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If you want to learn about 3D, then you must have heard of Maya and Blender, both are commonly used 3D software, but which one is better? Here's an article about the difference between Maya and Blender from the best cloud rendering provider and render farm, Fox Renderfarm.What is Maya and what is Blender?Maya is a 3D computer graphics application developed by Alias Systems Corporation and currently owned by Autodesk, Inc. It runs efficiently on Windows, Mac OS, and Linux. Maya is used to create various things such as video games, animated movies, TV shows, visual effects, etc.Maya provides a comprehensive set of tools for modeling, animating, and other 3D creation tasks. Developers can edit and create 3D models in a variety of formats, and then animate those models using the animation tools provided by the Maya suite. The tools can be used to efficiently render realistic images and animated visual effects based on animated 3D scenes.Blender is an open source 3D computer graphics software toolset developed by the Blender Foundation. It is used to create animated movies, visual effects, 3D models and video games. It is available for Windows, Mac OS and Linux.The Blender Foundation is the non-profit organization that actually keeps Blender running and organizes this open source project. Blender has a wide variety of tools for almost any type of media project. With Blender you can efficiently create animated feature films, games, interactive applications, including kiosks and scientific studies.Maya is available to users in an integrated software application that is designed to increase productivity and ease of use. Its software interface is customizable; therefore, skilled developers can take their productivity to a higher level. It allows developers to extend their Maya capabilities by providing access to the (MEL) Maya embedded language. Using MEL, developers can customize the interface by writing scripts and macros.The Best Cloud Rendering for Maya of 2023Blender is a cross-platform application that runs on Linux, Mac OS and Windows systems. Its memory and hard drive requirements are minimal compared to other 3D creation tools, and Blender's interface uses OpenGL to provide a consistent experience on all supported hardware and platforms.A full set of APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) is available to accelerate the features and functionality of Maya. It also provides a Python-based API for those who want to use it.Top 9 Best And Free Blender Render Farms of 2023Blender comes with a wide range of basic tools such as modeling, rendering, animation, video editing, VFX, texturing, rigging, simulation and game creation. Blender adds complexity and jargon. There are multiple terms such as UV mapping, materials, meshes, shaders, etc. which are the artist's medium. Understanding these terms will help developers take full advantage of Blender.Maya Dynamics helps developers create compelling visual simulations. Many more dynamics tools are available. To simulate and render viscous fluids, atmospheres, fireworks, and ocean effects, use Maya Fluid Effects. For clothing and fabrics, the nCloth effect is available, and nParticles can be used for effects including liquids, clouds, smoke, spray, and dust.Author: Ashif AliThe Main Differences Between Maya and BlenderThe differences between Maya and Blender are explained in the following points.1.Maya provides customization through MEL (Maya Embedded Language); interfaces can be extended with it, and Blender embeds Python3 for writing add-ons, binding roles, and more.2.For years, Maya has been the industry standard for 3D modeling and animation, and Blender's 3D painting and sculpting tools cannot match Maya's standard.3.Maya is better suited for large studios, while Blender is ideal for smaller startups.4.Maya has received extensive support from Autodesk and users around the world, while Blender is open source software, which is heavily documented on its website, and the rest of the support is provided through community tutorials.5.Maya exposes a node graph architecture where each node has its own properties and customization, while Blender has a node-based compositor that provides comprehensive video sequencing and post-processing capabilities.6.With Maya, rendering an animation for the first time can be quite a challenge, and Blender can make the rendering process a little easier to render an animation or a series of frames.7.Maya is the industry standard for 3D animation and is used by professionals around the world, while Blender lives in the shadow of Maya and is useful for freelancers and small startup projects.8.Maya is more powerful, but this powerful function comes with a lot of complexity, and Blender can solve some of Maya's complex problems, such as the rendering engine.9.Maya is a licensed product that comes with fewer bugs, while Blender tends to be error-prone, resulting in bugs in every version.10.Maya has a moderate learning curve with a more expressive toolset, while with Blender, it can be daunting when first trying to master the subject matter.Author: Sam Laerte ConclusionThere is no doubt that Maya is the industry standard for 3D applications, and there are good reasons to support it. It is a very powerful program that allows users to model, texture, render, and run simulations and animations. Blender, on the other hand, has always lived in the shadow of Maya and is considered the underdog of the 3D industry. But that doesn't mean that Blender is a worse tool than Maya.Blender is more intuitive than Maya in some ways. The same animations, assets or renders can be created in Maya or Blender. It depends on the skill and efficiency of the developer or artist, which determines the creation of the product.Of course, Blender has many unique features that can help speed up the workflow or make tasks easier. As well, Maya offers certain components that are superior to Blender. Each has its own benefits. Before choosing Maya or Blender, project timelines and costs need to be highly considered. For now, Maya will be much more in demand than Blender for corporate job applications, so if you are changing careers, it is recommended that you choose Maya to learn first.If render farm renders are needed for Maya and Blender, then Fox Renderfarm, which offers leading cloud rendering services, is a great choice. We also offer a $25 free trial for every new user! Thanks for reading!

