#cgcookie

[improvewithtutorials]

Intro to Blender

I am currently trying to wrap my head around Blender and there is this super helpful tutorial on CGCookie that starts with the most basic things like creating, moving and deleting objects. And I love it.

They have the first parts on Youtube and ALL the parts on CGCookie.com for free (you just need a free account).

[rydanart]

Box modeling is definitely more challenging than it looks. I just completed the Press Start tutorial from CGCookie and it took me longer than expected to follow along. I had to pause and replay some of the instructions, and don't even get me started on Shader nodes - they were so confusing! But in the end, I finally got it done. This exercise taught me a lot, and I'm sure the skills I learned will carry over into my own models. I even picked up some cool new tools like fill and bevel weights. Looking forward to mastering shaders and tackling more challenging projects.

[ccwieland]

[galoosreblogger]

Woke up at 3am like this

[aprils-artsy]

Flexing...💀🐱

Reference used: @drawingden on Tumblr (body practice), @sleepyconfusedpotato on Ghost's tattoo, @/jiuge on DA and CGCookie (painting practice)

[categorised-art-tutorials-tips]

How to draw a Hair Braid properly

Credit: CgCookie

[valeofpoppies]

hey!

you are very skilled with 3D art and game development, and i am also somewhat trying to get into it as a hobby (blender + godot rn).

can i ask how you learned to make 3D art? i am hoping that knowing how others learned will help me find ways to learn.

i know the basics of blender, but i really do need to learn how to get past the basics.

Hello! I appreciate you taking the time to write this. This is a question that requires some introspection and would be a good topic for future posts. However, here's the best summarization of my experience learning 3D:

I started doing 3D while I was a teenager. I downloaded a free version of 3D Coat so I could sculpt faces for fun. I barely had any idea how to manage topology then, so my workflow was very destructive (I made a lot of meshes with holes, clipping faces, bumps, no edge flow, etc.)

I revisited 3D during my years in college, when I took a couple of free courses on Lynda(dot)com on how to model in Maya (for which I had a student license for). They were really basic tutorials, but they helped me adopt better practices for modeling (like maintaining decent edge flow, how to use modifiers, how to use drivers, etc).

I began to learn how to rig in Maya until the pandemic hit in 2020, which happened to be the same year I would graduate. I wanted to pursue 3D further after college, but I knew my student license for Maya would eventually expire (and I didn't have enough money coming in to pay a monthly subscription) so I decided to switch to using Blender because it is open-source.

I learned to navigate Blender through a whole lot of popular dedicated Youtube channels (like CGCookie, BlenderGuru, Ducky 3D, and many others...) It did indeed help that I had prior experience with modeling software so I could look up what I needed to know then. I didn't get to using Blender for game dev until a year later, when I came across a whole bunch of game artists and mod-makers across various platforms (twitter, tumblr, steam, discord). The point in which I began to join communities dedicated to making game art/modding is where I experienced the most growth because I wasn't interpreting online tutorials by myself anymore, I was communicating back and forth with other people about making art in general. I learned what tools other people were using, I learned how they functioned, I studied unique applications for those tools by studying other people's work, and it also helped me find new leads for study.

A practice I adopted that I found very useful is pastiching models from other games. If I wanted to get better at creating topology, I would import a ripped model from a game that I liked, studied its wireframe, and attempted to recreate that style by creating a unique model. It is derivative, but in the process you learn a lot of unique applications of smoothing, edge sharpening, normal rotation, masking and texturing that could be useful for formulating a style of one's own.

There's a lot that goes into the learning process. For me, it is like undoing a jacket by the threads. The more you pull the threads apart, the more noticeable it becomes how its all woven and stitched together. Once you've taken apart the whole thing, you get an idea as to how it was put together in the first place.

[roboromantic]

so obviously sculptober didn't work out lmao. I have a couple more half-finished projects but just never got around to finishing them bc without any real deadline or anything I was SUPER passionate about working on, I just couldn't really make myself work on them. Maybe I'll try to finish at least those 2 before next week.

anyway obviously 1 day is way too short a timeframe for me to finish something, but maybe in November I could try doing one project a week? that way I can do an easy/small project if I don't have a don't have a lot of free time or wanna spend a whole day trying to do figure out how to do something, or maybe do a larger project if I feel like it.

like I really do want to learn how to do 3d modeling and animation! I really ought to take an Actual class on it though because man. I Really need structure and hard deadlines

I'm sorely tempted to see about taking classes at Wake Tech again but I can't find Any info on what tuition is like for certificate programs. would that cost as much as a degree program??? it's listed as giving credits and not like continuing ed. or w/e so probably? in that case, could I take just the relevant classes for that major and get another AA there or would I have to retake the gen. ed. stuff since it's been more than 5 years since I got the first one? or would I be good since I got my BA from UNCA less than 5 years ago?

