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post News - May 14 2008 - overwhelmed with work

May 14th, 2008

Filed under: 3DTutorial News — admin @ 1:19 pm

Sorry for my lack of posts this month but I’m simply overwhelmed with work at the moment.

Aside from numerous jobs and clients here at the studio I’ve continued to work on the portrait of my friend John using Silo and I’ve learned a great deal about the application by doing so.  Verdict?  Silo is a pretty fine tool and for the price… well, it’s deal that hard to beat.  I do find using it sometimes a bit weird because I am so accustomed to working with XSI and tools don’t always behave as I think they would or should.  I guess this is how others feel when they try to use XSI for the first time so I guess it’s swings and roundabouts really.

I’ve got a genius friend of mine who I consider to be an engineering wizard working on a fabrication project for me related to my scanners.  I don’t really want to talk about it but let’s just say this project is something that will make a big difference to the way I work and what I’m able to do in future.  We are still in the design and planning stage at the moment, but I’m hoping that we can move forward with the actual fabrication of the machinery soon.

Oh… and before I forget, when I said that I learned a lot from working with Silo on this recent project most of what I learned is what I should not do.  That’s right, I’ve found a lot of things that I do wrong or could be improved so this project has been a great learning experience because it helped me to identify weaknesses that I otherwise would have missed.  This is why it’s always better to just get stuck in with a project and to learn as you go… taking notes along the way.  You learn more from this type of experimentation than from any other method and the best part is that it stays with you and your not likely to forget it either.

Last but not least… I’m happy to report the 3DTutorial.com truck made it through the NJ state motor vehicle inspection today and that’s one less thing to worry about.

Till next time…

Joe Saltzman
Founder/Director
3DTutorial.com

post News - May 7 2008 - Autodesk Acquires REALVIZ

May 7th, 2008

Filed under: 3DTutorial News — admin @ 11:44 am

Holy crap….!

Normally I don’t give a toss about these kind of acquisitions but I feel that what we are looking at is a very important strategic move that could change the current 3D playing field… a lot. Of course this is just my opinion but REALVIZ has some very powerful technology and now that Autodesk has it… well, you can imagine what this might mean for some “other” 3D software companies.

You can read more about this in the official announcement… but in my opinion this is pretty big news.

The announcement can be read HERE.

All I can say is… wow.

Till next time…

Joe Saltzman
Founder/Director
3DTutorial.com

post News - May 6 2008 - WIP 3D Portrait of John Haussmann

May 6th, 2008

Filed under: 3DTutorial News — admin @ 7:21 am

Portrait of John Haussmann in 3D, WIP by Joseph R. Saltzman at 3dtutorial.com
This is a portrait that I am doing in 3D of friend of more than 30 years. John is an awesome bass player and probably has played more live performances than any musician that I know (and I know quite a few…he..he..). I told him that I was working on some new things here at my studio and he graciously agreed to sit for me (which was nice). At the moment this is nothing more than a WIP (work in progress). I’ve done much of this particular project using the SILO 3D modeling application simply so that I could become more familiar with it. Since I usually work with Softimage XSI using SILO on this project has been a bit of a different experience for me but I’ve learned a lot from doing this and have grown to like it quite a bit as a result; it’s quite a nice application. As you can see from this image there is still a lot of work to be done on this yet, it’s early days. I am modeling this using the poly-by-poly method and I still have yet to finish the top of the head, neck and optimizations … but I will get to all that in due course :-)

At the moment my main focus is in achieving a good likeness of my friend.

Dennis Dunaway and John Haussmann

Till next time…

Joe Saltzman
Founder/Director
3DTutorial.com

post News - May 2 2008 - Ryan Kingslien joins Gnomonology

May 2nd, 2008

Filed under: 3DTutorial News — admin @ 2:38 pm

Ok, I knew something was up when I visited Ryan’s great blog a few days ago only to find a cryptic post giving reason to believe that it was coming to an end. I thought that was pretty weird and was a bit disappointed as I have really come to enjoy his blog and lessons quite a bit.

