Giveaway has ended: see the results HERE. Thank you, everybody!
I’m and excited to announce yet another AskMeAnything session. Today, incredible CgMasters crew is joining us, so prepare your questions! If it isn’t enough, you can win Complete Dinosaur Creation DVD (3 digital copies).
Ask Me Anything (Together With CGMasters Crew!)
Ask your questions about art, composition, CG, 3d, coffee, lighting book, something personal and anything else in the comments.
I will be glad to review your pictures and give you a feedback.
Also CgMasters crew is joining me this time:
Aidy Burrows (Environments)
Chris Plush (Blender Game Engine)
Lee Salvemini (Animation)
Steve Lund (Dino DVD author & 3D Generalist)
Find out more about their backgrounds at the links, so you can prepare the most vicious questions.
You can ask very specific things, like: “Aidy, how do you approach Costa Rican coffee roasting?..”
Or something along these lines: “Gleb, what is your favorite 27 ways to fake volume light in Blender”.
Q&A session will last for 12 days – June 10-22.
How to Enter the Complete Dinosaur Creation Giveaway?
[video_embed][/video_embed]
Just ask us a question, and I’ll pick the winner using True Random Generator.
Pretty simple, huh?
What Is Complete Dinosaur Creation DVD?
This is the complete tutorial series on creating Tyrannosaurus Rex, from modeling to texturing, sculpting details, shading, creating rig and animating (!).
Basically, you get a whole workflow explained by Steve Lund (you also know him as CgGeek) in 13 hours of video. That’s serious.
Giveaway Deadline – June 22, 2015
The winner will be announced on June 22, 2015. Here, on CreativeShrimp. Stay tuned!
How the Winner of the Giveaway Will Be Picked?
I will pick the winner using True Random Generator.
Aidy Burrows
Very happy to be a part of this exercise in collaboration! Also my knowledge of coffee is pretty much going to consist of asking Gleb, or there was a barista guy I saw on a Joe Rogan podcast once called Peter Giuliano, so I might need to read his stuff to get good coffee knowledge/ideas.
On that he recently tweeted something pretty funny regarding coffee by Danny Pinnell….
https://twitter.com/dannypinnell/status/605776789923766272
…a yawn is a silent scream for coffee
Speak to y’all soon! 🙂
Aidy.
Gleb Alexandrov
It’s super exciting to have so many professionals here.
Together we are covering pretty much everything related to CG and coffee roasting. So, people, ask your questions and invite your friends by sharing this Q&A (via huge and attractive buttons above and below the post).
Thanks for offering your expertise in Q&A, Aidy!
Aidy Burrows
Appreciate that Gleb! I’ll add a load more answers tomorrow! 😀
Aidy.
SaphireS
Sounds awesome! 🙂
Ryuu Tseku
when i drink my cofee , seeing that you make a new video say that we can win a copie of this incredible DVD , i say to myself , hum today in france is the day where jurrasic world goes out in the movie theaters and i say , i gonna go to see it , gonna win this competiton , and most of all , make my own t rex and make my wife scream when i will camera track a scene with her beeing fallow by my future little baby t rex :d
thank for all your work man !
Gleb Alexandrov
Heheh buddy, that’s the part of our cunning plan, to announce the Dyno DVD giveaway just before Jurassic World. By the way, your plan sounds very cool too!
Ryuu Tseku
yes indeed it sound good , but i have to win to do it , and convince my wife too… i wonder wich part will be the hardest ^^
Lasse Michaelis
Hey Gleb, when did you start to learn cg in general and did you start with blender?
Gleb Alexandrov
Hey Lasse, thanks for a great question! My first steps in cg were with 3ds max. I was 16 when I started to think that I can create my own 3d castle with dragons. Unfortunately, my first attempts at creating this fantasy castle failed miserably. I built a whole castle wall by cloning box primitives (as a bricks!). And my computer refused to handle such mess. After that failed attempt, I created stupid spheres, pyramids and of course, teapots for a long time.
Back then, I didn’t know at all how to texture my stuff so I did one of 2 things:
1. Used procedural textures like cellular or marble, and they looked awful :))
2. Or painted textures in post-pro, as if I was creating matte-painting.
I started to treat computer graphics seriously when I was 18-20. Now I’m 26, and I use Blender for 2 years already. That’s my math.
remek4x4
Whats the mindset for sucesfull learning? I know this is very open/general question but I’m curious of your answer 🙂
Aidy Burrows
That’s a good question.
For me and this goes for any topic my learning mindset is to make it fun and make it appeal to the senses. Simple as that.
If it really isn’t that fun or tricky to extract some enjoyment out of it like it’s really just some hard thing that you have to get through to get to the good stuff then I just concentrate on the good stuff on the other side.
Something that helps with the harder times are to make the reason behind why you need to succeed bigger than just yourself, so by succeeding through the tricky bit it helps more than just you in some way. For example figuring something difficult out and then sharing it with the Blender community is a great way and simplest and perhaps most direct way to make something bigger than just yourself.
Hope that makes sense! 🙂
Aidy.
Chris Plush
Like with anything else in life, persistence and passion are key. Practice as often as you can, have big goals to keep you motivated, and love what you do! Keep your passion fueled with inspirational art from other artists, and stay motivated by joining a community like blenderartists.org which will also be useful for feedback on your work which is very important to your learning.
Lee Salvemini
“If you aren’t getting paid (be it a learning or hobby project), pick the most fun exciting subject or idea you can!” It’ll help keep you going through the tough challenging times, and that’s when you *really* learn some new tools or skills.
Max
Hi guys I’ve been following you for a while now and you helped me a lot. Inspirational art!
I would love to know how to deal with interior/architectural scenes in terms of lighting and a noise free, sharp render. 😀
Greetings from Germany, Max
Aidy Burrows
Greetings from the UK!
Well i can tell you now i’ll be taking a deep long look at the new cycles portal feature. I think this feature might be in trunk now too, i’d have to check that though… http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?362104-Experimental-Cycles-light-portals
Aidy.
Max
Wow that actually looks really promising! Thank you 😀
Desert Line
Hey Gleb. Do you think that a man from Kashmir,J&K, who can create some stuff with Blender be able to earn a livelihood by working from home?
Thanks for the tuturiols.
Aidy Burrows
Hi Desert Line, Aidy here,
I thought i’d jump in and offer my view on that as it’s pretty simple…
‘yes!’
It doesn’t matter where you’re from, if you’re working from home on the internet there is a way.
There are plenty of blogs and books on the subject these days too.
Several of these can be found on Gleb’s page here as it happens….
http://www.creativeshrimp.com/resources.html
Good luck! 🙂
Aidy.
Lcq92
I don’t drink coffee but I enjoy very much the taste of espressos and cappuccinos. Should I get – addicted – into it ? I fear the moment when if I don’t drink it one day I’ll fall asleep within an hour.
Because it seems like such an awesome feeling to #b3dwithcoffee !!
Chris Plush
I would like to take a moment and insert an advertisement for Red Bull here. Red Bull, the coffee of champions.™
Hack Fresse
What is the best Way to push your ideas further to a finish renderring.
I woud be happy about an answer.
Benedikt
Aidy Burrows
Hi! Aidy here,
I’ll offer a view on this, first off, it’s almost never feels like a render is finished, it usually is just finished ‘enough’, or you know it’s time to move on.
That said you can know that you’ve hit a point that you needed to reach by checking that your work hits the right emotional chord with whoever your target was, so if it was a piece for yourself have you reached what you set out to reach? If it was for someone else, do most people ‘get it’?
It might sound simplistic but ‘the point’ is missed by a lot of folks, and including myself i’ll get lost in a tangent sometimes or just simply explore another idea and forget ‘my point’ in the process so it’s worth self checking and self correcting, and also testing and iterating along the way.
Always try to remember that goal that you have, try to keep it mind with each piece. If you don’t have a goal or aim with the piece and this actually is far more common with people that is given credit for then bring it back to that.
Maybe a render would work better with a larger goal or by trying to elicit a deeper emotional resonance from the audience.
Hope i’ve not misinterpreted your question too much! 🙂 Aidy.
blazraidr
Where do you get your inspiration for new projects from?
Aidy Burrows
I’d like to hear from Gleb on this too,
Personally I think my inspiration comes from the environment, and then conversely what is missing from the environment or juxtaposing that in some way.
For example I’ve been working on a project which was sparked from playing with my 5 year old son and his mini wooden trains and train track. I thought it’d be cool to see those objects and child like design used as the backdrop for an epic adventure around a living room, adding people into the shots, awesome vfx crashes and so on. Where the project will end up I don’t really know but I’ve had fun with putting it together so far.
Anyway, I know your stuff from youtube, it’s cool stuff, while i’m here let me say – keep it up! 🙂
Aidy.
Thomas Myrup
https://goo.gl/r8J9it&folax
Gleb Alexandrov
My inspiration comes from:
1. world around me, as I experience it on a daily basis
2. childhood memories are very strong source of inspiration (exploring some creepy abandoned houses, playing old-school computer games, reading Tolkien, dreaming of parallel reality)
3. works of other artists (photos on Flickr set my imagination on fire like no problem)
4. technical advancements in CG, offline and realtime. When I see what game engines (Unreal, Unity) can do today, I get 142% inspired to continue creating cg stuff.
5. coffee, damn it.
https://twitter.com/gleb_alexandrov/status/607240017539416065
Thomas Myrup
https://goo.gl/hx1TJy&hjvif
Lee Salvemini
Sometimes its comes from out of nowhere or something random. But usually for characters it’s a great concept art or fan art. For animations and films, anime and videogame cutscenes always seem to inspire me the most. Maybe it’s due to seeing how others handle digital sets and content. But personally I just love VFX too, and how they are incorporated into live action plates.
That’s what keeps one inspired for new projects too, for me right now, I’ve been keen to do more VFX and mixing in live action with CG. So I’m saving up to buy a nice camera, and learn some more about tracking, try some tests. 🙂
Thomas Myrup
https://goo.gl/ANmwws&tybam
Thomas Myrup
https://goo.gl/1ZrETv&utyka
rendra meizafito
What are you doing when you wait for render to finish?
Aidy Burrows
Haha, great question,
personally really really really hoping i’ve not forgotten to switch a layer back on or something like that.
Oh and also looking at other renders that I like trying to recalibrate myself so that when I look at the finished render, it’s with fresher eyes and I know whether it’s up to par or not.
Aidy. 🙂
Chris Plush
I have several fingerboards on my desk that I play with while waiting for a render, haha. Also during hectic projects render time is the only time of the day I find to sneak a meal in! Aidy also makes a good point about looking at other renders to reset your eyes, I never thought about that but it probably works wonders.
Gleb Alexandrov
That’s when life kicks in. First, I look around and notice that the world has changed.
Then I start procrastinating. I watch some crazy stuff on youtube, surf for pictures, open my .xls file with the ideas and planning.
kropaman2
awesome guys!
Gleb Alexandrov
Thank you, man!
DGriss
Two questions, when animating a timelaps video in blender do you keep the graph editor in step mode or in S-Curve mode? Also how can you achieve a tilt shift lens effect with a blender camera in order to make your scene look like miniatures?
Rishabh Gupta
Hey! Well I am a beginner to blender and cg stuff. And i get demoralized very quickly whenever I am not able to do great and cool stuff like others do. And resulting in a long break and hence wasting my precious learning time. So I wanted to know from you that what keeps YOU motivated to do all the great stuff you do ?? 😀
Chris Plush
Hey Rishabh, I’d like to weigh on this. I hope all the others do too because we all have different ways of motivating ourselves. The first thing to realize is that periods of feeling demotivated are a totally normal part of the process, even for pros.
The most important thing to keep in mind while learning is that you’re only in competition with yourself at this point. As long as you keep getting better than you were then you’re well on your way to being as awesome as you want to be. It’s also important to switch up your perspective. Instead of letting other artists demotivate you with artwork you can’t yet achieve, allow yourself to be inspired by it. It’s been made by people that have a major head-start in the field whereas you’re just starting out. Keep in mind that every single artist you admire right now was terrible at some point! Their passion and persistence drove them in becoming great.
To get myself motivated I like to fire up a video game and study the environments for inspiration and motivation. And even though I’ve been using blender for 15 years, to motivate myself I like to look at tutorials =) It makes creating more casual when you’re learning something new because the task at hand isn’t creating something mind blowing, it’s simply learning a new tool or new technique. Another thing that kept me motivated when I was learning blender is being active in the community at blenderartists.org. Whether I was posting my own work for critique, joining contests, joining team projects, or simply browsing the forums, it felt great and was highly motivating knowing I wasn’t alone in my journey. Good luck!
Aidy Burrows
Hi!
Great question! And I feel where you’re coming from.
Every moment is a progression, there are no wasted moments, don’t worry about that. It’s like a tectonic shift, keep pushing and pushing and although things don’t seem to be moving for a while suddenly there’s a big shift and then you can’t help but notice a change.
Know that there will be moments that feel flat and like nothing is happening, know that on the other side of that it will feel great for a little bit and then they’ll be another flat bit that again you have to remind yourself that is temporary so long as you keep pushing, exposing yourself to new knowledge and new inspiration.
Have confidence in yourself, read 2 or 3 books on the subjects you feel are your weakest and you’ll be ahead of most of the ‘competition’.
Keep it simple, keep it fun. It’s possible to just learn composition and basic lighting and you’ll be able to create awesome works with very basic modeling. Materials and textures not required. Just black and white stuff. 3 chords and the truth as they say.
Make it look good as early as possible, get to blockout and first pass lighting as soon as possible. If it isn’t working for you break it down.
Take a look at these videos….
http://www.ctrlpaint.com/library/
Section 4, composition.
you’ll be armed with some cool thought processes.
Hope that helps! Good luck! 😀
Aidy.
Hope that helps. 🙂
Aidy.
kokonus
You talk allot about inspiration, but I’ve been wondering how to do a schedule and stick to it.
Getting projects is no problem for me, but actually working on them is more tricky.
Could you give some tips about that?
Aidy Burrows
I hope Gleb doesn’t mind me adding a link here to help answer this but Lee put a post together which might offer something along the lines that you’re looking for…
http://www.cgmasters.net/free-tutorials/making-a-project-in-your-spare-time-6-point-checklist-to-succeed/
Focus is hard and needs practice by the way. If you’re having trouble sticking to something you want to finish there’s a few tips on this…
1) make sure what you’re working on always looks cool.(get to finished blockout and reasonable lighting asap!)
2) always leave your scene in a state where you want to pick it back up again. Make it easy to pickup where you left off, don’t finish where the next thing you need to do is solve a hard problem, make it fun to carry on or you risk not carrying on.
3) make it important in your mind, you have to finish this because?…. and have a good reason, make it bigger than yourself ideally, it’s easy to give up for yourself you can pretty easily convince yourself there’s a good reason to, but when you have others in mind that’s a higher purpose.
I’m building a game right now, it’s so easy to get distracted, but I remind myself that people are going to love playing this thing so I HAVE to get it done. I’m depriving others of a cool ride in the meantime! That’s one of a lot of reasons keeping it fun, fresh and in the forefront of my mind.
Hope that helps. 🙂 Aidy.
Tristan Schneider
When did you start to care about interesting and creative lighting? I think that it is a good idea but many people mostly about modeling but they have boring lighting and the mood of the scene isn’t created.
Aidy Burrows
Although this is one for Gleb, let me add that when I was working on production for various game levels at TT Fusion (part of the warner bros entertainment group) it was incredible the difference a good lighting pass can make to a level.
And everyone knows it too, you’ll see a beginner almost always light their work very dimly or put as much shadow into it as possible, we like to see form presented as shadow onto other forms, it’s a pleasing multiplied complexity of shape and contrast and our eyes can understand it in a flash. Though it doesn’t always ‘read’ well, the lighting is often used to hide imperfections in these early cases.
Basically my view is that good lighting requires an understanding of a subtler sort of observation, whereas modeling is a narrow band within that compositional framework and probably a more obvious thing to focus on. The ‘thing’ the ‘object’, the ‘product’, it probably feels like you’re doing and creating more by modeling the ‘set’ but of course many stories can be told on that set and it can take a while to realize that the lighting and composition can actually be quite simple but hugely effective in telling that story.
But as I say less obvious by the very fact that it’s not a tangible ‘thing’ but rather the reflections, perspectives and shadows of other things.
Hope that makes sense. 🙂
Aidy.
Riccardo Giovanetti
Hi Gleb. First of all, thank you for your valuable tutorials, bits & pieces, tips & tricks, especially on lighting techniques.
I am currently exploring the fluid simulation within Blender and have a question: how would you simulate the foam of beer with a volumetric shader and procedural textures (for the volume absorption and scattering) instead of “painting the fluid mesh” to be used as a mask for a simple white diffuse shader? Thanks.
Chris
Hi, Gleb. How much time do you need to get from an idea to starting to model it in blender?
Often when I’m outside I see some stuff and think “I am going to make this in Blender!”, but when I’m home I forgot it already.
Chris Plush
Hey Chris, I’ll chime in on this as I’m often the same way. 3D has trained my eyes to always see the world as potential art, which is awesome until people catch you staring at them while you’re mentally adding topology to their faces.
If I come across something outside that inspired me in any way I like to either take a picture of it with my phone, or simply add it to a list of things I want to create so I don’t forget about it. Sometimes I work on that model the same day, other times I may not ever get around to it at all. It all depends on how cool or how useful the subject is I guess.
Marius Oelsch
Hey!
I’m currently working on a photorealistic room animation and have finished the moddeling and animation of he cam. But now I would need some help with the lightning. I watched your tutorials but the animation is very complex and so I don’t have the opportunity of the lightning settings you presented in your videos.
Thanks in advance!
Cheers Marius
Aidy Burrows
Hi Try taking a look at the new Cycles Portal feature, this may reduce render time significantly for interiors, getting a less noisy render with lower samples and making some setup more of a possibility than before.
I haven’t used it myself yet but that’s what springs to mind right now.
Aidy.
Marius Oelsch
Thanks a lot for the qick answer!
I’ll try it and give a short answer hos it works.
Cheers Marius
Aidy Burrows
Awesome! Looking forward to it! 🙂
Aidy.
Jim Brandom
Hi Gleb! I’ve been using Blender for a while, and I was wondering how you get started in the CG industry.
Thanks for everything you do, Jim.
Chris Plush
This is a good question because the “CG industry” is quite a broad topic and there is a lot of opportunities out there for you. I myself have never had a regular studio job so my credibility on the subject is limited, but I’ve made a life freelancing for a long time. There are a lot of sites that can help you develop a list of regular clients, such as guru.com, ifreelance.com, and there’s even a job listing forum on blenderartists.org.
When it comes to breaking into the studio scene, a good portfolio is the key to everything. It also helps to know people in the studios so you can have a good word put in for you and also know when they’re hiring. Otherwise after you develop a good art portfolio then start applying to any studios you can find in the area you’d want to work. It’s as simple as that. There are more studios out there than you might think, and not just the big guys(but don’t let that stop you from applying there too). Search job listings and search google for any kind of studio you can find and their site will usually have a career page you can use to apply.
Also, if you go to school for a degree then you’ll have help from the staff there in getting a job, because naturally the school would like to be able to increase their success rate in finding their students jobs.
CrazyEngine
To start with, whats your favorite music? It’s freaking interesting! I just love music and CG-stuff.
Now to the CG-stuff… As I’ve read earlier, you’ve started with 3Ds Max. Wasn’t the UI completely overwhelming you? That were my first expressions of Max.
1. Open it
2. Close that little “welcome newbie”-window
3. See like 10000 little different settings. I’ve tried Max out, because of it’s incredible particle-engine (a significant thing that I miss in Blender :c ) but I cant just get that UI.
What were your first impressions of Blender? Mine were like: Wtf. Were can I do what. Why is the UI so dumb. And god, is there really for every little damn thing a complicated shortcut? xD
Now, after 3 years of experience, I think that the Blender UI is the best one of all 3D applications I’ve ever tried out (trust me. It have been tons of applications ^^)
And what did you use first? The Blender internal or cycles? How did you get your knowledge about Blender and all the theoretical stuff? I by myself had already 1 year of experience in C4D and I searched in cthe net for a list of shortcuts in Blender. After like 2 months I knew most of them and I could start using Blender efficient.
