working with Autodesk Maya, could use help.

[xephier102]

I know that the current mainstream ,since the Blender UI revamp, has been to use Blender; however I have always preferred the tools and UI of Maya. As well, I recently found out that I could get an educational license a lot easier than I thought (no I'm not currently attending Yale, but they don't need to know that; only that I'm using the program for educational purposes).

With that said, it would be nice to have someone to talk with that's skilled in Maya, or even someone that is learning Maya themselves so that we could trade informations.

But just not someone that's just starting and can't do anything on their own it won't be too helpful if I gotta teach someone how to resize shapes a month down the road, lol.

 

[REDEMPTION]

What do you need help with. I use it

 

[xephier102]

What do you need help with. I use it

I made that post over two years ago. I haven't been working with Maya since I got tired of the greed of that corporation. And Blender is a pain. So I've kinda side-burnered my 3D ambitions for now. Also I'm moving to the city at the end of the month, and without a place to live right away, I won't be doing much computer stuff for at least another 2-3 months (give or take). But once I'm in a better headspace, I would like to work on completing my Wilykat model at least.

If/when I get back into it, I'll give ya a shout.

Thx.

 

[REDEMPTION]

I made that post over two years ago. I haven't been working with Maya since I got tired of the greed of that corporation. And Blender is a pain. So I've kinda side-burnered my 3D ambitions for now. Also I'm moving to the city at the end of the month, and without a place to live right away, I won't be doing much computer stuff for at least another 2-3 months (give or take). But once I'm in a better headspace, I would like to work on completing my Wilykat model at least.

If/when I get back into it, I'll give ya a shout.

Thx.

This is why you pirate it instead. Nobody is going to pay 2000$ licenses for that. And Blender sucks imo, personally I dropped it after a while because it's a mess and feature wise it is inferior to Autodesk products unless you install paid addons or other 50000 packages to make up for it.

Didn't notice the date of the post, but yeah if you're ever back I'm available.

 

[xephier102]

This is why you pirate it instead. Nobody is going to pay 2000$ licenses for that. And Blender sucks imo, personally I dropped it after a while because it's a mess and feature wise it is inferior to Autodesk products unless you install paid addons or other 50000 packages to make up for it.

Didn't notice the date of the post, but yeah if you're ever back I'm available.

Sounds good man. Hopefully I can take you up on that. Yea, I feel the same as you about Maya pricing.. 2000$.. BS.. There used to be a legit 'learning edition' that you could get for free, but now they only offer that to the uppity upper class colleges like Harvard and Yale, that pay for bulk licenses. I mean, if I was gonna put out something that I could make a good amount more than 2k from producing, then that'd be one thing, but paying 2k just to teach myself, when I may never produce something profitable... Worst part is, IIRC, you can't even outright buy the product anymore. You've gotta pay like, 1-300 a month or something for them to let you use it.. and never actually own the thing.. Just like photoshop.. That's just one of the most greedy/predatory business moves imho.. Cuz you could literally pay thousands, or even tens of thousands for those products, but never own them, and not even have access to them if you stop paying..

I did download the Maya 'learning edition' (upper class funded for upper class edition), and just told it that I went to Yale (despite that I'm actually Canadian). It worked for a while, then they started demanding proof that I was attending Yale.. That followed by the fact that my Vray trial ran up, and I couldn't find a pirated one at the time that worked.. I just got tired of it all and put it aside. I was able to find some good pirated copies of both later on, but by that point I had lost interest. Nothing kills my buzz more than corporate greed..

But if you had hit me up a month or two sooner, I may have considered picking it up again. Cuz I did have some decent progress on my first serious Maya project (pictures below), and everytime I look at it, I'm tempted to dive back in.

As a side note though, I don't trust forums to stay online these days (any forum not owned by a major corporation seems to be dropping like flies over the past decade or so..). So if you're serious about working together in a mutual effort to grow our skills, then PM me some solid contact info, like an email (I know, it makes me sound old, but I do have a preference for email, since it's the one online communication service that doesn't die out when it's done trending) or something, and I'll hit you up when I'm back on solid ground (so to speak).



He looks a tad clowny in the below pic, but I had planned to correct that in future modifications. The facial fur was the last thing I did with this, and coloring the lips and nose was something I did on a whim. It may look better if it was a lighter shade of pink that blends better with the surrounding color. I also wanted to improve on the eyes, and ideally add a bit of a glow that would show up when rendered (Just a bit, like the eyes from the characters in 'Dragon Quest: Your Story' on Netflix). But I was having some difficulties in getting the eyeballs to have the proper moist/reflective surface to them.

