Stepping back into CG after 10 plus years

[cookepuss]

I can’t thank you enough, for your help. You’ve really helped me out.

Not a problem. This place isn’t exactly the high traffic haven for CG that you might remember from 2010, but a few of us from that period still pop in every now and then. I’m more than happy to help.

It’s such a powerful program, I laughed when I saw Maya experts using the application and seeing there reactions on how good of a program it is.

You should see the chatter going on in the LightWave forums these days. Though unconfirmed, it seems that LightWave has finally been discontinued or will very soon be. A lot of the members in that forum are immediately jumping ship to Blender, refusing to buy into Autodesk’s “pay forever” subscription scheme. (Incidentally, that’s one of the reasons why you see so many Maya users jumping ship. They’re paying an arm and a leg in nigh perpetuity, but the feature upgrades and fixes no longer seem to be justifying the long term cost… Lots of upset ADSK artists.)

Onto something else… Here are some YT channels and links that might be able to help you or pique your creative curiosity.

YanSculpts: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfjswDVU0XHyBN7UFG0Mi5Q
He mostly covers speed sculpts and related tutorials. If you’re seriously interested in using Blender for sculpting then his channel should be one of your first stops.

On a related note, Pablo Dobarro - the artist/developer responsible for the updated sculpt tools - recently demoed the upcoming speed bump. (https://twitter.com/pablodp606/status/1309556563787550720) IIRC, he said that we should expect it within the next month or two. That should more or less put it in line for the upcoming v2.91, which is tentatively scheduled for the very end of November.

CG Boost: https://www.youtube.com/c/CGBoost/
Zach Reinhardt offers a bunch of good tutorials an tips for users of all skill levels. He’s generally pretty easy to follow.

Andrew Price: https://www.youtube.com/user/AndrewPPrice/
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Andrew’s channel. His donut tutorial is practically a rite of passage. Lots of other good topics there too.

Blender 2.8 Full Training From Beginner To Pro: https://blendermarket.com/products/blender-28-training/docs
This is a $70 downloadable course, but it covers all of the major topics in a 34 hour package. There are a few minor UI differences between v2.8x and v2.9, but it’s mostly the same. It’s pretty comprehensive and more than worth the price.

Shane Olson - Stylized Character Sculpting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=al6LKwhfnYE&list=PLMjnnUF3eJFdf6Lyh_ZfTUJ7_zccZpgLk&index=148
Being that it’s on the Pixologic channel, it’s not really Blender related. However, all of the concepts from building a base mesh using CSG to detailing and posing are all transferable. Whether you’re a newbie or a seasoned vet, there are a bunch of good tips that you can pick up just by watching him work/play.

Here are also a few non-Blender related books if you’re looking to bone up on your anatomy, no pun intended.

Anatomy for 3D Artists: The Essential Guide for CG Professionals - https://www.amazon.com/Anatomy-3D-Artists-Essential-Professionals/dp/1909414247/ref=sr_1_2?crid=3J08N6S58DOJI
Anatomy for Sculptors Understanding the Human Figure - https://www.amazon.com/Anatomy-Sculptors-Understanding-Human-Figure/dp/0990341100/ref=sr_1_3?crid=3J08N6S58DOJI
The Artist’s Guide to the Anatomy of the Human Head: Defining Structure and Capturing Emotions - https://www.amazon.com/Artists-Guide-Anatomy-Human-Head/dp/190941445X/ref=sr_1_6?crid=3J08N6S58DOJI

As a rule of thumb, I tend not to indulge in the plugin/add-on culture. I’ve found that some developers seem more committed to supporting their products than others. As such, it can sometimes be risky to depend on an add-on for a crucial project. That said, there are still some quality commercial add-ons for Blender worth your time.

Hardops ($20): https://blendermarket.com/products/hardopsofficial
This is the gold standard for hard surface modeling tools. If you like to build robots, weapons, or other mechanical type objects then this is a must have. It’s constantly updated and has been around for 4 or 5 years now.

Mirage ($25): https://blendermarket.com/products/mirage
A bit like a poor man’s World Creator, Mirage is an excellent terrain generation and population system. Tacked on with Blender already built-in tools for creating trees and ivy, Mirage will really help you scratch that wilderness itch. Alternatively, you could also look into the even more advanced Grove add-on (https://www.thegrove3d.com/), but it is equally more expensive at almost $140.

Quad Remesher ($60-$110): https://exoside.com/quadremesher/
I don’t know if you’ve ever seen ZBrush’s ZRemesher tool in action. If you haven’t here’s the gist. With the click of a button, you can create a lower poly mesh with well organized topology from that messy, poly dense sculpt that you’ve been working on. Quad Remesher was created by one of the ZBrush programmers responsible for ZRemesher. It does the same thing, but from within Blender. Blender has its own built-in remeshing tools, recently updated, but none of them produce results as amazing as Quad Remesher. Given how long manual retopology can take, this add-on is a godsend.

