Nathan
Artwork and Improving Your Abilities
Before I start, I'd like everyone to know that this is a helpful criticism and not singling anyone out.
I've noticed a decline in the quality of the artwork being submitted recently. Whether or not this is a lack of ability, an example of laziness, or a simple lack of experience, I do not know and I'm not going to make any conclusions. I'd suggest to everyone that is starting out in drawing, whether you use paper and pencil, MS Paint, or a 400 dollar professional program, that you go find some official images of Trek ships and try to draw them as perfectly as you can. Draw draw draw, keep sketching and tracing until you can make ships that are reasonable facsimiles of those found on, say, the EAS ship database. Of course you don't have to get them so good that they look professionally done, but you need to make ships that are decent looking. Not only will it make you look better in the eyes of others, but you will be much prouder of your works after spending some time on them making a decent looking ship.
As I said, keep in mind that, while harsh sounding, it's only meant to be a help to those who are less experienced (or even very experienced) in the art of design. Take pride in your work, and try to do everything you can to advance your abilities. Keep in mind that anything less than your best ability isn't worth showing to others.
Manticore
Bravo! Grand idea! CLAP CLAP CLAP!
Now I guess I should follow this advice...if only to get better at 2d for texturing.
Flagg
Speaking of which, when are you gonna get to modeling the Sol class?
<Dickity>
good advise, and I was just going to start on my first ship to be submitted
Manticore
Flagg, when I have time, a commodity that is almost non-existant in a college student's life.
<Mr. Turtle>
Yeah, I'd like to see it.
And I guess I'll have to improve my scribble-ship designs before I post them.
Makaveli
Nicely said Nathan. Smile
CrazyMrLeo
A good point, but I have to ask, what would you consider a good sketch? The EAS database works for side-views, but not much else. One man's work of art is another's trash heap, after all. The subjectiveness of it all presents a problem.
<Saint AJ>
Not really, Leo. It is very evident when comparing two technical drawings whether or not there is skill or talent present. A "good" sketch should show attention to detail and perspective, as well as an even and uniform technique, and above all it should be evident that there was time put into it. It will be obvious whether or not the artist spend five minutes popping out a few circles in M$ Paint or slaved over a drawing for hours getting everything right, even the most inexperienced artist can make it evident that they put forth a lot of effort.
Another tip for those who use the really basic paint software. M$ Paint is really limited in its capabilities. It's good for making rough thumbnails and the like, and for learning how to do basic shapes, but not much else. Inevitably to get a really fantastic drawing out of Paint you're going to have to invest lots and lots and lots of time.
If you're willing to invest the time to learn it, The Gimp (
www.gimp.org) is an excellent *freeware* paint program that easily rivals the high-priced stuff. Its learning curve is a little steep, but once you've learned your way around it, the Gimp is very powerful and can produce gorgeous images.
If you're really intent on sticking with M$ Paint though I recommend prodigious use of the zoom tool for detail work. Working pixel by pixel is tedious, but it gives you the most control over your work in Paint. Also, with M$ Paint you are more or less limited to *LARGE* images because it lacks good blending and smoothing functions.
For those who are trying to work by hand and feel they could use some help, there are plenty of tutorials available for free online, just google for them. But as Nate said, practice is the most important thing. Nothing will make as big a difference in your artwork as experience. One thing I've learned over the years is that it sometimes helps to draw something three or four times before you really get it right, sometimes even from different angles just so you'll be able to see in front of you exactly how the object looks. This can be especially important for starships, which tend to have complex shapes.
Another bit of advice, look at pictures of "real" ships and vehicles. This may sound obvious, but it helps you get an idea for how certain things really look. Instead of just drawing in a box for a weapon, look at how the weapon is made on the model, or whatever, and use that to help you.
________________________________________________
Also, some people are very good at visualizing their ideas, while others are not and that's nothing to be ashamed of. If you need help getting a ship to look good, feel free to ask. Admittedly, a lot of the artists around here like Manticore, MadCat, Nathan, Jimi, or myself are probably quite pressed for time but there's bound to be someone around who can help.
Nathan
Stickying this topic. This might be useful for newbies to read.
Manticore
Just herd the 3d-ers over to me and I'll do my best to help them and if not, I know of a few good sites that should provide them with good stuff.
Smile
<Saint AJ>
If anyone needs some pointers on pencil-and-paper drawing, I can give advice, my email can be found in my profile.
