Blender 2.81 - 2.83 alpha

[jamination]

Anyone use blender for character animation, how does it stack up to Maya? I still use Softimage for everything, I want to move on, but I do a lot of character animation work, and I am reluctant to use anything that would grind my workflow to a halt. From what i gather the only viable solution is Maya... for that type fo work.

[Mathaeus]

Anyone use blender for character animation, how does it stack up to Maya? I still use Softimage for everything, I want to move on, but I do a lot of character animation work, and I am reluctant to use anything that would grind my workflow to a halt. From what i gather the only viable solution is Maya... for that type fo work.

In short, it is limited, but more maneuverable as long as limits are acceptable. Still a lot of options/limits, understandable only if you were familiar with old versions (including Bl Outliner mentioned in this thread). Most likely, lot of learning for new user.
It has 3ds Max style modifier stack, any operation is possible immediately, including multiple Armature (that's skin/envelope) modifiers, reordering, whatever...... while ShapeKeys are heritage, always evaluated before any modifier, also it still can't take animated targets (at least it was in 2.8 betas).
Bones are a kind of sub-objects of skeleton, it can envelope only to bones. It has tons of built-in, easy to use options for skin/envelope interpolation, like curve along bones or roll divisions (you just enable or disable them).
Animation mixer is joke compared to SI one, or Maya Time Editor, can't create "custom" clip taken from multiple objects, it's just skeleton and bones as sub-objects.
Can't use NURBS for rigging, at least not in Maya or SI style.
Let's say, for model below 20k quads, few modifiers and single "alive" animation track, should be just fine, more handy than anything else (because tons of small and nice improvements all around).
Playback is not comparable to Maya, but it's not bad at all.
There are some free, rigged and animated models at Blend Swap, perhaps it's best to try out.

[Bullit]

You could also do character animation with bones in 2D in Grease Pencil

https://www.blendernation.com/2019/10/2 ... p-by-step/





https://www.blendernation.com/2019/08/2 ... ul-ibarra/ (Spotify stuff is Maya the other ones are Blender says the author)

[Bullit]

[Mathaeus]

I wouldn't do any character animation in Blender, for price of not doing such things at all. Hopefully, this is already a rare task in my life. From my little experience, it's much easier and lucrative to go further in other fields, for me that's compositing, procedural animation, some effect here and there, instead of going to weak or substantially f...ed up app, like Blender, Maya or anything else. Blender is fine for low level engagement, as it always was, character animation is not fitting here.

[Bullit]

Blender shader modeling...

[Bullit]

Edit seeing the video.Not much there, does not warrant seeing it.

[FXDude]

Hi! just to say thanks for this, I found it very interesting!
not just for shapes, but also for setting-up expressions and constraints and stuff..

________
1:m Creating Shapes & shape keys,

4:m setting-up on-screen slider controls using ::
  - lock transforms in certain axies,
  - position limit constraints, (of leveler inside the slider)
  - drivers (expressions linking to shape keys),

11m Linking shapes to bone rotations to improve armature deformations.

________
and the nodevember thing is impressive and innovative for 'displacements',
but also brings me reassurance that the node editor can take -alot- of nodes and still be running fine.
( on the flip side, some of these trees looked pretty scary, but it doesn't mean anything,
I'd have to check-out one of them to see if I could make sense of it )

________
I also wanted to say thanks to sirDavid for, without his knowledge,
providing some motivation and inspiration through some of his blog posts and videos,


I found this one really good..
https://3dcinetv.com/how-to-use-the-nla-in-blender/

[Bullit]

Glad you liked FXDude.

Some more:
Multikey addon


download:https://github.com/snotnose/blender/blo ... ultikey.py