Last week was the break week in AM and I used the time to rest and to play a little with 3D Studio Max. Before Maya I had done a small animation in Blender, but it's been a few years and I think it's good knowing at least the basics of other animation software.
I decided to do something really really simple, just to break the ice with 3ds max. I downloaded Max, a free rig lots of people use from this link.
I chose a reference from aniref on vimeo, a cool place to look for (and share) reference.
Here's the video I chose:
And the result of my exercise:
It was interesting and, in a way, simple, after all, the tools used are similar to the ones in Maya. Before starting to animate, I watched the instructional videos that come up when the program is first opened. That helped make me more comfortable with the interface. I found it less friendly than Maya, but part of this is because I'm not used to it.
At one point I didn't know where to find more specific controls like footroll and eyelid movements. Also some general things like navigating and setting materials to locked body parts demanded some getting used to. Well, in the end, I found the answers to my questions in the internet or by pressing buttons and seing what happened :-)
Good work with this. I totally agree with the part about trying out different software just to get a feel of how things are done with other tools.
ReplyDeleteI personally love Blender possibly more than Maya and 3ds max... especially since the 2.5 release but Maya will forever be my true love.
Yeah, it was a nice experience! I need to try Blender again sometime, especially after your compliment to the more recent versions. I remember I had fun with it back then.
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