Let's start this up again

[Gare]

𝗜𝘁 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝘁𝘂𝗺𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗮𝗰𝗿𝗼𝘀𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗮 𝗼𝗳 𝗧𝗮𝗹𝗸𝗚𝗿𝗮𝗽𝗵𝗶𝗰𝘀, 𝗯𝗲𝗰𝗮𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝗶𝘁 𝗹𝗼𝗼𝗸𝘀 𝗮𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗵𝗮𝘀𝗻’𝘁 𝗯𝗲𝗲𝗻 𝗮 𝗽𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗶𝗻 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝗻 𝗮 𝗱𝗲𝗰𝗮𝗱𝗲.




That’s both sick and wrong.



I’ve been working with modeling and rendering software (oh, and animation) for about as long as I’ve been using Xara Designer. And I’m still a journeyman at both.
As a “Roaming Moderator” on TG, I think I could get a little more enthusiasm and participation here because 1.) 3D is really cool. Has everyone experimented with Xara Designer’s Extrude too and/or the standalone animation program?

2.) Getting into professional level 3D will not break your budget. While Cinema 4D, 3D studio and the like have driven their prices up to two to three figures for a subscription (I detest SubscriptionWare)—Blender is free, always has been, and while you need t buy a $eparate module to do particle effects, Blends comes with a rather excellent fluid dynamics, explosions, clouds and other particle effects. It’s rendering engine is pretty darned good, too—I’ve been using Maxwell Render forever, and I have to hand it to the collaborative effort that goes into Blender.

3.) My third reason for typing all of this here is that increasingly, the companies who manufacture mega-capable programs with industrial-strength price tags are creating “lesser Gods”—free versions of the complete programs, with a limited, but not terribly crippled feature set. You can download “starter sets” from 3D Coat, zBrush (now part of MAXON/Cinema4D), and AutoDesk, all sculpting programs, with export options such as OBJ, a very commonplace file format for 3D.

Also, you might be able to find Adobe Dimensions, currently woven into Illustrator, for $3 or so on eBay, as orphanware goes. The neat thing about Dimensions is that it can render and extruded shape and a lathe one (think of a potter’s wheel) as vector shapes, not bitmaps as Xara Graphics produces. You might even be able to find a copy of CorelDRAW version(s) 2 and up for a pittance online (I’m thinking search Amazon) because Corel Corporation tends not to burn its back inventory with the release of a new version.
This is a sufficiently long, hopefully not excruciatingly long re-introduction to this forum. By all means, ask away! How does one begin conceptually? How steep are learning curves? That sort of stuff.

I hope to see y’all along the x, y, or z axis,

My Best,


Gary