Nic H Posted July 15, 2009 Share Posted July 15, 2009 Has anyone used them or had experience with them? They seem a good alternative to the rinsed out alien like AXYZ people. thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrianKitts Posted July 15, 2009 Share Posted July 15, 2009 the still look too alien for me.... although at $3600 USD, I'm not willing to find out how bad they really are. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amer abidi Posted July 15, 2009 Share Posted July 15, 2009 Was looking into them a year ago, but found out they have a ridiculous licencing policy. And if you want to get the full license, then it's ridiculously expensive! Probably feasible for medium to large studios..but for that amount of money, id rather invest it in another workstation personally! I think the market value of their collection should be around 30%-40% of what it is priced now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattclinch Posted July 15, 2009 Share Posted July 15, 2009 not exactly diverse on ethnic groups or ages are they? it's 90% IC1 around 30 years old. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nic H Posted July 15, 2009 Author Share Posted July 15, 2009 yeh such limited choices arrghhhh. no demo model either with rocketbox. someone needs to make some decent people please.... everything available is the same as it was 3 years ago and the quality is a joke. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
STRAT Posted July 15, 2009 Share Posted July 15, 2009 they look too much like axyz. different, but same muchness. we use axyz effectivly for mid to distance shots, but you're correct, for close stuff they aren't really an option (as the rocket box stuff wont be either). and the only 'best' alternative is to shoot and comp peeps yourself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nic H Posted July 15, 2009 Author Share Posted July 15, 2009 We do a fair bit of shooting but that is also very expensive and hard to do well and requires roto / keying work plus a good lighting rig to match the 3d to work well. Would like if there were some high quality people set up to be 'dynamic' i.e hair and clothing reacts to body and hair dress rippling in wind kind of thing. then you could then point cache varioations of them and just use in scenes. Its doable but requires some expertise and long learning time prob best suited to a dedicated character animator. 3d people and teh whole issue of good people in animations drive me nuts but arent going to go away anytime soon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trick Posted July 15, 2009 Share Posted July 15, 2009 The big thing with Rocketbox is not about their "fantastic" quality. It's more about how their characters are set up. Each character has it's PSD files for clothing, shoes and head that can be edited very easily into a totally different character: try that with AXYZ !! Besides all characters come in 3 different polycounts. You should ask them for a demomodel...at least I got one !! Still...for the time they have been around they are a bit too expensive while the animations are almost unusable (if not at least too recognizable). I'm still waiting for a project that can justify such a purchase... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nic H Posted July 15, 2009 Author Share Posted July 15, 2009 Yes its the flexibility that looks the best. they also come with normal and spec maps for all characters. plus the multiple mesh resolution is good, the meshes look clean as well. I Will hit them up for a demo model. thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noise Posted July 15, 2009 Share Posted July 15, 2009 They only sell their entire collection for 2500euro and they will forward a demo model if you want. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted July 15, 2009 Share Posted July 15, 2009 I've been looking for some good 3D people and even went back to RPC's to see if they had gotten any better, they haven't. There simply isn't a single company out there that produces anything other than low poly or CG looking people and I don't understand why because the demand is there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Justin Hunt Posted July 15, 2009 Share Posted July 15, 2009 We are due to start an animation that requires walking people. In the past we have used RPC's which ended up costing a fortune due to all the re-renders to fix problems with them. We too are looking to purchase the rocketbox people. We have funding for them and factoring in the tiime waisted getting RPC's to work properly we are hoping that they will pay for themselves quickly. amer abidi "Was looking into them a year ago, but found out they have a ridiculous licencing policy. And if you want to get the full license, then it's ridiculously expensive!" What is the license policy? What are the major pro's and con's for using 3D people. jhv Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amer abidi Posted July 16, 2009 Share Posted July 16, 2009 http://www.rocketbox-libraries.com/index.php?cat=cc&sit=licensing_info Basically, unless you get option 4, which is the ridiculously expensive option, you have to pay one amount or the other everytime you use