Well I bought the Blacksmith3D the other day after seeing all the great things the makes had created with it. And it's great! Very different type of morphing program, but NEAT and very powerfull. Of course, since I've only had it 2 days I'm no expert with it by far, but the possibilities seems endless. So here's Apollo Maximus, as an early hominid (approximately Homo Ergaster) - the texture is also made in Blacksmith, there's an interesting trexture tool included in the Suite. I still need to figure out how to handle the type of maps where the head and the body are on different maps (so that they are atually layered on te UVmap) but that's next step. Again, I'm all new to this program and allready VERY impressed! And no, I'm not being paid to say this :o)

Thanks for sharing this TG, I've been wanting to try Blacksmith3D. You've been a Poser user, figure creator, etc for as log as I've been coming here so an endorsement from you has some weight ;) TA

Looks good ernyoka1 how does blacksmith3d compare to zbrush? will it do things zbrush cant?

Well to be honest I've never been able to figure Zbrush out. I'm deeply in awe of the things I've seen made with ZBrush, but it doesn't "click" with me. Blacksmith otoh is EASY to use. But try the trial version, it can do anything the full version can do - except save your work :o) so it's a good way of figrureing out if the program can do what you want it to. Another cool thing about Blacksmith3D is the built in CR2 wizard. In short, once you've made your morph, you save it with the CR2 wizard and it will make you an new cr2 (and optionally a new obj as well) with your morph allready loaded. IMO that is VERY cool it you've made a morph that spans several bodyparts. You can also export all the bits of the obj "the old way" and load those as morph targets, but the CR2 wizard is lots easier.

Hehe This time I tried with Fluff, my old (and very first)poseable character... This is fun :oD

I have been eyeballing Blacksmith too. Thanks for sharing your thoughts! That looks great! I tried a fur texture on M3 once and had to do alot of homework to figure out the percentages of the head verses the body, and hands verses the body. I use percentages because it gets around the exact size dimensions. I came pretty close to lining everything up. Perhaps if Blacksmith can import a photo (brush), you can make 2 sizes of the brush, each for the exact percentage size you need to blend head and body and hands and gens? I can dig out my notes for percentages if you want, but you can always trail and error it yourself in photoshop. I would have to do that to figure out Apollo's percentages unless someone has a better method, or already knows his texture "sizes." I hope that makes sense. :D bB

Can you rotate brushes? Import brushes? Import photos to map onto a surface? What about displacement? Thanks. :D bB

Yes, yes, yes and yes. Yes, it makes sense and yes I'd love your percentages, I've tried to calculate those like forever - without any luck. And yes you can rotate brushes, or rather you can rotate the character. There's also an option to randomise the brush to some segree. It can be tiled in different sizes and it works by importing photos. There's a special setting for displacement and transmaps. I haven't tried those yet. Still playing :o)

Okay, I got numbers for you!

The numbers below are rough estimates, I just eyeballed the seam lineups thanks SnowSultan's M3 seam guides. Matching up the head and neck was tricky, so its a little off. I haven't tried the gens yet, but I suspect the same numbers I used for the the hands might work. :D

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Michael 3 Texture Sizing (research by bastBlack)
A handy guide for texture artists

The BODY texture is 100% size

The HANDS should roughly be:

1. reduced down by 40.72% to the body
2. textured with same size pattern as body
3. then enlarged 240.72% from the body

The HEAD texture should roughly be:

1. reduced down by 64.86% to the body
2. textured with same size pattern as body
3. then enlarged 264.86% from the body

Hope that makes sense.

bB

Message edited on: 08/04/2005 19:35

Oh man, thanks to you both for this review and those percentages Bb! Well, something else to consider for my merchant works too I think!! I guess I better get to downloading that demo!! Shame it won't let you save at least a small version of it, you know, like maps not over the size of 600 X 600 or something. Then you would get to see the export dialog too and what's offered there. All the best Richard ;-)~