24.6.08
Talents that need use..
You guys should give me character references to attempt to model in blender. All I need is at least close to symmetrical (as close as possible, cool poses come when it's ready to animate) Front, side, and back views (It will be exactly the same on the right and left sides, as if it's been cut straight in half from top to bottom, and put on a mirror so quickly that there is no blood seen.) Try to keep every important detail visible (cool teeth means mouth wide open; body posed, as if unrealistically stretching.) I don't want to attempt a Nareskan head again, as it is very asymmetrical, but would gladly try a Sargonan. Give me ideas, and sketches, so that I can get something more MOAG-related on this blog (being a 4hr drive away from you guys, and without a license does not help when trying to be more of a part of this MOAG universe.)... anyway, This seems to me a cool idea to get more familiar to MOAG, heighten my artistic skills, and use all of this free time, so please respond in any way you feel necessary, and after a lot of time, and unavoidable frustration (Salvaggio, PUT THE NOZZLE AWAY!) ..with crappy PCs, this hopefully will have successfully happened. W00T!
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Maybe I will end up with a Sargonan walking in my living room! ..Or even a game including many a MOAG character; and have it real-time on a desk, or table, using a piece of paper, web-cam, and Blender's amazing Game Engine! The possibilities are more endless than any of us can imagine. Sweet Chicken! I might even have a system, where I export max files (.3ds) and give them to West -or even Blender's .blend files if any MOAGers decide to learn to use it (which would be better than changing programs and formats constantly). That way, you can heighten your talents too, and it will go much faster. Please comment back with Ideas!
Very ambitious Mr. Squirrel. I applaud your efforts and wish you well. Unfortunately, we're in the middle of a crunch, so I don't have much time on my hands.
As for Blender, it looks like a decent modeling program. Just remember that 98% of making 3d look good has more to do with texture application and rendering than the actual 3d modeling program you use. If you want a job in the game industry, focus on creating good solid forms and using good UV mapping and you should be able to translate that to most any 3d program. We use various 3d programs at work, Max, Maya, Zbrush, Moto, even some Mudbox, and if you know how to correctly build a form in one, it's fairly easy to pick up how to build in the others. So Mr. Squirrel, while you sharpen your skills, make sure that you get a good working base, whether in Blender or whatever, that way when you are asked to use a different program, it's all good.
I'm interested in seeing what you come up with.
As for 98% of making 3d look good having more to do with texture application, I Disagree, In many cases, this may be true, but I have seen some pretty sweet-looking untextured models. check out montagestudio.org
they have some pretty sweet time lapses, and end up with amazing heads, vehicles, and so on. And as for your various 3D modeling programs, I haven't heard of Moto or Mudbox, but the only one that stands out as freaking amazing, would be z-brush; but seeing as I only currently have like 20 bucks, and not 1700 (1000 for good PC, 700 for Z-brush itself) I can't quite use it. Thanks for the encouragement though, and after I make the model, I will UV map probably when I skin it, and post the unwrap on this very blog, along with some renders of the mesh.
The main point of using Blender, is that it is completely legal to get a free copy, or even mess with the source code. It's better than not being able to sell work, or having to spend a lot of money on max, maya, or even zbrush. It only costs as much as a 9mb download, and when you don't have many job opportunities, IE: you are 14, and live in a little military base, in the middle of a desert wasteland, calling the place you live in Dugway; you can't afford these luxuries.
I'm sorry you're stuck in a crunch, but after you get time to relax, your help shall be needed, and used.
..well, I'm getting tired of hitting the refresh button, and plan on getting up early tomorrow, so I'll check back tomorrow. Good night.
Okay, you're right, 98% seems a little much in retrospect. But take a look at those untextured models. A bad texture job can ruin a good model, is basically the point I'm getting at. Just wanted to offer you a view point of someone in the industry. Lots of people can, and do, create great models. But finishing them with the correct texture techniques seems to be more important. You can make a bad model look decent with a great texture job, and a great model look awesome. You can't however, make a bad texture look better with a good model.
Anyway, I understand your plight being from Panghootch. But keep plugging away with Blender and whatever you can get your hands on, it'll only help when you can get your hands on ZBrush or Mudbox (similar to Zbrush) or whatever else comes your way.
*Take all this with a grain of salt, I'm a UI designer, so I don't do much with 3d at work, so my comments are mostly from what I've gleaned from the Art Directors and having discussed 3d stuff with the modelers...