Ottens
When I look at my own work (I'm just a beginner in starship drawing), I can see that it certaintly improves. Though, simple pencil and paper works best for me.
BorgMan
Hmmmm, I defintily agree with this Cool
Now make newbie's READ the sticky's, and the problem would be solved Roll Eyes
kaden
basically what i do is do alot of little sketches of the basic shapes i want to use on a ship, i then take the best ones and try make the ship, adding familier things, armour plating, nacelles, thrusters, impluse, a shuttle bay, and a bridge lol
once i get a sketch all sorted out i computer it in psp, or sometimes i go straight to the psp part and skip a final sketch.
that way as i go i can improve on the overal ship design and add new things or take things away, i also have in my mind the other views but most of the time i cant quite get it right so i leave them out lol
Zorin
Nathan is absolutly right. Nothing counts out experience. I made quite a lot of ships during the last year, 20 or so, and it's very important to spent time on a ship. My first ships stole me more than 10 hours for 3 views.
Excelentia
The third view I couldn't find anymore.
And now I'm able to make designs and projects like the Urania:
Urania Project
It's all about time and practice.
drbob
Some time ago , someone asked me
how does 3d modeling work
I wrote an article for them
see what you think
3D Pictures - How do they do that?
By Bob Crosswell
Most people are very familiar with a camera. They take pictures of the things that they like. No one is satisfied with a flat picture anymore. The big question is:, How do you do this on your computer?
Especially if the picture you want is of a Space Ship.
There are many ways to make a picture. I prefer to make a 3d object and then I can have a picture from any angle or any direction; just like you might do with your camera. But?. How do you do that?
Empty your mind for a minute. Now think of?..a toothpick.
A toothpick is like a line and we can use it to help us visualize in 3d. Let us take our toothpick and glue it to another toothpick on the ends, now glue another one to the next end and a 4th one to the ends. If we do this we have a rectangle or a square. Now take this rectangle and glue a piece of paper on it. We now have a ?plane?. The paper we glued to the rectangle is called a ?face?. Our plane has 2 faces. We can color these faces; maybe one side is blue and the other side is red. OR we could paint on stripes on one side and dots on the other. Or we could glue a picture on one side, sort of like wallpaper. We could have a picture of our girl friend on one side and a picture of our wife on the other and flip back and forth depending on what we wanted to see.
The next step is to make 5 more of these planes. We glue these together at 90degree angles to form a box.
Our box is like a toy child?s block. The area in side the block is called a polygon. (Polly for short)
When we talk about size and/or complexity of a model we describe it in terms of how many faces it has or how many pollys it has. We can take these blocks and stack them on top of each other to make bigger things; like making a castle out of sugar cubes. We can change the shape of our blocks, skinny, fat, long or
we could use one block to cut another one. This is called object subtraction. Remember, our block or polly is just made of empty space bounded by faces. If we have 2 blocks, one long and skinny, the other block big and fat and we subtract the space between them. Now our block has a hole in it and looks like a
square doughnut. We can cut these blocks into different shapes and glue them together to make more complex shapes, but they still have a bit of a rough look to them.
So, let?s go back to our toothpick. This time glue several together and we can make a cone or a ball or a cylinder. We can take these shapes and add or subtract them from each other to make all kinds of new shapes. Example: Take a cone and glue it to another cone, upside down, making an hourglass shape.
Now take a ball. Squeeze or flatten the ball, now subtract the hourglass from the flat ball.
This new shape looks like a doughnut, we call it a;?Taurus?, but that is just a fancy 3d word for doughnut.
By taking these basic shapes and gluing them together or cutting one from another and then gluing on a new one, we can make very complex shapes. Then we can paint them, or part of then or a group of them
So that the object looks like what we want it to look like. We call this object a mesh, and we call the coloring on the faces of it, textures.
So now we have an object; what do we do with it?
We can turn this object over and around just like you might turn an apple in your hand. This allows us to see the object from any angle or any direction that we might want. Most 3d programs have another option.
Instead of moving the object, they move the camera or the point from which you are looking at the object.
This allows you to see your object better and set up the scene, which you want, just like you do with your camera.
Next step, light. Just like you would do with your camera, you must adjust the lighting.
Most 3d programs have several types of lights. The primary light is the source light.
