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Cinema 4D or Blender?

Discussion in 'Asset Importing & Exporting' started by glass22, Nov 28, 2010.

  1. glass22

    glass22

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    Which one of these two would be the easiest to learn and faster to create assets in?

    Also which version of Cinema 4D would you want for game development?
     
  2. Jessy

    Jessy

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    I've tried both and I like Blender better (I'm not terribly interested in the idea of free software, but I've liked Blender better than all the rest. Pitiful to me that paid apps can't match what I like about it). However, the disgustingly slow pace of development of Blender 2.6 has really been putting me off. What's the reason for these two being your choices? Personally, I'm presently quite interested in what Lightwave 10 will bring.
     
  3. the_motionblur

    the_motionblur

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    Of those two - Cinema4D - most recent version. You don't have a choice which version to chose with C4D either way ;)
    Read through the various threads, here. Cinema still needs a few features for really flawless game export, still but it's geting better.

    Personally I am using Cinema4D for the most part because I find it more intuitive to use and used Blender (up untill the version change) for polymodeling because the tools are way faster.
    My sculpting application is ZBrush paired with Topogun.

    Really - it's just a matter of personal preference, though.
    Cinema at least is way easier to get into if you're new to 3D.

    Cheers
     
  4. Tiles

    Tiles

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    There is no easiest and fastest 3D app. 3D is not easy, and the more you want to achieve, the slower it goes.

    I would nevertheless go for Cinema here. It is known for its fast workflow and intuitive interface. Blender is even in the 2.5x incarnation still the oposite of easy to learn and still not as intuitive as other apps. Even when it`s miles better than 2.49. Killer issue might be that there is no manual for 2.5x yet. It is beta, and not finished.

    The modules are gone, so you have to decide between the remaining bundles. Have a look at the description of the different versions. And then look into your wallet. Maybe at that point Blender may be back into the possible options. Because it is free ...

    That`s development. Never trust in future development. You cannot model your mesh with a promise. You need working tools to shape nowadays meshes.

    I`ve toyed around with Blender 2.5x. Me likes the bones, and i will surely use them in the future. I toyed also with modeling for a short moment, up to the point where i found out the lack of N-Gons. And that was the point where i returned to my previous app to do the modeling there, which has N-Gons since around a decade. I think i will return once the Bmesh is implemented. Modeling with Tris and Quads makes no sense to me :)
     
  5. glass22

    glass22

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    I understand it's not easy, that's why I'm asking this, I don't want something too difficult,

    I tried Maya before, but found it very difficult.
     
  6. cerebrate

    cerebrate

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    I don't understand why people say blender is 'hard'

    I've used maya, blender, and 3dsmax. Out of all of them, blender was probably just as easy to learn as any of the others, and I learned blender probably around the beginning of the 2.4 series, not this 'easy' 2.5 (which frankly to me is just different, not necessarily easier). The only thing I can see people say make things 'easier' in maya/3dsmax/cinema4d is because there's big coloful buttons to plop basic shapes down in the main view. Which you do instead with blender by navigating a short menu. This doesn't necessarily make editing 'easier', because an actual modeler starts off with maybe a cube or sphere, little else, while the rest is spent doing vertex editing, which I find is a lot easier in blender than the other two.

    While you have asked about cinema 4d, I'll say this:

    I'm working with a guy who uses cinema 4d, and while he can model pretty good, his vertex construction is AWFUL. He leaves extra vertices everywhere, oftentimes not having optimized construction of models. We usually have to have someone go in and clean up his models so they can be a lot lower in vertex count. Sometimes he'll clean it up somewhat if we get on his case about the models, but apparently cinema 4d seems to be not conducive to making vertex-light models.

    However, if you want an 'easy' 3d modeling program, stop looking at these packages that are designed for far more things than modeling. I would recommend any beginning modeler to go use wings3d or sketchup, as they are specifically designed to be modeling programs, and little else. This makes the interface less 'complicated' and cluttered, resulting in an 'easier' program. The downside of sketchup is that it's a bit harder to get in to unity, and probably not very conducive to low -poly counts. Models I've seen from wings3d, if coming from the right person, are usually very vertex-wise in their use.
     
