Metasequoia 2.40 is out and....

[vermeer]

I am afraid was a free but at the same time closed project...

i cannot do that...

anyway, I prefer so as...well, was a mesh I'd not be so much proud today on how clean it is...It's clean, but is not very well thought for animation; by then was not much experienced, and had never seriously animated..itwasonly after animating at some companies that i realized there is stuff really important to care about apart from just modelling it nice...

MarbleClay did look to me in its day a bitt too much clutered, though much featured, anyway...

If ur digging free tools, I'd recommend u Art Of illussion, the renderer once you get the grips, is really nice...it uses Java JRE, u need to install it so...

http://www.artofillusion.org

but I really like Anim8or.com for certain stuff...

And as allways say, Blender is mega powerful.
Not my fav ui, neither my fav modeler but anyway.

[afecelis]

Code: Select all

And as allways say, Blender is mega powerful.
Not my fav ui, neither my fav modeler but anyway.

yup, you said it. And blender's late modeling power is surely something unbelievable. It's really reaching the "pro" league. Check this 50 min. face modeling tutorial. It's simply...inspiring!
http://blenderartists.org/cms/fileadmin ... _fixed.avi

[vermeer]

I think am gonna use wink or svnc to flash or something...

too lazy to go writting all needed comments bellow this ton of images...lol...

so..prepare for a video or swf file on 100ths of Mbs...

I'll see how to compress it and host it...

besides, nothing like a video training...

but wont talk...am too shy...*gets embarrased*

lol, no...is just I dunnot whish men in black catch me...

u'll all guess stuff just seen it..

[vermeer]

if anybody knows a tool that doesnt kill the cpu and yet outputs not uber huge videos in whatever the format, am all ears...

[Kolham]

I use VirtualDub to compress videos captured from Fraps.

[Spintz]

If you need a web host for the file, I can host it no problem.

I've been looking at this tool and my initial findings are outstanding. It's like I can scuplt 3d models, rather than have to use shapes and cut or add to the model. I'm really loving this program.

[mandrav]

if anybody knows a tool that doesnt kill the cpu and yet outputs not uber huge videos in whatever the format, am all ears...

I haven't tried it with huge files, but you might want to give it a try. It's free and cross-platform anyway .

It's called Wink and produces all kinds of files: flash, pdf, html and postscript.

Hope this helps.

[vermeer]

yup, I usually use , even at jobs, vdub, wax, (audacity also) ,camstudio and wink...I even have camstasia full from a mag...was hoping some magic way to allow lot of time of video tut without too much cpu resources or hd memory use. But anyway: I think I will make a divx file, as I have seen really long video tuts done so.

Spintz (thanks again for your efforts towards the comunity) I take that offer, as is the main problem I could have had

I think you all will find it useful
Just no voice

[vermeer]

Today, I have more the feeling of sculpting with wings than with any other, but i admit, my real pleasure sensation while modelling, started with Meta, reason why i think is a good tool. I yet could use it for pro stuff.

[afecelis]

yup! as spintz said; it's a tool you get hooked-up by pretty easily. Creating with it is darn fast and intuitive.

Looking forward to that tut! I can also mirror the file for you. I'm trying to find a good free vidcap utility. Let me now if you already found a solution for this.

happy weekend!

[vermeer]

EDIT: Links to VIDEO TUTS

* INTRODUCCTION and configuration, most important one.
http://irrlicht.spintz.com/tutorials/intro.zip

http://irrlicht.spintz.com/tutorials/ob ... itives.zip

http://irrlicht.spintz.com/tutorials/extrude.zip

http://irrlicht.spintz.com/tutorials/wi ... ations.zip

http://irrlicht.spintz.com/tutorials/ro ... -scale.zip

http://irrlicht.spintz.com/tutorials/ex ... -twist.zip

http://irrlicht.spintz.com/tutorials/knife.zip

http://irrlicht.spintz.com/tutorials/se ... h-snap.zip

http://irrlicht.spintz.com/tutorials/se ... h-snap.zip

http://irrlicht.spintz.com/tutorials/pl ... ncept1.zip

http://irrlicht.spintz.com/tutorials/virtual-mirror.zip

http://irrlicht.spintz.com/tutorials/vi ... irror2.zip

http://irrlicht.spintz.com/tutorials/point-to-point.zip

http://irrlicht.spintz.com/tutorials/vm ... rtices.zip

..and I have a feeling am leaving out a lot of things...If I ever happen to remember what was pending, I'll see to upload...

BTW, Spintz.This is such a lot of memory. I think in total is a bit more than 100 megs. I dunno which bandwidth do u have, but this can eat it fast...If that happens -I guess u can control the stats of bandwidth used in ur cpanel- Just don't think it a second, anaounce here if ur so kind, that you cannot host it anymore, I guess by then, main ppl in the comunity here, interested on the tool, would have already in their hardrives...