Cloth Weaver ($45-60): https://blendermarket.com/products/cloth-weaver
Another “poor man’s version” of a familiar tool, Cloth Weaver allows you to create clothing for your characters using a pattern-based system. It is somewhere in-between Cinema4D’s old Clothilde system and the more advanced Marvelous Designer. Coupled with the built-in cloth sim tools, the results are rather impressive at that price range. EDIT>>> In this same class of add-ons, you might also want to look at the equally good Garment Tool ($52) -> https://gumroad.com/l/GarmentTool

BPainter ($40) and Layer Painter ($20): https://blendermarket.com/products/bpainter & https://blendermarket.com/products/bpainter
I’m kinda lumping these two together because they relate to the same thing. Blender’s built-in texture painting tools are solid and, tbh, far and away better than the old 2010 era BodyPaint3D that many CG artists swore by. However, as good as they are, Blender’s texture painting tools still seem to be missing a few features here and there when it comes to PBR and layers. If you don’t like the free/$20 ArmorPaint and don’t wish to spend $150+ on Substance Painter then here’s a way to beef up the tools already included with your Blender package.

FLIP Fluids ($76): https://blendermarket.com/products/flipfluids
Your mileage may vary here. Not everybody needs to do fluid sim often enough to justify this addon. However, if you find yourself constantly craving the rush of flowing rivers, splashing waterfalls, or epic waves then FLIP Fluids might be up your alley. Blender already has built-in sim and you can readily do complex projects relating to fluids. FLIP Fluids is its own engine and, as such, offers its own set of perks and advanced options, such as object destruction/fracturing. FLIP Fluids is about as almost expensive as Blender add-ons get, but it should probably be on your list if you’re looking to create film quality fluids. (You can do such things in Blender, but FLIP Fluids lets you skip some steps towards that goal.)

All of that aside, you might want to dig into Blender’s add-on panel in you preference menu. There are a LOT of fantastic add-ons that are bundled with Blender, but aren’t turned on by default. They cover everything from image planes to extra object to auto rigging and so on. Seriously. You have no idea how many Blender users don’t know about the extra power that’s at their disposal. Definitely worth checking out and it won’t cost you a dime.

NB>>> If you’re looking for further help and a way to interact more with the Blender and art community at large, I would strongly suggest that you join some dedicated groups on Facebook or Discord. Within the past 10 years, the art community has shifted away from forums such as this and onto social media instead. There are a few good forums that still thrive such as Blender Artists (www.blenderartists.org) and Polycount (www.polycount.com), but most forums have been pretty dead since the Global Recession of 2008/2010. We’ve discussed this topic at length here time and again, but the bottom line is that forums are the past and social is the future. Just be aware that, as you might expect, groups on FB and such don’t often offer the same level of maturity or professionalism as a dedicated forum. Lots of poseurs and newbies who can’t take or offer useful critiques. It pays to “window shop” until you find the group that suits you the most. LOTS to choose from

FYI, you can find me on FB at https://www.facebook.com/cookepuss/

[sacboi]

Hey,

Just chiming in to say thanks for the heads up on the Affinity Photo PS alternative because was originally going with "ye olde indie standby’ Gimp to texture paint with which at the same time kinda evoked a Homer ‘doh!’ face palm moment when I eyeballed your reply since it’s sister vector app - Designer, I’ve utilized over the previous eleven months too draw graphic art biased illustrations.

[cookepuss]

thanks for the heads up on the Affinity Photo PS alternative

Happy to help.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with Gimp. When configured properly and with the right plugins, you can get a solid PS experience that’s somewhere between v7 and CS2. Gimp’s real problem is that it’s painfully slow. When executing scripts or working with layer operations, it can just grind to a near halt. Gimp doesn’t make the most of multi-threading and just straight up ignores the advantages of GPU acceleration. Affinity Photo is significantly faster in nearly every way. That alone makes it worth the $50 over Gimp.

I’ll be honest with you. On a personal level, I’d much rather use Photoshop. I’ve been using it since around 1992. It feels like second nature. And with my sister in-law being an Adobe employee, I can and actually have capitalized on her employee discount and get the full CC suite for about $60/yr - a full 90% off. Still, I’d much rather not. I’m am SO sick of the whole “software as a service” trend that I can’t, in good conscience, give them another damn dime.

Even at a discounted price, I’m tired of throwing good money after bad for a program that now sees only marginal improvements year after year. It’s frustrating. Adobe hasn’t done anything earth shattering to Photoshop in since the introduction of Content-Aware Fill and that was nearly 10 years ago. They’ve been dragging ass and treading water with what have been mostly quality of life updates ever since. In practice, there is literally nothing I can do with today’s v21 that I couldn’t also do with v12. In many cases, with a few workflow adjustments, I could probably even achieve the same sort quality to edits and textures in 2002’s v7.01. Photoshop has been a “mature” app for many years whereas Gimp is still maturing; Gimp is somehow better than PS7 and also worse.

