[Boris Ulzibat]

After re-reading the feature descriptions, it appears it can bake displacements. It also states its designed to be used in the typical pipeline for their intended market, so one would have to assume it would import and export *typical* formats. It would be nice if they listed those, though.
I also wonder if its 2.5D like ZBrush or true 3D........
On the fence, but getting closer to hitting the *Buy* button.

It is true 3d!
That's what makes me WANT it!!!!

[glypticmax]

Oh, dear, Boris.
I feel my resistance fading......

[Boris Ulzibat]

Oh, dear, Boris.
I feel my resistance fading......

My own resistance is holding merely on the fact, that there is no Mac version still...
But there is a Win machine right beside me... not so powerful, but that will make me decide to buy MudBox at last...

[glypticmax]

Actually, I'm going to wait until I get a feel for their support, and maybe access to a Forum. And it would be nice to see the vids they showed previously. Or maybe new ones.
I try to avoid being a pissed off first adopter.

[Boris Ulzibat]

Actually, I'm going to wait until I get a feel for their support, and maybe access to a Forum. And it would be nice to see the vids they showed previously. Or maybe new ones.
I try to avoid being a pissed off first adopter.

I too decided to wait.
BTW they said "If you are able to wait before buying MudBox 1.0 - you better do it, Mudbox 2.0 is under heavy development and will be available in 2007"

[glypticmax]

Actually, I'm going to wait until I get a feel for their support, and maybe access to a Forum. And it would be nice to see the vids they showed previously. Or maybe new ones.
I try to avoid being a pissed off first adopter.

I too decided to wait.
BTW they said "If you are able to wait before buying MudBox 1.0 - you better do it, Mudbox 2.0 is under heavy development and will be available in 2007"

If they suggest waiting, I wouldn't want to be one to ignore that. I also see to get free updates you have to buy their Gold Support which adds 55% to the cost. Not something that appeals to me at the moment.
OK, time to cool my jets.

[Boris Ulzibat]

If they suggest waiting, I wouldn't want to be one to ignore that. I also see to get free updates you have to buy their Gold Support which adds 55% to the cost. Not something that appeals to me at the moment.
OK, time to cool my jets.

I guess they mealt even MAJOR updates like 2.0... But i may be wrong...

[glypticmax]

I Just heard from a friend that bought in. He's not very happy at the moment. Lots of crashes and unable to import or export any files bigger than 600K.
It would be nice to hear from other owners that his experience is not typical.
And it would be nice if the vids on the Mudbox site would play. And we could register to gain access, to their Forum.
Any other experiences out there?

[Maximus3D]

The way they hint a 2.0 release so relatively soon as next year is more to stir around some in Pixologic's brewing pot of 2.5 soup if i put it that way. They toss out a couple of hints and suggestive bones about what's to come to give their biggest competitor Zbrush something to chew on call it clever marketing strategy or something but it works.

Anyways cool thing that Mudbox 1.0 is out, however Skymatter ain't helping their future customers and business that much when they keep their forum only for the selected few artists and studios, it's pretty lame managed.

I'd hold off for a few more months with spending so much money on Mudbox, not only is the price high for normal freelancers and artists but they're keeping us outta the forum and they pretty much never reply to email they recieve. So they have alot of improvement to do before Mudbox can be considered worth investing in, that's what i think.

/ Max

[Hervé]

agree with you Max

[Mihai]

I Just heard from a friend that bought in. He's not very happy at the moment. Lots of crashes and unable to import or export any files bigger than 600K.

Why would you want to import a file of 600 000 polygons into Mudbox, or Zbrush for that matter? The point of these programs is to allow you to add high detail to a mesh which is relatively low resolution, or medium. If your mesh already has 600 000 polygons....

Anyway, all this criticism is a bit unfair I think. You can always buy the student version and see if you like it, then upgrade. Just looking at the Zbrush interface, and then the Mudbox interface...mmm....I'd go with Mudbox

[glypticmax]

I model in Rhino and its not unusual for obj or stl meshed models to have 600K polys in order to maintain the smoothe NURBS surface. Subdividing a facetted meshed model doesn't yield a smoother surface when I go from Rhino>C4D, so I can't bring in low poly models for displacements.
The other issues I am having with the website (vids that won't play, import/export formats not listed) and a buyer only forum don't instill confidence. I hope they resolve these issues soon, as I am very interested in the product.
But I won't buy based on a lack of information.

[Mihai]

It would be better if you model those objects in C4D then, wouldn't it? What kinds of objects, just so I have an idea Painting displacements usually means you want an organic looking object, so it doesn't make sense to me to want to have on one hand the precision of nurbs, and on the other chaotic, organic objects.

[glypticmax]

C4D and most other poly modelers are far to imprecise for my jewelry designs.
In the end the models have to be STL meshed and water tight for rapid prototyping. And for rendering of coarse.
Displacements are used to create surface effects on selected parts of the NURBS model.

[Mihai]

But doing displacement on them, can you prototype it with those displacements? I mean that could make it so the model isn't water tight anymore. When you mesh it in Rhino, you get vertices which share the same space but are not welded together. When you make any displacements in those areas, you create holes, because one vertex goes one way, the other goes another way.

I think you are trying to do with Mudbox, or Zbrush for that matter something they were not designed to do. You export a mesh with 600K triangles, when subdividing those triangles you get strange effects, you need to work with quads for the subdividing to work properly. It's just how it works, it's not a flaw in either Mudbox or Zbrush.

One option for you might be to import your 3dm file into MoI which now has a nice export to quads feature. You could export a relatively low rez mesh with all quads and import that into Mudbox or Zbrush and paint your displacements. You still have to be careful though not to paint on vertices which are not welded together.

But still, I don't know if you can use the resulting high rez obj and convert it to STL for prototyping....