I've been working on my 2D art a lot more lately though, so there's probably a handful of things that I could fix, and tweek just from the knowledge I've gained from that. One thing I've found is that even though 2D, and 3D are so different, there are aspects of both which can make you better in either.

 

[xephier102]

This is why you pirate it instead. Nobody is going to pay 2000$ licenses for that. And Blender sucks imo, personally I dropped it after a while because it's a mess and feature wise it is inferior to Autodesk products unless you install paid addons or other 50000 packages to make up for it.

Didn't notice the date of the post, but yeah if you're ever back I'm available.

Well, I'm back into a stable position, and just bought myself a laptop with specs that (on paper at least) beat your computer (assuming you haven't upgraded since that other post), although video card is only 8 gigs rather than 12, but it is a 3070ti.

I've been downloading games, trying to test it out. Nothing has caused it to lag yet. But it's difficult to find especially stellar grfx games considering game companies are cheap, and since smart phones brought grandma's into the 'gamer' crowd, there's a lot of people out there but, that're just fine playing side scrollers and top-down games..

I did run mortal shell on it, and that's workin just fine at top grfx. But I should really get down to business and pirate Maya and find a pirated copy of Vray. Running renders is the one thing that will fully test any PC/laptop.

 

[REDEMPTION]

Well, I'm back into a stable position, and just bought myself a laptop with specs that (on paper at least) beat your computer (assuming you haven't upgraded since that other post), although video card is only 8 gigs rather than 12, but it is a 3070ti.

I've been downloading games, trying to test it out. Nothing has caused it to lag yet. But it's difficult to find especially stellar grfx games considering game companies are cheap, and since smart phones brought grandma's into the 'gamer' crowd, there's a lot of people out there but, that're just fine playing side scrollers and top-down games..

I did run mortal shell on it, and that's workin just fine at top grfx. But I should really get down to business and pirate Maya and find a pirated copy of Vray. Running renders is the one thing that will fully test any PC/laptop.

Okay, good to know. I had been inactive for the past months and only recently returned back to my work now. I've been developing a small horror game out of interest since for about 3 days now on UE5 and now picking up on my belt of softwares again since I haven't used them in a eternity. And gaming, alot, grinding my mechanical skill.

No, I haven't upgraded my rig since the last post but I plan to further advance it into the future sometime later. The way it is right now satisfies me and handles everything I need.

How has it been the past weeks otherwise

 

[xephier102]

Okay, good to know. I had been inactive for the past months and only recently returned back to my work now. I've been developing a small horror game out of interest since for about 3 days now on UE5 and now picking up on my belt of softwares again since I haven't used them in a eternity. And gaming, alot, grinding my mechanical skill.

No, I haven't upgraded my rig since the last post but I plan to further advance it into the future sometime later. The way it is right now satisfies me and handles everything I need.

How has it been the past weeks otherwise

The usual. Lonely, depressing, and a lot of gaming. My short stint in Vancouver city before getting corona, then moving back in with my mother on the island, was nice, bit of an adventure.

Can you show any pictures of what you've made so far in terms of models and such for your game? I'm just curious.

I guess you know how to code as well? Or do you know other people to handle those parts, or mainly utilize UI driven softwares for the"coding"?

I'm glad to see you're doing alright. On sites like this one, when people disappear, ya can never be too sure if you'll see them again.

 

[REDEMPTION]

The usual. Lonely, depressing, and a lot of gaming. My short stint in Vancouver city before getting corona, then moving back in with my mother on the island, was nice, bit of an adventure.

Can you show any pictures of what you've made so far in terms of models and such for your game? I'm just curious.

I guess you know how to code as well? Or do you know other people to handle those parts, or mainly utilize UI driven softwares for the"coding"?

I'm glad to see you're doing alright. On sites like this one, when people disappear, ya can never be too sure if you'll see them again.

What do you play?


https://www.veed.io/view/a7132f4d-66a9-4038-9aae-dbd0cb9d5dfd

Took a clip and uploaded it. Was testing SFX and music which will be included in the game. Mostly been detailing the environment since it's tiny, such as high res bricks with displacement to them, meaning they stick out as 3D detail and so on.

There's not much done yet. It's done alone by me.

I only know blueprint programming in UE5. I can read native code to a degree but barely write. I used to teach myself but stopped.

It's based on a fictitious organization which keeps, contains and experiments with dangerous anomalies/entities known as SCPs. They have their own site which lists endless items. Main focus for here in the game is SCP-087-B

 

[xephier102]

What do you play?

Been kinda up in the air recently. I've got a PS5, so I've been chipping away at the games I've got on there. I recently beat Farcry 6, and just beat the last of us, yesterday. I'm working on beating spiderman, and spiderman: virtue signaling Miles Morales.

