Free Non-Commercial Renderman(renderman.pixar.com)
renderman.pixar.com
Free Non-Commercial Renderman
http://renderman.pixar.com/view/non-commercial-renderman
77 comments
> Indirect revenue generating activities such as personal images or clips posted on YouTube or Vimeo that may result in advertising revenue are permitted. Please include a credit that your work was rendered with Pixar's RenderMan. If you are uncertain as to whether your requirement qualifies as non-commercial, please contact [email protected] for clarification.
>What if you come up with something that has ads on YouTube, are you commercial now?
Don't put ads on it? It would be nice if it had a $100/year or so exclusion, I guess.
Edit: Apparently the FAQ says video hosing ads are okay. Don't push it too hard, perhaps?
>What if you come up with something, and then subsequently make a kickstarter with the characters you created in the original "non-commercial" project?
That seems obviously not direct.
Don't put ads on it? It would be nice if it had a $100/year or so exclusion, I guess.
Edit: Apparently the FAQ says video hosing ads are okay. Don't push it too hard, perhaps?
>What if you come up with something, and then subsequently make a kickstarter with the characters you created in the original "non-commercial" project?
That seems obviously not direct.
I was wondering the same thing, but I felt the key phrase was "direct profits" -- would your examples generate "indirect profits" and thereby be allowed ?
Yeah, can I use it to create an ad for my iPhone app ?
Cool. This was announced almost a year ago. Pixar seems to define non-commercial reasonably, although there may be some fuzzy areas, such as YouTube. Okay, so long as you're not posting to a channel for which you share in the ad revenue?
I was curious to see what a full license costs, and I was surprised to see that it's only $500 plus maintenance. Didn't this used to cost $10,000 or so?
I was curious to see what a full license costs, and I was surprised to see that it's only $500 plus maintenance. Didn't this used to cost $10,000 or so?
From the FAQ:
> Indirect revenue generating activities such as personal images or clips posted on YouTube or Vimeo that may result in advertising revenue are permitted. Please include a credit that your work was rendered with Pixar's RenderMan. If you are uncertain as to whether your requirement qualifies as non-commercial, please contact [email protected] for clarification.
http://renderman.pixar.com/view/DP25849
> Indirect revenue generating activities such as personal images or clips posted on YouTube or Vimeo that may result in advertising revenue are permitted. Please include a credit that your work was rendered with Pixar's RenderMan. If you are uncertain as to whether your requirement qualifies as non-commercial, please contact [email protected] for clarification.
http://renderman.pixar.com/view/DP25849
Thanks. I searched the FAQ for "adv", but somehow missed that.
Yeah, the new price is really aggressive, and half the cost per node of VRay and Arnold (the two renderers that over the past three years have been eating into PRMan's VFX marketshare quite dramatically).
Free Unity, Unreal, Maya, Renderman... Creators these days have it so good!
Free Maya? Last I heard it was $20/month for LT, and that's the no-raytracer version for making game assets.
Alternately, around $800 upfront for an already outdated copy of LT that's missing features like the Unreal Engine exporter. Because screw anybody who wants to buy software instead of renting it.
EDIT: Maya LT costs $30/month and the "buy an outdated version" option is being terminated after this year. $20/month is the rate if you pay for a 1-year subscription upfront. The version with rendering is $185/month.
Alternately, around $800 upfront for an already outdated copy of LT that's missing features like the Unreal Engine exporter. Because screw anybody who wants to buy software instead of renting it.
EDIT: Maya LT costs $30/month and the "buy an outdated version" option is being terminated after this year. $20/month is the rate if you pay for a 1-year subscription upfront. The version with rendering is $185/month.
> Because screw anybody who wants to buy software instead of renting it.
Actually, this seems to be the official position of Autodesk going forward:
http://www.cgchannel.com/2014/10/autodesk-to-go-subscription...
Actually, this seems to be the official position of Autodesk going forward:
http://www.cgchannel.com/2014/10/autodesk-to-go-subscription...
I think student licenses of Maya are free. There used to be a PLE, but it looks like it's been discontinued.
Correct, most everything Autodesk is free for noncommercial student use.