In this article, the best CPU & GPU cloud render farm and cloud rendering service provider, Fox Renderfarm, will tell you how to render high-quality images in blender.Top 9 Best And Free Blender Render Farms of 2024With the development of computer technology, Blender has been widely used in the field of graphic design, so that ordinary people also have the opportunity to come into contact with Computer Graphics technology referred to as "CG technology". Computer Graphic Image is also computer 3D animation technology, referred to as "CGI". Whether it is "Toy Story", "The Lion King" or "1917", the success of these world-class blockbusters can not be separated from the establishment of models in 3D software, and then to visual effects, post-production software composition, Editing, and more.Image via blendercn.orgAs a new star in 3D software, blender integrates modeling, sculpting, binding, particles, animation, etc., and is a software that supports commercial creation for free forever. So how do we use blender to output high-quality images?Blender has 2 renderers that can convert a 3D scene into a 2D image.Eevee is a physics-based real-time renderer.Cycles is a physically-based ray-tracing renderer.Use plugins to add more third-party rendering engines. Each renderer has its own rendering settings to control rendering quality and performance. And the rendering effect is determined by the camera, lighting,and materials, which also determine the quality of the output images.Image via blendercn.orgHere is the Cycles renderer that comes with Blender as an example. As a GPU-based rendering engine, rendering effects have become more and more mature, and its speed is much faster than the CPU renderer. So where does it affect the output image quality?SamplingThe sampling method determines how the light is calculated. The light is emitted from the camera into the scene and bounces back and forth until they find a light source, such as a light object, a glowing object, or the ambient background light. Number of light path traces for a single pixel in the final render. The more samples there are, the less noise there will be in the result and the more accurate it will be.Path trackingThe rendering attribute is the amount of light emitted from the camera to each pixel. The view attribute is used for scene rendering in the view. A value of 32 means that each pixel will be tracked by 32 rays.)NoiseNoise in the image will greatly affect the image quality because 32 beams of light per pixel are not enough to produce a high-quality image (To reduce the noise by 50%, double the number of lights, so the rendering time will also double, depending on the computer configuration to set the value, at least 1024 if you want a better effect.Rendering propertiesThe rendering properties greatly affect the rendering quality, try to adjust to the maximum value that the view can reach, and adjust the view back to 32 to maximize the quality.Optical Path LengthIt refers to the value of the number of bounces to track the path of each beam. The difference between 0 and the maximum will be very large.Camera PropertiesCamera size: It needs a proper ratio and size, and the focal length needs to be adjusted according to the content of the image. The appropriate size can display the details of the Depth of field.Depth of field: The choice of lens will affect the depth of field details. The depth of field determines how far away the object will be displayed clearly.Aperture radius: determines how far the object in the radius is clear, and it will become blurredFocus: Focus needs to be adjusted. Set important objects in the image as axes and adjust the appropriate aperture radius to show the correct object to the viewer.If you want to improve the quality of the images, you can try some of the suggestions above. Improving the quality of images is not something that can be improved by reading an article. Continuous learning and practice is the best way.Cycles is undoubtedly a young renderer. Blender is also constantly improving some of the features of Cycles, and it has a lot of room for development in the future. As a TPN-accredited render farm, Fox Renderfarm supports most mainstream 3D software, renderers, and plugins, including Blender, 3ds Max, Maya, Cinema 4D, Unreal Engine, and more. So if you want to use a renderer other than cycles, you can also consider Fox Renderfarm, which is undoubtedly a powerful, fast and safe render farm. It can easily help you render high-quality images in Blender.Fox Renderfarm hopes it will be of some help to you. It is well known that Fox Renderfarm is an excellent cloud rendering services provider in the CG world, so if you need to find a render farm, why not try Fox Renderfarm, which is offering a free $25 trial for new users for signing up? Thanks for reading!

In this article, Fox Renderfarm, the best cloud rendering provider and render farm, will share with you Pierson Pang's works of stylized cheongsam girl and approximate production process and experience.Pierson Pang is a 3D character designer who has participated in many AAA realistic and stylized projects in Europe and America, specializing in European and American cartoons and realism.© Pierson PangHe mainly uses the software ZBrush and Blender. Use the sculpting software ZBrush with the emerging set of modeling to render in Blender, can maximize the production efficiency.First look at the final result:© Pierson Pang© Pierson Pang© Pierson Pang1. Ideas and Reference CollectionPierson initially wanted to do an exercise in generalizing the female body. He combined Chinese femininity and chose the cheongsam for the costume. But at the same time, he wanted to maximize the female form, so made a little change to the cheongsam's shape. Because there was no specific original drawing, he looked for some reference drawings that fit the image in his mind before making it.He looked for exaggerated anatomical drawings of the form as well as fashion show type for reference, which determined the final direction of the character's temperament. Although there are often improvised ideas in future productions, they are within the larger framework. That's why accurate reference is important, as it guides the right production direction.