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I'll take this opportunity to ask: how do you learn 3D modeling? I tried just diving in with Maya and 3DS Max, but the tools are so complicated and I'm sure I w

I'll take this opportunity to ask: how do you learn 3D modeling? I tried just diving in with Maya and 3DS Max, but the tools are so complicated and I'm sure I was doing things the wrong way. I'm in college right now, but my university (UCSD) doesn't seem to offer any courses on the subject.

nickclaw 10y ago
Check out blender. It's a fairly powerful, open source 3d modeling tool (also game engine, motion tracker, compositor, sculpter, and more). I used to use it quite a lot back in highschool. It also has a fairly high learning curve at first, but there's a huge community built around it[2]. Andrew price has some very high quality tutorials[3] 1. https://www.blender.org https://www.blender.org 2. http://blenderartists.org http://blenderartists.org 3. https://blenderguru.com https://blenderguru.com
hbosch 10y ago
If you're, say, coming from a more Adobe-centric background I'd recommend Cinema 4D and the Greyscale Gorilla tutorials. You'll ramp up plenty fast, and have some cool renders after just 1 day. I've since switched to Modo (affordable indie licenses via Steam) but find both programs to be more modern and adaptive to my workflow than Maya and Max -- however, if industry standards are important to you, there is no avoiding the Autodesk Twins...
- soylentcola 10y ago
  This is what I've done (albeit just messing around with it from time to time). I confess I used a cracked copy of c4d since a lot of the things I wanted to check out weren't included in any "lite" edition. Not sure I feel great about that but I treated it the way I treated Photoshop and friends for years: cracked copies while learning and then at some point I was using it enough that I bought a legit copy of CS6 through work at a discount. If I ever do more than fiddle around with C4D I'll look into buying a copy. It's just hard to come up with $1000 for the minimum version that supports global illumination (which I was trying to learn about). Moral and legal issues aside, though, I found it a lot easier to learn than others I'd tried and it even made some other programs like Unreal Engine easier to learn.
- tasnent 10y ago
  Thank you. Looks perfect.
jwagenet 10y ago
I also use blender, which has a reputation of being difficult to learn. I've used it infrequently for about 5 years, and I often learn a new way to make my job easier each time. The blender communities my sibling mentioned are a great kicking off point with some high quality tutorials and resources. The blender wiki is also decent, but unless it has been updated recently, I tend to find it out if date. There are also tons of tutorials for learning the basics on YouTube. Without having taken a 3D modeling course, I would say that following tutorials that teach both using the tool (blender, 3DS, Maya) and making basic models is a good place to start. From there, find tutorials to accomplish tasks that interest you: animation, texturing, organic modeling, rendering, etc.
yardie 10y ago
This was posted here a few days ago https://levels.io/from-web-dev-to-3d/ https://levels.io/from-web-dev-to-3d/. The author was in a similar situation and found 3DS Max and Maya to be beyond his skill level. So he chose Maxon Cinema 4D. I used AutoCAD in university and that is the extent of my knowledge on these matters.
AustinG08 10y ago
I've been learning Blender in my free time for the past few months, this tutorial was a most excellent starting point: https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro My goal is to make characters for games, and I have been watching this video series https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFt_AvWsXl0eTHFZ2XPkM6gLK8XdsdzNl https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFt_AvWsXl0eTHFZ2XPkM... - I recommend the 5 Blender Character Animation videos. Tremendously helpful. In my opinion the key is, like learning most things, a little bit every day.
- iKlsR 10y ago
  BlenderCookie is the best site for newbies imo. I say that as someone with a decade of experience and was around when there were like 10 Blender tutorials. Also I moderate the stackexchange site, feel free to drop by. https://blender.stackexchange.com https://blender.stackexchange.com. See our resource canonical post as well https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/15355/resources-for-blender https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/15355/resources-...
- manu29d 10y ago
  I played around with Blender when I was in college back in 2012-2013. Cycles render was just introduced back then. Blender and it's community has come a long way since then in this short span of time. My starting point was http://www.blenderguru.com/ http://www.blenderguru.com/ (for general tips and tricks), reading about ray tracing(for understanding why my renders were not up to the mark), anatomy of physical shapes(for sculpting) and watching a lot of behind the scene VFX breakdown videos(to understand their construction). Frankly, my humble computer back then was not capable of running 3DS Max or Maya. Apart from this, a lot of articles regarding photography helped. A keen attention to detail and huge amounts of patience is required(while watching your renders take hours if you have the wrong graphics card).
frading 10y ago
my recommendation would be to try Houdini (http://www.sidefx.com http://www.sidefx.com). It is different from other 3D packages as it is fully node based (and not with a node layer added on top). It has a reputation of being difficult or long to learn, but I disagree. I find it way more intuitive, as you can see step by step what is happening. Their doc also has loads of examples and there are nice forums to ask for help (http://odforce.net http://odforce.net and http://www.sidefx.com/forum http://www.sidefx.com/forum). If you have a logical mind, it should appear straightforward.
- pfranz 10y ago
  Have you done many full projects with it? From my little window in the industry it's indispensable for FX and simulation (water, fire, destruction), but the tools for modelling, texturing, and animation just aren't worth the time. I don't know anyone who uses it for that or would reccomend it for those things. I've gone through their basic tutorials. It's really nice to make procedural reusable things (a ladder that will create rungs based on the height), but I can't even imagine trying to model something organic.
  - frading 10y ago
    For feature films, the jobs are specialised, so Houdini does tend to be restricted to FX (although more and more companies base their lighting/rendering pipeline on it). But for commercials, it can happen that it is used in more departments. I did commercials where animators where taught to use it, and that was a success in my opinion. They were happy because the animation tools are basically the same and the rigs were updated faster than they would be on other packages. And it is true I've rarely seen models being done in Houdini. The only time I did one was for this commercial (https://vimeo.com/17808406 https://vimeo.com/17808406), where the character is quite procedural. Had it been a more classical character, a Maya modeller would have done it.
    - pfranz 10y ago
      Great to hear their animation tools work well. Houdini seems like it would be fantastic for rigging.
pfranz 10y ago
Maya used to have decent intro materials. With every version they would publish a physical manual with tutorials and walkthroughs. Most of my learning was from those materials. Honestly, none of the basics have really changed so if you could find either a digital or physical copy that might be a good start. I still find books work for me as a general overview for a brand new field (like Linux or web programming). Even though there's so much free material out there I appreciate consistency and cohesiveness of having everything covered in a book. What sucks is they got rid of the Personal Learning Edition of Maya, so getting a legit copy just to learn isn't as simple. They do have a 30 day trial. Maya's documentation is still pretty solid for reference, just not for learning, so if you're curious what a menu or button does you can find out easily. I think for learning anything new it's best to have a project like that "web-dev to 3d post" mentioned in another comment and focus on what you need to accomplish. I've also heard Cinema4d is a lot less intimidating to learn and has most of the basic things you'd want.
theastrowolfe 10y ago
I know Clemson University's Digital Production Arts teaches a lot of 3D animation stuff, they also offer student enrolled in the program a Pluralsight to learn Maya, Nuke, etc. I hear from a few of their students that it's a good resource compared to some of the coursework.
- theastrowolfe 10y ago
  Link to Clemson's DPA program in case you're interested: http://www.clemson.edu/graduate/academics/program-details.html?m_id=Digital-Production-Arts http://www.clemson.edu/graduate/academics/program-details.ht...
ep103 10y ago
Hey, a couple of days ago, you offered me an invite to lobste.rs, but I couldn't respond to you, because your comment was not ranked highly enough. I would love an invite! Been wanting to join there for a while : )