And now one last thing. What do you love in Blender? For me it’s Cycles and the incredible shortcut-thingy (^o^)/
Greetings
Clemens
PS: Stop teasing me with your damn coffee :c I love the scent of coffee and I love his taste. But the coffein is killing me. Even drinking one little damn cup of coffee and I can’t sleep xD So I can’t drink coffee during the week… Because of school and countless sleepless hours ^^’
Aidy Burrows
I realize this is directed at Gleb but I thought I’d throw in that I got my start on 3ds max, and I was totally green to 3d at that point.
I was in college at the time on a 3d course so that of course helped with my introduction into the interface but my initial feeling was woah, there is a lot of weird buttons on here!
Having said that there are some really good free lessons online that you can watch that introduce you to the 3dsmax interface and general concepts and within a couple of hours I think I was feeling like it was possible to actually learn then. 😀
That’s key, a lot of my fellow students only took their learning from the teachers, they never went out and reinforced it with extra lessons and additional angles online.
By the end of the course I was working in the games industry using Maya, that interface seemed a bit simpler partly because now i wasn’t totally green to 3d, however, the concepts behind it were a little strange, the use of construction history on an object, no modifiers things like that were the stumbling blocks.
Then when wanting to set my own personal freelancing setup at home I took a look at Blender, that had it’s own quirks exactly like the other programs but I quickly got into it and now I love it!
In fact, while I was using Maya at the studio, I used Blender to help get around some tricky issues or pipeline stumbling blocks. It’s really very useful having everything within one application! 😀
Oh and by the way, i’m not at that studio anymore but having introduced Blender to other artists there I happen to know it’s still used to help get around things for certain artists on the latest Lego Jurassic World environments. A load of the trees and rocks have been touched by blender in the pipeline at some point 🙂
Aidy.
CrazyEngine
First, thanks for answering 🙂 even though those little questions were directed to Gleb, it was interesting to read your storys ^^
Yeah 😀 Blender is the all-in-one solution x)
I just love that program 🙂
Another question… What if I never finish any project? I just don’t get how long people would build gigantic scenes while being motivated. Even though I could create shaders and light a scene all day… I’m 17 and I feel like I’m to dumb/not motivated enough to model anything. The best solution would propably be a little “crew” which would model a scene, I would shade and light it xD
Well. Thats the cause, why I only create simple scenes as the ones below :c
If anyone wants to do a collab with me, feel free to ask 🙂 Thought I’m still in school, so my freetime is quite short ^^’
Clemens.
Aidy Burrows
Hey no problem!
Those renders are nice and clean, nice job! 🙂
Feel free to do whatever it is that you like. You’re not obligated to do a huge massive scene.
Although bare in mind that if you continue to do lots of smaller objects, eventually you will be able to assemble them in some way so as to create a huge scene! 😀
Have a look through these other comments there are plenty of people that feel that motivation to stay through larger projects are an issue and there maybe some helpful ideas or thoughts that you could use.
Most importantly just have fun with it and watch some tutorials and grow along the way! 🙂
Aidy.
CrazyEngine
thx! 🙂
Java
If you had to get stuck on a desert island with another person for the rest of your life, who would it be?
Aidy Burrows
haha, Gleb what’s your reply to this?
For me I’m going to say my wife because she gets on the internet from time to time and may stumble across this comment, and wouldn’t be too pleased if I said somebody else most likely! haha.
😀
Aidy.
Gleb Alexandrov
Yeah, for safety reasons I would absolutely prefer to stay with my beloved wife on that damned island.
Chris Plush
Bear Grylls from Man Vs Wild, for sure. Don’t tell my girlfriend.
Blender Crystals
Hi Gleb, what do you think is the biggest tip for making a steampunk image? 🙂
Rachel
I come up with a lot of ideas for new projects, but I don’t have the
time to create all those ideas into finished projects. How to I pick
out the stories that should be told from the others that need to be
trashed? Thanks very much. -Rachel
Aidy Burrows
woah, very cool question.
That’s an awesome problem to have.
Basically there’s a few positive outcomes possible from each project….
1) you improve.
2) you love the result
3) other people love the result
4) other people are improved.
factor in whatever larger cause you feel, is it to entertain? educate? both? and of course there are many more causes.
Then it’s a matter of determining what is the largest impact on that list you can make for each point while staying in line with your overall cause.
Sometimes it’s just a matter of whatever seems like the most fun though! 😀
Aidy.
Alexander Avramenko
Hi Gleb, I’m wondering what programs did you use before Blender?)
Gleb Alexandrov
Hi Alexander! Here is a brief list:
3ds max
Photoshop
Zbrush
Mudbox
Photoscan
Unity
Unreal Engine
Sin Shock
Hey, Gleb or Chris, I’m a game developer but I’m not using Blender, I’m using Unity, but I use Blender for my modelling so… anyway, to the question: Do you have any tips to make my game looks scary? Because I’m making a horror game but I don’t really know what to put in the game, or what the lightings should be like, I don’t really play much horror games, yeah, I know, pretty stupid idea to make a horror game without being scared before 😛 , it’s not my idea by the way. So, I’ll be happy if you replied.
Chris Plush
My ultimate goal has always been to create a good survival horror game so I’ve always taken note of games that get it right. I’ve seen horror series’ like Resident Evil stray from their roots and turn into action games that fail to raise a single hair but there’s one series that always gave me the willies, Silent Hill. I think the formula for an effective horror game lies in a couple things, atmosphere, unexpected events/encounters, and creating a sense panic(even by simply making weapons/ammo more scarce). I think Silent Hill stayed true to the formula(especially with its atmosphere) and although the stories are totally insane I think that’s all part of the terror. I would punch up pictures of Silent Hill and see how those games use fog, moist environments, ominous skies, and lighting to create a scary atmosphere(one pic attached).
For making interior levels scary, low lighting in general is good but I’d be careful with it. Consistently dark rooms are just annoying to me, not scary. It’s better to have something like a desk lamp illuminating a good area of a room, but the rest of the room is fairly dark still. Maybe even a dark room illuminated strongly from moonlight or a street lamp through the windows(extra spooky points for the shadow casted from the windows). It’s good to have contrast in your lighting like that when you can. Even in the attached picture below you’ll notice it’s the dead of night outside, but the fog is brighter from reflected light, and there’s one street lamp on(which is most likely telling the player his destination lies down the alleyway to the left), giving a great contrast and also game direction. Now imagine the fog moving slowly, the street lamp flickering from time to time, creepy ambient music playing and faint shuffling noises from in the fog in the distance. Which brings me to the next point, sound.
There’s so much more to being effectively scary than just visuals, good sound effects are key, and even good creepy ambient music. Imagine running past a window and a creature crashes through it. How much less scary would that be without a loud window shattering sound effect and grisly snarls coming from the monster? I know it seems obvious, but I feel like sound effects don’t get as noticed when dishing out credit for game quality.
Now some notes on texturing. Naturally a dirty, grungy, and even gorey environment is the staple in horror games, so be generous with the wear and tear to your environment. Peeling paint, rusty metal, dilapidated buildings, broken stairs, and a splash of blood here and there are all part of creating the atmosphere. It’s also good to apply contrast here too though. A tiled floor that’s consistently dirty is boring, so spice it up. Keep the dirt mostly around the borders of the walls and furniture, and in crevices. Mix up the dirt too, instead of just general dirt, have some old newspaper papers and trash lying around. When it comes to rust, think about it realistically, what parts of a metal object would be rusty? The parts that are worn down would be, so add rust to the object’s edges, and joints, and any area you think would get more worn down than the rest. For environments like this fire up google image search and type in “abandoned buildings” for good references.
The most important part of starting any project, especially one where you feel like you don’t have a lot of experience with, is finding good references. That’s absolutely essential. If you don’t immerse yourself in what already exists in the genre, then in a lot of ways you’ll simply be re-inventing the wheel. It’s obviously awesome to have totally original and unique ideas, but a lot of what works and what doesn’t work has already been figured out through trial and error by the many people that have created horror games over the decades. I would play a couple games(or at least watch gamplay videos) just to get a feel for what gameplay and what atmospheric elements you think work and don’t work for you. Learn from these experiences and then apply what you like to your own ideas. Spend a lot of time looking for real-life reference images for your environments, and from game screenshots as well for ideas on level design. Level design will be important for your game’s horror element in order to create unexpected events like something crashing through a window, or the use of curved corridors instead of straight ones to hide the horror that lies around the bend. There’s quite a lot involved in creating a good game, especially a good horror game, so research research research.
What’s your game going to be about? Maybe I could give more specific opinions on what you could add to it if you shared some more details, see ya!
Liam O
Hey Gleb, I’ve been using Blender for about a year now. I finally feel comfortable in its technical usage, but I fall short on artistic 3d skills. Could you give me a few tips or a guide to improve as an artist? Thanks in advance!
Aidy Burrows
Hi Aidy here,
I felt I had to jump in here, the topic you’re looking for I think should be (and what unfortunately a lot of people think about last) – composition and the point.
That would include lighting so keep a close eye on Gleb’s lighting project of course. 😀
By the ‘point’ I mean what’s the point of the art, so for example the point of a musical piece could be to soothe, to make you dance, to relax, to give you energy and much more. A film can be uplifting, contemplative, provocative, enlightening, etc etc.
When you know the point, you can work on your composition to make sure the point is made.
For example the director David Fincher likes to make the point that his characters are under pressure, the way he uses composition to do this is to frame up at the actors to show the ceiling as though it’s baring down on them. With the added bonus of subconsciously indicating to the viewer that this isn’t a fake studio set and increasing a level of authenticity.
Anyways try these awesome videos from ctrl+paint.. http://www.ctrlpaint.com/library/
Section 4 specifically.
Hope that’s helpful.
Aidy. 🙂
Liam O
Thanks for the reply!
I think you are right, I do tend to think of composition last. From the few videos I’ve watched it seems to make a major difference if composition is planned first and the rest of the image built based on it. I will definitely search more into composition and its effect.
Thanks again!
Aidy Burrows
Awesome Liam! Glad I could help! 🙂 Aidy.
Gosu96
(To Gleb) I am wondering how blender is stacking up in industry against programs that are more known as “the pro tools” such as maya, 3ds max zbrush etc.. – I learn blender for a long time now and i am wondering if is it worth to keep going deeper into it, or should i jump into the autodesk programs, because i want to work as 3d artist. Should i slow down with learning blender (not stop doing so completely) and heave it as backup since autodesk programs are free to use for students, or maybe i should completely focus on blender and keep going with it, what are your thoughts on this, because you did the complete opposite – you went from 3ds to blender so i would like to maybe get some kind of clue how blender is looking right now in eyes of people that are “in industry” already and have way much more knowledge about those kind of things.
Juan Carlos Franco
That is an amazing question. Can’t wait to read the reply.
Gleb Alexandrov
Very cool question, Gosu96! Personally, if you ask whether you should believe in yourself, I would always say yeah. Absolutely. You can succeed in the industry using Blender. As well as any other software (3ds max is okay too maybe ;))
What actually matters is whether you keep going and believe in what you do. I guarantee that you will find your niche, your client, your audience and your income, if you will stick to what you LOVE doing.
So, to sum it up, that’s my advice: don’t be afraid to do what you like. Every career and every success in life is unique and unpredictable. The sure way to fail is to follow what is considered to be ‘the best practices’, ‘industry rules’, etc.
Aidy Burrows
Hi!
Thought I might chime in on this as i’ve worked in the games industry with Maya for years and still found reason to fire up Blender pretty much daily. Often to help out other artists too.
And for freelancing the outsource manager for a company will dictate what they want, so if they want an fbx/obj and psd files then you’re gonna need photoshop pretty much but Blender should be able to perform fine in that regard. If the company want .ma files though then obviously if you’re a max user you’re out of luck too as you’re gonna need maya.
The art director who’s doing the hiring and firing looks at the portfolio, they don’t care what you’re using. Art is universal like that. They’re hiring the creative brain the stuff that’s hard to teach.
It takes a couple of weeks to get up to speed on another 3d application once you’ve learned one already. I’m talking a couple of weeks of constantly using it. Looking at tutorials, asking people very active usage. Companies know this can be done so they don’t really pay that much attention.
So while in the job specification it might say ‘3ds max knowledge required’ or something like that feel safe in the knowledge that it doesn’t take that much time to get that requirement sorted!
In the industry Blender is improving it’s reputation all the time. Several good indie developers are using it too.
In short, worst case scenario with Blender you’re able to learn ‘art’ and a lot of 3d fundamentals that are transferable. And if you’re on a job where everyone around you is telling you that their pipeline is ‘insert lengthy process here’ and you know it can be done faster in Blender then let them know! 😀
Hope that helps. 😀
Aidy.
Oliver
Can I please have some feedback on my recent render:
Chris Plush
Hey Oliver, this is a pretty cool render. One critique I’d make is that I think the ivy on the walls seems like it doesn’t belong. It’s not obvious where they’re rooted(especially the one by the swimming sign). I would bring those roots down to the ground more, and one way to illustrate that there is a gap in the stone ground enough for plant growth to come through is to have more plant growth. So I would add more small plants randomly along the base of the wall, like a few sprouts of grass here and there.
Aidy Burrows
Hi Oliver! Great start!
In addition to what Chris says, I really like that main texture you’ve got going on, the water and everything looks pretty cool.
Here’s some things I’d be tempted to do.
First of all, i’d be searching for more references like ‘chinese temple pond’ or ‘lily pond stone’ and stuff like that, whatever you feel is the focus of the image. At the moment I’m guessing the pond itself is supposed to be the focus.
Based on looking at those references i’d collect a load more things that can be done to catch the eye and enhance the focus.
There’s an opportunity to tell more of a story here too, you could make it kind of humorous and add a colorful inflatable lounger thing in the middle completely ignoring the no swimming sign. Or you could make it mysterious by adding in some more ancient architecture – statues and so on that look like they could hide any manner of ancient secrets. Perhaps a large gnarly tree that has roots sprawling across the stones.
The top of the walls that you have i’d give more variety to, if you want it to feel more grungey then make the walls higher and dont show the sky, but if you want to show the sky i’d give the silhouette of the walls some more interesting shapes, maybe it’s crumbling or maybe it just has pillars and ornamental repeating blocks on it or something like that. If you get to see some more of the distance you can introduce some mountains in the background and that kind of thing. Depends on the sense of scale and the story/point of the image.
The perimeter of the pond could have individual geometry blocks where you can see slightly more cracks between them, that gives more chance of getting vegetation to come out of there too.
Also i’d play more with your lighting too, perhaps you can have some foreground objects that can cast some interesting shadows onto the ground and pool.
Hope that gives you some ideas if not for this image then maybe even for some future ideas. 🙂
Aidy.
swirlypillow
Gleb, why oh why are you so skinny if you sit in front of the computer all day? 😉 No no no, my real question is, how are you able to stay focused on one project until it is complete?
Thanks!
Aidy Burrows
haha, have you seen Gleb’s work? I don’t think he has time to eat. 😀
Aidy.
Juan Carlos Franco
Hi everyone. First of all, a huge thank you to all the experts for sharing their knowledge and being so cool about it.
I’m 25 and have been taking 3D seriously for almost a year now. I hope it’s not too late for me.
I have so many questions, but I don’t know if I can ask more than one. So I’ll ask one:
¿How important do you think it is, and where can you find content to learn fundamentals of lighting, form, photography, etc.? What I mean is, I think you’ll be a better artist if you learn about lighting in general instead of only learning lighting in Blender. And I think the same applies for every aspect of 3D art.
It’s probably a dumb question, but thank you for everything.
Gleb Alexandrov
Juan, feel free to ask so many questions as you like! 🙂
Juan Carlos Franco
Thanks man!
Aidy Burrows
Hi Juan,
I’ve always been ‘a bit arty’ but really only got into 3D in my late 20’s i’m in my late 30’s now. I think it took me a little under 2 years to become a professional artist.
I think you’re on the right track, studying art in general is very important, whatever software you learn 3d in the aspects of what people think is pleasing in your work is transferable to anything.
I think you will do very well! 🙂
Aidy.
Juan Carlos Franco
Thank you so much Aidy! Your work is amazing and it is inspiring to know it’s not too late for me.
Thanks for your words
Aidy Burrows
you’re very welcome! That is very kind of you to say.
Yeah you’ve got plenty of time don’t worry! Plus you’ve already found some really good training sites so you’re off to a running start! 😉
Aidy
Oscar Orlando Caballero Moreno
Hi Gleb, I’m begining to understand how nodes material works but actually I got stuck when I’m trying to modify a procedural texture not with vector nodes but using another textures or color channels as a Vector Input, Do you mind to explain us the different ways we can modify them.
Aidy Burrows
Hi!
In addition to Gleb’s awesome work, we’ve done a few node based tutorials that could be of interest to you.
http://www.cgmasters.net/category/free-tutorials/materials-textures/
Is the main portal, there’s quite a few there actually so some to check out specifically could be….
http://www.cgmasters.net/free-tutorials/blender-cycles-tutorial-stonemarble-how-to-make-any-texture/
http://www.cgmasters.net/free-tutorials/blender-giveaway-cycles-shader-prime-elements/
and most recently…
http://www.cgmasters.net/free-tutorials/blender-tutorial-chair-materials/
Hope any of that could be useful! 🙂
Aidy.
Niklas Blume
Hi Gleb. You’re doing a great job, promoting you’re website, like always 🙂
My question: Are you planing on making a short film? (because it seems that every big artist is involved into a film).
By the way, thats my result of you’re “silent hill” tutorial. However, I didn’t used the fog tip, but the 3D scan technique:
Feel free to comment…
Ilia Sibiryakov
That is very absolutely stunning, and so much detail, only thing I would change is the aspect ratio, to be more like a photograph, something like 3×2, maybe even more old fashioned like 4×5
Thomas Myrup
https://goo.gl/nCkLA7&alere
Gleb Alexandrov
Niklas, this is incredible! Reminds me of Samorost game series. I love this look and I think that we too rarely see such style being used in renders.
Looking forward to your next art. By the way, can you share the link to your blog/portfolio?
Yep, I’m planning to make a short film in the future. Can’t say much for now, heheh. You are right, every artist needs her or his film (game, book, mission). 🙂
Niklas Blume
Here it is:
http://niklasblume3dartist.weebly.com/
Gleb Alexandrov
Thanks, mate.
Thomas Myrup
https://goo.gl/6vgwDB&hociq
Thomas Myrup
https://goo.gl/uUXsK6&pjti
Thomas Myrup
https://goo.gl/2TfVT7&yzow
Aidy Burrows
Ah yes I’ve seen much of your work! Really great stuff! 😀
Thanks for sharing! 🙂
Aidy.
Thomas Myrup
https://goo.gl/VjqRZD&suhi
Adrian Wieczynski
This looks great, but my favourite of your work has to be the cigarette one.
Niklas Blume
Thank you, thats my opinion as well 🙂
Thomas Myrup
https://goo.gl/YbwWut&meza
Thomas Myrup
https://goo.gl/rgvSQn&miqe
Thomas Myrup
https://goo.gl/XYkGmv&sokyn
Justajeffy
Here’s a doozy: How would you convince an animation or vfx company to consider incorporating Blender into their existing pipelines? (Keeping in mind how time-consuming and expensive it is to retool and retrain.)
Aidy Burrows
Yeah that’s a tricky one!!!
I actually did a talk on this in regards to a games studio here… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iG7BHAUIwg
I think it would be a slow process but possible wherever bespoke tools aren’t being used.
Sean Kennedy of course was using Blender in a large VFX company to get around problems which can be seen in this talk…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOWzn64bOU8
Personally I wouldn’t try to convince a company to switch to it, but if they were starting out and if they were likely to last I’d expect them to evaluate it for themselves.
To conclude, it’s a tricky one. 🙂
Aidy.
Mostafa Ehab
Hey Gleb ^_^ firstly thanks for all your efforts and thanks for the awesome people joining you today . I want to ask a question what do you think is missing blender to be put on the map with 3dmax maya etc . Because as a blender user and a former 3d max user I don’t see blender so inferior to it I even reached far better results on blender . So do you think the difference is in marketing maybe or what ?
Aidy Burrows
Hi!
In a sense yes, marketing does have a large part to do with it. There is an expression in marketing which basically means ‘first to mind’ or ‘be first’, so as Blender is coming into it’s prime a little later on than the other more funded commercial projects people may come to regard it as ‘not as good’ in some way.
The gap is narrowing all the time though.
It just takes good artists (and there are a lot more using Blender now compared to say 5 years ago) to keep presenting good work and to show their methods.
Aidy.
Mostafa Ehab
Thanks alot for your nice reply ^_^
Aidy Burrows
you are very welcome! 🙂 Aidy.