  7. the_motionblur

    the_motionblur

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    Oh god - PLEASE get the things right you're talking about.

    Big colorful Buttons is NOT why Cinema is easier to get into 3D art (And I stress that: to get into it - Cinema is NOT the most intuitive if you're getting to the advanced stuff). Cinema's approach is that you set up most things with tags and visual feedback. Nearly the complete Creation process beyond modeling can be drag and drop based so you know where to put what relationship. THAT is what makes Cinema more easy to "get" than most other 3D software.
    Also Cinema in most caeses tries to expose the most prominent features for each thing you might need. THAT'S what makes Cinema easy to get into. As soon as you've reached a certain level of knowledge Cinema is probably just as easy or difficult as any other Software you know how to use out there. With all it's own advantages and disadvantages. Google it and read the TONS of thread about this topic on nearly any 3D board out there on the internet. It's been covered to death. Seriously.


    It's your artist fault, then. Getting rid of all the unnecessary isolated vertices in the scene is a matter of seconds in Cinema (select all polyobjects, go to vertex mode, Ctrl-A for select all, v-menue, optimize -> delete isolated vertices: done!). So don't you tell me it's the software's fault. I also cannot remember when Cinema creaded geometry I didn't want it to create, ever.
    Yes - Cinema's modeling tools indeed are not the fastest out there, unfortunately. I use them only if I need to. Cinema is good in using spline/Nurbs thingies to block in shapes and go from there, IMO.

    Cinema is more suited towards rendering and video than games, though.


    Sketch up is in NO way suitable on it's own, IMO. If you know any 3D you know that Sketchup produces geometry that is easy to create even for non 3D artists but you have NO control over your mesh at all.
    Wings3D .. don't know why that one still pops up every now and then. Go for blender if you need just any good modeler without anything else. The question was about more than a modeler, though. If I'd recommend any modeling application that would probably Modo from all I've seen. Haven't used it myself yet but everything Modo looks very cool. It lacks character animation, though.
     
    Last edited: Nov 30, 2010
  8. glass22

    glass22

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    Maybe this is a better question.

    If all I wanted to model was buildings what would the best 3D modelling app for that specific job, be?

    In terms of easy to use and speed of creation.
     
  9. Jessy

    Jessy

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    Houdini.
     
  10. Tiles

    Tiles

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    Silo.

    Or Google Sketchup maybe.

    Not Blender. It lacks of N-Gons. I would not recommed to model in it. You will sooner or later stumble across situations where you need a hammer to reorient edgeloops here.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 30, 2010
  11. the_motionblur

    the_motionblur

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    The Non-Support of N-Gons is actually a plus since it forces you to create clean geometry.
    NGons only make it seem like it's easier to do. NGons tend to be overlooked as soon as the Mesh has reached a certain level of complexity and getting them out THEN won't be any easier than if you had thought about your topology while creating the model. NGons are also only triangulated and so still need to be thought about before exporting into Unity.

    I still say Cinema4D for this. Max would be too much and too expensive - so is Maya. The architecture edition of Cinema will probably suffice then. All you need are the modeling tools and the Advanced renderer. Those are important for creating static geometry, only.
    And you can still light your modely inside Cinema. If you're going to use Beast lightmapping from within Uity for sure and only that - even the basic version of C4D could suffice.
     
  12. Tiles

    Tiles

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    Hm, there is not this much difference anymore between Max and Cinema nowadays when it comes to the price.

    Sorry, but that is not true. All it does is to make you more work. And that is a Minus. It is definitely easier to model with N-gons. I can trash complete meshparts and redo them in an eyeblink, connecting the edgeloops in the way i want them. Which is in some cases the faster method to reach my needed geometry. In Blender you need an engineer to heal and redo the topology after deleting meshparts.

