I have the sudden urge to try my hand at 3D art.

I’ll make something 3D and post it here hehe.

OOOH I could make us some crusty emotes!

Is blender hard?

  • NephewAlphaBravo [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    28 days ago

    The worst thing about learning it is accidentally clicking something before you know how to un-click it. Fucking up a viewport and derailing a fun tutorial sucks ass.

  • Aradina [She/They]@lemmy.ml
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    28 days ago

    Blender has a reputation for being difficult to learn, but the UI has actually improved a lot these last few years and its much more user friendly.

    It’s very fun and rewarding

  • Owl [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    28 days ago

    It’s a little tricky but people learn it all the time. The Blender Guru “donut tutorial” is a good starting point.t

  • TheBroodian [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    28 days ago

    As others have said, learning 3d modeling is kind of a pain in the ass in general, but Blender is so incredibly well documented, and there are so many tutorials out there for it, that I would say that it’s incredibly accessible.

  • Spacehooks@reddthat.com
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    28 days ago

    So I had zero expirence in art 2 years ago and I now I spend more time in blender daily now than I sleep. I love blender and will not go back to other cad tools. Because it does everything. Make a mech and bam I can render it in same tool and manifold it for 3d print.

    If just trying to 3d model for art and if like me have 0 talent then 3 things I recommend:

    1. watch a tutorial video on making a human model. It’s not important you know everything as much as seeing all the methods available and tricks. Took me 2 days following it before I moved on to my own stuff.

    2. watch a 15 min video on booleans. Learning to use that was a game changer for me. I use them all the time now in everything I make.

    3. now this is the hardest and longest to learn for me; lighting and color. This is the money maker for art. Mastering Shader nodes is currently beyond me but it makes a difference. Don’t forget HDRI and textured materials can go a long way. Blender has a bunch of free ones to play with.

    It took about 6 months to get gud. After 2 years, im now going back to projects that I couldn’t handle before and it’s sooo satisfying. Don’t give up! It’s like souls game you just get better.

  • oscardejarjayes [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    28 days ago

    It’s really not that bad, it used to be worse. There’s plenty of tutorials, and while Blender is a bit complicated, you don’t need to learn all of it to get good at it.

  • AmericaDeserved711 [any]@hexbear.net
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    28 days ago

    I think Blender’s UI is pretty good these days but there are still some things that are needlessly convoluted. often times you will have to enable some obscure setting to make things work. also stuff changes a lot so older tutorials might be outdated

    I’d say 3D art is pretty complicated in general so there’s a lot to learn if you’re just starting out, but it can be very rewarding

  • robot_dog_with_gun [they/them]@hexbear.net
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    28 days ago

    blender is pretty miserable, maybe working in 3d is just shit no matter what and it’s not blender’s fault, but if 2d art tools were as bad as blender nobody would make digital art.

    maybe the process is better in a classroom setting?

    • TreadOnMe [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      28 days ago

      Working in 3D is hard no matter the program. Learning how to do it well requires a good grasp of geometry, boundary logic, extrusion and cuts. Basically if you know how to look at a block and what cuts you need to make from it to create something, you can make anything, but if you are thinking of it as a drawing program, it is significantly different.

      Animation is awful though and I am very bad at it.

      • robot_dog_with_gun [they/them]@hexbear.net
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        28 days ago

        my math fundamentals are decent, it’s the gulf between what i expect to be able to do and what i’m able to look up and figure out how to do that’s a lot of my problem.

        the subdivisions and patterns i can see as a human are meaningless to the machine and functions like select similar, shrinkwrap and select edge loop are so dumb it’s frequently faster to drag select hundreds of edges two at a time to fill a gap with faces, or vertices one by one to remove part of something

      • keepcarrot [she/her]@hexbear.net
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        28 days ago

        I feel like I clicked way better with parametric 3d software than with blender.

        I still want to learn blender though, I bought myself hard surface stuff and printed out shortcuts. I just need some life stability. (Also, sometimes I butt up against something where I’m like “this would be trivial in solidworks!”, very frustrating)

      • bigboopballs [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        28 days ago

        Learning how to do it well requires a good grasp of geometry, boundary logic, extrusion and cuts. Basically if you know how to look at a block and what cuts you need to make from it to create something, you can make anything

        Is there a way I can study/learn about this stuff aside from trial and error?

        I’ve always felt like I should understand the basic theory of how to do 3D modeling (and why it’s done that way), but tutorials are always crash courses in how to navigate the UI.

        • TreadOnMe [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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          28 days ago

          Not sure. I learned how to do it through school, where we basically had about 3 months of class that was UI crash course, and from there it was about a year of theory, particularly focused in assembly and CAD.

  • shath [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    28 days ago

    blenders ui sucks ass but it’s super powerful and good

    once you’re over the initial “how do i interact with this” it’s easier

  • NewAcctWhoDis [any]@hexbear.net
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    28 days ago

    Make sure whatever tutorial you use is for a recent version (I think 4+) because it changes a lot

    I did the donut and it was a lot easier than I expected.

    • The_Grinch [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      28 days ago

      I took a 3d modeling class using blender in highschool ten years ago (holy shit) and yeah I’m totally lost in blender today. It’s definitely very different.