Ilia Sibiryakov
I have a question about hair. I have recently had to make a cat for a music video, no particularly close up shots, just the cat jumping and flying and other crazy things. I did a good job of modelling the cat and painting a colour texture, then combing the fur, but now I have gotten to rendering the actual fur. I first tried creating a shader from the standard translucent diffuse and glossy type materials, but that did not go too well, so I learned about the hair BSDF(thanks CGgeek!) I ended up with a far better shader on the fur, but still not soft, so I added a little bit of transparency to the hairs, which made them look softer and I made the hair less thick and added more children, a massive improvement but still looks kinda stiff. Any suggestions from experts and non-experts will really help. Thanks!
Chris Plush
I think the fur’s looking really nice. It’s a bit spotty in areas like the ear but overall it’s coming together great! I especially like the SSS on the nose, though it might be a touch too extreme. Also for the fur on the face, the fur around the eyes and down the bridge of the nose is typically a lot shorter. Some more work could be done with the eyes too. Making a more defined rim of white fur around the eyes would really help integrate the eyes into the model more so they don’t stand out like they are. And of course a little “black eyeliner” look around the eye will help with that as well. I would also make the eyes more glossy. Overall, I’d pet this cat.
Ilia Sibiryakov
Thanks a lot for the tips about improving the eyes, I really appreciate it
KennedyRichard
Mr. Lee Salvemini, since you’re an animator, here’s my question for you: Where do animators take reference from when animating dinosaurs?
Lee Salvemini
Hi there Kennedy!
Ah, dinosaurs are a really interesting one! One of my first really successful animations was a small trunked 4 legged dinosaur I modelled and rigged. I wanted it to seem a little playful and assertive, so I actually referenced how my dog plays when we ran around! How he would get lower in a stance with his front legs and then jump offwards.
That’s one of the fun things about historical and mythical animals, the reference can be made up of many elements we have today, to tell the type of emotion or story you’d like as there isn’t as much preconception (for dinosaurs these days there are some more you could say, but in many movies you can almost ‘recreate’ a dinosaurs style, referencing from different animals to give it a fresh take!). In King Kong (Peter Jackson’s), they mention in one of their production dairies (I had a look and not available online anymore, but are on DVD it seems), depending on whether a dinosaur was aggressive, playful, calm, you could use any number of animals. For scale and physical movement, tigers, bears etc for predator dinos, birds and lizard like creatures for smaller ones, even rhinos and elephants for the bigger leaf eaters.
Dinosaurs are so interesting as they are from a time long ago, and we can recreate them as best we can, for us animators that really means we have a little more freedom to sculpt what type of animals they are from our own ideas and reference choices, have a ball!
-Lee
KennedyRichard
Thanks a lot, Mr. Salvemini! Now that you mention, I read “Raptor Red”, an novel by Robert T. Bakker, which describes the entire life of a velociraptor. The author actually describes her behaviour and her sister’s using lots of modern day animals reference. It is cool knowing that animators use this information too, as I was troubled by the question. However, it must be really hard to try imagining it, especially when designing the rig.
Jonas Thelemann
What do you do if you get stuck with something? #NoCoffee
Aidy Burrows
Hi!
Personally, (i’ve just watched big hero 6 with my kids) there’s a quote ‘try a new angle’.
😀
To expand so that remark appears less flippant, I mean approach it differently. As an artist look through this list…
Shape/Silhouette
Light
Texture
Color
Perspective
and there are more that can be added too, what in that list can you focus on instead or perhaps have forgotten to focus on that will make things look cool again. 🙂
Aidy.
Jojo Tkrem
Hi Gleb, Hey CG Masters,
Which upcomming technology in CG are you guys the most exited about?
Gleb, why do you use Photoscan now? you used to do it with 123D.
Aidy Burrows
Hey! Good question.
The photoscanning stuff is pretty interesting.
Although on a slight tangent I’ve really been excited at the output lately, especially with VR, the power of UE4 to get such good results in realtime.
There is a lot of cool potential for artists to participate in all kinds of experiences there, most interestingly to me anyway is in the medical field and in the entertainment field (obviously) 😀
Aidy.
Chris Plush
3D printing is something I keep my eye on. It continues advancing and I’m so keen on seeing how far it will go. I’m anxiously awaiting Star Trek replicators.
Jojo Tkrem
Yes realtime visualisations, for example the possibility to see an building before its build is really exciting!
Chris Plush
3D printing is something I keep my eye on. It continues advancing and
I’m so keen on seeing how far it will go. I’m anxiously awaiting Star
Trek replicators
Steve
Need I say more? 😉 https://instagram.com/p/3xZZggwvB5/
Kromozome
Hey Gleb, I wonder where/how you (and every cg artist also) find your inspiration to start a new project ? Oh and by the way What is your favourite Dinosaur ? Keep going dude you’re doing great things for your community.
See ya 🙂
Aidy Burrows
Hi!
Favorite dinosaur – TRex, or perhaps Brachiosaurus – i do like the idea of a massive vegetarian.
I touched on this slightly before so i’ll add it here for ease. 🙂
Personally I think my inspiration comes from the environment, and
then conversely what is missing from the environment or juxtaposing that
in some way.
For example I’ve been working on a project which was
sparked from playing with my 5 year old son and his mini wooden trains
and train track. I thought it’d be cool to see those objects and child
like design used as the backdrop for an epic adventure around a living
room, adding people into the shots, awesome vfx crashes and so on. Where
the project will end up I don’t really know but I’ve had fun with
putting it together so far.
Aidy.
Jojo Tkrem
hey, i tried to combine the trending polygon Illustrations with 3D elements what do you honestly think about it? Is it stupid? I hope so ;P
Aidy Burrows
Looks pretty interesting.
It’s a little tricky to read though, is that a leaf on a pond where the nuts are?
I like the squirrel and the cartoony background, though i’d be tempted to play a bit more with the lighting and so on to make it easier to read the message/point of the image.
Hope that makes sense! 🙂
Aidy.
Jojo Tkrem
Thank you for your feedback !
Chris Plush
I think the squirrel’s really awesome, but I don’t think the environment is doing him justice. I do agree it’s hard to read what’s going on with the ground. I think it would be cool to set him up on a log, or even a branch. That way you can triangulate more objects in the scene too which will help get across the low-poly theme better.
BE ripsta
Hello Gleb, Hi CG master,
recently I have been trying to make a logo for my friends and I, we form a (gaming) team (mostly counter strike global offensive, a shooter game, maybe this is important :)). So I made a logo and rendered it, but it looks kind of boring to me, so I was wondering, what would you do to make the render a little bit more exciting? I have been trying to improve it for so long, but I really can’t find a way.
Keep up the fantastic work!
Aidy Burrows
Sounds cool! Looks cool!
Here’s some ideas…
Give it more depth, you’re hinting at this with the back light and streaks. Make that more extreme. More of that, more of a corridor type of a feel, perhaps the corridor could be heavily techy looking.
For a shooter game, let’s get more floaty debris and smoke rising off it, perhaps like the logo has just hit the ground. You can get some cool lighting on the dust/smoke too.
It looks kind of like it’s related to a futuristic shooter at the moment, if so perhaps play with some more futuristic elements, make it look more electronic, Neon trims, more post processing – lens grit, lens flare, vignette, chromatic aberration at the edges.
Maybe make it look like it could hover on it’s own like a drone perhaps add greebly details to the letters.
And with all that said, the first thing i’d actually do is check out other logos and kind of take a collage of ideas from all the ones i liked by analyzing at least these qualities…
Shape/Silhouette
Light
Texture
Color
Perspective
Hope that helps! 🙂
Aidy.
BE ripsta
It helped a lot man! thank you so much!! Wow I was hoping for a good answer but I got a fantastic one, and a super amount of information, thanks man! Keep up the good work guys, you are definatly amazing!
Aidy Burrows
Awesome! Glad it helped! 😀 Aidy.
Steven Hales
Where did the name creativeshrimp come from 🙂
Gleb Alexandrov
Steve, honestly, I don’t know. But I have an idea:
Mantis Shrimp has the most advanced visual system of all living beings on Earth. It has 16 (!) color-receptive cones. For comparison, humans have only 2 color-receptive cones.
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/mantis_shrimp
Thomas Myrup
https://goo.gl/bt9d1V&cumjh
Thomas Myrup
https://goo.gl/5CZxNi&ixul
bolaji adelodun
Hi Gleb, I was wondering when your lighting book will be out? And I also need to know where I could get quality vfx tutorials. Any clues?
Gleb Alexandrov
The lighting book is still in work, so I’d say – when it’s fun and when it’s done. 🙂
For quality vfx tutorials, you can visit http://www.cgmasters.net/ (obviously :). And also I’d suggest you check the resources page of my blog.
http://www.creativeshrimp.com/resources.html
Eden S.-G.
Yay AMAs! I’ve got a tutorial request/idea/whatever — well, two, actually. One: Colour grading and adjustment. Maybe go over the nodes that do this kind of thing, explain what they do and how to use them, and maybe some techniques? Two: Blender hacks — using things the way they weren’t intended (for example using vectors as colours and vice-versa, umm, maybe you know some others?)
Or anything, really. I always enjoy watching your tutorials. Keep up the awesome work!
Steve
Thanks for the requests! will definitely keep them in mind.
L1ghtShadow
Hi Gleb, I’m new to computer graphics and 3D art and I’ve been following your mini tutorials on Youtube and looking at other people’s modeling tutorials and I’ve learned a lot! But, so far I’ve only been making one or two objects, not full scenes. How do you think I should approach making a full-on project, such as an animation or a good looking render?
Thanks.
Aidy Burrows
Hi! Thought i’d quickly chime in here.
Whatever you do, make it fun, make it exciting, make it something you want to work on. Make it something that you’ll want to share, in fact make it something that you think others need to see.
If you think of something that fits some of that criteria you’re very likely to finish.
I’ve said this before but get to the finished blockout and first draft lighting stage as quick as you can. It should always look ‘pretty cool’, this will keep you inspired.
As for the content itself, that’s down to your tastes, want to make people laugh? think? Excite them? Cause them to think about themselves? About others? Scare them? Relax them?
Good luck and have fun! 😀
Aidy.
Chris Plush
I think everyone has similar trouble sometimes. I think it’s about separating the trees from the forest. When you imagine creating a huge complex scene it’s daunting thinking about actually creating it, but when you look closely you realize a full scene is mainly just a bunch of individual objects. The complexity is due to its fullness of individual elements. So you know how to make one object at a time already, so just build your scene one object at a time =) A couple other tips I would suggest/reiterate from Aidy:
1. Block out your scene first to get an idea of of the final product.
2. Replace the proxy objects in your blockout scene one at a time with actual models.
3. Don’t get caught up in perfecting every little thing, when it all comes together in the end the fullness of the scene will make up for things not being 100% perfect.
James Bolt
Gleb, would you say a university degree in animation is a “must have” or just an optional extra for someone looking to be a professional animator?
EDIT: 16 year old in final year of level 3 education in UK (6th form) currently unsure of future prospects.
Aidy Burrows
Hi James,
I’ve worked in the games industry where a lot of the junior artists were from universities.
I got my art start admittedly through the university having ties with that particular company.
However, a portfolio speaks louder than any connection so don’t be alarmed if there isn’t a cool university with studio ties somewhere that you can access.
So to put that another way between a student with a degree and someone else who has a better portfolio the better portfolio will win. (This also depends on the personality though as you have to work with others in sometimes stressful situations as deadlines loom)
You can just as easily follow good tutorials online, challenge yourself ask questions in forums and on here of course! So you are doing the right things already! 😀
See you in the industry soon! 🙂
Aidy.
Tito Novelianto
Explain Blender in one awesome line!! 😀
— is that a question? Well let’s assume it is… xD
Aidy Burrows
haha!
Here’s mine….
‘How can this be free?’.
Aidy.
Tito Novelianto
haha… good one…
J Poole
Hey, here’s my question:
What do you think the future of blender interface is? Should we even focus on the UI at all?
Also, whats the one big thing you would change in blender?
Simplicity? Physics engine?
Aidy Burrows
Personally i’d like Blender to have a simple realtime pbr setup so that the texturing work I do in Blender is more closely represented to how it will look in a pbr engine like ue4.
We can get close already but to make it simpler would be awesome.
Otherwise, i’d love it if Blender could do more after effects styled editing in realtime too for compositing. 😀
As for the interface, there’s a few tweaks i’d make but the experience generally for me is a positive one.
Aidy.
J Poole
Oh, okay, that makes sense.
I definitely agree with making blender more VFX friendly.
I do a lot of after effects-like videos with blender, and I get kinda mad at it sometimes. But its still REALLY powerful
ThreeScore
Could you do a tutorial on making a skin shader? or some other complex shaders? And I really hope I win! Thanks so much for your tutorials btw.
Calzaath
First question: is this where we ask the question? Second Question: what do you think of my steampunk render?
Aidy Burrows
Yes I do believe this is the where the questions are asked.
Second – render! – very cool!
There’s some very good modeling going on here, great job!
I think if you could get more wrinkles or more fabric looking texture to the overcoat that could be cool.
Also you could make the character slightly more prominent by blurring out the background a little more or/and a rim light revealing more of the silhouette of the character.
Generally an extra pass on the materials/textures could help too, get some subtle grunge in the creases and generally across the character, and also some worn edges to the exposed areas.
So these kinds of things, grunge, worn edges/scratches, general wear and tear.
Hope that is of some use! 🙂
Aidy.
Love the steampunk ‘tache by the way, nice touch! 🙂
Calzaath
Very helpful! Thank you. Do you know of any procedural way to create a mask for the grunge texture in the creases? or would putting the time into painting a custom texture work better?
Aidy Burrows
You’re very welcome!
Check out the procedural weathering section here…
http://www.cgmasters.net/free-tutorials/blender-cycles-tutorial-stonemarble-how-to-make-any-texture/
There is now the pointiness attribute too so instead of a vertex color set you can plug that into it’s place and control the amount with a colorRamp.
This can be used as a cavity mask if it’s flipped too, so you can use it for grungey occluded areas.
There’s an example of it’s usage here…
http://www.cgmasters.net/free-tutorials/blender-tutorial-chair-materials/
Hope that helps! 🙂
Aidy.
Chris Plush
Agreed this is really cool. My favorite part is the mustache haha. One thing that could use a little more love is definitely the jacket material. It looks a little stone-link because of the texture, thickness, and lack of wrinkles.
Maxim Nazarov
How do you storage textures of files needed for the project ?
Aidy Burrows
personally i still don’t think i’ve got a great way of doing this. Do you mean naming convention wise?
The location of my textures are kept in a folder sub categorized into other folders.
It’s pretty simple really.
For a particular project, i’ll have things divided up like ‘wood’, ‘metal’, ‘concrete’, ‘misc’ and then unique props that have uniquely unwrapped textures in an ‘objects’ folder. Then things like wood_clean_d.png or wood_clean_n.png to mean both diffuse and normal maps. _b for bump, _r for roughness, _e for emit etc.
The project organization of the studios i’ve worked for have been fairly simple like this too.
The blender open projects have good ways of organizing that you can download and check out too. 🙂
Aidy.
Mason Menzies
Fantastic way to spread the word of the training course!
Question to all: do any of you know how to add a custom splash screen in blender? you used to be able to easily, now i can’t figure out how since 2.69 or something like that.
Question to Steve: Hey, how long have you been doing blender (or 3D in general)? you have an insane amount of skill.
Question for all#2: what do all of you suggest to get started as a tutor on youtube and or a website?
Final thing, what do you all think of my newest render? looking for very brutal critique 😛
Thanks so much! cheers
Aidy Burrows
Hey Mason!
I’ve been watching your stuff for a while now, really very good, keep it up!
Apologies for point 1 i’m not sure how to change the custom splash screen, is it now similar to the matcaps that would need to be changed in source and then compiled manually?
For the other point regarding getting started as a tutor. My suggestion is to use both youtube and a site to spread some cool blender knowledge.
It is often said it is worthwhile to find a niche too, so if you become the go to guy for a particular aspect of Blender or 3d that makes it easier for you to offer something that digs a little deeper than most might provide. Kind of like Gleb is doing with the lighting project.
Feel free to contact us anytime if you have any other questions. 🙂
Great render by the way, a brutal critique? Well, you will go far indeed!
Well I love it, very good indeed!
I’d just like to see more of it that’s all, or more things. So maybe add some blinds. Or something for that curtain rail at the back.
The uv’s at the top right on the brick wall look a tiny bit skewed.
I might be also tempted to add some floor lights around the perimeter of the flooring too. That way you can get some cool alternative nighttime renders.
I’m nitpicking really, it’s a great render. Congrats! 🙂
Aidy.
Mason Menzies
Thank you very much 😀
Aidy Burrows
You’re welcome! 🙂
Aidy.
Chris Plush
Fantastic render, this really makes me want to dive into an archi project. Great job on the cushions, and the super soft looking blanket, and well pretty much everything. One thing I would fix is the wood pattern on all four doors being exactly the same. I would randomize that a bit more and also paint away the seams that are showing(though maybe the seams are part of the door’s design, but they just don’t look right to me though). Great job!
Mason Menzies
Thanks 😀 i’ll work on these 🙂
Steve
Really a fantastic render Mason! You’ve nailed the lighting and the feel. I agree with Aidy that adding some blinds might be a nice touch, also a little more detail on the sky light.
Now to answer your question! I used Blender a little bit back in the 2.4 days, but didn’t really get into it until the 2.5 alphas. So what would that be… 5-6 years? also have been into filmmaking/special effects for over 10 years now. Thanks for the compliment!
Mason Menzies
Awesome! thanks Steve 🙂
Kristaps Mītins
Stop take photo from your department and say its made in 3D program (thats how good it is, i cant tell diference)
Lee Salvemini
I hadn’t even thought about custom splash screen until now, amazing question!! haha
To inspire me a little with a project I’m working on right now, I thought I might also add one of my work in progress characters as the splash screen, to inspire and update it as I go. I found info on how to replace it here: http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/188/can-i-use-a-custom-splash-screen
Again thanks for making me think of something I hadn’t before! Happy Blending 🙂
-Lee
ps. Amazing render there! I love the compositing and how the depth works, the rug and cushion texture especially makes me want to take it easy and read my kindle 🙂
Mason Menzies
Thanks 😀 were you actually able to add it? i can’t find those files.
Dale Burgess
Learn something new every time I go to your site. Q: what is the most important thing to learn about Blender, in terms of most practical skill to have early in your career?
Thanks for the great information.
Phred
Aidy Burrows
That is a very good question!
It’s slightly nebulous of an answer but i’d say the end process, so without knowing the specifics, for example what aspect of Blender you use the most it always boils down to the stages at the very end so composition and then work backwards.
Otherwise in a more practical sense learning as many hotkeys as possible is certainly going to help.
And getting yourself around the interface, opening closing windows, switching things around, feeling fast and fluid in the interface certainly helps it feel less of a chore when things start going a little wrong!
I’ve seen artists take much longer to accomplish something than they really need to because they’d have to learn just a little extra or do a move they find a little uncomfortable, take for example doing something with box modelling that would be much easier using curves.
But in general I really think learning composition is the most essential skill. Getting a command of color, light, shape, texture, perspective etc.
Hope that helps. 🙂
Aidy.
Dale Burgess
Is indeed helpful. Many of the tutorials I have been watching lately involve the node editor and compositing and I am amazed at all the things it can do.
I have found the relatively quick upgrade cycle in the last year or so to be frustrating after I set up the interface the way I want it then a month later the new build resets it back. But at least I have gotten good at the process.
Again thanks for the information.
Phred
Aidy Burrows
awesome! You’re welcome!
I believe there is an option on the splashscreen these days to allow you to maintain old settings/preferences. It might not be immediately obvious but that should help now that you know your way around! 🙂
Aidy.
Jared S
Hi!, It is me Ferrettank from the forums. what are some tips of promoting and making money through an art blog?
What are your favorite books or articles on lighting or composition in general? Thanks! 😀
Aidy Burrows
Hi Jared!
Thought i’d chime in on this…
Tips for promoting and making money through art blog = create value.
That goes for any blog and any endeavor, whatever you’re doing if you’re creating value, real what people want sort of stuff then you will start to see opportunities arise.
Fave books for lighting and composition…
well free links for composition here…
http://www.ctrlpaint.com/library/
Section 4 in particular.
