question about Shade

[joeschmoe]

Why is Shade popular in Japan? Is it because it was developed by Japanese or really a good 3d tool alternative? What are Shade's strengths as compared to Carrara plus Hex?

Thanks for any answers in advanced.

[Thomas]

It's not easy to answer to this question, but as far as I know:
Shade is very popular because it's available as a japanese product, and it have a lot of books available, and all kind of resources.
It have a very strong history, it's now an "old" software, and as you can imagine, a long history in the user minds.
And it is a very stable product!

Doing a comparaison between Carrara&Hex with Shade isn't easy. They way you use the software isn't th same at all. Shade is almost all spline based, far away of what splines can do! It have several render engines, included the well known Callisto (in Japan) and have a beautifull radiosity engine.
The polygonal modeling is the same as Carrara STD I think, but I prefer modeling in Hex or Amapi (well, I have a specific background for that

I'll post later some links from the japanese galeries, some stuff are amazing!

[joeschmoe]

Thanks for the answers. I would very much like to know more about Shade because I see some uniqueness in Japanese style rendering. That's why I want to know what Shade can do that Carrara or XSI or Lightwave can't in terms of rendering effects. I'm sure there must be something in Shade that the Japanese can't accomplish in using other programs.

[Wася]

Shade is ugly. It's boring. It reminds me about dark ages of mainframes and PDP. That's why I like it.

I don't know how and why, but when I watch stills made with Shade I want to breath that air. Carrara stills are very fine, but IMHO they look more artifical.

Amapi+Shade will be a good marriage.

I decided to step up to Pro version. Callisto is extremely fast as compared with path tracing (juanmanuel, you has not tell me ALL the truth!!! ). I'm curious if Shade Pro will accept NURBS from OBJs exported from Amapi.

[joeschmoe]

Originally Posted by Wася

Shade is ugly. It's boring. It reminds me about dark ages of mainframes and PDP. That's why I like it.

hehe... that's why I want to know more about it. It's ugly and boring and looks more difficult to learn. There would be little competition if it becomes my main 3d tool. Another reason why I'm curious is because I like Japanese style art. I remember a book I browsed long time ago at a bargain bookshop. It's a step by step illustration on technical illustration written by a Japanese author. It's actually written in Japanese but with English translation on the side. The book was mostly full of illustrations from sketch to finish using traditional tools such as airbrush, charcoal, colored pencils and so on. The rendering has fading effect at the edges of the finished car as an example. The transition is semi-realism to sketch. Know what I mean? You probably have seen something like that. The finished drawing in color fades around the sides. Kind of like you still see the beginning of the drawing like the pencil stroke on the sides. I wonder if you could do that in Shade without having to Photoshop it.

[Thomas]

I have some japanese book that BNN is publishing in Japan (BNN is a part of e frontier) and they are killer books!
Some of them are related to 2D and others to 3D. even the Poser books are killers. I'm not a Poser user, but I'm sure it can be a big hit to have them in english!

[joeschmoe]

I believe you Thomas. Even the galleries on Shade at e-frontier America site look excellent. They're mostly made by Japanese. I need to ask is this book good? http://www.e-frontier.com/article/ar...1/567?sbss=567

[Wася]

This book is a good quick start, and it closes some gaps in the tutorial which comes with Shade documentation. As I can see, the tutorial has changed in v9, but I can't tell is it better or not, because it is in Japanese.

By the way, Shade 8.x is both 32- and 64-bit (I'm not sure Carrara is 64-bit). Magical Sketch in Shade is a funny toy, but I don't find it to be useful - meshes are triangulated, too complex and badly shaped. And like with Carrara, you can use any modeling tool in conjunction with Shade, including Hexagon if you like to. Shade 9 introduces Hair Saloon and Particle Physics features.

You may find a lot of good (and bad also) images and discussions here:
http://66.249.93.104/translate_c?hl=...modules/newbb/

[Thomas]

I own the book myself. I learn a lot more from this book than the documentation, because it is based on good samples, especially the Radiosity part.
I also own the next version of this book for Shade 8 in japanese, and it's a really good one. Some parts are also the same, but other addition are really interesting. The only problem is that this book is all in japanese
Their is a lot of book in Japan related to Poser, see in attachement
Some books, even if they are not dedicated to Shade only, have a good parts which speak about it, like the Gundam book which is on the second photo.

I will post later for those you want, the Japanese CG book I own.

[joeschmoe]

The photos seem to reveal that the Japanese publish more books on CG than we do here in North America. It also means that they are willing to buy them. Unlike we here who want everything for free via the internet ;D We also want the latest version (book) even though we haven't really mastered the earlier one. Soon we no longer see anything publish here. EVerything will all be in PDF form. ;D

[joeschmoe]

There's even a Blender beginner's bible there. Something that you won't see in non-Japanese out there. We want everything for free and the latest. The Blender English book that is sold by developers is in downloadable pdf form. To think that there is a Blender Foundation who needs monetary contributors to keep developing the program. I'm just glad I'm not one of them leeches.;d

[Thomas]

Wася: Shade 9 won't import Amapi NURBS through OBJ, but we are looking for a more elegant solution

[Wася]

Thank you for the answer, Thomas.
I think, direct exchange with Shade format should be elegant enough.

[joeschmoe]

Originally Posted by Thomas

I will post later for those you want, the Japanese CG book I own.

