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Free 3D Animation DAZ|Studio 1.0 Released
Thyme3333 writes "DAZ Productions, Inc. has officially released DAZ|Studio 1.0, a free 3D figure posing and animation software package. DAZ has a made a commitment to keep the DAZ|Studio core application free to the public for as long as possible by relying on the revenues generated by the purchase of content available in the DAZ online store. To obtain a free copy of DAZ|Studio, users must register for a free account on the DAZ website and agree to participate in the company's aptly-named "Tell-Ware" program, which asks that each DAZ|Studio user share information about DAZ|Studio and/or the DAZ website with at least two friends." Good to see that more companies are trying to keep their software free, but perhaps the Slashdot crowd could offer advice on a better business model than spam and merchandising?
No, it is not available for Linux. Windows and Macintosh only.
and the next answer is that Blender has a pose mode.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Another thing: DAZ and Poser work pretty close from the releases in the past that I've seen. I have had problems running both under windows 64 bit, and it was one of the reasons (besides Win 64 driver problems) that I had to switch back to Win XP 32 bit. I'd like to hear from people who can install both these packages under Wine/WineX under Linux 64 or on Win64.
All but one of the renders on the company's online gallery page features gratuitous cleavage. Just thought I'd throw that out there...
Lately they've been delving into selling actual applications; they bought the Mimic software for lip synching for instance which complements Poser by providing automated .wav to pose conversion to synchronize models' lips and facial expressions to a sound clip in an automated way.
This latest offering will put them squarely in competition with Curious Labs, which I would say is a good thing. Poser is simultaneously one of the most amazing applications, and most annoying applications I've used. The program produces fantastic human figure graphics and animation, but is also incredibly buggy, slow, and memory/resource intensive. Still, it's much cheaper than the higher end competition which is priced out of the hobbyist market, so it is currently the only game in town. Having another choice in the low end would be very good, providing it's halfway useable.
Both are in the same general field, but having used both I can tell you that daz3d is light-years away from blender when it comes to good UI design and usability; also daz3d comes from an established (5+ years, iirc) content provider so there is a variety of pre-made materials and content that is ready to use with daz3d right now.
I'm not a graphics professional (and maybe blender is more useful to someone who is), but from an ameteur's point of view, there's really no comparison to be made. daz3d is easier to use, and therefore more powerful, and there is a lot of ready-to-use content out there for it (with blender3d you pretty much have to roll your own everything as far as I know).
Ok, some examples:
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Pre-viz for some of the scenes in SpiderMan 2, for example: the fight with Doc Oc.
Another: first feature film that used Blender for the 3D effects (Friday or another day ("Vendredi ou un autre jour"))
http://www.softanim.com/vendredi/index.html
Blender in use here:
http://users.skynet.be/mume//vendredi/blender.htm
http://users.skynet.be/mume//vendredi/fx1.html
Plus I personally know several people who use it professionally.
Blender (http://www.blender.org/cms/Home.2.0.html) is totally free, as in open-source, no-strings-attached free.
3D Canvas (http://www.amabilis.com/products.htm) is a fun introductory 3d software for beginners.
Sun and Fun