Slashdot Mirror
Good Intro to Animation/Graphics Material?
An anonymous reader asks: "My wife, who is not at all a computer geek, wants to get more into computer graphics, with a desire to get into 3D and animation. She knows Photoshop well, but doesn't have much in the way of a computer background. I keep our computers running, but am graphics- and art-challenged.
I'd like some recommendations on how to get her started: Books, URLs, software packages. For software, Linux or Windows doesn't matter to me, but I'd prefer free or relatively inexpensive. Please, help me turn my wife into a graphics geek!"
OpenGL is a rather inexpensive 3-D graphics library that is machine independent. If she doesn't know programming, she may want to look into the Python variation (PyOpenGL?), since python is fairly easy to pick up.
The only thing I hate more than hypocrites are people who hate hypocrites.
i must say that im rather graphicly challenged and i figured out how to make blender do the things i needed for the most part. Its got a wicked learning curve(although i didn't read the manual or the tutorial), but its free etc. i think it runs on win32, and i know it runs on linux
I'd like some recommendations on how to get her started: Books, URLs, software packages.
Here's a recommended URL that may prove useful: www.google.com
Always happy to help you Ask Slashdot people,
GMD
watch this
Blender. Moonlight Creator. Softimage. Lightwave. Maya Alias/Wavefront.
BTW: google.com is your friend.
You didn't specify if she was interested in learning how to program graphics, or just make pretty pictures. Personally, I would rather program them rather than just make them in a program like Lightwave or other 3D package.
First, if she wants to learn to program graphics, I suggest she visit my site, openglforums.com. I think its a pretty good resource on OpenGL programming.
However, if your wife just wants to make pretty graphics, there are a few free or inexpensive programs available. For example, there is Blender 3D (for Linux), or MilkShape 3D (for Windows). The latter is about $25-30USD, and well worth the money.
Hope this helps.
-Vic
The problem is that graphics software.... Any 3d rendering/modeling application worthwhile is designed and priced for corporate use and finding books on open source/free applications, which usually prove, to have steep learning curves and so so results and shit interfaces.
If she is really "serious" about this I would suggest Lightwave 3d [http://www.newtek.com] and the book Inside Lightwave 7 by Dan Ablan. Overall Lightwave has an excellent rendering engine an easy to pick up interface, isn't over prices for this level of computer graphics software, and she can create anything her imagination can come up with.
But in the area of free, or very cheap, 3d modellers (particularly ones with nice UI's).
Aztec
Cost: Free (opensource)
Features: Mesh-based modelling tools w/ subd's, Full UV support, Skeletal animation, Ray-Traced render engine via Povray.
Interface: Very Max-Like, not hugely intuative, but good enough.
Usability: I picked it up pretty quickly, but I've had experience with max, those who haven't may find it a little confusing initially.
Rating: 8/10
Comments: Support for other render engines coming soon, continually developed, so expect new features to keep cropping up
Wings3d
Version: 0.97.5
Cost: Free (opensource)
Features: Good mesh-based modelling tools w/ subd's, simple render thru OpenGL. There are a lot of features I'd like to see yet (edge/poly creation, ability to do things without having to rightclick up a menu every 5 seconds), but as it's pre-1.0 I won't count this towards it.
Interface: Fairly intuative, not the best overall, but second only to anim8or.
Usability: Easy as hell, everythings pretty clearly labelled. I picked it up straight away.
Rating: 7/10
Comments: Single-pane view can get irritating occasionally, but overall a nice app. Purely for modelling, you won't get any pretty renders out of this, and the UV is limited. No animation capabilities. A lot more features expected before 1.0
Anim8or
Version: 0.8
Cost: Free
Features: Mesh-based modelling tools w/subd's, scan-line render engine, skeletal animation and full UV texturing capabilities.
Interface: Very nice, no tooltips, so can be a little tricky to get used to, but overall - good.
Usability: Odd. The interface doesn't lend itself to good workflow, but not very easy to figure out intially.
Rating: 9/10
Comments: I'd say the best I found overall, espcially for pre-1.0 . Let down slightly by its render engine, but its enough to get the job done.
Metasequoia
Version: 2.1
Cost: Freeware/Shareware
Features: Mesh-based modelling tools w/subd's, no render engine (?), no animation, limited texturing capabilites.
Interface: Can be confusing initially, due to it's extremely high ability for UI customisation. By default it's UI is a turn-off to say the least, but see dhromed's post a few down for information on customising, and a pic showing the possibilities.