I've been waiting. ;D

[Thomas]

I just have to take photos. The good news is that the editor of them is e frontier (I mean I have them for free.. )

[joeschmoe]

Can't wait to see the killer books. Hope I won't faint when I see them. ;D

[juanmanuel]

Originally Posted by Wася

I decided to step up to Pro version. Callisto is extremely fast as compared with path tracing (juanmanuel, you has not tell me ALL the truth!!! ).

Did I ever say path tracing was fast? LOL . Pahtracing approaches maxwell render's slowness, but it seems one of the highlights of the v9 release will be faster pathtracing.

Callisto's Achiles' heel is in refracting materials. Sure, you get a veeeeery nice looking glass, but everything else (including radiosity) is much faster. What I like mostly about Callisto is control.

As to why I like Shade? Well, first, curved surfaces are surprisingly flexible. I used to model in 3dsmax, and modeling curved surfaces (pun intended) was a pain. That, and the gazillion options and sub-sub-sub-sub menus and options in 3dsmax really freaked me out.

Second, instancing (called links in Shade) combined with render-time booleans. I can do tiled roof with 3d tiles that do not generate a huge performance hit. In 3dsmax I had to do a bump mapped (with ugly results) or a displaced mapped (guaranteed slowdown, and not so real-looking either). If I did "real" 3d tiles, the performance hit in the viewport display and the render time was insane. But worse of all, when the tiled roof was not rectangular, but oddly shaped (which is quite common in tiled roofs), cutting the intersection tiles by hand was too time consuming. And getting reasonable booleans as a quicker solution, was a miracle (on par with Shade's non-render-time booleans). So having fast instancing with excelent render-time booleans have made my life easier.

And third, the way everything is organized in the Shade browser. Everything has a hierarchy, and it is so easy to tell from this hierarchy what affects what, the parent-child relationship. Drag something somewhere else, and material attributes, etc etc instantly get updated... sigh... I looove this!

Four, the spartan interface. Ok, maybe it is too spartan for some. For me, it works like a charm.

I just like how it works with me. I never have finished all the tutorials that came in the manuals, but for the kind of work I do, I have not felt that I have been left out. I admit that it is not so intuitive for everybody, and that is the main reason I have made some simple tutorials to help people out.

Anyway, itwould be wonderful to have some more books on Shade translated from japanese. I am sure there is a lot to learn from them.

Originally Posted by Thomas

Wася: Shade 9 won't import Amapi NURBS through OBJ, but we are looking for a more elegant solution

Does this mean an "Amapifusion" solution? Coool!

[joeschmoe]

Good to read comments about Shade. Question is about its popularity in Japan. Obviously, as its name implies, Shade is about shading not modeling, which is why my question is about what really distinguishes it from the others when it comes to rendering. Obviously, the Japanese saw something that they can't in others.

[Wася]

joeschmoe. Of course, Shade is not as cool as Amapi or Hexagon in modeling, but it gives you modeling features. Amapi has a zillion of features, so it take a lot of time to assimilate most necessary of them. I don't even think about using them all, at least for now.
And unlike Amapi 7.x, Shade has THE feature. Of course, I mean loop selection

juanmanuel. You don't need to tell how slow path tracing is, I now it exactly. But you did not tell how fast Callisto is - you only told you like Callisto moslty because of its tweakability. You cheated
Before Shade 9 trial I'd never seen Callisto, because from the beginning I used Shade Std and not even used trial version.
I always use Fei-Fei scene for a speed comparison. This scene completeley overkills path tracing. Path tracing works about 20 times slower on this scene than ray tracing, and Callisto - only 1.5-2 times slower than ray tracing. That was a real shock.
And if you use auto smooth/interpolate, what can you tell about it? Honestly this time

[juanmanuel]

Originally Posted by Wася

joeschmoe. Of course, Shade is not as cool as Amapi or Hexagon in modeling, but it gives you modeling features.

I don't think Shade is quite comparable modeling-wise with either Hexagon or Amapi. Hexagon is primarily a SDS polygon modeler, with some other neat nurbs features on the side. Hexagon is an industrial strength precision nurbs modeler, with some neat polygon features on the side. And Shade as a modeler is a curved surface modeler, with some polygon modeling. Basically being the only curved surface modeler in the world, more similar to nurbs than polygons, but not quite the same.

I love to model with curved surfaces, so my opinion is probably a bit partial to therm


IMHO just as you can model most anything either in nurbs or polygons, so can you with curved surfaces. Of course, some things are easier to model than other in one or the other solution, but in the right hands, most anything is possible.

Although I do own Hexagon, for polygon modeling I go more to Silo. I basically use a combination of Silo-Amapi-Shade to model, and render in Shade. Bring out the best of each program.

Anyway, I'm sure there will be lots of synergy between Shade and Amapi, just as I suspect there has been between Poser and Shade. This is just a guess, but I think that the new render features in Poser are there at least partially thanks to Shade know-how.

As to why I did not say that Callisto is fast? Well, customizability makes either for an ultra-detailed-and-slow render or an insanely-fast-but-not-so-precise at the other end of the spectrum. This is quite true with Callisto, so I think of speed in a relative term linked to quality.

I'll think on my answer on the auto/smooth interpolate carefully, so I don't leave any nice surprises behind!