Silo 2 is not all that bad....

[R.J.Allen]

I'm not gonna lie, Silo 2 does have it's problems. But, if you look at it from this point of view; it's a great software to create base meshes and export them into obj. format into 3D Coat for future textureing, painting, etc or even Maya for animating or nDynamics. The layout is very straight forward and nothing is hidden from you when it comes to tools and has some fun little features like the shell tool and beveling is comletely different compared to other softwares. Although it's no Maya, 3DSmax, Blender, etc. But, I believe Nevercenter has potential and somthing special in their hands when it comes to 3D modeling software. If you're new to 3D modeling Silo 2 is definately the software for you. It'll open doors for people who are seriously thinking about modeling for a career and help them understand what they are getting themselves into and has similair tools to other top leading softwares out their. Not only that, it's affordable so that practically anyone can buy it and use it and learn from it. So remember ladies and gentleman, it may have it's problems. But, the software is not all that bad.

[Seilky]

The problem I guess, is not the modelling or user interface, it's pretty user friendly program (for me at least), however, I gave up after it kept crashing multiple times at every 30 secs. =/

Sadly, Silo 2 feels dumped, Neverwinter doesn't give any support at all.

[R.J.Allen]

Every 30 sec. is a lot? It does crash on me also but its about every hour or two. The only time its ever crashed on me like that is when I model in very high subdivisions or do something to my models thats very out of the ordinary on accident, like using the cut tool in areas with triangles. So I've just learned to build in low poly with the program and then subdivide when Im done and then proxy it out to a finished product.

[Patrick Griffiths | Indieworx]

I've said similar things and most people here on the steam forums seem to rage about and hate it due to crashes most likely... I can honestly say that it has crashed on me three times since i have used it.


Once when I was importing a mesh with a 1mil poly count.

Again when I was trying to do something a little out there so its more my fault really.

The last time it crashed on me was a pain but it hasn't happened since and I have a habit of saving everytime I maxe X amount of changes anyway.


I used Maya 2012 before getting this and I use Silo2 over that for my modelling at times but even Maya crashes for no reason sometimes and so does 3DS max so I don't know why everyone hates on software for crashing, maybe it does crash a lot more for some people but that may be due to some hardware related issues?

I would be pretty mad if it crashed after 30secs and I couldn't fix it at all :(


Regards,
Patrick Griffiths

[R.J.Allen]

I'm not gonna lie, I cannot stand 3Ds Max, everytime I use that software I feel my brain slowly dieing.

[Dralgur]

3D Modelling software takes a powerful computer. All of them are capable of crashing your computer if you do something silly.... it's just that the more polished suites have a little more stability on lower end machines due to large budgets and teams.

If this keeps crashing for you, then your computer is likely has some issues on its own as well. Though they could probably do things to improve this if they had the time & budget.

[panz3r]

The stability of the program needs to be improved !!!! it crashed every 5-10 min to me, on i5, 32Gram,gtx750. I don;t think i had any crash with other software on this machine.
Unless stability gets improved is not usable for me .

[Patrick Griffiths | Indieworx]

Цитата допису panz3r:

The stability of the program needs to be improved !!!! it crashed every 5-10 min to me, on i5, 32Gram,gtx750. I don;t think i had any crash with other software on this machine.
Unless stability gets improved is not usable for me .

I have a friend with similar issues...

I can't say that I have experienced this though, it has crashed on me, but not very often, and my copy of Maya crashes on me much more often than this, and I am running the same cpu with a lesser graphics card.

It's a real shame that some people are unlucky and not able to use it without it crashing, it really is a great piece of software.

