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cubicle gangster posted:I think even people good at it don't use one mesh I'll slap down the cash and give it a scroll, thanks. I'm a few hours into doing a complete remake of my project where I haven't made my gun out of one box and already it's looking insanely better - I was holding out on putting little gribbles on the model because I just couldn't bare looking at the UVs for it anymore but now poo poo actually has a layout.
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Jan 15, 2021 04:42
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Are/were you trying to fit the entire model in one UV with one material?
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Jan 15, 2021 06:41
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Gearman posted:I love how insane his workflow sounds, Yeah he has this haphazard approach which is about 'good enough', but to a very high standard. Speed and quality are all that matters. He's great. he's a big champion of turning your thoughts off and going with your gut/working from instinct, which is something I'm trying to figure out how to explain to my guys regularly. cubicle gangster fucked around with this message at 07:09 on Jan 15, 2021 |
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Jan 15, 2021 07:03
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echinopsis posted:Are/were you trying to fit the entire model in one UV with one material? Yes to the UV, no to the material. The gun I was making was initially made from one cube, extruded and beveled into something pretty darn detailed given the circumstances - but when it came time to UV it, it was very obvious it wasn't going to work out well. Honestly I don't know what I was expecting considering that all my other tests were actually made out of separate objects and came out fine. Call it a fit of misguided experimentation I guess 
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Jan 15, 2021 09:56
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What I am getting at I suppose, is that if you assign different faces to different material IDs, well, each material doesn't need to share UVs with anything else. That is to say different faces with different IDs can point to the same UV coords, and it's not a problem. Maybe this isn't news and I don't think I am explaining the concept very well. As an example, if you had a gun, and you assigned the faces of the barrel to it's own material ID, you could unwrap the barrel into the entirety of a UV map. I'm curious to see what you've done though, want to know how it's not going to work. 
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Jan 15, 2021 10:05
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Also if anyone gives a poo poo lol over in yospos we got a thread for blender or 3d poo poo in general really. if you like to shitpost about 3d I invite you https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3893167 
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Jan 15, 2021 10:19
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echinopsis posted:I'm curious to see what you've done though, want to know how it's not going to work. Since I've mastered the art of Saving Nearly Every 5 Seconds™ I'll do a trip report on the final product and post what I did wrong in case anyone tries to follow my footsteps
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Jan 15, 2021 11:57
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Slothful Bong posted:Of course, lighting did change after that, but the incredible comp team did their magic to get the people to sit correctly. I’m sure they went through hell though lol. But the studio’s main focus is VFX, so relighting of plate elements is something they’re very familiar with. Sounds like it was a great challenging production! There was a digital viewing room (which I designed in three.js) last summer but right now there aren't any viewing options. I've left the team since then so I don't have access to any publicity material anymore. If it pops up anywhere I'll make sure to share it!
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Jan 15, 2021 12:18
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Back in December I ordered our first system from Puget and I gotta say I've been really impressed with the whole process. I put a 5950x and RTX 3080 in it so they let me know way up front "these parts are in short supply so expect a 5-6 week wait." During the whole process you get updates via your account page. Most of them are pretty normal stuff as it gets into the assembly queue, etc - but then they start benchmarking it with tons of programs and send you those benchmarks as well as take thermal pics of your machine at idle and full load. Pretty impressive stuff. Worth the upcharge in my opinion (if your company is paying for it ha).