This afternoon I just received a newsletter from Gnomonology stating that Ryan has now joined them. It also says that he was “formerly” the product manager of ZBrush at Pixologic so something serious must have occurred to make him bag that gig. I can only speculate that either they were not paying him enough or the guys at Gnomonology decided to pay him a whole lot more… who knows. Still, I don’t think someone is going to pack up a key post at a major 3D software company unless something went down and one can only speculate about that.

In any event I guess that with Ryan on staff Gnomonology is going to have some pretty great ZBrush training from now on… which can’t be a bad thing really.

Anyway, much respect to Ryan and I look forward to see what they cook up.

I will miss Ryan’s great blog however.

Till next time…

Joe Saltzman
Founder/Director
3DTutorial.com

post News - April 29 2008 - So Busy!

April 29th, 2008

Filed under: 3DTutorial News — admin @ 8:33 am

I must apologize for the sporadic updates lately but I’ve simply been too busy to write. This week I’m continuing my R&D work on my full body 3D scanner. As I mentioned in my previous posts I’ve once again resumed testing and as a result I’ve identified a few areas that can be further improved. As is often the case this really opens up “a can of worms” so to speak in that as I improve one thing I find about 4 other issues that could also use some attention. At the moment my progress is stalled because an important system driver needs to be updated by a 3rd party and I’m waiting for the software engineers to update the code and provide me with a fix. Not much I can do till that happens, so I can’t really do much more with the full body scanner till then.

I’ve also been using the Silo 3D modeling application a bit more seriously lately. Actually, I’m doing a portrait of a friend of mine with it at the moment. Although I purchased Silo a long time ago I’ve not used it very infrequently so this current portrait that I’m working on the perfect opportunity to get to grips with the application. I’ve got to say that I really think it’s pretty rocking! So far I find that I’m getting along with it as a tool very well and it seems to blend well with my workflow and style. Still, that said, I’ve got to be honest and say that there are things that I still prefer about modeling in Softimage XSI, but it’s a close race ;-)

I’ve got a few other things cooking as well… but more on that later when I’ve got a bit more time to write.

Till next time…

Joe Saltzman
Founder/Director
3DTutorial.com

post R&D - April 21 2008 - Full Body 3D Scanner.

April 22nd, 2008

Filed under: 3D Scanning R&D — admin @ 6:32 am

Today I fired up my full body 3D scanner the “x-scanner” for the first time this season and the good news is that it works!  :-)

I’m picking up where I left off with my research on large field 3D body scanning at the end of last year… so I have to locate my notes and get cracking on this once again.

Actually, I did solve an annoying problem today so things are off to a good start already!

Because there are many possible set-up permutations possible with this machine, my research this year will concentrate on establishing a database of known and tested values for dealing with the most commonly encountered variables during production.  It’s more work than it sounds and it should keep me pretty busy for the rest of this year.

If all goes well, I should be able to turn out some pretty cool 3D full body scans here at 3dtutorial.com

Till next time…

Joe Saltzman
Founder/Director
3DTutorial.com

post FAQ - April 14 2008 - Posts to blog don’t display.

April 14th, 2008

Filed under: FAQ's — admin @ 8:34 am

A few people who have been trying to post to my blog have recently written me about the following.

“Hi Joe, I’ve been trying to post a comment to your blog but none of my comments are being displayed…why?”

Don’t panic :-)

There is a time delay between the time that you post a comment and when it is displayed.

Why?

At the moment my little blog receives something on the order of 1000 or more pieces of spam a day. As a result my blog is heavily moderated and all posts are reviewed prior to being displayed, sadly this takes some time.

Don’t worry, I value your comments and provided you are not trying to spam my blog your post WILL appear in due course. I would kindly ask for your patience.

Till next time…

Joe Saltzman
Founder/Director
3DTutorial.com

post OPINION - April 14 2008 - Hate Node Locking? You are not alone!

April 14th, 2008

Filed under: Opinion — admin @ 7:33 am

Well it seems that a debate about node locking and the copy protection of training products and software applications has raised its ugly head once again on CGTalk. I urge you to read the comments found HERE.

It’s clear that this is a topic that brings to the fore a lot of passionate feelings both by publishers and consumers of software. Before I go any further let me make a few things clear…

3DTutorial.com does NOT use node locking.