nickclaw 10y ago

Check out blender. It's a fairly powerful, open source 3d modeling tool (also game engine, motion tracker, compositor, sculpter, and more). I used to use it quite a lot back in highschool. It also has a fairly high learning curve at first, but there's a huge community built around it[2]. Andrew price has some very high quality tutorials[3] 1. https://www.blender.org https://www.blender.org 2. http://blenderartists.org http://blenderartists.org 3. https://blenderguru.com https://blenderguru.com

hbosch 10y ago

If you're, say, coming from a more Adobe-centric background I'd recommend Cinema 4D and the Greyscale Gorilla tutorials. You'll ramp up plenty fast, and have some cool renders after just 1 day. I've since switched to Modo (affordable indie licenses via Steam) but find both programs to be more modern and adaptive to my workflow than Maya and Max -- however, if industry standards are important to you, there is no avoiding the Autodesk Twins...

soylentcola 10y ago
This is what I've done (albeit just messing around with it from time to time). I confess I used a cracked copy of c4d since a lot of the things I wanted to check out weren't included in any "lite" edition. Not sure I feel great about that but I treated it the way I treated Photoshop and friends for years: cracked copies while learning and then at some point I was using it enough that I bought a legit copy of CS6 through work at a discount. If I ever do more than fiddle around with C4D I'll look into buying a copy. It's just hard to come up with $1000 for the minimum version that supports global illumination (which I was trying to learn about). Moral and legal issues aside, though, I found it a lot easier to learn than others I'd tried and it even made some other programs like Unreal Engine easier to learn.
tasnent 10y ago
Thank you. Looks perfect.

jwagenet 10y ago

I also use blender, which has a reputation of being difficult to learn. I've used it infrequently for about 5 years, and I often learn a new way to make my job easier each time. The blender communities my sibling mentioned are a great kicking off point with some high quality tutorials and resources. The blender wiki is also decent, but unless it has been updated recently, I tend to find it out if date. There are also tons of tutorials for learning the basics on YouTube. Without having taken a 3D modeling course, I would say that following tutorials that teach both using the tool (blender, 3DS, Maya) and making basic models is a good place to start. From there, find tutorials to accomplish tasks that interest you: animation, texturing, organic modeling, rendering, etc.

yardie 10y ago

This was posted here a few days ago https://levels.io/from-web-dev-to-3d/ https://levels.io/from-web-dev-to-3d/. The author was in a similar situation and found 3DS Max and Maya to be beyond his skill level. So he chose Maxon Cinema 4D. I used AutoCAD in university and that is the extent of my knowledge on these matters.

