3D Computer Graphics General - "Hey guys welcome to another Blender tutorial" *deletes cube* "OK here's how to make a donut"

[liam dees]

getting a cheap tablet really makes sculpting much easier. i have an xp pen deco m, once you get past the learning curve it is much better than a mouse. also check this guy out for sculpting/art tips.

https://www.youtube.com/@SpeedChar

Awesome work dude

 

[Max Normal]

Been geeking out this week.
I find practicing using things from childhood helps me stick to it without giving up, as i spent years drawing certain things as a kid. I read somewhere about if you want to improve you have to stick at it even if you get bored or feel like it is going nowhere, so I started a project and decided i will plug away until it is done, creating all parts and decoration by myself. spent a few hours each day on this model, restarted a few times and refined things, found easier and faster ways to get better results. trying to really understand the curve tool and how to manipulate light flow across surfaces. heard a 3d pro talk about how his first job was creating imperfections, so tried not to have the mesh too "perfect". I am quite happy with how it is going.

 

[liam dees]

Been geeking out this week.
I find practicing using things from childhood helps me stick to it without giving up, as i spent years drawing certain things as a kid. I read somewhere about if you want to improve you have to stick at it even if you get bored or feel like it is going nowhere, so I started a project and decided i will plug away until it is done, creating all parts and decoration by myself. spent a few hours each day on this model, restarted a few times and refined things, found easier and faster ways to get better results. trying to really understand the curve tool and how to manipulate light flow across surfaces. heard a 3d pro talk about how his first job was creating imperfections, so tried not to have the mesh too "perfect". I am quite happy with how it is going.View attachment 7433820View attachment 7433822

Looking good, can I see the topology?

 

[Max Normal]

Looking good, can I see the topology?

sure. It is all in parts parented to the roof and body that I intend to chop up/ join/ remesh once it is fleshed out. Mirrored along y for the most part. Making use of various deform and sub division modifiers set to 1 or 2. Still need to cut out doors and window glass if I want to get detailed, was going to try "the illusion of detail" first. I started from the front after blocking out the main shape and if I can be bothered to I will autism mode and make the interior and rigged doors/hood/windows/axles able to open and shut, as I work along to the rear-mainly just to see if I can do it and then be able to do the same with any vehicle I create in future.

 

[Max Normal]

Looking good, can I see the topology?

It was this video that has inspired me. I have the feeling that if I can fully grasp and use this technique it will be a big level up and time saver.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goJ4LVHXkC4&t=22s

 

[liam dees]

Massive respect from someone who's only interested in doing simulations on Blender. I really respect people who can figure out topology and stuff

 

[Max Normal]

Massive respect from someone who's only interested in doing simulations on Blender. I really respect people who can figure out topology and stuff

cheers, what exactly do you mean by simulations? like water flows and smoke/fire? or meshes interacting? like dominoes falling?

 

[liam dees]

cheers, what exactly do you mean by simulations? like water flows and smoke/fire? or meshes interacting? like dominoes falling?

Yeah stuff like that, rigidbody simulations, cell fracture, particles, smoke and fire, water, etc. etc. The stuff I'm learning in class.

 

[Max Normal]

Yeah stuff like that, rigidbody simulations, cell fracture, particles, smoke and fire, water, etc. etc. The stuff I'm learning in class.

cool, I did try and learn some of that myself. dropping multiple objects into bowl shapes to see the reaction. I can make the logos I create do all sorts of stuff like turn into smoke or burn away and morph. I didn't understand how to tune the render setting back then so it was taking a whole day to do a 5 second render.

 

[LongForgotten]

I was looking for a thread like this, too bad I recently migrated to Linux and didn't bother saving my old project files so I can't share anything (They were all unfinished, anyway). I have played around with Blender for sculpting and general vertex editing, but I would really like to get deep into hard surface modeling. Do you guys have any recommendations for learning material in that subject?

 

[Elite Kipchak]

>/3/ on the farms
nice!

I think this was the last thing I made shortly before ragequitting 3d after losing a particularly frustrating battle to the shader editor. hope to get back into it someday but i have zero motivation to open blender these days

 

[Max Normal]

I was looking for a thread like this, too bad I recently migrated to Linux and didn't bother saving my old project files so I can't share anything (They were all unfinished, anyway). I have played around with Blender for sculpting and general vertex editing, but I would really like to get deep into hard surface modeling. Do you guys have any recommendations for learning material in that subject?

What do you mean by "hard surface" modeling? I am yet to understand what creation process defines this designation. Is it just for things like vehicles and buildings, non organic sci fi stuff?

 

[LongForgotten]

What do you mean by "hard surface" modeling? I am yet to understand what creation process defines this designation. Is it just for things like vehicles and buildings, non organic sci fi stuff?

As far as I'm aware it's for mechanical stuff, and apparently most HSM is done through boolean modifiers rather than extruding and moving vertices. So yeah, your guess is correct. It is mostly for everything that's not organic.

 

[Max Normal]

>/3/ on the farms
nice!

I think this was the last thing I made shortly before ragequitting 3d after losing a particularly frustrating battle to the shader editor. hope to get back into it someday but i have zero motivation to open blender these days
View attachment 7471619

Thats a good sculpt. The ears are great.
The various ways to "colour" models caused me stress at first also. Think i spent a month learning various ways and the uv/shading editor.

 

[Elite Kipchak]

Thats a good sculpt. The ears are great.
The various ways to "colour" models caused me stress at first also. Think i spent a month learning various ways and the uv/shading editor.

it was a few months ago now but iirc i would set up my texture and everything, have it saved as a .png, have everything connected where it needs to go and looking perfect, then I would save everything and exit and somehow blender would fuck everything up, save the texture as a .exr, and change everything to the missing pink texture. i'm not sure if it was a bug or something i was doing but eventually i just gave up after spending a few weeks trying to fix it. with my luck its probably the simplest thing ever but it really soured me on 3d since.

 

[Max Normal]

As far as I'm aware it's for mechanical stuff, and apparently most HSM is done through boolean modifiers rather than extruding and moving vertices. So yeah, your guess is correct. It is mostly for everything that's not organic.

I tried that stuff i guess then. the red dwarf starbug I made was "hard surface" just welding shapes together and fuck the topo. I found it caused glitches in certain situations and caused objects to break or vanish, and cause render issues, but I imagine there are ways and an art to it like everything else.

 

[Max Normal]

it was a few months ago now but iirc i would set up my texture and everything, have it saved as a .png, have everything connected where it needs to go and looking perfect, then I would save everything and exit and somehow blender would fuck everything up, save the texture as a .exr, and change everything to the missing pink texture. i'm not sure if it was a bug or something i was doing but eventually i just gave up after spending a few weeks trying to fix it. with my luck its probably the simplest thing ever but it really soured me on 3d since.

depends on how you are doing it i suppose. i first learned how to "paint" the faces. then i learned how to add images via UV, and then i learned how to create materials- which is my go to now. what option are you using?
(some images from my texturing learning days)

 

[Max Normal]

Had a few spare hours today so managed to do some more details after a week off.

 

[LongForgotten]

I stumbled across this Youtube channel that seems to have an emphasis on working with Godot, but his stuff seems neat for VFXs (If you can get past his spic accent). The shader nodes can't be all that different from the Blender shading nodes, right? Anyway, I wonder where I could learn such magics besides just following youtube videos.

 

[Ruined by the Rain]

Is there a way to prevent subdivision surface from turning your models to shit? I try to have good topology but sometimes it fucks me up the ass