Lol, I hope I made the videos useful...
They're fast and no explanations, and so to not loos much of my time, some have like "undecided" moments or errors. But i guess any person with an intention to learn has no probs...



extra VERY important INFO bellow

afe and spintz. I really like that you hep here. I somewhat allways liked to explain meta's use. Surely as is widely unknown, and was my real start-to-enjoy 3d tool...

Afe: Divx rocks.
camstasia, given away by a mag, rocks as much
meta has a GREAT characteristic. It does not start as HUGE darn hard thing... u start modelling snce first second...It looks like having not many options but...It has many levels of power you go discovering, smoothly, as u go learning...But u can do stuff easy since first second.

i have been seing the possibility of wink, I love it, but there's too much to be seen fo rmeta, besides most needs see it as anim.

Some notes (oh, my capitzlizing MEANS EMPHASIS, NOT SHOUTING Is somehwere I want u to put attention, only) Sorry my grammar and writting mistakes. I simply wont review my text here. :

-At the FIRST start will ask u language select! Please, dont click blindly! Select "other languages" , choose english.

-I have done already a 28 megs divx avi, as an intro. Is CRUCIAL that u really put same config than I , till u really know as a pro the tool, or you'll get frustrated, or simply will work many times worse than u could. So, please put same values you will see at config screens, even if u dont see me touching em; I already did set up as needed before making de avi tut!

Now I'll be doing the real thing, some videos of more advanced stuff, but I do em very fast as is just what u see takes the video to watch. Videos are long, i dont prepare em as I need my time for my own projects and stuff, so if u see errors, (like one u'll see in first video, me trying to select edges with "rect" tool activated, and just clicking, not click-dragging, lol)

Whenever u see a red circle around cursor, is me left clicking, right clicking, blue circle.

-Please, use my config as start... right mouse rotates the world, mid mouse button for panning (moving the "canvas", viewport) , mouse wheel (you dont have it, and you do 3d?? ) for zoom. As left mouse+rmb is more uncofortable for zooming but you'll see...

-I recommend strongly use the d3d shading in the left panel butttons, as well as smooth shading in the view menu...well, do as u see in this important intro video...

VERY IMPORTANT STUFF. I'll go EDITING this section as I go remembering, please consider that thi slist is never ended till I say so

KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS (without em, meta is WAY slower to handle, trust me)

Any shortcut hitting several times wll change the way it works or some setting, ie, the knife, as type of knife, the Move, as absolute/relative. So on.

-v Move. U'll learn to use this for most everything, it allows select and move, or only select. U dont actually need the select tool, every command allows this, I think. Rp and Rc, will condition the way it works. Set Rp, as is "rope" , lasso selection, imo is better. Whener u really need rectangle selection, just can use rect, or set rc temporarily...but to each is own...is my strong advice...Wings would benefit a lot of a lazzo selection....

- B magnet. Hit twice and drag, u'll be selecting the area of influence...U can click with mouse to select the type of magnet. Those not used to lightwave or wings (i suggested magnet tool in wings, hehe, as I came from meta... They added as the "tweak" tool name...But in meta is not a mode u get into, is a tool. ) For those not knowing magnet tools, it is like soft selection in max, proportional editing in blender/hooks, if I remember well...

-Ctrl+j Really important. With this u join two or more vertices. just do ur selection and hit ctrl+j.
Something I learnt with my extensive use is a faster way to doing this as in 3d u do this welding a lot...As u'll see in the videos, nice stuff in Meta is, like in max, u click and drag in a single action, so use this to weld in teh following way: click drag to move a vertex to join to th enext one you wish to weld, once over it, richt click.Bang.Is reaaaaaly faster than the other way , as u dont have to make previous selection, nor even access keyboard.Modeling characters this details are important for workflow.

-f to start creating a face, for point to point modelling. You can in meta load a background image and starttracing it...but if u zoom in/out ,scale will change.Reason why I often just use a texture plane , blocked objet (no editing or selecting allowed) and over it I point to point to trace a silohuete mesh. As allways, hit ff several times for the kind of point to point modelling...

-e extrude faces 'normal' is in the direction of face normal. Most used.

-k is the knife.

- r is rectangle selection.

-ctrl H will hide selected faces, ctrl shift h hide unselected faces (you can do also inverte selection, ctrl h) ctrl g shows all hiden face. This whole thing is improtant for modelling, specially interior parts. Youc an also do stuff as new object and hide or show the object. You'll see how to use object panel, I'll put it in some video.

-F1, F2, F3 are left top front veiws, depending on how u configured it. I use to have it so. verry important detail, shift f1 will show the right side, shift f2, bottom, etc. Allways the opposite side.