I used to be a big PC gamer, but swapped to console when I got my Xbox one several years back. I'm not against PC gaming, it's just that most of my games are on console, and I find the entire experience more streamlined.

If I get Diablo 4, I will likely get it on PC, since Bliz really crapped on the console version of D2 resurrected (no kb/mouse use, worse UI .etc).

I played EverQuest 2 for over a decade. Good game, sad they messed up the sequel so badly that it never got released.

As for genres, horror, RPG, action, adventure, platform. I'm fairly open minded, but tend to gravitate towards games with exceptional graphics, and nice aesthetics.

I played Blade and Soul, on PC for a bit. Thought that game was pretty neat.

Oh, and I've played too much CoD, and kinda burnt out on that.

Took a clip and uploaded it. Was testing SFX and music which will be included in the game. Mostly been detailing the environment since it's tiny, such as high res bricks with displacement to them, meaning they stick out as 3D detail and so on.

Will check this out when I get on my computer.

I only know blueprint programming in UE5. I can read native code to a degree but barely write. I used to teach myself but stopped.

More than me. I only know some introductory stuff in C++.

It's based on a fictitious organization which keeps, contains and experiments with dangerous anomalies/entities known as SCPs. They have their own site which lists endless items. Main focus for here in the game is SCP-087-B

Kinda reminds me of some kinda cross between resident evil, and stranger things.

 

[REDEMPTION]

Been kinda up in the air recently. I've got a PS5, so I've been chipping away at the games I've got on there. I recently beat Farcry 6, and just beat the last of us, yesterday. I'm working on beating spiderman, and spiderman: virtue signaling Miles Morales.

I used to be a big PC gamer, but swapped to console when I got my Xbox one several years back. I'm not against PC gaming, it's just that most of my games are on console, and I find the entire experience more streamlined.

If I get Diablo 4, I will likely get it on PC, since Bliz really crapped on the console version of D2 resurrected (no kb/mouse use, worse UI .etc).

I played EverQuest 2 for over a decade. Good game, sad they messed up the sequel so badly that it never got released.

As for genres, horror, RPG, action, adventure, platform. I'm fairly open minded, but tend to gravitate towards games with exceptional graphics, and nice aesthetics.

I played Blade and Soul, on PC for a bit. Thought that game was pretty neat.

Oh, and I've played too much CoD, and kinda burnt out on that.

Will check this out when I get on my computer.

More than me. I only know some introductory stuff in C++.

Kinda reminds me of some kinda cross between resident evil, and stranger things.

I haven't played Far Cry 6 yet mainly because Denuvo hasn't been broken yet as far as I know but I've beaten the other titles and completed them to 100% according to the in-game journal. I very rarely play other games nowadays other than PUBG since I've buzzed through 95% of content the game industry has to offer really. Most games just don't entertain me anymore and my set standards for them to make it deem playable have gotten higher. I haven't played a game outside of my main since a good two years now though I've been playing games since I could walk so it's realizeable. The only reason PUBG entertains me is because it's completely made up of human players and each game is completely random which makes it entertaining. Alongside the voicechat speaking people do.

I know all the games you have listed. I played CoD an decade ago up until Modern Warfare 2 starting from CoD 1, afterwards the games dipped in quality I didn't bother to touch them.

So, are you looking forward to any games which are upcoming? I personally don't know any and my drive has been quite dead since a long time now.

I got an dusted xbox 360 laying next to my computer though I quit console gaming since I disliked it.

I've been mainly spending my time in AimLab grinding my aim upwards and playing PUBG, then working on my game. The precision training with tiny circles really got my wrist a tad strained though it's getting used to it and picking up in speed.

https://www.veed.io/view/25f81104-4df8-4a9a-998b-b7d32b2456ff

 

[xephier102]

The only reason PUBG entertains me is because it's completely made up of human players and each game is completely random which makes it entertaining.

Isn't that the same with most similar games though? Warzone, Fortnite, .etc.

I personally had some fun with WZ. Though for the most part, I prefer cqc over a large map like that. Much less time looking for people, and more time killing people. But CoD has gone to **** over the years, and not just the games, the player base. So many campers (camping down hallways while surrounded with trophy systems..), and spawn campers. And these dweebs still have smack talk, even though they've got no real skill..

Also the kill streaks are ridiculous.. some ass gets lucky and makes it to the enemy spawn before the rest of their team, and so they get the timing right to just run back and forth between spawn switches, while the rest of their team is running back and forth frustrated, then they get killstreak rewards for all their efforts.. and use those to wipe out the entire enemy team multiple times over. I've had people like that on my team, and I usually shoot them myself. They just ruin the game for everyone. When the game ends, they've got like, 90 kills, next person on their team has 10..