I’m done with subscriptions. I really am. I’d like to own something at the end of the day. I’d like to be able to stay with a specific favorite version instead of being forced to “upgrade” to something potentially worse. For me, opting to move to Affinity & Blender from Photoshop & Maya is not just a protest. It’s a sort of common sense measure. If both apps do what I need and nearly as well (or better), why give money to companies that want me to pay in perpetuity with little promise of them giving back in equal measure.

The truth is that neither Adobe, nor Autodesk have to do anything other than provide an app that works in order to justify the subscription price. That they still update it with new features is, by their standards, a sort of “gift” for staying on board. It’s insulting. I can only imagine the years of frustration experienced by 3dsmax users who saw glacier paced improvements for a period of time.

Nah. I’m done with subscriptions and cash cow software. After 30 years doing CG, I’ve spent more than enough money.

[sacboi]

I’m curious if you’ve any thoughts on Allegorithmic’s substance suite, specifically Painter?

Over recent years as a hobbyist, I’ve delved a bit into hard surface game asset creation techniques but at the moment without sufficient funds to upgrade my current system, I’m pretty much constrained too utilizing solutions that are not GPU/CPU intensive, hence image editing substitutes for the time being. I’m also aware of the company’s acquisition by Adobe 12 months ago however their licensing policies still seem reasonable especially for those on a budget, particularly the perpetual version available via Steam although not sure at this point will continue beyond 2021.

[mister3d]

Substance is pretty much a prerequisite now on applying into a gaming company, provided you are to texture any thing.
I am myself also not proficient with it, but it seems like an unavoidable means.
I know it sounds harsh, but in this industry, those who don’t use the latest tools for the job, simply won’t get the gig.
This happened to a modeler, who became cosy with his 3ds max modeling characters, but coudn’t compete with those, proficient with Zbrush.
It’s a very powerful tool, and not knowing Substance equals to not knowing Zbrush for organic modeling. You can, but you will lag behind.
Of course, I would invest into artistic any time, as tools change constantly. In 5 years it will be another software, even easier, faster, and more artists will be able creating amazing stuff, limited ony by their artistic skill.
Sacboi, at least now is a great time to upgrade. You can wait maybe until RTX 3000 cards will arrive with 16 and 20 GB of RAM within quarter, but there’s a plethora of CPUs on the market for reasonable prices (not like it was 5 years ago with Intel raising CPU speed 5% a year), and videocards are not as overpriced as several years ago due to mining rush.

[sacboi]

Thanks, will look into various pricing options.

[cookepuss]

I’m curious if you’ve any thoughts on Allegorithmic’s substance suite, specifically Painter?

PRO:

• It’s every bit the 3D equivalent to Photoshop and is, in many ways, what MAXON’s BodyPaint3D tried to be.
• It’s fast and highly responsive even with lots of large 4K layers
• Baking is fast and produces quality results, although you might find yourself going back to the slower xNormal on occasion.
• The paint tools are extremely strong, especially with particles on your side.
• MUCH cheaper than Foundry’s Mari alternative

CON:

• Welcome to Camp Adobe. There was never any doubt how Allegorithmic would treat their customers. Support was great and the upgrade pricing was downright reasonable. Adobe LOVES their subscription (ie. cash cow) model of doing business and support has, historically, been hit or miss at times. No telling how they’ll treat Substance down the line, especially since it isn’t officially part of the CC ecosystem. Maybe they’re in it for the long haul. Maybe they’re not.
• Like many established apps, Substance Painter has gotten a bit bloated over the years. I’ve been using it since v1. The UI/UX at v2020 is more “weighty” than it’s ever been. This can be addressed and fixed in future versions, but - let’s face it - this is Adobe we’re talking about. They ignored the bloat issue with Photoshop’s UI for many years. There’s no telling when or if they’ll address the issue for an app that wasn’t born in-house. To be clear, the Painter UI/UX isn’t bad. It just long overdue for some clean up.

ABOUT THE ALTERNATIVES…
I stand by my recommendation of ArmorPaint for indie artists who are strapped for cash. Especially for the tiny/free price, it’s extremely capable. It’s not as fast, stable, or as feature rich as Substance, but that’s to be expected given that it hasn’t even reached v1.0 status yet. On the flipside, there’s something to be said for a no-frills experience. Some of the creature comforts might not be there, but running lean means that you have very little to distract you from the task at had; That makes for an equally newbie friendly experience.