[R.J.Allen]

The only main issues I've been having with the software lately that have caused me to move on to other softwares like Maya and 3DS Max ( even though I dislike Max; it is an industry standard that I must know for my degree ) witch is a shame but a blessing in disguise at the same time. Their is a lot that this software can do, but is not an industry standard because of what issues it has. The issue I'm having with the software is the fact that I can't even click on the view ports anymore without my models disappearing on me while I'm trying to model. But, when I zoom way out ( and I mean WAAAAY out ) then I can see my model. I've tried multiple times to fix this issue, but can't get it to save the settings. It also likes to start in windowed mode; which can be annoying but no big deal. I recommend to people who are using this software to keep up hope for the software because it is a very fun and easy way of modeling, but still a baby when it comes to modeling software. Like I've said before, I've moved on to Maya and 3DS Max because they are industry standards and can do way more than this software can at the moment. I own educational copies of both which can very expensive compared to whats out their for the alternative. You can download a student 3 year license for Maya and 3DS Max. But, you can also get the free alternative to what game industries consider another industry standard which is "Blender". So if your looking to make models professionally or even want to know more about 3d modeling and how far it can go; get "Blender". It comes with a very steep learning curve though, so I recommend watching tutorials on it or even buying books on it. The reason for the steep learning curve is well imagine Zbrush, 3DS Max, Game Engine like Unity, and some motion capturing software all had a baby. Boom you've got Blender and it's still evolving like some kind of crazy Pokemon on steroids.

On You Tube: I recommend watching Blender Sensei. It'll be in orange print in the picture window for the artists videos.

Books: "Game Development with Blender" it can range from $34 to $50

But, like I've said before don't give up on this software. Their is a lot of potential here. The developers even updated it (which was surprising, but good to see ) and I know exactly where they are going with this software by noticing what they have added and changed. I hope they fix what I've noticed are some very small bugs compared to you know Maya or 3DS Max straight up crashing for a reason you don't even know.

Maya is also on here on Steam for $30 a month ( which I think is worth it for how much sheer power that software has ). Look up Maya 2015 LT in the Steam search bar. I have 2014, so I have no idea what they've added to the software since 2014 and I think it's still in beta stage, hence the "LT" meaning "light" which means not everything is their yet.

I hope my knowledge has helped you and if you have any questions at all, message me; add me or whatever you want. I'm very approachable and will gladly answer your questions.

[Dralgur]

The problem with Maya LT is that it is gutted, it doesn't even include any rendering options for video outpout. It's pretty much just for modelling & rigging for games.

I would caution about the student versions of Maya or 3DS Max. There is a reason they give that out free to college, and its not charity. They want you to fall in love with it there, they want you to develop your skills there so that when you graduate, lose your student access and want to actually go professional... you'll have to cough up the big bucks. Not a problem if you were going into AAA studios anyway, but sort of a 'gotcha' if you just wanted to be indie from the start.

[R.J.Allen]

Цитата допису Dralger:

The problem with Maya LT is that it is gutted, it doesn't even include any rendering options for video outpout. It's pretty much just for modelling & rigging for games.

I would caution about the student versions of Maya or 3DS Max. There is a reason they give that out free to college, and its not charity. They want you to fall in love with it there, they want you to develop your skills there so that when you graduate, lose your student access and want to actually go professional... you'll have to cough up the big bucks. Not a problem if you were going into AAA studios anyway, but sort of a 'gotcha' if you just wanted to be indie from the start.

The educational copies that I baught are the entertainment suite's from Autodesk. I was curious and gave them a call one day and they said that once I do go work for a AAA game company that it's possible to get a discount on my commercial license throught the actual companies themselves, but they would not say what companies they support for those benefits; which is understandable from a buisness perspective. But like you said, I will have to caugh up the big bucks. But, it is worth it for what the software's do in my opinion. And, that sucks that they would do that with Maya LT. It's kinda not surprising though. $30 a month does sound like it's to good to be true and if I can remember right; it used to be $50 a month?

But, for those that want to be Indie from the get go once their done with school or already have the talent without schooling. I recommend these software with minimal or no charge thats "royalty free".

Modeling: Silo 2 or Blender

Sculpting: 3D Coat ( Look it up for a price range on Steam, it's similar to Zbrush but not near as hard to learn and is becoming an industry standard do to it's user friendliness; companies like Bethesda and ZeniMax are already using it. ) or Blender.

