PRODUCTION SOFTWARES Guide

softwares are not that scary and difficult but I remembered the confusion when you don't know where what's going on in the industry and when every second word is new to you let's talk about production software's and decide which one you should learn the same as with everything else you have to choose the ones that you're most comfortable to work with you also need to know what you're going to do and what are your goals in the industry this is really important to make life easier let's categorize the production software's that are used in big production pipelines every production pipeline consists of several software's it can't be just one and you will understand why in a moment I will only consider software's that are used in graphics production and are the most used and popular there are other 3d programs out there but they're mostly for engineering product design and things like that as this channel is mostly about VFX I will only consider the most related software's so every 3d artists have his main software of choice now we'll start with my favorite cinema 4d cinema 4d in my opinion is the most user-friendly software out there it's very intuitive and therefore the easiest to learn it's most appealing to motion designers and the reason for that is it's more graph system and what you can do with it it is also very capable in VFX you can sculpt to rig your characters but I would say systems for that in cinema 4d are not the best ones cinema 4d is what I use for everything but this is mostly due to the fact that I'm doing a lot of hard surface modeling and rigging when it comes to VFX and a lot of product commercials if I would do character design and rigging cinema 4d wouldn't be my first choice and that's where Maya would be a better option cinema 4d is also quite expensive they do offer different versions but I think the studio one is the only one worth having and its price is 2,800 pounds excluding taxes all the prices in this video will be excluding taxes by the way they do offer 42 days trial and the student licenses but I still don't get why Max and won't introduce a subscription-based license but what do I know the second main software in my list is Maya in my how to learn VFX video I described Maya as Maya oh my and I mean it it's quite complex tool to learn but it's by far the most powerful one Maya can do anything it's very flexible and easily extendable to your needs thousands of plugins scripts and other customized things available for it for those of you who in common said that some other software's can replace Maya and big production pipelines I will explain why they can't Maya is and will be an industry standard for a while just because it's oriented to a huge production pipelines how exactly simple example let's say you created a character your rigging artist rig dead and your animator made a sequence with it and then suddenly your director says that he wants to amend the model what would you do redo all the steps now because my allows you to build your workflow that way that your initial model initial source file serves as an instance on further production steps and if you need to amend anything in your model you only amend the initial source file an instances in rigging and animation gets updated automatically there are a lot of examples like that in Maya tons of features in Maya are oriented toward bigger production houses and that's why you should learn Maya if you're planning to work in a big studio in future all Autodesk software's are subscription-based and prices are starting from 216 pounds a month they also have standard 30-day trial or three years student license which is great Autodesk have a few other big softwares and one of them is 3ds max it is one of most popular software's for architecture exterior interior hard surface modeling and some game development I started with 3ds max but I personally think its interface and it's code is so outdated that's pretty much all I can say about 3ds max pricing for it is the same as for mine another wearing popular 3d software is blender and it's very appealing to many because it's free yet very capable software that can produce imagery on the same level s2 previously mentioned ones I won't lie I haven't worked in blender at all but I heard game developers love it so if you're into game development you might want to research the question next very important 3d software is ZBrush ZBrush is the software with the interface from another world but you will quickly get used to it if you want to do character design ZBrush is by far the best software when it comes to sculpting it allows you to model sculpt optimize bake and export your models for further production all highly detailed models has to be sculpted first usually in ZBrush if you're seriously into character design this will be your main weapon the price for this tool is 900 pounds and they have educational licenses available too apart from main 3d software there are other choices to make on top of this this is something you will get deeper into after a while of using your software of choice render engines plugins scripts there are a few important secondary softwares though tools for texturing painting simulations and things like that Houdini effects for example the reason I am putting this software as a secondary software is that it's really hard to model something in Houdini but it's unbeatable when it comes to simulations realistic effects particles liquid smokes volumes destructions all that stuff for example you would model a house in cinema 4d or my and then dramatically destroy it in Houdini Houdini is fully Note by software in the most hardcore meaning of that word it's pretty tough to learn this is undoubtedly the industry standard for these kind of effects nowadays it's used almost in every Hollywood movie and this is the reason why it cost so much prices go all the way up to whooping 7,000 pounds for a commercial license but Houdini offers a free apprentice license and this is really cool because these guys are encouraging people to learn how Deen I love that next two very important secondary software's you have to consider to learn our substance painter and substance designer substance designer substance painter obtained the love of thousands of artists in the recent years and I'm one of them previously I was using a software called Mari for that kind of stuff but a logarithmic changed everything in a nutshell substance designer allows you to create truly procedural high-res tileable materials and then export them as a set of textures and substance painter allows you to paint these materials on your models I think these two softwares are so amazing that they deserve a special dedicated video about how awesome they are if you want to step up your texture game you should definitely consider having these in your arsenal a logarithmic off for different type of licenses with pricing starting from as little as twenty pounds a month and they have one year learning license available as well further down the line creating 3d scene is not enough to achieve