Yes, well, I really appreciate your feedback, and I'm not saying that textures aren't as important as models, and I WILL post a UV map, as soon as the model is made, and I will also skin it, and render a few cool poses at that point. Right now, I would love some references from you guys, seeing as I don't really have drawing skills. Once it is finished, I will try to have it walking on camera, using that nifty camera tracker I found. It exports to blender, max and a few others, I think maya might be one of them, so I'll probably upload those somewhere, and put links on the blog; as for now though, I need a way to covert the individual frames of an avi video, to tga files. The only free decompilers I found were all the same program, and they required you to install this "System guards" crap, that I didn't want using up more of my lacking RAM situation. I'll see if I can get blender to camera track, I saw some cool stuff about tracking with the game engine, but got confused and gave up. Come to think of it... I can probably put an avi into blender's VSE (video sequence editor), and render it out as tga files! Yay for me, I found a solution!
O wow!, I wight get Mudbox to run on my Pentium 3! haha... I'll need to max out on RAM (I've been planning to for a while), and I'll be 200mhz ABOVE the system requirement! LOL!
..I really doubt that It will run WELL on any of these computers. (I'm 100% sure it won't even run on the Pentium 1's or 2.) It might run OK on Sam's computer... and if I can get my dad to re-install windows, and get a couple GB of RAM, it should run well enough..
He got this nice ATI All in Wonder card, that same has had for a good while, It's a 256mb card, and will do TV stuff (I even got it to do TV full-screen, and opague, and then run quakeworld full-screen, at the same time. I was pretty sweet looking. I think I even have some screenshots of the same Idea, except with an input from my gamecube, playing the Simpson's hit and run.. I'll post them later if I find them....
Sadly enough though, after constantly having at least a slight problem, It got to the point that even after we reinstalled drivers at least 10 times, It crashes whenever you try to do any hardware rendering. (IE any OpenGL or DirectX wouldn't work)We even sent it to get fixed, and when it came back and still it didn't work, well, it's sitting in its box somewhere. Sam and I both are sure that reinstalling windows will fix the driver issues, but my dad is obnoxious, and won't listen. :(
Echo......Echo......Echo...........
Is Salvaggio the only one who is going to respond? The 2 comments I have gotten from him may have been nice, but I would like more contact with the MOAG Universe before I have to go to Salt Lake. Well...I would like some of those references if you can get around to it, but please at least comment if you still exist!
Well, Squirrel, I didn't want to interrupt the conversation between you and... well, you. ;)
By all means, please continue.
I was getting annoyed with the lack of other people, and was more talking to the vague space of the temporarily desolate MOAG universe.
Salvaggio was there part of the time, but does not seem to have much time for my request. So I ask you Bot, what have you to contribute to my cause?
I am no artist. Ask Salvaggio! I can screw up a stick figure. My arch nemesis is Pictionary! I write and generally make jokes.
As for the desolateness of the M.O.A.G. Blog space. Well, space is vast and there really isn't too much out there. But when you do find life, it turns out to be rather interesting.
Yeah..well seeing as our awesome Salvaggio is in a crunch... Where the crap is everyone else?!?!?
well... I would like to know where the crap my cousin went... He didn't come to my sister's wedding...
*MONOLOGUE ALERT!*
*MONOLOGUE ALERT!*
The reception was pretty awesome, I got to see people whom I haven't seen since I was like 5, and some I don't even recognize. I have 4 sisters, and I am the youngest in the family. My 2nd youngest sister got married yesterday, and the youngest sister had a couple close friends that were invited. One of them I haven't seen since I was a little kid. Anyway, there was a pool there that no one was told about, and after most had left my sister's friend's planned to jump into the pool. About 10 min. later, (in their nice clothes) they did! :) ...Anyway... I though I might share that with you all for no reason whatsoever. w00t! ..Well I'm glad the stress has left everyone here. My mom made the dress, and the bride even made her own cake. With help from my mom of course. She got married in the Salt Lake Temple, and is on her honeymoon now. Well, I think you are getting tired of reading this, and west is the only one whom I think will care to know this, and am pretty tired now *yawn* and am still annoyed with the lack of response to my post.
:( -he's disappointed too.
anyway, I better avoid that tired/hyper mood you saw earlier...
G'nigh' peepl'z!
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