AustinG08 10y ago

I've been learning Blender in my free time for the past few months, this tutorial was a most excellent starting point: https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro My goal is to make characters for games, and I have been watching this video series https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFt_AvWsXl0eTHFZ2XPkM6gLK8XdsdzNl https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFt_AvWsXl0eTHFZ2XPkM... - I recommend the 5 Blender Character Animation videos. Tremendously helpful. In my opinion the key is, like learning most things, a little bit every day.

iKlsR 10y ago
BlenderCookie is the best site for newbies imo. I say that as someone with a decade of experience and was around when there were like 10 Blender tutorials. Also I moderate the stackexchange site, feel free to drop by. https://blender.stackexchange.com https://blender.stackexchange.com. See our resource canonical post as well https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/15355/resources-for-blender https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/15355/resources-...
manu29d 10y ago
I played around with Blender when I was in college back in 2012-2013. Cycles render was just introduced back then. Blender and it's community has come a long way since then in this short span of time. My starting point was http://www.blenderguru.com/ http://www.blenderguru.com/ (for general tips and tricks), reading about ray tracing(for understanding why my renders were not up to the mark), anatomy of physical shapes(for sculpting) and watching a lot of behind the scene VFX breakdown videos(to understand their construction). Frankly, my humble computer back then was not capable of running 3DS Max or Maya. Apart from this, a lot of articles regarding photography helped. A keen attention to detail and huge amounts of patience is required(while watching your renders take hours if you have the wrong graphics card).

frading 10y ago

my recommendation would be to try Houdini (http://www.sidefx.com http://www.sidefx.com). It is different from other 3D packages as it is fully node based (and not with a node layer added on top). It has a reputation of being difficult or long to learn, but I disagree. I find it way more intuitive, as you can see step by step what is happening. Their doc also has loads of examples and there are nice forums to ask for help (http://odforce.net http://odforce.net and http://www.sidefx.com/forum http://www.sidefx.com/forum). If you have a logical mind, it should appear straightforward.

pfranz 10y ago
Have you done many full projects with it? From my little window in the industry it's indispensable for FX and simulation (water, fire, destruction), but the tools for modelling, texturing, and animation just aren't worth the time. I don't know anyone who uses it for that or would reccomend it for those things. I've gone through their basic tutorials. It's really nice to make procedural reusable things (a ladder that will create rungs based on the height), but I can't even imagine trying to model something organic.
- frading 10y ago
  For feature films, the jobs are specialised, so Houdini does tend to be restricted to FX (although more and more companies base their lighting/rendering pipeline on it). But for commercials, it can happen that it is used in more departments. I did commercials where animators where taught to use it, and that was a success in my opinion. They were happy because the animation tools are basically the same and the rigs were updated faster than they would be on other packages. And it is true I've rarely seen models being done in Houdini. The only time I did one was for this commercial (https://vimeo.com/17808406 https://vimeo.com/17808406), where the character is quite procedural. Had it been a more classical character, a Maya modeller would have done it.
  - pfranz 10y ago
    Great to hear their animation tools work well. Houdini seems like it would be fantastic for rigging.

pfranz 10y ago

Maya used to have decent intro materials. With every version they would publish a physical manual with tutorials and walkthroughs. Most of my learning was from those materials. Honestly, none of the basics have really changed so if you could find either a digital or physical copy that might be a good start. I still find books work for me as a general overview for a brand new field (like Linux or web programming). Even though there's so much free material out there I appreciate consistency and cohesiveness of having everything covered in a book. What sucks is they got rid of the Personal Learning Edition of Maya, so getting a legit copy just to learn isn't as simple. They do have a 30 day trial. Maya's documentation is still pretty solid for reference, just not for learning, so if you're curious what a menu or button does you can find out easily. I think for learning anything new it's best to have a project like that "web-dev to 3d post" mentioned in another comment and focus on what you need to accomplish. I've also heard Cinema4d is a lot less intimidating to learn and has most of the basic things you'd want.

theastrowolfe 10y ago

I know Clemson University's Digital Production Arts teaches a lot of 3D animation stuff, they also offer student enrolled in the program a Pluralsight to learn Maya, Nuke, etc. I hear from a few of their students that it's a good resource compared to some of the coursework.

theastrowolfe 10y ago
Link to Clemson's DPA program in case you're interested: http://www.clemson.edu/graduate/academics/program-details.html?m_id=Digital-Production-Arts http://www.clemson.edu/graduate/academics/program-details.ht...

ep103 10y ago

Hey, a couple of days ago, you offered me an invite to lobste.rs, but I couldn't respond to you, because your comment was not ranked highly enough. I would love an invite! Been wanting to join there for a while : )