So, are you looking forward to any games which are upcoming?

I think anyone that's actually serious about gaming, isn't really looking forward to any games anymore. The gaming industry has just gotten too greedy.. how many times can they resell us the same content at the same price with only a large dlc worth of new content.. the second spiderman game is literally the exact same city with snow.. And Hitman games.. I've been playing since the first on PC, and since Hitman 2016, they've literally just been copy/pasting assets from one game to the next. They're so similar, that it's seemless for them to put one game into the next (Hitman 3 includes Hitman 2 and Hitman 2016 + all dlc in the same UI). It's more like they're just releasing map dlc than making sequels.

There's just zero innovation in the gaming industry anymore. EverQuest 2 was released nearly two decades ago, and I still haven't seen another 3D game with that diverse of a race selection. Most race selections in fantasy games, are just different variants of humans (short human, pointy eared human, short fat human .etc).

Call me picky, but.. I like a bit more fantasy in my fantasy games.. if I wanted to be a human, I'd play real life..

Last game I remember looking forward to was Cyberpunk, and we all know how that went down..

Assassin's Creed Origins was pretty decent, but Odyssey was a fraction the size And cut down in some of the gameplay elements. And Valhalla was ***** imho. It was alright until the game stone walled me on a stupid mission involving the consumption of alcohol (the mission was needlessly difficult).. it should have been a side mission at best, but really, shouldn't have even been in the game at all.. no reason to glorify drinking to all the kids that are gonna be playing the game..

Although our society has a habit of doing that (glorifying alcocol consumption to minors..).

I've been mainly spending my time in AimLab grinding my aim upwards and playing PUBG, then working on my game. The precision training with tiny circles really got my wrist a tad strained though it's getting used to it and picking up in speed.

I used to buy strategy guides for games, and videos to try to better my skills. I just don't care that much anymore. I'll only look something up if I absolutely can't get past it on my own.

As for older games I'd recommend, Prey, and especially Dishonored 2. I stumbled upon the latter in Xbox gamepass, and it's amazing. So much fun, so many ways to play, random npc hyjinks .etc. also the most innovative game I've seen since Portal2. Dishonored 1 is worth a playthrough as well, though two is better, more polished overall. There was a third installment in the series, but it wasn't great. It went off a side character, and was extremely cut down compared to either of the previous games.

I loved how you could cut off people's limbs in that game, then pick them up and toss them around to gauge npc reactions, or toss them at npcs to startle them, lol..

Oh, and the new resident evil games have been pretty solid.

Most games these days don't even have dismemberment, cuz they're afraid of offending the PC(politically correct) woke crowd. Well, and it likely costs more money to put stuff like that into the games.

That said, mostly single player story driven games are worth it these days. Anything they can't load down with dlc, and copy/paste/resell.

I hope I didn't rant too much.. I just woke up,
and I'm kinda half asleep..

btw, I checked the sound file, good sounds so far. Did you create them, or merely compile?

Did you have any opinion on my model above? I do gather from your taste in music, that Wilykat probably isn't the type of character that you'd make, but I was just hoping for any general input regarding quality or anything that could be improved. From memory, hair/fur was the most difficult thing because they keep wanting to go under the model, especially around curved surfaces.

 

[REDEMPTION]

Isn't that the same with most similar games though? Warzone, Fortnite, .etc.

I personally had some fun with WZ. Though for the most part, I prefer cqc over a large map like that. Much less time looking for people, and more time killing people. But CoD has gone to **** over the years, and not just the games, the player base. So many campers (camping down hallways while surrounded with trophy systems..), and spawn campers. And these dweebs still have smack talk, even though they've got no real skill..

Also the kill streaks are ridiculous.. some ass gets lucky and makes it to the enemy spawn before the rest of their team, and so they get the timing right to just run back and forth between spawn switches, while the rest of their team is running back and forth frustrated, then they get killstreak rewards for all their efforts.. and use those to wipe out the entire enemy team multiple times over. I've had people like that on my team, and I usually shoot them myself. They just ruin the game for everyone. When the game ends, they've got like, 90 kills, next person on their team has 10..

I think anyone that's actually serious about gaming, isn't really looking forward to any games anymore. The gaming industry has just gotten too greedy.. how many times can they resell us the same content at the same price with only a large dlc worth of new content.. the second spiderman game is literally the exact same city with snow.. And Hitman games.. I've been playing since the first on PC, and since Hitman 2016, they've literally just been copy/pasting assets from one game to the next. They're so similar, that it's seemless for them to put one game into the next (Hitman 3 includes Hitman 2 and Hitman 2016 + all dlc in the same UI). It's more like they're just releasing map dlc than making sequels.

