Strata vs Cheetah

novolume said:
Absolutely, it's a better thread for it!
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Indeed, I totally agree ;)

(FYI I'm a Strata user for many years and Cheetah just three, hence I found the comment of being uninformed a bit unpleasing. ;) But I like and respect all opinions. None should be offended by any discussion in a forum and I'm sure nobody is. Thanks for bringing life to this discussion! )
 
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Hi,
just for curiosity. Is Strata already 64 bit or still a 32 bit app. I interested in that since quite some time but couldn't find an answer.

Bye
Martin
 
EXCELLENT.
Thanks everyone for your valuable input. I've been wanting to learn and it feels like this is the spot. Part of wanting to get into an app is knowing there is a live community of users. That seems to be the case! I look forward to communicating with you as I think I'm buying this week. Thanks!~

Jeff
 
Hi Jeff,
I'm not sure if you want to hear my opinion at all since I'm probably considered as pretty biased (I'm the developer of Cheetah3D).:wink:

So just one wish from my site. Please don't compare Cheetah3D with the Light version of Strata since they are feature wise really not comparable. Sure the Light version of Strata is cheaper but you also just get a tiny fraction of the functionality Cheetah3D offers. Cheetah3D even compares favorably in most areas to the full version of Strata.

Kind regards
Martin
 
@Martin:

I think Cheetah3D is being considered a "hobbist" app mainly because its clean UI and its very low price; I assume 99$ is the new price since there's no mention of special sale price on both your website and the MAS...

I know it may feel strange to hear a customer saying this to a developer (seller) but your app is way underpriced imho! I'm not saying you have to ask a fortune for it but v.6 and the whole MAS thing could have been the right occasion to offer a "light" version for 50$ and a "full" (with physics, full radiosity and animation and possibly even more stuff) in the 200-250 league.

right now the difference in price between the full version and the upgrade is ridiculous (just 30$) and help creating the idea of a "use-then-trow-it-away" licensing.

I know it's not the price that makes an app hobbist or pro etc. etc. but there should be really no doubt what app to pick up in the MAS for 3D at the moment.

I hope you'll see there's no critic but just appreciation in this post... I own several 3D apps (some belongs to the "pro" league) but I'm hardly capable of doing what I learned to do in Cheeath in the same amount of time. Cheetah can be used as pro viz app (with some limitations of course) but above all it is the perfect app for professional 2D/web graphics that want/need to do 3D every now and then but don't want to invest the time and money the big brothers require.

cheers (and thanks)
Alessandro

P.S.: sorry for the OT
 
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I own a number of apps in the "pro" league as well.

I bought cheetah purely because of the cost. Would I have paid more? Probably not.
Why do I say that?
Well do a search in google and the same old tutorials come up. Some are for versions years old etc. It doesn't look like many folks use it.

The impression you get as a non Cheetah user is that Cheetah is an app that most people move on from to the "big boys toys" and that is what kept me waiting for special deals before I purchased.

That's not the fault of Cheetah or Martyn. In fact I would blame us users for the lack of material that can attract others to Cheetah.

Martyn said in another thread that there are a lot of Cheetah 3d users who make game graphics. How about some of them show what they are doing in the current version. Not just here but on their own websites.

Make it known that the graphic was done in Cheetah and don't let folks assume it was done in any of the other so called big boy apps.

Hopefully with the front page on the MAS an influx of new users and feature tweaks over the life of v6, the above will change.

I will try and see if I can put up a blog or something for tutorials and the like that are separate from this site so that google will pick them up and show active current users are willing to speak their minds about this damned good 3d app.

I know there are lots of fantastic tutorials in these threads and I do not want to take away from them at all.

These are just the thoughts from a pretty new guy to Cheetah who is constantly being surprised by what this app can do.

Mike
 
I'll risk offending a lot of people and say this:

Cheetah 3D loses out big time when people look at the gallery.

Let me take it on the chin and say none of my stuff would qualify for the kind of gallery we're talking about.

I personally judge a graphics app first and foremost by the quality of the work done with it. (I think Pixelmator has gotten where it is in large part by licensing awesome photographs and featuring them on its home page as though Pixelmator had something to do with them. Cheetah 3D is a _far_ more professional app than Pixelmator, but I keep hearing people who should know better suggesting that Pixelmator is a credible Photoshop alternative.)