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Jan 19, 2021 15:52
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I'm currently in academia as a lowly STEM postdoc. (e: I should mention I have a PhD in chemistry, not something like mechanical engineering.) I'm fairly certain I don't want to take the next step in the rat race toward leading my own research group. To advance, you basically have to become a manager of a pool of temporary employees (grad students and postdocs) while writing grants. I can probably continue hopping through postdocs, but it's not a glamorous life. At some point during my PhD I rescued a laser cutter and an old 3D printer from a lab that had closed, which led me to start modeling and cutting/printing random semi-useful parts for the lab using a student version of Rhino. I also did some cover art for publications in my group with Rhino and V-Ray. I really do enjoy modeling, but can't really see myself doing it full time. I know some freelancers who make figures and covers for scientific publications, but that doesn't really have the same allure to me. I still have the urge to work with my hands outside of a mouse and keyboard, and I have trouble looking at a screen all day. Part of my dissertation work involved designing small metal reactors, so I worked a bit on the side with some machinists in our department. Eventually, they got a fancy new fully automated CNC machine, which led me to learn some CAD to CAM workflows using Inventor HSM. They thought I was a computer witch, since they were so used to doing everything by hand, or with manually programmed arcs on digital CNCs. It was cool machining a hemispherical cavity with tight tolerances, because they assured me it would have been a complete pain in the rear end to do with conventional milling. I've gotten pretty used to Rhino and spend some of my off time at work trying to improve. I recently bought the upgrade to Rhino 7 and am learning a lot about SubD and Grasshopper which I've found quite fun. I'm nowhere near the skill of the modelers in this thread. I'm wondering what I can do to possibly focus my many amateur self-taught skills into a career that I enjoy. Is there a path into a decent job where I can work with and learn from experienced modelers and machinists, maybe in the scientific instrumentation sector? I'm certainly curious if anyone in the thread is working in this type of industry, big or small. Greatest Living Man fucked around with this message at 17:54 on Jan 19, 2021 |
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Jan 19, 2021 17:42
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I know at least some universities have a tool shop that builds custom parts for the labs, and probably does contract work for scientific companies in the area as well. That sounds like the kind of thing that'd be right up your alley. There's also non-university-affiliated tool shops that do that kind of work. Clients come to them saying "I need a part that does X", they come up with a design, work with the client to refine exactly how it works, then mill it out and deliver it.
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Jan 19, 2021 17:58
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I'm not in the industry but I did work with them for a bit. Check out custom valve machinist companies. I live near one, and worked in paper mills a bit. We'd call em and tell em what we need, and they'd make it. Cost a ton but it was literally a one of piece that would be under a ton of strain. I'm positive there are a few places online that either offer the same/similar service or are just the online contact for them. I can't imagine it'd be a problem for them to answer some questions or forward em to the correct department.
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Jan 19, 2021 18:13
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Does someone here work with Reality Capture? I like to export a scan in different parts, but I can't get RC to consistently unwrap a part in a 0,1 UV environment which wreaks havoc downstream. Fragrag fucked around with this message at 16:40 on Jan 21, 2021 |
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Jan 21, 2021 16:31
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Mike Nash, a 3D artist from Australia, just passed away. I don't know the guy, but I feel a strong sense of sadness looking at his work and the level of skill he achieved. Something about knowing that all the knowledge he accumulated over the years just evaporates. https://twitter.com/gavriilklimov/status/1352321092459716608
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Jan 22, 2021 00:23
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I feel like I'm really late to the party figuring out this cell-shaded outline technique, since this sort of thing is supposed to be my job, but I always assumed it was a much more complicated effect. It's actually just a second mesh, duplicated and reversed (with back faces culled), and vertices moved along the normals slightly. Add a bit of noise for a hand-drawn effect and you're done. https://i.imgur.com/Jpyqg5L.gifv
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Jan 22, 2021 04:45
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500 posted:I feel like I'm really late to the party figuring out this cell-shaded outline technique, since this sort of thing is supposed to be my job, but I always assumed it was a much more complicated effect. It's actually just a second mesh, duplicated and reversed (with back faces culled), and vertices moved along the normals slightly. Add a bit of noise for a hand-drawn effect and you're done. Hunh - that's interesting. I just assumed it was an edge detection thing. A shader with "angle of incidence" or something like that.