3D-Coat is decently solid for 3D paint and is about as fast as you’d expect from the app, whose voxel toolset is smooth as silk. Of course, you can make an argument that it’ll never be as good as Substance Painter and, well, you’d probably be right. 3D-Coat’s main attraction isn’t the paint functionality. It’s (primarily) a sculpt tool. You can certainly UV and paint in it, but the meat of the app is the sculpting. In that spirit, an app like Substance Painter only has to be good at one specific thing - 3D paint. It doesn’t have to concern itself with also being good at sculpting, modeling, animating, & so on - unlike general purpose suites. Additionally, 3D-Coat’s perpetual license is still 2x+ more than Substance Painter’s (Steam purchase only) perpetual.

Mari is… okay. Admittedly, my exposure to Mari has been limited to the Indie version. Even considering the Indie limited feature set, I’d still rather use Substance Painter or the more limited ArmorPaint. Like MODO, Mari feels thrown together and messy. The paint tools, at least on my end, don’t feel as responsive once your projects get more complex. I would like to think that the so-called “pro” version is faster, but I’ll never know. You’re just not going to convince me to pay almost $2,200 for a product whose alternative is superior AND cheaper. I can’t even direct y’all to any version Mari Indie since Foundry no longer offers it on Steam. I’m sorta shocked that they still offer MODO Indie via that channel too; It should be noted that MODO Indie support is super weak and the app itself is typically a release or two behind the pro version.

BodyPaint3D… Don’t even bother. I first stated using MAXON’s Cinema4D, of which BodyPaint3D is a part, some 18 years ago with R6 and still maintain a current license. To put it bluntly, Cinema 4D’s BodyPaint3D functionality is an utter joke. Much like C4D’s cloth/dynamics, pyroclastics, and material system, its BP3D functionality is ancient, neglected, slow, under powered, and too crude to be practical. Even when 3D paint was being emphasized in C4D’s promo literature, I can’t point out many pros that were actually using it to the same degree as they might use Substance Painter today. At best, most pros (myself included) only ever used BodyPaint3D to touch up 3D textures or fix seams. Feature for feature, comparing BodyPaint3D to Substance Painter might be like comparing MS Paint to Photoshop.

Quixel Mixer… shows promise. It’s free, which is nice. It’s supported and developed by by Epic, which is also nice. I will say, however, that it has a long way to go to be a legitimate competitor for Painter. It’ll get there. It’s just not there yet and the reason why is pretty simple: They basically started over. Mixer’s predecessor, Quixel Suite, aimed to be a 3D paint solution that integrated itself with Photoshop, allowing you to work in 3D, but also use Photoshop’s extensive tool set. Conceptually, the app was brilliant. In practice, however, it was buggy af and hard to keep updated and compatible with each new PS version. Instead of trying to swim upstream, they just abandoned Quixel Suite after a few major releases. Mixer is basically the do over for them; a reboot of sorts that aims to get the job done without being PS dependent. In starting over, they have some old ground to go back over and tools to (re)create. Mixer isn’t as good as Painter, but it might be… in time. Also, how much you enjoy the Mixer experience also depends on how much you appreciate its deep ties to MegaScans.

IF YOU OPT TO GO THE SUBSTANCE PAINTER ROUTE…
Opt for the perpetual license Steam version. There’s no telling if Adobe will keep on offering it alongside the subscription version, but you’d be doing yourself a disservice to NOT pick it up. At $149, you can’t lose. You get 12 months of feature updates and bug fixes for a program that is in every way the same as the non-Steam version. Plus, even if Adobe abandons their Steam plans, it’ll never expire.

You could argue that the non-Steam version is worth the $219 because it also includes Designer & Alchemist. However, not everybody uses or needs Designer. You might well be paying an extra $70/yr to just use one app, Painter. On top of that, unlike with the Steam license, you’ll be paying $219/yr in perpetuity thanks to the subscription model. Stop paying and you no longer have the app at your disposal. The Steam purchased edition is yours forever, or for as long as it’s compatible with your OS/hardware. You only have to pay once. Of course, you could opt to pay $149 every year for the latest Steam version.

(Naturally, there are some that might suggest it’s still more costly to pay Steam $298 every year for Designer & Painter especially since you’re not getting Alchemist or Source in the deal. Again, however… perpetual licenses. That’s a fair trade, imo. )

NB: If your Substance account is linked to your Steam account, you’ll also have access to a license key and EXE installer via your Substance account. Why is this cool? It means that you don’t need Steam. You can install AND activate that perpetual indie license offline. No Steam! Great for environments where you’ve got restricted internet access or where the Steam client isn’t an option.

"SHOULD I BITE THE BULLET AND USE PAINTER?"
It depends.

