Full Version: Off topic : very personal thoughts about actual CG consumer software

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Hi Tom.

@You : "...digital tools nowadays have become to even modest bugdets ..."

Got it :) I agree.

Yes...
ZBrush, 3D-Coat, Moi, Rocket3F/NVIL, Blender, Sketchup, etc etc...

It's really incredible what software developers can offer today at a very low or free price.

But...but...I'm not young :) and I remember that at young days of modern software history (80's, early 90's)
it was almost usual to find and share top quality source code.
In those "days" software developers really struggling so much to produce top quality source code.
I remember well all the strive and the work to produce super optimized source code both with Amiga and Commodore 64.

Nowadays this is not more the rule, but is an exception.

For what actually know and I've tested about the consumer world of CG, I think (and I guess) that today few software deserve to be used as an example : Moi (at least in some of its area like the UX), Affinity Photo for iPad,Rhino (at least for its Grasshopper dev side), Blender, 3D-Coat for how it revolutionized the consumer digital sculpting world, and few others.

IMHO the actual problem of "poor" source code quality are these :

1) Now it's easier to leverage on hardware power (cuda, openCL) of the modern graphics cards.
So even a middle-level quality source code run fast, but not fast as it could.

For example I have a Gtx 1080 Ti and I 'm really disgusted noting how many software have really poor performance even on a beast like that.
Poor source code, poor techniques, only to publish new release as fast as possible.

"Thea Render" is for example an exception to this bad behavior. Superior quality source code without doubts.

2) Today software developers are forced to build new releases faster and faster, and this degrade the source code quality.
Now producing a top-level source code is really expensive, especially for little company or (like Michael) for single person company.

These are my very personal thoughts about actual quality of CG software.

Ciao!

Marco (mkdm)

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>>
But...but...I'm not young :) and I remember that at young days of modern software history (80's, early 90's)
it was almost usual to find and share top quality source code.
In those "days" software developers really struggling so much to produce top quality source code.
I remember well all the strive and the work to produce super optimized source code both with Amiga and Commodore 64.

Nowadays this is not more the rule, but is an exception.<<

Thats very interesting I were not aware of that,>>3D-Coat for how it revolutionized the consumer digital sculpting world<<

Interesting that you mention 3DCoat, I thought that Zbrush is considered to be the revolution into 3D sculpting and that 3DCoat a product following its trail somehow ...>> only to publish new release as fast as possible.<<

Yes. this make moyt products more and more overloaded with functions without any substantial gain. Hats off to Michael that he keeps loyal to his philosophy of "less is more" than to go the other way of one new "hot" release after the other ...

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Hi Tom!

Thanks a lot for sharing.

This gives me the chance to better clarify what I've said :)

@You : "...Interesting that you mention 3DCoat, I thought that Zbrush is considered to be the revolution into 3D sculpting and that 3DCoat a product following its trail somehow..."

Well, speaking in absolute terms you're totally right. ZBrush is and was the pioneer! Not doubt on that.
A super powerful tool for super expert people and professionals.

But I mentioned 3D-Coat for two main reasons :

1) 3D-Coat was written with a Photoshop-centric UX and this was a HUUUGE step ahead, compared to the steep learning curve of ZBrush.
With 3D-Coat for the very first time the Digital Sculpting and much more the 3D Texturing have become public knowledge.

2) Many function of 3D-Coat reveal the great job of its developers : The Paint Room with it's easy and power, the Voxels, the Retopo tools.
All these things shows that the code behind is robust, well engineered and optimized.

That's all.

Ciao.

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Enjoying to get more insights from your perspective !

So you are familiar wth 3DCoat - did you work with it ?

Like many, the unusual interface and workflow in Zbrush hindered me in digging deeper into it. 3DCoat looks much more accessible and not far behind ZBrush in its potential.

Does 3DCoat have an own render engine or would it be more advisible to bake the texture and render externally ?

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Hello Tom!

It's a pleasure for me to share these things.

@You : "...So you are familiar wth 3DCoat - did you work with it ?..."