Speaking personally, well, I hate node locking…. well, actually I despise it and I can fully understand and appreciate why many customers hate it as well and have a very negative reaction towards it.

But wait a minute… didn’t 3DTutorial also use node locking once too and doesn’t this make you a bit of a hypocrite?

The answer to this question is YES and YES — but dear reader, please allow me to explain a bit further.

Yes, it is true that at one stage I did use a copy protection scheme that used node locking.

Now this is the important part…. I never wanted to use it, however, I was forced to use it because:

1. A key investor in our company insisted upon it

and…

2. Because we were seeing such great losses due to the piracy of our titles I felt that we simply had no other choice… something had to be done to limit the damage that was being done to our company.

Ok, so this is a VERY important point… we once used node locking because we felt that we had to do it and simply had no other option and I suspect that this is exactly the same reason why other some other publishers have decided to use node locking protection schemes as well.

Look, I’ve got to tell you something…. those of us who are independent producers are simply NOT making any kind of money worth worrying about doing this — HONESTLY.

The 3D market has radically changed and matured over the past few years and these days you simply are not going to make any significant money by producing training material.

Now I can hear you say… “Come on Joe… that’s a lot of BS…. what about those guys who wear the orange t-shirts, or what about those guys in Hollywood, or what about that woman in San Francisco? They are producing truck loads of titles… surely they are making a killing.

I understand what you are saying and this is a perfect example of my point…. the market has CHANGED. You see once upon a time an independent individual could produce training, market it and perhaps make a living doing it…. but trust me folks, those days have come to a crashing end.

Why? Well there are various factors among them…

1. Piracy / unauthorized distribution of products.
2. Increased competition from other vendors.
3. A change in attitudes regarding the value of such products by consumer.
4. The availability of other free sources of material.

You see a few years ago there was not a great many places that you could find the kind of technical information that you were looking for and as a result a small, independent publisher could exist in such a market.

These days however a significant change in the market has occurred, namely a few larger corporate entities have overtaken the market and flooded it with substandard materials of dubious quality. So now, rather than having a number of small people producing training content, you’ve got a few larger companies controlling the vast majority of the market, some of the materials are good… others, well perhaps not. So what has been the result of this… well, the result is that these big players have all but destroyed the market for the little guys and as a result the independent professional can no longer hope to compete against them.

As a consumer one really has to open their eyes and ask themselves a few simple questions?

1. Who exactly are the people who are producing this material? They claim to be experts… but what have they really done? (just because someone says they are an expert does not always make it so).

2. What is the motivation behind their efforts? Is it to just make money or is it to help people to learn something? (or are they just trying to extract hard earned money from naive noobs?)

Really, think about these questions because where you decide to invest your money IS more important for the future of our community than you may think.

So now I return to the main topic of my conversation which is why publishers decide to node lock.

In short it is an act of desperation.

The actual market for 3D training is much smaller than people think - honestly, it’s tiny. If a producer creates training material focused only one 3D application you have less than zero chance of survival. Now factor in the losses that a publisher can expect from piracy and well… friends your company is dead in the water.

This is why publishers node lock. It’s not because they wish to treat their customers like criminals or to annoy them, it’s because they simply are trying to limit the unauthorized distribution of their materials… you’ve heard the saying… desperate times call for desperate measures and this is a perfect example of that.

So then, why did I decide to drop the node locking on 3DTutorial.com’s products then?

Simple, I changed my mind on the subject.

Look, this is all a learning process and I don’t always make the right decisions. Over the years I’ve taken the time to listen to my customers and what I’ve learned is that overall node locking is a very negative experience for them and this is something that can’t be ignored.

Did node locking help? Well yes, as a matter of fact it did. However, I have to also say that any positive gains that were made by limiting unauthorized distribution may have also been lost due to lost sales by those who did not want to purchase node locked products.

Oh… and I should also mention that node locking is also a major pain in the backside for the publisher as well. It causes no end of administrative headaches and is equally as difficult (if not more so) for the publisher.

So when I stopped and took the time to look at all these matters dispassionately it became clear to me that while node locking did have some benefits it also created a huge amount of ill will amongst customers.

