Eat3d have found a niche for their range of tutorials by specifically targeting the video game design market. Their existing series of tutorials have proven very popular with budding artists looking for cost-effective training and insight from industry professionals. We reviewed one of the previous titles and found it to be excellent quality and it received a highly recommended award. Now they've released the next in the series, so we took a look at it to see what we thought.
The product
 The DVD series contains over 20 hours of instruction from Eric Maslowski presented on two DVDs. Eric's an established industry professional and has a wide range of experience behind him. He's been recognised as both an Autodesk-certified instructor and a 'Master' by the CG community so you are in good hands if you want to learn.
Eric's narration is both clear and informative. He also has good diction and a fairly intelligible accent (sounds silly I know, but once you've struggled through a poorly narrated, mumbling tutorial or two you'll appreciate Eric - and let's face it, you're going to be listening for 20 hours!)
The tutorial is aimed at the absolute beginner. The bulk of the first DVD assumes you are literally clicking the 3ds Max icon for the first time, so it goes through everything in great detail. It covers the whole interface in 3ds Max, all the viewport options and the various toolbars that you'll encounter. This will be a big attraction for artists who like a comprehensive approach to learning, you will finish these DVDs with an excellent grounding in the broad usage of 3ds Max and there shouldn't be too many 'grey areas' left for you.
3ds Max is a bit of a UI behemoth, so there are inevitably dozens of ways to achieve the same result - Eric, to his credit, takes the time to take you through a few of the various ways to do things. So, for example, he goes through a few of the ways of manipulating the viewport using the traditional methods, the view cube, the steering wheel. Some may find this great that they can make up their own choice, some may prefer to simply be told one recommended method and crack on with 3ds Max itself. However, it's really just a question of taste.
What you'll learn
 The DVD covers a massive range of topics in 3ds Max (take a breath):
- Project Planning and Organization
- Getting Around in 3D Studio Max: UI, Viewport Navigation, Selections, Transforms and Alignment
- In Depth Look at Polygon Modeling Techniques to Create a Variety of Objects
- Quick Modeling Examples Using Box Modeling, Booleans, Lofting, Spline Modeling, and even Cloth Simulations
- Modeling Objects from Reference and What Makes Good Reference
- Creating Convincing Metal/Water/Glass/etc. using Standard Materials or Mental Ray Shaders
- Adding Believability Through Proper Use of Textures and Precisely Placing Them on Your Objects
- Various Lighting Techniques are Explored Including Painting with Light and Daylight Systems
- Basic Rigging and Animating of a Falcon
- Procedural Animation Including Path Constraints, Noise Controllers, and LookAt Operators
- Introduction to Particle Systems including Max's powerful Particle Flow system
- Brief Description of Dynamic Hair and Styling
- Scene Optimization and Organization Through Use of Proxy Objects and XRefs
Strengths of the training
There's few other tutorial collections that offer you quite as broad a learning as this, if you are new to 3ds Max then there's little reason for you not to pick up this collection...
There is a lot of content in these DVDs and it's a comprehensive collection, however you should not expect to be a 3ds Max professional by the end, nor do I think the DVD is intended to make you one. 3ds Max is a big application and it's simply not possible to gain proficiency in 20 hours.
Yet what it does is give you a whistle-stop tour of as many features as possible within the 20 hours. You will have an awareness of the majority of the core front-end features in 3ds Max and their uses, which is a vital backgrounding to have - many artists starting out will often end up learning inefficient workflows because they have focused on one particular area and there are often lots of 'grey areas' they avoid.
The DVDs do a great job at touring you through the use of most tools. As a beginner as once you get 'over the hump' of initial competence in a toolset, it allows you to start using them creatively and this is where you really embed your understanding and develop your own patterns of work.
There's few other tutorial collections that offer you quite as broad a learning as this, if you are new to 3ds Max then there's little reason for you not to pick up this collection - I'd especially recommend it if you are starting a CG course specialising in 3ds Max. For that sort of use, this collection will give you a real edge in your grounding in understanding.
Areas for improvement
 As Eric was going through a very detailed overview of the 3ds Max application, there's a danger that you might find the explanations of the multiple ways to achieve everything a little verbose. This again comes down to taste, some want to fly through quick overviews of tutorials and some might want to be taken through a more detailed guide.
Two minor things that might have helped would have been to pre-empt the work you were going to do a bit more and create a bit more of a 'end product'. As my old lecturer used to say, the best way to convey a point is to tell people what you're going to say, tell them and then tell them what you've just told them.
What I felt was sometimes missing was an element of this 'looking forward', so it might have been more engaging for Eric to have given a brief overview of the end result of each section before you began, explaining what you were going to produce and why - this would also have helped break the series down into self-standing chunks for those wanting to quickly dip in and learn about one specific topic.