If you’re cash strapped to the point where you can’t afford the $149 for a Steam perpetual license or $219/yr for a subscription, ArmorPaint is viable. Again, there are limitations and the product is still WIP, but $0 ($19 via Gumroad) is hard to beat. If you’re patient and have no problem working with a program that’s still growing and coming into it’s own then ArmorPaint is definitely an option. With Epic having recently tossed a (small) MegaGrant their way, ArmorPaint remains one to keep an eye on. It’s not a 1:1 replacement for Painter, but it’s about as close as you’re going to get in an open source app.

If, however, you don’t mind (blech) subscriptions or can afford to pay up $149 to Steam at least once, pull the trigger and go with Substance Painter. You might never want to go pro, but that doesn’t matter. Painter’s rich feature set is so seductive that you’ll want to use it anyway. It does everything SO well that it’s hard to pass by. Save the cash if you have to.

Substance Painter is in a very unique position.

With Photoshop, even though it’s the de facto standards, many users can do just as well by opting for the alternatives instead. Even if Affinity Photo didn’t come so close to PS-level power, which it does, it wouldn’t need to anyway. In practice, most artists only ever need a small subset of what PS has to offer. Digital artists, for example, might never touch any of the many features related to print work. Similarly, artists working in CMYK might as well ignore the features most appealing to RGB or 8-bit artists.

Substance Painter, otoh, is so laser focused on what it does that there’s no segmentation in features required by the different types of users. Texture artists working on games and film will end up touching the same corners of the app. Any Painter alternative you choose (or build) will involve some personal or functional compromises. That’s fine if you can live with them, which is why I still recommend ArmorPaint to hobbyists or poor indies. If, however, you want a TRUE 1:1 Substance Painter experience then only Substance Painter will do.

If you DO want to go pro, learning Substance Painter is probably a must. You could learn the 3D painting techniques elsewhere, but Painter compliance entails having hands on experience with the program first before applying for a studio job. Learning the app isn’t super hard, but doing so on the job is probably not recommended.

Should you go for Substance Painter? Assess your needs. If you can get away with ArmorPaint or Blender with some 3D paint related add-ons, go for it. If you find an itch to go pro or that Painter calls to you like a buxom siren, just bite the bullet and pay up. It’s not a PS vs Affinity sort of comparison where good enough is perfectly fine. At the sub-$500 price point, no other 3D paint app is exactly as powerful as Substance. Choosing a Painter alternative also means choosing to live without a feature you might later want or need.

[Tiles]

Just to add another opinion here, and since you already have a valid ZBrush license it seems, ZBrush is a good compagnion with Blender.

I personally would never think to sculpt in Blender since it starts to fail where sculpting starts. In the megapoly range.

[cookepuss]

I personally would never think to sculpt in Blender since it starts to fail where sculpting starts. In the megapoly range.

Can Blender handle a 5 billion poly mesh in real-time? No. Of course not. Then again, neither can ZBrush. Not exactly. Apps like Blender & Maya have to manage an obscene amount of data in any one scene or for any one model. It’ll never reach a hardware blt limit like that. ZBrush, otoh, forgoes the internal complexities in its implementation of the pixol. Its canvas representation is 2.5D. That’s why ZBrush’s internals don’t and won’t get a boost from GPUs. It’s also why an artist with a 14-core CPU will be able to push around denser meshes more easily than one with a 4-core CPU.

I would liken it to a battle of 90s era FPS games and comparing the full throttle Serious Sam experience to, say, Quake I, which couldn’t push as many enemies on screen. That’s the beauty of 2.5D. It’s a clever fake that gets you to exactly where you need to be, but it’s a fake nevertheless. Technical details aside, results are what matter most and, yes, ZBrush can get you to that HD megapoly range that no other app can. You’re 100% right.

However, in the end, it all depends on your particular needs and your workflow. I would say, depending on your system, you can smoothly sculpt models of up to 25mil quads (50mil) triangles in Blender. At least that’s where I top out before subdividing again will bring my brush strokes to a crawl and quadruple RAM usage. By anybody’s standard, 25mil quads is still a lot.

I would like to offer some very basic tips if you want to get the most from a Blender sculpt:

1. Start out with a well organized base mesh or carefully plan your block out. The more detail you can get out of the lowest resolution the better.
2. Use Dyntopo where you need that localized fine detail. It makes no sense to SubD to areas that won’t receive any apparent detail at all.
3. Retopo to scale back physical poly quality, but maintain visual quality. Manual retopo is slow, but effective while automated solutions do a quicker, albeit less precise, job. Exoside’s Quad Remesher add-on is the same godsend as ZBrush’s internal ZRemesher and you’ll use it for that same exact reason.
4. Once you have a mesh that’s been built, sculpted, and retopoed, you can still squeeze out more detail on a global level with old school SubDs. As powerful as Dyntopo and Multires are, they’re much slower than pure subdivision. If you’re working with basic rock or human that you’ve already sculpted, going back in with regular SubDs will still allow you to add in that fine porous details and physical erosion.

