Strata vs Cheetah

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Anhedonium

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Strata vs Cheetah

Hello Cheetah users,

I am really wanting to start learning 3D and have been debating figuring out Blender, buying the starter Strata 3D ($50) or going for Cheetah.

Can I get some advice on what people recommend and why you recommend Cheetah over other alternatives?

Appreciate your thoughts and wisdom.

Thanks
Jeff
 
I guess this is not the most unbiased place to ask but...

1) Cheetah is the full product and Strata (50$) is just a basic version of the main 3D app (700$) which you will want sooner or later
2) Cheetah is 2010's while Strata still feels 1990's (just my personal opinion... being a long term Adobe guy Strata was the very 1st one I looked at when I needed to go 3D)
3) Cheetah is solid as rock (if you don't believe me try to crash the demo...)
4) wonderful community (can't say anything about Strata's one as I never tried it)
5) tons of additional free scripts and stuff here in the forum
6) easy to learn
7) clean interface
...
 
I've been a Strata professional for several years. It has certain advantages over Cheetah ( rendering), but in general, cheetah blows Strata away as far as I'm concerned. Certainly the ease of use, physics, development speed, rigging, user community, uv-mapping, non-destructive modifiers and creators, price...
 
filip c said:
I've been a Strata professional for several years. It has certain advantages over Cheetah ( rendering)...
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filip, I don't wanna start a fight but I still have to see one single Strata render that would make me spend 700$ on it... I'm not saying it's not good but there are so many free/cheap alternatives nowadays I just think Strata is stuck in the middle of a nowhere land (too pricey for hobbist compared to Cheetah et al. and too "basic" for it's price league - vRay and Maxwell, modo, c4d (intro), ecc.)

just my 2 cents of course
 
If you're talking purely in terms of Strata 3D SE (the $49 version) then its an absolute no contest as far as I'm concerned - no import, no booleans, no QuickTime export, no subdivision?, no animation. That extra $50 for Cheetah buys you a lot more.

You have to think that the SE version is purely there to get you using Strata, once you've bought it you'll quickly find that you need the functionality of the main app and the time you've invested in learning Strata means that you're all the more likely to pay up for the full version.
 
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Well..i've got both (from app store).

Cheetah3D is much more intuitive and professional than Strata (SE version).

So +1 for cheetah.
 
SurfingAlien said:
filip, I don't wanna start a fight but I still have to see one single Strata render that would make me spend 700$ on it... I'm not saying it's not good but there are so many free/cheap alternatives nowadays I just think Strata is stuck in the middle of a nowhere land (too pricey for hobbist compared to Cheetah et al. and too "basic" for it's price league - vRay and Maxwell, modo, c4d (intro), ecc.)

just my 2 cents of course
Click to expand...

Don't get me wrong, I totally agree with you about the render quality. I just miss the rendering to ( photoshop) layers and the area render (for testrendering parts) sometimes. In fact the pencilrenders I did earlier was a rendercompetition between me and a befriended Strata user, wich I believe I totally won ;)
 
My first serious foray into 3d was with Strata back in 1991. For its time it was a brilliant program but its UI is, as oters have said, stuck in the 90s (it looks and feels like a System 7 program). It does have very nice photoshop integration and the way it does area rendering and lets you quickly use render presets is great (and has been since 1991).

I would suggest learning 3d with cheetah (and m book ;-) ) and then picking a more capable program later if you find Cheetah too restrictive. You will learn 3d concepts faster using cheetah than any other program.

Finally: Strata is utterly useless for game development with real time 3d (obviously it's fine for pure-rendered since it was used for MYST).

I actually upgrade to CX6 a while back and found it so bad I demanded a refund.
 
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filip c said:
Don't get me wrong, I totally agree with you about the render quality. I just miss the rendering to ( photoshop) layers and the area render (for testrendering parts) sometimes. In fact the pencilrenders I did earlier was a rendercompetition between me and a befriended Strata user, wich I believe I totally won ;)
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good point... I just forgot to mention one of the few advantages of Strata is the good sync with PS (but just in the higher package, neither the CXi version sold for 500$ in the MAS has it!).
BTW, if you look at the demo renders in the CXi MAS page there's nothing Cheetah can't (easily) do (not sure if CXi has SSS, it would be just one)
 
Hi

no 3d Program between 50 to 150 $ can same than Cheetah only Carrara from Daz can more and Blender (free) but both have a heavy learning curve.

I checked out many of them from

Carrara to Shade 3d to Blender and now Modo 601, between that many tests for the right modeler like silo rhino and others.

All my tests bring same result, in Beginner Segment Cheetah is absolute best one learning curve is not so hard and price is ok.

