SCS needs to buy Corel Cool 3d Studio Production

HyperMedia wrote on 7/24/2010, 4:24 PM
SCS needs to buy Corel Cool 3d Studio Production or AutoDesk Combustion?

Those 2 programs have been left for dead. But needs to improve render and operation speed. The two would fit in perfectly into a improve Vegas work flow.

Of course, please fix the bugs first? What do you guys think?

Comments

TeetimeNC wrote on 7/24/2010, 4:51 PM
Funny JTDigital, I have had the same thought regarding Cool 3d (which I bought when it was a Ulead proroduct). I first learned about Cool 3d from Spot - he did some tuts on it and used it in some Vegas projects. I did some neat things with it but it became very long in the tooth.

I actually posted in a 3d graphics forum a couple of years ago seeking a comparable, but more current program. As far as I know, there still isn't one and it seems like there would be a great market for a sub $200 3d modeling software that was as easy to learn and use as Cool 3d.

The golf ball in this title clip at about the 26 second point was done in cool 3d: http://www.vimeo.com/8928316

As was this 3d motion graphic: http://www.vimeo.com/4547129

If anyone can suggest a program comparable to Cool 3d for doing these types of animations I would love to hear about it. Some might mention Blender (free) but it is too overwhelming for me.

/jerry
Tom Pauncz wrote on 7/24/2010, 5:27 PM
Hey Jerry,
The second vid's password protected. Wouldn't mind to see it.
Tom
daryl wrote on 7/24/2010, 6:29 PM
Wow, Cool3d, I used that long ago, loved it, totally forgot about it till now.
If SCS bought it, I would certainly go with it. Ulead and Corel support is horrible, I'll never buy anything from them again. At least it was a few years ago when I wrote them off.
musicvid10 wrote on 7/24/2010, 8:22 PM
Aren't those apps both vector-based?
HyperMedia wrote on 7/24/2010, 10:24 PM
Jerry...that’s looked great. However, how come you didn't animate the golf ball to rotate 360 degrees? Cool 3D has great texture reflection. Also, how did you get those pinholes in the ball?
rmack350 wrote on 7/24/2010, 11:17 PM
You mean Cool3D and Blender? Yep, they're vector based. Afaik, all 3D modeling programs are vector based. They're all capable of rendering out to a format that Vegas could use, though.

Rob
farss wrote on 7/25/2010, 12:35 AM
"If anyone can suggest a program comparable to Cool 3d for doing these types of animations I would love to hear about it. Some might mention Blender (free) but it is too overwhelming for me."

I've used DAZ Studio and Bryce. Both can be basically had for free.
This VERY short video was done in Daz Studio using a free prerigged model, rendered out and then composited with Vegas. Really haven't had time to play around with 3D animation in the last few years. Life is too short.
That said even Bryce can be used to create basic simple animations and it is pretty simple to learn and use. It uses grey scale maps to create surface and height maps. I've used some things I built in Bryce as DVD menu backgrounds. I also have Truespace kicking around somewhere. That's pretty much at the same level of complexity as Blender. The Daz stuff is much easier to learn, being able to download a lot of free or cheap models gets you going and inspired.

Just don't blink when you watch this:




Bob.
TeetimeNC wrote on 7/25/2010, 4:12 AM
>The second vid's password protected. Wouldn't mind to see it

Sorry about that. Try it again. Here are the two Cool3D examples again:

- Spinning golf ball title
- Motion Graphics

Edited to embed links.

/jerry
TeetimeNC wrote on 7/25/2010, 4:15 AM
>Jerry...that’s looked great. However, how come you didn't animate the golf ball to rotate 360 degrees? Cool 3D has great texture reflection. Also, how did you get those pinholes in the ball?

Watch again, it actually rotates about 7200 degrees in the correct direction for ball lift ;-). The dimples are just a texture I applied. Its those features that made Cool3d, er... cool.

/jerry
TeetimeNC wrote on 7/25/2010, 4:19 AM
Bob, there must be some kind of karma going here - before coming to this forum this morning I checked my email and had a promotional from Daz 3D. I'll check em out.

/jerry
DataMeister wrote on 7/31/2010, 1:42 PM
I used to use Ulead Cool 3D Studio also. I found it especially nice for quick 3D title creation. It would definitely be nice to have something like that directly integrated to the Vegas timeline. Maybe something like the way Cinescore was integrated.

I would think if they made extensive use of the graphics card for preview then we could get live previews without needing to render first. It would eliminate all the compositing hassles I would think. Especially if it was advanced enough to take certain objects from the same scene and place them on different timeline layers (assuming they didn't cross in z-space).

Also, I wouldn't mind being able to tie it to a camera tracker directly on the Vegas timeline. But anyway, being able to just open the 3D clip from the Vegas timeline, change the animation, and see the update immediately (or with little prerender effort) would be nearly invaluable.

Having said all of that, I do think that any decent 3D work needs a standalone application. So it needs a standalone option. i.e. not just an enhanced version of the titling software.
DGates wrote on 8/1/2010, 2:43 AM
I used Cool 3D as well. A nifty little program. But like another Ulead product, DVD Workshop, it was left for dead.

As for 3D text in video, it's been a bit passé for awhile now. Sometimes people spend so much time worrying about cool text and transition effects, they forget what's really important.

Good shooting and good editing. That's all you need.

ushere wrote on 8/1/2010, 3:31 AM
i agree with dgates,

the last bastion of 3d text is sport - where the titling is sometimes much more interesting than the actual event.....
Spot|DSE wrote on 8/1/2010, 11:49 AM
I'm still a big fan of the Cool3D app, and still use it on occasion as it's a very powerful tool.
I do wish the current owners of Corel would sell it off or do something with it. However...the current owners are much better known for letting tools/code just die once they've picked out the guts than they are known for actually using a business model. Their revenue isn't remotely related to software.
LReavis wrote on 8/1/2010, 3:14 PM
I still use Cool3d for titles. It wouldn't work properly in my Win7-64 bit OS . . . that's one reason I dual boot back to WinXP-32.

I also use DAZ, Poser, Bryce, TrueSpace, Argile, Wings (free) K-3D (free), Carrara, Blender, etc., but Google's free Sketchup is the easiest to learn and use. I use it more than all the others combined.

With the $100 Twilight renderer, you get ray-trace rendering for some very nice output. The pair will do animated scene fly-throughs out of the box. Add two free plugins - sketchy physics and Proper Animation and you're able to animate individual objects within scenes and render video animations with Twilight. With the free Shape Bender plugin you can create text that will bend according to a curve that you've drawn. Another free plugin will export to Blender (free) for additional work. From Blender you can export to .OBJ format for import into DAZ, Argile (for pulling/distorting the mesh in order to change the shape, or painting colored patterns on the surface, etc.) or Poser or ??

Many other plugins will draw a helix, toroid, sine wave - you name it, with total control over parameters. Perhaps best of all, 3d warehouse has thousands of free models, almost all of which are public domain, and some of which are quite good indeed. Take a look.