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All,

We'd like to know which 3D apps you would like to see Arena/Expression streaming plugins released for. Please take a moment to fill out the poll, we look forward to hearing from you.

If you have additional feedback or theres an application you would like to see plugin support for which is not listed, please post a comment about it.

Thanks!

Poser or Daz studio seem like no-brainers to me--Arena is touted as "mocap for the masses", and Poser/Daz studio are definitely mass-appeal programs--check out Renderosity, Runtime DNA, Daz3D etc. and you can see that the Poser/Daz community is huge and active.

Speaking personally, I've been able to get very good captures with Arena, but I can't seem to get them cleanly into Poser, where I do my animating. I could really *really* use a Poser plugin.

--Tim

http://www.auroratrek.com

Based on another thread, I managed to post on both Newtek makers of Lightwave, and Spinquad a Lightwave forum looking for some coders interested in working on plugs for Lightwave. After many posts, there were no takers. There were on the other hand many pleaders, asking Newtek to contact you on working together to build such a plug. But, as they are working on getting repairs to the latest release and have a new beta build daily, they just don't have the time. Lightwave is a great program and priced under a grand, and it's used widely around the world in television and Motion Pictures. I vote for a lightwave plug.

Will

I personally think that cost should be a factor here. I imagine with your advertising a workable studio at 5,000 dollars you are looking to capture a potentially lower budget customer.

Maya is what 4,000 dollars, 3dstudio 2500, motion builder is 4,000 or something like that.

I sincerely appreciate any company that recognizes that sub 1000 dollar software is in the best interest of the majority of the communities out there. I.E. Blender ( free god bless them), Lightwave ( 900 dollars) and Poser pro ( 400 dollars). I tell you the pipeline I am most interested in seeing. Shout out to you for the daz plugin.

Optitrack to lightwave (or poser)running Vue7 extreme.

You capture movement, you run it natively or import changes automatically, in a environment generating software.

Also take a look at render node cost too. If you are going to be able to do anything of substance on a budget, it should be lightwave because of their render node situation. Motion capture is really animation, and animation must be rendered, and if it is more than a motion test, it needs a lot of computers to do it.

My 2 cents, power to the little studio that could:)

You could get Lightwave for under $500 at competitive pricing upgrade. Newtek accepts may software for competitive pricing, even Adobe AE.

And Lightwave is very plugin and appz friendly,
naming a few FaceGen ($300)(Faces), Mimic for LW (for auto Face animation), Vue (1K)(3D Matte Painting), Modo (competitive pricing)(best modeler in the world), exrTrader ($60)(Full exr capabilities), PLK ($135) (for full support with LW to PoserPro & Daz Studio), Syntheye ($500)(3D Tracking), RF4 (2.5K)(for liquids), or Blender Liquids to LW (Free) (crude but cheap Liquid method), Zbrush ($500) and so on and so on. Your not going to get that wide variety with any other programs and all that for the same price or less and with cheap upgrades. Plus you need to save your money for OptiTrack, Adobe Suite, a good computer and a good 3D/EXR Compositor like Nuke or Fusion. Money well spent for a complete kicken studio.


Maya Unlimited is $4,995.00 (went a little down in price, still expensive) but even worst its Autodesk owned meaning upgrades are expensive $1,795.00 (went up, see what I mean), now twice as frequent with less of a punch (yearly, spending more and twice as fast, yikes), and you'll have to upgrade or sink. Plus that type of money should be spent on a compositor, especially if you have a 3D program and a 3D compositor that can both handle exr like LW via exrTrader and Nuke, now thats a pipeline.

I think most of us are here to save money so my vote is Lightwave.

Personally I would LOVE to see a plugin for Lightwave. We recently purchased OptiTrack - and are just about ready to start working with it - and having a plugin directly to Lightwave would be a HUGE time saver.

There have been many threads over at Newtek (and Spinquad and CGTalk) regarding getting mocap into Lightwave - obviously the easier the better. So far there appears to be only convoluted workflows. Mocap to Poser to Lightwave; mocap to MotionBuilder to Lightwave, etc.

SO... obviously I'll add my vote for Lightwave.

I'm voting for XSI

it might be more expensive than lightwave, but it has amazing tools to help you mix and patch up many animation (mocap) takes

not everyone has a big studio available, so sometimes you can't make big movements - you must mix few parts of walk / run cycles etc to get your final animation

studio rentals are far from cheap ><

Thanks for the comments I appreciate them.
Did not know about the pricing competitive upgrades thing.
Good to know.

One just has to love the goodwill of blender.
I sincerely appreciate Lightwave too. They keep it real though my understanding is that the character anim. capabilities are a little more limited in lightwave.

I love the no cost for extra render nodes in lightwave.
Helpful once you have the character skinned and doing something.

don't forget there is XSI free version for HL2 modding

I am a 3ds max user and I would like a pluggin to be made for it.