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SanderWit In reply to Bosf [2008-04-19 22:07:43 +0000 UTC]

i'm not going to try n convince you it's a blender project for it's rendered with yafray (as explained in the project-comments) which result in pretty realistic results. the render time was about half an hour

your previous comment: board is a bevelled flattened cube with uv-mapped diffuse texture and bumpmap

at ease

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SanderWit In reply to Netbug009 [2008-02-18 19:37:39 +0000 UTC]

Thanks a lot pal, I'm gonna do something bout it. Really appreciated man.

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Netbug009 In reply to SanderWit [2008-02-18 19:53:11 +0000 UTC]

Don't mention it. I can't stand art theft.

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SanderWit In reply to AleksanderK [2008-01-22 21:56:16 +0000 UTC]

Thanks pal. Render took about 30 mins. Ages ago though .

Your pawns are great . Though your main problem is the same as all new 3D artists: you have the possibility to use all kind of tricks and slick effects (like the things you mentioned in my peace, dof, caustics, etc etc) and there lies the problem. You need to start right at the basics. Start modeling, start texturing, later on, learn some things about lamps and even later, difficult materials and special effects like dof and caustics. You don't need hdr, reflections, subsurfaced meshes and all that jazz. You'll get there when you get there . First off, I'd say, look up some tutorials and information on special modeling tools like loop-cuts, special extrudes, bevelling, those kind of things. After that learn some things about texturing and perhaps some neat material settings within blender.

The last thing you will want is Indigo, Yafray or other modern renderers. The Blender Internal Renderer is great, and especially for starting 3d-ers, brilliant! I think you have a real great start, but I think you are one step ahead of yourself. I'll crit your work later on, have to look for my bed right now, I'm beyond tired...

Best wishes

Sander

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AleksanderK In reply to SanderWit [2008-01-23 04:18:18 +0000 UTC]

Thank you very much for all this feedback and advice.

Wow.So much information, so much to learn.

I am really new to Blender,but I am reading some tutorials and hopefully getting better.

One question,is loop-cuts and special extrusion something that should have been used in my project,or just some usuful information to know in general?

For the chess project I mostly used the spin tool,I also used the beveling on the wooden part of the board.

One more question, am I really that ahead of myself?



Thank you again for all the advice.

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SanderWit In reply to AleksanderK [2008-01-24 09:54:06 +0000 UTC]

Haha, nah, I think you need to wanne learn everything there is to know as fast as possible. That was my best help anyway. If you're not motivation-driven, you won't be able to be a great artist, that's exactly where my problem lays, I lost my motivation to continue learning and modeling at some point, stopped my graphical school and started studying psychology, like the fool I am. Nah, it don't matter but I always saw that the best way for starting 3D-ers is to wanne learn everything there is to learn as fast as possible! Important is to canalize that to a efficient learning curve starting at modeling, than more difficult things like texturing, animating and rendering. So please keep up that interest in 3D, keep looking at great inspirative websites like CGTalk and Elysiun (Blenderartists.org) and try out all tutorials available , it's really worth your time in my opinion.

Just make sure to get some air once in a while .

The techniques I was talking of were just general special modeling techniques you'll be wanting to learn. Nice that you've already applied a bevel to the chess board for those are really important when you wanne loose the 'noob' status . There are loads of early-learning-mistakes to make, I'll mention a few.

Visible faces is a killer, make sure angular surfaces are avoided. But try to get there without the SubSurface buttons for it subsurfaces the complete model, also the bits that don't need to be subsurfaced (look at the top of your queen close to the camera in the first render, it has all these ribbles on top of it, that's what ye get when subsurfacing triangles or too small faces, avoid it as much as possible!). Hard edges are also nasty, that's why there's a bevel option . Good thing you used it though you have to watch out not to over-use it, too thick bevels look fake, it's almost never too small, you just want to get those realistic highlights on the edges of your model!
Another one is over-doing bumpmaps. Bumpmaps can really help your render to look neat, but it has to be used very very subtle or will break it's believability. Make sure never to overdo bumpmaps. Same thing with specularity and reflections. Tweak with the hardness and amount of specularity you will want to give a model. Most of the times too much spec is used and often with too less hardness. Same thing with your chessboard. Too much reflectivity is also a killer. Learn a couple of things about the new soft- or blurred-reflections for reflections, apart from metals and glasses, are almost never perfect sharp. If you learn that there is no such thing as specular and that it is simple a faked blurred reflection, you will understand that both a too sharp reflection as a too soft specular can kill your render's realism... Specular, in the real world, is just a reflection!
I could go on forever, but some more important first mistakes include a visible HDR in the background, too low-res textures, bad camera positions, a bad light-setup (look up the 3-point-light-setup, it's the real basic!), using subsurface too much witch will result in whobbly bobbly models with low detail but loads of faces and last example, using the wonderful Suzanne. The default monkey inside of Blender is only to be used in test-scenes and material tests and so on. Don't ever use it in final-renders! Haha. Oh last thing, I always see crappy background photo's behind 3D scenes. It can kill the realism of your scene for a photo always looks realistic and, even though a scene may be pretty realistic, with a photo in the background the only realistic thing in the scene is that photo. In a CG scene use a CG background in my opinion. You will only be able to use a photo in the background once you are really good.