Otherwise my favorite book on lighting and composition are these…
Framed Ink – http://www.amazon.com/Framed-Ink-Drawing-Composition-Storytellers/dp/1933492953/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274632815&sr=1-1
by http://marcosmateu.blogspot.co.uk/
And James Gurney’s Color and Light http://jamesgurney.com/site/213/color-and-light-a-guide-for-the-realist-painter
Hope that helps. 🙂
Aidy.
Chris Plush
Selling asset packs, prints, and 3d prints could be a good way to make some extra income. Also if you’ve got a knack for training then creating training products could be your ticket.
Aunpyz
Hi, I’m a beginner of blender and never use other 3D software before(I just use it for a year now, but I think I’m just a newbie)
My question is:
1.How you guys learn about node editors? It confuse me a lot, especially vector and coordinates nodes. I don’t know how it works, sometimes I feel demotivated and stop working for a while.
2.Is university’s degree important for apply for a work in animation, game industry?
3.Is it good idea to learn other 3D software?
Thanks,
Aun
Aidy Burrows
Hi!
1) Learning nodes came from trial and error and watching lots of other tutorials.
You’ll find some of the culmination of that exploration peppered throughout these tutorials here….
http://www.cgmasters.net/category/free-tutorials/nodes/
2) No.
Personally admittedly I got into the games industry as an artist because of the course I was on, though that probably would have happened anyway.
The number 1 thing you need is a portfolio, that will be the main concern of the art director doing the hiring. Between a student and an artist with a good portfolio the artist with the good portfolio will win.
The number 2 thing you’ll need is a personality that fits with the team. Basically being able to take a lot of criticism in sometimes stressful situations also helps. 😀
3) Yup, it’s not essential though, it actually doesn’t take that long after you’ve learned one either. Actually let me tailor that to include the advice to watch tutorials about subjects where the artist is using different software, you will be introduced to novel workflows that way. Maybe not all of it will be useful but some of it will inspire you to work in interesting ways.
Hope that helps! 😀
Aidy.
Aunpyz
Thanks a lot, Aidy. I’ll try to watch tutorials as much as I can do.(first of all, at your site :D)
And thanks for a great advice, you give me a huge confident to be an artist without an art degree.
Aun.
Chris Plush
1. I’m still fairly inexperienced with nodes but I’m making progress by basically doing what Aidy said. Just doing tons of tutorials that involve nodes and playing around with them yourself will make the information sink in.
2. I think the biggest benefit to the degree is the assistance you receive from the school in landing a good studio job. A good portfolio as Aidy says, is number 1.
3. You’re not going to find many studios that use blender so it’s a good idea to log some learning time with more studio-standard programs like 3ds max and maya just to get a feel for them in case you’ll need to use them.
Aunpyz
Thank you, Chris
Nikolay Skovorodin
Hi guys. It’s awesome that i have a chance to ask you a question!
Is it good to try all kind of art? How to find your own way? How much time should i put into learning something, before i can swap to the new one to try?
I’m curios about all kind of art. Digital painting, 3d, sculpting, even cosplay, all that stuff inspire me soo hard. Now i’m learning blender and i like it, but i really want to try myself in drawing or sculpting or matte painting or vfx creation, but i don’t have a lot of time. I’m afraid that if i will start learning something new, i will lose my skills in 3d. That’s all. Thank you.
Aidy Burrows
Hi!
This depends on your end goal.
I would say, keep it fun, keep it exciting, keep it interesting, do what it is that right now gets you motivated.
If you have a clear goal let’s say ‘become a pro artist’ or something like that, then you’ll need to create a bit more of a strategy.
Even ‘3d’ in of itself has a lot of aspects to it, animation, modeling, lighting, rendering, compositing, and what you’re probably trying to achieve is storytelling of some kind which is one of the oldest and innate expressive disciplines we have.
So then I would pinpoint the ‘story’ you want to tell. The famous screenwriter Robert McKee puts it very well in the first few minutes of this interview here…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMrPdxLqIlU
I think that can be expanded into all aspects of art, what is it you’re trying to convey find the right medium.
hope that helps! You have quite an adventure ahead of you! 🙂
Aidy.
Nikolay Skovorodin
Thank you Aidy!
Gleb Alexandrov
Nikolay, maybe you are multipotentialite! 🙂 Check the blog by Emilie Wapnick: http://puttylike.com/
Nikolay Skovorodin
Awesome blog! Thank you very much Gleb!
Chris Plush
I think it’s a great idea to try all kinds of art, that’s pretty much how you find your way too. You’ll find yourself leaning towards the art you enjoy creating the most, but it’s a good idea for both the fun experience and development as a versatile artist to be versed in different styles. When it comes to learning all those new things, I would suggest some large scale projects that include as many of those elements as possible.
Nikolay Skovorodin
Thank you for your reply Chris!
Lee Salvemini
It’s always a personal balance, and between what you enjoy personally and as a career choice. I’ve worked as an animator on very specific game cutscenes, with storyboards made etc, and I liked the freedom in picking acting choices per shot, without worrying about the whole cinematography and other higher level aspects. Then I have also made small animations of my own in which I made everything including camera angle choices and editing.
The best thing I found is to practice your specialty a bunch, but read a few books on things you’re interested in (for me it was a few filmmaking/cinematography books), or take just a few painting classes. I took small acting courses while working as an animator a few years ago, and it was a wonderful experience and skills I could apply to my work (even if I wasn’t going to be the next hugh jackman) 🙂
Sometimes it takes less time than you think for a skill you’re curious in to be helpful, and without taking from your main focus! –> http://fourhourworkweek.com/2007/09/14/the-top-5-reasons-to-be-a-jack-of-all-trades/
Nikolay Skovorodin
Thanks for reply Lee!
D Brown
I love making my own nature textures, but why am I never happy with them? I take the pics at the right time, straight on to the subject, but once I throw them on a model, they don’t feel “real enough”. Am I being too hyper-critical?
Also, is it just me, or is the 2.75 test build super freaking awesome?
Aidy Burrows
Hi!
I can only guess that it’s not to do with the textures but with the materials.
Or perhaps the diffuse is great but now it’s time to work more on the bump, glossy roughness maps, and the translucency maps.
Also when demoing materials that are very reflective, always make sure you have an environment map to reflect.
Hope that helps! 🙂
Aidy.
D Brown
Haha, sorry to make you guess Andy. I should have prepared a picture. My apologies. 🙁
You do bring up a good point though. I may be focusing too much on my diffuse, using the standard spec/displace/normal based off the diffuse. Instead i should experiment with different additions to my other maps.
Yep, I never go anywhere without my HDRs, and make more when I photo my textures to match their natural environment.
Thanks Andy!
Aidy Burrows
hey that’s alright no worries!
Sounds like you have a plan! Also awesome that you’ve got your trusty HDR’s, very handy! Perfect for that sort of situation!
Good luck! 😀
Aidy.
D Brown
Thank you, and my sincere apologies for my phone’s auto-correct, “Aidy”!
Aidy Burrows
haha, no problem at all! 🙂
hopefully i don’t get erased when the AI behind phones is autocorrecting the population in the dystopian future. 😀
Aidy.
Astro1derboy
Hi Gleb, thanks for sharing your incredible insight. I’ve been watching your work on BlenderArtists dot org.
Any suggestions for a middle-aged person trying to shift gears and get into this industry FT? Is age a strong factor when corportations look for new talent? (Been freelancing for 30+ years.) Thanks!
Aidy Burrows
hi!
I’ve been in the games industry for years and I can tell you that the portfolio is what matters not your age or even the software you use.
1) Great Portfolio
2) Personality that gels with the team (usually means good at working under tight deadlines and being able to take criticism constantly)
Those are the 2 things you want. Hope that helps! 🙂
Aidy.
Astro1derboy
Thanks Aidy! That’s encouraging to read!
Aidy Burrows
no problem! 🙂
Aidy.
Thomas Schloegl
Hi, I love your images!
My question for you is: how do you create your textures? Do you use tilable ones and layer them (easy to reuse?), or do you paint an individual one for each model (able to paint in more details?). Also I would like to know if you have any tipps for creating realistic textures with a lot of detail in it (procedural dirt, color variation, etc.). I personally find it especially difficult to create skin like textures. I would be very thankful to hear your opinion on these topics.
Greetings from Germany,
Tom
Gleb Alexandrov
Tom, actually I combine these techniques while texturing. Usually it looks like this:
1. I use tileable textures with generated mapping and box projection to create a base
2. Then I paint/add the decals using UV channel 2 (3,4,5…)
3. After that I add procedural dirt and edge grime using Pointiness attribute.
4. And other stuff like normal-based textures, layered stuff, height-based effects, etc.
I plan to create a big tutorial series on hard-surface texturing, including all the steps. But tsss…. that’s a secret.
Thomas Schloegl
Thank you for your answer! I think there aren’t very many tutorials that go really in depth on texturing/ texture creation, so I can’t wait to see your ones!
Aidy Burrows
Hi Thomas!
You may find something of interest here as a sort of point to unravel…
http://www.cgmasters.net/free-tutorials/blender-cycles-tutorial-stonemarble-how-to-make-any-texture/
Between us and Gleb i’m sure we’ll be adding more to help fill in the blanks.
Hope that helps too! 🙂
Aidy.
Kevin Moore
I have a question for Chris – using the Blender Game Engine, how would you define a fair balance between using logic bricks and Python? I would imagine that using both logic bricks and Python together is probably the best way to go, but there is a lot that can be accomplished with logic bricks and a lot of advanced features that would have to be tackled using Python.
Chris Plush
I used to be a crusade for logic bricks, always boasting “100% logic bricks” on my projects. One day I just caved and learned python and realized that while logic bricks definitely had their place, python was the answer to creating good gameplay. I’ve heard rumors for a while that there may be a node-based system to replace logic bricks some day, which may lead the way to more advanced gameplay with less python, but for now I think python should be your main focus when creating gameplay. Logic bricks are basically blocks of coding in themselves so it makes sense to use them where you can, because you don’t need a python script for everything like simply changing an object’s property value on collision, basic mouse or keyboard-triggered events, or even using the new mouselook actuator instead of scripting it. Though the moment you set out to create a more complex gameplay element and ask yourself how you could achieve that with logic bricks, that’s probably something you should use python for. The main problem I have with going crazy with logic bricks is the mess it creates. It leaves you with an insane web of connections that make it sometimes impossible to work with or change around. In the end, python scripting is far more powerful and easier to keep organized so you should use it as much as possible.
Kevin Moore
Hey Chris,
Thank you for your answer! It was very clear and well written. I will start learning Python for sure! I don’t mean to be a bother, but do you have any advice as to how I should start learning Python?
Chris Plush
I’ll try and find the documentation I used to learn python and get back to you. I’m pretty sure I found it through the documentation links on python.org but I’d like to find the exact page I used because it made learning python very easy. In fact I just devoted an entire day to learning from that site and what I learned in that day was already enough to greatly enhance my games.
Also, in the meantime I created a beginner’s bge python tutorial here that you can follow along with even if you’ve never used python. http://www.cgmasters.net/free-tutorials/python-scripting/
Chris Plush
Here we go:
https://docs.python.org/3.4/tutorial/index.html
This is the guide I used to learn python. I read it from start to finish even if I didn’t understand it. Section 3 is where it started making sense though. You’ll be using the text editor inside Blender to run game scripts. If you haven’t done that before then refer to the tutorial on my site I linked to, that’ll show you how to run scripts with logic bricks. I would actually recommend doing my tutorial first if you don’t have experience with python. It will make the python documentation less confusing if you have a little guided experience with it first. Also feel free to keep in touch with me at cjplush@gmail.com if you need any help while learning, I’m always interested in talking about python and the bge.
Kevin Moore
Wow thanks Chris! You are awesome! That will help me out a lot as I start to learn Python. I’m actually going to college this fall starting a degree in computer science, and I’ll be using that degree to get into the gaming industry! Thanks again!
Chris Plush
Nice! Some programming experience beforehand will really help with your classes too, good luck!
Adrian Santaella
Hi Gleb, I’ve been watching your channel for only a little while but I really enjoy them – the production quality definitely stands above some of the other tutorial channels.
My question is about special effects and animation. I’m really into character creation/animation and possibly move towards game design, but finding it hard to figure out how to make my characters use “magic”-like effects with particle systems. Blender has a great smoke and water simulator, but I haven’t seen many tutorials on how to make the water or smoke float around, or how to make lighting or electricity jump. Are things like this possible in Blender, or are there other programs that do these sorts of effects better and can be used together with Blender?
I hope that made sense.
Aidy Burrows
Hi!
Well I can tell you that for game oriented things you’ll be doing the vfx in the game engine of choice. So perhaps ue4 or unity.
The company I worked for had their own game engine and their own vfx particle emitter.
Though you’ll still need to generate image sequences of particle effects like smoke and fire and for that Blender works great!
To answer your question lightning and electricity jump effects are all very possible in Blender, these are all good ideas for tutorials in fact!
hope that helps. 🙂
Aidy.
The Dutchman
Hi Gleb!
Where do you get you’re inspiration from? I get mine from traveling en chilling at other places, like other friends houses or in different cities.
Ajo!
The Dutchman
Lukas Bormann
My question is: How do you get your work so fast done?
And I wanna ask, what you think about this picture.
Its a part of my first animation, that I wanna put on Youtube.
If your are interested how the scene was created I can make a tutorial of this. 😀
Chris Plush
I think a lot of people would really love a tutorial on creating a good old film countdown like that, definitely make one! Unfortunately I can’t chime in on getting work done fast, I procrastinate too much. So my suggestion is to become a monk for a year to learn better self discipline, or to listen to Shia Labeouf for motivation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ie4SV1vMKDs
Alan Shukan
i’m working on a big project for a not potential computer: macbook air, so to render my film i’m thinking on render shot by shot,example, the first 3 seconds of a shot,then another scene with only the necessary to render to use the less memory,i think its a big challenge and going to take a looooot of time but definitely im going to try so my questions are:
Question to all: you think this is going to work? or i need to be more smart and use another technic?
Question to all: have you ever ben restricted by your computer memory?
Question to all: i’m doing the assets for the project and i’m making an scene for each one to show if they look good,can you give some feedback for this special scene?
P.S. that sunset its from the view of my house and im trying to archive the same lighting effect 😀
Aidy Burrows
Hi!
You have set yourself a huge challenge and you have not been stopped by what some might consider limitations and for that I salute you! 😀
Breaking the scene up into sections could work for a low spec machine definitely.
The grass assets are looking very cool! If you can swap out the distant objects for lower poly versions which could save you some memory.
Cull everything that isn’t seen.
Tailor the shots and the tone and the narrative to suit the limitations, no huge panning shots, no volumetrics etc.
For the lighting, at the moment it looks like the ground has been lit by something different than the sky.
Take a look at this by comparison…
http://www.wallpaperup.com/uploads/wallpapers/2014/01/13/225535/a25c4d006d127de1bea1ea6d46a13691.jpg
I like your scene, there is a lot of potential in it, keep going! Great work!
Aidy. 🙂
Alan Shukan
Thank you very much Aidy! for your time and encourage me to keep going, i will definitely try that silhouette lighting scene, again, thanks for your words and sharing your knowledge.
Aidy Burrows
you are very welcome! Glad I could help! 🙂
Aidy.
Matt Pietsch
Whats the best Pixar Movie and can it be made in blender with the current state of blender?
Aidy Burrows
Hey Matt!
I just watched Big Hero 6 and thought that was a huge technical achievement and a great story, although that isn’t Pixar that’s Disney Animations.
Before that i thought the lego movie was awesome, but again that isn’t Pixar that’s Warners, I got to work on the lego movie game so that was cool seeing the early drafts of the movie and how it developed. Plus working with the Animal Logic assets and seeing all those lighting and vfx tests was really cool to see that level of detail behind the scenes.
But from Pixar i’d have to choose well it’s hard to choose, maybe parts of Up, certainly the tragic heartbreaking backstory first part. Though I love the art in Wall-E. And the awesome ideas of the studio in general, The Blue Umbrella most notably and recently I thought was awesome.
Could Blender do Pixar level quality? Now bearing in mind Pixar has a load of developers at it’s disposal too, then yes of course it could.
Though that’s cheating your question slightly, could it perform at it’s current level. Yeah, i’d have to say so. You need a render farm though. 🙂 Though the hardest part is the pen and paper stage before opening up any 3d program. The story! 😀
how about you? What’s your thoughts on all of that?
Aidy.
Matt Pietsch
Thanks for the response I agree that blender could do it. I know there are issues with doing hair and having a bunch of rigs in a scene that I know they are trying to sort out. Visually I think I liked the environments of Wall-E and maybe radiator springs in Cars. Story wise I guess UP and Wall-e (up for the sock you in the gut sad parts and wall-e for when eva is blowing him off in the begining) In the comedy department I think I remember wreck-it Ralph being pretty funny. I think I will give the award to Wall-E for being visually awesome and having a pretty good story even though it bugged me that they had live actors and cg people in the same scenes.
Aidy Burrows
good choices! Yeah I believe hair is a little tricky, not as much of a problem if you’re making something like Cars or Wall-E though. 😀
There will be many great things made with Blender over the next 10 years that is for certain.
Aidy.
Lee Salvemini
Wow! Tough question 😀
I would say anything is possible with a full 3d software package (Blender included). Remember that Pixar use *many* software internal and external to make their films. They are also a creative trust of artists and directors, as well as the many employees.
The best question is would you *want* to make a Pixar film? I would rather make my own film, even if inspired by Pixar, as I absolutely love them and the movies they make, so I would rather present my own creativity in animated form,:D
I think the Blender Institute is doing that wonderfully as an example, less in their creative army, and less money, but creating something that is very much their own.
Lundeful
What do you guys think the future for CGI artists/3D-modellers etc. look like? The software is always being updated with quick and easy ways to do something that has traditionally been hard, and after a while it may become so easy to just scan an object or person and it is automatically rigged and ready for what you need.
I think it’s becoming more and more important to be a good artist with a good eye, than to just know how to model/recreate something from real life. If someone has a good idea but not the skills to make it come to life then they have to get someone who can, but in the future they might do it anyway because of all the easy tools.
Do you think being creative is more important than having good technical skills in the CGI world, now and in the future?
Aidy Burrows
I completely agree!
The surface detail or the most obvious is what usually is picked up and most easily replicated.
The true essence of something, the craft, the story, the composition, the point really, what’s the point? What are we trying to convey? Is 3D even the best medium for the point or would an infographic, cardboard creation or flipbook present the idea better?
The part people seem to always overlook in the role of a 3d artist is the word ‘artist’.
If the tools of creation get better and make our jobs easier, then awesome! Less tedious work for us, and we can get on with the storytelling. 🙂
Aidy.
Thomas Myrup
https://goo.gl/qXV2dv&byba
Gleb Alexandrov
Lundeful, you got it right!
Agree with you and with Aidy. Being creative is a key. And what medium we use – who cares? 🙂
Thomas Myrup
https://goo.gl/wr55oy&jfuc
Lee Salvemini
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQyDcCZJCrY
I really like where augmented reality is heading, along with virtual reality like Oculus Rift (which i’ve tried, its fantastic!!).
I would love to see what is possible with this coffee table augmented reality. Could you hang with the family while building a 3d model in the lounge room? If everyone has some of the glasses, you could be taking it easy in that same lounge room, spawn a beach ball and throw it at various family members, tracking would make it bounce off the walls in your house in a simple fashion too 🙂 It seems like the fun/games aspect will really blend with the creative due to this technology.
Thomas Myrup
https://goo.gl/7gwWu6&uhys
Thomas Myrup
https://goo.gl/AHPdkv&ygeby
Mohamad Zeina
There are ways to fake volume lighting? O.o Looks like I’ve wasted weeks of render time. What’s your single favourite one, that works for animations?
Aidy Burrows
Hi!
(oh and it’s possible that Gleb was just joking 😉
(or was he?! o_O)
Depending on what you need the gaming world has a lot of great fake volumetric ideas.
Lee put together a tutorial that has a sort of technique for faking volumetric smoke trails here…
http://www.cgmasters.net/free-tutorials/create-a-missile-turret-scene/
This sort of thing is quite common to do in after effects too and not just games.
Using this sort of idea and taking a look into how games solve a lot of those sorts of problems you could get what you’re looking for. i.e. 27 ways to fake it. 😀
Hope that helps, at least provide a thread to begin untangling anyway.
Aidy.
2DragonFreak
Did you print some models with a 3D printer in the past, if not, will you do it in the near future?
Aidy Burrows
Incidentally Chris printed out a Christmas gift, they were some Buffy the vampire slayer themed earrings, one of the main actresses from the show retweeted about it. That got a lot of people asking for copies!
