Anim8or Community
General Category => General Anim8or Forum => Topic started by: 3D Joe Wiltshire on October 25, 2008, 05:56:41 pm
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But i'm gonna have a look at some Blendr tutorials, see if i can get the hang of the shortcuts and tools, i may just give up in about 5 mins, but whatever...
I really just want to use blender for games... since the in-built game engine looks pretty powerful...
Wish me luck, or don't, i know some of you have a bad disposition (hope that's the right term to use) towards Blender... I may post some progress here, and if i find it easy / hard, i'll get back to you...
Any tips you can give me before i get started will be appreciated.
Thanks
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I hate you Joe. ;)
Once you are familialr with the interface do this http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/BSoD/Introduction_to_Character_Animation
If you have a model ready to rig skip to the rigging part.
good luck
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Thank you, it promises to be a very educational experience.
:P
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I'm having a two-days-mini course this wednesday and thursday about Blender, throught it's almost nothing, I'm going to use Blender too, mate :D
But I can't put what I learned in anim8or away, so I'll use both...
Good luck for us!
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Best of luck Joe, I hope you get what you want out of the program and whether someone hates you for it - which I would doubt - is irrelevant ;)
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Nice, i'm actually feeling really... overwhelmed (probably not the right word to use) , perhaps I should've looked at their forums only after becoming farmiliar with Blender...
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Its really weird starting a new program after learning one. I learned everything on bryce (a graphic design class in highschool) and then started playing with anim8or... ive tried blender, and maya, and both of them overwhelm me every time, and i always just go back to either bryce or anim8or. though, i really need to push through and learn maya if i ever want to get really serious with it I guess.
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I've had a look at a couple of other CG / Animation programs and TBH I keep coming back to the fantastic Anim8or.
IMHO I think it's the simplicity of Anim8or and that .....er........I guess it's old school...I mean if you want to do do something YOU have to work it out & do it yourself. Which is great my 9 year old loves Anim8or and want's to model / animate for one of the big 360 games like Gears of War, Oblivion or the new Fable2.
Anyway good luck 3DJW
PS I don't hate you :-*
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Well I will say this
Lately I have been trying out new software (here is the list)
- Carrara
-Hexagon
-Bryce 5.5
-Maya 8.5 learners addition
And all of them have their pluses and minuses
Like I like how carrara has part of its interface set up and the tree selection and background selection is very nice (you can customize your own tree) and it has a good renerer.
Hexagon, I havent messed with it completely, but I heard that the new version(have to pay for it) is pretty awesome.
Bryce, I says that it is good at landscape and it wasn't lying the terrian editor is amazing,but......you have to download daz studios for it to work so that is just extra unwanted space.
Maya, well I just got it yesterday so I haven't messed with it yet but from what I have learned it is one of the best software out there(yea that sounds a little biased but it is used widely in the professional CG world)
And I haven't installed truespace yet but I may tonight.
So for the mean time I will be messing with all of these different programs, but..... I will say this about anim8or
Like you have heard before it is simple and that is the truth. Also the main modeling part is ROCK SOLID it really does cut through all of the oher cwap that some programs can tend to have (I am not knocking anybody and their program of choice)
So yes anim8or has a long way to go, but I think that it has some aspects of other modeling programs beat ;)
Also good luck with blender ;D
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i think steve would agree that to limit yourself to one program or stile is only short changing yourself. i too (gulp) just recently started leaning blender. i just learned how to select. maya(sp?) would be greate to learn
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Yeah, the main reason i've decided to seriously try Blender now, is because i don't want to become too farmiliar with anim8or, rendering me useless with any other program, especially the more... professional (complicated) ones.
But i agree, my modeler of choice is still anim8or, since it's so easy, and as you've said, rock solid.
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Nooooo, I think I have to join you :(
My goal will always be game development. Unfortunately, all the game engines can only animate some types of models (.x and .ms3d), so I need a program that can rig and export in those formats.
Blender sounds like the way to go.
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First impressions: holy crap thats disorienting. I first open a program and am faced with hundreds of tiny buttons and menus with no idea what any of them do.
I mean, I'm sure it's convenient for people with years of experience in the program, but its no wonder people say anim8or is good if you want to do something now.
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Yeah, completely agree with that... First opening of blender had me sitting there and scratching my head...
I've heard someone say something along the lines of
'Most modelling programs run on my computer, blender runs in my head'
It's superfast once you get used to all the shortcuts and fiddly buttons... but very difficult to get used to...
I haven't found the drag select equivalent in Blender yet... don't know if there is one.
And handling with a few faces in a big model is difficult, since it always wants to select every face except the ones you want it to.
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I'm going through the tutorial linked from this post, its getting better.
Drag select is done by pressing b, then the box.
I think this is what's so odd, the buttons themselves aren't what do the work: its all in menus and hotkeys. This means memorising hundreds of hotkeys.
Also, the program seems to have confused the left and right buttons: They have right as 'select' or click, and left to access menus :S
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I found Blender Basics pdf really useful, you can download it from http://www.cdschools.org/54223045235521/blank/browse.asp?A=383&BMDRN=2000&BCOB=0&C=55205 (http://www.cdschools.org/54223045235521/blank/browse.asp?A=383&BMDRN=2000&BCOB=0&C=55205)
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Coolio, thanks jeff.
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if you want a really solid resource for blender then i would highly recommend this book... Its like the blender bible! the essential blender http://www.amazon.co.uk/Essential-Blender-Guide-Creation-Source/dp/1593271662/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1226336239&sr=8-1 (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Essential-Blender-Guide-Creation-Source/dp/1593271662/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1226336239&sr=8-1) I no it has quite a price tag on it but its the best book out there. New and used is probz the best option for buying. Also if you want to look at some other books, a little series has started to be made by another author "tony mullen",
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Introducing-Character-Animation-Blender-Roosendaal/dp/0470102608/ref=pd_sim_b_1 (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Introducing-Character-Animation-Blender-Roosendaal/dp/0470102608/ref=pd_sim_b_1)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bounce-Tumble-Splash-Simulating-Physical/dp/0470192801/ref=pd_sim_b_2 (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bounce-Tumble-Splash-Simulating-Physical/dp/0470192801/ref=pd_sim_b_2)
I think there are also some other books floating around but these are the ones i am most familiar with... and also theres nothing wrong in moving onto blender! Its an amazing piece of software!
Hope this helps...