A couple of new Images

#1

I haven’t been here much in the last bit so thought I would stick my head in and post an image or two.

I’m using this as my current mailer.

http://homepage.mac.com/sherstobitoff/.Pictures/Sherstobitoff3D.jpg

The hand-held phone was rendered in EI where-as the other two were in Modo. The Coke modeled in Modo, the Canucks C in Concepts Unlimited and the hand-held in Rhino.

Even though I am immensely enjoying my working in Modo, I find EI to have much to offer as a package. Yes, it can be a bit stripped-down feeling at times but it is predictable and simple to use…and MForge is there:-) I used MForge for the phone - I still think that is a great shader!

I hope very much the new EI release is great and the HDRI’s implementation is second to none…looking forward to seeing what it’s all about.

Paul

#2

Nice work Paul. Thought you weren’t struck on Modo…? How do you rate it overall? How does it stack up as a standalone package? I can see you have been busy, as usual…

Martin K

#3

Hi Paul,
That phone looks good. Have you considered doing a tutorial on how the phone is textured in EI? Maybe a Paralumino type tutorial?

#4

Thanks. Yes, I’ve been busy…have put the guitars down and brought out the 3D programs.

I love Modo, but only now that I have done some of the tutorials on using it’s SDS tools. That really has been the key and am still somewhat struggling with the new approach to form creation. Rhino still is my main modeler.

As a package Modo is very nice. It’s missing a few things in the materials department but nothing major…the shader tree can get a little complex but not out of control. For basic reflection and GI HDRI renderings it is amazingly fast. It certainly is one, if not ‘the’ favourite renders of mine. It’s HDRI implementation if very straightforward, forgiving and produces fabulous results.

http://homepage.mac.com/sherstobitoff/.Pictures/Modo%20Images/HDR01.jpg

Poly modeling and SDS is a joy but as I said, I’m still getting my head around some of the procedures. I was quite pleased at my Coca-Cola logo as it has been the first time where I have been able to deal with ‘front-faced’ bevels.

http://homepage.mac.com/sherstobitoff/.Pictures/Modo%20Images/CC_Front.jpg

I haven’t done much with the ‘in-house’ painting tools but they seem to work fine…as does the animation features in 301.

I bought Modo at $495 which was a pre 301 special price. One of the best deals in 3D I have ever gotten. I highly recommend it. It isn’t perfect as it can take a few too many steps in places and it can crash…but not too bad. I love the inter-active preview render. Good enthusiastic company and user group.

There is a Rhino to Modo pluggin currently in the works.

But, this last project …the hand-held phone showed me my speed in production still lies with Rhino/EIM and EI. I was surprised at how much I was able to get done in a short period of time. One thing with Modo was I got to re-experience the importing of meshes again and some of the shading errors which can occur. Nothing as much as C4D but it is not EIM-EI smooth. I still forget how well those work together.

So, EI is very much a contender in my production work. I think my familiarity with it’s render and it’s ease of use keep me coming back. I thought the phone turned out quite well and better in EI than if I used Modo or Brazil. But, this is just this project…other projects will require different approaches.

Ok, enough of that…fill me in on how Vray 4 C4D has been for you. From what I remember you pre-purchased it. How is it working for you?

#5

Thanks. No, I haven’t considered doing anything like that. A lot of it is MForge using slight modifications of the presets.

I also hesitate on writing tutorials as my approach can be a lesson in ‘bad’ technique:-) At times my scenes will have almost no illumination from lights and rely almost completely on reflection maps for any sense of lighting…this works on that particullar project and from that particular angle but not if one was to animate the scene.

#6

Excellent work Paul! I gotta get that MForge Shader…!
You hand drawn the Coca Cola logo or did you use the Loki Cola font? I love the bevels.
Thanks for sharing.

#7

Thanks…it might be too late as I’m not sure of what the status of Konkeptione is these days. All I see are posts of people trying to contact them with no success - if they have finally reached them, there is no indication of that.

All hand drawn. That was the first major lesson in SDS…and slight initial disappointment:-). Models like the Coca-Cola one behave far, far better if drawn out poly by poly at the start. Everything goes much better and faster further into the model. It actually doesn’t take that long to do. Maybe just a little longer than the routine bezier clean-up needed in EIM.

