Character Studio 4 Impressions?

[erilaz]

Me too people. If any of you guys has a character set up in CS4, can you do me a favour and do a test export with the macromedia shockwave plugin? I need to see if it works. The discreet guys said that the old max 4 exporter may not work with CS4.

I'd get the demo from discreet, but that'll take a few weeks to get here. I know you guys are quicker than that!!:D

[PokeChop]

Hmmmmmm. Nothin so far erilaz. Might have fallen on deeeeef ears...

[Mahlon]

I like to hear, too. Am thinking of getting it. The dang demo doesn't work with adn authorized 5.1 though --it will work if 5.1 is in trial mode though.

Mahlon

[erilaz]

More to the point, how many people actually HAVE CS4?

[PokeChop]

I thought there was a big brewhaha about when would it arrive and everyone wanting to get there hands on it. I guess not as many people have upgraded or purchased CS4 yet?

[enforcer2k]

Hahaha, this is funny. Come on someone, say something!!!???

[Dave Black]

I'll say something...

It took me 2 years to convince my employer to upgrade Max from R3 to R5...

I had to write out detailed proposals explaining the need for the upgrade. We use CS here as well, and so we had to upgrade those seats.

So I put my butt out on the line, worked with my dealer and discreet to get the upgrades.

So I spent about a bajillion dollars upgrading to CS 3 and R5, and they never mentioned that they were planning a major upgrade.

So no matter how cool CS 4 is, I just can't go through that again.

That's just me, though. It seems that CS has died out a bit overall. I don't see it being used as much. It's the best character animation plugin of Max so far...but it's heafty pricetag, as well as Max's newer functions are making it hard for people to rationalize the purchase.

Eh.

Just my opinion.

-3DZ

:D

[Mahlon]

I don't know. I didn't really use CS3, because like you say, max bones can cover the standard rigging/animation stuff of Character Studio 3, plus you were dealing with straight TCB. The main things you couldn't get in regular flava max were crowd, physique, and motion clips, which I know are valuable, but I hadn't as much need for those aspects.

But now, with CS4, I'm very interested, as it brings a whole new ballgame to town with the NLA mixer, the function curve editor (big thumbs up!), controllers ('nother big thumbs up!), and support for saving max bones/ik with the bip file, props retargeting, and not to mention the analyzer useful for mocap data. This seems like a pretty major jump for CS. And the way the NLA mixer works (according to the pdf, haven't tried it for real yet) looks really nice. Time warps, and blending, and dynamic balancing from upper to lower, vica-versa. Too cool.

I would think it would be worth an upgrade for you as the upgrade price is fairly reasonable (I guess depending on how many seats you have). I hear ya though; communication could be stronger in the commercial dept.

Just thoughts, :beer:

Mahlon

[pluMmet]

I have it...not to tease you guys but I just don't have the time to mess with it right now...in a week or two mabey:hmm:

[CGTalk Moderation]

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.