Using these basic techniques, a number of artists are able to achieve HD-like detail without actually going to that megapoly billion+ extreme. As with ZBrush and the pixol, it’s not what you actually do, but how it appears.

All of that aside, I will once again point you to the upcoming sculpting mode rewrite. Pablo Dobarro has sped up the experience. On his very modest i7-9750H laptop, it seems that he’s gotten a boost in speed to the tune of 5x-10x. That’s very impressive and should bode extremely well for those looking to sculpt lots of fine details. No firm plans as to when it’ll make its debut, but he projects that it should be included within a month or two - which places it around v2.91’s late November release date.

There are a bunch of Blender artists who only use Blender for sculpting. Artists such as Yuditya Afandi have produced some fairly impressive work that’ll make you say, “Wait. He did that in Blender?!?” I would think, using the upcoming sculpt enhancements, his work might achieve the same levels of photorealism as Hossein Diba’s ZBrush work.

As it stands, Zach Reinhardt’s advanced sculpting course, the one with the high poly dragon, can give you a good idea of exactly how far you can push things with some careful planning. Yeah. ZBrush is STILL the undisputed king for HD mesh sculpting. You’re 100% right. No arguments there. That doesn’t mean that you can’t get equally impressive results though. ZBrush will get you there the brute force way. With Blender, you’ll just have to play it smarter.

[sacboi]

Thanks for the insight, very informative.

There’s certainly a number of packages I’ve neither thought to explore further or had lost track of as in ArmorPaint for one, when last I checked was v 7 so looks as though development has shifted along at pace since then, also great too see Epic’s continued support as well. In addition recall a thread comment discussing a similar topic elsewhere on another forum about converting substance materials for use inside either APaint or 3DCoat, simply by downloading the free substance player - load substance materials - export them as PBR textures which in my opinion would extend both native material libraries.

Now Quixel is indeed interesting, funnily enough I’d always thought to be specifically geared toward Photogrammetry/Megacan content creation so erstwhile wasn’t aware of Mixer’s out of the box painting attributes otherwise at a glance, minimum system requirements seem compatible with my current 2012 desktop setup assembled around an Intel core i5 Ivory Bridge - AMD Radeon 7800 (2GB GDDR5) VRAM + 16GB RAM.

Anyway at least worthwhile testing alongside apps I’ve listed earlier. At this point going Pro isn’t on the horizon although having previously worked traditionally on commission (Portraiture) during the 1990s but only transitioning across to digital in the mid 2000s whilst over the intervening period freelanced sporadically mostly automotive visualization, however who knows in these uncertain times a fulltime studio role is still attainable, whether remote or not well into the foreseeable future.

P.S.
Apologies @dynobot didn’t mean to hog your thread, best of luck for your renewed CG journey.

[Tiles]

Can Blender handle a 5 billion poly mesh in real-time? No. Of course not. Then again, neither can ZBrush.

I love exxagerations. But you have a odd comparison here ^^

Mine is this: Can ZBrush handle 20 million polgyons at my pc? With ease. Can Blender handle with the same ease at least handle 1 million polygons in sculpt mode? Not at all.

Sometimes it’s easier to use another tool instead of the next workaround. And he has already ZBrush

[cookepuss]

Can Blender handle with the same ease at least handle 1 million polygons in sculpt mode? Not at all.

I guess that it’s down to hardware then. Admittedly, I’m not running a slowpoke PC. I can handle 25mil quads in sculpt mode with Blender. Easily. Modifiers like multires & then dyntopo can slow things to a crawl, but raw sculpting into a 25mil quad mesh is really not a big deal on my end. On my laptop, however, that number probably drops down to 7mil quads - more or less. This shouldn’t be all THAT surprising though. More memory on the deskop. Faster CPU on the deskop.

Back in ye oldie days of Nevercenter Silo, circa 2010, the app would top out for me at around 2.5mil quads. That was only because the app itself was 32-bit and I had 4GB RAM. A modern 64-bit app with a fairly recent CPU and a decent amount of RAM is almost guaranteed to perform better on the most basic of levels. Blender performs much better than that 10 year old app on a 10 year old system, unsurprisingly. That you can only sculpt up to 1mil polygons is, from my experience, not all that normal. Only you know the bottleneck.