Afterwards Chris decided to put together a simple walkthrough about it here…
http://www.cgmasters.net/free-tutorials/3d-printing-earrings-in-blender/
…which some folks might find of interest. 🙂
Aidy.
Chris Plush
In addition to those earrings, I also designed and printed a silver claddagh ring as a gift too. I used shapeways.com for everything I’ve printed, and I plan on printing a lot more in the future, just trying to think of cool ideas! I’m actually surprised that it’s fairly affordable to 3d print jewelry, or anything really as long as it’s small. It’s actually relatively affordable to get your very own 3d printer too, which is the dream! How cool would that be. Have you done any 3d printing?
Holt Hunter
I would greatly appreciate feedback on this render, my goal was to create photorealistic sunglasses. What do you think? Right now my greatest challenge is materials and lighting, I just can’t seem to make them work together. My renders are generally to dark. What do you generally do for a lighting setup?
Gleb Alexandrov
Hi Holt and thanks for sharing!
That’s my suggestions on improving the photo-realism of your sunglasses render:
1. add details. for example, if it’s table cloth, add some wrinkles. Reflections in the sunglasses (so the viewer could see the environment). Maybe even some poster on the wall
2. post-processing. crush the blacks to achieve more film-like look.
3. add a vignette.
Holt Hunter
Thanks a ton for the feedback! I will definitely try to add some of the details you mentioned. I think lack of detail has been a problem with a lot of my renders.
Holt Hunter
Plus, what exactly do you mean by “crush the blacks”? Do you mean lighten the dark areas, or make them mare defined?
Gleb Alexandrov
Yep, I mean exactly that.
Holt Hunter
Not quite as good as yours, but what do you think?
Gleb Alexandrov
Cool!
Aidy Burrows
Am in total agreement with Gleb,
Take a look at these similar images….
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=sunglasses+on+a+table&biw=2144&bih=1051&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAWoVChMIoMenjOCIxgIV7W7bCh04_QBj&dpr=0.9
Is there anything that appeals to you about these that you could incorporate?
Something else I might be tempted to do is try to get more shadow coming from the box object on the table from the light in the background, the light in general is looking very diffuse at the moment.
Playing with some higher contrast and longer shadows could create more interest across the table too. 🙂
Aidy.
John Mannion
Hello Gleb, hello CG Masters,
I have recently begun creating projects, using blender and other software, which have the function of returning monetary gains. I find it hard to stay motivated working on these projects, which has not happened before when I was working on projects for fun.
When you are working on projects, which you will potentially receive money for, do you stay motivated by: (a) thinking of the money you could receive at the projects completion, (b) thinking of the knowledge you are learning throughout the process, (c) a reason different to the two above?
My apologies for the poor structure of my question.
I appreciate every response to this post.
Gleb Alexandrov
John, mate, I think I understand your problem.
The ideal solution in this case is to create such situation:
—> The projects that you returning monetary games = the projects that you LOVE doing
For example, your own projects.
So the right kind of question is “How to create something that you would absolutely love creating. And then how to monetize it”.
As for me, I’m writing a book about lighting right now (and have some other projects going on). That’s my way to monetize what I love doing.
http://www.creativeshrimp.com/lighting-tutorials-my-way-to-write-a-book.html
Aidy Burrows
Totally agree with Gleb,
If a freelancing gig comes in which I’m doing mostly for money and i’d rather be doing my own projects I don’t get too despondent purely because it’s all quite fun really.
Just building creating anything within Blender is a bit of a kick for me. If it wasn’t I probably wouldn’t do those freelancing gigs and concentrate purely on the aspects that Gleb has mentioned already instead.
Aidy. 🙂
Yanbo Zhang
Hi Gled.How to make a high-quality image texture(including reflex texture, bump texture, etc.) by my self? Thanks!
Gleb Alexandrov
If you don’t have something like CrazyBump nearby, I’d suggest to make these textures in Blender material editor by using nodes. Often, bump texture is nothing more than a diffuse texture with lowered contrast. And the roughness map can be created once again by manipulating the diffuse texture.
I would suggest you to check the Material Wrangler add-on (it’s included in Blender branch). You can preview any node by pressing CTRL+SHIFT and clicking on the node.
It makes everything so much easier! 🙂
Yanbo Zhang
Thanks !
Gleb Alexandrov
You are welcome!
Jasper Meiners
Hi everybody, amazing event! I’m scrolling through the posts and really enjoy reading it. so many interesting tipps!
So, here is my question (it’s quite specific, though):
How would you go about creating an awesome, thick, windy arctic snow blizzard in Unity? Hard to see through, many snowflakes, almost like a physical obstacle?
On the technical side, I’m also struggling to create awesome lit breath, dust and snow particles (for my game is at night) in Unity, for example lit by a player’s flashlight.
Any ideas is very, very much appreciated! Keep up the great contribution.
Jasper
Aidy Burrows
Hi Jasper!
I’m not that experienced with Unity though I know my go to on your particular question would be here.. https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/13316
Check out the youtube video and then take a look at particles included, you can browse through and get a slight taste of how this has been put together by searching through there.
At least 2 large particle systems would be required, which possible parent to the player or fade out at a certain distance from the player camera.
Unfortunately I can’t advise on how to light it in unity if it isn’t by default as in UE4 the included content has particle effects that just do allow for light to affect it automatically.
Hope that helps give a thread to tug at in some small way though! 🙂
Aidy.
Federico Mori
Hi Gleb, I’ve followed your rust/scratches texture tutorial: cool results but a single texture ended up weighting more then 400mb… I’d like to know how you optimize complex scene ( ie your steampunk station), if you render GPU or via CPU. Thank you!
Simon K.
Hi,
Gleb, are you planning to do any blender competitions in the (near) future?
Also, I’d love to hear some feedback from anybody on this render of mine:
Gleb Alexandrov
Yeah Simon, I’m planning to do cg competition.
By the way, nice architectural render you showing us! That’s my suggestions on what can we do to improve it.
1. flip the canvas (no reason I have for it, just an intuitive guess)
2. spice the lighting up by adding a random splotches of light here and there
3. enhance the aerial perspective (or the feel of the atmospheric scattering) by painting a thin layer of fog in distant places
4. make the whole image brighter by adjusting the curves
Attaching a quick sketch of what we can improve.
Tell me what do you think?
Simon K.
Really appreciate your feedback! 🙂
I may have to do some correction on the glass and the sampling as a reaction to the brighter areas.
Besides, flipping the image has actually a positive (and unexpected :D) effect on the image.
Mostafa Ehab
Hi Gleb it is me again
Gleb Alexandrov
Hi Mostafa 🙂 I think I’ll cover the similar topic in the future tutorials.
Mostafa Ehab
Thanks alot Gleb 🙂
Ben Forg
Hey there my question(s) are primarily for Lee Salvemini as he has some awesome experience with animating in blender.
Question 1: Do you have any experience with Motion Capturing in blender and If so please explain the basic workflow you used.
Question 2: Do you recommend animation beginners us something like the Rigify addon created by Nathan Vegdahl ? Why or why not?
Question 3:What are some key things you think beginners should learn before jumping into animation in blender.
P.s. I know you guys are busy and so I don’t expect you to answer all my questions, But I thank you for any help you can provide :D. Cheers
Lee Salvemini
Hi Ben! Thanks so much for the questions! I definitely found myself favoring animation among all the other areas I still love messing around with, so I’ll answer as best I can 🙂
1. In the last year or two at a studio I’ve been working at, motion capture work has been a huuuge part of my work. Currently I’m planning to implement a lot of features into Blender (and the NLA especially) that I’ve been finding amazingly helpful for modifying (giving more pop and modifying as you usually do a lot with even fresh cleaned up mocap). Mostly, the pipeline means leaving the mocap intact in a base layer, then modifying it with an additive layer, similar to Blender’s NLA, but it does work differently in the software I use most for this.
I’m working this year and into next with the Blender devs to see how we can bring some of the real important parts of this pipeline that I’ve been using in software such as MotionBuilder at my job, to Blender. Having said that it is completely possible to import and work motion capture into Blender, but I do agree it is a little tricky, as it is with even 3ds Max or Maya. So if we could bring MotionBuilder functionality into Blender, we will be another step higher in making Blender the best full 3D package out there 🙂
2. *Very* good question that one, really brings up some interesting points. I would say happily yes, go for it and get premade characters and rigs from a place like Blendswap.com. You can not only get right into learning and practicing animation, but if you are so inclined an interested, you can reverse engineer some great rigs and modeling ideas from these. As an animator by job there are times when you do none of the modeling or rigging and simply are given a character to get into motion, but in smaller studios or your own projects knowing modeling and rigging techniques can be very helpful. I would recommend have a go modeling and rigging your own character, then try animating it at least once. It will give you an idea of what goes into making a character fit for animating well with, and you might find some interest in other parts of the pipeline than just animating!
3. To me, animating in Blender, any other 3D software, or even hand drawn or claymation, requires some of the same preparations. I took acting classes down the road while working at my first major games studio as an animator, and found even Actors go through similar blocking and preparation before they ‘real time animate’ themselves as actors 🙂
I can say even after years of animating, the look of a completely still t-pose character, and all the possibilities of which way they can go and in what way is still daunting. Diving in and just going for it takes weirdly a little bit of bravery but you quickly realize its all going good or what needs to change, and suddenly you have something working nicely.
For what to learn before jumping into animation in Blender specifically? Just play around with some basic tests, learn how you like your graph editor set up, move the arm of a downloaded free character and make just a key or two, nothing fancy, and just play around with the graph editor curves and its handles. I would also suggest to learn a bit about the camera, as sometimes matching camera work with your animations can be half the battle! Add to that a bit of study into cinematography, not breaking the 180 and how to handle various compositions in motion 🙂
A little bit of a brainstorm and tangents thrown in on what has helped me down the line, so I hope it isn’t too over the place! Hope it gives a bit of help in anything.
Thanks again for the great questions and all the best on your journey!
Lee
Ben Forg
Hey there Lee, I just want to thank you so much for answering all my questions. I am totally going to take your advice and play around with the already made rigs to see what I can do as well as learn about cinematography. Thank you so much for taking some time out of your schedule to answer my questions. Cheers!
P.s.I am so excited to hear about the possibility of motion builder like functionality in blender.
Katona László
Hi Gleb!
I would like to ask about the usage of procedural texturing in Blender, especially those, that could resemble reptile scales.
Gleb Alexandrov
Hi Katona! If I saw your picture, I would give you better advice. 🙂
Personally, I would rather found/made a nice tiled texture of the scales, and used it instead of procedural textures.
Thomas Myrup
Hi. I’ve been wanting to start using blender for a couple of years, and I’ve made a few simple items and such. Nothing big and not whole compositions. whenever I try starting on a project witch is a little larger or even an item witch i more complicated, my artistic skills fall short. I find it really hard to see the things I want to create before me, and the easiest way to make those. Do any of you have any ideas/tips for someone not that creative, who still wants to try and create something awesome/beatiful?
Thanks in advance! Thomas.
Gleb Alexandrov
Thomas, for me it comes to having a great reference. I understand you well, I guess.
Imagining the whole picture in your head is damn hard, I know it. So before starting a project, take your time and surf Flickr or Pixabay. Just scrub through hundreds of images and after you get a good sensation about some image, save it to your ‘references’ folder.
Chances are, you will get a lot of incredible ideas that will help you to succeed in your more complicated project.
2) And the second very important thing. Break the complex tasks in more manageable chunks. So if you are planning to create a landscape, break the task into VERY EASY steps like this and have fun:
1. drink some coffee
2. search for references on Flickr
3. save cool pictures to ‘references’ folder
4. pick the coolest reference (you will create according to it)
5. open Blender
6. create a ground plane
7. block out the main shapes, using cubes
8. set-up very simple lighting…
Just don’t push yourself too hard, and take one easy step at a time. The complex projects tend to fall apart, if you try throw everything into one insurmountable pile of crap. 🙂
http://www.creativeshrimp.com/3-simple-steps-to-creating-super-dramatic-lighting.html
Hope it helps!
Thomas Myrup
Thank you so much for taking your time to answer my question so thoroughly! It was very useful and I wish you the best of luck with your future projects! I hope to continue enjoying your content for a long time, and I will be sure to check your website daily!
Thomas
Aidy Burrows
Hi Thomas!
Gleb has some awesome advice here.
Don’t be so hard on yourself though, everyone has plenty of creativity in them, usually it’s pretty clear as kids, often it can be softened by time for example poorly given criticism can make us a little fearful with it. Fear of disappointing others or yourself, to a degree you have to ‘let go’ and allow yourself any mistakes.
To first increase your tool wielding speed and agility and ergo your confidence it might be useful to sharpen your sword so to speak with some still life studies. Or go to a
concept artist blog/website and try recreating something that appeals to you there.
Following tutorials of how other people are assembling related props/environments will give you the library of approaches that you can cut and change between for the given situation.
Study composition, i’ve linked this a few times http://www.ctrlpaint.com/library/ section 4 is a good reference. This will give you the analytic power to address why your image is or isn’t ‘appealing’ artistically allow you to alter it so that it is or enhance it if it is already.
Pick subjects and situations that you are passionate about or just simply find fun, that should keep you going longer usually.
Google image search ‘environment thumbnail sketches’ and you’ll find things like this…https://www.pinterest.com/pin/397372367092321110/
Which is actually kind of detailed but there are much simpler still very appealing images that you might get inspiration from without the distracting clutter.
Find an image you like? Test your compositional analytical powers by unravelling why you find the image appealing, maybe even how it can be improved for you.
Good luck Thomas! I think you will do great things! 🙂
Aidy.
Thomas Myrup
Thank you for the very useful reply! I appreciate that you take your time to give these in-depth answers! I will try to use all the pieces of advise both of you have given me, and I’m sure that they will help me improve, not only in blender, but also in general by trying to be more confident in my things eventhough they aren’t perfect, thanks!
Best of luck! Thomas.
Aidy Burrows
you are very welcome!
Good things lie in wait! 😀
Aidy.
Chris Plush
Creativity is always something I’ve always struggled with which is why I tend to lean towards more real-life subject matter so the references are there for me already. That’s also why I follow other artists I find to be extremely creative, like Gleb! It’s important to have great sources of inspiration. On projects that I think are outside of my creative range, I just need to put a lot of extra effort into research and reference finding, and of course tons of trial and error. Also, critique will play a major role in your learning process especially if you don’t consider yourself to be really creative. Getting insight from other artists on your work will be extra essential for you to grow creatively.
I too think you’re putting way too much pressure on yourself at this stage though. It’s totally common to feel what you’re feeling at this point, but you’re doubting your creativity when you don’t even know the tools at your disposal yet. You’re going to impress yourself one day, but it’s not going to be until you know the tools inside out so you can realize your maximum creative potential. So my advice is being persistent, to realize it takes time to be good, and to follow as many inspiring artists as you can and listen to what they have to say about their process. Also join a forum like blenderartists.org for inspiration and motivation.
Thomas Myrup
again, thank you for taking your time to give me an answer this useful! I’ll try not to be too hard on myself and instead of deleting a project halfway through, I’ll try to finish it and seek critique. I look forward to another AMA in the future when I’ve leant more.
Thomas
Chris Plush
I would hang on to those projects instead of deleting them too =) Even if you think they’re terrible, they will be great to look back on in the future(trust someone who wishes they had all their old project blends still, argh). You may even realize a lot of the projects you bailed on were actually going pretty well and you might decide to continue working on them again.
Lee Salvemini
I also struggled and still struggle with this, it’s part of life and an artists journey! You are not alone at all 🙂
Even some of the best filmmakers and cg guys mention it didn’t match as big or exact as their imagination saw, but the act of compromising with the real world, and translating what your mind can freely see, into a real world example to others, is part of what can make magic in unexpected ways. For example, many real world constraints on older movies like Star Wars allowed decisions and teamwork to create something very special 😀
I would recommend to improve this feeling of translating from mind to image, think of a large project, and what effects or things it would need, and work on small tests to master those smaller areas. If your short film idea has a sci-fi forcefield shield, check out some tutorials and play around with just that effect, and when it comes time to do a larger project, you can much more quickly ‘plug in’ what you previously learned, and not have to stop or get stuck (which indeed can take the wind out of your sailes).
Just a bit of brainstorming in my own head here, but hope that helps in any way! All the best with your cg journey 🙂
tomas pereira
how would you animate a mixture of water with powder into a thid substance?
Steve
Are you talking like Splashes? I have a tutorial for you right here! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVwfEHtLiyI
Matt Pietsch
Whats the best album to blend to? For me it changes but beach boys pet sounds and rentals lost in alphaville are my two current favorites. Whats good to blend too?
Gleb Alexandrov
My favorite working music nowadays is Journey soundtrack. Absolutely gorgeous music, calm and inspiring.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3hFN8UrBPw
Matt Pietsch
I will give this a spin see what it is like thanks
Aidy Burrows
yeah I love the lost in translation soundtrack and along the vein lost in alphaville sounds pretty cool to me thanks for the heads up!
Otherwise Gleb’s suggestion is a good one too. Soundtracks and something not too distracting. Something that sounds like cogs turning.
Music to concentrate to! I like the Erased Tapes label for championing some of that. Most recently ‘Dawn of Midi’ https://soundcloud.com/erasedtapes
Got some cool Steve Reich vibes going on. Maddening to some, mindcog turning for me. 🙂
Aidy.
Matt Pietsch
Sounds cool i will add them to my list so i can blend like the master
Anthony Calderone
While not an album in itself I find this to be great for companion noise. I also dig playing the vinyl mix while listening to music. http://mynoise.net/
Matt Pietsch
Nice I put it on in the background during listening to Glebs suggestion pretty cool its like I am listening to a record now.
bolaji adelodun
Gleb what video games do you play when procastinating?
Gleb Alexandrov
Hi bolaji!
I’d say that I test games (or researching them) in my procrastination time. Usually, it’s the latest visually rich games of all genres.
… Or I watch the replays of Star Craft 2 korean progamers.
… Or something like old school rpgs. Diablo 2, Icewind Dale, etc
Jean-Marc
Hello Gleb,
I have a question regarding texturing. I find it difficult to focus on one tool with the plethora of software available. Should I do all the texturing in Blender? Should I only model in Blender then export to Substance Painter for texturing? Should I do everything in 3D Coat? Is there a difference of realism/quality that one can achieve by using Substance Painter over Blender or does it boil down to one’s level of mastery? Or is it best to be versatile and know as many tools as possible?
Gleb Alexandrov
Hi Jean-Marc,
I understand your confusion about many types of tools available. We have Substance Painter, Mari, 3d Coat, Mudbox, Zbrush, Blender. And also, even if we take just Blender, we have dozens and dozens of ways to approach the texturing.
For example, we can texture everything using
1. box-projection, tiled textures and multi layered approach.
2. or we can make unwraps and paint our textures in Gimp or Photoshop
3. we can as well paint textures straight in Blender viewport
4. or we can render from camera, then paint and project our textures in 2D
Like in this tutorial series: http://www.creativeshrimp.com/game-level-texturing-introduction-part.html
http://www.creativeshrimp.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/blender-texturing-02.jpg
What can you do with all these options (in regards to techniques and tools)?
I would suggest you to try this and that and see what fits you best.
Aidy Burrows
This is a great question, I feel the same way as Gleb, just see what feels best to you.
Blender with Substance Painter and designer along with zbrush going into say ue4/unity5 is a very powerful pipeline to have, especially if you’re working in the high end games industry.
Certainly when Blender gets it’s proper realtime pbr rendering engine that will make perfect sense to have in the thick of that pipeline.
Even as it stands now pretty much all of it can be done within Blender, it just might take a little longer to setup or be a little more awkward or perhaps not at all, some people hate the translation tools in zbrush and so blender is so much nicer to move things around in there. Though someone else might disagree.
If you can afford all the tools definitely take the time to investigate. 🙂
Aidy.
Mason Menzies
in your experience, are people more interested in a one video tutorial or a full on training course?
Aidy Burrows
Hi Mason,
Personally my impression has been there are all kinds of people for all kinds of tuition. Some people think the latest blender foundation training course I put together which is 5 hours for 10 dollars is too steep. Others think it’s a steal.
A lot of people like short lessons like Gleb puts together others like the longer click by click approach of someone like Steve.
I suppose the lesson subject might dictate the format to a degree though. 🙂
Aidy.