© Pierson Pang2. Making the ModelCompared with realistic characters, the model of stylized characters requires more general refinement and exaggeration of human silhouette structure and muscle anatomy, and focuses on the overall relationship of sparseness, rhythm and hierarchy of the character. And the stylized character will first discard the irrelevant details.A little advice for beginners:If you want to exercise sensitivity to body type, then you can do a lot of body type generalization exercises at first, including various body types (fat, thin, women of various body proportions).Like the following figure: this combination of deformation through the simplest of spheres will maximize the removal of details, thus focusing all attention on the characteristics of the shape itself. Strengthening this exercise will quickly improve one's ability to capture the shape. The same applies to the character's face, which will be more delicate and faint compared to the larger forms.© Pierson PangBack to the cheongsam girl, Pierson did volumetric generalization on the body shape (elbow joint, knee joint, interpolation generalization between each muscle), emphasizing the contrast between the block structure and the curves of the legs and upper arms.In the profile form, the fullness and curves of the arms and thighs need to be noted.For blocky hair, you need to pay attention to its rhythmic contrast such as sparse and dense layers. The volume structure of the face is mixed with softness and hardness, so it needs to be interspersed to deal with it.Regarding facial treatment, there are various styles of cartoonish block treatment depending on the project.Pierson's way is a combination of soft and blocky interspersed treatment, meaning that there is a sense of breathing. In fact, this sense of breathing is throughout the body in his work. How to grasp the overall rhythm? How to choose the detailed contrast of the specific partial rhythm under the overall rhythm is needed to be carefully examined.© Pierson PangAfter the model is almost done, you can directly use ZBrush to paint the vertex color to observe the character effect.Pierson has always felt that the white model does not represent the end of the high modeling stage. The top color is needed to judge the character's temperament, and painting the top color usually requires learning more about women's makeup. The choice of eye shadow type, the choice of lipstick number, what kind of character positioning and temperament they correspond to, are all very sophisticated and also exercise aesthetics. So you can observe more during your day. The aesthetics of a character's final effect is very important. The software and method skills are all auxiliary. The level of completion of the vertex color can be based on your own preferences, as long as you can roughly express the feeling of the character on the line, or to handle finely, as a base for post mapping.In ZBrush, you can use the skin material ball to observe the effect, as follows:© Pierson PangAfter the Tpose effect is determined, use ZBrush's Transpose Master to give the character a pose, but many people prefer to use DAZ to make it because it is more convenient. Transpose Master is more difficult to pose with, but can exercise dynamic anatomical ability.© Pierson PangPierson usually does not put too much effort into the practice of low-poly modeling and the process behind it, as long as it can express the effect he wants to achieve. Pierson used to paint the vertex color with ZBrush and import it into Blender to render the picture by using the vertex color with the material ball. Of course, it is also possible to draw mapping in a more detailed way to adjust the effect in Blender.3. Blender RenderAbout the renderer, he earlier used Keyshort, V-Ray and such renderers, as well as Arnold, which is used by many people to do realistic rendering. Blender is a free software with less complex material and lighting properties compared to Arnold, including WYSIWYG rendering speed and render quality, which are friendly to stylized characters.Blender has two rendering methods: eevee and cycles.Eevee is Blender's real-time rendering engine, implemented using OpenGL technology to focus on speed and interactivity while achieving the goal of rendering PBR materials. Eevee can be used interactively in 3D viewports and can also generate high-quality rendering.Eevee uses the same shader nodes as cycles, making it easy to render existing scenes. For cycles users, you can use eevee to preview material effects before using cycles to render the final image to improve efficiency.Unlike cycles, eevee is not a ray tracing engine. It uses multiple algorithms via rasterization to estimate how the light acts with the object's material, while cycles is based on physical ray tracing to calculate the bounce of each ray. Although eevee is designed to use PBR shading materials, it is not perfect. Cycles renderer provides physically more accurate rendering, while Eevee uses rasterized rendering so it has significant limitations.Each of these two rendering methods has its own features and can be chosen according to your character rendering needs.You can read the official tutorials for details:https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/3.3/render/lights/light_object.htmlrenderer-settingsThere are also many Blender tutorials on YouTube, such as:https://www.youtube.com/c/DannyMac3dYou can check out more works of Pierson Pang at at his Artstation:https://www.artstation.com/piersonpangFox Renderfarm hopes it will be of some help to you. We are an excellent cloud rendering services provider in the CG world, so if you need to find a Blender render farm, why not try Fox Renderfarm, which is offering a free $25 trial for new users? Thanks for reading!By Thepoly

