I really love #10 and #12 ,
To my understanding, they seem to come together into a single being.
Bassicly they both say, keep track of what you’re doing and why you’re doing it.
I guess some people follow tutorials to a strict detail so in that respect they’re not experiencing what it is that they’re doing and thus wouldn’t learn anything.
Same goes for people that cannot analyze their work or workflow while working.
Though I’m not entirely convinced that #12 is entirely correct.
I can work on a project in a certain way that would prove to be tedious. After a while I think about a different way to approach my problem, but that would often involve even more work to get setup for the first time.
I fully realise that you can only win time by investing time in the improvement of a workflow. But where to find that time to invest is a different matter all along.
Here’s one that you could add to the list though.
If you notice that you don’t finish your work or leave everything hanging.
Isolate yourself with your work. Unplug your web connection and work on it untill you’re satisfied.
I can relate to this. After graduating from art college, I had to pursue design on my own because nothing of design was taught in the fine arts side of the school. Luckily, I had a resource close at hand and, within a few years, got a pretty good handle on it.
@holyenigma74: Learning the fundamentals of art is like learning how to use the tools of a carpenter. Being taught to use the tools is not the same as being told what to create or how to create it any more than learning to use a hammer and saw dictates that you must build specific wooden objects.
But I can certainly understand why someone like yourself who has no art training would think that way. Trying to understand anything from the outside is far more difficult and takes far more effort and, in the end, one’s understanding can never be as deep.
than you are not going to produce something you are not ashamed of. I call my current drawings Bad Drawings, even though several people have asked me not to, because the are not level I want to draw or paint it.
The only way to get to them to the level I want them to be is to draw. So didn’t get hang up on the fact that your drawings are not at the level you want them to be post them anyways get critiqued and told were you weaknesses are.
I sometimes get the feeling you are a little nuts in the paranoid isolationist kind of way…A simple list of things artist should consider in their development generates this kind of response. You do know that it is just advice 4ton is giving out nobody is forcing any one to conform to anything. He is just sharing his thoughts
I disagree with #7 because photoreal is, Yes, the pinnacle of 3D (understood as the most difficult thing to achieve).
You can go to the Mango blog and there one of the guys was talking how they sometimes just look at the shots and wonder and wonder how to make it more photoreal.
And in the photoreal the most difficult thing is a pretty woman.
I am still an engineer but come now you don’t need a psychology degree to see that something is a little off in your reaction to all this. the advice that 4tonmantis dashed out is good advice but its also the generic and clichéd type that you hear often repeated in countless blogs and other sites. You are acting like he is trying to brainwash you…“conformity is cool, join the collective” don’t you think you going just a little overboard here. All he is trying to do is make people better artists he is not trying to turn you into mindless sheep. He is trying to get people to think more, to be more introspective of what they do.
What he said is just plain good advice. use references, practise your traditional art, learn to take critism, learn to work without tutorials etc.
You’re right to say that they are difficult and an art on their own that only a few can actually master. But to say it’s the pinnacle of 3D is debatable. We’re dealing with art here and art does not adhere by rules of realism nor does it by rules of abstractness.
As long as your work can aspire your audience to think about it or if it can spark an idea, if it has character and meaning your work will be good. That’s the reason that abstract art exists.
I think he meant to say was that you don’t want to go and waste all your time on getting surreal renders if your base mesh isn’t even believeable or for that matter interesting to look at.
To clarify.
The points on this list are not to “force anyone” to do anything. They are things I did that made it more difficult for me to move forward. The definition of being successful or talented or whatever in this instance, is to be able to create what you want in the way that you want. There are limitations that go along with that based on what you know and understand. There are also things people get caught up in doing that makes it harder…but they aren’t aware that they’re kicking their own ass.
Photo-realism is not the pinnacle because not everyone wants to create a perfect copy of a human being, car, glass of ice. For some people creating something that “could be” real is way more important. For example… look at Alice in Wonderland. It has such a surreal feel to it. The elements there are hyper-realistic and believable… but they are not photo-realistic (they are hyper-realistic). Now look at a movie like The Incredibles… It’s very believable, despite featuring all manner of non-realistic elements. For many people, making something that doesn’t exist and having it be believable is the pinnacle. I guess the real point is that the idea of a pinnacle is futile. Instead, shoot for solid, believable work. I might edit the first post to reflect this after breakfast.
Being able to draw isn’t the point of learning traditional skills. Notice that I didn’t actually mention learning to draw. It’s far more valuable to learn the concepts like gesture, composition, negative space, etc. Art is a language and those are the words. Drawing is simply one of many dialects. I create traditional art, but have no illusions that I’m amazing at it. I do it because I enjoy it and by attempting to improve, I am broadening by ability to perceive the world.
Not posting your work because you’re ashamed of it means you will never receive one of the most valuable tools for improving… Feedback from other artists. When I have time, I happily provide critique, paint-overs, or general advice. There are many others who do the same. If you don’t post for fear of ridicule, please understand that if you do post and someone legitimately ridicules you for posting art on a site that is dedicated to artists, then they are trolling. There are people who administer the site and they are your backup in these instances. I do suggest that you learn to deal with hecklers though… There will always be a wiseass in the crowd who feels empowered by diminishing others.
Great stuff 4tonmantis! I’m seeing several things I’m still doing “wrong”… one of which is traditional art, like drawing. I’ve never really been good at traditional art (artistic expression is not my strong-suit…too nerdy XD), but I really should try and get a better grasp on it. I know that my experiments with photography and 3D have complemented each-other though, so I guess that’s a start.
…wait, does digital photography count as “traditional art”? :eyebrowlift2:
Anyway, thanks for posting these! (I’m guessing this was inspired by Jonathan’s thread?)
I am not really following here If I have 10 flaps (by flaps I assume something like fins) and each is rigged, why wouldn’t I simply use ‘copy rotations’ constraint with different degree of influence and use one control bone to rotate all of them ?
I think you’re missing the point… that or trying to bait me into a “gotcha” type of situation. Clearly you knew how to do this and were asking me for some unknown reason. That is contrary to the the entire purpose of this thread.
Not really. What I was thinking about when you mentioned the “curve” is some kind of spline IK thing where by moving control points I’d move flaps. But apparently it turned out to be something else.
In no way I am trying to get you in a “gotcha” situation. Just trying to learn new tricks when I see something like that (but usually it’s just my imaginations playing tricks on me )
Ha, my bad man… I think the blenderboi thread had me a little on edge for that kinda thing. Like I said, I’ve been working in Maya the last 2 weeks or so and sometimes the specific terminology crosses over… It’s even worse with hotkeys… I can’t tell you how many times I’ve tried to pan in a 3d program using the spacebar (Photoshop’s pan key).
The flaps thing is kinda specific and I tried to avoid specifics but that particular point required a few examples… It’s funny because if I’m doing a tutorial or watching someone do a demo I see this most often but when I tried to list out a few thoughts on things I’ve seen over the years, that was the best I could come up with. I’m sure if I were on the outside watching me work, I’d pick up on a ton of things I do that fall into the overly tedious category).
I think it is worth mentioning… that if something IS complex then it’s going to be complex… For example… building a switch to change an object between parenting to a character or parenting to a world node… That is by it’s nature a complex relationship… Once you grasp the concept though, it can be easy to find ways to do it that are more efficient.
If I have 10 flaps (by flaps I assume something like fins) and each is rigged, why wouldn’t I simply use ‘copy rotations’ constraint with different degree of influence and use one control bone to rotate all of them ?
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