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Jan 22, 2021 05:16
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sigma 6 posted:Hunh - that's interesting. I just assumed it was an edge detection thing. A shader with "angle of incidence" or something like that. I'm pretty sure it typically is done in shaders. But 500, your effect is great. Love the noise. However I imagine - as scenes get bigger - all that extra geometry could become an issue.
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Jan 22, 2021 13:35
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500 posted:I feel like I'm really late to the party figuring out this cell-shaded outline technique, since this sort of thing is supposed to be my job, but I always assumed it was a much more complicated effect. It's actually just a second mesh, duplicated and reversed (with back faces culled), and vertices moved along the normals slightly. Add a bit of noise for a hand-drawn effect and you're done. This is one of the common solutions but there's a ton. Blender has stuff like Freestyle, Maya has it's "toon lines", there are whole plugins like Pencil+ which most of the anime studios use. The more difficult part comes when you want the shading to adhere to a specific shape design. Then you've got to work with vertex color maps and custom normal direction and the node network can get complicated.
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Jan 22, 2021 15:36
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Ah yeah, I guess I was thinking more of a real-time effect that I could conceivably make by myself. I wasn't aware of Freestyle, though. Seems a lot better than C4D's Sketch and Toon module, which is the only similar thing I've used. I'm yet to see anyone get a good result out of that, though.
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Jan 23, 2021 05:03
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There’s a new real-time line effect in the Blender long term development pipeline (a look up LANPR). For the effect you have, at least in Blender you can apply a bevel modifier with inverted normals and then a texture for the modifier to use. Cheaper than doubling the mesh, and you can adjust line thickness with a slider. For better effects (like multiple light sources), these tutorials are great: https://youtu.be/hp4V-9oFmnM
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Jan 23, 2021 13:30
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If you're already using Blender, I highly suggest grabbing Lightning Boy's toon shader suite. It is by far the best thing out there, and you can build pretty much any effect you want very quickly, regardless if you use a normalmap workflow or edited vertex normal (Guilty Gear) workflow. The best part of it all: if you follow their tutorials for the 1.0 shader, nearly all of this can be recreated in Unreal Engine flawlessly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fHZcnTFYEI
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Jan 23, 2021 23:08
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Some more personal work, since that's cool & good again. The Moccamaster was a discord server challenge this month, and I pushed myself to use the Vray VFB for final images, which is *waaaay* out of my comfort zone. I usually rely heavily on elements and masks and do a lot of work in PS/AE, so it was a bit worrisome, but I think they turned out pretty ok.     I had done a rural porch scene last year that was supposed to explore some positive vibes, and it quickly went off the emotional rails and turned into this foreboding...thing. So here's my second swing at capturing hope + renewal. A bit more successful this time I think.  Artstation w/ progress I'd been pining over some retro tshirts with those quintessential stripe elements from the late 70s/early 80s, and then got on a nostalgia kick for a school environment  Artstation w/ progress e: and on an even more hopeful note, I scored a call for Friday with a studio looking to expand this year, so fingers crossed! Handiklap fucked around with this message at 16:10 on Jan 28, 2021 |
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Jan 28, 2021 15:55
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Thats great stuff and I'm totally jealous of anyone that has free time to work on personal stuff. Between two kids (one being 18 month old) and my demanding real job... My talents are severely atrophying and I'm at like this real crisis of consciousness moment where I think it's time to give up on my dreams. I'm too old and my body hurts and I'll be over 50 before I had another moment to work on my own stuff. Ugh sorry that's a downer. But your work is awesome. Seriously good stuff. I've been pining over a lot of shirts/jackets with that classic stripe set too. It's raged back into style
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Jan 28, 2021 18:15
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BonoMan posted:Thats great stuff and I'm totally jealous of anyone that has free time to work on personal stuff. Between two kids (one being 18 month old) and my demanding real job... My talents are severely atrophying and I'm at like this real crisis of consciousness moment where I think it's time to give up on my dreams. I'm too old and my body hurts and I'll be over 50 before I had another moment to work on my own stuff. Thanks, it means a lot! I think it's always good to be mindful that it's a struggle to balance the self-serving stuff with the in-service-of-others stuff. I'm definitely getting to that age too where I'm actually having to do work to reconcile a lot of weird misgivings I think we all might collectively have about what work is or should be, *especially* since it's so easy nowadays to let passion drive ambition & vice versa. I don't know if that's more unique to creatives or not, but it seems to make sense with how easy it appears to burn out.