Yes, I'm pretty familiar with 3D-Coat, at least with its main and most important features, but it's not my job.
I'm a software developer (Android java and web app for Android and iOS) but CG, both 2D and 3D, is my main passion for decades.

@You : "...Does 3DCoat have an own render engine or would it be more advisible to bake the texture and render externally ?..."

Well...here things get interesting :)

1) 3D-Coat has a built-in proprietary pseudo PBR renderer.
I said "pseudo" because it's a very streamlined version of a full PBR renderer.
Anyway is more than enough if you don't need photorealistic results.
I use it very often above all because I like to follow a particular workflow.
Many times I create 2D/3D image composition at print-quality resolution, at least A3 300 Dpi (4961x3508 px) and I want to do these things very quickly, spending the shortest possible time, at least in the 3D side.
And for this particular workflow 3D-Coat is almost PERFECT for me!

Usually I do these things :

- I model something in Moi and or Rocket3F/NVIL (two very nice and powerful Poly/SDS modeler)
- I export the model in very high poly mesh
- I import the mesh in 3D-Coat as high poly mesh as a Voxel with high density (many millions of polygons)
- Sometimes i use the "Slice" too to break the part into pieces
- Then I apply some 3D-Coat built-in or custom "Shader"
- Finally I render in the render Room and save the hires PNG along with its alpha channel for further image composition (usually in Affinity Photo with PC or my iPad Pro 12.9 second generation)

- Here's a quick example of a simple image composition (obj modeled in Moi then Voxelized and splitted in 3DC and rendered in 3DC ) :





2) 3D-Coat has also a new "Renderman" render module! (You must download the public free Renderman package)




3) If you prefer a more standard workflow you can use 3D-Coat for its sculpting/texturing/UVing/Retopo features and export a standard UVed obj or ply to use into an external renderer.




I often use the brand new (still in advanced beta) Instant Light. A terrific fast realtime GPU render engine.
But you need a really powerful GPU.

I have an Nvidia Gtx 1080 Ti and it's good.

Many times I also use Blender 2.79 or Thea Render (Cpu+GPU combined together) or even Rhino V5 with its Thea render Plugin.

I hope this is helpful and interesting for you.

My two cents...


Ciao!

Marco (mkdm)

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Hello,

Developers are typically horrible at UX. MoI is an exception to that rule.

Rhino, 3DCoat, NVIL, Thea and especially Blender are UX train wrecks. The only one of those that has a chance of becoming more usable is Thea, since it looks like Altair isn't afraid to drastically change their UX on their upcoming product lines. I'm not holding my breath thinking any of the other ones will improve.

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Hello OSTexo.

Thanks for sharing.

@You : "...Developers are typically horrible at UX. MoI is an exception to that rule...."

Oh man...you're totally right!

Just to echo what you named....

Rhino : Terrible UX

3DCoat : Not so bad IMHO. It's Paint Room with its Photoshop Centric UX is very good for me. Other Rooms (sculpring,...) could be a lot better.

NVIL : Its creator Istonia is really a good guy :) He put all his effort in adding new powerful features and in debugging activity. Very remarkable what he do constantly. NVIL is very powerful, believe me. But the UX is really not his strong suit :)
Things changed a lot when Samardac and Istonia created Rocket3F, a special version of NVIL. A great step forward compared to NVIL.

Thea Render : rather inconsistent UX but...hey...great source code, super powerful CPU+GPU "Presto" engine. On my 1080 Ti really flies!

Blender : IMHO not so bad its UX like many say. Not the best, for sure, but not so bad. Tons of panels ok, but it support shortcuts very well.

And what else ?

IMHO actually one of the best UX are of Affinity Designer and Photo, especially Photo on iPad Pro.

Also this well known web App for Poly/SDS modelling has agreat UX imho : Vectary (https://www.vectary.com/about)

Ciao!

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Hello mkdm,

I get the indication that McNeel has put themselves in a tough spot with Rhino v6. They are pushing Grasshopper but by doing so are asking users to perform operations in two different interfaces. Couple that with near zero advancement of its core interface results in a product that is not very usable.

It's easy to get lost in 3DCoat, the devs are asking users to remember where they've placed operations. Humans do not operate efficiently in that way.