If you go to any "pro" app (including Strata which, for all its shortcoming, has a serious base of seasoned pros using it) you'll see that there's a lot of clearly professional, commercial work on display there. There may be amateur stuff as well, but it's tucked away.
 
These are good criticisms.

Just yesterday, I compared the Strata and Cheetah gallery and I agree we need more and better gallery material. Cheetah has more than enough potential (Cheetah is extremely underestimated), but I guess the problem is there are not too many pro's using it on a daily base, thus there isn't enough great artwork generated. (note how many artwork in the Strata gallery comes from just a few pro's. If you omit that, you have an entirely different result)

So, here's our challenge as users :smile:

Maybe also more competitions (with prices) might result in more and better artwork?
 
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Fly through / walk through / town planning

There is an example on spline tracking in the help menu. You will probably have to add a target for the camera. I have made a few (animating speed, focal length, simulating the solar position to indicate shadows, etc).
When you have lots of glass / steel / marble (any "t-expensive" materials), you may want to "simplify" these materials, as the rendering time explodes.
Greetings
Helmut
 
podperson said:
I'll risk offending a lot of people and say this:

Cheetah 3D loses out big time when people look at the gallery.

Let me take it on the chin and say none of my stuff would qualify for the kind of gallery we're talking about.
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Sorry but that is just mean. There is a lot of fantastic stuff in the gallery. This first part of the comment was totally unnecessary. :-x

I'm very proud and thankful for every single contribution to my gallery.

podperson said:
I personally judge a graphics app first and foremost by the quality of the work done with it. (I think Pixelmator has gotten where it is in large part by licensing awesome photographs and featuring them on its home page as though Pixelmator had something to do with them. Cheetah 3D is a _far_ more professional app than Pixelmator, but I keep hearing people who should know better suggesting that Pixelmator is a credible Photoshop alternative.)
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If you look at other galleries they are often very replaceable. You find always these shiny Bugatti Veyron renderings where the model was just downloaded from Turbo Squid. That might be good for the sales. But I personally prefer the 100% pure Cheetah3D entries much more.
 
Anhedonium said:
Bah! I'm buying. Where is the best place to start learning? Total newbie but really excited to explore this.
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Hi,
you can either order on my webpage or in the Mac App Store. Please chose the method you like more.

Many thanks in advance.:smile:

Bye
Martin
 
Martin said:
If you look at other galleries they are often very replaceable. You find always these shiny Bugatti Veyron renderings where the model was just downloaded from Turbo Squid. That might be good for the sales. But I personally prefer the 100% pure Cheetah3D entries much more.
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I think that may be true of Strata's galleries to some extent (and is utterly true of any Daz products — most of which are simple renders of Poser models or other off-the-shelf content), but not Luxology or Pixologic who both tend to feature highly original (and usually jaw-dropping) work that shows off several of their favorite newish features.

In the long run, I think Cheetah 3d's best chances for organic growth is getting users new to 3D altogether, and ideally meeting enough of their needs that some or even most of them stay with C3D rather than graduating to a more complex package.

As time goes on, I think you can be choosier, or more strategic shall we say, in selecting images for the gallery (or the default view of the gallery).

I did not intend to diss contributors to the gallery, simply point out that many of them would not pass muster if you were pitching to a pro audience.
 
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@Martin: I appreciate your honesty (not sure it's the right word for what I mean here) but while I understand the uselessly of a collection of ready made stuff a-la-DAZ3D I don't think it's necessary to stick with pure, 100% cheetah stuff, specially when you offer an all-in-one app that someone would want to use, for example, as an additional modeler, scene composer and renderer for sketchup (Luke, me, etc.) or whatever.
In other words, if someone creates a great character in Zbrush and renders a great image in c3d it should go straight in your gallery imho!

also, as I said professional 2D/web designers are a perfect userbase for c3d and not one of the great examples I saw in the forum is featured in the main site gallery (which should be organized in sections btw)

just my 2c of course
 
It all comes to this I guess...

We all (many of us) share a strong feeling that Cheetah deserves much more credit and exposure, since lesser programs seem to go away with all the marbles...
 
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