Do You Use Silo?

[pnoland]

Heya, I've been using Silo for a while now and I love it. I started out modeling with Blender and Wings3d and I just never liked Blender for modeling at all but while Wings has nice features I don't think it has the right workflow for me. I dig Silo for it's awesome features, frequent releases with new features that could easily be in the next paying version (for example 1.3 comes with the new topology brush which they could've saved for 2.0 but they didn't). Also, I'm a fan of the customized button setups and mouse buttons which most people don't realize you can do so if you're used to the Mirai style mouse config just switch the mouse option in Silo to it and there ya go. But again the main selling point for me was the frequent and awesome releases. JamChild and Feed are awesome too in the forum, they'll listen to all of us for feature requests and actually implement them! Also, if you have a problem they'll try to work with you one on one to fix it for you. Good luck getting other companies developers to do that for ya. :)

pnoland

[StephanD]

I tried Silo for a while,it seemed to choke my workflow but that's personal and habits-related.

It just didn't "click".

My budget is a bit tight so I prefer buying a complete package right away and be able to animate and render in the same soft. not to mention I already own one of the best modeler-only software in this industry.


It's becoming more and more interesting to be a modeler nowadays with all those artistically driven softwares.(some already out,sonme not)

Back on the Silo topic,the only person that's qualified to answer the question is you because no matter how many good or bad experiences you'll read about a software,it won't compare to the use you have to make of it.

[sevenfingers]

I don't... but I'm going to buy it tomorrow for the topology brush feature. Wings is blazing fast, but painting the topology is worth more than 109 bucks IMHO... :)

I figured my workflow would be something like, Wings 3d for blocking, Silo for fixing the topology, Zbrush for detailing... something like that. Now I just need to purchase a decent renderer so I can enjoy the goodies of decent displacement ;)

[jkyoutsey]

sevenfingers,
That is more like the input I was looking for. What does Silo have that Wings doesn't that might make Silo worth the purchase. Would you care to elaborate on exactly what topology painting is? It's not something I'm familiar with.

Silo has booleans, wings does not. What else might it have that would justify the spending of money?

As a side note, I use Carrara for my texturing and rendering. The new upgrade of Carrara is more expensive and not really more feature rich than XSI foundations. I may end up going that route instead. Aigh! All these choices!

Sing with me... If I had a million dollars....

[sevenfingers]

yep, it's a jungle :)

Anyway, I tried Silo a little while ago, and it didn't exactly work out all that weel for me. I guess I was far too used to Wings by then. The good part is that apparently Silio is VERY configurable, so I bet you could get it to work more or less like wings (with a few added goodies of course).

The topology paint is something I was completely amazed by. I've never seen such a thing for polygons before... it's like... you have a mesh, which can be the worst mess ever, but it holds a good volume. Then, you paint new topology on it, so it works good for animation and/or smoothing... I mean, it's hard to explain, you just have to see it in action.

It's not in the current version of Silo, but the new version is supposed to be released later today, so I'm holding my thumbs it will be in the demo so I can play with it right away.

Anyways, wait for version 1.3 (the demo), download it, and then play with it for 17 days fully featured. If you think it adds something to your workflow, and you can justify the expense (which REALLY isn't that bad... I mean, it's like a few big macs...), buy it :)

I know I am.

As for Wings, I have to tip my hat off for the new connect tool... that along with slide has made it tons more usable. If you don't have the latest development version, download it!

[jkyoutsey]

Yeah, I use slide and connect all the time. Can't believe I just discovered magnets! Those are great!

I'll give the Silo demo a try later in the month.

Thanks!

[pnoland]

It's tough going from one modeling program you're familiar with to another...While Silo's default configuration is more Maya like (I believe) you can switch it so the mouse controls are the same as Wings3d's stlye and the keyboard shortcuts can all be remapped to what ever you like. The 1.3 version (they were supposed to release to us as a beta last night...hopefully today!) will have a more customizable interface in that they've added drag and drop functionality to the UI buttons. Hopefully some other UI goodies they havn't told us about too. :) Also, yet the Topology brush is well worth the 109 dollars especially if you're a Zbrush2 user! If you want to animate with a really detailed character then the Silo + Zbrush combo is sweet not to mention creating Doom3 style characters! I'd say if you really want to try silo first thing you should do is click the 'Options' menu then 'mouse setup'. From their just click the Mirai button to get a more wings like feel to Silo. From there you can either use the manipulator or you can always turn it off and tweak your model...I personally love the manipulator. 'w' 'e' 'r' switches the manipulator from move, scale, and rotate or press 'q' to have all of those options on at one time. Also, one thing I found is that I had to map the 'connect' function to my 'x' key since that's the only funciton that didn't come pre assigned for me. Might've been a fluke though... Anway, when I get my grubby hands on 1.3 (later today?!) I'll post some more information on the new features. Peace.

pnoland

[MasonDoran]

has anyone mentioned that Silo can do both box modelling and point modelling?


