/3/ - 3DCG

sorry, accidentally renamed and added wrong image. Here's an example of greyboxing.

At the greyboxing stage, you can already try out lighting. This is great, because if you have basic lighting, you know which areas to focus on, and what details to put where, i.e.
less detail in shadowed areas, a little more detail in lit areas.

After you're done with greyboxing, and you have placeholders for all of your large and medium-sized objects, you can start modeling. Keep thinking about modules, and how to
refine them. Instead of finishing objects completely, do first basic UV texturing with a grid texture, and leave it at that for now. Just keep making objects with just the grid texture.
This will help you to determine if the scale of the textures is consistent between all objects. When you've done all of the big objects and a large portion of the medium sized ones,
you can begin texturing with the final textures. Think about the overall value and detail in your textures, and avoid visible tiling.

Just keep working until you're done with the big and medium-sized objects. Now you can add the small details, decals, etc. This is not so hard, because you have a good solid
base and it's a matter of adding the finishing touches.

Ok anon,

here's the thing. A lot of the advice that has been given so far is mostly valid, but it's a real hodge-podge going into details and doesn't address the main issue. The important thing is, before you model anything,
you need to know how to start a project and how to follow a work process, i.e. how to go from idea to final scene.

Let's say you want to make a medieval/fantasy themed forest village. The first thing you do is determine what style you'd like to use: Stylized, like Zelda Breath of the Wild, or realistic, like Skyrim? Based on that,
you start looking for reference material. When collecting reference material, you ask yourself the following questions:

- What games are out there that I can use as a benchmark?
- What is the current standard of visual fidelity? What are the technical limitations?
- What about design/visual style? How do others create a certain look? Can I find inspiration in real cultures that existed? What can I do to create my own style?
- How do certain buildings and objects look in real life? (Instead of using your imagination, find out how things really look like. You'll avoid making things that look wrong)

After collecting reference material, make a quick checklist of the things you want to use, and you can start with greyboxing. Greyboxing is the process of setting up your scene and adding simple, untextured shapes
that will represent the final objects. At this stage you can determine how things will placed, if things are missing, or you have too many of something. More importantly, you can now determine how to re-use objects.
Think modular. For example, a building can be a separate ground floor, second floor, balcony, porch, garrets, chimneys, eaves, etc. Those parts you can re-use to create many similar, but different, buildings quickly.

part 1

>>597613

1. Fair point. I should have used another word, or have been more specific with what I mean by that. So, can we replace 'taste' with 'design sense'? I.e. the ability to look at something, decode it (analyze the composition, shape, use of colour, texture, etc. etc.) and be able to make a reasonable judgement based on that.

On a side note, though taste is personal, beyond reasoning and impossible to come to a universal agreement upon, I do think that 'good taste' can be developed. Since 'good taste' is a set of choices and preferences set by a specific social and cultural group, the criteria/rules governing what is seen as 'good taste' can be decoded and learned and applied.


2. 'Most jobs' is a generalization. On what data do you base that statement? There are many game studios where you can both design and make your own models, for example in the mobile games sector.


3. You're missing the picture here. You're basically saying a military hummer looks like shit because it has no aerodynamic curves, no glossy glitter paint, no chrome rims.

Anon's picture is not bad because:
- anon was obviously going for an 'Aliens' military style door, ergo drab colours.
- all the various accessible elements look logically placed, look functional, with sensible readable markings.
- it actually looks like a door.

Is it a little boring and derivative? Sure, we've all seen something similar before. But if this would end up in some kind of Colonial Marines game it would be perfectly servicable.

4. You assume a lot here. How do you know what I did or didn't do? I wrote that I cringed inwardly at the beginning, but then I sat down with this person for many hours over several days, talking about what does and doesn't work, where and how to find the best reference material, how to build a solid reference library, and how to decide what to pick.

Learn to think before you call people names.

>>597504

This is bad advice.

1. When your taste is not yet developed, how do you pick 'the best possible concept art piece'?
2. When you copy what others do, you will never develop your own sense of design/style.

I have seen it. A junior artist collects reference material for something, all happy and proud, and when I look at what they collect I cringe inwardly. How can you pick what's good when you don't have enough experience to determine what's good? Secondly, when you're using concept art from another artist, you take someone else's idea. Something that already has passed through a creative filter. If you use that as basis for your own work, you will always end up with something derivative.

Instead, look at real world things. Learn a little bit of engineering and how real things are designed and built. Form follows function. Once you understand this design language, you will be able to use it and play with it, but the end result will be based on reality, therefore feel more real, logical, and it will still be recognizable as what it is supposed to be.

>>550998

Get 32 Mb. You have no idea how quickly 16 Gb RAM fills up.

In the end, this video was created by a team of very skilled people who had the time and resourches to do it. And yes, because of the costs of those skilled people, time and resources, it will have cost a lot of money to make. But I'm still not convinced it would be an impossible job for one person.

Just give a simple explanation.