Usability: Lots of buttons, quite confusing, but not that hard to pick up.
Rating: 6/10
Comments: Quite difficult to figure out, tools appear to be very unstable (splitting a polygon caused all sorts of havok). Very customisable, which is a plus, but still lacking somewhat in features and stability.
Blender
Version: 2.25
Cost: Freeware (opensource)
Features: Probably the most feature rich of the group. You'll find pretty much anything you'd expect from a commercial program, especially considering the amount of user-created plugins availble for cloth dynamics, fur etc etc. The exception to this is the apparent lack of edge, or polygon modelling. Vertex only, it would appear. You can perform any function you could perform on an edge or polygon, such as extrude, bevel, edge-bevel etc...but it's still one of its biggest downsides. Especially if you're from a box-modelling background, and can't do without your polygons, like me . Another one of its short comings is the render engine, even the best blender3d work, still has that "1995 computer graphics" looks to it. Shame.
Interface: Many peoples first thoughts are "WTF??". Quite rightly so. It's pretty horrendous at first, you can't figure out what in the hell does what, when all you want to do is make a damn box. Bad blender, BAD!
Usability: Despite the above, once you've spent a week or so learning it (it would be a lot quicker if there was actually any decent documentation available without having to buy the manual), things start clicking into place, and the interface is actually very efficient.
Rating: 8/10
Comments: Would be excellent if it wasn't for the steep learning curve. It's really not for anyone who hasn't got good experience in 3d, and a fair amount of time on their hands. However, it's extremely feature rich, and once you've learnt the interface, the speed of work-flow you can achieve is phenominal.
MilkShape3d
Version: 1.6.4
Cost: $20
Features: Your basic box-modeller, no subd's, no render engine. skeletal-based animation, and full UV support. Amazing import/export list.
Interface: Horrible. Confusing to even 3d veterans. Not at all intuative, its click click click every 3 seconds.
Usability: Limited severely. The UI needs a total overhaul, the features are there, but it's just too irritating for my tastes. I use it purely as a format conversion tool.
Rating:7/10
Comments: Good for what its designed for - games. But let down by its interface, makes everything such a chore.
AC3D
Version: 3.4
Cost: $39.95
Features: Mesh based modelling tools. Full UV texturing capabilities.
Interface: Quite bad, menu elements are in odd places, overall - not very intuiative.
Usability: Average. Things were easy-ish to find, but took some searching in odd places.
Rating: 7/10
Comments: Like milkshape, this is intended for low-poly model creation. Also like milkshape, let down by its interface, but has the tools to do the job.
Nurbana
Version: 1.03 (aplha)
Cost: Free
Features: A fully featured nurbs editor (supposadly). Custom-coded raytracing render engine. Support for materials, not sure about UV texturing. No animation.
Interface: Very simple looking, don't be decieved, there are a million keyboard shortcuts. Very confusing overall, despite its apparent simplicity.
Usability: Easy once you get to grips with it, everything is nicely organised for fast workflow, and everything is kept beautifully simple, while still providing nice results.
Rating: 8/10
Comments: It has its problems, I'd say for one that it's too simple. So simple it can be confusing. The interface didn't look like the screenshots for me, so I think it may be customisable, but no idea how. There are a few bugs, but it's only in Alpha, so that's be be expected.
Softy3d
Version: 1.0
Price: $34
Features: Where to begin? Certainly not a conventional modelling tool, but certainly one of my favourite, the results you can obtain are fantastic. let me explain.... this program works in a similar way to "meta-balls". You "sketch" out your object in spheres, and lines (with thickness references at each point you click), then you generate a mesh, which smooths over all these. Imagine the human body, all the muscles underneath, with a "skin" ontop. That's exactly what this program does. No render engine, no texturing, it's purely a modeller, to export into other programs.
Interface: Fantastic; nicely laid out, everything easily accessable. The only thing I didn't like was the white background for the 3d windows.
Usability: I hovered over a few tooltips, and I'd learned the program. It's that simple. Amazing little ap.
Rating: 9/10
Comments: It's certainly not usable for low poly work, its texturing capabilities are none, it doesn't have a render engine...BUT this is one of the most unique, original little programs I've come accross. Try it. TRY IT.
Nyquil = Nectar of the devil
It sounds more like she wants to model, illustrate and animate rather than code to me.
On both the Mac and Wintel sides, Cinema4D is a fairly inexpensive, very powerful and very user friendly 3D modeling/rendering/animation suite. Probably the easiest to pick up that I've found personally.