On a similar vein, there was a bit of a mixed bag when it came to the style. Some videos were very much theory and the science behind the technology, whereas others were very much more 'hands on'. It might have been nice to provide a bit more of a structure and separation - for example maybe start every section with a marked theory video and have 'practicals' later on, just to set expectations.
Conclusion
This is a comprehensive set of tutorials and very much up-to-date with all the latest features in the 3ds Max package (if we exclude the very recent 2010 release).
It's also a very detailed collection and answers some of the criticisms of the shorter and lighter tutorials in Eat3d's range. So, if you are the type who likes to dive in and bang your way through things, or is happy to just be told one workflow and trust who's telling you, then this may not be the best-suited tutorial from Eat3d's - indeed you may find some of Eat3d's earlier releases are much more focused around an 'end product' and much more opinion filled where the instructors are telling you what they reckon you should use and what you shouldn't.
However, if you're the type of artist who prefers to gain a solid understanding of a toolset when you learn it and have a broad knowledge of all available workflow options and be able to make your own decisions on your preferred style, then this set of tutorials are amongst the best on the market.
Find out more on Eat3d's site.
Discuss (2 posts)
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CGenie review Autodesk 3ds Max 101
Apr 19 2009 19:35:15
We're going to be reviewing some other tutorials from Eat3d's range in the coming weeks, though these ones are shorter (only so many 20hr tutorial-marathons you can take in a month!  )
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#9 |
| Jonas |
CGenie review Autodesk 3ds Max 101
Apr 26 2009 22:21:49
I like Eat3d's DVDs!
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#10 |
Quick Post
Discuss this item on the forums. (2 posts)
Now most articles I've read on this device have been written for the masses, or just quick 'first impression' reviews. So at CGenie we thought you deserved a unique review of them written from the CG perspective. So I decided not to focus on how fun it is to 'fly around the Eiffel Tower' in Google Earth, rather on the usage of this as an integral part of your design pipeline... I didn't get far.
The product
3DConnexion are a subsidiary of the market-dominating Logitech, who design some truly excellent kit to wrap your hands around in pretty much any manner; be it keyboards, mice, joysticks, gamepads etc. The SpaceNavigator is an entry-level addition to their range of 3D navigators and keeps all the functionality of the core controller whilst stripping away the 'extras' like additional buttons and LCDs. It starts at $59 and supports hundreds of popular 3D applications. The controller has six degrees of navigation so you can push it side to side to pan, pull up or push down to zoom and tilt in any direction to rotate. This makes it a potentially brilliant tool to use as a 'left hand' addition for rotating your 3D model whilst you paint/sculpt with your other hand. So all good here!
First impressions
Ok, so dragging it out of the box everything looks nice and simple. The controller itself is surprisingly well-built with a really nice brushed gunmetal base and a really smooth motion. One USB wire comes out of the controller and one CD with drivers. This should be easy then...
But it's not.
I installed the drivers and plugged the device in. Blue lights, nice touch. Opened up Photoshop, open an image and start wiggling. Nothing. Ok, try another of their recommended apps. Nothing. Ok try restart PC. On windows boot, an error message pops up - error 1 getting device image filename and then a bunch of squares. Repeat apps, nothing. Dig through the list of recommended apps, nothing.
I then went in and looked at their example apps and configuration file, pretty buggy interface but I moreorless navigated around. Demo apps don't work either. Uninstall, reinstall. Download latest drivers and install. Check technical support, nothing of any use, check support forums and read the posts. This is about when it started dawning on me.
The problem
In their forums, please have a read yourself, I encountered post after post of users asking either 'can't get it working in Max, Maya, Blender, Cinema, Photoshop etc' or 'when's the plugin going to be updated for program x'. This was odd I thought, now think about this: when was the last time you updated any interface device to work with an application - does your mouse need a plugin to work in 3ds Max? Does your monitor not work with Maya? Maybe your keyboard hasn't been updated to work with Blender yet? I can't recall the last time I encountered this. Probably goes back to the hazy days of Windows 3.11 and even then it was not common.
For some reason, unbeknown to anyone but themselves, 3DConnexion have decided to not develop drivers as such themselves, but rather expect every single application developer to develop drivers for their device. So instead of having 3DConnexion installing the driver to interface properly with your OS, your CG program needs to add it to their workstack to update with every single release. Now I'm not sure about you, but I'd far sooner Autodesk, Maxon, Luxology etc were working on new features rather than trying to maintain third-party devices.
So this seems daft, but it gets worse.
I was going to caveat that I am using Vista and I am using the 64bit version. But then I thought no. I'm a CG artist, like you. Now this is not some mainstream mouse being released to the baying masses, this is a specialist device designed for us. Now if there's one market segment that really jumps on power upgrades and RAM releases like 64bit processing and Vista respectively, it's us. Yet, for whatever reason 3DConnexion don't seem to think 64bit plugins are that important. Have a visit yourself to their forums and see how long it's taken them to release a 64bit version. To my knowledge they still don't have a proper driver for Vista 64, indeed it appears that users have got so frustrated they're just developing drivers themselves. So the best available driver appears to have been written by a customer!?