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Jan 28, 2021 18:49
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I've finished my first full Blender project - animation, texturing, sounds etc. Naturally it's a gun because I'm a teeny tiny little baby, but I hope this one is more fun than MyFirstM16.obj. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-UDkvYIXn8 As I mentioned I made a lot of mistakes and eventually had to scrap everything and start from scratch, something I'll chronicle in this thread when I have time since it might make tiny little Blender Babies like me avoid making the same errors, but for now I'm going to take a small break until my creative juices have returned. I'd love to hear people's impressions - I know there's a lot I've done wrong but I think I've learned enough from this to move on.
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Jan 28, 2021 21:25
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Handiklap posted:Thanks, it means a lot! Well I just meant I literally have zero time ha. My job is 50-60 hrs a week and my home life is 100% engaging. There's just not an actual moment. Probably will be when the kids get a little older but right now my day is completely filled and it can be totally overwhelming. The pandemic isn't helping either. But in the end I have a very well paying full time job so I am definitely grateful for that. edit: Sorry this is probably just not the right place for this. Going through a mid-life crisis and lots of self reflection on my career decisions hah. BonoMan fucked around with this message at 23:50 on Jan 31, 2021 |
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Jan 31, 2021 23:33
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BonoMan posted:Well I just meant I literally have zero time ha. My job is 50-60 hrs a week and my home life is 100% engaging. There's just not an actual moment. Probably will be when the kids get a little older but right now my day is completely filled and it can be totally overwhelming. The pandemic isn't helping either. Hey friend, I just wanted to let you know you're not alone. I'm in literally, exactly, the same situation. I have two kids, one just turned three, and the other is six months old. Even working from home, there's just no time to do any kind of personal work. Getting up at 5am, and then finally being done with family stuff by 9pm, is just physically and emotionally exhausting. I tried to take an art test and it was truly abysmal. I was embarrassed to even submit it, but it's what I could do, and I had nothing left to give for just a potential shot at a new job. It went about as poorly as you'd expect. It doesn't help that a lot of other artists in my sphere are just "leveling up" like crazy and doing truly insane stuff. It's depressing to see all these people get exponentially better while you see yourself just getting worse every day. I'm trying to take a couple lunches a week where I work on something my own. It's not a lot, but it's something, and it is helpful. Two hours a week isn't really going to get me very far, but it has made me feel a little bit better. If you ever want to vent or chat or just commiserate, feel free to drop me a PM!
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Feb 1, 2021 00:11
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I don't have any kids and even I feel like I don't have enough time to practice, and that I'm improving at a snail's pace, so I can't imagine how it must feel having only a couple of hours to yourself each week. But then again, I know of one artist who is rocketing ahead, but told me just the other day they weren't happy with their progress. So maybe it's the sort of feeling that's always kind of there, at least to some degree, no matter how good you are.