Sometimes it’s easier to use another tool instead of the next workaround. And he has already ZBrush

Maybe, but here are the counterpoints:

1. App switching isn’t terribly inconvenient, but staying within a single, unified experience offers basic workflow benefits. He who travels lightest travels quickest.
2. ZBrush has its benefits when you want to go crazy with the detail. Practically, however, most artists probably don’t neeed to sculpt right up to that perceptual limit where each poly is pixel sized. If, like me, you get speedy Blender sculpt performance and don’t feel that you work is being compromised then maybe you can consider Blender to be an alternative instead of a workaround.
3. On a purely technical level, we have to consider the consequences of interoperability. UHD poly counts are awesome provided that you stay within the ZBrush sandbox. However, they become insanely impractical once you have to leave ZBrush. ZBrush has the pixol advantage, but other apps don’t. Being able to create and optimize the model within the very the environment for which it’s intended has some advantages. UHD ZBrush models have their place, but ultimately have to be compromised to some degree when using them elsewhere. In a sense, it’s the difference between porting a PS4 game to the 3DS versus building the game specifically around that portable’s strengths & weaknesses. Retargetted VS built to spec. I guess it’s just a different perspective on the issue. If you can get the quality that you need within Blender, why not? Blender’s sculpt tools are not only competent, they are more than capable.
4. We know that he was a ZBrush user 10 years ago. I had/have no idea whether he still has access to that old license or his Pixologic account. Anything can happen in 10 years. Suggesting Blender as an alternative to spending an extra $900 seemed like a reasonable recommendation.

Hey. If Blender sculpting performs like crap on your system, stick with ZBrush. It’s an amazing app and has more than earned its status as an industry standard. For me, Blender performs very well in sculpt mode, meets my technical needs as well as ZBrush, and helps to streamline my workflow by being a one-stop solution. You don’t have to agree with me. Neither does the OP. Everybody’s needs are different. I’ve had a ZBrush license for nearly 2 decades and find myself needing to return to it less and less these days.

It’s nice that ZBrush will allow you to go crazy with detail, but that sort of detail takes time. That (time) is a precious commodity when you’re facing deadlines and the model is maybe just one part of the larger whole. Over the course of 18 years with ZBrush, my most detailed single subtool has only had ~90mil triangles. (It was a super detailed chainmail armor, iirc.) So, for me in 2020, 25mil quads (50mil tri) per sub object has been my sweet spot limit.

Per subtool, I don’t find myself exceeding that limit much anymore; Trying to do the most with the least. In that capacity, my practical per mesh sculpt limit in Blender is almost directly in line with my self-imposed per subtool limit in ZBrush. So, for my needs, I’d no sooner consider it a “workaround” than I would, say, 3D-Coat. Is it a 1:1 replacement? Not for UHD. No. Is it an alternative when we consider the needs of most digital sculptors? Yeah. Sure. It’s getting better with each revision too.

ALL OF THAT ASIDE…

Pipelines have gotten crazy long over the years. Think about how many apps you might end up using on a given project. Beyond the price for maintaining such a large stable of apps, the personal cost in terms of time and energy can be exhausting. My personal affinity for Blender stems from the fact that it is so versatile. Blender might not be a 1:1 replacement for every app that you have, but it can provide you with a single viable alternative that doesn’t simply feel like a workaround.

How many apps do y’all own? I’ve got TONS. All 100% legal licenses, but too many. Of those,. I’ve used (easily) up to 15 different apps on certain projects. All “best in class” types. All serving unique purposes. Still, it’s totally possible to crush yourself under the weight of an overly long pipeline. At this point, I’ve got myself down to a max of 6 apps. Honestly? I like it better this way. It’s definitely a long way from the days where I only needed 2 apps, one 3D and one 2D, but it’s a massive weight off of my shoulders. Less to maintain. Less to spend. Tighter focus.

(FWIW, I still reluctantly maintain licenses to Adobe CC & Maya, but that’s mostly for practical reasons.)

[Tiles]

Yeah, all true and valid thoughts. But sometimes the long pipeline saves you work compared to a one trick tool that does everything a little bit but nothing really well. Especially when this pipeline is designed to work with each other.

In the end is allowed what works, which we both agree to

[ThreeDDude]

Greetings Dynobot,

There is really not much I can add about Blender 2.9x except to say that the Biggest change in everyones workflow in the last decade has been Realtime viewport rendering & Rendering in general.

Since switching from Maxon C4D to Blender completely, for both content creation and final animation rendering , back in April this year,
I could never go back to any 3DCC software that did not offer realtime or very rear realtime viewport performance.

For general look Dev & TD/lighting work, Blenders EEVEE is quite the treat after so many years struggling with C4D’s Bloody awful veiwport.

I am currently working on an animated web series based on the Popular videogame franchise “HALO” from 343 Industries.
and creating all of the content in Blender including the custom clothing& armors for my Iclone/CC3 Avatars
and importing my animated Characters from Reallusion Iclone/CC3
back to Blender for rendering
I will be doing all of my final renders with EEVEE.

I would also strongly …Strongly!! urge you to invest in the Hardops& box cutter add-ons even if your modeling passion is sculpting.

Also be sure to get the free SSGI plugin for EEVEE from Github
(or perhaps Gumroad??)