The unexplainable
Now reading the forum, you'll get all sorts of explanations about how easy it is for every software developer or customer on the planet to utilise the supplied SDK and build their own plugins. But this is really glossing over work that I feel should have been done by the developers. Their shout is that this isn't just a mouse and has a much larger range of movements, so they can't just develop a driver for windows, and each piece of CG software needs to build in compatibility. Fair enough I thought, but what about similar devices like joysticks? So a quick google later and the first one that popped up was the Saitek X52. Now this is no 'top end' device, it's under $100, so very much as accessible as the SpaceNavigator - yet it comes with:
- X & Y Main motion
- 2-stage metal trigger, 2 primary buttons
- 4 fire buttons
- Metal pinkie switch
- 2 x 8-way hat switches
- 3D rudder twist
- 3-position rotary mode selector with LED indicators
- 3 spring-loaded toggle switches for up to 6 commands
- Progressive throttle
- 2 extra fire buttons
- Scroll wheel with built-in button
- Mouse controller with left mouse button
- Another 8 way hat switch
- 2 x rotary controls
- Slider control
- Clutch button
Now this comes with a driver that you install and it works in any game at all. Full stop. So I can't fathom why this is so complex - I don't think it's acceptable to simply blame Microsoft for not supporting a niche device, or every application on the planet for not building in support. Fine if you're some big company, but where's the path to market plan?
This is not just a one-time issue either, let's say you use 3ds Max currently. Go and look in the 3DConnexion forum and you will see post after post of people asking when the driver will be ready for 3ds Max 2010. Yes, every time you upgrade your software you will need to depend and wait on 3DConnexion releasing drivers for it. Furthermore, expect to install even more drivers for each piece of software a driver for Photoshop, a driver for Sketchup etc... that said, I'm not aware that there is a 64bit driver for the latest version of Photoshop (CS4) yet - and how long's that been out? The forums have the same repeated questions again and again - where is the general O/S driver...but no avail. So as we speak, you may well be probably the most stereotypical CG artist - with 3ds Max, Photoshop and a 64bit XP/Vista install and none of the latest versions of your software will work with this device. This to me is unacceptable for any serious artist to have his workflow interrupted with each release in this way.
Odd licensing
Another bad point is the two versions of the hardware, I'm not sure I've ever seen this before. But you can buy the Personal Edition for around $59 or pay the full whack $99 version which allows you to use it for commercial use - both are identical as far as I can tell, simply different licences - oh except with the professional edition you actually get phone, email and online support! The cheek! But think about this for a minute. Imagine you bought a mouse and it was only licensed for personal use? Or a monitor that you can only legally view 'casual' web sites on. I found this very strange and a poor show from any manufacturer, a trend that I'd firmly avoid.
Conclusion
I have to say, I'm bitterly disappointed with this device. This isn't just a rant about it not working for me, I desperately wanted to love this - but the problems underlie fundamental issues that should ring alarm bells to any CG artist. I still maintain the hardware itself is a beautiful, solid piece of engineering. It's not even about the bugginess of the software, or the dire instructions. But it's more about the bizarre architecture of the driver support, devolving all responsiblity to the hundreds of other companies, and the cynical licensing rules limiting email support/phone support to commercial users.
The device still sits on my desk, we were so excited we'd bought two actually. But the genius of the hardware designers has been defeated by the poor driver engineering and approach to its CG customers, who in my eyes deserve better.
It may work in your application, or in certain environments, but I'm not looking to improve a program, I want to improve my workflow. This means it has to offer ubiquitous and reliable support in all applications I use. I wouldn't even consider whether my Wacom Intuos was going to work in Photoshop (and it has thousands of degrees of sensitivity and buttons galore), I don't expect to have to download drivers to get a Cintiq working in each environment. Man, I can play Call of Duty with my Wacom if I really want.
I'd love to recommend this to every CG artist, but I simply can't. Until there is a complete revamp of the driver architecture and robust 64bit support, then in my eyes the CG artist is not going to be able to fully support this product. If you do go ahead and buy one, I can only advise you to check very carefully about the support for all your software - not just the blurb on the site - and read the strange 350,000 view forum topic where CG users are trying to advise on improving it.
So 3DConnexion really need to take a long hard look at their approach here, I'm willing them to read their own forums and listen to their customers.
If they do, I'll be their biggest fan - but until then they're my biggest disappointment and all we have is a pair of glowing paperweights
Discuss (24 posts)
| Sergey Romanov |
3DConnexion SpaceNavigator Review
Apr 03 2009 05:35:55
"An honest review! I bought this also after reading lots really high reviews, but has been nothing but disappointed. Lots of paperweights!"