Today, the best cloud rendering services provider and render farm in the CG industry, Fox Renderfarm, organized this article for you to learn how to make a beautiful riverside town in 3D.How to Make a Beautiful Riverside TownI want to share with you the beautiful riverside town I made, and give you a detailed introduction to my production ideas, the software and design skills I used.Find ReferenceHow did I find my reference? Actually, when it comes to riverside towns, the scenery of many places in China can be used as a reference. Here I found a lot of references around Wuzhen, which impressed me the most. I found a lot of reference pictures on the Internet, and found a 1.5-hour video of walking around the city on a video website to take a screenshot from it.StylingI first created the basic shape of each building in Blender, that is, the white film, and determined a series of settings such as camera position, focal length, aperture, etc.There are a lot of boards in this scene, which is too time-consuming and cumbersome to place alone, so I chose to use blueprints to control them, place resources along splines, and randomly select meshes, positions, rotations, and zooms, which can improve my work efficiency a lot. In the scene, wood walls, docks, pillars, obstacles, and roof supports can also be controlled in the same way.Creating Template AssetsI made several attempts to create a plank asset for the project. Sculpt them in ZBrush, then topology them in Blender, use auto UV, and texture them in Substance 3D Painter with Smart Materials.The dust above is crafted in the UE to make them look more random and reduce some repetition.After that I created a second set of boards, which are just textured boxes to add variety to the scene and are not used in important places in the scene.Here are the main assets:The RoofThe roof takes up a large part of the scene, and most importantly, the composition of the scene. Even if the number is large, they all have to look rich and also adapt to complex shapes. First, I sculpted 3 tiles of different sizes in ZBrush and broke each of them a little. Based on these 6 tiles, I combined them into a 2x2m tileable mesh. For smaller buildings, this is pretty much all I use. For larger buildings, I just duplicate the mesh and twist it slightly.The subsequent treatment is very similar to the wood treatment, so I won't go into too much detail here.For the top of the roof, I looked at five sets of reference pictures of the roof and copied them. I made another asset pack that also included smaller props and poles for building and dock supports.Separate AssetsOnce the planks and roof have been made, 90% of the scene can be built, and the rest can be done pretty fast, which is just regular PBR process.After that, a simple simulation of the fabric is carried out, and then the texture is drawn. You can adjust the points according to the effect.For the chimney, I used texture displacement. I downloaded the brick and pavement textures from Bridge, made a simple chimney shape from the concept, and applied the displacement to it. Before proceeding, I checked in the engine whether the proportions of the bricks looked right in the scene, and adjusted the UV in Blender if necessary. Once satisfied with the proportions, I apply the modifier and use the Scraper tool in Blender's Sculpture mode to remove jagged edges from the edges. If you find something missing, you can make it yourself or go to the asset mall to download it.Scene ConstructionThen here comes the process of replacing the white film with assets. After the first material iteration, I found that many places were strange and unreasonable, so I made adjustments to some small places.When making roofs, I found that straight roofs are not suitable for medium-sized buildings, so use splines to bend them. Pay special attention to turn off Nanite at this time, as it does not support any type of deformation. You can use some irregularly shaped objects to break its silhouette, but just to remember it should be reasonable in the scene.Post ProcessingThe smoke effect is done with UE. Smoke from the chimney, made with Niagara, has the same settings for noise and fog, increases the initial speed of the wind, and expands with the life cycle, becoming more transparent from start to finish, with colors ranging from dark to light.WaterWater is just a flat surface with a normal map on it, and its UV moves in two opposite directions on the map, creating the effect of water flowing.Then add the effect of ray tracing:That’s all! Fox Renderfarm hopes it will be of some help to you. As a powerful render farm, we are dedicated to providing cloud rendering services in the CG industry. If you are looking for a fast rendering solution for your 3D software, try Fox Renderfarm! We offer a free $25 trial for new users. Thanks for reading!Author: Thepoly

I also made an introduction video for the company's YouTube channel "Behind Molang". First, I redesigned all 2D characters into 3D. Since our company is not an animation studio but a character commodity company, most of the 3D creation process of characters is the process of making plastic models, such as Fusion 360 (some are designed directly in Blender). When creating images in 3D, as mentioned above, instead of using texture mapping, we change the color of the object or use Illustrator to create the image, which is created in accordance with the process of making dolls and doll models.Is animation different from product design?Seungho Jeong: Making animation is very difficult, after all, that is not my major. Although product production and animation look very similar, there are still some system differences. Therefore, I have to learn by myself and complete the animation creation, so I simplified the character movement as much as possible.Can you share your creative tips?Seungho Jeong: If you want to create on a hard surface, Fusion 360 is recommended, which can be modeled for the accuracy of the size, which is very convenient. In addition, the ShrinkWrap modifier is used to attach the image to Blender without any texture drawing.Who is your Favorite artist?Seungho Jeong: Absolutely my boss Hye-Ji Yoon, he is the character designer of "Molang". And Molang's animation is currently being played on Netflix, which is receiving the attention of the global audience! I respect my boss very much and want to be a well-known creator like him.Tips:Fox Renderfarm is a leading cloud rendering services provider and render farm for 3D animation. We offer a free $25 trial for every new user. Thanks for reading!Seungho Jeong’s Artstion: https://www.artstation.com/neon3d