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Feb 1, 2021 00:52
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Gearman posted:Hey friend, I just wanted to let you know you're not alone. I'm in literally, exactly, the same situation. I have two kids, one just turned three, and the other is six months old. Even working from home, there's just no time to do any kind of personal work. Getting up at 5am, and then finally being done with family stuff by 9pm, is just physically and emotionally exhausting. Solidarity bud!  I think I just let myself get too far along my current path before realizing I should have made some changes early on. I went from animator to sr animator to creative director/manager and thus stopped doing the work and did more overseeing and administrative/managerial stuff. Then had kids (which of course I don't regret - they're amazing) and then hit 40, started feeling the pull of "are you doing work that matters?" and was like ... "oops." I looked at where I was and the quality of work was lessening, but the ask was getting greater. A lot of that wasn't my fault, but by the time I realized it was time to move on - I was starting from way behind everyone else. Hell I even have 7 features (3 major motion pictures) that I've contributed to and it's *still* a slog. What I have to offer is reliability and experience delivering actual finished hollywood shots and the ability to be a leader of teams when I need, but only an "ok" portfolio. When places compare that to an out of school 22 year old instagrammer with all the time in the world that can pull near constant crunch time, the cheaper animator wins out. Because of how established I've gotten my life with my family - I can't just chase subsidies and entry level wages. So it's a definite catch-22. It's not all defeatist. I have some great contacts and they're helping me find something new, but drat it's hard shifting gears this late in the game. 500 posted:I don't have any kids and even I feel like I don't have enough time to practice, and that I'm improving at a snail's pace, so I can't imagine how it must feel having only a couple of hours to yourself each week. Yeah there's a "grass is always greener" aspect for sure. I'm just struggling to get even a second of time so it's like... there's zero progress (which leads to negative progress when you aren't flexing that muscle). I know it'll get better when the kids are a little older but goddamn. I'm so tired *all the time*.
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Feb 1, 2021 02:22
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hello I also have 2 kids at home and no time or energy to try to keep myself employable by making personal work.
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Feb 1, 2021 02:22
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 Been working on a character model meant to work with the Lightning Boy Toon Shader and decided to take the time and make a test object to use with the shader. try and get my bearings a bit, so to speak. Turned out pretty well I'd say!
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Feb 1, 2021 09:28
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500 posted:But then again, I know of one artist who is rocketing ahead, but told me just the other day they weren't happy with their progress. So maybe it's the sort of feeling that's always kind of there, at least to some degree, no matter how good you are. The moment you're satisfied with your art is the moment you are no longer an artist Art is fuelled primarily by self doubt and secondarily by jealousy and you should never allow either fuel source to run out
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Feb 1, 2021 18:43
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Songbearer posted:The moment you're satisfied with your art is the moment you are no longer an artist I don't know how serious you are but jealousy can be corrosive and terrible for your mental health
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Feb 1, 2021 20:52
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Okay, I caught the 3D bug. I've been using After Effects to do 2D projects for a couple decades and had been putting off learning the 3D functions since I was a teenager. I finally bit the bullet and made a few scenes and adore it. I've mostly been doing goofy Tim and Eric-style lo-fi stuff that doesn't have much polish up til this point, but I keep getting more ambitious with each new project and now I'm at the point where I'm trying to do stuff like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQVz2grHZew (janky WIP, obviously) The problem is, I'm either very much pushing the limit of what 3D can be in AE, or I'm doing whatever it is I'm doing in a particularly inefficient way (using layers as textured polygons...), because with a handful of lights and shadows and such, render times on my Macbook Pro are getting outrageous for really low-"poly" scenes. Plus there's a bunch of weird glitchy artifacts that I assume are cropping up because AE is getting mad that I'm not using it for its intended use. So I figure it's time to actually dig my heels in and learn a proper 3D program. I have super basic 3D modeling skills from mocking up scenes in SketchUp but don't know anything about texturing or surfaces or anything like that, so I know there's going to be a learning curve there. I also don't know anything about (digital) lighting beyond tossing a few lights in for my AE scenes. My question is, what would be a good program for me to start with that will let me put out decently robust scenes with as little friction as possible coming from my current workflow? I assume Blender (I've even messed around in it before, but only to pose models for illustration reference) but have very little sense of what the 3D world looks like otherwise, and what the learning curve is for any sufficiently advanced software. I'd love to be able to hit the ground running as much as possible and not have to learn entirely new mental working models if there's any way to avoid it. feedmyleg fucked around with this message at 22:00 on Feb 1, 2021 |
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Feb 1, 2021 21:29
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Songbearer posted:The moment you're satisfied with your art is the moment you are no longer an artist feedmyleg posted:My question is, what would be a good program for me to start with that will let me put out decently robust scenes with as little friction as possible coming from my current workflow? I assume Blender (I've even messed around in it before, but only to pose models for illustration reference) but have very little sense of what the 3D world looks like otherwise, and what the learning curve is for any sufficiently advanced software. How are you currently doing the 3D inside of After Effects? My understanding is that modern versions come with Cinema4D Lite, which is like a really stripped back version of regular Cinema4D. As in, it's the same UI and layout, it's just missing some of the more powerful functionality. I'd usually recommend Blender for someone starting out, but I think in your case C4D Lite might be the perfect gateway, since it already integrates with After Effects, and it will let you get familiar with the basics of a 3D software package without feeling like you're leaving the world of After Effects completely behind.
