Setting up Blender for UV Mapping

[Lissa_xyz]

Blender is pretty much my go-to package right now. I've tried a couple that just felt off to me (Silo, Hexagon mainly). Admittedly, I may not have given Silo enough of a chance, and Hexagon I couldn't get on with whatever all that validation stuff is. I initially bought Silo on sale because having Blender as an all-in-one was daunting at the time as I didn't know what bits I actually required for modeling/learning, so I got something that wasn't so in-depth. Now that I've got my face out of the muck so to speak, I'm much more comfortable with Blender, and will probably be sticking with it until I can introduce Zbrush for sculpting.

I used to have the opinion of Blender that too many hands in the cookie jar wasn't always a good thing, but since using it more, it's amazing. All those useful scripts and addons. Retopoflow is freaking amazing for retopology (it's free on github, paying the $79 is only a tech support entitlement). Even my boyfriend who uses 3DS Max was slightly jealous when I showed it to him.

 

[Miss B]

Ohhhh I'm not familiar with Retopoflow, I'll have to check that out.

I've been using Blender since version 2.4x, and the old, horrible UI, but Hex has never played nice on this laptop. I guess it's the old 32-bit software on a 64-bit OS thing, but I'm not sure.

I got Silo very cheap when Macheist had it on sale for $25. I had already played with it for a month, and Fugazi has a bunch of tutorials for it at Renderosity. It was the first time I had successfully modeled any clothing. I pretty much use Blender for enviro/prop stuff, but I really, really like it's UV Editor no matter what software I do the modeling in.

 

[Miss B]

Oh BTW, Blender does sculpting, which I found out quite by accident, but I have no idea if it's anything like Zbrush sculpting.

 

[Lissa_xyz]

I remember the old, horrible UI. I still have nightmares about that UI. -shudder- I didn't start giving Blender a tried and true shot until the UI overhaul.

Would you believe I actually have a lot of Fugazi's stuff? I just haven't put in the time w/ those yet. lol I may work through them at some point, but translate them to Blender's workflow.

As far as sculpting, I do use Blender's atm, but Zbrush is pretty much the go-to app in the industry for digital sculpting. Sculpting is it's primary function and it does it well.

 

[DaremoK3]

Nah, Blender's sculpting isn't like ZBrush. It's more like SharpConstruct.

I love the old 2.4x UI. Still play in it once in awhile. Hated it at first when I first used it, and couldn't read any of the tiny lettering before finding out about customization and vertical sectioning. The kicker, very soon after I learned all this 2.5 came out looking exactly how I was taught to customize 2.49b (still love that little app).

I do equal sculpting in Blender and Sculptris, but Blender wins hands down for ease of use in conjunction with modifiers and edit mode for morphing work.

Blender UV sucks!!!

April Fools...

It is awesomesauce!!!

 

[Lissa_xyz]

Yea, Sculptris doesn't have much of anything. They bought it out from a guy, who they then hired, and then just kind of left Sculptris in the dark.

Zbrush and Sculptris is kind of like apples and oranges in regard to the feature set though. Zbrush is much more feature rich than Sculptris. Basically Zbrush would be Photoshop, and Sculptris would be MS Paint. lol

 

[Miss B]

That's a great comparison Vask, and I can agree with you wholeheartedly. I tried Sculptris once, and I uninstalled it about 10 minutes later. Geeze what a horror show.

Now you've got me curious about Blender's sculpting. I may have to actually try it.

 

[Lorraine]

Hi Daremo, I would LOVE your texture, it is, as Miss B said, just the sort of thing I like

 

[Lissa_xyz]

@Miss B I'm digging in full force. I sat for a while thinking on what my passions are, and hard surface just isn't it. My entire life I've been a horror-nerd. Demons, creatures, blood, ooze, etc. It's what makes my blood flow. So I'm diving in. Fully learning anatomy to better my drawing/concepting and working my way from the ground up. It'll be hard work, but in the end I'll be much happier, doing something I love and work won't actually feel like work.

For actual cash flow though in the mean time, I'll be doing office/tech type stuff as that's where my actual work experience/schooling is.

 

[Miss B]

Well I give you a lot of credit, because every time I see a render of some creature/character done in Zbrush, I just stare at it with my mouth open and say to myself "not me, I'll never be able to do that". So I stick to hard surface modeling for now.

That said, I did manage to create a fairly decent samurai sword in Zbrush, but I don't really think it was sculpting in the manner I think sculpting is normally done, because it was still a prop, and not an organic being, if you know what I mean.

 

[Lissa_xyz]

Zbrush *can* do hard surface modeling, and I've seen some amazing hard surface stuff come out of it. Here's one of the better ones I've seen over time: ArtStation - Mech Armour Concept, Marcus Whinney

Here's a video showing some hard surface techniques if you're interested. I don't know if they're good, bad, or what-have-you as I've never tried to hard surface with sculpting tools.

 

[DaremoK3]

I would love to see your sculpted Katana, Miss B. That is right up my alley. I believe it to be much harder to sculpt one then standard hard mesh modeling. I commend you, as I wouldn't even attempt it.

Is there a Private Message system in place here at the hive?

I want to send Lorraine a private download link to the texture tile.

 

[Pendraia]

ZModeller is fun to use...it will be interesting to see where they take it. It makes certain things really easy to do but there are some things I still miss.
@Daremok, if you click on her name a box will pop up, then click on start a conversation it's a very nice system and you can include more than one person.

 

[DaremoK3]

Okay, Pendraia, thank you. I went to her page by right clicking on her name on the main forum page, and saw conversations underway, but I don't feel they are private, or why would I be able to see her conversing with Carey?

I want to give a download link, but I don't want it open-public. So, if you guys do decide to use the texture under commercial use, I don't want others to have in that capacity. I want it for your teams use.

 

[Lissa_xyz]

What you're seeing on Lorraine's profile page are profile messages. Those are public. Using "Start a Conversation" is private.

 

[DaremoK3]

Thank you, Vaskania, I will give it a shot...

 

[phdubrov]

It's called conversations here.

 

[Pendraia]

What Vaskania said is correct...if you click on Start a conversation it's private. To get the dialogue box click on her name under her avatar.

 

[DaremoK3]

Thank you all, it worked perfectly.

The more I interact with the new incarnation of the site, the more I am loving the nuances of it. I liked the old site, but maybe it's me, but this new version feels better. The little details make it a pleasure.

 

[Lorraine]

Got it