There's just zero innovation in the gaming industry anymore. EverQuest 2 was released nearly two decades ago, and I still haven't seen another 3D game with that diverse of a race selection. Most race selections in fantasy games, are just different variants of humans (short human, pointy eared human, short fat human .etc).

Call me picky, but.. I like a bit more fantasy in my fantasy games.. if I wanted to be a human, I'd play real life..

Last game I remember looking forward to was Cyberpunk, and we all know how that went down..

Assassin's Creed Origins was pretty decent, but Odyssey was a fraction the size And cut down in some of the gameplay elements. And Valhalla was ***** imho. It was alright until the game stone walled me on a stupid mission involving the consumption of alcohol (the mission was needlessly difficult).. it should have been a side mission at best, but really, shouldn't have even been in the game at all.. no reason to glorify drinking to all the kids that are gonna be playing the game..

Although our society has a habit of doing that (glorifying alcocol consumption to minors..).

I used to buy strategy guides for games, and videos to try to better my skills. I just don't care that much anymore. I'll only look something up if I absolutely can't get past it on my own.

As for older games I'd recommend, Prey, and especially Dishonored 2. I stumbled upon the latter in Xbox gamepass, and it's amazing. So much fun, so many ways to play, random npc hyjinks .etc. also the most innovative game I've seen since Portal2. Dishonored 1 is worth a playthrough as well, though two is better, more polished overall. There was a third installment in the series, but it wasn't great. It went off a side character, and was extremely cut down compared to either of the previous games.

I loved how you could cut off people's limbs in that game, then pick them up and toss them around to gauge npc reactions, or toss them at npcs to startle them, lol..

Oh, and the new resident evil games have been pretty solid.

Most games these days don't even have dismemberment, cuz they're afraid of offending the PC(politically correct) woke crowd. Well, and it likely costs more money to put stuff like that into the games.

That said, mostly single player story driven games are worth it these days. Anything they can't load down with dlc, and copy/paste/resell.

I hope I didn't rant too much.. I just woke up,
and I'm kinda half asleep..

btw, I checked the sound file, good sounds so far. Did you create them, or merely compile?

Did you have any opinion on my model above? I do gather from your taste in music, that Wilykat probably isn't the type of character that you'd make, but I was just hoping for any general input regarding quality or anything that could be improved. From memory, hair/fur was the most difficult thing because they keep wanting to go under the model, especially around curved surfaces.

>similar games
Forgot to mention it's more realistic which I like. I've played both Apex and Fortnite but didn't liked them and they weren't as intense. Killing people in PUBG also feels more rewarding and rushes the dopamine levels to the ceiling to the point I become cocky and intimidate the enemy over voice chat, that happened when I play solo against squads and killed a 4 man team by myself.

You might like CS:GO since that would suit your needs better, CQC, more competitive play, no killstreak airstrikes, a bit slower, not really forgiving. It's free on Steam.

Yes, it's more about microtransactions and gambling to suck weak minded people in and shoot a pocket into their wallet rather than the content for the game itself. PUBG has gone downhill due to this, they release more skins and cosmetics, collaborate with various real life brands to add their things to the game, while the actual state of the game is below average.

I still enjoy the game though and have poured 700 hours in. I like this game alot that I back then thought about continually grinding it down to the bone and trying to participate in community tourney matches on Twitch who also give out rewards. I used to play competitively and won community tourneys in Krunker with my own clan before. I like to watch esports generally aswell.




I have never touched Assassin's Creed beyond 3, imo AC 1 and 2 including Brotherhood were the only true AC games. Afterwards the series went downhill and now turned into some ordinary RPG gibberish. I know how that will play out. I'm not gonna grind out the game for 500 hours and spawnkill the same enemies to gain XP just to progress or achieve something.

I played Prey 2017, that was a good game. I liked it, it was unique and had different enemies and weapons such as the gloo gun I never saw in games before.

I just pick my sounds from the internet or mix different sounds together to morph into one in Audacity. Or I take them from the original SCP games, they're non copyrighted anyways since SCP belongs to everybody and they can do whatever they want to expand it.

>the model
The model looks fine. The face looks a bit weird in colors, I think a stronger different contrast between the two fur colors would be better, that'd be it.

 

[xephier102]

Damnit.. I had a whole message typed out, then accidentally closed the window..

Anyways, the jest is,

I can't really do competitive gaming because depression tanks my ability to do well consistently. Also I don't like what my competitive side brings out in me. Well, unless it's just me against a friend, 1v1. But if I go against strangers, I can get a bit nasty. Of course the online players in CoD, don't help. It's a pretty ****** community.

