Advice Please...

[epsilonion]

Hi y'all,

I have been learning blender, been an Hexagon 2 user and before that 3DS Max, I decided to learn blender.

Well as things go at the moment I was wanting to know what is the easiest software to learn how to do character creation, animation etc, I don't mind importing creations into another program for animation and rigging etc.

I have tried using 3D coat before but can not seem to get on with it, modeling from a clay ball is not my sort of thing even tho I have seen so many greate creations with it, I lack vision when using that sort of program where as a CAD program I find it really easy to envision what I want to create, I am just wondering if there is an "easy" option like easy to learn..

what are your thought on this?

[SolarPortal]

"mixamo fuse" is a new and easy to use character creation toolset. I haven't played with it personally, but i would like to

As for easy character creation from modelling packages, well this is a challenge. You could always download a base mesh and work on that to create a better character. From my experience, when it comes to modelling characters, it is the same difficulties faced across all packages. You have to have good topology for rigging, low poly in places that don't need it and higher polys where things do need it, like a face, etc...

Animation is another topic that is difficult if you decide to make them from scratch. Most tools have the same level of complexity. Your best bet is probably to get some BVH files and retarget them to your rigged character.
Mixamo is expensive, but it has a large database of animations.

Once you know your way around blender and learnt all the key modifiers( which are a lot to learn in themselves lol ), rigging and animating is quite straight forward. Like antON pointed out one time, setup the IK correctly for easy animation usage.

3dsmax has a great Biped rig, which is already designed to make bipedal humans and creatures very easily. All the rotations for bones are already locked to help animate easier, but when setting an IK rig up from scratch, it becomes much more difficult.

Grab yourself a few blueprint images for animation sequences and practice making them.
From my perspective, there is no easy way to create new characters with new animations easily, it is a big task.

[epsilonion]

I think I will leave this for now then and carry on with what I am doing.. lol

WOuld like to learn it at some point tho, can never learn enough and it keeps your brain active..

[StarFire]

If I had enough funds the mixamo route would be my fav. Use fuse and have a full years account access to all animations. This way there would be fast character design, fast riggin and easy animation export. ( looking for a rich benefactor lol )

We have got access to a middleware called smart body which looks like we could make our own animation retargeting and rigging system but it would take a lot of work and time that is not available at the mo.

Sadly character design and animating is a slow skilled process with a few learning curves. This is why I leave any animation stuff to SP and only do environment and no animated models.