Back in June 2012 I blogged about Blender version 2.64 having Second Life related options. I also mentioned that there were opportunities for the Second Life and 3D creation communities to cross promote their wares :
I’ve often wondered why Adobe aren’t advertising on the Second Life forums, after all Photoshop is a popular tool for Second Life creators. Then there’s Autodesk Maya which can be used to make Mesh.
Blender and Gimp are open source tools that can be used for Second Life content creation, how about some adverts for them in the forum in exchange for links to Second Life from their sites, or Linden Lab talk to the guys at Blender Cookie about linking to some of their training materials, some of their content is free to use and some require a subscription fee. Linden Lab could even enquire if they could sell training subscriptions on behalf of Blender Cookie and bundle it with a new premium plus membership package for Second Life, which would be aimed at content creators.
I returned to this area in March 2014 when I blogged about missed opportunities for cross promotion between Second Life and Adobe :
However with Adobe charging a monthly fee, and with Linden Lab charging a monthly fee and taking into account that Adobe have products that are very suitable for Second Life content creation, I feel there’s a massive cross promotion opportunity here. A new premium membership plan could be introduced that includes a subscription to Adobe Photoshop CC and Lightroom 5, obviously this would be more expensive than the current Second Life Premium plan but with sensible negotiation between Linden Lab and Adobe, it would work out roughly the same or cheaper, than subscribing to both, on the Second Life end you’d lose some of the current premium perks to compensate for this.
Whereas this still hasn’t happened, we are seeing a step in the right direction with Linden Lab’s blog informing us of an offer; 50% Off Marvelous Designer Online Training from CG Elves – Limited Time!
The blog post informs us :
Marvelous Designer is an advanced tool for creating 3D mesh clothes, and for a limited time, Second Life creators can save 50% on an online training course from CG Elves that will teach you how to use this software.
Links like this make perfect sense. However, as Inara Pey points out, this might not be seen as an ideal fit for the Second Life community :
As noted, this is something of a curious offer for the Lab to roll out, and I’m not overly convinced at to how well it might be received or taken up. Is this also some vague pointer that Marvellous Designer is a tool set that will be supported by “Project Sansar”? Your guess is as good as mine.
Inara’s post also points out the thorny issue of costs. Marvelous Designer isn’t exactly in the bargain basement, although if you’re serious about 3D Design, it’s certainly not in the upper reaches of the price range for content creations tools :
- Monthly Subscription – $59.00 a month.
- Yearly Subscription – $360.00 a year.
- One Time Fee – $550.00
Those options of course offer choices. However Marvelous Designer does come with some examples of being used by big names :
Marvelous Designer’s innovative pattern-based approach has already been adopted by top game studios such as EA Konami and can be seen on the big-screen in animation films including The Hobbit and The Adventures of Tin Tin, created by Weta Digital.
As for the training course, that should cost $399.00 bu the 50% discount Linden Lab are blogging about will reduce that cost, well, by 50%! Please note that this is a limited time offer, it’s only valid until December 30th 2015, yes that’s in a few weeks.
The training comes with some good references :
CG Elves has the most extensive tutorials on Marvelous Designer that I`ve ever seen! The quality of the courses are amazing. I definitely recommend this for anyone trying to learn Marvelous and the art of Cloth making, specially if you’re in the game industry like myself.
– Glauco Longhi, Character Artist @ Naughty Dog
www.glaucolonghi.com
I am not at all familiar with Marvelous Designer, although there is 15 day free trial available for those who want to give it a whirl. However before parting with your hard earned cash you may want to ask fellow Second Life content creators whether any of them have used this product and whether it’s suitable for a platform such as Second Life. There are many differences between creating an item for a movie and making an item for a virtual world such as Second Life. Virtual Worlds such as Second Life require greater attention to efficiency, whereas film can handle more detailed and heavier weight items.
That being said, I do think that Linden Lab are heading in the right direction with offers such as this and hopefully we’ll see more of them in the future.
“Inala”? Are you attending my skool of tpyography? 😀
It’s the bloody auto correct! I have had to edit Marvelous umpteen times because it keeps trying to convince me it should be Marvellous.
I have been using marvelous designer for a few years. Very easy and fun, works great with SL. The one thing I will say is that I still import my MD item to Maya to add details and rigging. MD is great for making the pattern, it automatically makes UVs and it’s cloth physics are outstanding. Textures are fine, I prefer a much complex texture for my clothing I still use PhotoShop.
Thanks, it’s good to hear from someone who uses the software.
I fiddled with MD in the past, creating the mesh in MD and then sending across to Blender to remove the unnecessary polys and add weighting etc. Brilliant program and 100% recommend it to anyone wanting to get into making clothes. Has a bit of a learning curve but really, what doesn’t when you want professional output?
This was a few years ago now, though and newer updates are out, so maybe they have added more features beneficial to SL creators. Auto-rigging and even perhaps fitted mesh options would be brilliant as well as possibly a default SL dummy for those purposes. Another good thing to have would be retopology tools and options to remove the backfaces automatically.
Thanks for your comment. I am not familiar with the software but it’s good to hear from people who are, even with regards to older versions.