Blender

[clankill3r]

Anyone here using blender?

I just started with it (again), and so far I liked it. I tried it before but I always preferred softimage.
Blender also has a good gpu renderer now included called Cycles.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDRTjzLNK0g&list=PLa1F2ddGya__fTBj6FlL39NEBPZLB50ey

Once I made something other then tutorial results, I will post some work.

[FRAG]

I recently started a UDemy course to learn blender, I got it free after I funded their kickstarter for a UE4 C++ course.

I quite like it, the interface and controls were a bit off from what I was used to with 3D software that I had used in the past but now I'm really starting to get things into my head, in the process of making a low-poly chess set on the course at the moment, it's good fun and best of all, free!

[clankill3r]

Also I'm amazed by the start up time of blender. It takes about a second!

About the tutorials, I'm also watching video tutorials at the moment and depending on the person I set the playback time between 150 and 200%.
Kinda feels nice when you watched a 40min video in 20 minutes

[resident91]

I love using blender, not that I know much, but in two months and learned a lot.

This is my last model created in blender.

Textures : 512x512 px optimized for Counter Strike GO

 

(Also I have to learn more English hahaha)

[leplubodeslapin]

I am using Blender, I think i've learned the most with this "simple" tutorial where you're just told what to do without much talk :

http://cgi.tutsplus.com/tutorials/modeling-uvmapping-and-texturing-a-low-poly-t-rex-in-blender-part-1--cg-12763

And if you know what kind of models and stuff you want to work on, you can easily remember some manipulations. It's also very effective to force you to learn the shortcuts, which are a burden at the beginning but really useful in the end.

Don't hesitate to ask questions about it i should be able to answer you. For example how to chose which edges you want to be sharp or smooth, how to bake ambiant occlusion maps, how to learn some advanced stuff about unwrapping with blender (and not just press U -> Unwrap ^^), etc...

[clankill3r]

Cool, I will check it out the t-rex tutorial later.
About rendering and UV mapping etc. I suggest to only do tutorials that are focused on the cycles render engine. It will save you a ton of time. So don't waste time on the default light sources etc. You probably have pc's with enough cuda cores in them to do some fast GPU rendering so why waste time on a old cpu renderer...

[jakuza]

Yup, using Blender also. My main hang-up with it is picking through the super dense UI and all the features that come with it being a full 3d package. I mean, has anyone ever used the Blender game engine for anything? I think it could really benefit from being separated into multiple tools like Autodesk.

@leplubodeslapin do you know of any tutorials like that for modeling foliage? I've never gotten good results and I'm wondering if I'm missing some key technique or something.

[clankill3r]

I think good foliage is mostly in the render.
You might want to check out: http://www.thearchitectureacademy.com/

Also I always loved this compound for softimage:

[nicoreda]

I use blender since 2.49a, so far the software has involed during the time. I tried 3dsmax, maya, but I'm always turning back to Blender, because shorcuts, the way to use, is so different it's hard to try another tools.

I would recommend to use http://graphics.uni-konstanz.de/~luft/ivy_generator/ to make ivy and other things, but it's not the best for making low poly foliages.

http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/449584961009402712/44AAF5BBEABD39915209923CA987C10A7243CC07/

Baking branches high to low, using planar branches (got textures on textures.com) can be a good idea. 

Edit: you can add some addons in blender, check in "add curves" the addon "Sapling" and "IvyGen" it can be a good start

Sapling:

and IvyGen from blender

Edited December 27, 2015 by nicoreda

[clankill3r]

I just watched this video:

It's kind of interesting. I suggest to play at 1.5 speed do.
I really liked he simulates seasons for tree growth.

 

[Anduriel]

I'll just use this thread because it's not that old and it already partly covers what I'm looking for.

Finally I've learned the basic of blender and I think I'm ready to make some models. Well, just meshes for now, I'll get to texturing and stuff like that later. But maybe I can already do some stuff which I can use in my map later. So basically what I'm looking for is ways to make trees, grass and ivy in Blender. I've already seen that there are things like "ivy generators" - but are the results good to be used in the source engine?

Recently I discovered a nice tutorial which I decided to go through. It's from 2010 and based on an older version of Blender. But the guy shows how to make a greek column with ivy on it, so I just had to watch it. I was like 75% through but then the guy suddenly comes up with a script to attach the leaves to the branches of the ivy. He switches to some kind of scripts window, which I just can't find and executes a "tree from curves" script.

Maybe somebody can help me out and tell me what I have to do. And as I said before, I'm happy about any other advice on making trees, grass and ivy. Just keep in mind that I'm still a beginner Links to good (and up to date) tutorials are also fine!

Edited February 26, 2016 by Anduriel