If you want more real more than you go above 1000 $ for Things like Cinema 4d Studio or Modo 601.
The difference between those programs is often only the workflow, many things cheetah can tweak but you need time and some information about such tricks in higher level programs you don´t need such tricks the workflow if faster and if you earn money with modeling or you 3d work time is money.

A simple Demonstration, many people will model organic shapes with cheetah this is very time intensive but with one or two other tools you can model such shapes (Sculpting Programs) and import them to cheetah.
The higher 3d Solutions can mostly do things like Sculpting, Physics, Motion Imports and others if you see the result of this tools be sure you can do mostly the same with cheetah but you must go a other way for that result like use one or two other free tools in your pipeline.

At the beginning of 3d Art with Computers anybody know such tricks why ? most programs this time was very simple and without a ton of features.
Today many many people use Box Modelling to bring a simple mesh to a complex one this technique coms up at a time where organic shaping was a dream but no computer can handle that.
Today hole world is doing sculpting or Voxel Meshes to make a organic shape but if you will need such a mesh in animation you must retopo that to get a smaller polygon resolution this smaller mesh you can constrict mostly with simple box modeling also.

So if you not earn money with your work buy other things for your money ;-) learn cheetah and you know much more than a artist that use voxel sculpting.

best

Andre


Anhedonium said:
Hello Cheetah users,

I am really wanting to start learning 3D and have been debating figuring out Blender, buying the starter Strata 3D ($50) or going for Cheetah.

Can I get some advice on what people recommend and why you recommend Cheetah over other alternatives?

Appreciate your thoughts and wisdom.

Thanks
Jeff
Click to expand...
 
I classify strata as legacy software that's essentially just surviving because it has existing users. I think it would be a huge mistake to get into it now.

If you're stingy and have plenty of spare time, use Blender.

If you have a little money and like nice software then try Cheetah 3D.

If your boss is paying get modo.
 
podperson said:
I classify strata as legacy software that's essentially just surviving because it has existing users. I think it would be a huge mistake to get into it now.

If you're stingy and have plenty of spare time, use Blender.

If you have a little money and like nice software then try Cheetah 3D.

If your boss is paying get modo.
Click to expand...

quote everything except... "if your boss is paying get: Cinema4D studio (3000k)" ;) it has an easier leaning curve and it's stable as rock (it really looks like the natural upgrade for those who may want to take a step up from cheetah imho)
 
SurfingAlien said:
quote everything except... "if your boss is paying get: Cinema4D studio (3000k)" ;) it has an easier leaning curve and it's stable as rock (it really looks like the natural upgrade for those who may want to take a step up from cheetah imho)
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I'll second that. The leap from Cheetah to Cinema isn't so big in terms of learning (the price difference however is astonomical).
 
I think I know C3D pretty well. I know a half dozen other 3D packages pretty well. I bought C4D R11 XL and found it hard going. Maybe it's just me. (But I also see a lot of evidence of serious pros switching to modo -- C4D seems closer to the legacy side, with a bunch of existing customers rusted on to it.)

I think my point was made though -- don't spend your money on a more expensive program unless you are really sure (or get educational pricing ;-) )
 
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podperson said:
I think I know C3D pretty well. I know a half dozen other 3D packages pretty well. I bought C4D R11 XL and found it hard going.
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It's pretty much the opposite for me, Cheetah, Cinema and Silo are the only 3 I've ever really got along with and I've tried quite a lot.

That said I think your point is bang on. I find the debate quite an interesting one as I think the perception of Strata from the outside is pretty good. Decent renders, entry level pricing (initially), dedicated tutorial site - it all looks like a pretty big company that is active with its product. I think you may be onto something when you say it's surving though as when you dig a little deeper it doesn't look quite so active. Perception counts for a lot.
 
I would disagree with a lot that has been said about Strata in this thread. Much of it seems like it is coming from the uninformed or is biased. I think Strata is very competitively priced for its feature set. It has a lot going for it. For example http://www.stratauniversity.com is an EXCELLENT resource for new and veteran users of the application and is constantly updated. And cheap! Please point me to something similar for Cheetah? And the community is active in posting new images to the gallery at http://www.stratacafe.com as well as active in helping out new and existing users. The rendering engine is extremely quick, powerful and has an amazing tone to its output. And the control in the rendering engine far surpasses Cheetah on so many levels.