Chris Plush
From what I’ve seen I think it’s no contest and that people prefer a short tutorial over a lengthy course. There’s a lot of people that love diving into a full course though, especially with a focused subject matter that aligns with their own goals. Personally I prefer a nice big training book over video tutorials. I feel like books are easier on the attention span.
Hugo
Hi Gleb , been watching your series for a while, its really brilliant because you summarise so much in under four minutes that might take me 30 to find somewhere else, keep it up.
My Question:
I’m interested in game design and as I have been teaching myself 3d I have been wondering if I could cut out the concept art phase (2D) and go straight to 3D how viable is this approach for creating anything from environments to vehicles and are there any specific techniques you would recommend?
Hugo
Aidy Burrows
Hi Hugo,
I thought I’d jump in seeing how i’ve worked in a large games studio and seen a few different methods that might be of interest. One of the concept artists (and many others) at the studio that I worked used 3d as the basis of concepting out, to help with proportion and so on, then they would paint details on top of that.
The first stage of game development is usually the discussion from the lead designers with the lead coders about what unique things they might want to take place. Once that is sort of in place, they’ll start blocking stuff out 3d. Pretty basic shapes really. A level might be created within a day or 2. But then refined like crazy.
Before the artists really take that blockout and go to town on it, one of 3 things might happen.
1) Nothing happens and the artist just gets on with it straightaway building it up to ‘first pass’.
* the smart thing to do here is to take a very small section up to near final art and to get regular feedback from design and the art director.
2) a concept artist gets a chance to take the blockout further with a paintover and give you much more info about possible color palette, style and mood of the environment in general.
3) the designers just verbalize what it is that they want the art to do, you might just get a style sheet, just reference images with the sorts of things they want in it.
I’ve built up levels based on a rapid 10 second pencil drawing given to me from design, just a circle saying ‘pond’, a line saying ‘cliffs’ and a small line that says ‘gate with troll’ or something like that.
And i’ve seen other artists get isometric detailed plans that go right down to minute details of measurement.
All of this in a big studio stays in quite heavy evolution though, so for example suddenly code can now do that great new mechanic that everyone was hoping for and thought couldn’t be included but now it can and so now your level needs a massive railway line to go right through all of your almost finished artwork. Ouch! Haha!
Anyway, hope some of that sheds some light on your question! 🙂
Aidy.
Hugo
Thanks for your reply, never expected something so detailed!
I’ve seen a few people take that approach taking a google sketch up drawing for paint over, I will take a look at the process over the summer, as I it so happens I just took a break from creating a sci fi environment in blender might be interesting to try the paint over approach on that, thanks for your reply its always interesting to get an idea of what its really like inside the game industry.
Hugo
Aidy Burrows
you’re very welcome Hugo! 🙂 Aidy.
Mrityunjay
Hello guys this is an amazing opportunity to ask anything!!!!! From these pros so…….. i really want to take use of this invaluable opportunity by knowing that how to make any render pop cuz i create/modeled everything correctly then apply texture and material(not that perfect) but how to make any render pop ? Like for e.g. How make this render pop……. Its is an apoclyapse scean in which nazi want to conqur the paris in order to do that they need to destroy the energy source i.e. tesla coil and in between the people always had to suffer from any kind of war and in between all these chaos there is a gentalman who want to help the steampunk dog which dipect the existence of humanity in this barbaric world so i want to depect that feeling so how do i do that by making everything in background blue(cold) and add more fog and dust and make the emphasis glow(with warmth)is be able to pop the image?
P.s ignore that fuzz on the bottom and the color imperfection at the top of the img and yes ill add something on the foreground….. Any help from pros like u is invaluable thank you……. And sorry for the length of the question …… And thanks in advance…….. 🙂
Pedro Lopes
How is Blender reacting to the gaming zone? Can these dinosaurs be programmed in Blender Game Engine, with excellent textures and lightining from Cycles Render?
Chris Plush
Out of everything I love about Blender, the game engine is my favorite part. I’m not sure what the future of the BGE is though. Right now it stands as a great prototyping engine but it can’t compete with commercial game engines. It’s a heck of a lot of fun though and great for smaller games or simulations. Dinosaurs and any models can be used in the game engine, and their movements/behavior can be scripted with Logic Bricks and Python. It doesn’t use the Cycles renderer though. Lighting is basically Blender Internal lighting. There are several types of shading modes possible in the engine, the most advanced of which is GLSL, which has node support too, so you’ll be able to create good shaders for your models using things like normal maps.
Wakka 9000
Hi Gleb, is there a huge dream project, that you want to be a part of? (feature film lead fx, “insert genre” game dev, part of 3d cartoon crew,….)
Gleb Alexandrov
Also, I would love to hear from Aidy, Chris and Steve!
Personally, I want to be a part of every huge dream projects on Earth and outside of it. And, what’s even more exciting, I want everybody (including you) to be a part of my dream projects. Including Open Lighting Project.
http://www.creativeshrimp.com/lighting-tutorials-my-way-to-write-a-book.html
Seriously, I love doing so many different things that it’s pretty hard to stop at just one project. At the moment these things are struggling for my attention:
1. Lighting book
2. Hard-surface texturing series (dvd?)
3. Short animation (very dark secret for now)
And what is your dream project?
Chris Plush
I have a couple huge dream projects myself! One of my dreams started 15 years ago when I started learning 3D with a friend of mine for the ultimate goal of creating a zombie game. Not a very unique idea I know, but it was exciting nonetheless. Our once original idea was a storyline where the parasitic fungus cordyceps mutated to infect humans, a storyline now featured in the recent game Last of Us, haha, so we’ll need to revise that idea now.
My more recent dream though is a short animation. One grand project that will be both the highlight of all my skills, and my reason to learn new ones. This one I’m really excited about and have actually started work on with my girlfriend(story writer). My hardware always limited what I could do which is why I stuck with low poly for so long, but I recently got a major upgrade and now the 3d world’s mine oyster. Keep your eyes on http://www.facebook.com/cgmasters to see this project officially kick off at some point this year.
What are your dreams?
Aidy Burrows
well I can say i’m currently working on something that I thought was a dream and now I think could be a reality for almost anyone, I want to document as much as that on http://www.cgmasters.net the first kickoff post from last year was here…http://www.cgmasters.net/free-tutorials/gamedev-1-intro/
I’ll have more to add on that soon.
I have further ideas to grow the concept so it would be great to create a virtual reality game out of it.
Otherwise I find it fascinating that 3d art ability essentially boils down to creating and recreating worlds and experiences. Mix that in with VR and the latest generation of consoles and the fact that it’s possible to bring that experience to far more people.
I find that incredibly exciting not just for the entertainment possibilities but for helping for things like mental health, and that’s just for starters!
It’s a great time to be in 3D! 🙂
Aidy.
Oliver
Hey guys. If you will excuse me (I have already asked a question and received some very impressive and detailed responses), there is another question that is bothering me. I have been using Blender for a few years now as a hobby, and I am slowly becoming quite competent at it. I am 14 years old and very busy studying for my upcoming GCSEs. I seem to spend every minute of my spare time doing Blender. I would
deeply love to do CG as a job. My main passion is modelling (hard surface) and compositing, but I find UV unwrapping, texturing and rigging difficult. At the moment my personal projects are limited by my hardware and knowledge. As a result I would love to join a larger community / open source project. Lack of confidence, my age, time zones and amount of free time all restrict my ability to do so. Another option is to attempt to freelance, but again my age undermines peoples trust in my ability. I have attempted several times to create an artwork a week (advice from Mr Price); my current record is 16 weeks in a row before this year’s exams set in. Do you have any tips for me? How can I take Blender further?
P.S I love you guys! Thank you for your awesomeness!
P.P.S Here is a sneak preview of my current work in progress for my dad for father’s day:
Gleb Alexandrov
Awesome present for father’s day, Oliver!
I understand what you mean by saying that you love modelling, and are a bit afraid of rigging and UV unwrapping. I can relate to it mainly because…rigging scares the hell out of me too! 🙂
That is my advice for you: build upon your strengths. If you love modeling and feel that modeling is what you can do without the need to participate in open source project – GO WITH IT!
Eventually, you will advance in other skills. But for now, utilize the skills that you have. Some examples of what kinds of projects that a) may compliment your skill set/passion and b) you can do on your own:
1. Location for Hidden-Objects game
2. Detailed vehicle
3. Ruined facade of abandoned temple
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/storm8-hidden-objectscraig-kitzmann
Oliver
Thanks for the great advice! I will definately give some of your suggestions a try 🙂 I love the examples and ideas you posted, they really show how I could play to my strengths.
Unfortunately the link you posted doesn’t seem to be working. A very similar link is https://www.artstation.com/artwork/storm8-hidden-objects , is that what you meant?
Thanks again,
Oliver
Gleb Alexandrov
Yes, Oliver, I meant that link 🙂 If I have another ideas, I will gladly share it with you.
Mrityunjay
Dude hi 5 i m 15 and i too sometime scared of that textureing stuff and post production (full) and 1month ago i dont even know how to operate texturing or graphic software like gimp but when i entered in andrew price competition i force my self(in positive ways ) and now after 40 days i can proudly say that i can texture anything also post produce heres my render i know that lack of hardware can stop u back but its about the artists notbyhe hardware u can rende overnight and please come out of ur room and share ur progreesss in community and i know that study burden…… And we didnt get ample time to use blender but hey weve got 24 hrs and we can make a time table and please challange u this is the oNly thing that improves ur skills drastically sorry for being self obssessed but i m developing.aka i m an app developer game deVeloper a web developer a motion graphic designer (not perfec5 ) but the biggest motivation is that i m learning something new cuz knowledge is the 9nly thing that matters to me…. Anyways best of luck dude any have fun do what u love……. And make ur subject intresting by appling your subject cincept to blender for e.g. how gravity works u can imagin in how i can recreate the senario in blender and yeha i alzo create physics for game(not taht good) but i enjoy studing when i apply concept of book to blender anyways sry for that big tut anyways ………..and(((((((( yeha age doesnt matter in virtual world its the artist and its artwork)))))))))))
And if u like hardsurface modellling then watch masterxeon1001 work its so inspiring…..
Including my work when i was 14 accept that siccer room and yeha age is just a no. Best of luck dude…….
..
Aidy Burrows
Hi Oliver!
That is really very cool indeed, great idea for a fathers day pressie!
To learn new things yeah you’ll definitely find something new with a combination of following tutorials and also setting yourself practical goals like creating new artwork designed to increase your knowledge of ‘x’, whatever that might be.
Also yeah there are plenty of great examples of great art which seem quite minimalist for example these 2 games from the same company…
Limbo…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dY_04KJw-jk
And the follow up – Inside…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xePTHwg4OXg
In any case, we have a few open project ideas rumbling around too, give us a shout when you see any announcements from us later in the year about that! 🙂
Aidy.
Kai Neumann
Hi! I’m a blender artist from Germany and I’ve been thinking about creating my own WordPress Blog/Website some time now. The thing is, there are so many art blogs out there, so I fear that nobody would see me. What is your opinion, should I give it a try?
And if so, any important advice you can give me when starting out?
Greetings, Kai
PS: You’re always a huge inspiration. Keep going!
Chris Plush
You should definitely give it a try! To me that was always one of the funnest parts of being an artist, having a site or a blog to share my work(and to have the fun of redesigning constantly). It’s true there’s a ton of art blogs out there, and they all have at least a handful of followers that like the artist’s style or even just their personality. As long as your blog is moderately interesting or useful then you will get noticed. One surefire way of adding value to your blog beyond your artwork, is by creating tutorials. You’re guaranteed extra fans with that.
Gleb Alexandrov
Kai, thank you for such a great question! You are right when you say that there are so many art blogs nowadays. But on the other hand, there is only one Kai Neumann!
Obviously, you are one and only. So if you let your personality shine through, it will help immensely to make your WordPress blog stand out from the crowd.
What else?
I would suggest you to listen to this podcast, where I summarized important things about blogging and promoting yourself as an artist.
https://twitter.com/gleb_alexandrov/status/602698703594496000
In brief, what you really need to do is to become a media.
In Gary Vaynerchuk’s words: “The faster your business realizes that it’s a media company, the more likely it will be to succeed in 2020, in 2025, in 2030…”
So, don’t hesitate, Kai. Start your blog and share the link with me. I promise that I will share the link with my followers and subscribers everywhere! 🙂
freshlemonflesh
Hey Gleb and CgMasters
I’d like to know what hardware you use apart from mouse and keyboard. Do you use a graphics tablet? 3D-orbiting-device-thingy? Something else?
Thanks for your answers and your tutorials & inspiration!
Gleb Alexandrov
I’m pretty old-school with my devices. Faithful keyboard+mouse combo.
Plus (of course!) a graphics tablet: Wacom Intuos (formerly, Bamboo), A6. Since the beginning of this month, I have feeling that I need to upgrade my mouse to something decent. And from what I leaned by asking creative peeps, Logitech MX Performance seems to be a good choice.
I’m super interested to know, what mouses and tablets guys from CgMasters use.
Chris Plush
Plain old regular mouse and keyboard for me. I always wanted to try a tablet but haven’t gotten around to it yet. I’d like to get a tablet that actually has a display on it so I can look at it while drawing but I think they’re pretty expensive still.
Aidy Burrows
Just the standard mouse and keyboard from me, although I do use a tablet from time to time – I’m currently rocking an Intuos 5.
I know some artists have pretty much abandoned the mouse and just use the tablet, pen and keyboard combo.
Aidy. 🙂
Henry
Hi guys. Do you think this is a good base model for creating/sculpting a dinosaur?
By the way, I don’t watched Creature Factory or your dinosaur series.
Sorry for me writing so little but my English is not that good.
Gleb Alexandrov
Hi Henry! For sure, Steve will give you much better feedback than me, but here’s my 5 cents.
Topology-wise, this dino seams to be very carefully created. Quad based, with occasional triangles that will eventually turn into quads after Subsurface or Multires modifier.
So yes, it’s very good base to start sculpting! Go ahead, sculpt it, pose it and make awesome render for your portfolio.
By the way, how did you create it? Did you make use of the Skin modifier (that would be my guess)?
Henry
I didn’t created it with the skin modifier but from a concept drawing I made.
Henry
Here it is
Henry
Thank you.
Steve
Hey Man! Nice work! I’d say that’s a pretty great base model to start sculpting with, my one thought is that his legs look a little rounded and a bit human like. But a great start! I’d love to see some more of your WIP’s!
Henry
Thank you. Should I sculpt with dynamic topology and retopologize it or with an multires modifier to keep the topology?
bytterman
Hello Gleb, I just finished this picture of my own guitar. I used it as reference. What do you think of it? I have a short question. When you are making a project and you’re it is to big for you’re computer to handle, what are things you try to decreaes the quality of to make it work?
Henry
Cool Picture
Gleb Alexandrov
Very nice guitar!
Regarding your question: when the project turns out to tax my computer too much, I try to cheat. For example, if the grass scene features gazillion particles, I replace the background with matte painting. Or replace everything with camera projection.
There is nothing impossible. 🙂 Just don’t pretend that we should stay true to laws of physics or any other laws. CG is the art of deception.
SaphireS
A question for the game artists: What do you think of Cycles baking and do you use it?
Because from my own experiences it’s on par with XNormal quality wise, sometimes worse but that could also be user error. No useable results without cage except on simple models, which is not actually a problem for me, I like the control a cage gives to the user.
But what is a problem is the ridiculous “add a image texture somewhere in the node material graph to make baking even work” – workflow! It’s because of this workflow that I doubt it’s used for serious production work, otherwise people would complain waaay more often about it 😉
Aidy Burrows
Hi!
I really like the cycles baking and blender internal baking for that matter, the fact that cycles gives us access to a cage is very useful. For simple stuff I just keep it to blender render so that I can see the results faster that is to say i’m already in a viewing mode where I can display the results of the bake in realtime with the glsl shaders.
Yeah the workflow could use a bit of refinement it must be said, that is something that someone with a bit of scripting knowledge might be able to do come to think of it, or someone could layout how they would prefer it to work, it may not be too difficult to implement once something is illustrated/demonstrated practically.
Probably it could be radically more straightforward with simply indicating which image to bake to with the baking controls in the render tab. Similar to the other image pulldown menus that you get throughout.
Aidy. 🙂
SaphireS
Thanks for your answer, glad you’re thinking about it the same way! And you’re right, maybe a simple mockup is all the devs need. 🙂
Shastro
Hello Everyone! I’m a 15 year old blender artist thats been using blender every day (almost) for almost 8 months now, I’m wondering about a few questions, not conventional ones but I think that they might be interesting to hear from you guys.
First Question:
What is it about amazing art do you think that makes it amazing? Besides the artists skill, hundreds of hours of practice, and personal drive, think of the most breathtaking art you’ve ever seen, but why do you think it holds such amazingness?
Second Question:
I’m curious too see how you guys might answer this differently:
Tell me why an ordinary rock, nothing special, smooth, maybe flat, maybe round is amazing and interesting? Without changing it in any way, modifying it in your ingenious minds of yours, just an ordinary unassuming little stone could be the most complicated and beautiful thing ever? Challenge your creative brains 🙂
If you would like my answers to these just ask, but i gotta warn you, they’re kinda long
Lee Salvemini
Great questions!
1. For sure, being impressed by an artwork can be for various reasons: An idea put put, or a fun spin on one, also sometimes the effort that would go into a project, I know somebody made a short film once faking the look of sun and shadow shining in a room with stop motion yellow post it notes, it was amazing! Sometimes its all about, like making a good film or animation, not reinventing or improving on all the wheels, but just making one unique aspect about you work that people will notice and enjoy 🙂
2. The rock is a fantastic idea! Let’s say that the rock is edited into a film in just the right way. Editing can be so powerful, how it is contrasted by something else, that is where you can get the beauty of the Kuleshov Effect [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuleshov_Effect ]
Check the video below, how you feel when this man sees various objects and situations. It’s not super direct but it did make me realize that if you wanted to make a rock amazingly interesting, careful choice of contrast between something else can do it if nothing else 😀
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gGl3LJ7vHc
Fantastic questions Shastro, and good luck with your CG and Blender journey!
Shastro
Thanks so much for replying 🙂 Here’s my anwers to my own questions, they are long though ;_;
First one:
I think that amazing art has a quality beyond hundreds of hours of practice and knowledge, I think even if I spent my life on art, but did not want to improve, or if I did not enjoy it, I wouldn’t create anything amazing… although one could argue “How could someone spend their whole life on something without wanting it?” I don’t know but I think that amazing art is more than skill, or hours of time put into it. Maybe amazing art is the fruitition of someones will to improve, maybe amazing art is amazing, because we can sense the effort put into, because we can sense the artists dreams coming to life, because it pushes us to realize our own
Second One:
I find a rock interesting because of all the millions of things that had to happen to it for it to get in your hand, imagine from the time the universe formed over billions of years say a star exploded, then it knocked tiny little fragments of dust off of an asteroid and flew it millions of miles into other pieces and just out of all of the billions of places it had to go it land in our solar system and these dust particles flew into a much larger pile of dust called earth, and as it formed it looked very different than it did today, always changing every variable of the minutest significance affecting it shape, and it went down into the depths of the world changing forms and once it may have been a diamond, or any form of shape and size, and as the world grew life appeared and the first land creatures stepped onto the rock, scraping a small amount of it off, the wind picks up for the day and changes it just a little bit, and over millions of years the cycle continues life changes and forms, special animals eat the rock and use it to break down food in its primitive stomach, more rock attach to it and it changes again. Every little variable affecting it, until eventually humans come to earth, maybe a primitive human used the same rock as a dinosaur had to cut down a tree, but as time passes and more and more things happen to it the rock keep changing and changing, our little rock sits and waits, gets pushed and pulled, changed and warped, affected by forces us humans don’t even know exist yet, until the fateful day you pick it up and ponder about its journey, that little rock has experienced more than all of the human race ever will, that little rock has touched the world in so many little ways, and that little rock will never show that it has, always quietly sitting waiting for yet more variables to affect it, even the touch of your skin, the heat of your hand effects it just a little, so long after your gone, and the earth dies, the rock will still be there, changed , waiting for yet another creature to look upon it and ponder of its journey just as you had, and the rock will still be there just as unassuming as ever. That is why I find rocks interesting, and just about anything else.