#8

Hi Paul,

Very cool mailer! Off topic: That got me thinking about print-mail advertising. How effective is a print-mailer for you in terms of gaining new clients? Getting return business from past clients? How frequently do you mail them out? Do you change the design for each mailer? Are you sending out to an existing list? If not, what kind of list are you using? Current customer base, etc?

Sorry for the barrage of questions, but I’ve been considering using a print-mailer for advertising and just wondered how well they worked for 3D/design work.

Thanks!

Ryan

#9

Sending out a mailer is always a good idea to as many as you possibly can. It’s not as effective as personal contact but it works. It usually is just a nubers game - the more you send out the more you get back.

#10

Aahh yes… er, well I don’t have Vray for C4d yet. It will cost a fair few pounds to first upgrade from 8.5 to 10.05 and then only in order to be able to run the Vray plug in, as there is very little in c4d’s latest version I need over and above what’s in 8.5. The only software aquisition of late is the free upgrade to Vs 2 of Silo which I haven’t really looked at, but for sure it’s better than what you get with c4d’s SDS, not that I’m really complaining.

C4d is quite an expensive bit of software these days- you basically pay for every update you’ve missed out. Soon it will be cheaper to buy another full version instead of upgrading…

I have been playing guitars and purchasing/customising also.

Haven’t really looked at 3D (for fun that is) since the old Gordon Smith thing I did a while back, but oddly have done quite a few paying 3D jobs since and somehow currently seem to be in demand… question is do I buy more guitar stuff or more software?

Modo sounds interesting- thanks for the rundown!

Martin K

#11

I see. That can add up a bit just to be current.

I mentioned before about myself and Max - I’m at 5.3. Great program but I never upgraded as the upgrades never really offered much of what I needed. Now to be current, it’s close to the full price. I called today and found out they still support it if I need a new code…planning to get a new PC so need stuff like that.

I dread the idea of finding all of the Max pluggins I use and seeing if I can get them transfered to the new PC, once gotten…but I need to do it before it’s completely too late.

I think Vray looks like a good solution if you do archi type of work but for general 3D stuff might be a little pricey…don’t know. I’m not in the market right now for it.

Modo’s GI is spectacular in regard speed…and in using HDRI’s for illumination. Very simple to use - not every feature possible but enough to get great results quickly and easily. There is a lot of good stuff in Modo - lot’s of depth and the learning materials are second to none. This is a very strong point with them…almost everything has it’s own video…excellent, excellent.

As I said, I’m looking forward to seeing how V7 of EI is going to look. I hope they have revamped the GI to make it simpler to use with raytraced objects in the scene and then provided a great HDRI illumination and reflective solution. Would be nice to see all of the pluggins and shader up to the current version too. Might be asking a bit much.

#12

A c4d upgrade for me is a wasted £703, then there’s the cost of Vray, which I don’t object to. Modo seems to supply most everything including GI for less than 2/3rds the price of the c4d upgrade…
I will definitely upgrade to EI Vs 7 if it comes out on the PC. Why are you returning to the PC, or is it just to keep going with Rhino?

Martin K

#13

“Modo seems to supply most everything including GI for less than 2/3rds the price of the c4d upgrade…”

I actually got Modo for it’s rendering capabilities and the price was a bargain. I much prefer the look of it’s output to that of C4D…which was somewhat of a contender at the time of purchase. But, some of the mesh import issues with C4D and some of the rendering errors just left me a little flat.

Besides Modo was new and fresh…and I like new:-)

As I said, I got Modo for it’s rendering but quickly found it’s modeler to be very good and a nice surprise. I had written-off SDS for the work I usually do but after doing/watching many of the tutorials I can see how it will be a nice addition to the nurbs I use. Still a little clunky though in my hands.

“Why are you returning to the PC, or is it just to keep going with Rhino?”

I’ve always had a PC here and use it time to time. The one I have is way under-powered and makes using Max and Brazil a bit of a chore these days. Max is a great program and offers some capabilities which aren’t covered in Modo or EI. Brazil is also a favorite and while I’ll stay at Max 5.3, I would like to do some work with Brazil 2.0…it’s just time for a new PC.