Assuming it's like AutoCAD, any file modified in an edu version gets a "PRODUCED BY AN AUTODESK EDUCATIONAL PRODUCT" watermark, and if you so much as import one line from that file to another, the watermark infects that other file as well.
But mostly it's the .edu email address requirement that makes it a no-go for me.
Assuming it's like AutoCAD, any file modified in an edu version gets a "PRODUCED BY AN AUTODESK EDUCATIONAL PRODUCT" watermark, and if you so much as import one line from that file to another, the watermark infects that other file as well.
But mostly it's the .edu email address requirement that makes it a no-go for me.
'The student version does not have watermarks and there are no other feature restrictions.'
http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/maya-general/student-version-o...
Get your 3 year free license here:
http://www.autodesk.com/education/free-software/maya
I believe you don't need an .edu address, it's on the honour system.
http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/maya-general/student-version-o...
Get your 3 year free license here:
http://www.autodesk.com/education/free-software/maya
I believe you don't need an .edu address, it's on the honour system.
Eligibility requirements do say that you need to be faculty/student/mentor, but no idea if it's enforced. I'll have to try signing up with bogus info sometime and see if it works.
> To join the Education Community, you must be one of the following:
> Faculty Member - An individual person who is an employee or independent contractor working for an educational institution which has been accredited by an authorized governmental agency within its applicable local, state, provincial, federal, or national government and has the primary purpose of teaching its enrolled students.
> Student - An individual person enrolled as a student at an educational institution which has been accredited by an authorized governmental agency within its applicable local, state, provincial, federal, or national government and has the primary purpose of teaching its enrolled students.
> Autodesk-sponsored competition mentor or competitor - An Autodesk-sponsored design competition mentor is an individual who provides guidance, advice, coaching, or instruction to competitors engaged in competing in an Autodesk-sponsored design competition. A competitor is a student or other individual who is registered and accepted or otherwise approved by a design competition organizer as a competition participant. A list of Autodesk-sponsored competitions can be found at Design Competitions & Events.
> To join the Education Community, you must be one of the following:
> Faculty Member - An individual person who is an employee or independent contractor working for an educational institution which has been accredited by an authorized governmental agency within its applicable local, state, provincial, federal, or national government and has the primary purpose of teaching its enrolled students.
> Student - An individual person enrolled as a student at an educational institution which has been accredited by an authorized governmental agency within its applicable local, state, provincial, federal, or national government and has the primary purpose of teaching its enrolled students.
> Autodesk-sponsored competition mentor or competitor - An Autodesk-sponsored design competition mentor is an individual who provides guidance, advice, coaching, or instruction to competitors engaged in competing in an Autodesk-sponsored design competition. A competitor is a student or other individual who is registered and accepted or otherwise approved by a design competition organizer as a competition participant. A list of Autodesk-sponsored competitions can be found at Design Competitions & Events.
Autodesk is not a "nice" company to deal with - but well, The Foundry is not nicer with Modo/Mari for Indie, so well.
Still, things seem to evolve at Autodesk's : Fusion 360 is a really nice industrial design modeler tool and it's free for... well, nearly everything that's not commercial, or starting startup.
What I hope is that people will keep on realizing that in those space, the price is out of range for all amateurs - and that it cost them nothing to let them play with it. That's a luxury hardware tool maker envy us...
Still, things seem to evolve at Autodesk's : Fusion 360 is a really nice industrial design modeler tool and it's free for... well, nearly everything that's not commercial, or starting startup.
What I hope is that people will keep on realizing that in those space, the price is out of range for all amateurs - and that it cost them nothing to let them play with it. That's a luxury hardware tool maker envy us...
The buy page says it's $3,675. At first glance, free Renderman looks like it's going to cost a lot to actually use.
Yup, and perpetual licenses are going away next January. Full version of Maya will be $185/month or $1470/year.
Ouch.
Ouch.
Using Maya isn't the only way to use Renderman:
* via Rib files (there used to be Blender exporters) * via the RI API * via Katana (not that that's free either, but...)
* via Rib files (there used to be Blender exporters) * via the RI API * via Katana (not that that's free either, but...)
Maya isn't free, but https://Clara.io (which includes V-Ray cloud) is free. :)
Wow.
As a former longtime Maya user who quit the CG business for web development, this impresses me from every direction!
