Upgrading my software would cost me around $1,500 (roughly 3 times the amount I paid for my Foundation version), not something I have just lying around. Of course they wouldn't do something benevolent like make their DRM less draconian for users of older versions. That would encourage piracy. (something the majority of amateur and hobby users do anyway because the software is so prohibitively expensive) So me, the honest guy who pays for his software, ends up out in the cold.
I dropped XSI right then and there and vowed never to support a 3D company again. Hello Blender my old friend. I'd been told the interface was difficult and I tried it briefly before jumping into game-mod versions of Maya and 3DS-Max. But Blender recently released version 2.5 with a UI overhaul that makes things much more accessible.
The new version mixed with my seething hatred for overpriced commercial packages has proved fruitful so far. I found a couple tutorial sites and ended up buying the book Character Development in Blender 2.5 by Jonathan Williamson, who also runs a decent site Blender Cookie. I would say I'm at least up to the point now that I was in Maya when I got a working tank model into UT2k4 years ago. To my surprise Blender has also added a sculpting system like Zbrush that Jonathan goes over in the book.
I'm excited to finish this tutorial model and start playing with rigs for posing and lighting and rendering. I haven't decided if I'll start heading the low poly direction and mess around with UDK or go high-poly and use them for comics or a Ren'Py project. I just know I'm enjoying dabbling in 3D once again.
It's amazing what free gets you these days.
No comments:
Post a Comment