still a crappy renderer. Never use it for final post work. Unfortunately many Blender youtubers recommend it over Cycles simply for speed (over quality). I'd rather model things in Blender and move into Maya or C4D at this point. Arnold and Redshift crush Cycles. Flip fluids still look like a hot mess... Blender FX in general just look bad. Just wait until they figure out how to copy more from Houdini with integrated particles, flip, cloth, and more in nodes. It still won't be Houdini but it'll be good enough for being free. 🙂 I think the ship has sailed for C4D nodes to be competitive and the same with Maya Bifrost. It'll have a niche following though. I know some tools are being developed in Maya Bifrost and sold on Gumroad. One more thought: I wonder if the things done in Geo Nodes, like the offroad rig generator can be done in Xpresso. It's a pretty powerful tool.

however it's quite easy to add decals in Substance Painter. Here's a new quick video if you need help.

https://www.3dmotionshow.com/ it appears news/announcements were at least taken off the website. Looks like they're going right into a presentation.

my main complaint is the excessive space the UI can take up. There's a lot of dead space in the UI in a few places. if it were made tighter it wouldn't look so pedestrian. Also, if you drag the corners of some panels, the UI elements don't adjust properly. I feel it's a work in progress.

I had to do that with CAD models, mainly for texturing purposes. Sometimes there would be no UVs. it's a nightmare trying to do loop selects and find the best seams to cut for UVs. I'd end up importing the CAD into C4D, which is faster, then importing that into Maya to do the UV work since C4D's UV tools are crap in a bag. Other times the CAD models would come in with strange rotations or funky holes so it would take some time to clean it up for render.

Crazy cool...

What happened to your entry in the node challenge back in January?? Also, I noticed watching Blender tutorials and applying that to C4D modeling has helped me as well. there isn't much out there for hardcore c4d modeling these days but there's a lot for blender. It's easy to apply the concepts from one app to another and while they don't always match up step for step, you can get some insight on different ways of approaching a model. Many times it's just problem-solving. I've even adjusted some of my hotkeys to match the ones I used in Blender because they're more efficient than how C4D tells you to M~the crap out of everything. The fact I'm in point/edge/polygon mode *should* clue in C4D to adjust my hotkeys accordingly but of course C4D doesn't have that functionality (rant off)

Computer decisions can't be made regarding future releases and subsequent availability upon release, especially when someone else (studio/employer) is paying the bill. They allocate money, you buy. Also, most system integrators like Dell, HP, Lenovo and so on run around 5-6 months out from a new GPUs release before adding it as a SKU option. Lastly, those same integrators typically don't offer "gaming GPUs" in their workstation builds. I have the Lenovo 620 w/Threadripper Pro and QuadroRTX. It's a screamer.

wow.. I thought he had been with Muse for years. I know he was big in the Fusion community helping out with scripts and knowledge. Awesome! Would the potential compositor end up as a part of Solaris?

The thing that interests me about Houdini is you get A LOT of power since it's all node-based, it's all refined and it's working in a unified architecture. FX, Modeling, Animation, Look Dev, Rendering.. it's all there. Unlike Blender, Maya and C4D, you don't need an addons/plugins to fill the gaps, that ultimately don't work anyways in nodes. It's just getting over that initial hump... nay.. MOUNTAIN with Houdini.

I agree with you. Too late to the race and not enough gas to finish it. 😞 I can definitely see the power of nodes while learning Houdini. It's an amazing toolset for many things!

not sure if it's "ready" yet as Maxon doesn't even really talk about it. This feels like Autodesk and Bifrost for the first 4 years it existed. Rocket Lasso mentions Scene Nodes only because Chris talks about capsules. So far there is little training by Maxon to help push this out. I'd imagine they've spend A LOT of development hours yet have little to show the public it seems. Instead of constantly rehashing Redshift content on their live streams, maybe they need to push their Scene Nodes through a series of training sessions showing how to actually use it in production. I don't mean pushing a bunch of dominos around through nodes, but actually building the same sort of content which we see in Blender youtube tutorials (building generators, ivy generators, cable generators, and so on). Also, how does Scene nodes interact with other things in the scene? Other plugins, like X-Particles? As a C4D user, should we be investing any time in Scene Nodes at the moment, or just looking at other options such as Houdini? Should add there is a section here which people are posting about Scene nodes; https://www.core4d.com/ipb/forums/forum/316-nodes/

Also, it appears he's giving away a free plugin this week as well.

Meshes too? I remember the trick of using fields from a scatter parented to the camera. It bogs down easily from what I remember.

Octane really has a sexy scatter tool. I'm not sure the renderer you're using though. I do wish C4D had camera culling like Houdini.

Oh my man.. you're gonna need a lot more space for houdini cache!! You better dedicate a drive because once you get started... there's... no... stopping.. (process stopped - cache drive full)

CG Forge has a free course: https://www.cgforge.com/course/houdini-for-the-new-artist Tim Van Helsidingen also has a free course (Howdini101). He also di the SideFX Snacks Volume 2 free course:

Can't say Houdini has copied much, if at all from Blender, although the reverse could be said quite easily. I think it's a natural evolution of Houdini's tools since the hooks have been there for about a decade to compute tangents and calculate orientation. For the past 3 or so years, Houdini has made an effort to attract non-technical 3D artists. They want their tools to be accessible to more people which is why they made Houdini Indie and have pushed out free tools through their Labs initiative while really going after the games market since Epic's involvement with SideFX. Each release you'll continue to see some of the smaller advances such as this which hopefully makes it easier for the average 3D artist to pick up and run with Houdini. Houdini is in its own galaxy at this point...

Also there are a few Blender forums out there with a lot more eyeballs on questions/solutions. More engaging with very talented people, including the developers. This forum here for Blender doesn't seem to have as much interaction.

Wicked as always. SideFX always brings it with every release. Others could use them as a blueprint 🙂 Igor, should Core4D open up forms for other software like Maya? Also, I don't see anything for Texture Painting (Painter, Mari, Designer).

Neat Video https://www.neatvideo.com/home