NVIL has an overwhelming interface, the dev needs to put some thought into tool consolidation and organization. The good news for him is that he doesn't need to build out his toolset, he isn't feature starved.

Blender is the poster child for bad UX. It's almost as if they intentionally made UX decisions to make it unusable. Yes, it's that bad.

I'm glad Altair bought Solid Iris, I think they now have the experience and funding moving forward to really advance their UX with TR.

I haven't tried the Affinity or Vectary products so I can't rightly comment on the usability of the products.

Interesting discussion.

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Hello OSTexo.

I agree with almost everything you said.

@You : "...I get the indication that McNeel has put themselves in a tough spot with Rhino v6..."

That's the way I feel too.
But I think that McNeel is doing this choice because many of their professional customers are engaged into the world of "generative modelling", and we must say that now the Grasshopper module has a much better integration within the whole Rhino environment and can now leverage on the new V6 Rhino Api that is really really powerful.

I think that now Rhino is becoming more and more a "2d/3d developing platform".

ITS UX IS TERRIBLE, NOT DOUBT, BUT NOW WHAT'S BEHIND IS REALLY IMPRESSIVE.

But it's even more for professional and not for hobbyist :)

In the right hands its "generative modelling" capabilities can do very impressive things.

I have a commercial version of Rhino V5, purchased some years ago but it was a wrong of me.
Some month later I purchased Moi and now I use Rhino 4-5% of times.
But when open it is only to use its Thea Render Plugin (excellent) and to access its Grasshopper module and run some public free "Grasshopper plugin" found around the web.
Or some times to run some command that really we are still missing in Moi : MatchSrf, "Cage Edit" and "G3 Blend".



About Blender, as I said, i think that its UX not so terrible. It has a great support for shortcut and you can find really impressive PlugIn almost for free.

Currently, because some month ago I purchased an iPad Pro 12.9 second generation, I'm engaged into this new "world" and I must say that I'm really impressed by how many iOS Apps for CG has a great, amazing UX. Minimalist and very powerful and with the Apple Pencil the UX is really good.
Still not perfect but the're on the right direction.
Procreate, "Affinity Photo", "Frax HD" (an amazing fractal generator, you can't believe what its developer were able to do with it), onShape (the excellent cloud parametric cad)

In these weeks I'm also experiencing the power and the wanderful UX of "Concepts", an amazing vector sketching App for iOS.
Actually the very best vector sketching software that you can find on a mobile device.

Ok...that's all for the moment :)

Ah.....I forgot...

Still talking about consumer CG software I must say that actually I'm very disappointed by what Nvidia is doing.
Last year I purchased a Gtx 1080 Ti and it's really a shame to see how Nvidia intentionally has decided to "degrade" the FP64 performance of this GPU.
Ok, is a commercial move, its their choice but 380-400Glops in FP64 given by the driver of the "1080 Ti" are ridiculous.
A "beast" like that could perform much much better than that.
Ok, its FP32 performance are AWESOME....11 TFlops !!!!
But when it comes to 3D rendering with software like Blender or other, a great powerful FP64 driver would've been a lot better.


That's all :)

Ciao!

Marco (mkdm)

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Message 8849.10 was deleted

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Hello everyone!

Great news (I deleted the previous message....I made a mistake)







Ciao!

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Hi guys,

Interesting discussion.

Marco: "I remember well all the strive and the work to produce super optimized source code both with Amiga and Commodore 64."

Yes! :) I was a designer of commercial 16-bit games for about 10 years, mainly for the Commodore Amiga, and before that I had a Commodore 128. I loved those early, pre-internet days of the digital revolution.

Back in those days you had to take over the whole system to really get the most out of a machine. I remember our team's coder had to develop his own disk loader, his own copy protection, his own graphic routines, we even had our own music editors to create music for our games. They were called SIDmon and The Digital Mugician. The Digital Mugician was sold to Thalamus software in those days. They released it.

More about our games can be found here:
http://hol.abime.net/hol_search.php?N_ref_artist=992
— Don't mind my angry photo. It was a selfie in a mirror taken before smartphones existed. :)


OSTexo: "Blender is the poster child for bad UX. It's almost as if they intentionally made UX decisions to make it unusable. Yes, it's that bad."

