Skill Set Extension
I’ve been trying to teach myself how to use some 3D apps. I’ve tried Blender, Modo, Maya, Daz and ZBrush. After many months of trying, I’ve been most successful with Blender. It’s a free professional 3d app and I have learned to love it.
This is a quick render of a basic belt buckle that I decided to make on a whim. It didn’t take long to create (about 15 minutes) but it utilized some of the new things I recently learned.
If you had asked me a week and a half ago how to make a smooth curved shape I would have told you some crazy sounding stuff that involved lots and lots of smoothing. If you ask me now, I’ll tell you to read up on the warp tool.
I know that it will take me a while to get good at creating 3d objects, especially when I get to things like lighting and camera positioning, but it’ll be worth it in the end. I think it will help me create some of the ideas that I picture.
I’ve reached that point once again where I have all these great ideas but my skills are not up to my standards to create the level of detail that I’d like for certain things. I’m more than ready to rise to the occasion though.
posted Aug 8, 05:28 AM |
1 | On Aug 26, 11:17 AM john Carroll said...
Toya, look scool. I have been using Autidesk 3d max. i took two semesters of it last year and it was so cool t enter this whole new realm after using things like illustrator for so long. My teacher likes it better than Maya and says there is a quicker learning curve so she pushed to get licensing even though the university wanted to go with Maya. I am going to try blender though. CG Society is a good place to get support if you have not already found it. i thibk the web is going more toward 3d, as a natural progression. I know the new Adobe Flash player 10 is going to make that stuff easier. The first thing i started doing was creating logos for websites in MAX and importing them using the new photoshop extended and the support for animation is pretty darn seamless. The resulting animated gif was pretty crisp. This was not so easy to do before CS3. Happy modeling!
this is my project of the DC metro [blurry online :-(]
http://www.gwu.edu/~gsehdcom/metro.swf.
2 | On Aug 31, 08:25 PM Toya David said...
Hey John, that was really good! Your character was really determined to catch that train. I wasn’t expecting him to jump on. I’ve tried a little bit of animation but nothing that complex. I want to learn how to use Blender’s particle system.
3 | On Sep 1, 04:57 PM john said...
Thanks! We were supposed to use ate least one particle system for out project but I got too focused on modeling and animating.The texture on my tunnel and the glow effect I put in the floor made it look like I had a PS effect going but it was not intentional. You can do some amazing things with particle systems from what i have seen. I have another project to show by the end of summer-oh yeah, thats today, maybe I’ll give myself and extension.
5 | On Sep 13, 10:13 PM john said...
Thats sounds challenging. With MAX, you can start to run into memory issues when working with intricate systems that have alot of elements. I wonder if blender is better with that. Have you had any problems with memory, degredation or video card issues? Im curious if Blender is different in that regard. MAX only works on PCs and I do not have a robust enough PC to handle everything I want to do. Maybe I will make the switch. I wold not be the first time I followed your lead.
6 | On Sep 16, 03:23 PM Toya said...
No, I’ve never had any of those problems. I have no idea if it has to do with Blender or my Mac. Why don’t you give Blender a try. You might like it and maybe it will be easier for you to pick up since you already know how to use Max and I think Max is way more complicated to use.
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