Above all the bottom line is that node locking simply does not work as advertised. The FACT of the matter is that is someone wants to get hold of your intellectual property without paying for it… guess what, they will. There is nothing that a publisher can do to stop this fact and trying to use schemes such as node locking with only serve to “punish” the legitimate customers who support your products.

Trust me folks this is a very complex issue and I could write an entire book on the subject but I will spare you that :-) Let’s just suffice to say that in 99% of all cases people who publish software are only doing these things in order to stay in business and are not doing it with the intention of being greedy or upsetting their customers.

Let me leave you with something to think about. In most cases sales from the publication of technical tutorials are measured in units of hundreds NOT thousands as some might think. It takes a great investment of time and effort and money to produce quality training. It only takes a single individual to crack material and post it on the P2P networks for everyone to download for free.

What do you think the result of that is?

Sales of that product drop to zero because people don’t purchase what they can find for free — at least not in significant enough numbers to support a business anyway.

But look, if you doubt what I say is true then I would urge you to try and do this on your own. Please spend some time to create some good training materials and market them to the community. You will quickly come to understand just how difficult it is to make a go of it.

So next time before you decide go blow a gasket over this issue take a few moments to consider that the publishers who feel that they need to use node locking do so for a reason and it certainly has not been entered into without giving all matters both pro and con a lot of serious consideration.  You might not like node locking (I certainly don’t) but please spare a moment to think about the reasons why it might be necessary given the current hostile marketplace.

Till next time…

Joe Saltzman
Founder / Director
3DTutorial.com

post News - April 11 2008 - mental ray and Illustrator working together…?

April 11th, 2008

Filed under: Uncategorized — admin @ 9:47 am

Could be.. I’ve been made aware of something rather interesting, here is the deal…

Letterbox Animation Studios has revealed an interesting innovation that brings the power of Adobe Illustrator and mental images mental ray together.

So what’s the big deal?

Well this could prove to be a very cool and innovative breakthrough with real potential because it means one can now use vector based art files natively in mental ray rather than having to convert to a bitmapped image.   This sounds like a very smart idea because it would provide all the benefits of vector based art, such as clean sharp images that can be scaled infinitely without degradation along with very small file sizes (a fraction of their bit mapped counterparts) which sounds good to me!

I’ve been made aware of an interesting article on the Letterbox animation website and you can read all the details for yourself by clicking HERE.

In any case this is a cool idea that’s worth keeping an eye on.

Till next time…

Joe Saltzman
Founder/Director
3DTutorial.com

post Opinion - April 8 2008 - Silo Rocks!

April 8th, 2008

Filed under: Opinion — admin @ 5:46 pm

It has to be said (so I will) that Silo 2.x by Nevercenter Ltd. Co, simply kicks ass.

That’s right, I’m telling you straight up that Silo 2.x is one of the very best 3D modeling applications that money can buy and guess what? It only costs US$159.00 !!!

Now if that isn’t value for money… then I don’t know what is.

I’ve been using Silo for a pretty long time now but I’ve started using it more and more because I find myself working on the Mac a lot these days. Not only can Silo 2.x run on your PC but if you’ve got a Mac it can run on that too — cool beans!

Don’t be fooled by the low cost of Silo; this is a robust application that will go head to head with the best of them and for polygon and SubD modeling it’s a dream come true.

The great thing about Silo is its versatility you can create organic shapes with it or mechanical models with ease; working with hard edges is no problem whatsoever. I use it often for creating digital characters and regardless of the nature of the job (high poly or low poly) Silo comes through with flying colours.

Among the many things that Silo 2.x offers…

Really good high-res displacement painting, great hard surface precision, kick ass LSCM UV unwrapping, great subdivision surfaces, outstanding topology tools, a very flexible and customizable user interface which can make the most of your on-screen real estate and last but not least nice overall scene managment.

Like I said, this application only costs $159.00 dollars. Worth every penny? You bet it is!

To learn more about Silo 2.x by Nevercenter Ltd. Co., just click HERE.

BTW… I’ve got no affiliation with Nevercenter Ltd whatsoever… I just think this is a great tool and want to pass along my own personal thoughts.

Till next time…

Joe Saltzman
Founder/Director
3DTutorial.com

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