Atomic Systems

3D Canvas or Blender 4.9x ? Which would you recommend and why?

I don't mind spending the $70 for 3D Canvas, and I don't mind going through a bigger learning curve with Blender. What I want are the tools to produce highly professional results. I would like my own personal skill set to be the limiting factor, not the software.

I'm concerned with things like this:
1) Will I outgrow 3D Canvas and end up needing to use Blender for more advanced processes? Scanning through the forums, I've noticed a lot of talk about Shadows, Shadow baking, etc. How do these two programs compare in this and in other areas?
2) What about documentation? I don't mind studying, but I want to make sure that the answers are actually available somewhere.
3) I'm sure there are factors that I have not considered. All feedback is appreciated.

Thanks!

SleepOutside wrote:...I would like my own personal skill set to be the limiting factor, not the software.

Blender 2.49b plus the new IA/IGS exporter is the only tool chain which can fulfill your demand in this case afaik.
You have the full control over each single bit in the IA/IGS files, means full freedom on all shader effects in game.
All other modeling tools can not set all values in the exported IA/IGS files / do some filtering/ calculation for you.

The both examples: Jeff's Class 33 (Crompton) and Pete's Southern/BR Q1 Class are showing what can be achieved with GIMP, Blender & Bigex exporter...

And the 0 to 120% time line of both were in the range of months and not years!

I would add to the above that the Q1 was built in the previous version of Bigex, and was my first real journey into using all of the RW shaders. The results possible are much better than the Q1, as I'm currently learning building the 56xx.
But as Henning says, through the ability to edit every variable ever then you are future proofed with no reliance on someone updating their exporter to handle additions made by the RSC crew. It's not as "plug and play" as some exporters, but the price of the complication is easily overshadowed by what you can achieve with it.

It's all a matter of taste. The blender crew are biased, as am I

The 3dc exporter also gives total control over the IGS format (which is unlikely to change - RSC are more likely to change to a new format)
The end results are identical.

IMO 3DC is simpler to learn and has more rail related plugins but does not have shadow baking (same effects can be achieved with paint tools) - yet!

I don't want to appear to be having a dig but having never used 3DC, can it do normal baking?
It's not something I've used before but having run a trial with 1 side of the 56xx, baking the normal map for 1000+ rivets in about 30 seconds was a great success and definately something I'll be using from now on.
Also I wouldn't underestimate the capability to shadow bake. Again it's a 30 second task when automated and always consistant and reliable.. I don't trust my texturing skills to that level and I'm not sure I'd have the patience to do that after the hundreds of hours it already takes to build a detailed model and apply it's standard texturing, including fiddling endlessly with material settings.

Another fringe benefit to Blender is the physics game engine. Worthless in rail sim modelling? I would have agreed, until last week when I needed to model signal tokens being thrown at collecting equipment, and an attempt at frame by frame animation by hand just looked fake and ugly. Unleash Blender's physics engine mapped to an animation curve, and after an evening I was rather pleased with this result
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lUxM5tLqSc


Truth is, both packages are absolutely fine for content creation and have active communities that will help out. 3DC has some nice rail related plugins, Blender has some extra features that can have some surprising applications (as above) and I still hold that auto-baking is a big time saver that's not just a corner-cut.

Finally I go with Blender, simply because I love the fact that it's a massively powerful 3D design/rendering/physics engine and in a cut throat world where so many things get taken up by companies on the make, it's still totally free

This also means that if you tryit and hate it... you've lost nothing but time!

I've switched over from 3d Canvas to Blender and I do enjoy Blender a bit more, it is also not as "bulky" as 3d Canvas.

Henning wrote:
Blender 2.49b plus the new IA/IGS exporter IS the only tool.............

Have I missed something? Is v2.1 available, or are you referring to when it becomes available?

mikeadams2k wrote:Have I missed something? Is v2.1 available, or are you referring to when it becomes available?

Mike, It's not here yet, but I'm told it's coming soon.

Everyone else, Thanks for all the feedback!

VERY impressive Pete.

Cheers
Paul

karma99 wrote:I don't want to appear to be having a dig but having never used 3DC, can it do normal baking?
It's not something I've used before but having run a trial with 1 side of the 56xx, baking the normal map for 1000+ rivets in about 30 seconds was a great success and definately something I'll be using from now on.
Also I wouldn't underestimate the capability to shadow bake. Again it's a 30 second task when automated and always consistant and reliable.. I don't trust my texturing skills to that level and I'm not sure I'd have the patience to do that after the hundreds of hours it already takes to build a detailed model and apply it's standard texturing, including fiddling endlessly with material settings.

Another fringe benefit to Blender is the physics game engine. Worthless in rail sim modelling? I would have agreed, until last week when I needed to model signal tokens being thrown at collecting equipment, and an attempt at frame by frame animation by hand just looked fake and ugly. Unleash Blender's physics engine mapped to an animation curve, and after an evening I was rather pleased with this result


Truth is, both packages are absolutely fine for content creation and have active communities that will help out. 3DC has some nice rail related plugins, Blender has some extra features that can have some surprising applications (as above) and I still hold that auto-baking is a big time saver that's not just a corner-cut.

Finally I go with Blender, simply because I love the fact that it's a massively powerful 3D design/rendering/physics engine and in a cut throat world where so many things get taken up by companies on the make, it's still totally free

This also means that if you tryit and hate it... you've lost nothing but time!

mikeadams2k wrote:

Henning wrote:
Blender 2.49b plus the new IA/IGS exporter IS the only tool.............

Have I missed something? Is v2.1 available, or are you referring to when it becomes available?

... no you didn't miss any thing. The 2.1 version isn't released yet but its a matter of days rather than months

Originally I had planned to release v2.1 last Sunday. But because I've got some feedback from some very active and highly motivated beta testers, I'm doing bug hunting (again) right now

Killed 3 of them tonight one more to go...

SleepOutside wrote:
Mike, It's not here yet, but I'm told it's coming soon

Henning wrote;
... no you didn't miss any thing. The 2.1 version isn't released yet but its a matter of days rather than months

Thanks for the update guys. The suspense is killing me.

henningBR218 wrote:... no you didn't miss any thing. The 2.1 version isn't released yet but its a matter of days rather than months

Originally I had planned to release v2.1 last Sunday. But because I've got some feedback from some very active and highly motivated beta testers, I'm doing bug hunting (again) right now

Killed 3 of them tonight one more to go...

Bugs or Beta testers? Because if it's the latter.. I quit!

Glad I only ever saw the manual. But then again, "very active" cannot refer to me. "highly motivated" maybe, but very active - never.

Ignore the rating in the side bar of the forum. I was so proud when I became "well respected" or "well established member" or something like that and then they demoted me to hyper-active jerk. But I know it is just the stupid software doing that and it is nothing personal. So, Henning, don't shoot me, I was just misclassified by the phpBB software, I swear!

Really like the GWR Token animation, great work mate. I use Blender also (thank Henning for Bigex)