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Feb 1, 2021 23:05
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Selfdeprication in the arts is a real, natural phenomenon, and I think should be shared and discussed openly, but listing it as some kind of empowering driving force or super power, and leaning into the "race to the self-esteem bottom" that I've observed in my peers is a one-way ticket to burning the gently caress out completely or worse. I spent a day on the Pixar campus and it was extremely relaxing and assuring to find that all the artists were normal human beings and talked about their art just like I talked about mine and that if I wanted to I could get to where they were at.
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Feb 1, 2021 23:20
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mutata posted:Selfdeprication in the arts is a real, natural phenomenon... Never underestimate goon snark.
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Feb 2, 2021 14:51
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EoinCannon posted:I don't know how serious you are but jealousy can be corrosive and terrible for your mental health Hyperbole but there's an element of truth to it where if I see my friends putting out some primo stuff it'll usually be enough to pull me out of a slump if I'm in one or drive me to study my techniques even harder if I'm working on things. I suppose a better term would be competitiveness? I'm not trying to outdo people though because I love their work, I just feel like I should be keeping pace. Self deprecation I have in spades though  I've accepted it as part of my workflow by this point:1) Get a great idea far beyond the scope of my abilities 2) Do the rough sketches/blockout and feel like I can pull it off 3) Slowly descend into madness as things turn out to be more difficult than I initially imagined 4) "gently caress it, let's wrap this up and move onto the next thing" 5) (Weeks or months later) Hey I actually did That Thing better than I thought I would This year I've made an unofficial new years resolution to stick with a project until I'm happy with it to the extent of my abilities at the time so my approach should be a little less toxic from now on. The video above is the first time for a while I've immediately felt good about what I released (while noting what I could improve on). Songbearer fucked around with this message at 18:20 on Feb 2, 2021 |
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Feb 2, 2021 18:16
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500 posted:I also used After Effects for years before picking up any 3D software. The good news is, if you managed to do all of that 3D inside of After Effects without touching any 3D software, then you have more than enough patience to learn 3D for real. Oh awesome. I just kind of ignored all the Cinema4D stuff assuming it was too advanced for me, so knowing that it's all built-in and ready to go is a huge advantage. I'll play around with that and see if it works for me, and if not I'll give Blender a shot. Right now everything I'm doing in AE is super hacky so I can create things quickly and improve quality over time, so I love the idea of checking out the light version of the software and then upgrading in the future if I feel like I want to dive into deeper features. And it looks like C4D has some degree of integration with SketchUp files so I can just lean on that for now and learn proper modeling as I get deeper into this. I'm only really doing low-poly stuff right now anyway. Thanks!
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Feb 3, 2021 16:56
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Songbearer posted:This year I've made an unofficial new years resolution to stick with a project until I'm happy with it to the extent of my abilities at the time so my approach should be a little less toxic from now on. The video above is the first time for a while I've immediately felt good about what I released (while noting what I could improve on). I liked it I am also realising I need to put in some time learning how to do some poo poo
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Feb 6, 2021 10:26
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