Essentially it enables realtime (screen space) Global Illumination for EEVEE, giving Emmissive materials the ability to act as light sources in EEVEE the way they do in path tracers.

On the matter of free or low cost companion software for Blender
You should have a look at Krita as well.( free)

They have done a right proper job at ripping off Adobe photoshop
with the latest release ( in a good ,flattering way)
and it is a much more “polished” tool than GIMP IMHO

Also Krita ( I have found) is the only free 2D editor than can output SVG files that Blender can recognize /import for extruding 3D models from vector profiles.

Also I now use the Free version of Davinci Resolve 16 from Black Magic Design,

Not only does it have an excellent nonlinear editor with non destructive adjustment layers and color grading tools, but a proper node based compositor( Fusion)
with many open FX plugins/ effects.
and a powerful ,feature rich sound editor called “fairlight”

I have found Davinci resolve a perfectly suitable finishing/delivery replacement for my aged Final Cut Pro and After Effects CS since leaving the Mac OS platform for good after finishing a very long term 93 minute animated film project back in April.

Cheers.

[dynobot]

Hey Threedude!

Thank you for the information. I’ve been playing around with Blender the last few days., really changed from when I last saw it years ago.

Thank you again for taking the time to give me your input

[ThreeDDude]

Sure thing Mate,
Alot to take in, but all of the affordable options on offer these
days makes for a good time to sort of wade back
into 3D/CG at your own pace.

Cheers.

[cookepuss]

You should have a look at Krita as well.( free)

They have done a right proper job at ripping off Adobe photoshop

with the latest release ( in a good ,flattering way)

and it is a much more “polished” tool than GIMP IMHO

Between Gimp & Krita, I don’t think that it has to be an “either or” situation. While there is a lot of overlap in what they’re each designed to do, both apps have their place. IMO, if you’re going to use Krita then using Gimp alongside it would be prudent. Each does stuff that the other doesn’t. Krita fills some major holes in Gimp’s capabilities and vice versa. My only real complaint, however, is that neither app is spectacularly fast. Some iffy sluggishness especially when it comes to layer or adjustment ops.

[Tiles]

Yes, Gimp is image manipulation, and Krita is digital painting. That’s indeed two different areas with completey different approaches and feature sets.

Gimp and Krita aren’t bad. They do the job to some degree. I would nevertheless also have a look at one of the commercial solutions. Serif’s Affinity Photo is known to be a good competitor to Photoshop nowadays, is cheap, and is miles ahead of Gimp. Same goes for digital painting. Krita has a somehow cryptic interface, i never got warm with it. There are better solutions around.

This depends of the job though. I don’t want to miss Gimp for creating my simple UI icons. The box selection and grid features are not so good solved in Affinity Photo.

[cookepuss]

Serif’s Affinity Photo is known to be a good competitor to Photoshop nowadays, is cheap, and is miles ahead of Gimp.

Agreed. 100%.

To me, the most shocking thing about Affinity Photo is the basic fact that, by way of Serif Photo Plus, it’s pretty much been around for 21 years. I guess that I had been so heavily invested in Adobe’s ecosystem that I never once gave any of the credible alternatives my time. I’m actually glad that I did. Affinity Photo kinda dances to its own beat at times and I do find myself missing a few features here and there, but it has proven to be a credible replacement. A Gimp & Krita combo is excellent if you’ve got a $0 budget, but I’d almost certainly recommend Affinity Photo over Corel PaintShopPro or even Adobes PS Elements. In hindsight, I feel really silly to have ignored Serif’s apps for so long.

[ThreeDDude]

This depends of the job though. I don’t want to miss Gimp for creating my simple UI icons. The box selection and grid features are not so good solved in Affinity Photo.

Indeed it depends on the job at hand
The best texture painting tools are still the paid/subscription ones

After 19 years as a 2D print Design professional in the Wash DC metro area,
using every version of the Adobe tools since the mid 90’s,
I find myself with very little need for any serious 2D image manipulation
now that My main focus is modeling& 3D animated filmaking/VFX.

Although Krita has many photoshop styled Image editing tools and is not strictly a
“painting” app
(pic)

Even using my Actual Photoshop and Illustrator CS3 ,over on my ancient Mac, feels quite anachronistic these days( I keep holding down the middle mouse button& trying to rotate the image on the X/Y axis)

I tend to look at most other softwares through the lense of; does it enhance my Blender workflow?

I am completely windows based now with three PC’s

Blender is very discriminating about where SVG files come from so Krita’s ability to export vector layers to Blender compatible SVGs for complex profile shapes
,prevents me having to fire up that dusty old mac computer just to use Illustrator CS for a few minutes.

Right now Iclone pro 7 & CC3 Pipeline are my only paid software(perpetual)
and I plan to keep it that way.