Oh Me oh Maya

First of all a big thanks goes to Autodesk for helping me to get my license working.  I find that even though my version is old (2003) but new, it is surprising powerful. it has subsurfs, NURBs, Effect paint, texture paint, dynamics, and weight paint, oh my! I found a book called MAYA 8 at a glance and been using that to learn it, although there are a few things only applicable to the newer versions, I been able to follow the book almost  verbatim. I find it a very useful tool for making maquette references for my artwork. I haven’t tried the animation or rigging, but I had fun with soft and ridged dynamics ( I made a groups of balls collide w/ each other down  down a endless cliff with a waterfall). I feel comfortable using this with my projects due to the fact I have a commercial license. I don’t know I i can display artwork made with my educational version of 3ds Max in my portfolio. I only have a few month left on my 3ds max license, so I am going to try to get certified by the end of this month. I probably will just stick with Maya and Hex after that. I will upload some 3d art I have made so far in the future.

Week two and three

I finally finished all the tutorials for 3dsmax on the e-subscription learning page. I must admit I a bit disappointed, they where geared more toward beginners and although there where new features to learn that where not in gMax, it was still pretty basic. The most annoying aspect about the modeling chapter is the overuse of booleans. I despise booleans, they always leave extra ugly polygons that you have to clean up. It would be easier just to bridge the polygons yourself. I am seeking out a more advanced 3ds max book to purchase, they seem to be hard to find in bookstores (yet they have zillions of books on Maya…maybe i chose the wrong program) If you have a favorate, please suggest it in the comments . Thanks.

Day Five

Finish the online tutorial on modeling which I was somewhat disappointed with.  It had a entire chapter on booleans. From my experience with booleans in other programs they create bad topography, the new proboolean tool is no better. I followed the exercises to a tee and when done  I found bad topography. Just say no to booleans. On the other hand the spline exercises were very useful. I haven’t used splines in the past and now I can see application of some techniques onto future models. The tutorials didn’t have one word about polygonal modeling. Go figure. Fortunately I have experience with polygonal modeling in blender. If you can model in blender, you can model in ANYTHING.

Day Three and Four

I decided to take a break from the tutorial and just mess around with 3DS Max. I made a cool twisted stone like pedestal by creating a box the giving in about 40 segments in height, extruded every other face, twist it then taper it. I also found a great way to make a airplane bunker is to create a plane of 40 segments, add a shell and then bend it 90 degrees. Plan to to continue the tutorials tomorrow

Day Two

Finished the first of the five lessons. Nothing too exciting.

Day One

After joining and being accepted for the Autodesk Assistance Programs. I choose 3DS Max as the software to become certified in. This seems to be the best choice for me because I had experience messing with GMAX years ago so hopefully I am able to recall some experience I had with that program. I started the subscription training tutorials and so far they have been very useful.

Unemployed can learn Autocad, 3dsmax, and other software free via Autodesk Assistance Program

If you are currently unemployed (or a student) and would like to learn a major 3d package such as 3dsmax or Maya , Autodesk has extended it’s Auto Assistance Program to March 31,2010. Autodesk will provide you a free six month non commercial license on the software you choose, a free year subscription to Autodesk  University (a $500 dollar value in itself), TONS of free tutorials to learn the software and discounts on becoming certified. If you always  wanted to learn software used  in the videogame, movie , design, or cad industry but couldn’t afford the software or training,  now is the time.

More info here

http://students.autodesk.com/?nd=m_assistance_welcome

Blender 2.5 a0 has arrived!

Exciting news. Blender 2.5 a has been released. This is a massive revision to the user interface which was originally cluttered and confusing is now streamlined and organized in a clean, logical way and resemble more commercial 3d applications. Due to this I have improved my work flow with blender considerably because I am not hunting and picking on the ui because I forgot a keyboard shortcut. So far most of the features I have used in the past blenders are currently in this one. 3D artists that where timid by blender in the past might just wan’t to jump in with the improvement in this version. Ether way it still has some one of the best uv un-wrapping and texture painting tools available in a open source 3d app. It also has a strong armature system and wight paining system. Since this is a alpha, some features do not work such as python plug-ins that import-export files and one I had the text in the menus turn to gibberish for no apparent reason.

download it for free at:

http://www.blender.org/download/get-25-alpha/

http://www.blender.org/download/

Please note 3d newbies: blender is a complicated app, but so are most 3d apps, it takes patience,  practice, and some frustration to learn them, but it is rewarding once you figure it out. Most of the rules in blender can be used in other 3d apps. Make sure you have fun and do not get discouraged.