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Hey, darn it...

J

JustinThyme

SOC-10
I am repeatedly impressed by the creativity exhibited on this forum by those using computer graphics programs to portray astronomical data, realistic planetary impressions, and cityscapes.
Wellll....I want to do stuff like that !
Would those experienced and in-the-know with programs like ProFantasy's line and such please discuss what software you're using / is available and suitable for a novice with a Pentium IV ? It would only be a hobby for me, but what an enjoyable one ! :D
 
For 3d modelling there are lots of freebies out there:

#Wings 3d - Good for 'hard surface modelling'
#Blender - Good general modeller.
#Moment of Inspiration - see my earlier post, it's 'sketchup like' and brilliant for modelling buildings.
#Sketchup - of which Mikazoid is the mistress and will be able to tell you a lot more. I'm not sure what the functionality of the free version of sketchup is though.

For putting together landscapes and rendering, I use Bryce which is made by Daz3d. Bryce renders slowly but its ease of use and texture libraries more than make up for that.

You may find (when you get addicted to 3d modelling as I have done) that there is always one more application to learn, but all you really need is:

1. A good modelling program.
2. A good program to layout the scene.
2. A good renderer (usually this comes with the modelling program and layout but not always).
3. A good graphics package (e.g. photoshop/paintshop pro or GIMP (which is free).

Cheers

Ravs
 
RAVS !!! don't you ever sleep ?

Thank you for your tutelage.
This for you and others who will respond...
I'm unfamiliar with a lot of terms used in this craft / hobby, so forgive my density.
Also, are a lot of the names, terms "searchable" on the WWW ? And is there a Beginners Guide to this form of computer art activity ?
 
"ravs" is indeed an alias for a very popular London gamer group consisting of 12 persons...
The rest is just a matter of time management
 
We are the borg! Lol!


I have never managed to find one website which explains everything about 3d modelling. You could try wikipedia, I guess. I would suggest that your best bet is to get your feet wet straight away and just start doing it. A good place to start would be to download blender (free) and then run through the tutorials here http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro

Edit: If you don't mind spending a little money, then I would highly recommend that you take a look at Silo 3d. It is by far the most intuitive and easy to use modelling program I have used. I think there is a free version you can download on their website, but it has some restrictions.


Hope this helps.

Ravs
 
You never know - I may be tempted to try my hand again at drawing using this Blender thing. Previous attempts were dire in the extreme. It doesn't help that I can't draw on paper, let alone on the computer. A sense of aesthetics I've got - but no talent for getting the vision down on paper.

My many thanks go to all on this board that contribute their artwork to the community. I'm extremely jealous, but I'd be lost without you.
 
Hi !

Valarian, I really would recommend to start with Google Sketchup.
It has the most intelligent user interface I know so far and helps a lot to get fast first successes.
It has notable limits, but still is a pretty starter.

I try to make Blender to be my friend for years, but we still have major in-compatabilities


Regards,

TE
 
Are you artists using a mouse or a drawing board ?
I remember tinkering with a small ACECAT (?) on an Aptiva, but tossed the thing when I couldn't adjust the layout on a more powerful machine. It never wanted to center or spread out on the screen. I CANNOT draw with a mouse. Do programs have ready-made shapes, or do I need a *new* model tablet ?
Terragen. Nifty application. Difficult to manipulate, for me. Somewhat hot or miss.
By modelling, do you mean drawing ?
Laying out the scene. Isn't that drawing ?
Render and texture I understand.
Graphics package ? Won't these drawing / modeling rendering programs display without one ?
 
That WIKIpedia link is rather informative, although I realise it is Blender 3D sensitive.
I DO hope these programs come with a physical textbook / manual. For that is easier for me than jumping between windows.
 
If you have a semi fast PC and a big hard drive, there are lots of tools:

I do Space Art, Nebulas, planets, etc almost esclusively. Virtually No ships. Okay, well I do star trek side view cutaways.

I'm not a modeler, so a lot of my art looks static, but I mostly use it as background, or flavor pics, or as Star Trek or Star Wars, or Traveller sectors / maps.

This is what I use:

Mouse and JASC Paint Shop Pro.
I also paid for the Lunar Cell plugin, can't recall who makes it.

Universe from http://diardsoftware.com/
Get it. It takes some practice, not a lot of docs, but it's the best out there, if you want to do freeform planets and nebula, really fast, without a lot of brushwork.

Profantasy Everything. I didn't find a use ofr thier Dioramas, though.

Cosmographer Pro is Adequate. I personally like using for sector maps the

Sec 2 PDF program (can't recall where), sidecarred with Jim V's Galactic:
ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/doc/games/roleplay/programs/pc/gal23.zip


Sec 2 PDF makes Beautiful sectors, look like the real deal, still a few bugs, needs some touch up, but has that Classic Trav look and feel.

For ships and such, there are many ace modelers here. I've stumbled on to Blender, as a cheap solution, but it's pretty much beyond my skills.