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#126 |
| Dave - CGenie.com |
3DConnexion SpaceNavigator Review
Apr 03 2009 13:45:42
"Hi KN - I'm really glad it works for you individually on your two applications. I know, it's technically possible to fix and it can be 'figured out' (indeed I did on the other pc) if you hardfix the registry, download the RPC user drivers and install the various plugins developed by the companies. But as I was reviewing the product, not the adhoc support of customers or my own technical abilities, I didn't feel it'd be fair to include them! As every other comments here have agreed, as have the bulk of comments in 3DConnexion's own forums - this is not stuff an end-user should have to entertain. I've certainly seen it working in Maya, but again that's through MEL scripting and many maya users complain about this impacting the application load. Fully agree with the comments though as I mentioned in the review - it's a brilliant bit of hardware with game changing capabilities, but with shoddy software support, it's never going to get my vote. I really do hope they address this though!"
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#127 |
| Jessy |
3DConnexion SpaceNavigator Review
Apr 03 2009 09:17:06
"Everything that you mentioned is a great point. The support for this thing so far has been bogus, and 3Dconnexion needs to do better. However, the fact of the matter is that when it works (the only time I've seen it is in Maya 2008/2009 on OS X), it's a beautiful thing. A complete game-changer as far as control goes. So, what can we, as users do, to force 3Dconnexion to improve the situation?"
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#128 |
| Andrew |
3DConnexion SpaceNavigator Review
Apr 03 2009 10:14:11
"As a user or potential user you can force 3Dconnexion to improve by not buying their product. Despite the popular belief right now that Capitalism is evil, it actually does a lot of good. Capitalism requires innovative companies to still do the basic fundamentals of providing decent support for their product. If they do not adapt or change they fail."
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#129 |
| Jessy |
3DConnexion SpaceNavigator Review
Apr 03 2009 10:26:26
"If you don't buy it, you can't use it. The hardware is awesome - they just need to fix the software and licensing situation. And I already bought two of them in 2007!"
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#130 |
| KN |
3DConnexion SpaceNavigator Review
Apr 03 2009 10:43:29
"I've had one for several years now and can't imagine working in Max or Rhino without it. Sorry you couldn't figure out how to use a simple device, but it really does work great and as advertised."
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#131 |
| potential_cust_thinking_twice |
3DConnexion SpaceNavigator Review
Apr 03 2009 11:58:42
"So, KN, what you're saying is that the bulk of the 16+ paragraphs explaining the issue is all made up or the reviewer is just too stupid to figure it out? I've seen a few boards crying out for space nav support, so I highly doubt the above is without merit... Is there some other way to indicate to 3dconnexion that they are potentially losing big $$$ by not fully doing their due diligence with drivers/connection to 3rd party software ? (aside from not buying) Is there a place to 'petition' as it were, indicating how many folks 'would' buy but won't without proper support?"
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#132 |
| KN |
3DConnexion SpaceNavigator Review
Apr 03 2009 12:07:01
"""So, KN, what you're saying is that the bulk of the 16+ paragraphs explaining the issue is all made up or the reviewer is just too stupid to figure it out?"" Yep, a little bit. Since you logged in as a ""potential"" customer, my guess is you haven't tried it yet either. What software do YOU want it to work with?"
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#133 |
| 3dgirl |
3DConnexion SpaceNavigator Review
Apr 03 2009 14:29:48
"I bought the device and have got it working on Maya 2009 for Mac OS X, but I have to type in the MEL script everytime I launch Maya to get Maya to recognize the software. Once it's running it begins to act strange after about 5 minutes. When I try to animate a rigged character using the device it becomes hypersensitive and mangles my rotation. I adjusted the sensitivity but it does not seem to recognize. Maya then gets overloaded with input from the device and there's a lag, then crash. Plus you still have to use a mouse to access the much needed Middle Mouse Button click for Maya. Overall, I unplugged it and have found it not useful. I should of bought a better mouse. I really wanted it to work but you just can't integrate into your workflow the same as a mouse or wacom pen (which is what I use now). Maybe on the next version. They still have a lot of work to do. This device is not ready for prime time. IMO."
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#134 |
| KN |
3DConnexion SpaceNavigator Review
Apr 03 2009 15:38:45
"Well Dave, you did something wrong. I plugged it in, loaded the software and it ran fine, no tweaks required. This has been working through 3 versions of Rhino, 4 versions of Max and 2 version of Solidworks. ""But as I was reviewing the product, not the adhoc support of customers or my own technical abilities, I didn't feel it'd be fair to include them! "" But you couldn't get it to work, so I would have to question your own technical abilities that ""wouldn't be fair"". Say I'm 14 and want to test drive a car. I crash the car...does the car suck? ""it's never going to get my vote."" And we should care because...? And on your ""Odd licensing"" section. Every hear of educational software? Max is $3600, the EDU version is $99. They are the same piece of software. ""I found this very strange and a poor show from any manufacturer, a trend that I'd firmly avoid."" You must not use any software (including Photoshop) then, because all of the EDU version do this. ""Go and look in the 3DConnexion forum and you will see post after post of people asking when the driver will be ready for 3ds Max 2010."" It came out 2 friggin' days ago...seriously????? You're making a point of that? Do you think alll of the plugins for 2010 are out now? LOL I call BS on your review and would ask you to do it again (or someone else that can handle the task). This time actally get it going to USE it, then review it."