That's enough out of me, hope you have a nice kick in the right direction now! Have fun and good luck!

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AleksanderK In reply to SanderWit [2008-01-27 10:19:55 +0000 UTC]

Thank you again. Wow this is a lot of advice. But you named every mistake I made, and every problem I had.

Seriously, I am going to print this comment and use it as a check list for errors.

I used SubSurface a lot, it took me 5 hours to render the "Chess" one,also had too many faces. The Queen's top really gave me trouble with sub surfacing and the strange artifacts that appeared, I used a different cylinder for the top and then subsurfed again, I decided it at the end that it looks interesting and deiced to leave it with the ripples.

The camera angel also was hard, but I liked it a bit actually because it was from the point of view of the king,a view that is pure CG, you can not capture it with a camera in real life, and is hard to draw. I thought this point of view was not often seen before,unique and original.

Well thank you for all of this advice, no one tutorial I have seen has so much useful information concentrated in one place.

Psychology? Yeah I really enjoyed this class, it was a brief intro-class but it was interesting enough to make me consider psychology for a major for a while. But I resisted the temptation of psychology and I am sticking to my Physics major.

3D art and photoshop is just a hobby for me,but I really enjoy it. And it have proved useful many times,I actually made few technical drawings and had one published in Science magazine. So I will continue and will try to learn as much as possible.
After all,art is a way of seeing and reflecting the world and being able to express oneself in another way, and No scientist should refuse this ability.

Well thank you again, I am planing to make another small render project,but this time without the usual errors hopefully( but there are always new errors to be made).

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SanderWit In reply to AleksanderK [2008-01-27 15:54:55 +0000 UTC]

Yer welcome pal. Have fun!

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SanderWit In reply to SanderWit [2008-01-22 21:57:50 +0000 UTC]

Last but not least, go to formal Elysiun, now known as Blenderartists.org. Sign up and look for Roger, that's me. That is the best site to be if you want get to know Blender.

See ye there!

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AleksanderK In reply to SanderWit [2008-01-23 04:22:53 +0000 UTC]

Thank you.
It looks like a great resource.

So far I have been using

[link] and

Blendernation.com

and Blenderartists.org. looks like a great resource to add to this.

I actually was reading animating a pawn tutorial on blendernation.com when I decided to try to create my own 3D chess set.


Thanks again.

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SanderWit In reply to AleksanderK [2008-01-25 18:31:14 +0000 UTC]

By the way pal, check these two timelapses out, they're way cool and educative .

[link]

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AleksanderK In reply to SanderWit [2008-01-27 10:25:22 +0000 UTC]

Thank you yet again for the fabulous resource.
I really like blender video tutorials.

After all if picture says a 1000 words. Then video that has 30 frames per second and is 10 minutes long has a lot to say.
1000*30*60*10= 18, 000,000. 18 million words is no joke.

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SanderWit In reply to Moondance666 [2007-09-22 07:38:55 +0000 UTC]

Haha, thanks pal!

An yes, it's 3d.

Cheers

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Moondance666 In reply to SanderWit [2007-09-24 18:05:08 +0000 UTC]

Anytime!

I'd never have guessed. 8D

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SanderWit In reply to pralinkova-princezna [2007-08-26 20:41:44 +0000 UTC]

thanks a whole lot! it's real cool to see it in such a feature, in between some lovely (digital) paintings. cool! i'm glad you haven't given up at 3D art, there are stunning things made in 3D packages. if you like, here [link] is a page with pretty much the best 3D images in the business.

i like your willy wonka drawing a lot! it's real good!

i think it's real good that you have thehungersite in your sig, it's a great initiative

best wishes

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pralinkova-princezna In reply to SanderWit [2007-08-26 21:06:47 +0000 UTC]

Haha, don't be modest, it's breathtaking. Actually, I'm not focused on 3D art now coz all my programs just refuse to cooperate and nobody is really able to help me, so I will let it sleep for a while. Some things need time. Thanks a lot for faving Wonka and your lovely comment!
Btw, didn't you get a DD on those 3D things? I can't remember..

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SanderWit In reply to qv51 [2007-08-26 20:37:02 +0000 UTC]

It's mine, my name is mentioned in the gallery there too. They asked me if they could use it there, so that was cool. Too bad the development of Yafray seems to have stopped. Still, it's great software.

Take care

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SanderWit In reply to inshadowz [2007-06-27 08:05:09 +0000 UTC]

Haha, that's really nice to hear. But to be honest the imperfections in the glass are render-glitches but I didn't removed them for I thought they kinda looked fun .

be well

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inshadowz In reply to SanderWit [2007-06-27 21:36:21 +0000 UTC]

That's all right. I won't tell

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