Seriously, nice job. I look forward to seeing what Clara.io can do.
Seriously, nice job. I look forward to seeing what Clara.io can do.
Yeah but Maya is you know, production quality software. There's a reason people use $4000+ software suites.
I'm sure Clara is lovely for people trying to whet their appetite for 3D modelling but it's unfair to present it as equivalent to a real 3D software suite. It makes me sad when people only ever have access to shitty tools and they don't realize what they could do with a bigger lever.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6725792 <--- relevant comment
I'm sure Clara is lovely for people trying to whet their appetite for 3D modelling but it's unfair to present it as equivalent to a real 3D software suite. It makes me sad when people only ever have access to shitty tools and they don't realize what they could do with a bigger lever.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6725792 <--- relevant comment
What features did you feel were missing? We can likely add a couple of them in our new development cycle...
Our teams previous software is widely used across the vfx industry and used on a likely majority of vfx heavy films released from Hollywood.
But we are like google docs compared to microsoft word. Aiming to be good enough for most tasks but we will not replace Maya at the high end.
Our teams previous software is widely used across the vfx industry and used on a likely majority of vfx heavy films released from Hollywood.
But we are like google docs compared to microsoft word. Aiming to be good enough for most tasks but we will not replace Maya at the high end.
I haven't actually used your software, I was only going off of the fact that you're in a browser, by virtue of which I could be reasonably confident in what I said in my post. I'd love to try a demo.
I'm not calling into question your or your team's skill.
I think that your browser based 3D package will likely serve as the entry point to 3D graphics for lots of people just like shitty shareware was for me in the 90's which is a really good thing.
What does "good enough for most tasks" mean to you? I'm guessing by a hobbyist definition you're probably already there. I can't imagine an FX house or a game development studio using something like this for real work. I'd give you some useful input but I don't know how to bound the search space. I don't really understand what the point of the tool is from an optimization perspective. It doesn't look like you've got a business model in place?
P.S. I see in your comment history that you wrote Krakatoa?? I thought that was Bobo Petrov?
I'm not calling into question your or your team's skill.
I think that your browser based 3D package will likely serve as the entry point to 3D graphics for lots of people just like shitty shareware was for me in the 90's which is a really good thing.
What does "good enough for most tasks" mean to you? I'm guessing by a hobbyist definition you're probably already there. I can't imagine an FX house or a game development studio using something like this for real work. I'd give you some useful input but I don't know how to bound the search space. I don't really understand what the point of the tool is from an optimization perspective. It doesn't look like you've got a business model in place?
P.S. I see in your comment history that you wrote Krakatoa?? I thought that was Bobo Petrov?
> I haven't actually used your software, I was only going off of the fact that you're in a browser, by virtue of which I could be reasonably confident in what I said in my post. I'd love to try a demo.
Given that it is free, you can just try it. :)
> I think that your browser based 3D package will likely serve as the entry point to 3D graphics for lots of people just like shitty shareware was for me in the 90's which is a really good thing.
The most common criticism of our tool is that it is too advanced and uses paradigms that are more familiar to experienced artists than new ones. We are working on solutions to this.
> What does "good enough for most tasks" mean to you? I'm guessing by a hobbyist definition you're probably already there. I can't imagine an FX house or a game development studio using something like this for real work.
One issue we've found is that it can be hard to work a cloud tool into a traditional desktop pipeline. But the advantages of our tool is that we have both a JavaScript plugin SDK as well as a rest API: https://clara.io/learn/sdk
> I'd give you some useful input but I don't know how to bound the search space. I don't really understand what the point of the tool is from an optimization perspective.
We generally know the features we are missing compared to Maya and 3DS Max. We are mostly modeling and rendering and publishing right now. We are adding more animation features next. Still no schedule for simulation features.
> It doesn't look like you've got a business model in place?
We are doing okay on that front. :)
> Krakatoa?? I thought that was Bobo Petrov?
I wrote the core of the actual renderer (the piece that generates the images) with help from Marc Wiebe. Bobo wrote the 3DS Max GUI -- which is very important as well. One of the first films to use Krakatoa was Wes Craven's Cursed: http://exocortex.org/siggraph/2005-2.html
I also created Deadline (a popular render manager), and started Frantic Films Software to sell it. Proof: http://cgpress.org/archives/frantic_films_software_releases_...