Blender is a powerful and free open-source application, especially in 3D scene construction, rendering, and special effects, compared to similar software has obvious advantages. As the leading cloud rendering service provider and render farm in CG industry, Fox Renderfarm supports both blender rendering, 3ds Max rendering, Maya rendering, C4D rendering, Clarisse rendering, SketchUp rendering, etc.. This article wrote by 3D artist Leo Lee, will show you the potential of Blender to quickly create scenes and texture rendering, and will show some experience and hope to help your production process. Let learn how to create a wild jungle in the blender.Add a Plane to the view, the size can be larger, switch to Sculpt Mode. It is similar to some familiar engraving software, such as Zbrush, which can choose different brushes to process the model. Check Dyntopo at the menu (no need to manually subdivide the model), and select ‘Constant’ for the detail mode, and check the smooth shadow.As shown in the figure below, when the model is engraved, the system automatically subdivides the number of faces.Here are a few other ways to create terrain.Use Subdivide to subdivide the surface as follows: subdivide into 50-100. Then add a black and white material through the Displacement Modifier in Blender, similar to the Height Map, which can be hand-painted in PS or downloaded. Click Add Material Map to import the material.The strength of the ground fluctuations can be controlled by adjusting the parameters. Then add Subsurface Modifier to smooth the surface. In addition, if you want to adjust the terrain manual area, you can activate the area control button below, the middle button wheel to adjust the area range, select a point to drag and drop.Here is a finished terrain. The next step is to add some decorations to the terrain, such as trees, grass, stones, and medium-sized plants, to create a more realistic picture.The model of several trees is imported into the scene, as shown below. It can be imported via ‘append’ ‘Import’. Append can only add original Blender files. Import can import some commonly used 3D files, such as 3ds, FBX or OBJ.Previously, the terrain and trees were layered. The layering function in Blender can manage the model very effectively, compared to the layer function in PS. Select the model, ‘M’ to move the active model to any layer, press the number keys to move to the corresponding layer. Hold down the Shift key to select multiple layers at the same time to display the contents of their layers.The imported trees are arranged in order according to space and the composition, and then the position is selected to place the camera. As shown below,Below are the layers of stones and grasses and small and medium plants.Due to the large size and a limited number of trees, manual placement can be used. But like those small and large objects, you can use the ‘Particle’ series to let Blender randomly place small objects according to the range we set.As shown in the figure below, first switch to ‘Weight Mode’, you can first lower the transparency, then draw the range of the area where you need to place small objects on the terrain, blue is the vacant area, gradually yellow, and the dense area is excessive.Then switch to "Particle System" in the menu on the right, click the Add button, here is similar to the step of adding material to the object, and the material here is the object that needs to be placed, the first layer I chose the grass, can pass the view The button hides other objects. Activate the data indicated by the arrow in turn.Each of the previous objects must be Ctrl+G in advance and merged into their respective groups. Then here Dupli Group chooses the grass group. The values in the red box are some random parameters for which various adjustment objects are placed, such as orientation, size, rotation angle, and so on. If you adjust the density and length units more deeply, you can also select the corresponding Group in turn.In the same way, the stones and other vegetation are also brushed in. As shown below.After the addition of plants and ground, the contents of the camera lens are richer.

After four years of development, the Blender 2.80 version was officially released! Blender is an open source, cross-platform, all-round 3D animation software that provides a range of animated short film production solutions from modeling, animation, materials, rendering, to audio processing, and video editing. Blender 2.80, this version update brings a lot of new features, a redesigned user interface, a new physics-based real-time rendering engine Eevee (which can be used as the final rendering output, or as a real-time rendering engine for views) and more.Blender 2.8, made by you, a brand new startBlender 2.80 has reworked the user interface to make the interface more concise and consistent, making it easier for users to use tools, joysticks and more. Blender redesigned a new black theme and modern icons to focus on your artistic creation. The icon can also be controlled by the theme to make it easier to visualize the icon under a variety of themes.The workspace gives you quick access to things like sculpting, texture drawing or motion tracking. Click on the tabs at the top of the window to change the usage, or customize your workspace to make your work more efficient.Engraving workspaceModeling workspaceAnimation workspaceClip coloring workspaceThe 2.80 version has a more advanced 3D view display capability, and the display mode is more diverse and free. The new Workbench rendering engine makes it easier for you to get the job done.Alpha Studio Random Cavity ShadowAlpha Wire RandomAlpha Lookdev TexturingReal-time rendering engine EeveeEevee has many advanced features such as volumetric fog, screen space refraction, subsurface reflections, soft and contact shadows, depth of field, camera motion blur and glow.Eevee's material nodes are the same as Cycles, so it's easy to render existing scenes. For Cycles users, Eevee can also be used as a live preview.2D AnimationThe 2.80 version greatly enhances 2D rendering capabilities. The new Grease Pencil interface is more friendly to 2D artists, and you can have both 2D and 3D production capabilities to make your creations easier.Grease Pencil is more than just a drawing tool, it is highly integrated with existing object selection, editing, management and linking tools, and has powerful deformers and brush tools.Normalized hair BSDFRendering physics-based hair is easier, eliminating the need to set up complex shader networks.Subdivision and micro replacementCryptomatteThis function saves the inconvenience of setting the object object and the object material ID for the later stage. You only need to check this before rendering, and then select the desired selection in the post-synthesis.Random walk subsurface scattering For more information and downloads, please visit https://www.blender.org/The leading cloud rendering service provider and render farm, Fox Renderfarm supports blender, welcome to use the platform and get $20 free trial.