I largely disagree with this, sorry. I was a long-time 3ds Max user since the second half of the 1990s. But the very high pricing and slow development of 3ds Max made me look around for alternatives in the early 2010s. I decided to go for Blender because I also wanted to shift from Windows to Mac OS, and 3ds Max only works on Windows.

Initially, Blender takes some time to get used to, I won't deny that, but if you study the many free video tutorials that are around, and experiment with Blender's many tools and features, you'll discover that everything works very logical, and functions work very consistent throughout the different sections. Blender is very dependent on keyboard shortcuts, but that can really speed up your workflow. Once you know the most important keyboard shortcuts, you'll be able to use those shortcuts in other Blender sections as well. For example, in the 3D editor, Shift + A adds a new object, and in the Video Sequence Editor, Shift + A adds a movie clip or other content.

Last but not least, the upcoming Blender 2.8 will feature some interesting UX improvements, including visual gizmos to live-adjust properties on-screen.

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>> Hello Tom! It's a pleasure for me to share these things. <<

Thank you for sharing lots of very informative insights !

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Hello Metin!

@You : "...Back in those days you had to take over the whole system to really get the most out of a machine. I remember our team's coder had to develop his own disk loader, his own copy protection, his own graphic routines, we even had our own music editors to create music for our games. ..."


Yeah!!!! What glorious days!!!
When writing a software, even a little software, was like leaving for a long and mysterious trip, full of surprises and discoveries !!!

How many afternoons (and nights) striving and studying with the C64 and Amiga 500!!!

When you had to take into account every single byte :)

Digress slightly...IMHO Commodore Amiga 1000, its predecessor, was one of the milestones of ALL computer science history.
I still remember its signature from the top cover!!!! Jay Miner and the paw print of his dog Mitchy!!! I weep with emotion every time I remember it.






About Blender for me : More I use it more I love it. I can't say more :)


Ciao!

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...I'm sorry if I go slightly off topic in this "off-topic" thread.... :)
But my previous post "threw" me into memories...

A tribute to a genius :

Jay Glenn Miner (May 31, 1932 – June 20, 1994) : "The father of the Amiga"

http://www.amigahistory.plus.com/comment-5.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Miner

"...Miner died due to complications from kidney failure at the age of 62, just two months after Commodore declared bankruptcy."

Ciao a tutti!

Marco (mkdm)

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Hi Marco,

Jay Miner was a legendary hero! Did you know he also designed the graphics chip of the Atari 2600? If you look at Atari 2600 games, you can already recognise his signature Amiga Copper chip color gradient.

I had my Amiga 1000 in early 1986, back when only one single store in the Netherlands had a first few imported Amiga software titles. I remember buying Activision's Hacker game for my Amiga 1000 for about € 120 (HFL / Dutch guilders back then :) ). And not long after that I got Marble Madness. I was blown away by its near-arcade quality. The Amiga took me to gamer's heaven.

The Amiga was also the first machine that allowed me to develop my first CG skills, using Deluxe Paint, which I used for about ten years to create graphics for games, television animation, interactive TV show games, commercials and more. I had a fantastic time thanks to Commodore.

Before the Amiga I loved to play C64 games on my C128, and fiddle around in the C128's BASIC V7.0, which was quite powerful.

Here are my favorite C64 games:

Agent USA
Aztec Challenge
Beach-Head 2
BC's Quest for Tires
Blue Max
Bombjack
Boulderdash (1 & 2)
Bounder
Bruce Lee
Burnin' Rubber
Commando
Commodore Soccer
Crystal Castles
Frank Bruno's Boxing
Ghostbusters
Ghosts ’n’ Goblins
Goonies
H.E.R.O.
Henry's House
Hunchback 2
Impossible Mission
Law of the West
Lazy Jones
Little Computer People
Mario Bros
Master of the Lamps
Monty on the Run
Oil's Well
Pitstop 2
Rambo
Space Taxi
Uridium
Way of the Exploding Fist
Who dares wins (1 & 2)
Yie Ar Kung-Fu
Zorro