But I left that group in 2005 to start Exocortex, which has its own popular VFX-related products: http://exocortex.com
Given that it is free, you can just try it. :)
> I think that your browser based 3D package will likely serve as the entry point to 3D graphics for lots of people just like shitty shareware was for me in the 90's which is a really good thing.
The most common criticism of our tool is that it is too advanced and uses paradigms that are more familiar to experienced artists than new ones. We are working on solutions to this.
> What does "good enough for most tasks" mean to you? I'm guessing by a hobbyist definition you're probably already there. I can't imagine an FX house or a game development studio using something like this for real work.
One issue we've found is that it can be hard to work a cloud tool into a traditional desktop pipeline. But the advantages of our tool is that we have both a JavaScript plugin SDK as well as a rest API: https://clara.io/learn/sdk
> I'd give you some useful input but I don't know how to bound the search space. I don't really understand what the point of the tool is from an optimization perspective.
We generally know the features we are missing compared to Maya and 3DS Max. We are mostly modeling and rendering and publishing right now. We are adding more animation features next. Still no schedule for simulation features.
> It doesn't look like you've got a business model in place?
We are doing okay on that front. :)
> Krakatoa?? I thought that was Bobo Petrov?
I wrote the core of the actual renderer (the piece that generates the images) with help from Marc Wiebe. Bobo wrote the 3DS Max GUI -- which is very important as well. One of the first films to use Krakatoa was Wes Craven's Cursed: http://exocortex.org/siggraph/2005-2.html
I also created Deadline (a popular render manager), and started Frantic Films Software to sell it. Proof: http://cgpress.org/archives/frantic_films_software_releases_...
But I left that group in 2005 to start Exocortex, which has its own popular VFX-related products: http://exocortex.com
Seriously though, what can Maya do that Blender can't?
Animation/rigging tools seem particularly lacking to me. For example, a "set driven key" in maya is simple, very common action. You can do the same thing in blender, but it takes more steps and seems kind of obscure.
Blender often has trouble dealing with scenes at production scale. Not that it can't do it (as the blender movie projects prove) but generally you have to know the strengths and weakness of it well to set up a scene at production scale. And to be honest, the scale of the blender shorts is pretty small compared to a typical maya production scene.
It's getting better with every release though. A lot of the tools, for example the texture painting and matchmoving tools, are already better than maya. Render layers have recently caught up.
I think maya still has an edge in production use, but we're starting to see blender being used in real production situations. If you look at the trajectories of development of both programs, blender is moving fast and maya is more or less sitting still.
Blender often has trouble dealing with scenes at production scale. Not that it can't do it (as the blender movie projects prove) but generally you have to know the strengths and weakness of it well to set up a scene at production scale. And to be honest, the scale of the blender shorts is pretty small compared to a typical maya production scene.
It's getting better with every release though. A lot of the tools, for example the texture painting and matchmoving tools, are already better than maya. Render layers have recently caught up.
I think maya still has an edge in production use, but we're starting to see blender being used in real production situations. If you look at the trajectories of development of both programs, blender is moving fast and maya is more or less sitting still.
There are actually better apps than Maya for modelling / UVing, but for animation / rigging / skinning / techanim it's the benchmark.
Blender's got most of the functionality in theory, but it's really not well architected / designed in terms of workflow - a bit like old Nokia Nxx phones - they had all the features, but they weren't user-friendly for many things.
Blender's got most of the functionality in theory, but it's really not well architected / designed in terms of workflow - a bit like old Nokia Nxx phones - they had all the features, but they weren't user-friendly for many things.
Blender has made a lot of strides in the past few years. Have you tried it recently? My last encounter with blender was in 2008 and it was rather painful. I gave it another try several months ago and got my socks blown off. I've since rebuilt my workflow around blender and there's no going back.
Yeah, I regularly try it (both with its native keybindings and with it's Maya emulation mode), and it has got better.
But it's still painful doing many things in a fluid / connected way, and generally it just doesn't scale for assets.
