3DS Max Recommendations for beginners

[koalynha]

Hello Everyone. It's a while since I started to like mods and make my textures and modeling, at first I was using Blender but looks like 3DS Max combined with Maya and Zbrush is the best option for modeling FO4 stuff. I have a little knowledge about Blender and rendering but nothing about Max etc. I have a student copy of 3ds 2016 and I would be really grateful if someone could give me some hints and tutorial references for newbies. I saw some options around the forum but I don't know if what I found is the best option. Maybe someone knows about it and can give me a light.

 

Thank you everyone!

 

Best regards, Stefany - Eltya.

 

[jeffglobal]

Any way you look at it, it's gonna be a pain in the butt. Maya is taught in colleges now, and I'm learning it, and Zbrush is just fun. But 3ds and Maya do about the same thing. Supposibly 3ds for modeling and Maya for animating. I'm not so sure now. I have no problem modeling, shading and rendering in Maya, though now I have to admit it IS easier to do simple product or artist shots of their work in Keyshot or Marmoset Teabag 2. They also are about the same, with the differences that don't matter to me, Marmoset seems a little better at PBR. Like Substance Painter is a little better than Quixel in PBR.

 

But...if you start going down the rabbit hole into advanced materials and shader networks and lighting and rendering past Mental Ray into VRay and beyond, yikes, I just murdered my brain with 20 hrs of that in the last two days. It looks like I should just use Substance Designer to make the stuff and plug into Maya, but why?

 

Now I'm starting to see the limitations of Maya and Mental Ray and just started Vray, and I'm thinking about Nuke and C4D or Rhino, and then I saw Maxwell's Renderer, and oh boy what a mess.

 

I have considered modo, and cinema 4d and Rhino and I'm thinking fk man, wtf. Also, 3d modeling programs seem to pass off their rendering to specialty programs, with Maya using more often After Effects and Cinema 4D using Nuke. So I'm looking at Nuke, but it's supposed to blow as it comes to learning curve.

 

In the final analysis, if you don't get instruction, thru video, book, or even Lama, there are just too many, "oh yeah, and remember in this menu to click on finalgather, cause otherwise, the hdr image won't do shæt. Oh, yeah, you first have to make sure Maya loads in the plugin, then you go to the Render Menu and select Mental Ray." I mean, wtf would Maya not load it's own fk'ing renderer by default to choose!?

 

Don't get me started on even baby Mental Ray's Subsurface Shader, [MiSSS or something, I forgot] what a simple interface, and if you played with it yourself, you'd be dead before you understood all the parameters, just trying to render a grape that looked convincing. That's what I did today, in 4 hrs, rendered a grape that looked convincing, yay for me.

 

Max, Maya, Zbrush [using multishaders], Nuke are deep enough to consider learning them a hobby. You start out fast, and then as you eye gets better you go, well that looks like crap, I can do better. Then it's an accumulation of a thousand details that differentiates the hobbyist from the professional. The only way being able to make progress fast enough not to die before you get good, is by instruction from those that know better....

[bunneh13]

Although a lot of what jeffglobal said is true it defends what you personally want. most of what is achievable in max is doable in blender. The important bit is the core modelling skills you learn. these are transferable skills and will allow you to work in a new moddling program with a lot milder learning curve.

 

I think its also important that you learn in a comfortable enviroment which is usually whatever program you started learning with. Personally I use max but i have experience with Maya. Modo. C4D. ect but Ive always done my best work in max as thats where i feel comfortable.

 

Certain programs are know for a "speciality" such as rendering or animation but most programs will "do the job" as well as any other. Maya and Max are also industry standards which have a lot of documentation/tutorials/support and useful if you want to pursue as a career.

 

for fallout 4 max has an advantage with its nif plugin but can be worked around very easily with outfit studio. I cant see any other real advantage that max has over blender and i hate blender.

 

as for tutorials start here https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClS3gPxzFYgTUz6JOIruyqA

in fact youtube is an amazing source of tutorials try some of these:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgAWR9OWXxRw2Ij853YBXWw

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTUvwcRwqr8pCBpBHXZLzCw

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCg-V4m1BICe-jgvkvriFWQg

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbWrMsILyqSmWQkKLQsia8g

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCx6FRkGCUg3NXut5qGOdgYg

https://www.youtube.com/user/AleksMarkeljFoto

 

and if thats no enough i can recommend digital-tutors as a good source of tuts

 

I hope this helps and good luck with whatever you decide.

 

Edit: Jeffglobal - I cracked up at "Marmoset Teabag 2" :laugh:

Edited March 8, 2016 by bunneh13

[koalynha]

Hahaha, the Jeffglobal post was priceless! Loved it.

I know learning about 3d softwares are a pain in the a**, lot's of things, clicks e aways forgetting something somewhere... :wallbash:

I used to be a blender guy like a lot of modders, then I took a old version and nif plugins in the brain... (Actually I have some hope for the nif plugins to be available for the new version of blender)
But since I got the opportunity to have the max educational copy and the fo4 plugin looks good so far... Why the hell not?

And ohh yess! Tutorials! bunneh13, that youtube channel is gorgeous :dance: Thank you!

 

I like the interface and i'm usually adapted for some things in the blender, but I saw some speed modelings in youtube for max and... looks so.. good :ohmy:

I'll give it a try!

 

Thank you both! Loved the reply :)

[dazzerfong]

If you use Blender, please don't use 2.49b. It's atrocious. Instead, work on 2.7+ and when the time comes, open your files in 2.49b for export. It's -so- much better like that.

 

Personally, I use 2.76b to make stuff, and export as FBX so my Max student edition could import and export it appropriately.

[sp0ckrates]

Just started working with 3DS Max 2014 and the 2013 NIF plugin. Seems to be working well, so far. Edited March 28, 2016 by sp0ckrates