Any digital artists here?

Cricket · Post by **Cricket** » Wed Apr 19, 2006 7:09 pm

Hey, there are a few artists here posing as musicians.

I like Joe's cartoons, I've always loved comic strips of any kind, political or otherwise. And those icons that TS did aren't bad at all.

Here's something I started on today...

Keep em coming, cause I'd love to see more.

Mitch · Post by **Mitch** » Wed Apr 19, 2006 7:44 pm

I've been meaning to do this for a while now:

Feadog in Space.

and

Feadog Knot in Space.

Congratulations · Post by **Congratulations** » Wed Apr 19, 2006 8:37 pm

Color me impressed.

Erikpiper · Post by **Erikpiper** » Wed Apr 19, 2006 8:54 pm

That in blender?

I am learning blender... I suck tho....

Alcona · Post by **Alcona** » Wed Apr 19, 2006 9:05 pm

Cricket, I love your work. I'll be playing around for a bit working out how you made the gem look so real

Mitch · Post by **Mitch** » Thu Apr 20, 2006 2:20 am

Erikpiper wrote:That in blender?

I am learning blender... I suck tho....

Hey Erik - not blender, Just clunky ole lightwave. I love it but it eats time like a black hole! Doing anything human-form is forget-it-country

I like to stick to simple conceptual stuff. I had a choice last year, either learn lightwave/maya etc or the pennywhistle

I bet you don't suck so bad - post one up!

BTW Cricket - your work is fabulous!

Cricket · Post by **Cricket** » Thu Apr 20, 2006 4:13 am

Thanks Mitch. And you were dead on about Lightwave, I use that program from time to time and the "faint at heart" shouldn't try to create organic forms in there.

But in the right hands, excellent program, I just don't like the render engine, Maya has that beat, hands down.

I take inspiration from a couple of guys..Layne Karkruff http://www.blueskyheart.com/ and Howard Sayles http://howardsayles.theapplecollection.com/

If anyone wants a custom wallpaper or have a theme idea just let me know, it's just something I do for fun beside torturing the neighbors and family with pipes (are they considered pipes if you only have the practice set, maybe I just play pipe.

)

Flyingcursor · Post by **Flyingcursor** » Thu Apr 20, 2006 5:32 am

Here's a few of mine from years back.

This chair was made in Bryce.

The duck was made in Amorphium. The vine in some freebee I picked up somewhere. The rest in Bryce.

My first Bryce picture. I'd make it better but lost the original file format.

Actually my daughter made this in Amorphium. Kudos to anyone who recognizes where the idea came from.

Made with Poser 3 and Bryce.

Bryce again.

There's a couple I forgot to add. There's one with a vampire I need to find on one of my backup CDs. It's awesome. When I find it I'll post it.

Lightwave is too expensive. Blender is too much of a headache. I still use RayDream studio. Their only problem is the Z and Y axis are reversed from every other 3D program.

Amorphium is good for organic objects but has an extremely high polygon count.

Poser used to be good but has gotten suckier. Clothes and hair are still a major problem. You basically have to do them post-render in PSP or Photoshop.

Mitch, those are great whistles. Love the texture.

Cricket · Post by **Cricket** » Thu Apr 20, 2006 6:27 am

Good ole Bryce. That was my first 3D program. Once I stopped making floating spheres , it turned out to be a pretty good program

I'd say the hippo was maybe from the Bela Fleck album Cosmic Hippo. Just a guess. The pool scene got me laughing, typical boys

I started another this morning, about 3 hours work so far..

Flyingcursor · Post by **Flyingcursor** » Thu Apr 20, 2006 7:11 am

Cricket wins.

You have a knack for textures. I especially like the ones in the first pic on this page.

djm · Post by **djm** » Thu Apr 20, 2006 4:17 pm

Okay, I have seen mention of Maya, Bryce, Lightwave, Amorphium, Blender, Raydream. So far I have only tried to battle with a piece of junk from Corel. Any suggestions as to where to start for self-teaching?

Thx,

djm

Flyingcursor · Post by **Flyingcursor** » Thu Apr 20, 2006 4:32 pm

djm wrote:Okay, I have seen mention of Maya, Bryce, Lightwave, Amorphium, Blender, Raydream. So far I have only tried to battle with a piece of junk from Corel. Any suggestions as to where to start for self-teaching?

Thx,

djm

There's bunches of them. Maya, Lightwave and 3d Studio Max are pretty expensive but I think 3d studio Max is less then the other two.
Bryce is geared toward landscapes but as you can see you can make objects using basic shapes.

Blender is a freebee but I found it extremely difficult to use. I don't know if they still make Raydream.

Amorphium is a "blob" manipulation software. Good for some things, not for others.

One of the most famous freebees is POVRay. I believe there are some decent front ends for it as well.

Poser comes with pre-made human figures you can manipulate.

There's one called Rhino that used to be free but I've never used it.

You'll find there are a lot of aspects to 3d modelling but really three main parts (not including animation). There's the model, textures and the scene which includes lighting etc.

The modelling is fairly simple for some things except animals and humans. I find the texture aspect to be much more challanging and rewarding. In fact there are a lot of web sites for textures where people make good money selling them.

I'll do some searching and see what I come up with.

Flyingcursor · Post by **Flyingcursor** » Thu Apr 20, 2006 4:35 pm

Try this link:

http://www.3dlinks.com

There's a plethora of freebees to give you an idea. I'm going to download some myself.

djm · Post by **djm** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 12:42 pm

Hmm, okay, Fly. That's a good start, but still doesn't address the question, where to start. A lot of the stuff at this site is about programming. I just want to make pretty pictures.

djm

Flyingcursor · Post by **Flyingcursor** » Mon Apr 24, 2006 6:17 am

djm wrote:Hmm, okay, Fly. That's a good start, but still doesn't address the question, where to start. A lot of the stuff at this site is about programming. I just want to make pretty pictures.

djm

OK. With that in mind your best bet may be to get pre-made models and textures and utilize software suitable for creating scenes.

As I mentioned, creating models is one step in the process of making pretty pictures.
Example: If you want to make a living room scene you need to make chairs, tables, lamps, lamp shades, brick-a-brack, walls, windows, window sills, curtains etc.

Next you have to texture all of them so they look how you want.

Next you have to put all these textured models together to form a scene with lighting.

Making pretty pictures can be extremely time consuming.

So here's what you should do to be up and running:

PRELIMINARY (optional) read up on 3d art.
http://www.highmarkdesign.com/3D%20Artwork/3D%20Art.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_modelling

STEP 1:

go to: http://www.renderosity.com and check for free models and textures.

go to: http://www.poserworld.com and check for more free models and textures.

go to: http://renderotica.com for more free models and textures. You have to log into this site due to adult content.

do a google for "free 3d model" and see what else comes up.

do a google for "free texture" .

Collect as many as you can.

Make sure the file type for the models is .OBJ or .DXF.
The file type for the textures can be any graphic type. Jpg is smaller but bmp has better detail.

STEP 2.

Obtain software that will allow you to import these models/textures and create a scene.

Go to: http://www.daz3d.com/program/studio/1_0index.php and download DAS Studio. It let's you import your stuff, make a scene and render. It's free.

OR

Go to

http://www.delgine.com/
click on the 'product link' and download the "lite" version.
This not only lets you set up scenes but also has modelling and texture editing features.

STEP 3:
You'll still probably need to make some of your own models so
download this: http://www.anim8or.com/main/index.html

STEP 4:
If you want to create cool outdoor scenes try this free one:
http://www.planetside.co.uk/terragen I haven't tried this yet but I think I will.