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Since February I’ve seriously tried to export/import figures into Max to make a pipeline between these programs (Max, DAZ Studio/Poser) using various techniques. Using the ColladaMAX gave the better results, however the results have bee unpredictable and this got me thinking about something in general about 3D-art and the market-place.
What I’ve seen on various Max-sites, eg. here, have been a lack of vendors creating stuff or members buying stuff of high quality. We all got the Turbosquid-link to their site when we installed Max, and it to be perfectly honest I have not been hugely impressed with the quality at Turbosquid. Maybe I should have taken this at the Turbosquid-forums instead of here. I have seen their human male/female figures and when compared with the Poser-site(s), the prices has been hair-raisingly high. So, despite given a coupon of $100 I don’t have any specific plans to buy anything there.
This gave me an idea. If people are going to create a human figure, there are certain conditions which would qualify to be taken at least seriously. The quality should at least excell those from DAZ Studio/Poser-sites (and they have been very very good from my perspective). That is the number one priority. The second priority is pricing within a reasonable frame, and frankly, $320 is way to much for a human figure. The monetary worth of two figures from Turbosquid equals one Max-subscription of one year!! Who is going to waste their money on such??
With these basics in mind, there are som other stuff I’d also include to further clearify what I want to see within the 3DS Max-community.
Pro’s for the Max-community, and it’s software is that Max has a very realistic hair and cloth simulator, and not to mention materials applied to the objects and the rendering machine. Con’s are that DAZ Studio/Poser relies very much on objects (OBJ-format) on everything, from hair to clothes, and in certain respects this gives them an edge as it won’t strain the computer as much as the hair/cloth-simulator on Max.
This is my idea and, to be honest, I don’t see this happening anytime soon, but it’s better to be put forward than not:
*Autodesk creates a simplified (and free) Studio were the user can import figures and objects and rendering them using the full power of the rendering-machine. You can’t use this studio to create models or materials, but you should be able to set up a scene and apply HDR, if you want to create photo-realistic renderings.
The reason I say ‘free’ is because people are daunted by the price of a Max-version. I know this myself as I have spent a lots of money on it and know what I got. So a free simplified Studio will create an avenue for people who are interested in creating realistic renderings, but don’t have the money to pay up-front for a full version of Max. What they’ll concentrate on is buying content, then the pricing on Turbosquid is out of the question and should at corrected to be at least competitive with other 3D communities.
These customers might come from all walks of life, like us 3DSMAX-users, but there are many many more of them than those of us who owns a full version of 3DS Max.
And here is were you come in. As a modeller, texturer, morphologist, you could create variations of a basic human male/female figure, or full blown scenes ready to render, appliances/things to populate the scene. The imagination is the only limit. You could become the vendor if that would suit your fancy.
These are the basics
*3D model of human being could be built with high realism and sold (and after importing using ColladaMAX to see what they look like in Max, I’d say the number of polygons used by the Poser-community is about right).
*Hair could be created, which the final user can tweak the settings on after buying it and applying either their own material or a bought material.
*Morphs could be be created and sold to set up a great variety of human characteristics, creating many different figures.
*Textures of human figures could be created and sold by anyone using a 2D application.
*Clothes could be created and sold, and the UV-plans should be available, so anyone could create textures for clothes.
This could be expanded:
*Architectual models, like houses, appartments (internal, external) could be created and sold.
*Animals, harnesses for animals could be created and sold, with reasonable pricing.
*Vehicles, ships etc could be made and sold.
*Scenes setting up with streets, ground and hill-formations, backgrounds and so on could be created and sold.
This could go on and on, and make it possible for hobbyists or prfessionals to set up a photo-realistic scene and render it for sale or their own amusement using Mental Ray, VRay or Brazil.
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