    Bad modeling is an artists issue, not a tools issue. You have to think about the topology anyways. No matter if your modeler can work with N-Gons or not. It`s just more work without N-Gon support. Good Topology will not leave too much N-Gons in the mesh automatically. In best case none. Besides that, i have a neat little button called quadrify here. One Mouseclick, Problem solved. Same for triangulation :)
     
  13. Senshi

    Senshi

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    Slightly off-topic, but I loved this line: Getting rid of all the unnecessary isolated vertices in the scene is a matter of seconds in Cinema (select all polyobjects, go to vertex mode, Ctrl-A for select all, v-menue, optimize -> delete isolated vertices: done!).
    ---
    That just proves that every 3D app needs a certain degree of know-how before you can fully utilize it. =) I'll save you most of the Blender evanglism, but I think you should definitely consider it because of it's price tag and open-source nature. If after a while you find it's missing features you desperately need, you'll probably be at a level where you can judge for yourself which program offers the tools you need best.
    However, at this point, I'd say Blender offers all basic modeling tools (and more) you need. =)
     
  14. Tomo-Games

    Tomo-Games

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    Blender 2.5.x - I've been using Blender 2.x off and on. In Unity I use the .3ds export. The fbx exporter works but I tire of reselecting all of the various options during export to test every change. Also it seems the fbx files are huge when compared to .3ds. Like 4mb vs. 37k. 3ds has it's limits though but it's a good way to start as you'll probalbly be learning modeling / uv mapping before you leap into animation. There are tons of free online resources out there to help you get started with blender. And there are good books. The best way to start is running through the "From Noob to pro" section on the blender wiki. Blender isn't for everyone. It takes time to get good at it. You'll have lots of trial and error work. I found it wasn't hard to learn blender but you will loose lots of time trying to figure out why some feature isn't working for you. But don't fret, jump on the #blender irc channels. Lot's of people are there to help. As stated Blender isn't for everyone but almost anyone can find a use for it. It doesn't hurt to learn it for your toolbelt. Most artist use many tools to complete their work. Blender is more than a modeller and animator it's does so much which kinda adds to it's not easy to use problem. I wish they would create a lite editon to strip out all those features made for film. And oh God, save often.... ;-)

    Softimage Mod tool - so over looked, great for games. Noesis Interactive: does a great "Free" video tutorial series. Obviously there is newer software versions out but most videos on youtube cover 6 7.5. The tool makes great uses of the mouse buttons which change for every feature used (they get labels seen on a legend). You hit space bar to get back out to what your mouse normally does when in the viewport. You can toggle 4 temporary cameras to jump back and forth while editing your mesh per view point. If you had a Premium Microsoft XNA account ($100/year) you got the Mod tool Pro 7.5 for free! Not sure what the current version is but the non commerial edition is free or has a 30day trial. Autodesk took over where XSI left off.

    Cheetah 3D - Pretty good tool covers most of everything for cheap ($150), pretty easy to use and it's supported by Unity. It runs only on Mac though. The price is very low. Every now and then they run deals and cut the price to nearly half or better if you check back often. On the downside there aren't many free docs out there.
     
  15. cerebrate

    cerebrate

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    I'm not talking about vertices just hanging about. I'm talking about things like this:


     
  16. giyomu

    giyomu

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    where is the problem with that 2 picture , they both give expected behavior from an extrude or inset - extrude on right mesh considering their topology
     
  17. cerebrate

    cerebrate

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    because the one on the left has 208 triangles, the one on the right has only 28. This gets worse when you start worrying about much larger objects with, as an example, I reduced one of the meshes from our c4d guy from around 15k triangles to 11k triangles, without losing any fidelity whatsoever.
     
  18. Tiles

    Tiles

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    Yes, mesh simplify will usually destroy your shape at this example. Mesh simplify nearly always destroys the edgeloop flow anyways. So no good idea to use in most cases.

    I know of a two click solution with trueSpace here. The Modelerside Boolean Substract tool can delete all edges at flat surfaces. It cleans up your mesh. A side effect of the tool. So create a primitive, put it a bit offset so that it doesn`t intersect with your object anymore, and then boolean substract it from your object.

    Well, it gets rid of connecting edges too when they are at flat surfaces. And so the mesh is not longer quadrified. But after a switch to Workspace you can quadrify the mesh again with the Quadrify Polygons tool. This should work with your simple geometry here. It may fail though at complicated geometry with lots of floating meshparts after cleaning up in Modeler. The floating parts can become isolated. That`s a bit more work then to reconnect these parts. But still faster than to redo the whole mesh.