It's sold modularly now, so you just purchase the functionality that you need, and a free demo is available to gague your wife's interest.
I've been using it for several years now personally over Lightwave/Maya/etc. The interface of Cinema is rather similar to the more "standard" packages on the market, and skills cross over rather well.
Of note is that in order to use, well, any 3D modeling/rendering packages it's best to have at least an overview of the way vector-based drawing works -- ie beziers and the like.
Not only does Adobe Illustrator give you those fundamentals, it works very nicely with any modelling package. Macromedia Freehand is also pretty interchangable in that regard, however the Postscript isn't as clean for complex work.
There are three categories of knowledge you need to develop to do this successfully.
1. Static image creation / editing.
2. 3D modeling / animation.
3. Video compositing / editing.
Don't, don't, don't neglect any of these categories. Specifics within the categories are not as important as the categories themselves.
However...
1. Static image creation / editing:
Photoshop is the 800 pound gorilla. If you don't photoshop (yes, I used it as a verb) you're starting with a disadvantage. If you want, though, you can use CorelDraw / PhotoPaint or even PaintShop Pro if you're feeling stingy.
2. 3D modeling / animation
Two entirely different skills that often use the same software. 3D Studio Max or Lightwave are the biggies here. SoftImage is good but expensive. Don't even think about character animation at this stage. By the time she's ready for it, she'll know what to do. The cheap products in this category aren't worth considering.
3. Video compositing, editing
Adobe AfterEffects for compositing / 2D animation is the heavy hitter in this category. Video editing software has really opened up lately, so it doesn't matter so much what you use now. Different people have different preferences. Premiere, VegasVideo, etc. will work just fine.
Things not to use: Gimp, Linux, Macs
Best Windows Freeware
One hotspot is Flash cartoons. oddtodd.com is an example of someone making a living (if you call that living) from Flash cartoons. There are numerous books on the subject.
This recommendation comes with a proviso, the PL edition brands everything with an obvious watermark and isnt as fast in rendering images as the full product. But its more than sufficient to play about with.
Another item which may be of interest is Learning Maya | Beginner's Guide, A DVD tutorial with a copy of Maya PL edition upon it, $20 or so. Looks a rather handy introduction, however the plain Maya PL edition comes with good tutorials and a pdf version of a book introducing CG animation.
troodon.net
You can use software like Hash Animation Master (hash site seems to be down - linking to a vendor) or Truespace (older versions) as a way of getting some easier-to-use tools for only a couple hundred dollars. This will allow her to get her feet wet and see how much work is really involved in putting together even the simplest animation - which is a good way to tell if this is something for her or not.
If she likes it, both of these programs can turn out decent output, though she probably won't be making feature length films. The concepts learned will translate to more sophisticated packages in the future. Even though the interfaces change, the skill in learning how to model, light, and convincingly move your characters is not application specific.
As someone else has mentioned, if she wants to learn on pro software, Maya is available for free download, but it is a crippled version. Everything will be watermarked. OK for learning, but often the best way to learn is in producing things for others, which you wouldn't do with watermarked output.
--
Browse your local bookstore. Many 3d books come with CDs with trial versions of software.
--
Much of what she'll need to know doesn't involve the computer. Like I said earlier, knowing how to do things like light a scene is essential.
I don't have the ISBNs handy (so no links, sorry) but look into books like:
--
Also, look at local colleges. They may offer a course in animation. This is good if she'd rather learn in an instructor-led environment.
I also used to do this for a living, and I can tell you that there's no reason to avoid Linux if that's already the platform she's used to. It's used in many professional studios, and I hope the previous post didn't make you think that it's any less effective as a platform.
The best advice I can give for a 3d newbie is to try to find people who are nearby and accessible. Look for user groups and attend them. What program you use is less important than the concepts learned. When I started out, I asked countless questions from more experienced users (still do), and I'll always be indebted to them.
I'd look at the free version of Maya or GMAX. Those other programs are fine (Blender, etc.), but it may be hard to find support even from other users. There are plenty of Maya user groups for example, and if she can stick it out and learn it, she'll be rewarded. The free version of Maya used to have really annoying watermarks in the OpenGL viewports, but I believe the new version tones it down.
If you don't mind shelling out a few, Hash Animation Master is an unbelievable package for the price.
