General help for a beginer

[Mr.B]

Well first of all I will let you guys know I am starting 3d modeling and I know some basics. But I will list some major questions I have.

1. Gmax or softimage XSI? These were free downloads and I don't wanna bother buying a program for modeling unless I decide to get serious about it. XSI looks like I can do alot more with it but Gmax looks more simple. I think I am leaning more towards XSI right now. Just give me your opinions.

2. I have tried to do many tutorials, from sites such as 3d buzz and such (for both Gmax and XSI) but I am having trouble finding good tutorials to get me started on actually modeling from pictures, like cars. So if anyone knows any good tutorials that would help me get started with that sort of thing that would be great.

3. If you guys can give me some magical words of wisdom to help me get started 3d modeling, go ahead.

 

[Mint_Sauce]

Hey man, I use 3DMAX and have no experience in XSI and so am unable to help there. The only thing I know about the two packages is that Max is the standard for games modelling but I believe XSI is now hot on it's tale and is becomming the preffered package (I could be wrong). I've only really made one car model and it's not finished but I would say do teh Buzz tutorials, they're really good!! Then get blueprints from www.onnovanbraam.com I think he has a tutorial on how to best set up the blueprints in Max as well so take a look. I would also recommend using Poly modelling to model cars with and do each panel one by one. Here's a good tutorial created by a net friend from the www.digitalrendering.com forums. http://hem.passagen.se/dh1998/3d/gto/modelling01.html

Anyways, have fun!

 

[Mr.B]

Mint or anyone do you think you could either try to explain this to me or try to find a tutorial on something similar? I haven't been able to find anything like this.

First of all, I know how to put images to the backgrounds, but is there a special way to make sure the images are scaled the same?

on that tutorial you gave me for making the car, the guy says
"create a box anywhere and convert it to an editable mesh, select all its faces and delete them. Delete isolated vertices too. Now you have something (well nothing really...) to start with. Create four vertices and make a four-sided polygon with them. I will use this polygon and extrude its edges to make other polygons and build from that. "
He loses me at the delete isolated vertices, whats an isolated vertex? And then he says to create 4 vertices to make a square basically. Was that whole first step of making a box and stuff pointless? Because it seems to me like you create something then delete it, then create something tottally diferent and work with that.

And my last question is, when he is creating the panels for the car body, how does he bend them perfectly? Does he just create a flat box then drag the vertices down on one side to fit the views then weld them to other boxes and repeat?

Now I'm not sure if my questions make sense, but if you can, I would really appriciate this help thanks.

 

[Mint_Sauce]

What he means is, create a box and delete all the faces apart from one. That makes it like a flat piece of paper. Then you apply your blueprint to it. He explains how to create bends further on. I'd help some more but I have to get to bed. GF is getting annoyed at me being on PC all night again!

 

[Mr.B]

Think you can quickly explain how to apply a blueprint to an object? All I know how to do is apply it to the background

 

[Stormy]

http://www.onnovanbraam.com/index.php?m=tutorials&g=blueprintsetup

tis teh tutorial w000t w000t
tells you how to do da blueprint setup for max but im sure the concept would be the same for other software

 

[drangl3]

hey Mr.B are you using Gmax to do this? should i download it cuz im a noob and i wana start modeling as well!

 

[random.hero]

yeah GMax is a good start, then wen u hav the money, u buy 3DS Max. i used it

 

[Mr.B]

@ drang- Yes I would definately recomend Gmax to anyone starting out, it is not too hard to get started. You just need to do lots and lots of tutorials. And don't get discouraged if it takes you a while, this isn't something you learn in one day or even 1 week for that matter. (yes i am using Gmax)

Is 3DS max a big improvement over Gmax? and what kind of improvements does it have?

 

[drangl3]

yer thanks. i got bored waiting 12 hours for a response (i live in australia). so i went and downloaded the XSI EXP program and have done 3 tutorials on that and im lovin it! though im stuck a bit on connecting the speakers to the boombox. hmmmmmm... i do everything it sez but it doesn't work! oh well ill just keep trying.

 

[Fuzzy]

hey drangl3, i tried the same tutes, but i foudn they just werent that good for teaching stuff. So i went to 3dbuzz and got an account, and downloaded teh VIDEO TUTORIALS for XSI, they were blooody amazing. So good for learning how to do stuff, i cant recomend them enough.

 

[Incitatus]

1. Definately XSI v3.0. XSI is really on the rise learning it now will serve you well in the future. XSI is a fully functional package with an EXCELLENT renderer (Mental Ray), material editor etc. Gmax can only model, it can't render.

2. For tutorials definately head over to http://www.3dtotal.com Also check out the forum it's an excellent community.

3. 3D is the most frustrating activity ever discovered by man But stick with it, it's also loads of fun.