Last week, SIGGRAPH 2019 was successfully finished. At this SIGGRAPH, the high-tech displays are still amazing. As the leading cloud rendering services provider, Fox Renderfarm supports both GPU and CPU, as one of the well-known GPU render farms, and one of Nvidia's partners, we are happy to know that several DCC applications, like Modo, Keyshot, and Blender, are announced to support Nvidia’s new RTX GPUs on hardware-accelerated ray tracing.What is RTX? Is it Supported by Other Applications?First announced last March, RTX is Nvidia’s implementation of DXR, and a new ray tracing extension for DirectX 12. Current RTX GPUs—GeForce RTX consumer graphics, Quadro RTX workstation graphics, and Titan RTX all have dedicated RT hardware cores for ray tracing calculations.These core software accesses were implemented through the ray tracing architecture provided by Nvidia Optix and announced for free commercial use in 2017. The rendering engine that now supports RTX includes Clarisse iFX, which is mainly for window preview.For final quality output, Arnold GPU, OctaneRender, Redshift, and Unreal Engine have alpha or beta implementations, the latter being primarily hybrid rasterization/ray tracing renderers.In Substance Painter and Substance Designer, RTX ray tracing is also used for texture baking.KeyshotThe Keyshot program will support RTX in the 9th version released this fall. The general function is that if the software detects a compatible GPU in the user system, a new button will appear on the Keyshot ribbon interface to enable GPU rendering. Otherwise, The scene will be rendered normally on the CPU.ModoIn modo, the situation is more complicated, because Foundry's 3D software already has a GPU rendering engine, which is similar to AMD's Radeon Prorender. In the current form, the prorender is primarily used as an interactive preview during asset development, while modo's original CPU renderer is used for the final quality output.Foundry's new RTX-based path tracking renderer seems to be a replacement for Reyes-based CPU renderers. Currently Foundry has not specified which version of modo will be available in the new RTX rendering engine, although "in the coming months" plans to release access versions to subscribers in advance.BlenderThere are also two rendering engines for Blender, although they have all been accelerated by the GPU.This time, the RTX integration is for the old Cycles engine, which has used Nvidia's CUDA API for GPU rendering - users without Nvidia cards use OpenCL and CPU rendering instead of the new OpenGL-based Eeve engine introduced in Blender 2.80.Like Keyshot, RTX support is switchable, users can select optix, cuda or opencl or pure CPU rendering via the checkbox in Blender's preferences.In the benchmarks posted on the Blender Developers blog, when running under OptiX, Cycles renders about twice as fast as the same Nvidia GPU when running under CUDA on the Nvidia GPU. The source code for the new implementation is public, but considering that Blender 2.80 has just been released, it may take some time for the RTX to be officially built.ConclusionWe hope you can learn something from this article. If you need a rendering service, why not try us at Fox Renderfarm, we have been the leading cloud rendering services provider in the industry for many years. Don't understand why you need a render farm? Then why not learn about what is a render farm? Fox Renderfarm continues to bring news of modelling with various 3D software, so feel free to follow us!

Today, as the leading cloud rendering services provider and Blender render farm, Fox Renderfarm is going to share a simple cel shading tutorial for cartoon in Blender and a way to give the cartoon border. The basic cel shading for cartoon effect is very simple in Blender and can be solved with just a few clicks. Even if you are not very skilled in Blender, you can do it after reading this article.Part 1. Material of Cel Shading for CartoonFirst, create a material sphere for your model, delete the Principled BSDF shader and leave the Material Output undeleted.Next, create 3 nodes: Diffuse BSDF, Shader-RGB, ColorRamp, connect the nodes as shown on the diagram and change the RGB type of ColorRamp to Constant.Press the plus sign to add a color transition block, each small grid represents a color and the color can be changed at the bottom.Next, just adjust the color you want.Part 2. Cartoon StrokeFirst, add another material sphere to the previous one, change the shader to Emission, turn on Backface Culling, change the color to black and the Shadow Mode to none.Next, add a solidification modifier, change the material offset to 1, check the flip in the normal direction and adjust the thickness to achieve the stroke effect.In fact, there are other ways to achieve the cartoon triple rendering effect in Blender, here we have introduced 2 easier and quicker ways to achieve it, you guys just go and have fun!The above is cel shading tutorial for cartoon in Blender brought to you by Fox Renderfarm. We hope you can learn something from it. Fox Renderfarm is an excellent CPU & GPU render farm and cloud rendering services provider, so if you need to find a render farm, why not try Fox Renderfarm, which is offering a free $25 trial for new users.

What hardware should I use to reduce rendering time in blender? In the production of blender, it takes a lot of time to render. While there are many factors that can affect rendering time, which hardware can speed up rendering time? Although a properly configured hardware will increase efficiency, you can choose different hardware for different production processes.3D design and production can generally be roughly divided into several major steps: Modeling, UV Mapping, Texturing and Shaders, Rigging, Animation, Lighting, Rendering Setting, Compositing. This step is the most important step in the final product, the final rendering, and always using a render farm in this step.Professional graphics cards are optimized for professional 3D design software, so they are more accurate on the display. Professional graphics cards can make your previews more realistic. Improve the speed of modeling and the performance of materials in 3D. Professional graphics can also greatly reduce the load on the CPU during the production process. For example, if you move a complex model, the game graphics card will be skipped and not smooth, resulting in inaccurate movement. It may move many times and still Unable to move to the exact location. However, whether the display is wrong, whether the operation is smooth or stable, will greatly affect the efficiency of production, and even affect the mood of the producer.In the step of blender rendering, such as the Cycles renderer, you can use the CPU or GPU for rendering calculations, but its rendering speed is independent of the graphics card, only related to the processing power of the CPU or GPU, and secondly related to memory. And for the final rendering, the professional graphics card and the game graphics card are no different (if you really want to say that there is a difference, it is only the display of the picture, the color is better). The biggest impact on the rendering speed is the CPU or GPU, especially for the Blender renderer, which is very dependent on the GPU, and the excellent GPU has faster rendering images than the excellent CPU, and the graphics card can be added to the device continuously.Many people also think that memory will affect the rendering speed. This view is not correct. When the memory is enough, the rendering speed will not have much impact. What is enough?? Generally, 3D use is to open a scene file and it will take up a lot of memory. The more polygons in the scene, the larger the memory. When the memory is not enough, there will be a serious delay, because the hard disk space is called to make virtual memory. When the memory satisfies the amount required by the scene file, the rendering requires almost no memory except for the memory calculation that requires more memory.In summary, a high-performance machine has a great impact on the speed of production and rendering. The reasonable hardware configuration and software adjustment can bring out the best works.Fox Renderfarm hopes it will be of some help to you. It is well known that Fox Renderfarm is an excellent CPU&x26;GPU cloud rendering services provider in the CG world, so if you need to find a render farm for Blender, why not try Fox Renderfarm, which is offering a free $25 trial for new users? Thanks for reading!