E.g. I tried to import the .obj (because the FBX support is pretty crap and there's no .abc support) of a fairly small model I had of a voxellated (shape made out of cubes) shape, which consisted of around 300,000 primitives (all cubes), and blender took over 6 hours to import it. Maya, Houdini (and 3D apps I've written) opened it in seconds.
But it's still painful doing many things in a fluid / connected way, and generally it just doesn't scale for assets.
E.g. I tried to import the .obj (because the FBX support is pretty crap and there's no .abc support) of a fairly small model I had of a voxellated (shape made out of cubes) shape, which consisted of around 300,000 primitives (all cubes), and blender took over 6 hours to import it. Maya, Houdini (and 3D apps I've written) opened it in seconds.
Blender is pretty good. I've only used it a few times but I agree that the UI seems to have improved quite a bit. I did find the interface modes a bit confusing at first (and I say that as someone whos primary text editor has been Vim for the last 5-6 years).
With so much functionality, where to find the things you are looking for can be a bit difficult. I think doing as you did and rebuilding your workflow around the tool is probably the best way to get productive.
With so much functionality, where to find the things you are looking for can be a bit difficult. I think doing as you did and rebuilding your workflow around the tool is probably the best way to get productive.
> With so much functionality, where to find the things you are looking for can be a bit difficult.
I've yet to see a 3D program where it's easy (except, maybe Google Sketchup). They are complicated beasts, so new users should expect a learning curve. In my experience, though, Blender gets easier once you master the basics (while most other packages let you do a "hello world" type project easily, but mire you down with their "friendly" UI for more advanced stuff).
Another important thing that sets Blender apart WRT learning curve, is the abundance of good tutorials and help (it's even got its own stack exchange site[1] - incredibly helpful!).
[1] http://blender.stackexchange.com
I've yet to see a 3D program where it's easy (except, maybe Google Sketchup). They are complicated beasts, so new users should expect a learning curve. In my experience, though, Blender gets easier once you master the basics (while most other packages let you do a "hello world" type project easily, but mire you down with their "friendly" UI for more advanced stuff).
Another important thing that sets Blender apart WRT learning curve, is the abundance of good tutorials and help (it's even got its own stack exchange site[1] - incredibly helpful!).
[1] http://blender.stackexchange.com
This is the real answer. It's all the same math underneath, you essentially pay for an interface.
The most honest answer is that studios can't extend the software without violating the GPL.
Maya is outrageously extensible in a variety of ways and really set the standard for being "open" in this way. A lot of the big studios have toolsets that radically transform parts of Maya, shaping it into the tool needed for the work.
Maya is also pretty crusty, plenty of other applications do a better job at it's core competency, but they simply aren't dug into studio pipelines like a tick in the way that Maya is.
Blender has to limit itself to Python, or at least, I'm not aware of the ability to create native plugins. I'm all for Python, but a lot of interesting work is done in C++ building native operators for the application or embedding custom viewports for gamedev which I don't think is remotely possible in Blender yet.
Additionally, licensing prevents many integrations from getting off the ground.
So what you are saying is that there is no benefit of using Maya if you are not specifically a commercial software company who want to sell derivative tool-kits made from open source projects.
Or... should I sum it up as Maya is used by studios who already has c++ experience, and Blender is used by studios that has python experience?
Or... should I sum it up as Maya is used by studios who already has c++ experience, and Blender is used by studios that has python experience?
The GPL doesn't matter if you only use the software inside the studio.
Being one of the industry standards for 3D modeling. OK, and having a file format that can at least in theory be read by other programs (.blend files are simply undocumented memory dumps).
Sure, .blend files are basically useless outside of Blender, and that's why there's an export command that lets you export what you made into other format like .X3D (xml based) for example or even Wavefront .obj file.
But can you guarantee that no information is lost by exporting? I personally have my doubts (and I had bad experience with the Blender exporters in the past on this point; perhaps the bugs are fixed now).
In my opinion Blender should introduce two file formats:
- .blend: The existing format; fast to load, save etc., but not for reading from external programs
- .blend_external: A format that presents exactly the same information as a .blend file, but can be read easily by external software and is thus completely documented in all details. Perhaps more slow to load/save (which should not matter for the purposes of .blend_external).
