Playing with 3D

What do you think of the final product?

 

These swirls look very good They have a nice glossy finish with good lighting. The stalagmite type crystals give a nice offset to them.

 

I think it has to do with the high number of poly's on the crystals, as opposed to the nurbs used on the infinity symbol. My rendering settings were low to save time

 

Wow you made that? O.O any tips for a beginner? what program did you use?

 

EDIT: Oops, double post.

 

I used Autodesk 3DS MAX.

Tips? Well, I guess a piece of knowledge that not many understand is-- the modeling is the easy part, really. If you're interested in learning 3D art, you absolutely need to study lighting, camera effects and parameters, materials, and post-product editing to make your models look realistic. If you can master these skills, you can make any modeled shape look realistic.

Oh, and you need decent problem-solving skills. This is important because if you don't know how to do something exactly, it takes some trial and error and a bit of problemsolving before you can figure out a way to accomplish what you want to do.

 

Very nice. I think the lighting might be a little too much on the curves. It is going straight from a highlight to the diffusion of the light and it is too abrupt.

 

They are looking mad sick but why put it in your signature xD ?

 

I could change the lighting from plane to mesh, but it would still show a reflected highlight of the light source shape, I think I'd have to change the material reflection down to soften the highlight

Because it looks nice

 

I'd work on the lighting some more. I don't like the way the highlights really only apply to a small portion and the rest of it needs more illumination. I'd go for a slightly brighter material and something along the lines of a general 360º Illumination

 

360 illumination as in light sources coming from every angle? I could try it, though I would have to turn down the camera exposure or the light intensity, which would greatly compromise the contrast. Otherwise I'd end up with a really over exposed model, and with no post-product effects (glares and glows created with photoshop or something), it would look awkard

 

Cheer's I am trying but it's not working so well atm =P

 

Reading up on tutorials really really helps too, it gave me a lot of the necessary basic skills to build on what I know and expand my capabilities

 

the highlights are too light, they dont blend well with the midtones, it makes it look unauthentic.

the glass one looks awesome tho

 

Any tutorial you recommend in specific that gave you really good guidelines? Lmao the more I look at them the cooler they get

 

None specifically gave me all of the basic skills I needed. What I did was looked at 3D models, thought of elements of the model (like the professional lighting techniques the 3D artist used, or how the artist meshed out the clothing he used on a character), then I went and found tutorials specifically about that aspect. Or if I just wanted to learn how to make bunch of simple low-poly objects to fill a virtual room or something, I would go find a tutorial on several things like chairs, tables, couches, other furniture; I'd make them all separately, then I'd stick them all into the same scene when I'm satisfied with how they look.

One site that was absolutely pivotal in my learning was http://tutorialized.com/tutorials/3DS-MAX/1
LOVE this site. It's also great for aspiring photoshoppers, illustrators, and flash animators.

It has great search features too, a lot of the tutorial sites you find have those weird "Custom Google Search" that never finds exactly what you need. Plus it has categories. So, if you know you want "lighting" but you don't know what specifically about lighting you want to learn about, you can go to the Lighting category and derp around until you find something you like.

 

O.O Site is a gold mine for knowledge! lol thank you so much!

 

The glass one is very cool, watch the quality of those edges and the highlights too.