Throughout all the postings I have browsed, the main cad experience employers seek are alias, rhino, solidworks or pro-e. Since IDers need to present realistic renderings to the client (and alias isnt that great to pass on to manufacturing, or so i’ve heard) why isnt 3d max used for ID? I have seen realistic renderings that really fool the eye, far beyond the realistic-ness of alias or rhino.
I dont know 3d max, but I have seen hyper-realistic renderings of complicated forms (so I guess modelling isnt a barrier), so why isnt a better renderer the standard? im just curious
NURBs gets alot of talk on cg boards. esp with subD so big now. what i read is Max’s NURBs tools suck. i think Max and Lightwave added NURBs to their features. werent part of original toolset. and Max is ooooold code now. programmers complain about Max on coding forums. modelers wanting to try NURBs on Max report its not that good. if Max NURBs not so good for film/games (but it is used; think Doom3 high-rez models are Max NURBs), probably not so good for ID. most every hyper-real image i see from Max is polygon/subD rendered in Brazil. polys not accurate enough for ID.
i do think Max has .stl output. that’s cool. and it does have good render options. Brazil is/was low-cost and great. now w/ Mental Ray built-in its as good as any (except using Renderman).
also alias/rhino/maya/any NURBs is ok for manufacturing. even Max. not a “model” issue. more a workflow issue. IDers mostly in one camp (alias/rhino/etc). engineers in other camp (pro/SW/etc). engineers change a component, they HAVE to go back to ID. big problem. ID has to make time. ID has to export to engineer. engineer has to hope new surface “regenerates” with all features of CAD built on top. if not its wasted time to rebuild it or fix it. and engineers dont like depending on ID to get a new update done on engineering schedule. esp when there was no time for rebuild to start with!
i think you see realistic images in Max b/c of Brazil. it’s on the web. talented amateurs. but you see (or actually DON’T see) AliasStudio on TV or in movies. thats professional work. Max has been in hands of amateurs from pirating since early 90’s. lots of time. lots of examples. not so Studio. and Rhino was always modeler. no render built in. and until only a year or two ago, only real amateur option for GI was Brazil… using Max.
posted this model image in old thread. this guy is good. uses Max. but look at box labeled “Geometry” - polygons. only 280,000 triangles. most parts i send for SLA are over 100,000 triangles. my pc mouse would be about 100k. no ones gonna build this car and see a smooth shape. he’s using “Smooth Edges” to average the normals of the geometry. flat shade it and see what it really is. this model is pretty. but useless for the real world.
thanx for your explanation, very helpful. Like that cayenne is exactly what im talking about. even though its only 280,000 triangles, it looks real. Can alias get THAT real? I have never seen alias get that real.
yes you have. you just dont know it. ton of movies and tv shows so real you cant tell theyre fake. thats the point. and not just AliasStudio/Maya, but SoftImage/Max/Lightwave/etc. those are the pros.
the net shows alot of good amateur Max pics because of what it is/was: really popular, PC-based, plug-in friendly, hacked 3D program. no CG sites have AliasStudio forums. its too hard to use for most noobs and used to need a highprice pc. so not enough onlline help from other amateurs. cracked versions are out, but no one cares. with no community you’ll see no “super realistic” amateur images online. not like Max.
Alias is a damn difficult program to master. I have been fortunate to recieve some training in it, but there is still tonnes to learn!!! And it is a pain in the ass to access info. It is so well regulated.
The great thing about Alias is control. Surface manipulation and analysis is pretty ace if you know what you are looking for and how to take it through to production. As are the surface accelleration tools. These are vital for some production work.
Alias is a great surface styling tool once you know how to use it. As for camera clipping!!! Dont get me started!!!