In my opinion Blender should introduce two file formats:
- .blend: The existing format; fast to load, save etc., but not for reading from external programs
- .blend_external: A format that presents exactly the same information as a .blend file, but can be read easily by external software and is thus completely documented in all details. Perhaps more slow to load/save (which should not matter for the purposes of .blend_external).
> But can you guarantee that no information is lost by exporting?
You practically never can when exporting in any format, from any program, since few formats are subsets of any others. The important thing is to be able to export the information you need. Most formats cover the same things, so chances are you can export what you need.
FWIW, I've seen a few projects that import blend files. Serialized memory dumps are not a bad thing and are easy to write loaders for (as long as they're documented sufficiently and/or have libraries available.)
I don't see why you would need to have a separate format. As long as .blend is fully documented up to the point of being able to recover all the application-agnostic data I don't see a benefit to splitting off another format. It might make sense to omit the Blender-specific UI data and so on, but I don't think that really needs a separate format to accomplish.
> and I had bad experience with the Blender exporters in the past on this point
Bad experiences with Blender exporters will probably never cease. Many of them are written by a single person to scratch an itch and do the minimum they need from it. That isn't to say you won't find quality ones, but unless and until all formats have exporters in-tree and are dutifully maintained, there will be occasional breakage. The good news is the quality tends upward, so exporters for common formats are probably a lot less disappointing today than when you last tried them.
You practically never can when exporting in any format, from any program, since few formats are subsets of any others. The important thing is to be able to export the information you need. Most formats cover the same things, so chances are you can export what you need.
FWIW, I've seen a few projects that import blend files. Serialized memory dumps are not a bad thing and are easy to write loaders for (as long as they're documented sufficiently and/or have libraries available.)
I don't see why you would need to have a separate format. As long as .blend is fully documented up to the point of being able to recover all the application-agnostic data I don't see a benefit to splitting off another format. It might make sense to omit the Blender-specific UI data and so on, but I don't think that really needs a separate format to accomplish.
> and I had bad experience with the Blender exporters in the past on this point
Bad experiences with Blender exporters will probably never cease. Many of them are written by a single person to scratch an itch and do the minimum they need from it. That isn't to say you won't find quality ones, but unless and until all formats have exporters in-tree and are dutifully maintained, there will be occasional breakage. The good news is the quality tends upward, so exporters for common formats are probably a lot less disappointing today than when you last tried them.
This is pretty much the same dilemma as all content creation packages - whether 3D software, audio, CAD, video editing etc. Internal formats need to be fast and robust to frequent revisions, and will inevitably support procedural transformations on data that are unique to that software (eg a particular mesh modifier, particle system, audio compressor or video effect).
So external formats become quite difficult to specify, and generally require that everything gets baked/bounced down to the lowest common denominator - eg per-frame animation channels, or EDL-level edits in a video.
The .blend format isn't actually that bad, if you really need to access it. I've seen a number of external libraries written in C or Python that do this, and it's one of those formats where you can skip over the unknowns (as indeed Blender itself does when loading files from the future).
If you want to do 3D interchange, this will depend much on your particular application. We have FBX for mesh, scene and animation data which is pretty good. OBJ is always there for the simplest of things. ABC (Alembic) support is coming to Blender for more complex geometry, and there's talk of OpenVDB for voxel data.
Other roads out include numerous exporters for various game platforms - THREE.js, the new Khronos gITF format or OpenGEX.
So external formats become quite difficult to specify, and generally require that everything gets baked/bounced down to the lowest common denominator - eg per-frame animation channels, or EDL-level edits in a video.
The .blend format isn't actually that bad, if you really need to access it. I've seen a number of external libraries written in C or Python that do this, and it's one of those formats where you can skip over the unknowns (as indeed Blender itself does when loading files from the future).
If you want to do 3D interchange, this will depend much on your particular application. We have FBX for mesh, scene and animation data which is pretty good. OBJ is always there for the simplest of things. ABC (Alembic) support is coming to Blender for more complex geometry, and there's talk of OpenVDB for voxel data.
Other roads out include numerous exporters for various game platforms - THREE.js, the new Khronos gITF format or OpenGEX.
Or even .3ds for that matter (not to mention collada).
Blender has fairly decent FBX support these days. The Unreal guys gave them some money to bring their exporter up to scratch.
