Hello people.
I’m a new Blender user. I am a student which has been learning Computer Graphics for almost 4 years now.
I have been using Autodesk Maya for 3 years (learnt it at school) and I still have 2 years of university works and assignments to strengthen my Maya knowledge. Learned a bit of XSI too but that’s another story.
You can check out my student short here, nothing fancy, even though I won a prize for it:
And here’s rigging reel which features squash stretch, ik-fk switch,etc.
I’ve posted these so you evaluate my level of knowledge.
In the CG industry, I wanna work primarily as an Animator and maybe have that little Riggin and python knowledge as an extra.
A few months ago, I thought that it was time for me to learn a new software, one not just be dependent on that ONE master software. Since I wanted to move away from Autodesk, I looked up for Houdini and MODO. They are both great software however neither of them offers a free student educational license like Maya and Max
Then I took the initiative to look back for Blender which I hadn’t considered since like I was high school so I didnt know anything about 2.5 and up.
I was thrilled to discover everything had changed, from the UI, the logic and the possibilities.
I quickly donwload it and started playing around and lerning it from April.
At the start, I played around the Sculpt tools, which in my opinion are alot better than what Maya AND Mudbox had to offer solely due to the Dynotopo feature (awesome add really).
Quickly, the test grew to be out a whole character which I am going to animate (If i manage to get there) in a few weeks.
The modeling is not that great, but since I focus more and animation, my big work will start when I’ll start animating.
I think that for someone who’ been learning the software for one month, that’s a nice progress:
What do you think?
Since I wanna work in the game industry, she is optimized for game engine , so no fancy hair simulation or rig using deformers and such.
Anyway, I gotta give props to the developpers really for the modelling tools, the good logic behind the shortkeys (I thought marking menu was unbeatable and Blender proved me wrong), I am actually now ALOT faster in Modelling than I am in Maya (3 years of Maya vs. one month of Blender).
So I’m not here to compare softwares or anything but just to state I’m getting a little scared while I’m progressing.
Especially for…
THE RIGGING.
I wanted to ask a few questions at the rigging forum but sorry but that forum is simply dead. Though, that’s okay, I rarely ever get answers from forum when I have technical questions regarding a software.
Since Maya has a huge rigging base of users, whenever I had trouble a fast little google search gave me answers quickly.
I’ve been doing the same to learn Blender and as it seems there’s lot of information for Modelling, rendering, compositing, texturing and lighting, it seems that good professionnal tips for Animations and Rigging are pretty rare sincerely.
I’m getting scared because while I was progressing well through the modeling part, it seems like I won’t be able to rig properly my character like I used to do it from Maya due to the lack of good tutorials out there
Maybe I am wrong but it seems like Blender doesnt have:
AN Expression editor?
Set driven keys?
Custom attributes to animate parts of a rig?
Bone orientation?
How are these called within the software (do they even exist)?
I really wanted to have a solid animated character using the software and a good rigs eases that.
I know long post for a really short message but I thought posting these pictures would make you guys to consider this post seriously.
Thank you.