And my favorite Amiga games:

Barbarian (Palace Software)
Barbarian (Psygnosis)
Battle Squadron
Borrowed Time
Clockwiser
Crystal Hammer
Defender of the Crown
Déjà Vu
Deluxe Galaga
Deluxe Pac-Man
Emerald Mine
Faery Tale Adventure
Flight Simulator 2
Great Giana Sisters
Hoi
Hybris
Ikari Warriors
Impact
International Karate +
Leander
Lionheart
Lotus Turbo Challenge 2
Marble Madness
Megaball
Mindwalker
Nebulus
New Zealand Story
Pacmania
Phalanx
Pinball Dreams
Pinball Fantasies
Pinball Illusions
Rainbow Islands
Rodland
Scorched Tanks
Shadow of the Beast
Sidewinder
Silkworm
Slam Tilt
Speedball
Starglider 2
Stunt Car Racer
Super Stardust (AGA)
SWIV
Sword of Sodan
Test Drive (1 & 2)
The Pawn
Turrican 2
Uninvited
Xenon
Xenon 2

Regards,

Metin

———————

visualization • pixel art • illustration • 3D design — https://metinseven.com

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Hello everyone!

Speaking about good and streamlined workflow that you can actually find around, always related to CG consumer software of course,
I've played again with Vectary, a cloud based Poly/SDS modeler, and I must say that IMHO it's awesome!

A sort of "tiny" Moi, with the same philosophy, at least for all is related to the UX.

IMHO it's a one of the few cases that reveals how the developers have worked very hard to develop a robust product with a very good UX.

Ok, Vectary in not well suited if you have to deal with large object with tons of polygons, but for small "3D print ready" object
I think that actually it's the best web App and one of the best "easy" Poly/SDS modeler in general.


https://www.vectary.com/about

Ciao!

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Hi Metin, I sure did like Deluxe Paint on the Amiga too! Another thing that was fun with the Amiga was all the interesting graphics hardware widgets available, like I remember that frame grabber/scanner where you used red/green/blue filters to get a full color image. And the Video Toaster of course!

I'd have to say my favorite games were the ones from the Bitmap Brothers.

Having done basic and assembly language programming on the C64 when I was a teenager was a big help for me when I got into programming later on.

- Michael

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Ciao Metin!

Wow...what can I say ?
Do you believe me ?
I was moved to read what you have written. Thanks a lot!

You reminded me so many things buried in my deep memory...

So many things that I loved when I was young :)

Jay Miner was one of my biggest hero....

The Amiga platform with ALL its hardware and software features was really an amazing piece of human ingenuity!!!
Agnus, Blitter, Copper, Denise, Paula...these were the names of the magic inside the amazing Amiga...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_Chip_Set

Wanderful days...amazing inventions...

And how can we forget "Intuition"...the dress of the Amiga's OS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AmigaOS)

How many days and night studying the Amiga system... I was amazed by what Jay and the other guys did!!!

...so many memories.

Ok...it's better that I stop here this conversation...so many memories...

Jay Miner and his guys created the magic.
Speaking about personal computers and computer science I really no longer seen anything like the Commodore Amiga.


Chapéu Mr. Miner. Chapéu.

Marco (mkdm)

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Ciao Michael!

Thanks also to you!

Deluxe Paint...what a wanderful software!!!
Hundreds and hundreds of hours practicing with it!

And with all the amazing endless list of productivity software that the Amiga system could offer.

Like you, I started to learn programming with the C64 in basic and assembly and also my first steps into the CG world.

But was with the Amiga that I learned almost all the things that helped me so much for what has become my job.

And along with programming, the Amiga has allowed me to enter completely into the amazing world of CG, both 2D and 3D.

How we can forget :
Imagine, Lightwave 3D, Pixel 3D Pro, Maxon Cinema (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sznxh3kMu4Y) and many many other...the list is so long!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_productivity_software

I'm sorry if I may sound a bit repetitive but...I really no longer seen anything like the Commodore Amiga.

Ciao :)

Marco (mkdm)

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