Maya is not known in the industry as a great modeler. Animation yes, but modeling... most people tend to look elsewhere.
Have a decent user interface?
Just curious, have you tried using blender at a more or less advanced level? It's like comparing Windows and a Unix system and saying that Unix doesn't have a decent user interface. I mean, once you start using blender extensively, you realize that blender makes your workflow faster than the mainstream CG packages.
Of the big CG packages, I've used both 3DS Max, Maya, and Blender--Max most of all.
The gold standard for UI for me, though, is still Wings3D (based on Nendo). It has way better UV unwrapping support than anything else I've tried. It is as good as it is specifically because the functionality it aims at is quite limited.
Sketchup gets an honorable mention for UI, but the scripting and geometry it makes is such garbage I can't recommend it.
The gold standard for UI for me, though, is still Wings3D (based on Nendo). It has way better UV unwrapping support than anything else I've tried. It is as good as it is specifically because the functionality it aims at is quite limited.
Sketchup gets an honorable mention for UI, but the scripting and geometry it makes is such garbage I can't recommend it.
Blender's a bit like a tiling window manager. If you don't get on with your keyboard you're not going to have much to say. It is however extremely efficient for those that do.
What it's missing really is some of the universal, underlying data flow architecture that the likes of Maya and Houdini had from the start. But it's getting there.
What it's missing really is some of the universal, underlying data flow architecture that the likes of Maya and Houdini had from the start. But it's getting there.
> some of the universal, underlying data flow architecture that the likes of Maya and Houdini had from the start
Could you elaborate on that? I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "data flow" in the context of a CGI package.
Could you elaborate on that? I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "data flow" in the context of a CGI package.
Maya has its dependency graph architecture, while Houdini has its many layers of networks. They both make explicit their pipelines of data transformation, using a common building block, and that allows the system and the artist to reason about what gets done and when. You might create some geometry (a grid), then apply some noise to it to create a landscape, then use it as part of a physics simulation as a static object, then also use it as part of the rendering of the final image. You expect to be able to change the parameters of each of those stages and reason about the result.
You'll generally see these pipelines depicted as editable, directed graphs (DAGs) in the application. Blender uses DAGs for a number of things - eg an image compositor, and for shading networks. It also provides modifier layers (like 3DS MAX) for geometry transformation. But it doesn't go down to the core of the application which is why you can get some problems when it comes to certain tasks in animation for instance. But they are working on this.
It's a bit like all these various architectures for the web - Flux, RxJS etc. They're making explicit the transformations and dependencies that happen, by means of a data flow graph (even if it is not visualised). This usually means less surprises and more opportunity for optimization.
You'll generally see these pipelines depicted as editable, directed graphs (DAGs) in the application. Blender uses DAGs for a number of things - eg an image compositor, and for shading networks. It also provides modifier layers (like 3DS MAX) for geometry transformation. But it doesn't go down to the core of the application which is why you can get some problems when it comes to certain tasks in animation for instance. But they are working on this.
It's a bit like all these various architectures for the web - Flux, RxJS etc. They're making explicit the transformations and dependencies that happen, by means of a data flow graph (even if it is not visualised). This usually means less surprises and more opportunity for optimization.
They're working on it, though: http://code.blender.org/index.php/2015/02/blender-dependency...
Oh yes, I see now. Actually, that was one of the few things I missed in Blender coming from Softimage. Not too much, though, but I do appreciate the power of a unified editable operation stack/pipeline for bigger projects.
Be usable
Have real paid support?
Have a usable user interface?
Here's a hotkey chart for Blender.[1] You must memorize this. "Note that charts and references relate to common or frequently used actions in Blender so should not be regarded as a comprehensive list of shortcuts. Note also that triggers are context sensitive, the same key may function differently depending upon the Editor open or operation performed".
[1] http://www.katsbits.com/tutorials/blender/useful-keyboard-sh...
Here's a hotkey chart for Blender.[1] You must memorize this. "Note that charts and references relate to common or frequently used actions in Blender so should not be regarded as a comprehensive list of shortcuts. Note also that triggers are context sensitive, the same key may function differently depending upon the Editor open or operation performed".
[1] http://www.katsbits.com/tutorials/blender/useful-keyboard-sh...