truly for the realistic results you need to compose your scene and post produce it properly combined outputs from main 3d software and Houdini for instance compositing softwares are also used to combine live shots with CG elements so technically VFX is not possible without compositing software there are three most popular ones After Effects is the most used software among you guys and in general at related with VFX and stuff because of its name I guess but it's not exactly the case After Effects is a layer based composer that allows you to create really cool things and this is very good for motion graphics UI design 2d animations and you can compose relatively simple scenes in it but it's really challenging to compose something decent in it because you will get lost in layers and free comps it is also not a 3d composer it's so-called 2.5 D software which automatically makes it not friendly to VFX all Adobe software's are subscription-based so if you're interested look up the prices it's really affordable I'm not saying After Effects is not used in big production it is in fact used a lot but not for actual compositing there are no tools comparable to After Effects when it comes to UI animations Holograms and assets like that nuke is the industry standard in compositing it is a very powerful node based compositing software used in all production houses it's fully 3d so you can create amazing things in it it will allow you to work with green screens on the highest level integrate CG elements paint out unwanted items from your shots and basically create Hollywood level imagery if you know how to use it properly the reason node based workflow is so important in big production is that it allows you to come back to any stage of production and make necessary amends with almost no effort in a layer by software like After Effects it would be really challenging nodes are also designed to handle much more complex scenes as nuclear's industry-standard it's quite pricey starting with 3400 and finishing with seven thousand six hundred pounds per license but they offer educational licenses - which is good and that's when black magics fusion comes into consideration Fusion is my choice it might not be as advanced as nuke and some little questions but differences are insignificant and Fusion is free if you want some advanced functionality like using ofx plugins or using network rendering then you can pay 300 pounds for studio version and that's it you're equipped with a really powerful node based compositing software my tutorials are featuring fusion quite often if you're into video production you need that video editing software to edit your VFX shots into a nice timeline add music color great and exported as an actual video file when it comes to color grading there is nothing comparable to black magics DaVinci Resolve I would call it a semi node based software apart from color grading you can edit sound design they now offer a fusion integrated into DaVinci so you can do some compositing in it as well and all that in one software DaVinci is used in the biggest color grading houses and initially it was purely grading software it handles colors unlike anything else the best part about the winch is that the pricing is the same as for fusion it's free or 300 pounds for studio version if you're a Mac user you're probably already using Final Cut Pro the reason Final Cut Pro and Mac's are so connected is that Final Cut is highly optimized for Mac machines it's blazing fast and stable it usually comes with your Mac or you can buy it for 50 pounds I'm editing most of my videos in Adobe Premiere Premiere is very flexible and customizable something that da Vinci is missing I can customize the layout as I want and optimize it for any project and it's also super fast for editing I can do most color grading tasks in it and it has direct link with After Effects and audition the pricing is same subscription basis for all others Adobe software so I use da Vinci for color grading commercials when it's needed and Adobe Premiere for everything else to summarize this is what I would call the base that you need to clarify for yourself who are you water you doing where are you going in the industry do you want to be a freelancer or do you want to work in a big studio these are the questions you should be asking yourself instead of trying to find out which software is better think strategically if I would want to work in a big studio I would learn Maya and nuke with no hesitation if I would want to be a solo artist and do a freelance or contract to work I would choose something else I personally use cinema 4d as my main software I use substance painter substance designer Houdini effects and I use fusion as my compositing software I use DaVinci for color grading and Adobe Premiere for all my video editing apart from these main tools you will need Photoshop of course apart from Photoshop there are tools that are dedicated to particular tasks for example tracking can be done in most of 3d softwares and compositing software's but there are dedicated softwares that are better that cynthaiz PF track bozo there are all better than integrated tracking systems and depending on the task you will find out which tools are available to use rotas copy for instance can be done in variety of ways you can manually mask it out in your compositing software after effects have a rotor brush which does a brilliant job and simple tasks silhouette effects or mocha would be my choice if it comes to serious rotoscopy you will have to choose your additional tools as you go and it will be influenced by a lot of factors almost all existing software's are developed to a highest level I know it sounds almost the same way I talked about render engines but it's true I love the time we live in because we're left with creative choices rather than technical all of the software's I mentioned in this video are capable of producing Hollywood level imagery and all of them are in fact used in Hollywood but it depends on that pipeline depends on a task depends on the goal depends on every individuals preferences I hope this video will make your choice easier because I received some really funny questions now you know the categories of software's and you can build a strategy of what and why you will learn thumbs up if that was helpful share this video if you know anyone who might need it subscribe if CG and VFX is something you are into and thanks for watching guys peace [Music]

Channel: Andrey Lebrov

Views: 292,911

Keywords: lebrov, cg, vfx, tutorial, how to, learning, filmmaking, step up, master, production, software, 3D, guide, Cinema 4d, c4d, Maya, 3Ds Max, Blender, Houdini, Fusion, Nuke, Davinci, Davinci Resolve, After Effects, Premiere, Color Grading, Editing, Compositing

Id: S3J-aYpGay4

Length: 16min 7sec (967 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 03 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/swaphell]

Why isn't there any love for Modo? I hear a lot of great things about it!

[u/paxsonsa]

Houdini is the bomb. Love the APIs. Been using it for years now.