3DS Max is both out of my price range, and light years past my TRS 80 Model I (bis) mind.
 
Originally posted by Sol Pniering:
Are you artists using a mouse or a drawing board ?
I remember tinkering with a small ACECAT (?) on an Aptiva, but tossed the thing when I couldn't adjust the layout on a more powerful machine. It never wanted to center or spread out on the screen. I CANNOT draw with a mouse. Do programs have ready-made shapes, or do I need a *new* model tablet ?
Terragen. Nifty application. Difficult to manipulate, for me. Somewhat hot or miss.
By modelling, do you mean drawing ?
Laying out the scene. Isn't that drawing ?
Render and texture I understand.
Graphics package ? Won't these drawing / modeling rendering programs display without one ?
Click to expand...
I have a tablet and pen but I tend to only use that when I want to draw freehand. Mostly I just use the mouse.

Here is the workflow of the last 'evolving starport' image:

1. I use silo to build the landing gear which will appear in the foreground of the final image:

siloimage.jpg


2. I then fire up Bryce, import the elements I'm going to use (including the landing gear) and arrange them into a scene. It would have been possible to build the landing gear using Bryce but Silo is much quicker/easier.

bryce.jpg


3. I render the scene the scene in Bryce as jpeg. I use Bryce to texture each of the objects in the scene, like the rusty top of the landing pad and the chrome struts on the landing gear. As you can see, because of the camera angle I'm using I don't need a ship attached to the landing gear (lazy!):

render-3.jpg


4. I decide that the colours are too saturated and (say) that I want a bolt of lightning in the picture. So I load up the renedered jpeg and add these using paintshop pro. If I wanted more control over each of the individual elements in the scene, I could have rendered these seperately and put each on a different layer in psp.

desat.jpg


That's the general workflow. One doesn't use PSP to 'draw' elements (although you can), it's usually used to make final adjustments to lighting and colour and to add effects. As you can see, you don't really need any 'artistic talent' (like the ability to draw) to do this.

Cheers

Ravs
 
Originally posted by TheEngineer:
Valarian, I really would recommend to start with Google Sketchup.
Click to expand...
Tried it ... failed miserably to produce anything that didn't look put together with Lego.

I'm disheartened again, if Sketchup is the easiest tool out there to produce something good then I'm totally hopeless.
 
Valarian, the best way to learn is to start by building simple objects which you can see and use as a reference (like the lamp on your desk).

The landing gear (no work of art, but it's passable for the job) above was made using cubes and cylinders. I hunted on the net for a picture of the dropship in Aliens and used that landing skid as a reference.

Ravs
 
> Are you artists using a mouse or a drawing board ?

Most people use mice. I think Scarecrow uses a tablet & pen.

> By modelling, do you mean drawing ?

No, modelling is constructing the elements of a scene. Part Lego, part sculpture.

> Laying out the scene. Isn't that drawing ?

No, it's positioning the elements (including lights), as if you were going to photograph a real scene.

> Graphics package ? Won't these drawing / modeling rendering programs display without one ?

This is used to create/edit textures or post-process a rendered image.
 
Try doing a scene with planets.

Seriously. They're just balls with textures on after all, that'll let you get the hang of basic texturing. And then you can play around with light sources and camera angles to get cool looking space scenes. And then you can slowly work up from there.


Another renderer that nobody's mentioned is POVray ( http://www.povray.org ) - but it takes a quite different approach to the others here. You actually enter everything via a programming language interface, which is then parsed and rendered by POV's built in renderer (which is absolutely awesome for a free program - take a look at some of the pictures on the website, or the ones on my Art Hub ). You basically just enter the coordinates of everything you want and render it, which gives you very fine control over the scene.

It's worth a look, IMO.
 
Originally posted by Valarian:
Please ... no laughing ... this was my last effort (in Sketchup as it happens)
Terran Jumpship
Click to expand...
That's not bad at all actually - you've got good looking basic design there.

I've designed a couple of ships (the NASA Voyager spaceprobe in POVray and a Rifter from EVE Online using Lightwave3d). The way I did it was to make assemble the ships out of basic primitive blocks, and then I just hacked away at each block to get it down to the shape I wanted and moved on to the next one. I'll see if I can put all the 'work in progress' pictures up on a webpage and you can look at it to see how these things evolve.
 
Well I dunno, I've used it a lot and never needed Moray at all. It all depends on what you're more comfortable with.

Personally, I've got by with graph paper and quick renders while working on something. I made my POVray Voyager model entirely like that. It probably would have been easier in Moray but the problem there is that you have to spend the time to learn the interface as well. With typing, you just dive right in and away you go.

But then most of my scenes were never that complex - just some textured planets, maybe a spaceship, and a star background rendered using Universe by Diard Software (which is a very nifty little program).

I'd imagine if you wanted to do more complex scenes then a visual interface might be better... but it's really down to preference.
 
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