I take them from the original SCP games, they're non copyrighted anyways since SCP belongs to everybody and they can do whatever they want to expand it.

Don't take this personally, but just as my own built in guidelines, I prefer to build original content myself. Well, cept Thundercats, but that's more of a big nostalgia thing for me. I grew up watching the original Thundercats cartoon back in the 80's. Also, building 3D Wilykat was a lot tougher than I'd originally thought. Cuz the hair/ears were one of those things that looks fine in 2D, but getting them to look right in 3D was something else. Also, the 2D version of him had a bigger head, that would look strange in 3D.

Honestly, I take the most pride in the tail, cuz it came out looking well (imo), and hair/fur is so difficult to work with in Maya. Have you done any hair/fur in Maya? If so, what was your experience with it?

Also, Tcats 2011 ended far too soon. There's so much story that they could have expanded on, but instead TV studios prefer to put all their money into garbage like Survivor, and Keeping up with the Kardashians. The types of brainless shows that teach society to be superficial D-bags, that practice pack mentality..

it's more realistic

I do like realistic, but I'm a bit of a graphics snob tbh. As a side note; judging from the contrast in the two screens above, I'm guessing you lower your in-game graphics in order to lower the load times, and simplify the surrounding area in order to make it easier to spot people, and gain the competitive edge? I personally couldn't play with graphics that low. It'd just bore my eyes, and I'd lose focus, then end up gettin shot, lol..

The model looks fine. The face looks a bit weird in colors, I think a stronger different contrast between the two fur colors would be better, that'd be it.

Yep. I could put some work into refining the colors, also imho, the eyes should be lighter, or even have a light glow to them, but that's something I never figured out in Maya. I still haven't gotten around to re-downloading Maya. TBH, I've been putting most of my time into refining my 2D arts. My avatar is one I did myself.

Edit: added a couple reference images for the character, just for contrast.

 

[REDEMPTION]

Damnit.. I had a whole message typed out, then accidentally closed the window..

Anyways, the jest is,

I can't really do competitive gaming because depression tanks my ability to do well consistently. Also I don't like what my competitive side brings out in me. Well, unless it's just me against a friend, 1v1. But if I go against strangers, I can get a bit nasty. Of course the online players in CoD, don't help. It's a pretty ****** community.


Don't take this personally, but just as my own built in guidelines, I prefer to build original content myself. Well, cept Thundercats, but that's more of a big nostalgia thing for me. I grew up watching the original Thundercats cartoon back in the 80's. Also, building 3D Wilykat was a lot tougher than I'd originally thought. Cuz the hair/ears were one of those things that looks fine in 2D, but getting them to look right in 3D was something else. Also, the 2D version of him had a bigger head, that would look strange in 3D.

Honestly, I take the most pride in the tail, cuz it came out looking well (imo), and hair/fur is so difficult to work with in Maya. Have you done any hair/fur in Maya? If so, what was your experience with it?

Also, Tcats 2011 ended far too soon. There's so much story that they could have expanded on, but instead TV studios prefer to put all their money into garbage like Survivor, and Keeping up with the Kardashians. The types of brainless shows that teach society to be superficial D-bags, that practice pack mentality..


I do like realistic, but I'm a bit of a graphics snob tbh. As a side note; judging from the contrast in the two screens above, I'm guessing you lower your in-game graphics in order to lower the load times, and simplify the surrounding area in order to make it easier to spot people, and gain the competitive edge? I personally couldn't play with graphics that low. It'd just bore my eyes, and I'd lose focus, then end up gettin shot, lol..


Yep. I could put some work into refining the colors, also imho, the eyes should be lighter, or even have a light glow to them, but that's something I never figured out in Maya. I still haven't gotten around to re-downloading Maya. TBH, I've been putting most of my time into refining my 2D arts. My avatar is one I did myself.

Edit: added a couple reference images for the character, just for contrast.

Yeah when I seem to be heavily depressed I just can't play well anymore aswell, but other than that games are a form of escapism from reality to me and always bring my mood back up if it's been a regular bad day.

I have experimented with hair in Maya when I was sculpting a horse before. I'm still new to everything but that is what came out of it in the engine.

The fur came out looking fine, I agree aswell as with the tail. Hair is indeed difficult to work with in Maya and I had a bit of a troublesome time with it in Zbrush aswell where combing hair is a nightmare as the particles don't collide with the mesh or I haven't found the option for it.

I'm not a great sculptor but how it came out as my first horse ever I think it looks decent.







