So, I'm a fool.
Why, oh why did I not check out DAZ products sooner?
Why did I go through mucking with so many different other programs that ended in me dropping them, particularly the one I just came over from?
Why? Because I'm a fool. That's why.
I've been going through the tutorials on GeekAtPlay for Hexagon and, I have never had this much *fun* using an interface. It's like you guys at DAZ sat back, looked at each tool and thought "what would be the coolest, most convenient and most useful functionality we could give to this tool to make modeling with it as effortless and enjoyable as possible? And then went ahead and implemented it. If there's a more artist-friendly 3D program out there, I haven't tried it yet.
I know I'm gushing, and am probably preaching to the choir here, but I don't care. lol.
What an amazingly fun program to work with. The last 2 hours just went by in a blink.
I checked out some videos of DAZStudio, which looks great as well, and I checked out Bryce which I knew about but hadn't really kept up to date on all that's been done with it.
Man oh man are good times ahead.
I'm really late to the party, it seems, but hey.. better late than never, right?
Comments
Congradulations on joining the fun!!
As much as I love DAZ Studio, I honestly think this is the first time I've actually seen someone actually praise it, especially without involving some bitter comparison to Poser! :lol:
Thanks!
Welcome to the monkey house!
Your enthusiasm has encouraged me, Mike. I will go back try to model something in Hexagon again. I'm really dense, panic, and close it without doing anything..
lol, well I give credit where I feel it's due. Criticism seems to flow easily from many people, especially on the Internet. So, I like to voice my praise of something when I feel it's worth it as well. Kinda help offset the negativity a bit out there on the web :).
I haven't even really dug into DAZ Studio yet. I just poked around a little bit. Most of my time has been in Hexagon, where I'm having a blast. That program is just too much fun to work with. Is that even legal? Are you supposed to have fun when working with software like this? Is there a jail for people like me? Hmmm...
Right now I'm still in tutorial mode, but I can not wait to really dig in and start creating stuff of mine own and see how it all works with Bryce and DAZStudio.
With how the last 3D app I was trying to learn had me feeling increasingly frustrated and discouraged with using it, it really couldn't have been a better time for me to have decided to check out Hexagon and find it so completely opposite.
I'm still very interested in Carrara as it seems to be the "all-in-one" type package I'm really interested in, and I don't know if the suite of free tools will allow me to create fully animated movies the way I'd like to eventually. Can someone shed some light on that? I have absolutely no problem giving DAZ my money if Carrara's anything nearly as great to use as Hexagon has been.
Oh, and incidentally.. I've never even used Poser, so... I couldn't comment on it either way.
GeekAtPlay - Go through this guy's tutorials. Pause when you're ready to replicate what he does, then go back and watch more, etc...
That's how I've been getting through it, and it's been great. I mean, mileage may vary, but I seriously think that if you don't let yourself get overwhelmed and just follow everything he does in those vids, you'll be fine. They're very, very good videos, some of the best I've seen for any 3D software... and I've tried many.
The thing that struck me about Hexagon at first is the 3 grids. I'm so used to only seeing the floor plane that having the 2 vertical ones was almost "claustrophobic" to me at first. I like how in Carrara you can see a silhouette of your object on all grids. Hexagon don't seem to have that feature, but I can imagine having them being very helpful when you're viewing or lining things up in orthographic mode (flat view along a given axis with no perspective). Anyway, if the grids are "too much", there's buttons to disable them, so, no big deal there. And anyway, I'm kinda getting used to them now.
Good luck!
I don't spend much time modeling, but it always feels a bit "zen" when I do. I'm glad your having so much fun!
Redacted
Awesome news and thanks for sharing the positive vibes Mike.
Now just don't try to buy anything from the store, or find this thread in the forum again ;-)
Lmao @ Cridget. :D
To the original post, it's fun to hear someone gushing about Hexagon, it's a great modeler, and the geek and play tuts are very useful. Hopefully you'll follow through and show us something you've made. :)
As someone who swapped from Poser (needed that Genesis), I can say that there are certainly things I perfer in Poser... but there are also things I prefer in DS
To the OP:
Welcome to the DAZ world. :) Yes the tools have their good points. Although, some here would quickly point out the squirrels under the hood of some of them.
But on a sour note
"Congradulations"??? Arghhhh!!! I know it's meant tongue-in-cheek but I freak everytime I see that word. So I looked it up to see what the world thinks of it and I particularly like the the #1 definition in the link below (#4 is good too ):
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=congradulations
This is what we get when we let the inmates run the asylum, and TV is the great educator of the masses. When did this country start glorifying stupidity?
