The ULTIMATE Blender challenge, Commercial project - UpDated

Support Basics & Interface
1

Ok, listen up fellows…

Most of you know me from the galleries…I like to
do photo-realistic work in Blender, mostly for fun
and for YEARS …I’ve been doing work in 3dstudio Max
but came to love Blender so much I litterally switched
and TRANSFERRED my existing 3dstudio max license
that was becoming too old anyway.

BUT - then something happened - something BIG came up.

A new client came up to me and wanted a semi-realistic
toon-Cat like the cat from the coming movie “Garfield”.

Now…I can do that in 3dstudio max, with CS and Shag-fur!

BUT…can it be done in Blender.

Yes…I’ve tried Beast (sorry…not too impressed, maybe I’m a
dork at using it…but I haven’t got the time to fool around
with it and lose this client)

Yes…I’m using Fiber. Fiber has so far been the BEST hair/fur
plugin/script for Blender so far…but it still lacks realism,
this could be due to the antialiasing that just suck in blender
these days.

I have been trying to do VERY realistic work and to reach
pro-commercial heights with Blender…because like you
I LOVE BLENDER - and I really REALLY want to tell someone
that I “landed-that-job” with Blender.

As it is now - I will probably RE-Purchase 3dstudio Max
with the Character-studio & Shag-Hair plugin because
I know I can deliver and do this job within the 3-week
period I’ve been given as a DEADLINE for this project.

The project will give me the opportunity to make the
beginning of an independent studio/company
and it would give VERY much needed publicity for
Blender 3D.

See where I’m going with this? I’m kind of desperate
because I WANT to use Blender…but HAVE to use
3dstudio Max for the job because of the complexity,
deadline and not least - Quality of the thing.

I admit it - I love blender and practically HATE
3dstudio max…why? because Blender keeps me
working hours and hours and it litterally NEVER
crashes!, If the stars are with me…3dstudio max
will perhaps just crash 20-30 times during a new
project and it’s Mentally-very-disturbing!

Now that you know what I’m up to - Please give it
a though on how I could solve this with Blender
in the smartest possible way. I simply can’t afford
to lose this client so I’m already starting the process
of re-purchasing 3dstudio max…Guys…this is NOT
about the money…it’s about what we love. I love 3D
and I love Blender because of every teardrop Blood
sweat and idealism that has drove this program to
be the BEST free software that makes it possible
for struggling artists to get a start in life!

All ideas are VERY much appreciated, and if you
read this far - you’re a very tolerant & patient person :slight_smile:

Thanks!

/JoOngle

2

aieee, DON’T HIT ENTER SO OFTEN, I WANT TO BE ABLE TO READ YOUR POST

original response:
first: the generic response. Sure, it is possible, it just will be a lot of work.

now, to go actually read your post

on a deadline I don’t think you will be able to make the time investements into the fur stuff you want.

you could play with dupliverted transparent objects with ray shadows and the fiber script, but that would take ages [probably longer than in max, especially if you use traced shadows to consider the alpha] to render.

3

Perhaps if you could make linked-duplicate armature/fur combos you could simulate fur movement?

Personally, I think you’re better off going with 3DS Max. A good plugin is almost necessary. I haven’t ever tried fur personally, and I haven’t heard of anyone using linked armatures like what I mentioned above, so I’m going to give it a go right now, maybe there is hope.

4

I give up on my first method - check out the finished projects forum, there’s a realistic hair attempt with a tutorial at the end. The render isn’t all that impressive, but the method is. What if you tryed to make thousands of strands of hair animated with RVK’s or linked (alt+a) armatures in different groups for different areas? That could create quite a realistic fur.

5

here it is my pourpose:
use both blender and 3ds.
i know it is not the same think of a100% blender work BUT you can say:
Blender have been used for this project, and you can SHOW blender name to the word.

i have done a lot of try with beast and i can say you can obtain realistic fur, BUT (in my experience) only some kind of volumetric, “shotting” fur, not good for a cat.
maybe fiber with really good uv texture and a mainframe can be a solution, i don’ t have experience with it… :slight_smile:

good luck.

6

Thanks for your effort and suggestion guys…

…but “kansas is going bye bye” to quote the Matrix.
The Linux harddisk has been reformatted and my “old”
windows 2000 goes in again, and a fresh install of
3dstudio max with Shag hair will take it’s place, expensive
like crazy…but so is the client.