I was scared away from Blender for years by people like you. Last week, I learned Blender. I was astonished to find it way more intuitive than every other 3D program I've used heavily. That includes: 3DS Max, Polyworks, Cyclone, Meshlab, CloudCompare, RiScan, Moray, Photoscan, VisualSFM. You can do everything 100% with the mouse, or 100% with the keyboard. I'm at about 60% keyboard, 40% mouse, which is just how I like it. If you can't remember how to do something, and can't find it in the clicky menus (even though it IS there), just press space and type what you want to do.
I haven't used 3D modelling software, but I presume that you would look up things as you need them as in any other software, and not memorize everything in the beginning.
Things that are commonly used will be memorized automatically.
Things that are commonly used will be memorized automatically.
Creators have had it good with computers for a long time! Anyone remember Blue Moon Rendering Tools? BMRT was, at some point, better than Renderman .. prompting Pixar's lawyer brigade to go nuts and try to destroy it at some point .. so its kind of fun to see Pixar go full circle and come around to the free-for-artists way of things.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Moon_Rendering_Tools
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Moon_Rendering_Tools
Matt Pharr, a founding member of that Exluna/BMRT crew that Pixar sued, and also one of the authors of the seminal Physically Based Rendering book tweeted this about Pixar's announcement of the all new physically based Renderman:
"First they try to sue you into oblivion, claiming it unimaginable that you wrote a renderer yourself without having stolen from theirs, and then 12 years later they write a new renderer with your ideas at the foundation. #theironyitburns"
https://twitter.com/mattpharr/status/472392344646340608 https://twitter.com/mattpharr/status/472392393342201856
"First they try to sue you into oblivion, claiming it unimaginable that you wrote a renderer yourself without having stolen from theirs, and then 12 years later they write a new renderer with your ideas at the foundation. #theironyitburns"
https://twitter.com/mattpharr/status/472392344646340608 https://twitter.com/mattpharr/status/472392393342201856
Yeah, BMRT was great and it was really upsetting to see it destroyed by Pixar.
Reminded me it's been a while since I've ... ah well, Houdini 14 has been released.
"Free Unity, Unreal, Maya, Renderman..."
All I hear is you listing a bunch of prisons.
All I hear is you listing a bunch of prisons.
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I was wondering whether they released it as free software or as software that is free as in free beer. It is the latter.
3Delight is RenderMan compliant and has been free for non-commercial use since 2001.
The renderer is more or less on feature parity with Pixar's product. It does some things better and others worse but if you needed a free RenderMan compliant offline renderer to do a non-commercial project, these differences would reasonably not be of any concern to you.
The renderer is more or less on feature parity with Pixar's product. It does some things better and others worse but if you needed a free RenderMan compliant offline renderer to do a non-commercial project, these differences would reasonably not be of any concern to you.
Pretty sure some version of Renderman was bundled with NeXT workstations back in the day, along with Sybase and some other normally-commercial stuff.
Is the video Buffering like crazy for anyone else? I feel like I just jumped back 15 years to the Real Player days.
Edit: It's working a lot better now. I don't know much about 3D but this tool looks amazing!
Edit: It's working a lot better now. I don't know much about 3D but this tool looks amazing!
I really wish that Arnold could also release its free academic version.
Solid Angle doesn't have an official individual student license option, but I have heard of Solid Angle coming up with case-by-case arrangements with students that contacted them directly.
They didn't even have a webpage until about a couple of years ago.
I filed https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8252108 when they announced it and noone cared.
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There is a narrow line between "personal project" and "commercial". What if you come up with something that has ads on YouTube, are you commercial now? What if you come up with something, and then subsequently make a kickstarter with the characters you created in the original "non-commercial" project?
edit: as people pointed out in the replies, there is an exception for video ads, which really just reinforces how complicated free-as-in-beer can get
13. Are there any profit earning exceptions to the "Non-Commercial" use rule? Yes. Indirect revenue generating activities such as personal images or clips posted on YouTube or Vimeo that may result in advertising revenue are permitted. Please include a credit that your work was rendered with Pixar's RenderMan. If you are uncertain as to whether your requirement qualifies as non-commercial, please contact [email protected] for clarification.