Thursday, December 4, 2008

Random Fun with Nonexistant Clay


Here's something I did last night. I decided to start learning 3D modeling about a week ago, and was able to get a hold of Maya and Zbrush3. Maya, while initially was daunting to me, actually got pretty easy to figure out quickly, which is always a nice thing with a program since it makes my brain start to work furiously to think what I can do with this newfound power.

I had actually tried Zbrush before, but it was Zbrush2 and the experience was...less than fun. Like grating your teeth along a chalkboard fun. I'll admit, it was mostly due to the fact that I wanted to keep approaching it as a super-special 3D modeler when in reality I guess it is designed for 2.5D work (I've yet to figure out what that actually means besides making me believe I'm messing with 3D when I'm really fooling around with 2D stuff gussied up to look like such.) So, I was a bit leary of the new Zbrush, since my memories of Zbrush2 were of abuse and torment.

Happily, that's changed! Zbrush3 is a huge improvement over its predecessor (at least to me,) and despite knowing nothing again, I was somehow able to dive in and start throwing clay (for lack of a better descriptive word) onto a ball and form a random creature. I'm going to start looking at some tutorial videos now to actually figure out the ins and outs of the program so I know what I can and can't do, but the potential it seems to have is pretty exciting...

2 comments:

Jason Caffoe said...

man, I just can't wrap my head around 3D stuff. I don't know what it is, but the interface is just the opposite of intuitive...

Andrew said...

I know how you feel, man. I takes some getting used to, but once you learn some basics, a lot of stuff falls into place.

Their interfaces are pretty bad though, huh? Zbrush 3 cleared that up a lot though compared to 2...I couldn't figure out 2 for the life of me, but 3 was a little easier to pick up.

If you want, I can help ya out if you're itchin' to learn it. I've been meaning to pick your brain again over painting anyway, since that's a wall I'm hitting anyway.