Blender vs Maya vs Cinema 4D, which one is the best 3D software for animation? As the leading render farm in the CG industry, Fox Renderfarm will answer this question in a personal opinions. As we know, Blender, Maya and Cinema 4D, all are 3D production software, and they can all make 3D animation. The concept of 3D animation is actually very wide, and the movement of 3D objects can be called 3D animation. Therefore, this software should be distinguished according to their areas of expertise, and cannot be generalized.MayaMaya can also be said to be a resource integration platform, which is mainly used in the production of film and television animation and the integration of related resources. Maya's 3D animation, modeling, simulation, and rendering modules provide a powerful integrated toolset. Can be used for animation, environment, motion graphics, virtual reality, and character creation. We can see the figure of Maya in the major movie screens.Cinema 4DC4D, full name Cinema 4D. One of the major features of C4D is the integrated package. Using these packages can quickly produce good quality effects and animations. Relatively speaking, novices are relatively easy to get started with C4D. C4D can be seamlessly connected with AE(After Effects), and C4D scenes can be directly imported into AE, so C4D is still very popular in the production of short films and film packaging.Blender****Blender is a free and open-source, cross-platform, all-round 3D animation production software, providing a series of animated short film production solutions from modeling, animation, materials, rendering, to audio processing, video editing and so on. Blender has a variety of user interfaces that are easy to use in different tasks, with built-in advanced video solutions such as green screen keying, camera backtracking, mask processing, and post node synthesis. There are also built-in cartoon strokes (FreeStyle) and GPU-based Cycles renderer. Python is a built-in script that supports multiple third-party renderers. It is favored by the majority of graphics enthusiasts in short videos and game production.All in all, the three software cannot be compared without any restrictions. Each of them has its strengths. It depends on which area you want to develop and then choose the best software tool from them. Fox Renderfarm, the leading cloud rendering service provider, supports rendering Blender, Maya, C4D, and is a powerful and fast render farm that supports both CPU and GPU rendering. Now Fox Renderfarm offers a $25 trial for new users.

In this article, the best CPU &x26; GPU cloud rendering service provider, Fox Renderfarm, will share with you how a 3D art student creates a cute 3D cat with Blender and Substance Painter.The author created this work, a 3D cat during his holiday. He used Blender for modeling, Substance Painter for mid-term texture painting, and completes the final rendering in Blender. Now, he will share his production process in detail.Part 1. Preliminary IdeaThis is the sketch he drew in the early stage. He is not used to spending too much time on the plan drawing. The author just uses it to determine "what to draw" and the general framework. As for "how to draw", it is directly implemented in 3D software. Now, the basic elements have been determined: the main object is a cat flying in the sky with the help of a jet. This is an adventurous little guy. It looks ahead with firm eyes and uses the map to guide it to its destination.He wanted to add some anthropomorphic features to this 3D cat, so the milk tea around its neck and the goggles it was wearing were decided early on. He also wanted to add other interesting critters to the picture. At first, the author wanted some birds, and later changed to snack fishes spilling out of his bags (oh poor little kitty).The author searched on major graphic websites and collected references that may be used. He used the powerful reference graphics software PureRef to organize and use the reference graphics. The observation of the reference graphics ran through the entire process.First of all, sculpting. Blender's sculpting is really good, and is even more convenient than ZBrush when facing such less complex tasks. With the help of dynamic topology and mesh reconstruction, he can quickly sculpt the desired shape.Body sculptureFacial detailsIn addition to the 3D cat’s body, the author made other models using PolyMesh. The main production process is to add Instance, Subdivision and Bevel to the opposite side. Modifiers allow us to build shapes very quickly and easily while allowing us to control the model and further refine it.Keep adding details while controlling the whole.The PolyMesh of the cat model obtained by sculpting is messy, and the subsequent texture drawing and animation processes require the model to have scientific and reasonable lines. So it needs to be retopologized. Since the model is relatively simple, the author retopology it manually.This is a mesh comparison between topological and untopological models. After topology, the distribution of lines is much more reasonable, and they all follow their own structure. After that, we can get all the previous details with the help of Subdivision and Shrinkwrap Deform. Polygonal models sometimes have wiring issues, and we also need to optimize the mesh after applying all the Deforms (remember to back them up!).The pleasing linesOnce the model is built, we need to import it into Substance Painter for texture painting after further processing. Of course, some preliminary preparations are required.Part 2. Differentiate the MaterialsAfter modeling, we need to differentiate the materials of the model in Blender. We need to create materials to the corresponding Mesh, and Substance Painter will recognize this data. Remember, Substance Painter's texture set equals to Blender's material slot.The author divided this cat into 9 materials, because each material corresponds to a full set of 4K mapping, so the number is relatively large.By setting the view color of the material, you can visualize the distribution of the material, which in other words, models of the same color share the same material.At