>>540318

Calm down, ok? All you needed to write is "You're full of shit." Just 5 simple words. I apologize.

I'm also really sorry that you felt obliged, it being not worth it, to spend so much time and effort writing in detail why it's not worth it.

But seriously now. It's a pity that you wouldn't give some basic clarification on what makes specific elements in this video groundbraking and amazing. Even if it wasn't to show off your knowledge, at least we would have all learned something useful, avoiding similar situations in the future.

Anyway, I will clarify my post.

As an artist, when I looked at the video to make an estimate of the amount of work involved (work, not time), I made a calculation based on how much direct manual labour would be involved to make it: modeling, UV mapping, texturing, creating materials and shaders, setting up hair particles, combing strands, rigging, weightpainting, animating, etc, etc. So, the less there is that requires direct artistic input, the better. So, anything that can be done procedurally, dynamically or by using a simple image, the better. The same with objects and animations, the more that can be copied and looped, the better.

So, looking at all the assets in the video, most are images or simple, low-detail models. Nobody will disagree with me that even a medium-skilled 3D artist has a problem making those. What stand out are the cars and perhaps the jets. But as I said, I would consider buying decent models of those to save time.

That leaves the character model of Trump. I totally agree that this is the most important, most labour intensive and most complex and difficult part of the video. To do this efficiently and in high quality requires advanced/expert skills. I agree with that completely. But is it within the realm of possibity that one person would be able to model, rig and animate it? I think so, yes.

I 100% agree with >>540264.

Just download the HD video and do a frame by frame analysis.

Scene breakdown:

- Empty bathroom. Shows only mirror, lights, towelholder.
- Capitol Building. Quite large and impressive looking, but most parts are just flat set pieces, just examine the edges of the trees.
- Stage A lectern with flags.
- Earth with pedestal. Sphere, simple pedestal. Starscape backplate.
- City night skyline Just a backplate.
- Music stage set I'd say the most elaborate part of the whole video. Various elements. Basic night sky backdrop
- Confetti
- Trump Statue of Liberty Basic statue model and material, simple box buildings. Sky backplate.
- Trump coin
- Trump Lincoln Memorial Basic statue model and back wall
- Street scene One car, duplicated several times. Night city backplate. I think the car is likely a bought model, to save time.
- White House Mostly backplate, some flags, simple jets with strong motion blur. also possibly a bought model.
- Great Wall of China Simple model, just look at that basic modeling and texturing... Mountains backplate.

The crowds are just black, shapeless dummies. There is just one detailed character: Trump. His jacket does not have any complicated material or shader, is hair is not amazingly fancy, and the cloth dynamic effects are not groundbreaking.

Finally, you are aware that there are online render farms available right? So, yes, just one person who is good with characters (modeling, rigging, animating) could do it in not too much time.

>>535919
>>535925


For the love of art is one reason.

The other reason is more logical: At this moment Laika has a large number of artists specialised with making stop motion movies: animators, character builders, set builders, prop builders, camera technicians, material buyers and storage managers, etc. etc. Whatever. A whole studio of specialists. So, if Laika would just go digital, they would need to get rid of all these people and instead hire a whole bunch of digital artists who have the skillset to do all the necessary stuff in 3d.

This would be a huge and costly effort. As long as the movies they make earn enough money, why make that effort? It makes no economic sense.

Only if the movies won't earn enough money Laika could be forced to slowly transition to a fully digital studio, trimming people.

So, if you love traditional stop motion, go to the movies and buy the dvds! :-)

>>535828

>>535828

Yes, Boxtrolls still uses clay figures. That was not my point. My point is that Boxtrolls also used digital characters for complex crowd scenes and that they look indistinguishable from the clay characters, not to mention digital backgrounds.

Therefore should a studio like Laika want to, they could make a full 3d digital movie and still make it look like traditional stop motion.

>>535781

Not really. It looks dated because the technology and tools have improved since then. This means that the next movie that copies the stop motion style will look indistinguisable from the actual thing.

http://cinefex.com/blog/boxtrolls/

Why is nobody mentioning Aardman studios? They've been using 3d elements in their movies for some time now, and though Flushed Away looks dated now, it is a fully computer animation mimicking their stop motion style.

>>530722

Click and drag
- on outer white circle to rotate around view axis
- on inner white circle for free rotation
- on red circle to rotate around X axis
- on blue circle to rotate around Z axis
- on green circle to rotate around Y axis

When pressing Ctrl while clicking and dragging: rotate in increments
When pressing Shift while clicking and dragging: precise rotation

You simply have to click near the circle lines.

But pressing 'R' is generally faster.

Fun tip:

After pressing R
- press Z, X or Y to rotate along that axis (twice for local axis)
- press Shift and Z, X or Y to exclude that axis from rotation (twice for local axis)

(this also works with G (movement) and S (scaling)

>>530490

It would be nice if you gave some more info.