I’ve thought about getting a new octal Mac and if EI was multi-processor aware I probably would and run the PC stuff under emulation (not sure if Max can run like that…I need to find out - Rhino does)

#14

I agree with Paul, personal contact is worth it’s weight in gold. Mailers are very effective with standing clients, anyway you can keep in touch with people you have already done work with is very effective. Mailings to new clients can be effective if you are willing to send lots of them and repeatedly to the same people. I heard a stat one time that it takes at least 3 mailings to get someone’s attention. I would put together 3 or 4 different designs with different work on each, then send out a set each month, the first design to everyone one month then design 2 to the same people next month and so on. If you can do follow up calls to the mailings you can greatly increase your odds.

BTW Paul, excellent work as usual!

#15

Looked at Modo in depth and as you say its very impressive what with the preview render and all the other refinements, painting looks very good. Modelling is more comprehensive and better featured than c4d- makes c4d look very old fashioned. Maxon took quite some time to get any tutorials together- the Luxology tutorials are very impressive and give a great insight to the workings of Modo, which is incredibly valuable if you want to actually use the software in a reasonable space of time… Even at the full price its great value.
Could possibly see me ditching c4d…
I prefer SDS modelling to nurbs, even though I have about three nurbs modellers. With SDS you can fudge and force things into shape, whereas with nurbs you have to get things dead ‘right’ at the beginning and things don’t always work out right. Nurbs modellers demand a greater understanding of their modus operandi and it takes much much longer to learn all the small essential details for example if you are automobile modelling, where you need to plan and think many steps ahead. The SDS process I think is more intuitive, although sometimes maybe tedious.

Martin K

#16

Looked at Modo in depth and as you say its very impressive what with the preview render and all the other refinements, painting looks very good. Modelling is more comprehensive and better featured than c4d- makes c4d look very old fashioned. Maxon took quite some time to get any tutorials together- the Luxology tutorials are very impressive and give a great insight to the workings of Modo, which is incredibly valuable if you want to actually use the software in a reasonable space of time… Even at the full price its great value.
Could possibly see me ditching c4d… I’d really like to use Vray, but not at the cost involved in upgrading c4d just for that.
I prefer SDS modelling to nurbs, even though I have about three nurbs modellers. With SDS you can fudge and force things into shape, whereas with nurbs you have to get things dead ‘right’ at the beginning and things don’t always work out right. Nurbs modellers demand a greater understanding of their modus operandi and it takes much much longer to learn all the small essential details for example if you are automobile modelling, where you need to plan and think many steps ahead. The SDS process I think is more intuitive, although sometimes maybe tedious.

Martin K

#17

All it took was for me to hang around the gallery for awhile to convince me it had the rendering power I wanted. There are some exceptional artists using Modo in their daily work.

They have a guy on staff who’s job is to create tutorials and he does an amazing job. Part of the deal I got was the watch tutorial and it completely convinced me I could use Modo for much of my work…and in many cases, poly modeling was the correct approach. Their training materials are second to none and by studying them, I have been able to get a good grasp on the software far quicker than I could have imagined.

One cool aspect (and not included in the eval copy) is if you hold down F1 over any tool, it automatically opens the page explaining the tool and has a video of that tool in action. This is the way it should be done!

A lot of my work is design work…namely logo stuff. Nurbs seem to handle that a little better than SDS in many cases - or I’m just more comfortable using them.

The instant preview is great and does a wonderful job of under-sampling the scene and progressively increasing the quality.

Good software by a young, hungry company who love 3D.

#18

Looking at the Modo forums it seems that many are tearing their hair out with Modo constantly crashing… pity I was ready to buy it. I can’t be doing with software that crashes all the time. Looks like I’ll stick with c4d and go with Vray after all.
And there’s still the next version of EI…

Martin k

#19

The 301 version is a bit tricky. Some guys are having issues and some guys not…I haven’t had much of any trouble but I can certainly see your point. You don’t want production software being flakey at all.

I think you are smart to go with tried and true. I do really like using Modo but at this point couldn’t see using it as my only production tool/render.

EI has a tremendous amount of horsepower and I keep coming back to tools which are predictable and rock solid.

Today I had Rhino opening and dealing with 88,000 distinct surfaces which all needed to be joined. Took a bit but no issues, no crashes and then exported to EIM and then as .fac to EI. Not one hick-up or problem…and it renders as smooth as a baby’s behind:-)

Good luck and let me know how it goes!

#20

Yes, thanks, I’ll keep you posted. Been looking at the Vray for c4d forum to see what if any issues there are. I really liked the look of Modos modelling, but there you go… Silo is pretty good as a SDS modeller anyways- better than c4d and its virtually free.

Martin K