That little rock will always be there, just as unassuming as ever 🙂
Sorry they were so long
Chris Plush
Hey Shastro,
1. What makes art amazing is something I’ve seen debated quite a bit. In the end we all see art differently, and we’re all attracted to certain aspects of creativity over others. For me, I love artwork that appeals to emotions. I might be impressed with a still life that’s indistinguishable from a photograph, but it’s the epic fantasy imagery that tells a story and and pulls you in that’s most amazing to me. I feel like creativity is not natural for me so I’m extra impressed by fantasy art. This is a tough question though, there’s so many elements in a piece of artwork to judge, it’s hard to order it haha. Emotion would be at the top for me, even in things like landscapes, if you’re good enough you can pull the viewer in and give them a sense of tranquility or freedom when they look at it.
2. My answer is very similar to yours. The story behind the rock and it’s shear existence in the first place are all extremely interesting. Don’t get me wrong, I’m as anti-hippie as they come, but sometimes you just have to sit around a campfire and ponder the nature and complexity of everything in life.
Shastro
I agree that we all see it differently and undoubtedly all amazing art stems from the artist’s will to create it. Emotional art is something that’s so hard to create I think, since emotion is something not really understood, personally I tend to love surreal art the most, something that draws you into such a beautiful world is amazing to me.
I think that everything in the world can be amazing if looked at long enough, so much left to discover, the wonder in the world is breathtaking despite all the horrors hiding right beside it, there’s nothing wrong with appreciating it.
Thank You for your responses, and Good luck on future endeavors 🙂
Aidy Burrows
Hi Shastro!
I think you’ve correctly ordered and separated in the questions already.
So on the one hand you have art which suggests some intention (putting the illusion of free will arguments aside here) to create beauty of some sorts either by deliberate action or setting up the potential for artistic serendipity.
And to break straight away I should say at this point it gets sticky straightaway as people change from day to day and that’s multiplied by person to person as there’s many ideas of what art is considered beautiful at any one time. Or what should be discarded as well for that matter.
Which leads into beauty formed with no agency or just to put it simply without a person being involved. Like the rock example.
I’ve heard this a lot in music, so is a cat walking across the piano keys music? Is 4 minutes 33 seconds of silence ‘music’?
But again beauty is different to me anyway from hour to hour, as my own personal context and perspective shifts with the world. Then again from person to person.
What I like to think about these days is the way that occasionally we’ll see the world as us vs them. We are here and separate from that thing over there. When actually it’s quite the opposite and it would seem that we’re all one and part of the same ‘thing’ whatever that is.
Our atoms are of the stuff of exploding stars as they say, what adventures our physical selves have already traveled before we even manipulate them in aggregate across the keyboard to type a sentence.
We are the universe and the stuff inbetween it, the unity of all that is of course very beautiful and unifying. (I’m in serious hippy territory here Chris sorry! haha).
So i’m not sure the human race as it were is any different from that rock really in a spiritual sense. I remember Brian Eno talking about ‘the frame’ give thought to the frame of your art. What is the frame? what is going on outside of the frame? where is your work posted? what is the lighting on the wall illuminating your painting? what is the building like? what is the context basically, that will inform the meaning of your work.
So in the context of a rock coming through my window i’m not too impressed with that beauty, but in the context of it’s metaphor against a larger picture in space and time then yeah that’s very cool.
What’s intriguing is the popular notions of beauty, what everyone tends to agree to being art, but again as we’re all connected, and the context of everything connects us to everything else we are it and it is us, and besides the more dangerous the sun is depicted in the media the less beautiful a sunny day might eventually seem. So I guess I’m sort of saying there’s a collective agreement of art and beauty that emerges implicitly in our larger storytelling forums (tv and film mostly i suppose).
So there’s an ebb and flow, and tomorrow i may feel differently.
Hopefully this doesn’t come across as lunatic ramblings cos i’m probably swiss cheesing my logic left right and center over here. 🙂
Aidy.
Shastro
First off, Thanks for Replying to my little questions!
I agree that people all have their own perceptions of beauty, and that their perceptions and society’s as a whole change regularly, sometimes affected by the smallest of things.
Is a cat walking across a piano keys music? I suppose it could be to someone, although would that be so different from a toddler playing keys with no sense of intention for fun, would that be music, could it ever be beautiful?
Although beauty is a subjective thing, there seems to be something fundamental about amazing art, something besides the hundreds of hours of learning the artist went through, I think. I see art all the time that I respect, say an example of Sci- Fi helmet, extremely detailed, extremely interesting, but is it beautiful, maybe that changes from piece to piece, person to person, decade to decade, but if it is, would that be the fruition of someone’s dreams? Could amazing art be amazing simply because someone created it, because someone poured their heart and soul into it? Or is it a matter of detail? or is there no real answer, since its all subjectivity anyway?
but could there be something more?
I don’t know, and I know I’ve already stepped on my own logic.
Could a piece of art ever be as beautiful as a newborn child is to a mother?, as natural as the ocean? as substantial as the sun? Could art ever touch us the same way as the earth does?
or is there something more?
I don’t think anyone could ever figure that one out, but interesting non the less, cool to see how other’s might see it, but to me I feel like that there might be, something we can sense in art that is truly beautiful and amazing, when was the last time a piece of work legitimately took your breath away, Gleb’s art is undeniably awesome, but could it make you feel the same as a mother looking upon a child, or a tree growing from the ashes of an atomic bomb? Is such beauty unattainable? or is that a good thing? Maybe nothing should ever be so beautiful then such things might not be as meaningful.
My little rock question is a fun idea I thought up because I figured I might get some interesting responses from all of you, see how people might try to think of an interesting reason that a undeniably boring rock could be interesting and amazing, my reason might be a little too scientific, a little too simple, but I think that there might be an infinite number of reasons.
One thing I had been told by a good friend of mine before we drifted apart… “Nothing is Impossible… its just… someone hasn’t figured out how to do it yet”
Interesting Idea about the frame, where is your painting? what is the context? I suppose another would be, How did it make those who looked upon it feel? Did it take their breath away? Did they see it in their dreams? Did it inspire them? If your really good, then maybe one of those answers could be a yes, does it depend on the person? Is any one art piece only as beautiful as it is in the eye of the beholder? (“Beauty is the eye of the beholder” hmm wonder where I’ve heard that before?)
Seems one question can spawn another thousand, must be how scientists feel all the time.
Like you tomorrow I will likely feel differently, so inconstant the minds of us humans, all the better for it, it would be boring if it weren’t so.
I have huge respect for all you guys and much of your work is truly inspiring and amazing, it has become my life’s goal to create something truly beautiful, your inspiration, your knowledge, and your sheer awesomeness has helped me much along this journey of mine, I shall continue using blender everyday (as much as I can)
Gleb has done a beautiful thing here, giving me, a young 15 year old kid the opportunity to speak to you all, so Thanks so much for that.
but the question remains, will this webpage rest in my dreams? (HA HA Just Kidding 🙂 )
(It’ll definitely be in my favorites!)
Stay Awesome! – Skyler Hughes
Aidy Burrows
I appreciate that you’re only 15 but you’ve come a long way already. You’re obviously very clever and inspired, I think you will do great things!
I’ve heard it mentioned that much of our appreciations and notions of beauty come from evolution. So for example the typical landscape of water, trees, sunny day, birds and small animals nearby so commonly replicated in many artworks all trigger some Pleistocene era notions of safety and abundance.
A river full of fish for food, nearby smaller animals showing there aren’t many large predators about, greenery so things can grow, water so things aren’t too dry. That sort of thing.
As for a technical piece of art, that seems to be the appreciation of skill, like a physical representation of the ability of the mind basically.
But don’t forget much of this is just simply fun, captivating, exploration of an idea, most of us are pretty curious and interested in what might be beyond the hills, beyond the seas, beyond the planets, etc etc, searching and yearning. It’s done us pretty well so far. We’re like the planet has grown us to be able to have us come into space turn round and take a picture of itself.
That’s right i’m saying we’re the Earth’s equivalent of a selfie stick.
I remember when i started out I felt like what’s the point? What am i trying to do? I realized that there are a lot of reasons for something, so for music, you can find, relaxing music, inspiring music, uplifting music, calming music, devotional music, apologetic music, driving music, energizing music etc etc.
Same goes for the different types of stories, different types of paintings, different types of comedy. etc etc. So you depict a couple of inspirational stories like the tree from the ashes and the mother and baby.
A newborn baby to a mother is context too, remember there are plenty of mothers that don’t feel that way with a newborn baby. It sometimes takes a different context for them.
I guess what I always end up coming back to is that context is remarkably important. So the frame of the painting doesn’t really end there, it stretches right the way into the furthest reaches of our culture sometimes, now more than ever with youtube videos hitting a billion views and so on.
Otherwise we are all sharing our craftwork and expressing our capabilities of how we can interact with the world and each other. Finding new ways to come together and see the same kind of ‘blue’ or ‘red’. To experience, to experiment, to grow, to contribute, to show off, to get inspired, to practice, it’s all practical expressions of some sort, art and beauty are just words we use to categorize some of the nuances of that.
You are of course not alone, you are with us, you are us, we are you. Sadly a lot of our culture is setup to divide and focus on individuality but I think we are happiest when we recognize our being one and everything at the same time.
Sounds so crazy hippy i realize but only Science can show things are not just stranger than we suppose but stranger than we can suppose. How can we be one and everything at the same time? How can an atom be in 2 places at the same time? There’s a lot of cool exploring and expressing still left to do! 😀
Anyways, Skyler, it’s been great diving into this stuff with you, there are bright things in line for you i’m certain of it. 😀
Aidy.
Nicolas Lasaigues
Hello everyone!
My question (or my main concern) is: What tells you that you’ve crossed the line, when you feel that a job is done and you don’t have to keep working on it?
Chris Plush
For clients, when they’re happy then I consider it finished and I don’t go overboard with the final touch-ups. For personal projects I don’t call it quits until I get bored of something and want to move on to a fresh new topic, which many times means half finished projects are deemed finished haha. I’m not sure if anything I’ve ever done has ever seemed totally finished to me. There’s always little changes or additions I want to add, but if I’m happy overall with something I don’t mind moving on to something new when I start getting bored. Are you having trouble getting caught up in making endless touch-ups?
Nicolas Lasaigues
Thanks for the response, Chris!
Lately I’m finishing the projects just to see them finished. I always have the feeling that I could add some more, even if I had been working for months on it.
Lee Salvemini
That’s one of the beauties of collaboration, you will give feedback on what is more noticeable by others than by yourself, and at the same time as picking up some tweaks you need to do that you missed. When you are working on your own project yourself, it definitely becomes tricky to know. I would suggest really make use of the forums for that feedback, it helps understand what others see, and make decisions on what is best to focus updates on, and what works even if you see nothing but errors 😀
Nicolas Lasaigues
Thanks for the response, Lee.
I accept that, so far, I don’t use the forums so much (but, that’s a great idea).
Aidy Burrows
for more general personal work sometimes you need a goal and timeframe in mind before you begin.
If you can be honest you might find that you’ve hit that goal or not and you can weigh up if not how much extra time you’re prepared to put into it, is it still fun? etc. All helps judge whether it’s time to draw that line.
Hope that helps. 🙂
Aidy.
Nicolas Lasaigues
Thanks a lot. It helps very much.
The “fun” factor is very important 🙂
Aidy Burrows
no problem! That’s great to hear 🙂 Aidy.
Shastro
Hello Everyone! I’m wondering about a few questions, not conventional ones but I think that they might be interesting to hear from you guys.
First Question:
What is it about amazing art do you think that makes it amazing? Besides the artists skill, hundreds of hours of practice, and personal drive, think of the most breathtaking art you’ve ever seen, but why do you think it holds such amazingness?
Second Question:
I’m curious too see how you might answer this differently:
Tell me why an ordinary rock, nothing special, smooth, maybe flat, maybe round is amazing and interesting? Without changing it in any way, modifying it in your ingenious minds of yours, just an ordinary unassuming little stone could be the most complicated and beautiful thing ever?
If you would like my answers to these just ask, but i gotta warn you, their kinda long 🙂 P.S- Sorry if this is a pain
Monica Jansen
How do i rotate/moving the teeth with the mouth jaw on a model if i use shape keys? When i do it on a model i created, the teeth rotate in a other way that the mouth jaw rotating or moving.
Chris Plush
Can you post a picture of what goes wrong when you try this? It’ll help us better understand what’s going on. As long as the teeth and jaw are part of the same mesh, modifying them for a shapekey should be as simple as selecting all of the teeth vertices and jaw vertices and rotating them together. If you want, you can also just send the blend file to contact@cgmasters.net and I’ll take a look at it and see what’s going on.
sirketchup
Is RetopoFlow a viable solution for the retopology of Zbrush created models into Blender (viable as in workflow speed and ease of use) ?
Also, given the fact that Unreal4 and Unity5 are both free now, can you give us some Pros and Cons to learn either game engine over another ?
Link for RetopoFlow: https://cgcookiemarkets.com/blender/all-products/retopoflow/
Aidy Burrows
Yes I think it is, it is a very cool piece of retopology software, I haven’t played with it much myself yet but from what i’ve seen it is really good.
Plus I know of other industry people that have seen that and had the same positive reaction.
Depending on the zbrush model and your hardware you may want to not necessarily bring the very highest subdivision level into blender though, take it down to a level that keeps everything running nice and smooth, then bring in the high poly to bake at the end, or potentially do that in xnormal or zbrush of course. 🙂
Aidy.
Antoine van der Heijden
Heya Gleb. I’ve gotten acquainted with (some of) your work through the blenderartist forum and I love your art, especially the steampunk artworks. You’re a big inspiration for a blender-n00b like me, and I reckon you’ll still be an inspiration once I know the software much better. My question would be, while it’s obvious artists like you are a big inspiration to others, where (or from whom) do YOU get your inspiration?
Thanks so much by the way for sharing your tips and tricks with us in the form of tutorials!
Gleb Alexandrov
Antoine, YOU are an inspiration for me. Honestly, your interest and your artistic growth motivates me to do what I do (and I think Aidy, Chris and other CgMasters guys will say the same thing here!).
In today’s world, every artists need to establish meaningful connections. We rely on our audience, we rely so much on other artists that multiply our voice.
So, Antoine, you are literally keeping us afloat.
And of course, as we all live in knowledge-based global society, sharing knowledge is the core of our activities.
p.s. Did I mention Caffè Americano with some milk? Being caffeinated while doing what you love to do is a great source of inspiration too.
Aidy Burrows
Gleb is spot on here, I couldn’t have put it better.
3D is fairly pivotal and central to the way we tell stories nowadays in our cultures, and it’s our stories that help illustrate the edges and boundaries of our experiences more clearly.
Basically pushing out the boats and engaging with others and the unknown and challenges therein is very cool.
Very easy to forget that though when you spend an evening just testing ways to reduce noise in a render, but still it’s worth remembering the essence of it all as often as possible. 😀
Aidy.
Yanbo Zhang
Hi, Gleb. I have a question: Is it necessary to use digital panel in Blender Sculpting, or does it help using digital panel for Blender modeling? Thanks!
Gleb Alexandrov
Yanbo, if you mean tablet, I will say yes! Tablet is a natural next step in sculpting, mainly because it’s much more natural to sculpt without pressing the button every time to lay down a stroke.
In addition to that, tablet has pressure levels, while mouse does not. If you want to buy relatively cheap tablet, try Wacom Intuos. Hope that helps!
Aidy Burrows
I would agree with this, while it is possible to get really good sculpting results without, you are making life a little harder for yourself by not having a tablet.
Depending on some styles, so nice curvy illustrative styles or the type of model the tablet reeeeally helps things along because of the pressure sensitivity changing the brush size.
🙂 Aidy.
Mrityunjay
hello guy thanks for this amazing opportunity for asking anything!!!! from pros like u………my question is ……. what makes blender your Allie a.k.a. why you guys leave software like 3ds max (no im not asking the neverending war b/w softwares) i m just asking which thing attracts u to use it i m sure that,only its free doesnt make an artist like u happy so what is the reason..? and my second question is….. where blender laCks in ur workflow(in maya oriented world)….. and (for aidy how did u manage the poly count did or u just lay on the LOD stuff….). and what are ur hobby instead of blender or what u do in ur spare time (ur are not always drinking coffee 24*7 right?…..i m right na….? :-p)
Mrityunjay
Hey gleb u know that today games are judge by the quality of graphic (thats why they launch tech demos) and what do you think where will u go more on game play story of the graphics while judging game
Second question :- i m a huge fan of night lighting and rain so i attempt to create a strampunk night scean (wont b able to participate in the comp) can u please tell me where i lack in this scean (rain was made in gimp)…..and thanks
Pablo
Hello Guys.
My question would be… What is your professional or dream goal in your life? What is that goal that you chase to be happy in life? Do you think you are already there?
Thank you!
Lee Salvemini
First it was to work for Nintendo (I live right near Nintendo Australia HQ now haha, but of course they dont make the games there). Then it was to work on 3D movies and VFX, which I have been doing for some years, and each new ‘style’ of game or movie is a new exciting chapter within that career.
My ultimate dream though? I have been always adding notes to a notepad for 1) A live action web series with VFX and 2) A video game with a large scale story, originally a feature film idea, but the idea of a Final Fantasy like game made it very fun thought as I work more in videogames these days.
It keeps me going 😀 I wonder if, like James Cameron and his idea for Avatar he put in a drawer since age 16, I can bring out these ideas when I have the ability to fund or time to create them 🙂
Pablo
Cool! I see we have similar goals I wish you fulfill them all!
Aidy Burrows
I think to an extent i’ve hit a lot of the goals I wanted, but there are many more of course.
Originally I just wanted to work in the entertainment industry, which put another way just means having fun building something together with other creative types. The end result of which would allow others to have fun in some way. So pretty vague but a decent reason to look forward to monday morning so to speak.
Now I think it would be great to continue that impact on others and continue to grow myself. I really like learning so my ultimate goal would be where I continued to grow and be able to pass that on to others while also producing something of merit both for entertainment and edification reasons. Oh and a bonus would be if we were healing each other in the process.
I think that should keep that goal sufficiently high enough to enable me to keep dreaming and keep chasing. 🙂
Aidy.
Pablo
Yeah that´s the way! we should improve ourselves to look backwards in the future and be proud of us! We must be persons who our past selves would admire!
Chris Plush
1 – Design and build my own underground shelter to survive the next Ice Age, or race war, whichever hits the US first.
2 – Get married and have a family.
3 – Create a polished short animation at least 10 minutes long.
I’ve only just begun accomplishing all of these things but I’m on my way =)
How about you Pablo?
Pablo
Oh I´d love to live from movie making.
I´d also like to go Amsterdam and make an open movie.
I wish you success in your goals!
Chris Plush
Good luck with your goals too! I have a massive amount of respect for movie makers. Even making a bad movie takes so much work and creativity still, haha, so making a good movie is quite a feat of skill and dedication.
Mason Menzies
I’ve been saving up very slowly for this course, before i go to buy it when i have the money, does it have a tutorial on making shape keys for muscle deformation when a bone moves? just curious.
loaferslodge
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQumHInUDJo
Steve
Hey again Mason! I cover shape keys, and using them for animating mainly facial expression, (Nostril Flares, Eye Brows, Etc,) I don’t cover any drivers, which is what you’d use for deformation when a bone moves, though there are a few tutorials around for that.
Mason Menzies
ok, cool! Thanks 🙂
Mrityunjay
Hey gleb u know that today games are judge by the quality of graphic (thats why they launch tech demos) and what do you think where will u go more on game play story of the graphics while judging game
Second question :- i m a huge fan of night lighting and rain so i attempt to create a strampunk night scean (wont b able to participate in the comp) can u please tell me where i lack in this scean (rain was made in gimp)…..and thanks
Aidy Burrows
Hi! Personally I really like a good bit of atmosphere in a game, it draws me in.
If that’s achieved just using 2D planes and a lot of fog then that’s cool with me.
I think a brilliant gameplay experience is something like Pacman and obviously photorealistic immersion is not the top priority there. 🙂
Regarding your render, I think it looks like there’s a lot of very cool things going on. Although I’m not too sure what the focus is, I would attempt to bring the eye into that place of focus more. Also there is a section that is brightly lit at the bottom of the image this seems cut off by darkness from the rest of the image, I’d be tempted to allow the eye to flow more around the picture continuously without that dark horizontal line of shadow that separates the lower third.
Also I think you can afford to brighten the sky and draw out more of the silhouette of the forms there, check out some concept art set at night for more ideas… https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/c7/c1/69/c7c16904631ceeec216926d7f04c020e.jpg
But anyway, there seems like there’s some very cool work that’s gone into your render, I don’t think you’re that far from something really outstanding! 🙂
Aidy.