The modeling tools are extremely flexible and things like shapes (a form of instancing) are just wonderful. You can jump into an instance in a scene and edit it individually within its own coordinate system and then jump back into the scene and the changes propagate to all copies. And it has a full complement of SDS modeling tools as well as a very friendly bezier modeling toolset. Many of the tools are more easily understood compared to Cheetah's tools that often don't even use common naming standards. And people here complain about booleans in Cheetah? Well Strata has two amazing methods of boolean operations. Actual booleans that work very well and accurately resulting in clean meshes and a render time boolean operation know as antimatter.

Regarding the interface. I'd disagree that it is dated they updated (modernized it) the interface in the most recent release. And the development has been very steady so I wouldn't agree with that either. They are open to the community and listen to what the users want just as Martin does here. And I know that the next version is aimed towards improving the animation side of things.

I'd say once you learn Strata you'll find it much more capable in many ways than Cheetah on many levels. All of that in mind I'd say that Cheetah does have it's own benefits as well. It's much more cost effective! The node render system is interesting, but it's not as intuitive at first as Strata's layer based approach. I do like how Strata can literally layer materials on top of each other something that Cheetah can not do. Cheetah does have a better animation system. In my mind it all comes down to what you want to do, if you want to do illustration go with Strata as I'll admit that is where it excels, if you want to dabble and do a variety of things go with Cheetah. Cheetah is an excellent app for its price and I would say its definitely the more cost effective solution.
 
Nichod said:
I would disagree with a lot that has been said about Strata in this thread. Much of it seems like it is coming from the uninformed or is biased. I think Strata is very competitively priced for its feature set. It has a lot going for it. For example http://www.stratauniversity.com is an EXCELLENT resource for new and veteran users of the application and is constantly updated. And cheap! Please point me to something similar for Cheetah? And the community is active in posting new images to the gallery at http://www.stratacafe.com as well as active in helping out new and existing users. The rendering engine is extremely quick, powerful and has an amazing tone to its output. And the control in the rendering engine far surpasses Cheetah on so many levels.

The modeling tools are extremely flexible and things like shapes (a form of instancing) are just wonderful. You can jump into an instance in a scene and edit it individually within its own coordinate system and then jump back into the scene and the changes propagate to all copies. And it has a full complement of SDS modeling tools as well as a very friendly bezier modeling toolset. Many of the tools are more easily understood compared to Cheetah's tools that often don't even use common naming standards. And people here complain about booleans in Cheetah? Well Strata has two amazing methods of boolean operations. Actual booleans that work very well and accurately resulting in clean meshes and a render time boolean operation know as antimatter.

Regarding the interface. I'd disagree that it is dated they updated (modernized it) the interface in the most recent release. And the development has been very steady so I wouldn't agree with that either. They are open to the community and listen to what the users want just as Martin does here. And I know that the next version is aimed towards improving the animation side of things.

I'd say once you learn Strata you'll find it much more capable in many ways than Cheetah on many levels. All of that in mind I'd say that Cheetah does have it's own benefits as well. It's much more cost effective! The node render system is interesting, but it's not as intuitive at first as Strata's layer based approach. I do like how Strata can literally layer materials on top of each other something that Cheetah can not do. Cheetah does have a better animation system. In my mind it all comes down to what you want to do, if you want to do illustration go with Strata as I'll admit that is where it excels, if you want to dabble and do a variety of things go with Cheetah. Cheetah is an excellent app for its price and I would say its definitely the more cost effective solution.
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Nice to hear another opinion. And I'm sure there is truth in every meaning, but please don't call us uninformed...
 
Nichod said:
And people here complain about booleans in Cheetah? Well Strata has two amazing methods of boolean operations. Actual booleans that work very well and accurately resulting in clean meshes and a render time boolean operation know as antimatter.

Regarding the interface. I'd disagree that it is dated they updated (modernized it) the interface in the most recent release. And the development has been very steady so I wouldn't agree with that either.
Click to expand...

It is good to hear another opinion but two of your points - firstly Strata SE, the version in question in the initial post doesn't support booleans of any type according to the Strata website.

And regarding the interface, it's clear that Strata is influenced by Photoshop but it actually looks like a very old version of Photoshop, even if the interface is new to Strata users. I believe that is why people call it dated.

I actually have the demo of Strata on my machine right now and have been playing with it over the past couple of weeks so my opinion isn't uninformed, but it is just my opinion and in truth if you're debating over which software to use then the simple answer is just try them both, see which you get on with best.
 
Well I'm just giving my opinion as a user of Strata since the Blitz days. I've been using it since it pretty much came into existence. And you are correct about the booleans not being present in the SE version. Most of my discussion was regarding the full version. I'm not a fan of lite versions of software. I always feel like the buyer is just wasting money. I don't think the interface is dated at all. The current version looks very modern.

No need to offend anyone, I just wanted to throw in some balance into the pot!
 
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