Texturing: Substance Painter ( Though it's still in beta stage, you should definitely check it out for game development; very powerful software for texturing and painting 3D assets. Not royalty free "Yet" for it's still in beta stage. ) or Mindtex ( Great software for making Normals, Ambients, Speculars, and other types of maps from personally created textures for 3D assets. )

Animating: I'm not really sure about, the only one that I know of right now that you can use royalty free is Blender. I don't know about Maya LT on Steam weather theirs a catch or not.

[Patrick Griffiths | Indieworx]

Цитата допису Dralger:

The problem with Maya LT is that it is gutted, it doesn't even include any rendering options for video outpout. It's pretty much just for modelling & rigging for games.

I would caution about the student versions of Maya or 3DS Max. There is a reason they give that out free to college, and its not charity. They want you to fall in love with it there, they want you to develop your skills there so that when you graduate, lose your student access and want to actually go professional... you'll have to cough up the big bucks. Not a problem if you were going into AAA studios anyway, but sort of a 'gotcha' if you just wanted to be indie from the start.

Maya LT is perfect for someone who wants to make and aniamte assets fro games, they gutted the stuff you would likely never need, when I bought Maya I wish that Maya LT was around because I never use at least half of the other Maya features, or at least I didn't for the longest time, I suppose it would be nice to have all of the fatures just to have them if you want to waste a butt ton of money, but in all honesty Maya LT is fine... I won't beupgrading my copy of Maya I will be buying a new version of Maya LT though! :)

I wouldn't use anything other than Maya for animation to be honest I tried blender, it's powerful but hard to work with, Maya just has more to offer in that department but then again you cannot beat free :P

As for texturing, I would use 3D-Coat, if you own it for the sculpting this has some intense features for painting on your mesh, that are really quite great, make use of these as a base for your textures and then fix them up in your image editing software. I would recommend Krita from www.krita.org its free and in my opinion better than photoshop. Of course this is only if you're hand painting if you want to overlay texture photos into your base texture GIMP might be better although a nice brush setup with a texture image is perfect.

if you cant get on with 3D-Coat Mudbox is of a similar price to Maya LT & Zbrush, if you want something with more kick than 3D-Coat you can try and reach for Zbrush too, although 3d-coat will cover everything you need. It also has great retopology tools too.

Just a little advice although it might not be as detailed due to me just waking up, it's 6am :\



Regards,
Patrick

[Dralgur]

Some good advice here. I agree that Maya LT is good if you only are focused on creating game characters. Just wanted to point out the limitations to those who might not know.

For post-work I would also suggest PD Pro Howler (project dogwaffle) it has an amazing range of features aimed at supporting 3D art and video. It's really cheap compared to PhotoShop.

Another great and reasonably priced modelling program on Steam is Curvy 3D... its pretty different with its sketch-to-3D features and has nice scuplting tools like Sculptris (like a mini version of ZBrush).

As for alternatives to Blender for animation & rendering that are far cheaper than the industry standards, you could look at Daz Studio (free), Poser ($300) or Carrara (around $300?) or Vue (has mega high end but also cheaper suites ranging down to $50 & free with Pioneer).

[Nagibalus]

Hey everyone!

Nice pick of software but one hasn't been pointed out yet: Shade 3D.

There's even free version of it which is basically Maya LT (lacks rendering feature): http://mirye.net/shade-3d/shade-3d-for-unity

I think it can be a very good option for any indie game developer on a budget.

Oh, there's also another modeling app that has a lot of common with Silo: Nvil (http://digitalfossils.com/).

[R.J.Allen]

Цитата допису Nagibalus:

Hey everyone!

Nice pick of software but one hasn't been pointed out yet: Shade 3D.

There's even free version of it which is basically Maya LT (lacks rendering feature): http://mirye.net/shade-3d/shade-3d-for-unity

I think it can be a very good option for any indie game developer on a budget.

Oh, there's also another modeling app that has a lot of common with Silo: Nvil (http://digitalfossils.com/).

Thanks for sharing these :D. Very interesting softwares :D. Definately will be checking out shade 3d in the future :)

[Patrick Griffiths | Indieworx]

nvil is very worth checking out!!