the same time, the meshes with the same material share a UV mapping, and we need to do UV editing.Part 3. UV EditingAll objects under each material need to be UV edited, here are two examples.UV Layout of cat’s bodyUV Layout of bagWe control the expansion of the UV by marking the stitching edge. First, we must ensure that each area after expansion is as flat as possible without obvious stretching. Then, on the premise of ensuring flatness, unnecessary segmentation should be avoided to facilitate UV layout. Finally, split lines should avoid important parts, because it is easy to make small shading mistakes at the seams. For example, for the cat’s face here, the author stretched it so that the front face has no seams, which is also a common practice for UV mapping of human faces.The 1:1 UV window represents the mapping pixels, so in order to save assets, the UV must fill the window as much as possible without overlapping. Generally, the proportions of each part are the same, but there are exceptions. For example, the author zoomed in on the area of the cat's face obviously, because the face requires more mapping resolution than the body.After finishing the UV editing, the cat is finally imported into Substance Painter. The fbx format will retain all the information about the model's UV layout, materials, vertex colors, vertex normals, etc., so don't worry about information loss.Bake MappingBefore starting to paint, we need to bake the model mappings in Substance Painter. Unlike the passes mapping, the model mapping is automatically calculated by Substance Painter based on the model structure. It will help us create effects faster. There is an introduction to some useful types of mapping.The World Space normal mapping will indicate the world space normal of each surface of the model. For example, we can use it to make the effect of material transition from a certain direction:ID mapping. We can use ID mapping to subdivide different areas on the same texture set. It will help us quickly add masks to materials, which is very convenient.Ambient Occlusion. We can use Ambient Occlusion to create effects like dirt in the crevices.Curvature mapping. We can use the curvature of the model to create the effect. The wears at the metal edges and corners are achieved by it.Thickness mapping, as the name implies, is often used to define subsurface scattering and transmission effects.Start paintingThe Smart Material in Substance Painter is so convenient. It is a composite material made by Substance Painter and contains multiple layers. It can achieve the mixing effect between different materials with the model mappings introduced earlier. With the ID mapping, we can quickly distinguish different areas, while using Smart Material to get good results.Take this injector, for example, a Smart Material works well enough to automatically generate wear at the edges and corners, revealing underlying metal and surface stains.Of course, we can't just rely on Smart Material, a further polish for the details with manual painting is needed.Adding further layersUse the alpha mapping made in AI as a mask to add an icon to the emitter (it feels like the forward speed is slowed down) and other patterns.Add further details, such as traces of fluid leakage at the seams, and scratches above the steel marks, for increasing realism. The making of other parts are similar process, with the appropriate Smart Material being created first, and then further tweaked manually.On the whole, this is the initial Smart Material (the cat is filled with solid color).This is after manual painting.Substance Painter is similar to Photoshop. The layer-based painting makes it different from the Blender‘s node-based way. It is convenient to add details. The train of thought for painting is not to use the base layer, but to use the fill layer while adding a mask at the same time, and painting on the mask, which is easy to control.This is the display of some layers of the bag.We can control all passes on a fill layer to get details on multiple passes such as Base Color, Roughness, Height, Metallic, etc.Some details:Details of front face:Details of bags and snacks:Output mappingOnce the painting of mapping is completed, we bake the passes mapping. First of all, it should be set to a format suitable for Blender.The output of this work has six passes: Base Color, Roughness, Normal, Metallic, Opacity, and Height. Take the goggles as an example to show each mapping.This is the UV mapping on which other mappings are based.This is the Base Color:This is the Roughness:This is the Metallic:This is the Normal:This is the Opacity, that gray part is the position of the lens:This is the Height:Connect the corresponding passes in Blender's material node, of course you can add other nodes to further adjustment.Our 3D cat is then back in Blender and test rendering:Part 4. HairBlender's hair system works very well. The author divided multiple hair systems on this cat based on Vertex Weight.Each area has about 5,000 parents, and there are 50-150 children hairs under the parents. The author control the overall effect of the hair by controlling the parents.Just like combing hair in reality, it is very fun:Slowly cover its body, and take care to avoid the straps of the bag.The hair’s material is based on the skin’s material. We can adjust its thickness and shape, control its clump and kinking, as well as edit its roughness and random values to create the desired effect. The effect with the hair on is as follows.Part 5. RenderingIn order to complete the final render, we need to add other things.Put the background image directly behind, simple but works well.Set up the volume material to get the fire effect.Create the clouds we want with blender's Volumetric Cloud, and then take a little time to set the lighting and camera angle. Now this 3D cat is completed.ConclusionThe above is the whole process of making this cute 3D cat with Blender and Substance Painter. We hope this tutorial can be of some help to you. As the leading cloud render farm service provider, Fox Renderfarm continues to bring you the latest news about 3D art! Thank you for reading!