I might should just talk to an advisor about it but also. the amount of money and time is probably gonna be a problem if we're ever gonna actually fuckin move out and have to start paying rent. maybe I should just stick to something like Udemy or CGCookie etc. that'd be more flexible

[fedor-bortnik-fmp]

Jacob. Progress. Part 7.

In this chapter, I talk about final work on the clothes, preparing the high poly and low poly for the bake. My professor gave me an advice to use brushes to create fabric deformations, stretches, and seams, and I gave it a try. After some small experimentations, I can immediately say it was a good idea, since the plugin had various decent seams and I managed to do something nice with them.

I downloaded a BlenderKit, and got a subscription from them in order to get a full access to various brushes and more.

For example - I softened the gloves and then applied a collection of folds, wrinkles, and folds in places where they usually form.

I then began detailing the rest of the clothes - I did some brushwork trying to create various wrinkles and folds, and then applied many brush sets to add extra details to the clothes.

While I did watch some tutorials on how to do the fabrics, in order to know how to place wrinkles - most of the time I just looked at various images and some diagrams in order how to do it.

During the work, I noticed one of the problems with the knee pad material - Due to the low density and non-ideal topology, it was hard to apply brushes to the model, since the brushes would stretch on the horizontal part, but be normal on the vertical ones. I could have just applied extra layers of subdivision, but Blender was already struggling with managing all the other high poly meshes - every time when I applied some edits to various meshes, blender would lag for a short period of time.

Because of that, I decided to avoid applying extra details with tiny brushes and placed bigger and simpler details on the pad.

References:

Next Retail Limited (2024). Mountain Warehouse Khaki Green Alaskan Womens 3 In 1 Long Coat. [online] Next.co.uk. Available at: https://www.next.co.uk/style/ls154387/r05961 [Accessed 29 Jun. 2024].

Izat (2023). Military jacket. [online] ArtStation. Available at: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/lRgPYe [Accessed 29 Jun. 2024].

Ainara (2021). Military Jacket M65. [online] ArtStation. Available at: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/Aq8VVy [Accessed 29 Jun. 2024].

Pinterest. (n.d.). Clothing Wrinkles and Fabric Folding Reference by CGCookie on DeviantArt | Wrinkled clothes, Realistic clothing, Drawing clothes. [online] Available at: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/29062360084310372/ [Accessed 29 Jun. 2024].

[feral-possum-posting]

If you're like me, you might have missed the recent free gift on blendermarket for Retopoflow and regretted it. I've been getting into the sculpting side of things quite a lot lately, and retopologizing that shit is a fucking nightmare.

WELL. As it turns out, Retopoflow is OSS! They release the add on for FREE on github here: https://github.com/CGCookie/retopoflow

I do really need to stress to you that this is not for commercial purposes. If you're making money off this, and if it's feasible for you, you should do the right thing and pay the developers (plus that's what you'll have to do if you need support!)

That aside, I'm excited to discover this. Doing a UV unwrap is usually pointed to as the worst part of modeling, but I would contend that I only hate UV unwrapping because it takes place after retopo, and it's retopo that exhausts me with a project.

[improvewithtutorials]

3 Visual Illusion Concepts Reference Guide by CGCookie

[starrymic]

Chill blender stream

Working through another CGCookie course today! Come chill as I model.

yippee

[ccwieland]

done with Modeling Pothead.

[kururinas]

juniper bonsai - procedural generation

originally followed cgcookie's workflow video, ended up adding a weeks worth of work to learn more about procedural textures + node editing graphs

everything is procedurally generated except the addition of branches + roots and the original leaf instance

[blue-eyed-cutiepatootie]

so i've had several people in the tags express something along the lines of "how did you do this?" and since i'm a teacher at heart, this cgcookie concept video is what got me here. It's the stream: female face study video if the link isnt working. And i chose a crayon brush after doing like 30 blending tests to see which one worked the best for me.

dean study 2: dean in crayon

study of an edit by @angelsdean

[kreativ-im-studio]

THX 2 CGcookie https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=y2D7MwaeFq0&feature=youtu.be&utm_content=buffer2f818&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=twitter

Boling Water with bubbles effekt tutorial