Digital Art Zone

SickleYield - 23 December 2012 09:25 PM

Pendraia - 23 December 2012 06:59 PM

Mattymanx - 23 December 2012 05:50 PM

Back when Morrowind was newer, someone on the official MW forums requested a mod of a dress here in the store.  I looked through the store a bit and realized this had to do with Poser, which I had seen before but saw no purpose for.  To help make a long story short, I came across Puntomaus’ own 3D gallery and I knew I had to try it out.

Matty started a thread over at an elder scrolls forum and the rest is history…there was a group of us who all started playing with DS at the same time. Matty posted lots of links to tutorials and we all learnt together.

Great days.

Yeah, those were fun day when we were all just starting out.  There have been a lot of changes since then but the fun has not stopped.

Pendraia - 23 December 2012 06:59 PM

My addiction is all Matty and Neil’s fault…they introduced me to it! At least that’s my story and I’m sticking to it…lol

Innocent until proven guilty in a court of law!

...ah, who am I kidding?  GUILTY!!!

Mattymanx - 23 December 2012 10:41 PM

SickleYield - 23 December 2012 09:25 PM

Pendraia - 23 December 2012 06:59 PM

Mattymanx - 23 December 2012 05:50 PM

Back when Morrowind was newer, someone on the official MW forums requested a mod of a dress here in the store.  I looked through the store a bit and realized this had to do with Poser, which I had seen before but saw no purpose for.  To help make a long story short, I came across Puntomaus’ own 3D gallery and I knew I had to try it out.

Matty started a thread over at an elder scrolls forum and the rest is history…there was a group of us who all started playing with DS at the same time. Matty posted lots of links to tutorials and we all learnt together.

Great days.

Yeah, those were fun day when we were all just starting out.  There have been a lot of changes since then but the fun has not stopped.

It sure hasn’t!

Oddly enough, I got started into 3D when some friends and I were thinking about making a video game.  I was looking around online for information about game models, and I stumbled across DAZ Studio waaaaay back in version 2.  We never made the game, but I found a new hobby

found the FFVIII cut scene that had me so inspired back then.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FY1bTE75aXw
it’s still exciting.

ooo here’s all the cut scenes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zuc62lLk6kQ 

My first venture into 3-D was way back on the Amiga with Imagine. If you think render times are long now you should have been around back then.

SickleYield - 23 December 2012 09:25 PM

Pendraia - 23 December 2012 06:59 PM

Mattymanx - 23 December 2012 05:50 PM

Back when Morrowind was newer, someone on the official MW forums requested a mod of a dress here in the store.  I looked through the store a bit and realized this had to do with Poser, which I had seen before but saw no purpose for.  To help make a long story short, I came across Puntomaus’ own 3D gallery and I knew I had to try it out.

My addiction is all Matty and Neil’s fault…they introduced me to it! At least that’s my story and I’m sticking to it…lol

 

Matty started a thread over at an elder scrolls forum and the rest is history…there was a group of us who all started playing with DS at the same time. Matty posted lots of links to tutorials and we all learnt together.

Great days.

Yeah! They were… : )

Mattymanx - 23 December 2012 10:41 PM

SickleYield - 23 December 2012 09:25 PM

Pendraia - 23 December 2012 06:59 PM

Mattymanx - 23 December 2012 05:50 PM

Back when Morrowind was newer, someone on the official MW forums requested a mod of a dress here in the store.  I looked through the store a bit and realized this had to do with Poser, which I had seen before but saw no purpose for.  To help make a long story short, I came across Puntomaus’ own 3D gallery and I knew I had to try it out.

Matty started a thread over at an elder scrolls forum and the rest is history…there was a group of us who all started playing with DS at the same time. Matty posted lots of links to tutorials and we all learnt together.

Great days.

Yeah, those were fun day when we were all just starting out.  There have been a lot of changes since then but the fun has not stopped.

Pendraia - 23 December 2012 06:59 PM

My addiction is all Matty and Neil’s fault…they introduced me to it! At least that’s my story and I’m sticking to it…lol

Innocent until proven guilty in a court of law!

 

...ah, who am I kidding?  GUILTY!!!

SickleYield - 23 December 2012 10:43 PM

Mattymanx - 23 December 2012 10:41 PM

SickleYield - 23 December 2012 09:25 PM

Pendraia - 23 December 2012 06:59 PM

Mattymanx - 23 December 2012 05:50 PM

Back when Morrowind was newer, someone on the official MW forums requested a mod of a dress here in the store.  I looked through the store a bit and realized this had to do with Poser, which I had seen before but saw no purpose for.  To help make a long story short, I came across Puntomaus’ own 3D gallery and I knew I had to try it out.

Matty started a thread over at an elder scrolls forum and the rest is history…there was a group of us who all started playing with DS at the same time. Matty posted lots of links to tutorials and we all learnt together.

Great days.

Yeah, those were fun day when we were all just starting out.  There have been a lot of changes since then but the fun has not stopped.

It sure hasn’t!

Too true : )

Merry Christmas everyone….