May I suggest what my daughter is doing. Go to college! My child is enrolling at a decent art college, in an unnamed west coast city some 3000 miles from where I live, because there are NO good art schools on our side of the map. I spoke to her about online schooling,and she says that the courses she wants (graphic animation and the like) aren't widely available. The school she chose is "the school" for animation. People graduating from there go on to work for the really big animation and art businesses.
was texturing and lighting. I got truespace to play around with, and found that given an object and calipers, it was realitivly trivial to make the model. But I stuggled mightily to get something that would look halfway decent when rendered. It ended up being something that I wasn't able to intuit by myself. Ultimately my limited experience has been making something is 5% modeling, 35% texturing, and 60% lighting.
A book I found that helped my somewhat was The Art of 3-D Computer Animation and Imaging by Isaac Victor Kerlow, ISBN 0-471-28649-4. The short review was that it's a pretty complete overview, if a little dated (it was published in '96) but it has plenty of examples, and while it is layed out like a text book it is a very easy read. While my ability to texture and light stuff did improve to the point where you could tell what I rendered and what I was going for, it's still pretty lacking. It's just not an area I have a great deal of talent, which of course shouldn't reflect on the book.
At least I'm not alone. Judging from all the cg in movies where the lighting doesn't match that of the scene, it's probably one of the most difficult elements to master.
--Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
-- Argel
Dump her. She's high maintenance!
WinImages is a "must have' program, especially since it's on sale. It includes a 3D render program.
Besides Blender, there's another open source program at www.openfx.com which has its roots in the old Sculpt 3D program.
Spend a few days looking at the sites in the dmoz.org 3D sections. When looking at which program to buy or put your time into, read through the discussion groups devoted to the program. For example, Caligari was mentioned, but if you read the sites forums, it doesen't seem to be a program worth dealing with.
Maya, Softimage, Lightwave are often mentioned as the top programs, but you may not need that sort of power, and expense, if she's not planning to work for a company using those programs.
New Riders publishes some execllent books, especially Digital Cinematography & Directing, Digital Lighting & Rendering, and Digital Texturing and Painting.
DVD's are also a great source of "behind the scenes" info. Movie FX Mag has some good sections on CGI.
A good option for doing 3D modeling and animation is Hash's Animation Master. Last I checked, it was priced around $300...much more affordable than the professional software people have been listing here.
I don't do much 3D animation work myself, but I've been told that individual artists often use this product to make demo animations, until they get some sort of break and are able to buy professional software.
I don't believe there is a Linux port, and the Mac version is terribly unstable. Still, the Windows port is pretty solid.
I highly recommend trueSpace (any version) from Caligari.
They've got a few Holiday Specials (for 3 more days), one of which is trueSpace4 for $99!
Another application that I recommend is Blender. It's free and runs on several Operating Systems.
This user account is inactive account replaced by the PDA
DEFINITELY start reading the magazines associated with the business!!
Cinefex is a terrific place to start. it's solid jargon, and talks tech easily. that's good, cos you discover most other publications just advertise a lot, and tell very little.
Our pals at google do have a nice listing of other trade publications you can look up.
Some background first : My Pop started his own CG/post studio in 1989 and I've been hooked ever since.
You're asking in the wrong forum. Go to CGTalk.com and ask in Main Forum -> General
Phrase your questions properly and make them interesting. They get a TON of the same questions (or its variants), so chances are you'll be ignored. However, this very aspect also means you can search the forums and explore through older related threads.
My personal advice. You want to not spend any money first. Not until the user knows whether the toolset / style of the program suits them.
There are 4 major professional 3D programs (some will include Houdini as well) they are
Avid SoftImage XSI [3.0]
(XSI Experience @ www.softimage.com)
discreet 3ds max [5.0]
(gmax @ www.discreet.com)
Newtek Lightwave [7.5]
(order from Newtek.com)
Alias/Wavefront Maya [4.5]
(Maya PLE @ www.aliaswavefront.com)
The rest are prosumer.
All of the above programs comes in a free demo version (on their respective company websites)
These versions more or less offer the full functionality, but don't allow you to save in the formats that the commercial versions use. Also, they place watermark over the rendered images.
For someone with no prior 3D experience, I suggest you try LightWave. If she likes it, its the cheapest to buy. But apart from that, mainly because its pretty easy to learn.
An up and coming prog is Cinema4D. I haven't used this one personally, so I can't comment.
CGTalk.com also has links to learning resources (from novice to complex) for most programs in their respective forums.
RAPH.com has gallery of 3D art. Look over these, but don't pay much attention when considering which package to buy. Good artists can make good images in any program. BUT advanced tools DO make life as a 3D artist easier and more interesting.