This type of light acts like a light bulb, sending light out in all directions.
Another type of light is the spotlight, which focuses the light like a flashlight.
Or another type of light is the projector light, this type of light can project light and an image just like a
Overhead projector does. The next type of light is the line light, this act like rain. That is all the light travels in a straight line in one direction. There is also a sink light, this is a source that takes light away from your scene. Each of these light sources can be made to cast shadows or not. We can change the intensity or the color of each light.
3d-program software now allows you to place your object, your lights, your camera and anything else into a big ?room?. In this big empty room we set up the scene. We place our object where we want; we place the lights where we want and our camera where we want. This setting of the scene is important to get the desired effect we want. If we want a picture of a spaceship we only want to have one strong light (simulating the sun) and other small lights (simulating reflection from moons or stars).
So now we are ready to take our object lights and scene and make a picture out of it.
To make a picture out of an object is called ?rendering?.
There are many things about rendering but you can think of this as pressing the button on your camera.
The subject of rendering can be a subject all of its own.
There are many different 3d-software programs, but they all do these same basic steps to make a 3d picture. Some examples of software are:
Name instore base price
Lightwave 6 $4000
3D Max 3 $5000
trueSpace 4 $2000
Mayha $7000
Cinima 4D XL $8000
Bryce 3D $1000
Raytracer $500 (formula based)
Pixel 3D $ 1000 (for Macs)
AutoCAD
Well if the prices don?t scare you off, then look at this. Most 3d software programs are huge,
Say in the 100-200meg range for just the software. They all require lots and lots of ram, or lots and lots of time to do a render. It is very common for a single render to take several hours. We said before the meshes/models are measured in complexity by the number of faces they have or the number of Pollys they
Have in them. But these models can easily be several Megs in size, and the textures can also be large.
This is not meant to scare anyone away from working in 3d, but before you start you want to have a computer capable of handling large files and has lots of ram.
The last thing I would like to point out is that the software is not important. Sometimes it makes it harder. All you really need is imagination and a little of your time. Some of the best novels ever produced
Were written with a pencil.
Manticore
A somewhat simplistic but otherwise quite good description of our hobby drbob, very well done Wink
<Saint AJ>
Blender: FREE.
Anim8or: FREE.
Art of Illusion: FREE.
PoV_Ray: FREE.
Getting 3D renders as good as the professional software without having to get a second mortgage? PRICELESS.
Seriously. The 3D stuff drBob announced isn't any better than any of these programs. Matter of fact I think POV_Ray can render better images than any of the payware crap.
<PhoenixM>
Saint AJ,
Where are these FREE (I love that word) 3D programs located at?
Nathan
Google is your friend, Phoenix...
<Saint AJ>
for reference:
Anim8or is located at
www.anim8or.comBlender is located at
www.blender3d.comPOV_Ray is located at
www.pov-ray.orgOf the three, Anim8or is the easiest to learn, though the least powerful, and POV_Ray is the most powerful, but the most difficult to master because the interface is text only (brush up on your programming skills). Blender is roughly in-between, though I still stick with Anim8or (I have all 3 programs) for most work because I'm most familiar with the interface.
<Carpandean>
I think a lot of people have touched on the main thing - it should look like you put some time into it. I haven't been on these boards long, but I've already seen several pics that look like they took two minutes - a single grey polygon with some red and blue on the nacelles.
Then, when people suugest the author should "put some time in on the drawing", the response is "all I have is MS Paint and that's as good as it will make". I really hate that. I do all of my work in Paint, but I put time into my drawings - you can get good stuff out of it with time and effort.
<Danny Dale>
quote:Originally posted by carpandean:
I think a lot of people have touched on the main thing - it should look like you put some time into it. I haven't been on these boards long, but I've already seen several pics that look like they took two minutes - a single grey polygon with some red and blue on the nacelles.
Then, when people suugest the author should "put some time in on the drawing", the response is "all I have is MS Paint and that's as good as it will make". I _really_ hate that. I do all of my work in Paint, but I put time into my drawings - you can get good stuff out of it with time and effort.
That's exactly how I do it. Paint's easy to use, but hard to master. But once you get good at it, you can make some _REALLY_ good artwork! Smile
BorgMan
I definatly agree with that. I did some artwork in paint, a pretty long time ago, but the comunity liked it very much. Time is all you need to put into your drawing Smile