- 16 what? Dollar, euro, other?
- I assume the 16 per hour is gross. Do you know how much you have left after taxes? And how many hours per week do you work?
- where are you located? Which country? Which city?

>>530297

I think actually you should be more strict with achieving a sense of accomplishment. Basically, every night you should go to bed thinking 'Damn, I finished something really nice today. I can't wait to do the same tomorrow.'

Listening to podcasts and working with other people are distractions.

Listening to podcasts requires attention, because someone is speaking and a part of you is trying to listen and understand what this person is saying, which disrupts your thought processes. It can be ok if you do really basic work which does not require important creative decisions.
Working with someone else also distracts, though it can be good to have someone to bounce ideas off and to ask advice.

what you need

- a sense of accomplishment, to give your brain a much needed endorfin boost. So break down your work into small tasks that can be finished in no more than a day or two, to have that regular confidence boost.
- a sense of purpose. So you need to feel really excited about your project. Maybe you don't. In that case, inject your project with something you can feel excited about. A creative or technical challenge that offers you a learning opportunity so that, even when you do boring or repetitive work, you know you are getting something out of it, not just going through the motions to get it finished.
- an undisturbed thought process. Like bad sleep, constant interruptions to your thoughts keep you on the surface. Your ideas, solutions and work stay shallow because your thought process is interrupted every time before you have a change to really think things through.

and

- when you have problems starting something, start small. Very small. Psychologically the barrier is very low in that case, so it's easy to actually do it, and since it was fast to do, you have quickly that boost of accomplishment that makes you feel excitied to continue.
- do not look to much and long at other people's work for inspiration. Soon, you'll do nothing but inspiration gathering and your project lies abandoned. Look at some nice work, copy what you like in some colour sketches, and put the inspiration away. Then, start working from your sketches. Or else you'll never do anything nor find your own voice.

>>529867
Terrible advice.

>>529875
This anon gets it.

First of all, you have actual, real life studio experience, which is better than just sitting at home modelling stuff, and with what you have described, that would make you intermediate, or, let's just say 'artist', without the junior or senior. I can't tell of course what is the quality of your management skills, but the fact is that you've done it and you very likely had the opportunity to learn from any mistakes you've made. That counts for a lot.

If an 'entry level' artist exist at all, it would be called an intern. Someone young, still in school, just starting out and with only the most basic skills.

At the studio where I work we actually use a guideline doc describing the soft and hard skills you need to have at each level, so I can have a sneak peek at it tomorrow, but what I can tell you is that the major skill that gets you to the top (besides being very good artistically) is communication.

Communication means:

- talking with devs and project management, being aware of what is needed, forseeing problems, offering solutions.
- making sure that all the artists are on the same page and working well together. Assign tasks, provide feedback, set the standard and make sure it is kept.
- guiding junior artists, teaching them, keeping an eye on them and solve problems or recommending them for promotion.
- being able to talk about art on a high level. Not just about skills and techniques, but understanding the intricacies of visual communication and being able to express complex concepts clearly.
- working with outsourcing studios or freelancers, creating style guides and various other documentation.
- etc, etc.

and all these things, in a diplomatic, positive way. Being fair, honest and understanding of different personalities and cultural backgrounds.

>>529314

Nope, you can't do that :-)

If it helps, you should consider objects as a container that can be modified in simple ways separately from the mesh.

It is possible to switch and change meshes between object, and the mesh will take on the deformation/scale/position of the object.

You can also apply those simple changes, resetting location, rotation and scale to 0, transferring that data to the mesh.

It might help if you explain step by step what you try to do.

I don't know how familiar you are with Blender, but you can edit only one object at a time. If you select multiple objects before you go into edit mode, you can only edit the last selected object.

Either join the different objects into one, or select only the object you wish to edit.

>>527059

but, seriously. This is such a vague question.

What are your criteria? What do you want to do? I guess easy to use and totally free?

Why not go for SketchUp or Daz3D?

>>527059

1. Go to 'User Preferences'
2. Go to 'File'
3. Make sure 'Load UI' is switched off
4. Profit?

So, basically, I would not give you a job, even as an apprentice, not just because you fail technically, but your total failure of understanding advertising. Even if you would have simply copied or modified an existing design it would have been better.

Not that I want to rub your face in it, but just make it clear that before you start, you need to think about what you do and why. Look, analyze, think.

>>526384

Ok, don't know why I make the effort, but ok, here it goes.

Your problem is that you have spent virtually zero thought on visual communication, which is the basis of advertising.


- Ice looks dull grey, as if covered by soot from coal plant or shitty Russian car.
- bottle looks empty and dry, as if it was thrown away after drinking.
- bottlecap instead of screwtop? So once opened just drink it all?
- logo design and lettertype look super cheap. Like WordArt cheap.
- bottle is as dark as the ice around it, so just blends in the background.
- etc.

Honestly, I would have given you top marks if this would have been pastiche advertising for a new brand of wodka for alcoholic bums, because that's what it communicates.