General Category > General Discussion
Enough is Enough
wiggy:
--- Quote from: taigr81m on April 19, 2013, 08:09:26 PM ---I prefer PhotoImpact (PI.) PI can do everything that the photoshop does and it was cheaper. The core of photoshop is its plugins (other people's contributions.) subtract the plugins and you have Gimp. PI supports plugins but few exist for it. Corel has purchased PI from Ulead and the last Ulead version was X3 or something like that. I still use 5, 8.5 and 11. Probably find cheap versions on ebay. Corel still sells X3 for like $30.00. I prefer objects to layers. PI is easier to start using. One thing to complain about is the gradient fill algorithm. Photoshop has a better gradient filling algorithm and maybe more shapes. Other than that, I think PI is better for many reasons. I've been using it since I purchased my Microtek scanner in the late nineties. PI also supports .psd files (photoshop layers.) The PI format for objects is .ufo
other than that, Autodesk is the ticket: Maya, 3DS Max, etc. but get out your checkbook :P
hey, most game developers use Autodesk. Your automobile was probably designed with Autodesk software. Licenses go as high as $100,000.00 ++
but if you can get CS2 for free, then go fer it.
;D
edit: PI comes with GIF animator, which is awesome. Best software for GIF animations. It also comes with PhotoAlbum, Cool 360 and an awesome Image optimizer.
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But what good is Alias Studio Tools gonna do for UGC covers? :-\
Which is the crappiest crap 3D software out there made for retarded designers who can't be trained to use this thing called math, so that engineers have to sort through their shitty-ass CAD models and spend thousands of hours making them into viable components.
(I went to school for auto and product design. Not a fan of the car design crowd, with few exceptions. The most immature, arrogant, snotty bunch of morons you'll ever meet. We call them "sketch monkeys" because that's all they're good for)
/rant
taigr81m:
lol. good rant. Alias is strange. I've tried it. If I had Maya or 3DS Max, I could recreate the characters and make exact copies instead of trying to clean scans. I've tried all of the products and I find them to be easy to use for simple tasks but the core of the program requires much time to learn. Lightwave is okay and a few others. I would love to move into the 3d realm and recreate all of the characters that I like. Twisted Metal is where I would start. I am too busy to get involved with 3d modelling but it is better than 2d editing which is flat and predictable. Much like television, 2d art is made 3d via lighting. I went to school for videography and sound engineering. Ended up teaching myself how to program and repair computers. I am an award winning artist, but I do not have the time to draw for covers. Maybe one day I will draw for a cover, scan it and use PI to add color and effects.
Head of Desserts:
--- Quote from: taigr81m on April 19, 2013, 07:10:37 AM ---
I'm making a few vertical covers for TMIII. The following will conform with template rules:
http://postimg.org/image/iwpe7c9sv/
the other two will be custom verticals.
just showing progress so that you know it's being worked on.
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l00ks @wsUm!
wiggy:
--- Quote from: taigr81m on April 19, 2013, 08:35:21 PM ---lol. good rant. Alias is strange. I've tried it. If I had Maya or 3DS Max, I could recreate the characters and make exact copies instead of trying to clean scans. I've tried all of the products and I find them to be easy to use for simple tasks but the core of the program requires much time to learn. Lightwave is okay and a few others. I would love to move into the 3d realm and recreate all of the characters that I like. Twisted Metal is where I would start. I am too busy to get involved with 3d modelling but it is better than 2d editing which is flat and predictable. Much like television, 2d art is made 3d via lighting. I went to school for videography and sound engineering. Ended up teaching myself how to program and repair computers. I am an award winning artist, but I do not have the time to draw for covers. Maybe one day I will draw for a cover, scan it and use PI to add color and effects.
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I might have gone a tad overboard. Been a rough few weeks :P
Alias is so busted because it builds surfaces, not solid parts, which lets you cheat the SHIT out of your forms, hence why it takes a ton of work to clean up Alais models to be of any value to an engineer. The interface has a huge learning curve and its rendering capabilities, though amazing, are incredibly dense and VERY tough make the most of unless it's like the only thing you ever do (see Daniel Simon for some AMAZING renderings).
It does a have a really cool built-in sketch program that works almost exactly like Photoshop and has a FAR superior set of drawing tools. If I did more digital drawings, then I'd use it exclusively for the line work that it allows. It responds to tablet use perfectly, allowing for beautifully feathered lines and none of the jittering that you get when drawing with Photoshop. The interface is a tad clunky though. Organizing layers is a headache.
I'm really only so bitter about Alias because it's what I was taught in college as if it were industry standard for Industrial Designers, and it's NOT. Only a handful of really large companies use it like the auto industry, Nike, etc. And even then, the designers themselves don't always use it. The auto industry has "sketch monkeys" and Alias modellers. The two don't really overlap. So annoying. Meanwhile all of the rest of us that don't work for these select companies are stuck with knowledge of a program that a) is largely useless for most every other purpose, and b) has almost no similarities to a solid builder like Solidworks which makes learning a "real" 3D modeling program that much more difficult. I had to teach myself Solidworks in order to be at all competitive in my field, which really pissed me off after spending 5 years in a program intended to teach me all I should have needed to go out and be competitive. Ugh.
Man, I can't imagine spending the time to re-build 3D models for covers :/ I've done original 2D art for a bunch, and even that's sorta crazy IMO (luckily I'm sort of crazy).
I hear ya on the time thing. I find myself with just about zero at this point. I killed myself getting the artwork done for the Zelda sets I made. I'd love to take on more 2D artwork projects, but that crap is so time consuming.