Wings is obviously restricted to only box modelling because it cannot handle open surfaces.



I dont know if that means anything to you but it does make Silo a much more robust modeller for being adaptable to different workflows.


The fact that wings is open source and free gives it an amazing promise though.

[jkyoutsey]

pnoland - Thanks! I look forward to hearing more about it! I'm not sure that wings mouse and keyboard shortcuts are all that great. But I've been too lazy to remap everything.

2byts - Yes, there are times when open surface modeling would be preferable to box only modeling. I didn't know that Silo supported that. Excellent point.

I also use Carrara (mainly for texturing, animation, rendering) and it has a vertex modeler but it doesn't always work the way you would expect. It has a spline modeler, but I find that quite complex. But I have had to resort to Carrara's vertex modeler for some things that wings couldn't do. I'll spend some time with Silo to see if it is a better choice in that avenue.

[Xtrude]

Well...

Wings3D has a very powerful set of boxmodeling tools, and it is free... Free I say... I mean this is such a no brainer... there is not another app on the planet which can compare to Wings3D in a end user cost per feature ratio, for box modeling... It's FREE

No it doesn't have the realtime subd feature some other apps do, nor does it have the cool isoline support some others have... However, on the other hand, Wings3D does have the tools required to box out most anything you imagination can come up with... I mean what do you want for free?

If you want to use it then go for it... if you want to continually put it up against other apps which cost money, well... then you have really missed the whole point... as well, have really missed the ironic part of the whole deal... the one about whereby most apps are compared to Wings3D when it comes to boxmodeling... in other words, a freebie is the mark in which to determine the value of others... too funny.

Just pick one or the other, or both, or all... whatever... just use em... and have fun doing so.

[jkyoutsey]

I don't think that anyone missed a point. Wings3D is my first choice in modelling. However, there are some things that it simply CAN'T do. Or at least you have to spend a lot of time to get it to do exactly what you want.

I seriously doubt that there is anyone on these boards that only uses ONE tool. I don't. I'm trying to asses if Silo is the right additional tool to add to my arsenal. I doubt that I will ever completely stop using Wings. Since Wings is the best I've used, then asking others to compare features and usablility to it is a logical question. I'm not asking "which is best". I believe that I'm as good as I can be based upon my skills, not the tool. I'm asking is it worth $105 to add this tool?

No point missed. I love wings.

[Xtrude]

ok, fair enough... :)

well... I would think that providing things work as should, the new topology tool of Silo's is worth the price alone... pretty amazing tech :)

as well, I would think that free upgrades to v2 will provide for some exploring of yet more interesting tools to yet be developed :)

[azazel]

You know, using both is a good idea.... i mean for example wings' uvmapper, after recent additions it's great (cutting and stitching). In some situations it can save a lot of time.

[pnoland]

Yes of course Silo is good for both Box and poly by poly modeling. One method I'm trying now that I got from a couple other Silo users is to block out the base mesh with the soft mode tools in Silo. So basically it's kind of like working in Zbrush since it starts out with a higher polygon mesh then with soft selection (or magnets in wings) push and pull faces, edges, and vertecies to be the basic shape of your mesh. Subdivide as needed to get different levels of detail. Seems like bad way of going about it but with the new topology brush you draw over the high detailed mesh to create the low resolution cage with the edge flow you want. Dave Cardwell (from weta) is the reason I'm trying it this way...check out his results with Silo and Zbrush here: http://206.145.80.239/zbc/showthread.php?t=20761

With the advancements that JamChild and Feed have made with Silo this past release have made paying 109 seem like a steal. The topology brush is fun to use and they've added a smooth function, spin edge, and edge slide (they're working on vertex slide now) plus I believe they're updating the user interface so the buttons will be drag and drop which rocks for creating them...before you had to manually punch in the x and y coordinates to line up your buttons if you made your own. Wait until they've released the 1.3 publicly before you try Silo. It'll speak for itself. And I do agree that Wings3d is a great program...it's better then Nendo and it's free! I love free, hell i'm a blender user for now...savin' a little more cash for cinema 4d 9 ;)

pnoland

[StephanD]

All hype and fanboyism aside,I personally think you shouldn't overlook the other excellent deals such as Softimage and other upcoming products like Modo.

[jkyoutsey]

XSI and Modo are still way beyond a $105 price tag! XSI is intriguing, as is Modo. But they are both in the $5-900 price range. And I'm not necessarily talking about full blown packages (I know Modo is just modeling for now...). I'm strictly talking about a modeling tool.

I will refrain from commenting on other packages that are available and getting off the subject. I was strictly doing research on Silo.

[StephanD]

Heh I understand,I was in your position a few months ago.

Hope you find what's best for you.

PS:HAve you tried getting the input/or search both official forums?

Wings;

http://p212.ezboard.com/bnendowingsmirai

Slo;

http://www.silo3d.com/forum/

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