>contrast between pictures

Yes, I set every setting possible down to very low and applied some special nvidia settings/visual settings to it to clarify, saturate and remove darkness in the image. Shadows aren't dark anymore and I can perfectly see as if light went through it. Making the game look like ass and removing as much detail as possible is the goal here. When there's too much unnecessary detail covering the environment, the brain will get more distracted by it, you can't easily spot enemies and so on. I can't go back to vanilla settings anymore, there's just too much blurriness and obstruction and yeah, the extra FPS gain from it wouldn't also hurt which can dictate the feeling of recoil control and aim. My rig can handle the game on the highest settings well, but FPS is never enough for me.

I only play on ultra graphics in singleplayer games or games which have their environment or exploration in focus for immersion. Something like The Elder Scrolls Skyrim would be understandable to pump it up with visuals, but there's no reason to have that in a strictly competitive shooter playground.

 

[xephier102]

but there's no reason to have that in a strictly competitive shooter playground.

Fair enough. As I said, I couldn't do it myself, but it is certainly advantageous for those that can.

I'm not a great sculptor but how it came out as my first horse ever I think it looks decent.

Indeed the horse looks good, especially for a first attempt. I would personally have added more vertices/control points to the mane, but apart from that, it looks natural enough. The random detail on the body makes it look more realistic, and that's good. A thin coat of fur to the body would nearly finalize it, as well as glossing over any small imperfections.

I've worked with Zbrush a little bit, however to say "I worked with it" I suppose is a bit of an overstatement. I mean I've loaded it up a handful of times and kinda played around with it. I think there's definite potential for the application. But as being autistic, and having more of a logic-driven mindset; I find it easier to work with polygons over sculpting. I'm only recently trying to come to terms with the concept that organics require more randomness and imperfections in order to come closer to realism. And for me, that's a hard pill to swallow.

escapism from reality

Yep, same. That, and Netflix, Disney plus, and Amazon Prime streaming services. Two months just blew by like nothing.. I need to get out, and get back to work, and save some money in order to better my situation, but it's easier said than done. The sedentary lifestyle may be depressing, but it's a hell of a lot better than being a slave to a corporation that barely pays me. Although if I don't do that, then I can never progress beyond my current circumstances.

 

[REDEMPTION]

Fair enough. As I said, I couldn't do it myself, but it is certainly advantageous for those that can.


Indeed the horse looks good, especially for a first attempt. I would personally have added more vertices/control points to the mane, but apart from that, it looks natural enough. The random detail on the body makes it look more realistic, and that's good. A thin coat of fur to the body would nearly finalize it, as well as glossing over any small imperfections.

I've worked with Zbrush a little bit, however to say "I worked with it" I suppose is a bit of an overstatement. I mean I've loaded it up a handful of times and kinda played around with it. I think there's definite potential for the application. But as being autistic, and having more of a logic-driven mindset; I find it easier to work with polygons over sculpting. I'm only recently trying to come to terms with the concept that organics require more randomness and imperfections in order to come closer to realism. And for me, that's a hard pill to swallow.

Yep, same. That, and Netflix, Disney plus, and Amazon Prime streaming services. Two months just blew by like nothing.. I need to get out, and get back to work, and save some money in order to better my situation, but it's easier said than done. The sedentary lifestyle may be depressing, but it's a hell of a lot better than being a slave to a corporation that barely pays me. Although if I don't do that, then I can never progress beyond my current circumstances.

Thanks for the rating.

Zbrush is momentarily the best software for the sculptor though it's UI layout is a complete mess. Howewer, when you stay with it for too long you start to memorize where everything is and how it all works.

I own both Autodesk Mudbox and Z because I seem to prefer Mudbox's sculpting feel more over Zbrush's and the camera controls feel also much smoother, might aswell mention the UI is a blessing aswell and you can transfer the scene between autodesk software in an instant, though Mudbox completely lacks in features that Zbrush has. The only thing I use it for is to sculpt and it has this features called posing mode and area tessellation which is very useful to me. I can paint in any area to tessellate it up or down while leaving the rest of the body "low poly", or tessellate it back down to "low poly" at any point. I haven't found a workaround in Zbrush for it as the only option seems to be to subdivide the entire mesh up, down or nothing. And posing allows me to pose my mud creature.

In Zbrush, I usually further refine the mesh, use it for clothes/armor, everything which Mudbox has weak points in.

I've opened up Mudbox after ages again and wanted to sculpt a pig, this guy still has a long way to go but I started him only today.

The imperfections are not that hard as they sound like if I imagine it. it's just using to sculpt some small randomness in and fooling around with the Grab tool after finalizing the symmetrical mesh.

Going back to work, sounds terrible for me. I've been on paid sick for two weeks and it was paradise for me. I could finally get some enough sleep and rest, enjoying more of my hobbies than ever. Tomorrow class begins again for me and it sucks.