or install new content, in some cases, "up to a limit of 20 times" (??!). I just wasnt comfortable with any of their terms. But like i said, if you have the budget for option 4, then you wont have my worries. Do let us know if you do end up getting them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Justin Hunt Posted July 16, 2009 Share Posted July 16, 2009 It seems like unless you are developing real-time content your pretty much tied into option 4. What are axyz like to work with? jhv Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amer abidi Posted July 16, 2009 Share Posted July 16, 2009 Pretty good from a distance..but kinda creepy when you zoom in. I use them and Got3D models mostly. I think evermotion have strated modeling people... only a few extreme ethnicities so far..nothing you can really use without seeming conspicuous.. but if they carry on, i think they might be the first to offer some reliably detailed models.. thats until the amateur market exhausts them and starts using them in every render posssible! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Justin Hunt Posted July 16, 2009 Share Posted July 16, 2009 and setting them up for animation?, I read somewhere that they are tricky to get right. Basically they project is a shoping centre with 100's of people. You know the type of project where everytime the client see's the animation he says," More people, I want more people" jhv ps Sorry for Hi-Jacking the thread:) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amer abidi Posted July 16, 2009 Share Posted July 16, 2009 Yeah Ive done that several times with no problems at all, as long as you keep a distance and dont do any closups. TIP. Once animated, dont forget to cache the characters animation and load it from file. Keeping the actual biped and footsteps (if you use character studio) is overkill for the file and increases its size by about 15MB per character! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Justin Hunt Posted July 16, 2009 Share Posted July 16, 2009 good tip, I am sure that once we get up and running with this one I have 101 more questions. Thanks JHV Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nic H Posted July 16, 2009 Author Share Posted July 16, 2009 i emailed the nice people at rocketbox and got a nice sample model. the meshes are clean, they come in 3 res with spec, normal and a psd for the diffuse. very nice textures, very detailed and well organised layers for turning off details like buttons etc. normal maps are great for getting bump detail in shadowed areas. the models are rigged with a skin modifier, rigging is good and works well with a range of BIP files i tested. the appearance of this model looks much better than axyz (much less alien / grey face zombie hell) pricing is entirely reasonable given you get 104 characters, only downside is not arab dress. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattclinch Posted July 16, 2009 Share Posted July 16, 2009 do you have options for turning off buttons zips etc in the normal map too? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Justin Hunt Posted July 16, 2009 Share Posted July 16, 2009 The quality , amount of models and flexibility to customize does make it worth it in the long run. Considering how much we are paying for RPC's every year its 6 and two threes when it comes down to price. jhv Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nic H Posted July 16, 2009 Author Share Posted July 16, 2009 hmmm good point no, i cant work out if the normal is baked from a high res mesh or created using crazybump or somthing. my inkling is that its baked from a super high res mesh. i suppose you could always use crazybump to make a new one from the diffuse if you really needed to. tbh i still wouldnt plan on getting so close to these that you can pick out a button. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kzandra Posted July 16, 2009 Share Posted July 16, 2009 they look too much like axyz. different, but same muchness. we use axyz effectivly for mid to distance shots, but you're correct, for close stuff they aren't really an option (as the rocket box stuff wont be either). and the only 'best' alternative is to shoot and comp peeps yourself. Agree with Strat... we use axyz too, as an example I am posting an animation we recently released, (this result is impossible with rocketbox - see kids, arab customs etc..).. C&C welcome http://www.a-nimations.com/casa-di-luna Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devin Johnston Posted July 16, 2009 Share Posted July 16, 2009 I wish AXYZ would create a plugin interface to make it easier to work with their content, I've suggested it to them many times but so far nothing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kzandra Posted July 16, 2009 Share Posted July 16, 2009 Yes it requires a lot of extra job to use their libraries: mocap understanding and applying, Manipulation of texture maps so we can make them look different from one scene to another and other little tasks you can do only if you read carefully their users guide... a plugin would be very helpfull. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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