I know that Shag Hair/Fur can make it on time, I tried a
trial version long time ago…and it impressed me how
fast it could render 2-4 million strands. That’s because
it doesnt actually render polygons…it calculates where the
hair goes, and creates a lamp-dependent “map” (shadow-map)
and puts the hair on top as a separate “image” layer.
It both looks incredibly realistic, and can be done in minutes.

Fiber ain’t that bad either. And blender sure is a LOT faster
to work with than 3dstudio max. Especially when it comes
to OpenGL handling (realtime). But Fiber has cumbersome
control splines over the hair shapes and no option for
curling the fur, or creating “fur-variations” in the proper way.

And Blender has a tendency to render badly with small poly’s
such as “hair-strands”. As it usually doesn’t get antialiased
properly therefor it looks too “hard” like plastic-doll hair no
matter what shaders you use. You can suggest here and
back to rome…I’ve basically tried EVERY variation you can
think of…but keep coming back to the ol’blender bugs of AA
and lack thereof. I know of the new fix…but much more
are needed in order to give that “Upper-edge-high-end” render
quality that commercial customers simply demands.

You can’t “print” a 300x300 DPI image on an a-4 Magazine
done with Blender simply because of the reflection-AA bugs
and the overexposed reflective bugs that sometimes appear
all over a 16 x oversampled image. Max uses “Supersampling”
on textures for this.

I hate the fact that I have to Re-purchase 3dstudio max
just because of the render-quality and hair-render-speed etc.
I’ve come to be dependent on Blender…and I love it more
than you know. But the results are unmistakeable…one
can excuse it away as much as one wants…but the results
speak for itself :confused: But I’ll be back :slight_smile: In my spare time
I prefer to use Blender anyway for modelling & image contests.

Take care

/JoOngle

7

Aren’t the methods used by 3ds max for fur and paint effects and fur in Maya well known? Surely there’s someone smart enough out there that can incorporate them into Blender (maybe not for free though). Aren’t there open source plugins for fur and organic models?

8

http://www.blender3d.org/cms/Rendering_engine.320.0.html
This will be in 2.34, or in a testing build, now!

9

this is a good poin…you can use the 3ds money to finance a developper work to write an os plugin for blender.
it may sound stupid to you “just me paiyng” something for all but you can see it as: i pay for having it in this moment and in the way i like it.

just an idea.
bye

10

Broken - yeah, I know…I’ve too been following the developement
course VERY closely for a while, unfortunately there are rarely
released any test builds for linux…and besides…the deadline doesnt
allow for it, sorry…But I’d wanted nothing more than to use
Blender for it…as a matter of fact…I used a WEEK doing pre-work
in Blender showing the client the results, but the high quality
of the project demands insane quality in a short time-span.
I would probably have tried to “fake” it in Blender if it wasnt
for the fact that my client changed his “initial-wishes” and
wanted “Garfield-like” real-fur too…of course this Upped the
price…but the client accepted the price proposal…so I had no
choice but to accept the job with a different package. :confused:

Osxrules & bullx: You are both right, if time allowed for it
then that would have been an excellent idea. I would probably
pay quite a donation to the Blender-Foundation If Blender
where used to the complete project…I’ve always wished
to “Brag” to the other CGI-professionals about using blender
to “Land-the-deals” with. But I belive that day will come once,
it’s just not YET…but you guys are REALLY getting there…thats
why you’ve seen me post so many pictures here in elysiun lately
to do Realism-tests with Blender.

Take care & thanks for the response.

/JoOngle

11

I probably would have purchased a second hard-drive instead of reformatting the one. You can certainly have two OS’s on the same machine. (You can even run Blender on Linux and Windows.)

The way I see it… you have a high-paying client ("$$$$!!") who has a tight deadline and expects … needs … results. You know for certain how to deliver those results, using 3DS Max. So do that. Use the tools and techniques you are certain of, and bring home that bacon. After that deposit is in the bank and the check has cleared, use the other disk drive (which hopefully you didn’t actually reformat) to work the same project up with Blender.

It would be quite senseless, though, to jeopardize your reputation with this client by taking chances. This person obviously feels that s/he has well-placed confidence in you to be able to deliver “insane quality” in “three weeks.” Fail not! :smiley:

Describe how 3DS Max does fur and who knows, maybe someone out there will have done it for Blender by the time you finish your work.

