Recent reviews by Dralgur

3D Coat is very powerful software without an overwhelming GUI. I'll admit I use 3D Coat as more of a finalizer in my 3D process and I'm not very knowledgeable about it's sculpting abilities (which look great). However it is invaluable even still if for no other reason than it's UV tools. I've long used a simple sculpting tool and even though I should probably learn to sculpt with 3D Coat, I still use it to fix my UV after my simple sculpting program shatters it. The auto mapping to generate a new UV fixes my web-like overlapping UVs every time.

I've also started using 3D Coat more for it's retopology tools and those are fantastic too. Even though I've just started using them I can already produce cleaner meshes that are easier to assign material regions to afterwards.

Additionally I'm experimenting with 3D Coat for painting textures in 3D onto my models - there seems to be a lot of potential there and 3D Coat might end up replacing my other tool for this purpose.

Either way I've never found UV tools that match, so 3D Coat is an irreplaceable part of my 3D pipeline and will only grow in it's importance as I learn how to use it better.

Wow - I am simply blown away by Akeytsu. This is the software I kept wishing for - something that focuses solely on rigging & animating 3D models and does it REALLY well.

As an indie game dev I have meandered around the world of 3D asset creation - often avoiding the expensive industry standards or finding them far too cumbersome when I take a look. As such I have created a pipeline using simple, focused 'indie friendly' 3D creation software available here on Steam - but it was sorely lacking one key piece and Akeytsu was it.

No more need to load up heavy & clunky full 3D suites to rig & animate my simple models made in simple & fun modellers. Now I get to use Akeytsu and keep the process artsy & fun.

Drawing bones on your mesh to create a skeleton is easy, modifying the bones position or hiearchy is easy, binding the skeleton to your mesh is easy, even adjusting the weight map painting to fix a bone tuggin on part of the mesh it shouldn't is easy.

Creating the animations is a joy as well. The stacker for creating keyframes for you is super intuitive and speeds the process up. The system allows you to create as many Animation Clips for a model as you want, they will all be embedded and available in Unity as separate clips ready for an Animator FSM. No more having to create all animations on a single timeline and then manually spelling out the frame ranges in Unity (as I had to do with Poser).

I honestly don't know what to criticize here - this software is perfect. My only wish is to see Blendshapes for facial animations fully added but it's clear that the developers are currently working on that.

Fantastic work here, thank you for this creation tool !!

Silo 2 may be older and more singularly focused than other 3D modelling software, but I absolutely love it. Don't let this modeller fool you with it's simple UI and focus - this is quite powerful stuff here. You can very easily make just about any shape you could imagine with Silo 2.

The main point for me is the ease of use. I have tried out many, many different 3D asset creation packages. Silo 2 is hands down the easiest place to start blocking out my model and adding refinement. I use another program that is focused only on clay-like sculpting to touch up the final product from Silo, but the bulk of the work in overall shape creation is done in Silo. Being able to easily grab vertices or edges and just start experiementing with shapes is crucial for fast design and accessibility for newcomers. This is truly a 3D modeller where you will NOT have to fight against the UI or hotkeys.

Not only is it a competent modeller but the tools for re-drawing your mesh topology (polygon faces) are great as are the ones for assigning materials to the various sections of the mesh (material settings in Silo are respected in 3D Coat, Substance Painter, Unity).

On top of that the program is actually still receiving updates - I hope they never stop because as an indie game dev Silo has become an integral part of my pipeline... despite owning & using several other larger and more 'reputable' 3D production suites.

Overall I think Silo 2 is amazing. If you know what you are doing it is super clean & fast to use. If you are learning then it is very simple to get started and actually enjoy the creation process.

I was quite happy with this game. As a long time tabletop Warhammer fan I felt like this game brought to life all my favorite childhood memories once again, the dedication to the lore is notable. At the same time I was exposed to the Total War engine and found it to be very enjoyable. The turn based empire building part is great, the real time tactical battles are great and truly feel like how you maneuver your troops makes a difference.

After 180 hours I finally beat the Mortal Empires sandbox campaign, after probably 4 restarts. Now I can play through it from the many other sides and I'm actually interested in that. Quite an accomplishment, few games hold such attention from me anymore. I'm sure some of it is due to Warhammer fanboyism, but if you have even an inkling of that yourself then this is a treasure.

This game is great and achieves exactly what it sets out to do.

Very easy to pick up and play, tempting to jump in and try another run.

The combat system, while a little funky, is actually fairly tense at times - interesting way to handle it.

Fun marriage between old school dungeon crawler and roguelike.

Interesting skills let you build your own custom character each try.

Surprisingly in depth item system.

Broken english is endearing.

I don't understand the negativity from others in reviews, not everything can be a AAA epic and I think this little project was a huge success.

This is excellent vector art software. I have been using their web designer sister suite for awhile so I thought I would try out this Graphic Designer for some vector art needs, I'm quite pleased with it.