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#135 |
| Dave - CGenie.com |
3DConnexion SpaceNavigator Review
Apr 03 2009 16:26:17
"KN - as I've said you can see from every other comment so far that this is not an isolated incident. As I've also said, I did get it working - but to extend the car analogy, if I'm given a car to test drive and it breaks down repeatedly, plus thousands of its customers are complaining about it breaking down - then because one individual doesn't agree I should change the review??? Re Max 2010 - when did Photoshop CS4 come out then? I've used it thoroughly (as I said again, I got it working on other PCs) and as I've repeated now till I'm blue in the face, I think it's a great bit of kit with massive abilities, when it works - but nobody in their right mind with an ounce of software driver knowledge would claim this to be a production ready driver. Anyway, glad to see your passion - was hoping the comments wouldn't all be one sided! You don't happen to work for 3DConnexion though?  "
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#136 |
| KN |
3DConnexion SpaceNavigator Review
Apr 03 2009 17:04:47
"""from every other comment so far"" Wow...5 of them. You're right Dave. You write reviews that don't make sense but ALL OF THE OTHER people agree, so I must be wrong. Let's take your points one at a time, shall we: ""As I've also said, I did get it working "" Not one place in your review did you say that. In fact ""This isn't just a rant about it not working for me"" states the opposite. - ""...but to extend the car analogy,"" You never got behind the wheel, Dave. - ""...then because one individual doesn't agree I should change the review???"" No Dave, you should actually use the product, then review it. Not guess what it may be like, or surf the net for complaints. Hell I can review anything in the world by others opinions, but that's not much of a review. is it. - ""Re Max 2010 - when did Photoshop CS4 come out then"" Seriously, you're flawing the product for not having a driver immediately available? Dumb. - ""but nobody in their right mind with an ounce of software driver knowledge would claim this to be a production ready driver. "" Yet we have been using it in production for years now, so it must be production ready. In your infinite wisdom, how can you explain that one? - ""It might be fit for niches and certain people with certain software "" Certain little niche packages like AutoCad, Rhino, 3DsMax, Photoshop and Solidworks...I mean really, who uses those little pieces of niche software? - ""You don't happen to work for 3DConnexion though? ;o)"" No. You don't actually write reviews, do you? And please, I would like a response to my comments on the ""Odd Licensing"" section of the ""review"". You seriously have never heard of that before?"
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#137 |
| Dave - CGenie.com |
3DConnexion SpaceNavigator Review
Apr 03 2009 18:07:12
"Hi KN, Happy for you to express your passions, but please keep it civil! I have suspicions, but I'll take your word that you have no vested interest in 3DConnexion. Either way I'd recommend a visit to the 3DConnexion forums - there's many areas I've linked to that support my information - RBC9's driver wasn't created by him for the sake of it, nor have over 350,000 people viewed the post for the fun of it. I can't see why you don't consider this to be a problem, simply because it's worked for you? Yes, I do consider that having to wait for drivers is a flaw - Photoshop CS4 came out 6 months ago, I can't believe anyone in a serious production environment will consider it acceptable to wait for drivers for an input device this long. Maybe I have higher standards or demands (have a systems background, so accept I may be overly demanding of standards!), but I can accept your opinion if you're happy to wait six months for drivers with every release of Photoshop... just seems below-par to me. Yet we have been using it in production for years now, so it must be production ready. In your infinite wisdom, how can you explain that one? You've misunderstood the terminology, production ready is to do with the manufacturer's production cycle, nothing to do with yours. If I was producing this device and in beta-testing there were this many issues, that would demand further development or a reanalysis of the software architecture. Certain little niche packages like AutoCad, Rhino, 3DsMax, Photoshop and Solidworks...I mean really, who uses those little pieces of niche software? Well as I've just described it doesn't work for this - unless I'm assuming you're using the old versions of these applications? But anyway - to the best of 3DConnexion's knowledge (taken from their forums), not a single one of the latest versions of these software is fully supported yet. A very quick scan of their forums: Autocad www.3dconnexion.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2819 www.3dconnexion.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2816 Photoshop www.3dconnexion.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2593 3ds Max www.3dconnexion.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2799 Solidworks www.3dconnexion.com/forum/viewtopic.php?...highlight=solidworks And please, I would like a response to my comments on the ""Odd Licensing"" section of the ""review"". You seriously have never heard of that before? As I mentioned - it's been part of software licensing for many years, I just don't happen to like it in hardware. Nor do I like popups appearing asking me if I want to upgrade after 30 days... but again that's maybe my personal taste, if you like it, then great! Anyway, let's leave it at that - I think it's great for you that it works and that you don't mind waiting for drivers for all your software etc, but I also am conscious that there's a broad swathe of customers for whom it's buggy or doesn't work at all. What I may do is follow this up with a chat with one of the lead developers there and get their side of the story - to their credit they too are acutely aware of their customer issues and the continued demands for better driver support, so it'd be good to hear what's holding them back. Sound like a plan?"
