Getting started in 3D
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- Ranger
hey all,
I'm finding myself wanting to learn something new, it's a toss up between flash and 3D, but I think I will find 3D more useful at the moment.
Which programme would people recommend as the best way to get started? And are there any online tutorials for absolute beginners?
- harlequino0
Cinema 4D tends to be one of the most intuitive and geared toward the individual user or small team. And there's a whole series of tutorials on Lynda.com.
Added bonus - C4D integrates real nicely with After Effects for compositing by exporting camera and scene info.
- visionary0
how does c4d integrate real nicely with AE?
- nmvisionary
- As he said. Camera move data and nulls from objects which you can effectbabaganush
- harlequino0
When rendering a scene in C4D, in your settings, you can export camera and light info, and then export that as a comp into AE. Makes that part of compositing with other footage or color correction much easier.
- dropdown0
Great Tutorials here:
- twokids0
Learning 3d is not a simple matter. You cannot pick it up in a week. It will take quite a while to get even competent. Months, I would say, of working at it every day.
That being said, all of the major programs are pretty much the same in terms of what they can do. If you just want to see what it is all about, try Blender. It is free, and has all the tools that the other programs do. And there are tons of tutorials out there for free.
If someone else is paying, I would go for Maya. It is considered to be the all around best, and if you sell yourself as a 3D person, having Maya knowledge is probably the best.
- keithrondinelli0
My vote is also for Cinema 4D. Blender has a very nonstandard UI that I found very difficult to use, despite the fact that the app is fairly high-quality, and free. I found that I would have needed a degree in engineering to pick up Maya – I wrestled with it for a while and gave up because it seems very technical. I wound up trying pretty much al the major 3D packages, and I found Cinema 4D the most user-friendly and intuitive, and more like the standard 2D apps in its very "painterly" approach to materials and rendering. Anyway, my 2 cents.
- CALLES0
cinema 4d
- ceiling_cat0
in teh ceiling, i use 3d studio max
- InternetGod0
if you are pirating something light like lightwave or 3d max
- daveglanz0
Good way to get started here:
http://cg.tutsplus.com/articles/…Also check youtube and Greyscale Gorilla's blog for more tutorials.
- Ranger0
Thanks for the feedback, I know a guy with cinema 4D so I might be able to get some help from him.
I can't see me ever calling myself a 3D person, but I would like to get my head around some simple stuff then see if it's for me. Bring some 3D aspects back into my 2D stuff. Could possibly be helpful for some clients I've got too if I could get my head around it well enough to get some decent visuals for exhibtion work or interiors.
Internet God - Is Cinema 4D a heavy programme then? Do you need to run it on a powerful machine? I've got a new MBP, is that gonna be able to handle it?
- that will run perfectly fine, i have the same.harlequino
- visionary0
I used the trial version of C4D. It had too few buttons and features for my taste. Maya isn't as hard to pick up as people say. The modeling is superior to most other packages. The hard part is texturing, but once you get a grasp of that you're set.
Blender is a complete piece of crap. Sure it has a lot of features but the UI is impossible to use.- Cinema 4d has bodypaint built in which is like painting in photoshop directly onto polysbabaganush
- twokids0
Blender does has a steep learning curve, thus you will see simplistic reactions like visionary is spewing. However, ALL 3d packages are going to have steep learning curve because 3d is complex. I mean, After Effects is a cool program and you can do a lot with it, but 3d in general has about 10 times that much to learn.
- ozzobucco0
i'm a Maya user however I think Modo and Lightwave are the most intuitive in terms of modeling. They are fairly simple but you do need to be related to the terms. In terms of animation, maya has worked for me. MBP is just fine to run any of them.
- visionary0
I miss 3d max for animation. Setting keyframes and editing them in the curve editor is easy and intuitive. Animating with paths is easy as well. Basically everything is easily editable, all you have to do is hit the keyframe button. I dropped Lightwave a while back because it was just a pain in the ass to learn and it lacks true nurbs. Overall the fastest program is Max.
- monNom0
FWIW, I was able to pick up and become proficient in XSI way quicker than any other package. (aside from mudbox, but that's pretty limited)