    Not sure if such a functionality exists in Cinema or any other packages too. Haven`t found it in Blender yet. The boolean substraction does not do the trick here. Boolean in Blender is a special chapter anyways. Here i understand why boolean is called evil :)
     
  19. the_motionblur

    the_motionblur

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    I still don't understand why you are calling Cinema 4D evil, right here ...

    If I was to create that shape for a game model then I'D be creating the right version. From within Cinema. There is NO need to create the left shape for extrusion. Create a simple cube, press c to convert to primitive, select front face, press i (for inset), scale inwards, press d (for extrude), click and scale outwards. That workflow is so basic that I don't need cinema open to tell you how it works. Seriously - if you get the left kind of shape from your artist ... it's not Cinema's fault. I don't know him an I don't want to talk bad about someone I don't know, either. It just feels weird to me that you asume that Cinema 4D can only create bad geometry.
    I agree that you won't get good results with auto-decimation. As Tiles said (I agree on that one) - if any only very few auto algorithms create good reduced topology automatically. In nost cases it's not what you probably want. But I dare say (without knowing for sure) - you won't get any better auto-geometry from most major software tools out there.

    Cinema had it's problems with modeling up to release 7 and it still feels slow compared to other software. Yet you DO have all the tools necessary to create clean topology on any Poly-mesh just like in any other major software out there.
     
  20. Tiles

    Tiles

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    Indeed. As told before: Bad modeling is an artists issue, not a tools issue :)
     
  21. Gnaws

    Gnaws

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    Seriously? How long did it take NT to release a major upgrade between LW10 till 11?
     
  22. goat

    goat

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    I'm going with Blender because of price, free training or really inexpensive (CG Cookie), and the gee whiz features that supposedly make the other expensive commercial products so good and so easy aren't exportable via FBX anyway.

    But the main reason is no matter which of these modeling programs you choose they are all tedious and frustrating to learn and this is coming from someone that has sorted through pages of uncommented code to find intermittent bugs reported from the field.

    I did try the demo of C4D and the models were easier to build but the features used to make the model so easy to build were not exportable via FBX so I wound up from having a very nice smooth nurbs based model in C4D to a ultra-low poly FBX model that was broken. Ultra-low poly model meaning the FBX looked awful and I saw no way to tell C4D, "Hey, how about a few more polys to better represent those nurbs via a detail slider or something?"
     
  23. artzfx

    artzfx

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    Top left of C4D viewport there is a "Make Editable" button (viewed as two spheres and two arrows). Just select your object/s and click that button. It will then turn the object/s into a polygon mesh including any modifier settings (like HyperN'URBS object etc) that you have attached to your low poly mesh. FBX will then export it correctly. Since FBX can't recognise C4D modifiers it is only exporting polygon meshes when you exported earlier. The only one that existed was your low poly mesh. C4D modifiers are non destructive hence will not permanently alter your low poly mesh until you tell it to with the Make Editable button
     
  24. goat

    goat

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    Thanks a lot.
     
  25. TechnicianStudios

    TechnicianStudios

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    are we talking about prices? Blender is free period and if you never 3d modeled before then you will be in luck to learn it and grow with it.

    if you used Softimage, 3DS Max, Maya, or any other program then good luck trying to learn Blender with its horrible controls, and I stress that a lot I never used C4D but I heard its ok, but I took a look at the C4D web site and it seems Prime ( i guess that the lower level C4D) cost about $945? while Blender is free.

    If anything I will say Softimage is the best and very easy program to use, but the price tag $3,145 will turn anyone away even me.

    One good thing about Blender is it does have cool stuff that you wont find in a lot of programs, like texture painting, 3d sculpting, a tree generator etc.
    but in the end a 3d program is a 3d program, and everyone is use to there program. for me Softimage is favorite program to use .
     
  26. tmc5

    tmc5

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    I'm VERY interested in animating, but I can't find any tutorials for Cinema 4D. Please respond :(
     
  27. alterus

    alterus

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    What about Carrara 8.0 Pro as an alternative to Blender and tonema4D ?
    Carrara is as user friendly as Cinema 4d but much cheaper
    It can export FBX animated files to Unity, whithout any issue, as faras I know, while Cinema 4d is reported to have some flaws
    It can import/ export from/to DAZ3D and Poser which are a precious sources of models,postures and animations