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#138 |
| GeD |
3DConnexion SpaceNavigator Review
Apr 04 2009 14:56:45
"Hello, It was my dream and it was decided after reading that article just published on the space navigator, I order ... So thank you saved me so much disillusionment! One question still: What is true for this model is true for the rest of the range? GeD"
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#139 |
|
3DConnexion SpaceNavigator Review
Apr 04 2009 16:00:32
"Hi GeD, Glad it's helped you - I can't speak for the rest of the range, we may review them later. I would, however, highly recommend checking their forums very closely for user feedback and base your decision on that - don't know if any other CGenie visitors can clarify this?"
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#140 |
| wtf.nl |
3DConnexion SpaceNavigator Review
Apr 06 2009 02:50:31
"The space navigator rules i couldn't work as fast if i didn't have it and my clients love it ..cause they can fly around the screen without me doing it for them, i have used it for 2 years now and use it for Sketchup, Max, Maya, PS and no problems. so i find this review misleading, as for 3rd parties making the software, i have no problem, personally i would rather that companies didn't release a new program for 3 years and make the experience better for what we already bought."
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#141 |
| ptasznick |
3DConnexion SpaceNavigator Review
Apr 06 2009 07:44:56
"I've bought one for myself and one for my girlfriend after seeing one my friend's got. It is fantastic from my perspective. I use Sketchup (A lot!) and 3dsmax. I have never got any problems with these 'drivers'. After installing newest drivers it works like a charm. There is suppert for photoshop and autocad but device prved to be useless with that. It works in cad by pan and scroll in CAD is so fast that it is simply slower using SN. Photoshop lacks smoothness because it doesn't take advantage of hardware GPU. Everybody who used photoshop know the manner that photoshop loads and refreshes bigger files - with the use of tiles. Its not the fastest method - so it won;t be usefull with SN. SN needs smoothness as you have to have visual feedback on the screen to back up you hand movement. Without smooth animation It is hard to catch the connection between your hand and the view change. It comes with practice. It's other way around when it comes to sketchup. You can slip through a keyhole effortless and perfectly smooth on a house scene. You don;t have to make sections to modell the interior as you can simply get in there. Little detial is not a problem. Same with MAX. Your familiar with MAX taking some wierd pivot points not locked to a certain object you are holding with your mouse and orbiting mailes away from the scene? And mouse wheel zoom which sometimes loose a scale of the scene and jump long distances (relative to scene) with a single mousewheel click. This is no more. 3D connexion integrates a plugin to max which changes a perspective view to 3dxperspective view when swiveling. I know that this is a go around and this should be solved with a driver. But this device is pretty much first inexpensive one and I belive that there is no industry standard to which software developers develop their applications. Author doesn't know that - that a mouse driver or joystick driver or gamepad driver is pretty much embedded in the system - but there is no for 3d manipulator. Propably SN could be recognized as a 6 axis manipluator wth two button (as a joystick) but still software developer would have to integrate a way of handling this special joystick in THEIR PROGRAMS. AFAIK there is no such supprt for multi axis manipulator in any of the supperted programs. So 3d connexion's way is the best at current situations. Getting back to max for a moment. Thare is a problem with MAX camera support and VrayCamera support which bugs me a bit. I figured out w way to cope with MAX camera, but still I'm bound in manually moving vray cameras - that is a problem to be solved. I'm giving it a 95% mark. Taking 5 points for not solved vray and max camera support and still not perfect smoothness (it's super smooth in most cases, but in bigger scenes when slowing down the movement to minimum (minimum hand input) it can get little jagged movement when working with details. Of course you can take responsivness down for a while a solve this issue but I don;t like switching back and forth between the driver and changing responsivness. Hope this is helped. Sorry for language - i'm Polish."