Mrityunjay
Thank you sooooo much for reply and i m glad u like it a bit….. And thanks for pointing out some flaws ill do my best to make this image look epic :-p and thanks for that image though it was really inspiring and btw the emphasis is that steampunk man at the bottom which was lit(extreamly) who want to help that broken steampunk dog which shows the existence of humanity in this dark barbaric world…… Anyways ill changs the angle of dog and resolution( it is a bit blurry) and apply all ur points…..nd yeah i like that limbo style game too…. Anyways thanks again nd hav a nic day
Aidy Burrows
No problem! You’ve definitely got the makings of an epic pic there! 🙂 Aidy.
Pavel
Hi, I’m from Russia and do not know very well English, so I write
through the translator. I recently started blender and came across your
lessons, which I really liked. Now I am doing a small project as a hobby
and I need help. So here’s the question: How can I make the same
thatched roof like in this picture? And the building itself, which I do,
this is not a finished render just for clarity
Gleb Alexandrov
Remarkable modelling, thanks for sharing, mate!
I would approach thatched roof this way:
1. Make a base as a simple textured model.
2. Then add a bunch of straw particles on top of that. But usually such roof needs A LOT of particles to look right, so be careful :). Though, maybe the textured model will be enough by itself. And just a few particles here and there to break up the silhouette of the roof.
Pavel
I’m so glad you answered me and appreciated my work, thank you very much!
Aidy Burrows
Looks awesome! Well done!
For the thatched roof I would have a main straw tiling texture for the majority of the roof and then in certain places have an alpha’d version of the texture that would help for trims, this person is doing something similar here….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1p7gBW-wjDQ
Hope that helps! 🙂
Aidy.
loaferslodge
OK. I’ll take a crack at the random generators wheel of fortune.
When working on a scene and learning new stuff along the way, that really should cause you to go back and change some of the first content, how do you decide when “enough is enough”?
Lee Salvemini
That is a very important balance! For your own projects its easy to get carried away with hanging on details as you are finding out new tools and techniques. I can confirm as you move forward on more projects you will get better and better at seeing the forest with the trees, and how to balance them.
First, just practice those interesting new things you learn in little small examples or even tests, it helps you really focus on a small skill without the rest getting in the way. Then, best thing for yourself is to see a project or scene from start to end, set a deadline, promise yourself you won’t learn too much new (anything in this scene you will make you have already learned and practiced, have tests or files to append). Go nuts and push, not feeling like you have to push the boundaries on your skill, work within your abilities easily, you will feel some weight lifted off your shoulders 😀 Also, you will much more likely finish something completely, and its the finished projects people really remember, and you can look back on fondly 😀
Cheers!
Lee
Aidy Burrows
Very good question!
It boils down for me in the following way, before starting something I’ll pretty much have decided what it is that i’m trying to get out of it. A goal of some kind.
Have you reached the goal?
If so, and it’s not fun anymore then move on.
If you think maybe you could do it a lot better next time, then what’s the purpose? Is it for a portfolio piece? Then maybe take another crack at it. If you can see mistakes in it then so can the art director reviewing your work.
It depends very much on you. What do you want from it, so my point would be to attempt to get a sense of what you want to achieve before you begin.
Hopefully that makes sense! 🙂
Aidy.
Jai Thomas
Hey Gleb!:) I was wondering if you could critique my latest project as I’m pleased with the result but I feel something is lacking?
Steve
Hey Man! Some really nice work there. I love the bottom portion of the scene. But I think the composition could use some work, also maybe do something more with reflections in the water? and lastly the lighting on the building is a little dark, I think something a little brighter colored might be cool.
Jai Thomas
Thank you! And yeah I’m playing around with trees and things as the temple is quite heavy and making the scene unbalanced. 🙂
Aidy Burrows
Very cool!
I really like symmetrical composition. Take a look at some other folks using it and you might get some other ideas that you might like to push into the image, especially with the use of color and value.
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=composition+symmetry&biw=2144&bih=1051&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=sNWHVaQZi93tBomstcgC&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ&dpr=0.9#tbm=isch&q=film+composition+symmetry
With your current camera position being so low you have some cool opportunity to add more depth and focal blur into the image with some very close out of focus low plant objects, and also more things off into the distance.
Hope that helps. 🙂
Aidy.
Holt Hunter
What are your tips for creating a realistic outdoor scene? Here is my first attempt at an outdoor scene, I would really appreciate your feedback. I used your photoscan technique for the trees, and the grass essentials freebie from here for the grass: http://www.blenderguru.com/tutorials/make-grassy-meadow-scene/
What do you think?
Gleb Alexandrov
Holt, I think that you have a big potential in art. The image looks good!
Some thoughts:
1. If we make the tree our main focal point (and the subject of the image), we can build upon that concept and add a character to this tree. Maybe some fantasy tree creature?
2. And if we choose that route, we’d better make sure that nothing detracts viewer’s attention from that creature.
Here’s my quick sketch. What do you think about this direction?
Holt Hunter
Thanks for the idea! I will definitely look in to that!
Holt Hunter
Here is a link to the artwork I have made so far: https://cgcookie.com/profile/cyberburst/
Kristaps Mītins
Hi all. I started to use Blender because it’s free and i wanted to make cool 3D intros for my videos. But now i also want to add some 3D special effects to my videos. Probably at start with something small, and end up with something bigger. I wanted to ask how can i add special effects like CorridorDigital RocketJump does that. I wont want 2 be famous or something, its just i dont wana spend 5 hours to play games, but rather spend it learning how to add special effects to videos! So is it posible with Blender? And where can i learn how 2 do it.
Holt Hunter
Here is some good tutorials: http://www.blenderguru.com/tutorials/introduction-to-camera-tracking/ http://www.blenderguru.com/tutorial-category/compositing-tutorials/
Aidy Burrows
Hi there’s a few things you might find of interest from Steve on the cgmasters.net team here too…
Just search for ‘vfx’ on steve’s channel. 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/user/Blenderfan93/search?query=vfx
hope that helps. 🙂 Aidy.
Thomas Myrup
https://goo.gl/7D5Jq8&libi
Thomas Myrup
https://goo.gl/eacU8L&unuz
Adrian Wieczynski
My question;
Could you review/critique my recent work, based on the background of the video?
I would like anything I can improve on and also some things that I did well on. I’m also wondering if the type of colour scheme I’m using works well. To me it looks fine, but it is slightly unusual (separated analogous).
This is also the first time I’ve used fog in an image.
http://orig00.deviantart.net/b88b/f/2015/170/0/c/house_by_ajrn-d8xx2m4.png
Marko Tosic
Hi! I just (re-) started using blender as a hobby when finding Aidy’s workshop on Steam (great stuff!). As someone with limited time i wonder sometimes, if it makes sense at all to get into Blender or if i will soon hit a brick wall and not be able to finish any decent renderings at all.
As someone on the other side of the spectrum, what’s your opinion on that: Does it make sense to keep going, given that only limited time is available to learn and use blender or does it only make sense if i want to become (more or less) a full-time 3d artist?
Gleb Alexandrov
Hi Marko and thanks for a great question! I bet that when you think about learning something, you consider not only possible benefits, but also fun factor. If it’s fun, and if it makes you feel better, than go with it!
If you look from this angle, it won’t matter whether you will become full-time 3d artist or just use Blender in a free time as a hobby. Do whatever feels right to you, and don’t hesitate 🙂
Marko Tosic
Hi Gleb, thanks for the encouragement, i think i needed that! Hell yes, it is a lot of fun and the tutorials that are around recently make it a lot easier than when i tried it first (around the time Elephant Dream was made), so thank you all for that!
For me, modeling with blender feels like i imagine building something from wood or with clay must feel like to people who have the talent. Just you can do it right from your desktop and don’t have to clean up the shop afterwards. Well, not counting empty cans and pizza boxes. But so far i’m mostly modeling only and i just get started with materials, lightning, composing, let alone animation. So there’s many hours of fun i’m looking forward to if you look at it from that side. Don’t think i’ll be able to catch up with the developers who seem to release new tools faster than i can learn though…
Aidy Burrows
Hi Marko!
I agree with Gleb here, if it’s fun then go for it!
I did some terrible awful things when I first started out trying to make little comedy sketches with my friends years and years ago. A lot of that was unfinished but we had an amazing time trying.
Also I’ve probably learned quite a lot along the way from the experience. So there was very little ‘wasted’ time if you see what I mean.
You’ve reminded me of a stress I used to put myself under which was to find the fastest most economical way to do something. i.e. Feel like I needed to know every little trick and tool that a 3d app had to offer. I don’t worry about that anymore, I make sure I keep my eye on Blender development and the way different people choose to use those tools but I no longer let it stop my production.
I always had a case of analysis paralysis, just overthinking everything way too much to the point that it was just so stressful to start. I’m not saying you might be like this it’s just I can relate to what you’re saying from that angle, and maybe you are a bit like that too anyway! 😀
p.s. Really happy you’ve been enjoying the course on Steam! It’s great to contribute back to Blender with that, new features/more stability for everyone! Woo!
Aidy. 🙂
Marko Tosic
Hi Aidy!
First of all: I just finished your cone hat tutorial, it was great! Excellent pace, good explanations, right amount of repetition and you have a great voice! And i sure had a great time and learned a lot, so i wouldn’t consider it time wasted at all.
I do have the same problem you had regarding the overthinking (and also i used to be a bit lost in the Blender interface, but that’s already much better after the tutorial – at some point in the later sections i realized i wasn’t even looking at the video at times and just work in parallel to you explaining what you do and getting the same result!).
I’m actually looking forward to the weekend when i can do some longer Blender sessions to try out all the things with my next experiments, during the week i mostly get only about 1 hour a day at most…
Aidy Burrows
Marko that’s so cool to hear, you have just made my day! Thanks so much for letting me know! 🙂
Good luck and let me know how you get on! 😀 Aidy
Aidy Burrows
Apologies Marko, I thought i had already replied to your post, but in any case that’s awesome that you liked and got so much out of the cone hat tutorial! Many thanks for letting me know. That really is about as awesome a review as I could hear! 😀
Yeah the experiments will certainly bring many more questions up for you for sure, hope everything went or will go smoothly! 😀
Aidy.
Marko Tosic
I think you actually did reply already, but i can’t find it in the threat either 🙂 Anyway, just bought your envrionment thingy from cgmasters and started right away. I’m in the middle of the “blocking out” chapter. I absolutely love how it’s not just a blender tutorial but has the whole workflow including collecting references, etc. It’s really great so far and i slowly get the feeling that i actually are getting somewhere with blender and the whole 3d thing! I think this will keep me occupied a bit (remember: not that much time to spare), but keep the good stuff coming!
Aidy Burrows
That’s so awesome Marko! Good luck! You’ve got my email on the DVD if you need it! 🙂 Aidy.
Chris Plush
Even if I never made a living with 3d, I still would’ve been glad I put in the time to learn it. You’ll be surprised how handy it is! I’ve used Blender to make birthday cards, 3d print gifts, create graphics for my own websites, edit videos, create blueprints for things I’ve built in real life(skate ramps, shipping containers for an old job, and other random things), and a lot of other things. It’s definitely not just for professional use, so if you love it, you are guaranteed to benefit a lot from learning it.
Marko Tosic
These are excellent ideas! I just finished my current tutorial and i have a ton of short videos from my last vacation available for experimenting, i didn’t even think of Blender for the job (shame on me!).
Regarding the birthday cards: Do you compose & print right out of Blender or do you export to something else for printing?
Chris Plush
Haha yeah Blender’s video editor isn’t too bad at all!
I use Blender to create graphic elements for birthday cards but I mainly use Photoshop to put it all together and print(I don’t think Blender has a print option).
Bobby
Hey Gleb, How do you became in the lightning part of 3d?
By the way, I love your voice :P.
Gleb Alexandrov
Thank you so much, Bobby!
I had a sensation that lighting is the most important thing ever for artists. Without light there is no vision. Oops!
Adrian Wieczynski
Well, my question would be…
Can all of you (if possible) give me feedback on my latest work, based on the background in your video? I would like anything I could possibly improve on, and some things I did well in, please.
Also, what is your favourite colour? 😛
http://orig09.deviantart.net/7f51/f/2015/171/9/9/house_by_ajrn-d8y1gog.png
Gleb Alexandrov
Adrian, woah! I love the minimalism of this picture. 🙂 Everything looks consistent to me, you did a great job.
I would play with colors a little bit differently. Make your greenery more cyan, and the roof – more red. But that’s a purely subjective matter.
Adrian Wieczynski
Thanks!
I did play with some smoke by the way, but it ended up being quite troublesome. Maybe something to practice with in the future 😛
I do like the colouring idea. I’ve messed around with the colours but I couldn’t get the colour scheme quite right (it’s a bit of a separated analogous). I think the colours you chose suit the style of the picture better than my choice.
Thanks, again, for the feedback, guys!
Aidy Burrows
Yeah that’s a pretty cool image!
Just talking generally I like the very simple nature of it, i might be tempted to add some lighting, perhaps from the door or windows onto the foreground house itself, or perhaps use some very simple looking smoke coming up from the chimney.
I always start with the theme or point or focus of the image, so with the house as the focus I would be tempted to just make sure I was bringing of much of the theme as I was trying to with that. The story as it were. 🙂
hope that helps.
Aidy. 🙂
Chris Plush
I’m a fan of the simplistic art style, especially the trees. I think with the house being the main focus of the art it should have something a little more eye catching though, such as a simple rickety picket fence around it maybe, just something that sets it apart form the house in the background and let’s the viewer know there’s something a little more worthy about focusing the art around this particular house. I also like Gleb’s color alterations and brightening the house so it stands out more.
Aunpyz
Hi there!!
I have a new question that I see almost every art forum.
“Is drawing skill important to become animator?, Dose good 3D artist need to be good 2D artist?” and something like that.
my question is if I skip from learning drawing, is it possible to be great 3d artist (for game)?
and if it really really important, what section I must focus on? (portrait drawing, anatomy, etc.)
Thanks again,
Aun
Gleb Alexandrov
Hi Aun! I’m absolute vegetable in drawing. And still, I can create something semi-decent in 3d. So, from my personal experience, I want to encourage you to go ahead and start creating CG.
Thanks.
Aidy Burrows
Funnily enough after a long period away from drawing I noticed after doing quite a bit of 3D that my 2D has improved.
I guess my eye and improving my creative decisions about what looks appealing and how to look and break down an object helps regardless of my practiced muscle ability.
Hope that makes sense! 🙂 Aidy.
Chris Plush
Learning 2d better is something I wish I would’ve done earlier on in my art education, especially for game art since concept art is at the core of it all. I think you can make due without amazing 2d abilities, but in my personal experiences I wish I was better at 2d for both concept art and texture painting.
Aunpyz
That means…. I should learn, right?
It’d be nice if I can draw very well, especially human figure and concept art. I’ll try to draw along with my 3D.
Thanks.
Chris Plush
I would learn it, yeah. I don’t know if I believe Gleb when he says he’s no good at drawing especially when he calls his 3d work only semi-decent! Though I do tell everyone that asks that it’s not essential to be a great 2d artist in order to be a great 3d artist, but it will help you.
Aunpyz
The last question, is drawing human anatomy important? Or just see the references during drawing? I’m so worry about that, cause it’s hard, IMO.
Thanks.
Chris Plush
If you want to be able to draw good character concept art then yeah it’s important, and so is using references while drawing. Though as Aidy said, I think this may be one of those subjects that you’ll get better at drawing in 2d once you’ve done it in 3d enough.
Aunpyz
Thank you very much, Chris.
Eka Kurniawan
Hi, are you married?
Gleb Alexandrov
Yep, I’m married 😉
Nathan
Hi there Gleb! (and others) I’m a big fan of your work, especially your willingness to share it! One quick question, how do you manage to stay motivated on long projects? I tend to
leave much of my work in half-finished state, that applies to blender and
otherwise. Any tips would be awesome!
Gleb Alexandrov
Hi Nathan! Probably, the best way to finish your long projects is to burn the bridges.
1. Tell everybody that you are going to make this project. Leave yourself no way to escape.
2. Break the long-term project into a few short-term projects. manage them one by one. And do one thing at a time!
3. Plan really easy and short term projects. And crush it.
Hope it helps!
Lee Salvemini
This always becomes more true of personal projects than job ones, which kinda force you to smash it out (which can be helpful in some cases haha). So keeping on with something long term is a big deal, especially when life really does keep on going and gets in the way 🙂
Best method I found for this is first pick projects that you absolutely *love*, that after the initial inspiration, will keep you interested through the grindy bits (and look forward to it all coming together). Absolutely try some projects to push your limits and highest quality you can, but after a few of those types of projects, make one within a set deadline, and work completely within your skill level you know you are capable of.
If the image/animation needs some interesting effects etc you don’t know yet, do some basic tests in small simple scene, so you can bring them into your main project later (to avoid big tricky tangents mid production), and go for a completed project! I did this a year or so into my Blender learning, and even though I knew I didn’t push to my complete limits for this project (which usually puts you in a dead end or you run out of energy), I made something people loved as a finished animated short film and was remembered for years after by people in the Blender community!
The balance is the real key, try those real tough challenging projects that really motivate you with the growth, but if you get stuck or it seems too big a project, you can take the work you did, and maybe put it in a demo reel, or use the assets for a new project. It’s never a problem to stop on a project you know was way out of realistic or practical work vs timeframe. But take everything you learned and created from that project and apply it to a new one, with a better ability to match workload with your energy 🙂
Just ab it of a brain burst, but hope this is helpful in any way! Happy Blending 😀
Lee
Aidy Burrows
Hi Nathan!
In addition to what Lee wrote I’d like to also put the link to the article he wrote with some of the same ideas…
http://www.cgmasters.net/free-tutorials/making-a-project-in-your-spare-time-6-point-checklist-to-succeed/
I always come back to what it is I’m trying to achieve, perhaps I’ve achieved what I set out to do (practice some new technique/skill). Though if it was to finish a piece of work and I keep getting to some end state and then abandoning things I would try to figure out why that is. Perhaps it is a compositional thing or rendering thing that I’m missing some knowledge on.
Going through a few tutorials on what you feel are your weaknesses in that regard could help you finish, oh and also help you stay inspired.
Aidy. 🙂
Kenny
Hi Gleb, I am always blown away by every render you post, your work is fantastic. My question is how do I push the realism of my renders? I am working on a short film involving a fully cg scene underwater with icebergs floating around. It’s looking good so far, but I really want it to look stunning. Any tips?
Gleb Alexandrov
Kenny, thanks for sharing your work!
Imho, we can improve it by simply adding some light to it. At the same time, it would drag the viewer’s eye to the center of the image. And you can place something important in that focal point.
Cheers!
Aidy Burrows
Hi Kenny! Great work so far.
For realism I would always check the reference, then after that i’d then check the reference. Just after completing looking at the reference images, i’d probably then look at the reference images.
I’m just kidding around of course, but I just wanted to push the idea that especially for photorealism reference images are really key.
Try to break down everything you see in the images, little floaty bits, high frequency details, low frequency details, color, light, shape, distortion etc etc.
Also for film a whole lot of photosourcing goes on for the texture detail so see if you can incorporate as much real world grunge and surface detail into there as possible.
Hope that helps! 🙂 Aidy.
Kenny
Thank you so much, that really helps!
coolingkarma
How do you feel modelling in blender compares to other software?
Aidy Burrows
As a modeling software it compares very well. It may even be at an advantage in some ways due to the way that so many tasks can be performed without needing to export to something externally.
I’ve found reason to use it alongside Maya numerous times during the creation of the real world style environments of the Lego series of games.
Especially due to the way you can non-destructively use modifiers.
Hope that helps! 🙂
Aidy.
Chris Plush
From my experiences with other software like Maya and Lightwave, Blender’s modeling workflow seemed a lot faster and more casual to me, making it feel a lot more friendly to the creative process.
Chris Plush
From my experiences with other software like Maya and Lightwave,
Blender’s modeling workflow seemed a lot faster and more casual to me,
making it feel a lot more friendly to the creative process
coolingkarma
Cheers, I’ve used Maya for modelling and I wasn’t sure if I was just being really inefficient in Maya or it was the software. I know it has it’s pros but I personally find that Blender just seems significantly quicker.
MarkWmDwyer
Is it alright if I just enter the contest now and wait for questions on tips until after I win ?
Gleb Alexandrov
Sure, feel free to ask your question. By the way, I’m going to launch random generator to pick the winners very soon. 🙂
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