Sorry about not doing this in one post but I’m posting from an iPad and I find cutting and pasting on it very difficult.

I was doing photo-manips years ago, I wanted a way to add 3D text to images I was doing, So I got into Bryce, got playing around doing stuff in Bryce, then got Terragen, then on to Poser ( version 3)

I also came to 3D via the photomanip route - I was playing around with Paint Shop Pro many years ago, went on to teach myself Photoshop, then realized that I just didn’t have the control I wanted in a 2D medium.  Unfortunately, it took several more years to move on to 3D, thanks to my bargain-basement computer.  But now I’m moving fast, making up for lost time and having a blast.

Jaderail - 24 December 2012 11:46 AM

My first venture into 3-D was way back on the Amiga with Imagine. If you think render times are long now you should have been around back then.

I tried to make a Chrismas tree on the Amiga A500, with a half meg video chip and 3 megs of ram. Took days. The tree wasn’t too bad, but the glass and shiny ornaments drastically legthened the render time. I used DKBTrace 2.x a pre-cursor to Pov-Ray.

Jaderail - 24 December 2012 11:46 AM

My first venture into 3-D was way back on the Amiga with Imagine. If you think render times are long now you should have been around back then.

Jade we must be twins sons of different mothers. I started earlier with Silver which begat Turbo Silver which begat Imagine. I then moved from the Amiga to Imagine for the IBM PC, then Bryce, added Poser to the mix (Bryce and Poser were both creations of MetaCreations back then).
Still searching for the elusive “Make Art” button.

This thread comes up once in a while.  I’ve answered it previously with vast volumes of fascinating tales of my youth.  But alas, that’s all in the old forum archives (if they still exist anywhere).  I’m getting old so I’ll try to get this out before my mind wanders to some never-never-land again.

At age 26 I started working at the Kennedy Space Center from 1974 to 1979 and had complete (and I do mean “complete”) operational control of the computers for the “Special Measurements Division” on the 2nd floor of the “Launch Control Center”*.  I had two computers (Raytheon 706 and Raytheon RDS-500) used primarily for research data collection and display for the KSC weather bureau, Lighting research, and Shuttle ground support experiments, and other non-launch related special activities.  (i.e. the really cool stuff).  I was computer administrator, technician and the only programmer so I was pretty busy. 

However, in my spare time… I used the electrostatic dot-matrix printers, manual hand-cranked, frame-at-a-time video disk recorders, and Tektronics storage-tube graphic displays to draw 3D objects and perform primitive animation of simple geometric object behavior.  (rotate, orbit, bounce, etc)  I had no commercial 3D or even 2D graphic subroutine packages to help me.  I didn’t even have floating point arithmetic support in one of the computers.  I had to build my own floating point arithmetic library, 2D graphic routines, and 3D graphic routines from basic principles.  Hell, I even had to write my own hard drive driver for one of the computers.  So getting a wireframe duodecahedron to bounce or orbit a cube was a big deal.

Fast forward from 1979 to 1999 and I found a $100 copy of RayDream Studio (ancestor of Carrara) and I could finally do graphics at home instead of on half-million dollar machines at work.

* PS: I loved my office:  I had my office at one end of a leg of the “L” shaped laboratory about 30 feet wide and 60 feet long on each leg of the “L”.  The floor was a raised “false-floor” typical of computer rooms of the time and my chair had smooth silent castors.  I got pretty good at shoving myself (*wheee*) down the length of the room between, rows of analog data recorders and tape storage cabinets, from my desk to the computer consoles in the corner of the “L”. (*grin*)

I met Kerry Mafeo (http://www.fantasticvisions.blogspot.com/) at a Stargate Convention in Atlanta 2011> I love her work> she told me about DAZ and in a few months my inspiration resulted in the image below

In a lot of ways it’s an extension of interests and skills I already have.  For the longest I’ve always wanted to draw but wasn’t good at it and attempting was actually stressful.  On a parallel, I’ve had creative interests both in writing and videogames.  A lot seemed out of reach due to things like income but I finally found a local community college with some specialized courses in game design.  Was a bit inspiring though there were some growing pains in the program since it was new.  The current state of it is pretty good but that’s of limited use to those who’ve already graduated.  I mean, most of the instructors were cool but some of the tech hurdles reared their head despite the course itself being affordable.

So, after being aimless for a while I hooked up with a few people and released a game based on their comics.  Though it progressed slower than I’d like and sales are low since no one knows about it, it technically wound up being a completed commercial work.  Finally landing a new part time job this year, I heard about Daz’s free software through some lingering contacts with the school.  Combined with getting a laptop from a long time friend, seemed like things were lining up and this was the way to overcome my artistic inabilities.  Was good at first and I sorta splurged a bit in the beginning but I’m seeing I’m badly in need of a new computer.  That also revealed the catch-22 that I needed a better computer for what I wanted to render but at the same time, if I had never started with Daz Studio I probably would have had enough saved up for a new computer which would have been good for some of my programming goals anyways.  Gonna attempt a bit of a purchasing freeze and similarly might even due a public render freeze while I save up and practice some things.