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#142 |
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3DConnexion SpaceNavigator Review
Apr 06 2009 11:54:02
"ptsasnick - Great comments, and your English is excellent! Absolutely aware of the implementation of mouse/keyboard/joystick driver implementations in the various O/S' - it's really the method that has been taken to 'break' this industry standard model is frustrating. Think of your Wacom, it degrades nicely to a mouse without any drivers, as does your multi-buttoned mouse (hence you can just plug it in and away you go). With extra drivers you can 'plug in' functionality. It's interesting the split in reviews - well worth a google. Most technical sites mention this being a flaw, eg from extremetech.com: Part of the problem lies in how 3Dconnexion approaches input devices. Most of the company's devices have historically had solid support in OpenGL applications, but in any case, custom programming is needed to implement the device. That's certainly viable for a $300 device that's bought to increase productivity, but may be less viable in a more consumer-oriented space. What really needs to happen in order for the SpaceNavigator to garner widespread support is for the company to develop drivers for APIs such as DirectX. This will become much more interesting when Windows Vista launches, since the Microsoft's 3D API will be integrated into the operating system. Once you have drivers for DirectX, then developers can easily integrate the device into a wide array of applications. Whereas the art-based sites are more forgiving (probably because the device is so damn useful when it actually works!). I think this 'forgiving' nature you've demonstrated yourself, in your first paragraph you state: I have never got any problems with these 'drivers'. After installing newest drivers it works like a charm. But the following lines would appear to contradict that: - There is suppert for photoshop and autocad but device prved to be useless with that. I'd recommend a look at RBC9's driver (a customer that just developed his own driver for the device) - demonstrates that it's very much possible for an application-independent driver to be developed for this. Even if your app doesn't support SN with this you can 'map' commands to the device, I'd love to see 3DConnexion go down this route (it's certainly the way every other Logitech device seems to work - ie think of multi buttoned mice/keyboards etc) Anyway, there's been some really good discussion round this - am planning to get 3DConnexion's input (pardon the terrible pun!)"
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#143 |
| giza |
3DConnexion SpaceNavigator Review
Apr 07 2009 04:27:12
"cmon people it is a great tool and help for everyday 3d work it saves a lot of time and lots of software crashes, i am satisfied with it!"
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#144 |
| morgo |
3DConnexion SpaceNavigator Review
Apr 07 2009 08:35:49
"I got the FULL 3dConnexion HandTablet and it worked fine for me after drivers and plugin installation for both max8 & max9. Navigation, rotation and flow was good for me the only thing i miss is that the 3dconexionMouse doesnt respect the AdaptiveDegradation configuration on max viewports wich makes this hardware unusefull for me on highpoly count scenes. Now its on a self inside a closet.  "
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#145 |
| mae jensen |
3DConnexion SpaceNavigator Review
Apr 07 2009 17:55:51
"i used it for a bit, worked ok in a few programs, buggy or didnt in others. but never really found it faster that just using hotkeys especially as i had to jump back and forth between keyboard and it. so im another one with it in a cupboard... "
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#146 |
| bitSeq |
3DConnexion SpaceNavigator Review
Apr 08 2009 10:14:14
That's a shame as I was really looking forward to buying this and having my workflow reach new productivity levels! But if I have to poke around for drivers and scripts in forums etc... the forget it! Someone will release one that works better I am sure... Logic?!
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#147 |
| John Carling |
3DConnexion SpaceNavigator Review
Apr 16 2009 19:48:15
"Good review but I have to say it (mostly) worked for me straight out of the box. It is often a bit of a paperweight and I don't use it as much as I thought I would *but* when I do use it, it is extremely useful. Having said that I've looked twice for the max 2010 drivers this week (only been out a couple of weeks at the time of writing) so I must be missing the tool more than I know - bit when you have to use a mouse without a wheel - nothing works. And when does anyone ever consciously use the wheel? I do wonder about the flimsy join between the mouse thing and the wire, but it has been fine so far. My vista U 64 doesn?t want to let it run at startup either. I?ve not bothered to investigate this even after what feels like some years so that can?t be too much of an issue. Summary: Well worth what it cost."
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#148 |
| Stimpak |
3DConnexion SpaceNavigator Review
Dec 09 2009 02:11:36
Hmm... I plugged my Space Navigator into XP 32-bit, Windows 7 32-bit and Windows 7 64-bit and it worked immediately after installing the drivers in each case. Never a single iota of trouble whatsoever. I'd give up 3D modeling entirely if I couldn't use my Space Navigator. Yeah, it's THAT awesome.
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#549 |
Quick Post
Discuss this item on the forums. (24 posts) |
 Eat3d are a relatively new company that offers training videos on a range of CG topics. In this DVD, Riki Babington shares his workflow in texturing a scene in Photoshop and importing into Unreal Editor 3. We took at walk through the training to see what we thought.
Initial impressions
The training comes as almost five hours of video training in Adobe Flash Player and has a nice friendly interface with all the options and controls you'd expect. It additionally comes with all the 3ds Max, Photoshop and Unreal files used in the training which allows you to investigate in more detail the finished product, as well as follow the training as Riki chats through it. An additional great benefit is the library of Photoshop brushes that have been included. These, as Riki demonstrates, play a massive part in producing professional textures - so it's very useful that these have been included.
