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Grabbed it quickly before you replied... was hoping you wold post results as to how the refund worked out. Mine was added back into PayPal account awhile longer. I checked and sure nuf got it for $40,,, I was hoping when I wen to get it that it hadn't gone back up to regular price.. which it's now at $50 iff again.. I'll not be using it for anything right away and haven't yet installed it. Now trying to model and learn replicator for latest Carrara Challenge. Can't wait to find time to give it a test drive. :)
Wow.
Like some folks I know (like my Son) when a new game comes out, with something like Silo, I wouldn't be able to stop myself from firing it up and playing in it Immediately!
I've even been daydreaming some of my first projects I'd use it for! :)
But, still... I can totally understand this one. Because Carrara is such a qualified modeler, it's super easy to just use it, and not bother with something else. I have a few modelers that never see the light of day because of Carrara! :)
I don't understand Silene... if she is talking of actual nuts and bolts or other objects/things with is more likely. A nut or a bolt is so easy to model in any 3d program. I've never made one but can have one... bolt and nut, in about an hour... first I must get some sleep first.
To me, it sounded like she meant nuts and bolt items as 'staple items' type of models. But she might have meant actual nuts and bolts.
The thing that I get out of the promotional material from Nevercenter about Silo, is that it's exceptionally easy and elegant to work with, being that 'all it does is modeling', so I'd imagine that the PC Gamer reviewer was saying something about how great it is for just getting bulk modeling done easily and efficiently.
For me, I really enjoy seeing the various selection and non-selection modes for modeling and UV Mapping. By non-selection, I mean that we can work on the mesh without selecting anything! Just click on the area we wish to manipulate and the program will grab where we click, perform the manipulation according to our movements, and upon release of the mouse, still nothing is actually selected - making for a really nice way to tweak a mesh into the shapes we need.
Now is where I'm starting to remember various functions of one modeler, not quite remembering which modeler it belongs to - after looking at the three: Modo,3D Coat, and Silo, but all three seem to have really nice UV Unwrapping tools. I think it might have been Modo which lets us use sculpting tools to work in UV Edit mode to work out distortions. But Silo might have similar things going for it as well. I know it wasn't 3D Coat, because that tutorial just said "Good Enough" with all manner of distortions evident in the UV unwrap. But it, too, has amazing UV editing tools.
Ooops. Accidentally went off on a bit of a tangent there, didn't I? LOL
Speaking of UV Editing, my buddy Gars Man has a couple new video tutorials prepared for UV Layout!
One regarding n-gons in UV Layout
and the other is continuing on from his unwrapping of a Human Figure
I haven't had a chance to check them out yet. Gotta go jam my drums at yet another Christmas/Holiday party! ;)
I think she means "run of the mill" as in general everyday modelling. It's an expression . . .
That's what I figured... too often I take things literally... finally had to force myself to get some sleep :)
I know Silo does not come with any example models, and for all of you who decide to purchase it here is in native Silo format (OBJ version included as well) female base model, one of my earlier (not as good) attempts, ya all can do whatever you want with it ...
Download link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4V0tbmTYNaSVzNVRjdTSnNYU0U/view?usp=sharing
Cheers
P.S. There is also a book I highly recommend (I own a copy of it): https://www.amazon.com/3D-Modeling-Silo-Official-Guide/dp/0240814819
How incredibly generous of you, as well as helpful with the advice on the book.
Thanks FifthElement!!!
From a glance at this image, it looks like you've done a beautiful job on this mesh. Nice edge loops man!
I never think twice when offered one of FifthElement's incredible models... Thanks Fifth! The book is on the way... glad you mentioned it.
No problem guys, thanks for the nice words, yep, I sometimes venture into organic modeling even though it's really not my thing ...
Another UV mapping software has been brought to my attention in another thread:
UVMapper
The site doesn't really say what the differences are between the Demo and Pro - and they also have a free "Classic" version. It's certainly worth investigating for those interested in having a UV specific software on hand.
Here's what the say in brief, more info available at their site, along with downloadable pdf tutorials:
UVMapper Professional is a stand-alone texture mapping utility for the creation and modification of UV coordinates for n-sided polygonal 3D models. UVMapper Professional offers multiple, fully configurable viewports with completely interactive 2D and 3D views. It includes planar, box, cylindrical, spherical and polar mapping modes, all of which are available in a realtime, interactive mapping environment. Also included are many other tools such as Relax UVs and Subdivision Surfaces that will allow you to bring your texture mapping skills to the next level. Whether you are a beginner, intermediate or professional 3D artist, UVMapper Professional will provide you with everything you need to texture map the most demanding models.
Thanks Ice Dragon Art, for bring this to my attention
Dart, There is a difference between Classic and Pro. The Pro version is 8+- times as large as Classic. I don't think the price is much at all but can't find how much that is. Back awhile ago head wax mentioned being "fortunate to win UVMapper Pro". Someone else said that you can't do, ?something?, unless you have the Pro version... I've searched for hours trying to find where that was said...no luck... probably an obscure thread having nothing to do with Modeling or UV mapping as a title.
From what I have seen in all the threads I've seen UVMapper mentioned it doesn't mention what version they are using so I suspect that UVMapper Classic is more than adequate in most circumstances. Besides I've found no way to purchase Pro as they are looking into a new ecommerce solution. If anyone wants the Pro version check UVMapper Home page and select Purchase to see if/when they get this corrected.
