Itching to be creative
whispers65
Posts: 952
OK for a while now I've been making scenes. I've bought a lot of stuff. I've mix and matched. I've learned a lot. But still it leaves me yearning for more.
So what I have thought about doing is creating a couple of long running series, maybe even like a comic strip. A day in the life type thing. Maybe students going through a school year and doing different dressup events like Halloween or whatever (I was leaning toward this as I can think of a lot of fun type activities). Or maybe the adventures at an office complex (although I can't see anything really interesting there. I work in an office lol). Or something. Maybe my Sci-Fi novel I've been working on or my Zombie one that I completed. Anyway, some series that I can really pull out all of the stops and try different things like lighting better and using all of my content that I have been so steadily collecting, mirrors, etc. One thing I would want to do is give it a consistent look so it doesn't look all disjointed.
Anyway, I was thinking about making rooms looked lived in and thinking what were some simple things that I can do to "create" something. I don't know modeling yet or anything like that but thought of simple stuff like framed pictures (where I do a render and then frame it i.e. family photo), or signs like Stop, Wrong Way, etc. I know there's tons out there but I really want something I can call my own. I was also thinking about posters. But when it comes to that they seem pretty complex so I was wondering about real life movie posters but then thought about copyright. Now if it for myself probably no big deal. But then I was thinking why not make my own posters instead. Maybe come up with something for my novels.
Not sure there really is a question here. I'm just yearning to delve a little further into all of this. I just need something simple and step based. I get really overwhelmed easy. I do have a lot of technical know-how computer wise but not really when it comes to art stuff. And it seems working through tutorials is a lot of work but in the long run that's where I want to be.
Thanks for listening.
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Comments
Pick up Hexagon 2.5 here; I think it's a bit under price for a good modeling app. And do some of the tutorials. What it sounds like you want to do is fairly simple modeling, and a good place for anyone to start. Picture frames, soda cans, glasses, plates with half eaten pizza are all easy enough to model once you get the basics down. In no time your pristine room will look like a college dorm room ;-)
Blender is free and insanely powerful but it's a bit daunting to get started in. The Blender community is great and the number of tutorials, resources, updates and support for Blender is unmatched even when compared to $1K+ commercial software IMHO.
www.blender.org
But blender doesn't have the Studio bridge so I can send models directly from one to the other :cheese:
But Blender isn't a buggy dead-end piece of crap like Hexagon plus you don't need a bridge, both DS and Blender can import/export Wavefront object files and DS has Morph Loader Pro built in.
Wings 3D is a free program but I've never used it. I hear it is infinitely easier to use than Blender (which just about anything is).
Drexagon is nice because it has a bridge to Daz, but it's a real case of "you pays your money you takes you chances" in regards to whether or not it will work on you machine or be at all stable. It's got a pretty good, user friendly interface but damn don't it crash if you look directly at it, approach it unannounced, or put your hand anywhere near the mouse. It's an ancient program that hasn't been updated since 2008 and isn't really meant to run on modern OSs.
It took me quite a while to learn what I can and can't do without causing Hexagon to crash and the most important think is to constantly save your work before switching tools. Extruding faces is an exercise in random crashology. Don't use a smoothing modifier higher than 2 even if you machine would be able to handle it with other software. They really should update this software as it's on the verge of being an embarrassment to them as a company.
[edit] Decided to check Wings3D out. It doesn't appear (at least from what I've been able to see) that it can create geometry, only edit geometry created with other software. Looks very simple because it does very little. It's probably used by game Moders. It doesn't appear to be a serious 3D tool.
Alright, let's try the next free modeller down the list. KD-3.
Hmmmm... upon boot it tells me the next update is expected October.... 2010. That's not promising. Oh good, it creates primitives. Let's see how well Genesis imports into it.
Doesn't support .obj
What? That can't be right..... nope.... can't import .obj
Well this is useless. NEXT! >:-(
I do have Hexagon, Blender, and Silo. Blender gives me a headache lol but I will get it eventually. I'm not opposed to buying something as long as it is reasonable. I cant spend 1000's. I'm trying to keep my nephew supplied in gsmes while he goes through his cancer treatments. Whatever I should get I need tutorials, simple to complex and I really need to learn about texturing.
The one thing I'm concern with is scale and getting it right.
Scaling is one of the hardest things to get right in texturing. It will come with time. Until then test out on a small easily textured piece and keep checking it and adjust as needed. If you can swing it, try to get a program that allows you to paint the texture on the object. With them seams are a thing of the past and very easily fixed. I use Cinema 4D and Mudbox for my texturing. I then take it into photoshop and do touch-ups in there
Thanks for the advice. I was also thinking about scaling for objects in general like real-life scale versus characters scale. I'm started a project this afternoon and using real world scales but not sure how that will work when trying to use it for real. At any rate, this tutorial is kind of fun.
...If you do decide to go with Hexagon (it does have a decent UI and softer learning curve than Blender) enable it as large address aware which will give it another GB to work with (it's only a 32 bit app so normally it can only use up to 2GB total). I did that and it hasn't frozen up on me since (cross fingers).
To do this you need 4GB or more of memory and a downloadable utility available here:
http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=112556
The nice thing with Blender though it has a full range of tools including sculpting, UV unwrapping, particle physics, and has both 32 bit and 64 bit support.
I'm not what yet. I did try a tutorial on creating a bed and it uses Silo so I'm working on that but I figure worse case is that gets me comfortable a little bit with the process and I can translate the skills onto other programs.
I know a little about blender. My sister was telling me about it. She bet me to go from not knowing animation, modeling, texturing, etc to putting together an animated short by the middle of next year. Hence, more motivation and I want to learn everything anyway. And creating an animated short no matter how bad it is would be cool. But I always tend to lean heavily toward quality so maybe it wouldn't be all that bad.
Just the bet was for us to design everything in the short ourselves. So It'll be a challenge. Anyway, working on the bed last night was pretty fun. I plan on making different shapes and sizes just for additional practice.