Having used Adobe Illustrator & Flash in the past (way too expensive & clunky), Anime Studio (too expensive and more focused on animation), and even Inkscape (free but with a rough UI and limited import/export) I think Graphic Designer fits into a nice niche. It's under $100 but it feels very robust & powerful, it was quick to jump in and figure out how to start making & modifying vector shapes, filling with colors, adjusting line thickness etc.

If you want something nicer than the free vector art programs, but more reasonable in pricing than the industry standards - this seems like a good choice.

Having just recently taken a chance on this game despite some of the negativity, I am quite pleased. I decided to give it a try as it has by far the largest active online population of any fighter on PC and on top of that has crossplatform with Playstation players.

I saw endless complaints of the game not having versus CPU or training modes, well it does now. From my understanding the game was basically released as defacto early access and many of the early negative reviews stem from that.

Down to what matters - the game is fun. The fighting feels more measured and less spastic than I remember SFIV being. The V-moves are a nice addition and the charging of your V bar & EX bar all feel like they flow nicely with the gameplay and the moves. The reversals are an interesting touch that remind me a bit of the combo breakers from Mortal Kombat. All in all it feels like the skill floor is much lower than SFIV yet the ceiling is just as high. Compared to SFIV the frame windows on moves are much more generous. The end result is a more fun game where newbies can at least feel like they are doing something, but masters still reign.

The graphics are quite pleasing - things seem a bit more toned down and less over the top than SFIV as well. Characters are more proportional feeling, animations seems to be a little more realistic and less cartoony, particle effects a bit less dramatic, the textures seem to be less high contrast and bright to give it a little less comic book feel. This all may or may not be to your preferences.

The most important part of course is the online multiplayer. After several hours of trying out casual matches I was satisfied with the system. I played about 30 matches - only 2 had any lag and they were with people from another continent - and only 1 bad connection drop during handshake. The rest of the matches played out as nicely as a local game. I imagine I could tweak the settings to not have to deal with international players at the cost of potentially longer match wait times. At default settings I was only waiting about 1-2 minutes on average for an opponent, not bad at all. I noticed at least half of my opponents were Playstation players so the crossplatform gameplay is definitely helping out the population size.

So in the end I think it is a great fighting game. I've been playing SF & other fighting games since the golden era of the arcades - now that they are pretty much extinct around me this is the next best thing.

EDIT 1 - So I've continued to play this game online for about a month now, matches are quick to find and only rarely laggy. I still stand by my earlier assessment - this is a good fighting game for PC.

I am definitely a fan of this 3D asset creation software. It is like a more powerful version of Sculptris that can actually handle editing models made elsewhere as well.

This is something (along with a seemingly natural companion of Silo 2) that really helped save my interest in learning to create and work with 3D models. Many other suites are insanely overwhelming to get started with, such as the admirable but frustrating for many Blender. Curvy is fast, you can start creating and manipulating shapes immediately without even studying up, even for a total first time user.

As I've progressed, learned about the pipelines and purchased far more expensive programs - I find myself still using Curvy. It really is great for fast organic shaped model creation. The ability to sketch a 2D shape and have it pop into 3D is fairly handy. Surprisingly I also find myself using it as a sculpting tool for models I've created elsewhere as well. Sure it is not Zbrush or Mudbox or even 3D Coat, but for my purposes as an indie game dev (working within the constraints of multiple platforms) those programs are total overkill anyway. The power they provide (I do own 3D Coat) requires too much time investment to make it worth it to me and even if utilized, would be fairly wasted somewhere like Unity where a single mesh is limited to 65k polys (unless you are ok with it being chopped into parts like perhaps a static prop).

The one thing I really wish Curvy could do is import and edit 3D models in FBX file format. This would allow me to work on models that have already been rigged (for this I must use 3D Coat). However I find Curvy worth using in the early prototype stages of all my models even still.

There are some tricks to learn, such as the fact that importing an OBJ will collapse all of the 'subparts' into a single mesh listed in the scene... however this can be easily 'exploded' into all the parts it was built with in some other program through a menu option.

All in all I think this software would be good for anyone looking to enter the 3D creation world, and probably a very fun quick prototyping tool for anyone that is already familiar with 3D assets.

PS - It seems like all the negative reviews are from people misusing this software - trying to use the sketching like it is CAD or trying to create hardedge extrusion styled models. As long as you understand what Curvy is and need the functionality, I think you'll be happy.

Well I haven't loved & hated a game this strongly in awhile, most excellent. What do you call a game like this, an Aysymmetric RTS I suppose. It remind me of playing Enzo's Survival maps back in Warcraft 3, but deeper.

Infested Planet is a fantastic strategy & tactics game, controls are similar to most RTSes but the gameplay is not. It's all about an intense tug of war game between you and the alien bugs over control points on the map. You and your small squad must try to control a map against thousands of times your number.

The challenge is legit (infuriating at times), the fun is fairly unique, the price is very low. Big thumbs up from me.

Awesome shooter game, free 2 play too !