First i am not sure if it is the good forum section to post this but feel free to move it and my apology if i made a mistake.
Also as English is not my native tongue so forgive me for some blatant misspelling.
Hi Blender community,
My name is Pierre and i am a 15 years 3ds max veteran and i also teach 3ds max, photoshop and also webdesign and marketing for 5 years in college here in Montreal the second video game capital of the world.
Some of my former students work on triple AAA game title such as Prince of Persia, Assassin creed, Mortal combat and a few others that i am not aware.
I was probably one of the very first teacher 15 years ago who had a complete and structured course outline and 3ds max was only a small player at that time since Softimage now know as XSI was the big thing at that time.
I remember i was telling my Softimage colleague that he should start learning 3ds max and he start laughing at me!
And we all know the rest of the story so far but today again i have that same feeling that i had 15 years ago and i can say that if you are a 3ds max user at the moment it would be good to start familiarizing yourself with Blender now.
Maybe i am some kind of digital prophet after all !
I have switch to Blender 1 month ago and i cannot say i was very please the first 2 weeks but now as my workflow speed is slowly coming back i am finally starting to feel more at home with Blender.
Some tools i got so used to after all those years suddenly no where to be found at a point i was very close to abandon my switching venture to Blender but fortunately i persist at learning it and now it start to pay off pretty well.
My first panic attack case study :
1# Where the darn align tool? So i search the forum and check the extensions page and found a very basic align extension that don’t work pretty well!
2# Where the darn shift copy,instance, reference tools? The only option seem like the array tool.
3# Where the bevel along normal? Seem like the only option was a tricky inset tool weird manipulation!
After some frustration i figure out that i was going to work without most of my beloved tools in max but i discover so many fantastic tools like the Bshape extension and F2 magic that most of my grip went away seeing how fast i could do thing with those tools and re-topology is top notch working better than all other applications i tried before.
My advice to eventual 3ds max users willing to switch : be patient thing will get better and learn to rely more on shortcuts than the mouse!
Every time i tried to switch in the past i was always quitting because of the interface but now it is a totally new ball game and kudos to all the Blender development team you are doing a fantastic job so far.
I have 5 machines waiting in my room to build my first own little render farm with totalizing 10 cpu core with 1 quad core i7 2600 and and a core 2 duo 6700 the rest are dual core first generation but any cpu churning image are good for the job. I also plan to add 3 more quad system soon.
After all those years teaching video game design i finally decide to start my first complete title since i am a very experience gamer from the beginning of video game like pong on vic 20 and a big fan of rpg, i played almost every single good game there is out there and i thought that the time was right to start my own game.
I also mod almost all my game in the past adding new weapons and animations and when possible my own character.
My son is working with me and he is also currently learning Blender so we are 2 at it for the moment.
Approximately around fall time the game website will be online with all the bell&whistle you usually see on triple AAA game website, the title will be announce officially here when the website will be going live since i have to copyright the game document and title before releasing info.
The game will be a mix of RPG,FPS and survival horror elements with some cleaver puzzle and a very original storyline that was never attempt so far.
The game world will take place in the 18th century in the first person view and and our avatar name is Samuel.
The game engine use is Unity Pro and the target platform will be PC, MAC and Linux.
Our first goal is to get the attention of the gaming community with the game website portal with cinematic from the game and real time game play mechanic movies showing the exciting and original combat system.
After positive feedback from the game website forum we will launch a public funding campaign on kickstarter and if successful we will be hiring the best Blender artists available in fall time so stay tuned for upcoming news.
We have a completed level so far and the main character Samuel since he will appear full body in game cinematic and 2 enemy creatures and everything is triple AAA title quality but like i say first pictures and movies from game will be release only in fall this year.
I am currently working full time on the game from 13 to 16 hours every single day and this 7 days a week ( I know i have no life outside the game)!
Sorry for the wall of text but i thought that switching from 3ds max to Blender after 15 years deserved an epic wall of text indeed!:yes:
3ds max is a very good piece of software but the mentality of the company is not in line with my philosophy so i had good time and live from 3ds max teaching it but now it time to move to the Open source era and public funding since i believe the future is there.
Pierre