Third Dimension
When I was recently asked by a friend, "Why do you want to do 3D anyway?" I hesitated to respond...
The timeline
Ray Dream Designer
1993 - 94 ? So long ago!
When I was in my mid-twenties, I was gifted a copy of Ray Dream Designer in 1993 or 94 from a girlfriend. I had seen it in a graphic design magazine for $150.00! I worked as an in-house graphic designer/digital video editor (not so digital video transferred to VHS). It was a different time back then, but I was creating things in 3D I never imagined I would do with my home computer. I was excited and read the manual cover to cover and was fascinated with the process. The 3D bug had bitten me, and it was always a pleasant activity. To me, it always felt like playing with legos as a kid. I could let my imagination go wild and do just about anything I could imagine. The outcome was not always what I desired, but I tried anyway. Later, it became a tool that I could use when I wanted to "wow" clients or bring something to the table that other designers could not offer. Funny. I don't have a lot of images to show from this time in my life. Wait a minute. Okay, I found one. A to-go cup from a Coco Moon newspaper ad! Wow! Such detail! Ha! But it was 1995, after all. Toy Story had just come out, and I was enamored with the look of the feature film. I love how I copyrighted the cup illustration so nobody else could use it!! It's all mine!!! LOL!!! More than anything else, I was probably so happy that my work was even getting printed.
Coco Moon Newspaper Ad
Vertex faces
So, what happened? My operating system needed an update. Then, my dog ate my homework. My cat peed on it! It wasn't me! I swear! Okay, I lost some of my ambition. The 3D bug that had once bitten me was gone. I continued to use it in some aspects of my work, but I focused on other areas of my career for many years. For several years, I focused on website design, branding, print design, interactive design, and many different facets of my skillset (a pun intended). For a time, I incorporated many 3D assets in my work—models with quality lighting set-ups. My work stood out among other designers, and it helped me to get jobs in many areas where I would not have been considered otherwise.
After many years, I stopped doing it. Concerned with honing my other talents, I didn't pick 3D back up until I began to explore some of the new tools being released. Lightwave 3D was promising. I tried it but could not get it. It seemed too complicated for how I wanted to use it. It also cost more than I could afford at the time. Shortly after downloading a few trial versions of Lightwave 3D, I saw a small ad for Carrara 3D in the back of a macintosh magazine sometime in early 2002. With an improved interface and many other improvements, it had some of the same features and modeling "rooms" of Ray Dream Designer. I purchased it as an early Christmas present for myself and spent the following time off work in a crash course of 3D creation.
For the next few years, I created many items/scenes—used 3D as an additional tool in my arsenal of 3D. It allowed me to stand out from crowds in website design and other areas of design as usual. I even used it for the tank and other images in my CSS ZEN GARDEN SUBMISSION #199 (Which I am still proud of). Later, I created a 3D Ezine for the software and supported a community with tutorials and creative assets. I saw the potential in the software and did not see it supported by professional artists. I wanted to showcase what I saw others doing, so I created 3DXtract.com - It was a downloadable PDF ezine with files and other creative assets linked to each article. After a year of doing this, I was asked by the parent company to produce the upcoming box packaging for Carrara 4, as well as many other online marketing initiatives. I was then asked to work on the icons' new features and the icons for the software. I had a lot of fun with these projects and working in a technology space I enjoyed. Fun stuff!
Texture me red
So what happened? Carrara got bought out by Daz, and you can go look up the history, but I could see that Daz had no intention of keeping Carrara or Hexagon going. They bought the software to cross-sell their current offerings and make more hobbyists of the Eovia user base. Creating what I called and still call "Poser Porn". Not what I was interested in, so I shut it down and walked away. I gave away the 3D magazine to anyone who wanted it and slowly stopped using the software.
After I started my company, I purchased a copy of Cinema 4D and I managed to do a few things with the software that looked very professional, but again, it was a very expensive piece of software that I could not justify keeping up with and the learning curve seemed pretty high for what I wanted to accomplish. So where did that leave me?
Back to Blender 3D
I had seen many books on Blender 3D and it always looked unruly. The interface seemed hodge-podge and I wasn't really excited about open-source applications. I came from a time where software companies supported the software and you could reasonably rely on them to keep it updated and fresh, but if there is anything I have learned in my career, it's that you can't always rely on the status quo. Things change, how people access those things change, and the old model is getting challenged (pun intentionally again) more often than not. So, I downloaded Blender 2.7 a while back and started to learn that. I even used it to render a few coffee cups for the "Just a cup" book that I created. The black cup and white cup on the cover were both created using Blender 2.7.
So, It seems I found just the right app after many years. It was free, it was somewhat easy to learn with a lot of tutorials out there. But! They launched 2.8! Wow! I was blown away. I downloaded it and have been getting more and more familiar with the interface and workflows. I have to say that for free software, it is really impressive. Donations are certainly on my to-do list. I have begun the process of redoing a few tutorials I once did with the previous version. More notably the Blender Donut tutorials from Blender Guru on YouTube. "Goo' Day!" - I have been learning a lot and feel comfortable navigating my way through once again.
Here are some screens of what I have been doing if you are interested. Also, if you are planning on posting your own work, drop it in the comments below! Would love to see it!
I need some Substance
Part of this big surge back into 3D recently for me has been watching Adobe release Apps like Substance (Stager, Painter, Sampler, Designer, Modeler - In beta) - I have purchased the monthly subscription to Adobe's Substance tools and plan on using those to create more rich 3D illustrations and experiences. Seeing the model creation in VR was exciting to see and though I applied to be in the beta, I am sure I will have to wait for the release. Either way, I am preparing to explore more of what my new tools have to offer and I have been bitten once again by the 3D bug.
