CGI

[Robert Brook]

Anyone using/involved with Blender* (an open source CGI software project)?  How does it compare with industry standards such as V-ray?

 

Am particularly interested in fractal capabilities.  And scripting.

 

Will my computer explode?  (assume not, since it seems to have considerable backwards compatibity)

 

 

* In conjunction with YafaRay

[Guest]

Anyone using/involved with Blender* (an open source CGI software project)?  How does it compare with industry standards such as V-ray?

 

Am particularly interested in fractal capabilities.  And scripting.

 

Will my computer explode?  (assume not, since it seems to have considerable backwards compatibity)

 

 

* In conjunction with YafaRay

 

Blender is a complete 3D software i.e. you can built and render within it - Cycles is an excellent render engine. V-Ray and Yafa (last time I looked are render engines only). V-Ray is very good but you'll have to import files from somewhere else.

 

Blender is not very intuitive to learn or use but is getting better - 2.7 IIRC implemented tabs which has helped.

 

If you are going to use a 3D software a lot, invest the money in Cinema 4D....and it's a lot of money but loads of third party stuff.....

 

I use Blender and occasionally Maxon......

 

Some fractal tools (IIRC) - various subdivides and I think there are some third party tools which can be used as modifiers in Blender but not using any.

 

Stuff to think about.... GPU rendering via CUDA core (Blender does it and V-Ray was going to implement), massive time savings possible.

[Robert Brook]

Thanks Geoff.  That's a good overview.  Didn't know about Cinema 4D.  I see a version called Cinema 4D Prime R16 costs £600 + vat.  Maybe I'm looking at the wrong version but that doesn't seem too bad.

 

I will have to see how unintuitive the open source software is.   

[Guest]

Thanks Geoff.  That's a good overview.  Didn't know about Cinema 4D.  I see a version called Cinema 4D Prime R16 costs £600 + vat.  Maybe I'm looking at the wrong version but that doesn't seem too bad.

 

I will have to see how unintuitive the open source software is.   

 

Well it's only the wrong version if it's not the right version - for stock work I would look at a minimum of Visualise, if not Studio. Prime doesn't have a lot of things that I personally would see as essential.

 

Maxon is widely used in the industry especially for modelling, the render engine is not the best but there's plenty of good ones out there like VRay or Arnold.

 

I started with Blender just to see if 3D was something I could work with, I still like it a lot but it's not as easy to use as Maxon but I've not shelled out for that myself (I have the demo and use the full version on an odd occasion). Blender being a community project has lots of tutorials and free stuff but for third party software addons, you need to look at a 'professional' software like Cinema 4D. Also with Maxon they run intensive courses which can be very usefull if you really want to kickstart your learning curve.

 

Colin Anderson uses Cinema 4D so that will give an idea of what you can do. It's also usefull to be able to work fairly seamlessly with other software which maybe integrated more with a professional 'ware than a free one - Zbrush/Poser etc.

[Robert Brook]

Well I'm going through the Blender manual as we speak, and like you will probably see what's cooking before I take leave of my wallet.

 

One aspect that might be of interest to me is the development side (Python I believe - took a look at some snippets of code and have to say that's a good name for it).  Or I could be way out of my depth.

 

Thanks