Sorry, I know I promised to be good and only lurk but I had to come out of hiding. I was about to burst. :(
I have to say that both DAZ Studio and Hexagon were great in getting me to "get" how to do 3D. Once that happened, it all just started to snap into place, and I've made inroads with other free 3d modelers. :)
Wet blanket time.
DAZ has nothing to do with the way hexagon is set up, how it functions, or it's interface. DAZ bought it pretty much as is. Probably why I love it, and do all my mesh work in it LOL
Hexagon also parents with carrara quite well. You can do the modeling in hexagon, then texture it in carrara and render.
Carrara can also use most studio and Poser content; some times better then studio or Poser lol
Ahh, I see. So it's in the same boat as Bryce, then. Or 3DSMAX and Maya for Autodesk, etc.
That's fine. Who ever developed it, it's currently a DAZ product, so good on 'em for picking it up :)
If it has that interoperability with DAZ's other products, then that's all the better.
I still have to learn the pipeline of how to put together a scene for animation in Das Studio and such, but I still have my sights on Carrara, only because I really like an all-in-one solution that does everything from A-to-Z. I also really like their implementation of several workspaces, each with its own task focus.
I do see that Das Studio can handle animations and such, but I don't know to what degree. Like, how involved can you get with them? Particle systems and the such? That's why I am keen on finding out more about Carrara.
Welcome to the club! That is, the club of foolish DAZ users :cheese:
Well thank ya!
Although, I had considered myself a fool for passing up on DAZ products for so long.
I suppose now that I've decided to start learning them myself, that makes me a different kind of fool?
Studio, particle system?
Carrara has one and it works fairly well; didn't think I was ever going to figure it out, but 3dage got me through it. And at one time you could work out an animation in studio, then stage it in carrara. You'll need animate 2.
I learned how to do all this in carrara, I've only used maybe, maybe 10% of carrara's features. But even with the new UI I find studio very clumsy to use for staging, and I don't like the lighting at all. Just used to carrara.
"Congradulations"??? Arghhhh!!! I know it's meant tongue-in-cheek but I freak everytime I see that word. So I looked it up to see what the world thinks of it and I particularly like the the #1 definition in the link below (#4 is good too ):
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=congradulations
This is what we get when we let the inmates run the asylum, and TV is the great educator of the masses. When did this country start glorifying stupidity?
Sorry, I know I promised to be good and only lurk but I had to come out of hiding. I was about to burst. :(
LeatherGryphon you are still here!! I hadn't seen you anywhere and I missed you!! I never can remember whether it's a" d or a t "suppose to go there, and well if that's the worst thing I've done today,then that's okay too .........by the way don't stress it's bad for your health .... :cheese:
LeatherGryphon you are still here!! I hadn't seen you anywhere and I missed you!! ... by the way don't stress it's bad for your health .... :cheese:
Missed me? I didn't even know you were shooting at me! 8-o
My health is just fine. It's my body that's gone to hell. 8-o
So, where've I been? I got my hands slapped by a moderator and decided the frustration of the new website and store were too much to suffer so I took a vow of silence. And in an act of childish petulance erased my wishlist and cleared out my profile, and even scrambled my password so I couldn't log in again, swearing "never again". But the withdrawl symptoms were excruciating and I had to sheepishly phone DAZ to help me reset my password so I could come out of hiding to get my fix. Especially when DAZ pulled a sneaky and offered Platinum Club prices for the masses temporarily.
Of course miss you,I may do more lurking than typeing ,but you usually have some spunky comment about something going on.
GeekAtPlay - Go through this guy's tutorials. Pause when you're ready to replicate what he does, then go back and watch more, etc...
That's how I've been getting through it, and it's been great. I mean, mileage may vary, but I seriously think that if you don't let yourself get overwhelmed and just follow everything he does in those vids, you'll be fine. They're very, very good videos, some of the best I've seen for any 3D software... and I've tried many.
The thing that struck me about Hexagon at first is the 3 grids. I'm so used to only seeing the floor plane that having the 2 vertical ones was almost "claustrophobic" to me at first. I like how in Carrara you can see a silhouette of your object on all grids. Hexagon don't seem to have that feature, but I can imagine having them being very helpful when you're viewing or lining things up in orthographic mode (flat view along a given axis with no perspective). Anyway, if the grids are "too much", there's buttons to disable them, so, no big deal there. And anyway, I'm kinda getting used to them now.
Good luck!
That's how I got started with Hexagon also...welcome to the addiction Mike!