Taking the information from the website, the training covers:
- Going over the Photoshop UI, Masks, Layer Blends, and Adjustment Layers
- Briefly Describing the Wacom Tablet and Common Brush Settings
- Going through the Custom Brushes (Over 80 Brushes Provided with the DVD)
- Demonstrating How to Quickly and Effectively Create Tileable Textures
- Demonstrating the Importance of "Leveling" Your Textures for a Lit Environment
- Explaining the Importance of Setting Correct Smoothing Groups when Generating Normal Maps
- Previewing your Combined Textures inside Unreal Editor 3
- Combining the Rendered Textures for a Quick Base for Previewing
- Creating 7 different Spec Maps, Diffuse Maps, and Normal Maps
He uses a mix of 3ds Max 2009, Photoshop and Unreal Editor 3 - though the bulk of the learning comes from Photoshop and it's very much focused around texturing rather than setting up these models/scenes in 3ds Max/Unreal 3.
Impossible tasks
One of the problems I've often found with training DVDs is that they struggle to balance sharing the technical expertise they have (or at least should do!) and conveying this in a simple manner. One option is to fly along at a good pace and lose half your audience, the other is to take your time and probably bore most of them. Riki deserves a lot of credit for managing this and juggles the process, the reasoning behind what he's doing and the various shortcuts and tips very well. He's packed the video with plenty of good advice and makes a point of visually demonstrating the differences - for example flicking back and forth between before adjusting levels in Photoshop and after. This reinforces the point and helps to embed the learning much better.
I felt at all times he was keeping a good pace on the lesson, whilst retaining the 'true' process - that is all the little period of tweaking and testing that goes on in real production environments.
What can you learn
Riki clearly has a wealth of knowledge and really focuses on demonstrating the texturing process in Photoshop. In terms of the level of knowledge required, whilst we're very comfortable producing textures ourselves in Photoshop, I didn't feel the tutorial was inaccessible in any way. He goes through the whole of his Photoshop process in detail, down to his preference for workspace layout in Photoshop, as well as the type of graphics tablet he's using. He goes through all the very basic usage of a pressure-sensitive tablet in Photoshop and how to manipulate the various brush settings. So I'm confident this'd be a really nice introduction to game texturing for a beginner - he's also careful to avoid one of my pet hates in online training; where they start using shortcut keys and don't tell you what they're pressing! In most cases in fact, Riki took time to show the UI commands for the functions and just mentioned the shortcut alternative as required. His Photoshop techniques are very robust and he observes a rigidly non-destructive workflow which many other tutorials miss (another pet gripe!), so I'd not hesitate to recommend him as a good benchmark for beginners learning optimal working patterns for the first time.
At the other end of the scale I think the training contains a lot of insight and workflow styling that should be useful to even advanced users. Particularly with a monster of a program like Photoshop, there's always at least a dozen ways of achieving the same result and much of the professional learning process is about 'fine tuning' your workflow to be as time efficient as possible. He shares a lot of perspectives on techniques and styles that are more preferences based on experience, rather than particularly 'how tos', so for the more advanced user it'll maintain your interest in hearing from an industry professional on how they work and the reasons/experiences behind these.
Downsides?
I have to say I was highly impressed by the video. I'd certainly consider their quality to be industry-leading on this basis. Technically, I think Riki demonstrates his undoubted ability in Photoshop. There were a couple of little 'optimal' routes I'd have taken - for example, a few times he goes through the process of selecting the visible layer, copying it, pasting to a new layer and then deleting the underlying layer. I would personally just select and crop to achieve the same result (that being the removal of the extraneous non-visible image data). Also there are a couple of tricks when blending layers (eg using alt + click the bars to create a soft blend), but these are very much just tweaks in the process as I mentioned earlier and very minor niggles.
I'm also conscious that the video was taking a little 'creative license' with the scene he's creating. In most production flows you'd probably be a bit more focused on creating reusable assets and tiling textures, rather than very specific, unique resources - especially for a fairly unimportant-seeming object like this. I think this is forgiveable as it permits the training to cover a much wider breadth of topics that would otherwise be possible and also draws the focus onto the texturing and the creative side of designing texturing, rather than all the limitations and restrictions of a game company environment.
Conclusions
Well clearly if you're involved in next-gen games, then you're barking mad if you don't buy it. I'd strongly recommend to everyone from beginners to pro in this part of the CG community - even if your speciality is modelling/animation/etc it's really an essential purchase to expand and reinforce your skillset. But I'd actually widen the area of interest more broadly. The topics covered like blending textures, painting seams and building multi-layered maps are industry-generic and should be of value to anyone involved in 3D texturing.
We've no hesitation in giving this training a big thumbs up and suggest you put it on your wishlist immediately.
We'll be reviewing other tutorials from Eat3d in the coming weeks, Riki's set a high watermark with this - we'll look forward to seeing if they can keep it up!
Find out more at Eat3d.com
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Reviews
Voxels (volumetric pixels) are nothing new to the industry. We've had opportunity to render and sculpt them in the past (using pricey apparatus) even with haptic feedback. Enter '3D-Coat', a small piece of software with huge amounts of potential. This application has very humble beginnings but the scope is impressive and the price is hard to ignore.