Note that UVMapper Pro was/is $59.95 unless the price has increased. :)
Here's some shots of my Robot character. I modeled him and did all the uv unwrapping in Carrara, then made his textures with quixel.
Looks great.
.
Very good indeed!
Wow. He's awesome! And I love his shaders! Very nice work
Thanks! I'm really loving quixel suite 2.2 for creating textures, and using it forced me to get my uv mapping skills together. While I'm sure there are better uv mapping softwares than Carrara I love the fact that it can all be done right in Carrara. I haven't ran into anything I couldn't do. I've found that it's got mostly to with what you were saying at the beginning of this thread Dartanbeck, keeping the shapes relatively simple and putting the seams in the right place. If you can do that, unfolding is a breeze, I don't believe I used a single pin in that robot. Then it's just a matter of resizing the uvs and arranging them the way you want.
Bummer. Quixel requires Adobe. It sure looks like fun, though! I still like doing it my old-fashioned way, and can always hit the 3D Paint in Carrara, which s also pretty fun sometimes!
Does Size Really Matter? I understand arranging them so they make sense... not only to me but to any who should peek at them. Why would they need to be resized?
I found photoshop CS3 extended on Ebay for $25, the seller actually worked for Adobe selling downloads of their older software. Very fast service, I ordered it in the evening and had my download the next morning. His name was Joseph Kenna. I found out later that it's called extended because it has extra features relative to 3d modeling. I'm not sure what those are yet, but it was a nice little bonus to find that out.
So that we can optimize the size of the map needed to load onto the model.
Many times the mapping will result in a tiny island along the bottom of the grid. So we grab the individual islands and resize them proportionately (or not - our choice) and arrange them in our preferred orientation and spacing. I even overlap mine sometimes because I know that portion will occupy a separate image map.
But we don't want to have to load a 10,000 px map and only use the bottom edge. White (or other color) pixels are still pixels, and still require RAM.
Good score, my friend!!!
I just now see that Silo is on sale at Steam for $20 USD!!!!
I would get it, but I think it requires Steam to run - and I don't want that. I'll just buy direct when (and if) the time is right ;) Besides... they deserve the full price for that tool anyway. ;)
Yes. All the islands should be the same relative size to avoid distortions. Carrara in particular has a habit of making small details really large on the map, and large items really small. So everything needs to be scaled and rotated and straightened. I find it's helpful to size everything so that 1 UV square = 1 foot (or whatever's convenient, generally so the largest piece fills the grid) to get everything matching, and then arrange and set the overall scale so they all fit on the grid.
Also, with wooden objects, the pieces need to be oriented correctly with the grain. That means everything needs to be horizintal or vertical, dependingt on the orientation of your texture.
I imagine that means larger islands = better resolution for the texture map or even a procedural shader.
Had never occured to me... good to know that overlapping is ok. Is it possible to highlight all islands and scale them together?
So if it is simply a solid 1 color texture map then I suppose that it wouldn't matter what size it is... could be 4px X 10px or probably even 4 x 4 pixels.
I would set the largest piece to fill the grid after unwrapping... then zoom out to adjust the others... no that's not right... gosh I need to concentrate UV Mapping UnWrapping. Better go practice on a few of my simple models I've not UVMapped yet... stick at it until I get the hang of it. Thanks Tim
TangoAlpha, is it necessary that all the islands were placed on one grid and baked all together? If so, I am afraid that my textures will be low quality on the final model.
No, not at all. If you're going to use shaders or general tiling textures (as opposed to custom painted for the individual parts), you can happily overlap the islands or spread them out beyond the confines of the grid (which amounts to the same thing). Scaling a part to be twice the size of the grid is equivalent to keeping it inside the grid and setting tiling to 2.
If you're custom painting, then everything must be inside the grid and separated. Here you must rely on the size of your texture map for resolution - 1K, 2K, 4K etc. (remember, every doubling in size of the texture map quadruples the memory it uses). But we have another weapon at our disposal: shading domains. Every shading domain gets its own grid (In the Display tab there's a button to show each domain separately). So you can spread the model onto multiple texture sheets should you need to.
TangoAlpha, thank you very much for the response and for detailed explanation! Could you please tell me, what is wrong in my particular case with my chair UVs?
HI Vyusur :)
I can't clearly see what shading domians you've created and how the individual UV mapping is laid out for for each domain, since the default display in Carrara is to "show All"
this makes it difficult to undrstand what is what.
You can set the Display tab option to show any single shading domain UV layout,. EG: Arms, Seat, Back, etc... Rather than having all domains visible.
this allows you to focus on that mesh section / shading domain, and it's specific UV layout..
each shading domain can have a different UV layout.
I'm an old school believer that the UV Layout of your mesh should FIT inside the UV Grid area,. Otherwise there's no point in having a UV grid area,.
Fitting your mesh into the UV Area helps you "See the texture map" (if you have texture map shaders applied to each domain)
then you can Move , Scale and Rotate the mesh islands to fit the texture map,.
Hope it helps :)
Hi, 3DAGE! Thank you very much! You helped me a lot. I went to my model UV room and unchecked “show all”. Now I feel a great relief: I can freely edit my domains, exactly as you said. Thank you once more.