-ctrl f , adjust viewport (frame to selection) to view only selected stuff, and cenetrs it (i advice to leave "selected" in the config where it says about what is the center of world(with other words), as it will allow that if u model a finger in a character, u rotate with ceneter of world the finger u have selected, not the pelvis, as it can become a bit....HARD to model if not )

-fr button is very important, is like ignore or not non seen stuff (vertex, faces...) luckily, not like in max, is a global thing... and u have it there.

-Depending on ur typical use, use screen or world coords. If for characters, or objects, I recommend screen cords and use the handles (i dont use the handles for characters, I deactivate that widget in move tool options as u see in intro video) or the edit panel (next video to come) to move in an specific axe. you can generate the primitive with typed numbers and a lot of settings. Is just not used for quick low/med pol stuff, but maybe yes for levels, or very accurate engine meshes testings...
Meta has some accuracy tools, which I havent go in depth much..

-meta has sort of virtual mirror like wings, but less powerful than wings: u need to manually position well the mid part in the center of the axes, and later one, once "freezed" the mirror, needda "join closed" vertices, that counting on you dont wanna do manually...-a pain depending on mesh. Wings does this automatically for you. Besides has other advatnages. Meta has another over wings, I like em both almost equally.(wings win in my case , but not for much... And just because I know all the tricks in wings for issues...)

-Pay lots of attention to the Ln Pt Fc buttons in the both parts that appears.


For now I dont remember more. There are mountains. This post I'll be EDITING along time if I hjave free time, so this tips, which wont spread through more posts, to keep organized, will be growing, be aware of that please. I used this tool very deeply, as I do with any graphic tool I really enjoy.So there's a lot to say.

But for now I close. I gonna see how to upload somewher this file sothat Afe and spintz grab em to give em a proper place...

..and so I can do some more videos, but no need extra explanations for those, as most basic is said here for now, and new stuff will only make grow this large text specific post, so ppl dont have to browse all the thread to find tips. Surely I'll put the final spintz and afe links at this point in the post once they're up.i'm conviced is better if help is centralized for ppl learning.


And please, nobody bug me with the size of the dots! Like most every thing, the colors of the wires, the color of the background, like in wings is...CONFIGURABLE.....! If you really gave a sharpe eye to every second in intro movie, which I advice strongly, I did change the dot size to five from 2.5, so u see well the dots in the tut avi...

And yup, I do the videos as first try, errors included, I already use time in this, not a lot, but I have little to use.

---EXTRA TIPS as I go remembering.(long ago since i used to model with Meta and not with Wings)

-CAREFUL Especially wings users...space bar is you enemy. In Wings3d , it's lovable as deselects stuff, and wings is persistent selections (to deselect here is like in max, just click in empty space) ...like in Max, in Meta, you will LOCK the stuff with that, the selection will not be selectable anymore, will be frozen till u hit space again...or go to the top menu.In blender is the floating menu.


-There's an mqo importer and exporter for max.
-Ultimate Unwrap counts on an excelent mqo i/o plugin too.
-Virtual mirror is here in objects properties and I recommend you use "joined type" so u wont needda joing later...just position in the exact cente the side which will be the mid plane axe..otherwise u'll have overlapped stuff and strange beahving...Vmirror here is not as easy and issues free as in wings...yet tho can be perfectly used.

beware is different than SYM button in the left panel. SYM button pressed only mirrors SOME of the stuff, not all. Objet mirror option DOES mirror everything. You'll need to freeze later on , tho, and while in mirror mode, will see only solid view of the virtual side, not lines or dots over.

With care, you model anything ; I modeled full characters with it, using the vmirror.

-edit: q and c are the keys for rotate and scale...unsure now as dont have meta loaded and am leaving...

[vermeer]

okay...

14 videos.

lol

heck, you MUST get the deal of it now...

Uploading to spintz space...

is like 90 megs pending, so will take a while...

I happen to be forgetting a mountain of things, and many could be too deep to explain for beguineers...

[vermeer]

Ok, all done...dunno, I'd like to be able to move this info to the beguining of thread...but dunno how. I may keep posting here in new posts, but definite important stuff will be an edit on that same long post, just to keep it centralized.

I'm forgetting stuff...I know.Indeed, the tool is WAY much more...join closed vertices, flatten, round, mesh smoothing, blob modelling, spline-patch modelling, cages, material advanced stuff, the limited UV mapping in LE, the paint panel...

But u know, is not only for my time...is indeed for I already have filled 100 megs in Spintz space, and we yet dunno how bandwidth is gonna be...Spintz, I repeat here, if that ever means a prob, have no issue to say here and then take it down.I know it is a lot.

[vermeer]

ehm..

* hopes somebody gets interested *

[Kolham]

I'm very interested. You have done a great work doing these tutorials.