 

[M_also_lonely]

I used to learn Maya but then turned my focus towards Inventor, Revit and other CAD applications because my interest was in engineering based tools.

 

[xephier102]

Thanks for the rating.

Zbrush is momentarily the best software for the sculptor though it's UI layout is a complete mess. Howewer, when you stay with it for too long you start to memorize where everything is and how it all works.

I own both Autodesk Mudbox and Z because I seem to prefer Mudbox's sculpting feel more over Zbrush's and the camera controls feel also much smoother, might aswell mention the UI is a blessing aswell and you can transfer the scene between autodesk software in an instant, though Mudbox completely lacks in features that Zbrush has. The only thing I use it for is to sculpt and it has this features called posing mode and area tessellation which is very useful to me. I can paint in any area to tessellate it up or down while leaving the rest of the body "low poly", or tessellate it back down to "low poly" at any point. I haven't found a workaround in Zbrush for it as the only option seems to be to subdivide the entire mesh up, down or nothing. And posing allows me to pose my mud creature.

In Zbrush, I usually further refine the mesh, use it for clothes/armor, everything which Mudbox has weak points in.

I've opened up Mudbox after ages again and wanted to sculpt a pig, this guy still has a long way to go but I started him only today.

The imperfections are not that hard as they sound like if I imagine it. it's just using to sculpt some small randomness in and fooling around with the Grab tool after finalizing the symmetrical mesh.

Going back to work, sounds terrible for me. I've been on paid sick for two weeks and it was paradise for me. I could finally get some enough sleep and rest, enjoying more of my hobbies than ever. Tomorrow class begins again for me and it sucks.

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I haven't tried mudbox in an age. I agree about Zbrush though. It's not as bad as Blender, but the UI almost seems like whomever designed it, just wasn't paying attention.. Or like they were one of those types that keeps their bedroom in a perpetual state of disaster area; everything on the floor, scattered across desks .etc, but they like it that way because they know where everything is.

Also Zbrush does contain quite the plethora of tools. I was able to tell that from only using it once or twice. But it's like Photoshop; confusing AF to figure your way around it, but if anyone manages to master it, they could make some mind blowing creations.

You say that you use Zbrush for clothes, like, as opposed to an app like Maya. Is that because of the relative ease of adding complex cloth textures and such, or the ease of moulding the geometry in more realistic ways (folds and the like), or anything else specific?

I think I considered doing Wilykat's outfit in Zbrush, but decided not to, because of the learning curve involved, plus having to figure out how to transfer the models into Maya, and swap to polys, without messing up the geometry. Cuz Zbrush works with triangles, and Maya gets rather fussy when every poly isn't a four vertices square. TBH, that's one thing that annoys me about Maya. If Maya allowed you to poly model using triangles, then there's so much more you could do with it..

Yer tellin me about the work thing. I've been out for 3 years now (on disability), but I want to go back to work part time, just to save some money for the next couple years, but the thought of going back to that environment of having other people tell me what to do, and not being able to sleep when I want, and having limited hours in each day.. I really wish I'd taken more initiative when I was younger, to get into some kinda job field that's at least interesting.. Fast food/labor is just pure slavery. Droned out, mindless work in which you get treated like a complete peon, for chump change.

You say you like engineering; so is that what you're goin to school for?

It's definitely smart to get into something that you have an interest in. Cuz otherwise you either won't end up in that career, or you will, but then you'll still hate going to work.

As a side note; I finally got Maya 2023 loaded up on my laptop, along with Vray 2023. Although now I've run into a whole new issue. My model loads up just fine, and I finally got my texture files into the appropriate folders, but the hair and facial fur textures won't load properly in the rendering, so now I've gotta figure that out.

From my memory, it was a bit of a pain to get them to load when rendering the first time, but obviously from the screenshots I've posted, I did get it figured out. I theorize that it had something to do with the transfer from Maya/Vray 2021, to 2023. It's almost funny, how long computer programming has been around, yet even the most advanced programmers can't seem to fix one thing without breaking something else. Weird thing is, the textures load up just fine on the furs, pre-render, but as soon as I render it, it just loads some flat/bland default color.

 

[xephier102]

Hmm. Well, it took several hours of tinkering around, but I found out why the materials were failing to render. It appears to be some sort of issue with Vray GPU rendering. I put it on regular Vray render, and now everything is rendering just fine.

Edit: OK.. everything renders fine in the viewport now, but if I try to actually get it to render in the render window thing, the app has a damn stroke..

For them charging as much as they do for Maya, it's entirely inexcusable how flakey it is..