Alias really need to promote studio tools and drop the price range, i can see some features in rhino way advance than st, especially the export/import feature
Personally I use Rhino and then export into max for all the flashy materials and lighting, also great for animation too. And yeah the NURBS in max are poop
3ds max = fantastic for polygon based modelling (games, film + tv) but poor for nurbs based stuff (ID, manufacturing). great rendering and visuals - lots of plugins and hardware rendering boxes and render farms.
rhino = fantastic value for money as a nurbs modeller, strange GUI and work flow (IMHO - using 3d cad 10 years). very powerful features but way behind Alias in terms of high-end surfacing and control of continuity. good rendering plug-ins
alias = still the best surface modeller, super-accurate control of surface continuity (position, tangent, curvature +++), sure its a big program with a lot to learn - but it’s the best there is. Rhino is a good first step to Alias (rhino was written by ex-Alias guys apparently). Pixar and others use alias models >> maya >> renderman to create stunning cg (toy story, nemo etc . . ), but these guys have 50+ people doing shaders alone !!!. Alias is very good for manufacture - it’s how you model that counts, it can be accurate to 6 decimal places (how does 0.000001mm grab you?? - close enough?)
To agree with ‘guest’, Alias has fallen behind considerably in some respects. the render engine is very old and slow by now - I think Alias will adopt all of the maya render engine and shaders in the near future. Alias have a increasingly tough market - if they are not careful they might end up like Pro/Eng - in comes solidworks (far lower cost, better GUI, better product - IMO and far more open strategy). I seriously hope Alias doesn’t end up like PTC -wildfire is a paler version of SW. Alias studio needs a lot of work to improve the rendering and maybe make the complex UI a little more coherent and streamlined.
in conclusion > it all depends what you want out of your 3D software. Nice pictures = Max, Lightwave, even Rhino (with plug-ins). High qual surfaces, manufacturable data = Alias.
whichever way you go, good luck ! it can be a tough uphill struggle !
a few details to set right:
rhino was originally written around the geometry kernel called AGlib that was licensed from alias. alias later terminated the agreement and at present rhino is still built on top of that old version of the kernel. a current version of this kernel is at the core of the studio products.
studio did adopt the maya renderer and shaders, after a fashion. alias doubled the price and redid the ui on maya/mental ray, called it imagestudio, and ran it up the flagpole. i haven’t tried it but the only feature besides the easy interface that i see isn’t in maya is quicktime vr.
this is not the kind of integration that many studio users would prefer but alias does have to make some money and doesn’t want to invest in the expensive proposition of reworking ALL the rendering features of studio around the maya core. adding maya to studio would also make the app take up way more memory too.
And just to wet your appetite, in case you don’t alrady know:
Rhino4 will be coming out Brazil enambled (meaning you can render our to brezil, although dont think it’ll be included in the package)
Also if you have a licenced Rhino3, you can download Rhino4 work-in-progress … some really cool tools.
“rhino was originally written around the geometry kernel called AGlib that was licensed from alias. alias later terminated the agreement and at present rhino is still built on top of that old version of the kernel. a current version of this kernel is at the core of the studio products.”
slightly contradicts what i’d read but trust this is more accurate. always thought the kernal was independent and both Alias and Rhino were licensing. now i know.
wrt Rhino/Brazil, that is a nice development. removes high-priced Max from the ID toolset (when only needed for rendering).
" always thought the kernal was independent and both Alias and Rhino were licensing. now i know. "
That’s actually more accurate. Alias bought AGLib after both McNeel and Alias licensed their kernal and then McNeel’s license eventually expired. Rhino uses a different independant kernal now and supposedly Alias does too.
“Alias bought AGLib after both McNeel and Alias licensed their kernal and then McNeel’s license eventually expired. Rhino uses a different independant kernal now and supposedly Alias does too.”
Alias uses an evolved version of that kernel. as i understand it there are still parts of that original kernel inside studio. studio also uses the ACIS kernel from Spatial http://www.spatial.com/ to do their shelling/stitching/booleans, sla polygon creation, and some other functions.
don’t know about rhino now. just what i heard about the ancient history.
How can I find a list of 3ds Max users around the planet.? I will like to contact all the 3ds Max users around the planet to make an invitation to visit a very cool web page, with free features to improve this software. Like hotspoted renders.