I don’t think that it is the slightest ill reflection upon Blender to say that it is not (yet… :wink: ) “everything for everybody.” There is a tremendous expanse of “3D animation work” out there, for everything from GameBoys to the cinema movie-screen, and it’s only natural that every product out there is going to specialize to some degree. If you absolutely need fantastic fur (and, I hope, have a considerably better script than Garfield %| …) then you use the devil you know and if “that’s not Blender [right now],” that’s okay. There will be other projects out there for which 3DS, Renderman, and all the others would be “not the best tool for the job.” 'Twas ever thus.

12

I looked around for some fur methods on the internet… HEre are some:

http://www.sfu.ca/~jcchong/461/


http://graphics.usc.edu/~taeyong/Links.htm

maybe it s usefull for someone

13

Firstly, congrats on getting a deal to show off your talents. Secondly, the idea of a donation to the Blender Foundation is extremely generous and I would like to follow your example. IF I managed to get a job, however small, to use Blender in a proffessional environment I think I would tithe my earnings to the BF (give 10%.) You would have to work on a $60k contract before you were giving away more than the price of “professional” software.

Anywho, KEEP ON GOING.

14

:o
I couldn’t have put it better myself

It’s amazing how many people assume that all blender users are zealots that instantly attack anyone who says blender isn’t perfect…
Well maybe not so amazing considering how many blender users are zealots that instantly attack anyone who says blender isn’t perfect… :x

Anyways, sundial speaks words of wisdom…

15

Update: Things have changed drastcially (for the better - maybe).

Alright, I’ve been in several hair-raising meetings lately
and as I was about to start my own business delivering 3d
graphics to companies, I found that it would be extremely
costly to do so, and the client is a bit worried about investing
in software he/she doesn’t really need after the job has been
done.

Besides…

I also told the client about the history of Blender and the
many people working hard on making it a viable alternative
for struggling artist who simply can’t afford to start off with
the biggies. The whole story on how people collected money
to release Blender …and the coders working like mad to
upgrade the package to what it is becoming these days…

Nuff said…

My client was impressed, almost to tears and REALLY like
the idéa. The reason he likes it so much is because he
has funded many things that way and belives in the hard
efford of others to help each other - because everyone wins
in the end.

So much so that he now INSIST that I use Blender for the
assignment, and instead of giving my “coming” company
some money for the job done, he now “hire” me for the
project. That of course means that I’ve got to do various
other things (working on their web…etc)…since I’m now
about to become one of their own employees. (at least
for 3 months).

This is good news indeed. He loves the 3d-characters
done with it so far, and hasn’t got any doubt that it
can be used.

I’ve told him about the AA-bug fix, and that made the
decition clear. No-AA bugs…clean image…no problem.
Blender (and me) will attempt to create the character for
this client.

Unfortunately I am not free to include details about
the company or the actual project, but they have
turned down 7-pro. advertising agencies simply
because they couldn’t deliver the high-image quality
they demand for their new product. But feel confident
with the “pre-views” I’ve shown them so far. The
reason for not beeing able to tell you what it’s all
about is of course because of an NDA-(non-disclosure-
agreement) wich is fair enough.

So now…it all gets exiting.

Hair or no hair - the character WILL be done in Blender!

AND…

In the end…I’ll have to decide weither to go with an
attempt at hair with Blender…or just make a “pixarish”
classic-looking character that kids love anyway, but the
hair really makes the difference if it IS convicing.

So…hair coders…scripters…I wish I wish…I wish I might
get the wish I wish for tonight (not sure that was right…but
it sounded okay) :smiley:

Anyway, the “hair” attempt doesnt come ON before
2-3 weeks nearing deadline, so there is some time
just in case anyone of you get the “coders-craze” and
go nuts with an hair ideá.

Again - thanks for your kind attention. When I’m
finished - I’ll let you know, and eventually when the
product get’s released…I’ll ask for permission to
post it under “Finished Projects”.

Take care all.

/JoOngle
[/b]

16

Wow! that is good, and surprising, news! :smiley:

I certainly hope we get to see the final product the instant the NDA expires :wink:

maybe a few subtle hints could get a few dollars headed in the Blender Foundation’s direction?