@fdfxd, about Mixamo Fuse, yes, it is a glorified version of MakeHuman, but Makehuman still isn’t able to do propper clothing on the models, so you always end up with nude people or with clothes that seems like borrowed hehe… And sometimes you need quick characters with clothes (Archviz for example). It is still in a “preview” state as they call it, but for the purpose of getting quick results that doesn’t look horribly bad it does the job fairly well. And you can edit them later in photoshop (pose, perspective, lighting), which still is faster (not better) than rendering it in Blender (which also takes more time). Not to mention that makehuman rig deformations… :no:
Again, as I said before, if you’re not going to use at least 3 programs of the suite on a daily basis, you really shouldn’t bother in paying for an Adobe subscription.
And since most people in this forum is interested in 3D (games, animation, VFX, Architecture, 3D printing, etc), I can safely conclude that you will be only using Photoshop sometimes over the course of a month; so paying for a subscription is really stupid.
Having said that, they do have a monopoly, and having to “rent” your software sucks big time. But then again, where are the alternatives? I mean, the good ones?
Specifically for motion graphics I haven’t found anything that beats what they offer (an After Effects alternative anyone…?).
Anyway, I think most of you are missing one big point here, and that’s time. To be clear, I only speak from my own experience and needs here, so it may not apply to everyone, but when you have to make between 3 and 4 animated infographics monthly, you HAVE to be fast, and you have to use whatever resource is available if it will help to get the job done.
I’ve tried before (mostly on my free time) to find a good workflow for motion graphics with Blender and other open source programs, but still, there’s not a good program combination that allows me to work faster or at the same speed… so it becomes a matter of what can I use to do it faster and hopefully better. Whatever feature they added in a new version or if they just changed the UI is not that important.
Here’s the simpler example I can think of, so you can see what I mean:
- I get a logo file from the client, usually an .ai file. They asked me to create a nice animation of that logo to use in their youtube channel and their corporate events.
- I open the file, split the logo in different parts (each part on its own layer) and save it.
- Open After Effects, import the .ai file as a composition and it respects the layers, their order, their placement and their sizes.
- Take each layer, put some keyframes or apply a motion preset and offset each layer’s starting point.
- Export the video, send to the client.
Turns out the fonts were changed, and the main color was modified. I just modify the illustrator file and take another render from After Effects.
Then, they realize the video has to be in 2K, and the one I sent is 1280x720.
Ok, I open AE again, upscale the resolution, and since the original file is vector it won’t be pixelated or blurry on the bigger size.
Now, using Blender, I’d have to first export each different part of the logo as a separate .png with transparency, and then import them in Blender one by one manually and set them up; or import the logo as a SVG file and split it directly in Blender. That alone, without considering the rest of the process, is significantly slower.
And every change the client asks for will force me to do that same process again. The only thing Blender will do is recognize the changes on the images once they’re loaded, but I’d have to export each one from the design program anyway…
Is a pretty straight forward process, in any software you choose to do it, and is easy enough to do it in a few hours, but with Adobe’s tools is faster, and faster means I can get more projects, and earn some more money. After all, this is what I do for a living.
I can’t say to a client: “yes, I could do it faster, but those f@#ers at Adobe have a nasty monopoly and I refuse to pay so your video will be ready in two more weeks, so wait for it”… Come on, that’s not how things work.
I certainly don’t like the way they’re selling their products, forcing us to pay for the permission to use their programs; but that’s what’s available. And, compared to what other software vendors are doing and charging, Adobe is not that bad.
Now, In the 3D realm there are far more options available for each part of the process (sculpting, modeling, animation, rendering, texture painting, compositing), both paid and free, but when it comes to graphic design and animation (motion graphics)… well, there’s pretty much Adobe. Is it ideal? Is it the best? Not exactly, but until a real competitor appears we’ll have to settle with it.
