How should a French person get started in 3D?

[English Bob]

I'm talking to a French photographer who would like to try 3D art. He's reasonably technical, and has a good eye, but his English is not great. I suggested DAZ Studio would be a good place to start - at least there's no outlay if he decides it's not for him - but he's having trouble getting to grips with an interface and tutorials which are all in English.

I know Poser used to have a French version (and German and Japanese), but as far as I can tell that's no longer the case, and I can't find any foreign language versions of DAZ either.

There's the French forum at Renderosity, but that seems to be lightly populated, to say the least. Are there any other Francophone forums, or sources of tutorials in French, that I can recommend to him?

 

[McGyver]

That title sounded like the intro to a Monty Python skit.
And honestly I’m picturing it now... it involves a stuffed parrot that curses in French... you won’t be disappointed.
But other than that, I’ve got nothing to add.

 

[Rowan54]

I know there are several 3D artists who are French, I've seen titles of things in French. (Blanking on the names, sorry.) Maybe one of them will see this thread and speak up?
Beyond that, about all I can add is that Duolingo.com has free language lessons (I'm currently learning German), and there are many people there learning English as well. That won't help much for right now, but would for the long-run.

 

[Janet]

Could you take a screenshot of the program and add French next to the English? At least he would have a reference. Dunno about tutorials. Google translator maybe?

 

[Miss B]

Depending on the size/length of the tutorial, that would be a bit much. I'm not sure if Google translator does whole pages at a time. I've only used it for 2 or 3 sentences at once.

 

[Kerya]

There was a French version, but it wasn't official and some update of Poser11 killed it ...
Does not work anymore since update, please help

 

[DanaTA]

It's odd that there isn't a way to change the language of the menus and options. After all, DAZ claims such a diverse international clientele. You'd think they would try to accommodate the non-English speakers.

Dana

 

[English Bob]

Thanks everyone!

I know there are several 3D artists who are French, I've seen titles of things in French.

I should have given my post a French title, now I think of it...

His English is good enough for forum conversations - that's how we usually communicate since his English is better than my schoolboy / Google French. Google can translate an entire web page, as long as it's text - so images with captions on would be no good. He also wouldn't be able to follow spoken English in a video, so you can see that a lot of tutorial content would be beyond him. The mass of English menus in DAZ is daunting him somewhat, I think.

I'll keep looking!

 

[CWRW]

Aerodreams is French and very savvy with both Poser 11 and DS 4.12- might be willing to help out. Worth asking!/maybe connecting them?

She was AOM this month over at Rendo: Interview with Artist of the Month - Aerodreams on Renderosity.com

 

[Rowan54]

He also wouldn't be able to follow spoken English in a video, so you can see that a lot of tutorial content would be beyond him.

Actually, the amount of SPOKEN tutorials is quite daunting to those of us with defective hearing, too. I wish all tutorials would come with a written version ... or at least subtitles!
And written versions would also help not only your friend, but probably many others from a variety of backgrounds who read English better than speaking it.

 

[Miss B]

I prefer written tutorials as well, mostly because sometimes the videos are too fast, and I have to keep stopping them, do what I need to in whatever app I'm working in, and then back up the video to make sure I didn't miss anything. Annoying to say the least.

 

[English Bob]

Aerodreams is French and very savvy with both Poser 11 and DS 4.12- might be willing to help out. Worth asking!/maybe connecting them?

Thank you - I had better brush up on my French.

Actually, the amount of SPOKEN tutorials is quite daunting to those of us with defective hearing, too. I wish all tutorials would come with a written version ... or at least subtitles!
And written versions would also help not only your friend, but probably many others from a variety of backgrounds who read English better than speaking it.

I prefer written tutorials as well, mostly because sometimes the videos are too fast, and I have to keep stopping them, do what I need to in whatever app I'm working in, and then back up the video to make sure I didn't miss anything. Annoying to say the least.

I read English better than I hear it - and on a practical level, with only a single display, written tutorials make it a lot easier to skip back and forth. If necessary you can even print them out. I made my tutorials as images-plus-text for this very reason.

 

[Miss B]

I read English better than I hear it - and on a practical level, with only a single display, written tutorials make it a lot easier to skip back and forth. If necessary you can even print them out. I made my tutorials as images-plus-text for this very reason.

I like images plus text tutorials. I haven't had a printer in a long time, but used to print them out back when I did.

 

[McGyver]

I should have remembered this... I hope it’s useful.
This is a pretty good site for translating news articles and longer bodies of text.
DeepL Translate
It translates German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Italian, Polish, Russian, Japanese and Chinese.
It handles slang and unique parlance a bit better than Google.
I’ve used it for translating German articles because my german sucks...
I also hear it’s excellent for creating French lines for randy stuffed parrots... if someone were doing something like that.

 

[Miss B]

Ohhhh, nice! I just bookmarked that, because you never know.

 

[Kerya]

As I am German, I prefer Picture/Text tutorials too - videos are really hard to follow.
My understanding of the written word is fine (don't judge my spelling/grammar errors, please), but spoken English is another world .
Understanding French is ok, writing it? Don't ask me to do that ...

Back to the reason for this thread:
I looked through my old Poser/DazStudio links for French pages, but they are so old that the newest tutorials are for Poser 7.
I wish Fractal Design had chosen a more unambigous name for their software. Trying to search the internet for Poser gives you a whole lot of interesting pages, none of which have to do with the software.

 

[Mustakettu85]

There is this website in French: la 3d avec bryce daz studio wings 3d shape magic vue ple vue 9 frontier argile - the person in charge regularly writes down lots of tips and tutorials
The design is rather busy, but there is a search function.

 

[English Bob]

This is a pretty good site for translating news articles and longer bodies of text.
DeepL Translate

I'll give that a whirl, thanks!

I also hear it’s excellent for creating French lines for randy stuffed parrots... if someone were doing something like that.

There's no way you can just leave that there and walk off. I need hypertext URL link thingies, right away! Or maybe not, if the target is not suitable for a family audience.

...(don't judge my spelling/grammar errors, please)

Your English is better than many English people I know.

I wish Fractal Design had chosen a more unambigous name for their software. Trying to search the internet for Poser gives you a whole lot of interesting pages, none of which have to do with the software.

Those were different times. 'Poser' is a commonly used French word, as well as slang in English.

There is this website in French: la 3d avec bryce daz studio wings 3d shape magic vue ple vue 9 frontier argile - the person in charge regularly writes down lots of tips and tutorials
The design is rather busy, but there is a search function.

Thanks! I know of Monsieur Chacornac from his frequent freebies at ShareCG and Renderosity. I'll check that out with the help of a translator before I send a link; if my friend is feeling overwhelmed this may not help.

 

[mininessie]

Google translator do it for extended text...and in Chrome you can translate the page with right click automatically (right click expand some options,one is to traduct), but only on wrote text not images. I used it in a german forum.

 

[Leana]

3D diablotine is a French 3D forum with Poser and DS users. I don't know how active they are as I've not been there for quite some time tough.

If your friend decides to try DS, there are several users in Daz forums who speak French and might be able to help him if he has specific questions (including myself if it's not something complicated about Iray ).