Sculptris

[MrTwosheds]

http://www.pixologic.com/sculptris/
I downloaded this free program a few days ago, and it has absorbed me ever since, its excellent! 9.75 out of 10 for Pixologic!
It may not be of great use for making low poly BZ2 models, but for anyone who has ever stared at the 3dsmax/blender/etc UI for hours wondering which combination of modifiers will achieve the result they desire, then this is a must have program, Its EASY! anyone can make shockingly good looking models with this, an excellent interface, very little jargon and...No crashes!
You can just click to mould and modify shapes, zoom in to create really fine detail, paint and blend multiple textures, bump map etc. It automatically creates UVmaps (somewhat randomly) but you can export a psd, edit that and re import it back on to the model.
It took me a couple of hours to create a basic human figure from nothing, something I have not even considered attempting with max, it will take a bit longer to work in some fine detail, (teeth are a bit tricky) but the texel polygon creation is a joy to use rather than the annoyingly complex process of most programs. I have not enjoyed sculpting so much since I did o level sculpture in school, with real clay, a very long time ago.
You were probably expecting a pic of my work here, well not yet, You will just have to look at the gallery at http://www.pixologic.com/sculptris/gallery They are not the usual bullhoot examples made by professional artists, you can do that too!

/edit well almost no crashes...

[Clavin12]

Indeed I have tried this. 'Tis quite cool.

[MrTwosheds]

It doesn't seem to like 3dmax7 .obj much though, failing to export to max and back.

[Zenophas]

It doesn't seem to like 3dmax7 .obj much though, failing to export to max and back.

Da. Zeno had this problem too when making a bunch of models for BZ3 a while back. Don't know of any way to get around it, personally. Not that there isn't though.

[Col Klink]

Very cool 2 sheds. Thanks for posting a link. It's funny a few days ago I posted a question about alternate Truespace like modeling software and Sculptris came up on another modeling forum about Truespace. I haven't tried it yet, but I will download it and give it a whirl. Iv'e pretty much mastered TS for BZII models, but I want to try some other modeling software less obscure then Max or Blender.

PS: I hear Silo 2 is much like TS in many ways. Man, it's been a while since I've posted on this forum. It's just not BZU I guess, or maybe I'm just loosing my interest in BZII in general. Later.

[MrTwosheds]

Sculptris is not like any other modeler I have used, it has a only a few buttons on the UI, The mouse is used to sculpt mesh using brushes, It is pretty much dedicated to creating and painting mesh's, It uses 2 primitives sphere and plane, there are no advanced tools for animating or anything else, You do not really need to have any modelling experience to use it.
Pixologic want people to love it, and then spend $700 on zbrush...

[Clavin12]

However it does not create topologically correct models and as such you will need another program like Max or Blender to retopologize and export, not to mention animate.

[MrTwosheds]

Eh? you what? what do you mean by "topologically correct models"? and retropologise.

[Col Klink]

I'm afraid Sculptris doesn't run under Win XP. I installed it, but I get an error saying somthing about a missing file called _restore.sc1. I sent an error report to Microsoft and went to a site that said that MS is aware of the problem and is investigating the cause of the error. I'm running version 2002 with SP 3. I hope they can sort out the issue, so I can give the program a test spin.

[MrTwosheds]

Runs just fine on my win xp.

[Col Klink]

Runs just fine on my win xp.

What version are you running? I installed Sculptris Alpha 6, and it installs just fine, but still the error prevents the application from loading. Does your version have this missing file and can you post a link to DL the file so I can see is that fixes the problem? Thanks.

[MrTwosheds]

Alpha 6 too.
.sc1 files are the scene files found in sculptris/alpha 6/models. I cant see a _restore.sc1 in my install, I would try copy-renaming one of the existing ones to the name of the file it cannot find, might work, might not, maybe just take you back to the problem that failed to create the _restore.sc1 in the first place.

Normally it loads default_sphere.sc1 at the start. it is found in sculptris/alpha 6/data

[Col Klink]

Alpha 6 too.
.sc1 files are the scene files found in sculptris/alpha 6/models. I cant see a _restore.sc1 in my install, I would try copy-renaming one of the existing ones to the name of the file it cannot find, might work, might not, maybe just take you back to the problem that failed to create the _restore.sc1 in the first place.

Normally it loads default_sphere.sc1 at the start. it is found in sculptris/alpha 6/data

That's worth a try and thanks...hope it works.

[MrTwosheds]

However it does not create topologically correct models

Yes it does. You may remember from school how an xy axis appears, x horizontal y vertical, add a z axis for forward backwards.
This is what the obj format does, this is what the xsi format used by bz2 does, It is 3ds that decided to do things the other way and make z up and y forward...It is 3ds that is "incorrect", Do you suppose they deliberately wanted to make life difficult for people using other modelling programs? I suspect they did.

[Clavin12]

You don't know what I'm talking about. Here is a model I made and it makes a good example:

Good Topology:

Bad Topology:

See what I mean?