Blender user in here?

[snowdrop]

I'm thinking about giving Blender a try with the final and only goal to be able to build mech-models/androids and sci-fi spaceships in it and am wondering is it's the right tool, and also if there's anyone in here with experience of it? I'm not at all interested in animating them, just want still renders from different angles and a program to build them in.

Problem is I've never even touched a 3d-program before and CAD in my teens is the closest I've been to it, which isn't close at all given the level I operated on drawing walls... lol

Honestly, the program looks very very scary, un-shmexy and it looks like it has a learning curve that's out of this world even for the simplest of tasks. On the plus side, I have some time every now and then right now and am a super-patient person.

[Q_x]

It will just have those 1000 buttons, no matter what, there is nothing simpler than that in 3D world. Maybe some specific expensive pieces like zbrush or silo...

With spaceships 2D (also vector) approach is also reasonable if you're patient. Or doing simplistic models and adding extras after rendering.

Look for tutorials about modelling (may be done in much simpler software like wings3D) and texturing.
I'm not good at 3D stuff either, the new Blender interface is just not that hard. Wings is a bit of a different story - you only model in it, and it's subdivision modelling, a kind of paradigm that prohibits you from eg. performing logical operations on models.
Also: assume that IT WILL TAKE LONG

I haven't seen it:
http://blender3d-tuts.blogspot.com/2010 ... eship.html

[Knitter]

I was like you a few months ago: no knowledge of 3D modeling, not even CAD. But I found blender to be quite simple to use, despite it's interface, or the fame it has.

I started learning how to use blender by following tutorials from http://gryllus.net/Blender/3D.html and from http://blenderunderground.com/. Blender Underground has some very old tutorials (2.4) but it was useful to see how the software evolved, but a lot of options and panels have changed, the tutorial in gryllus.net is for blender 2.5 but most of the interface is the same now in 2.6.

I also started looking at http://blenderart.org, the magazine is nice and there are several interesting models to learn from.

I never tried anything else for 3D modeling so I may be biased, and I don't yet know anything about animation beyond what you do with the camera (small videos created by moving the camera position), but I'm finding it's easy to work with blender and most of the things I need to do are accessible by keyboard shortcuts that are easy to remember so most of the time I have no other panel aside from the 3D View panel shown.

If you want to start using Blender I would suggest that you pick some video tutorial that will walk you through the interface options, trying to make sense of it all by yourself may be hard to do.

[snowdrop]

..realised how many hours it would take me to even start creating something that looks semi-decent...

*blender on hold until wt is released*

[Knitter]

Like anything else it requires work, a lot of work if you have no experience. It took me a all afternoon to create an ugly yellow submarine . If you want to create good looking models and render nice scenes you will need to be very good at using blender and have some artist blood in you

[snowdrop]

Like anything else it requires work, a lot of work if you have no experience

I think that's the main problem for me - being a total newbie. As far as artistry goes of that kind I am only used to doing graffiti as a kid, but I don't see that helping me My issue is that I wouldn't be able to produce anything good enough even if I spent the coming year on mastering it, as it wouldn't be enough time. The work of learning doesn't scare me. I think it's fun learning new stuff and even risk of being totally engrossed by them.

It's a time issue: Compared with for example learning python or re-learning php using the same time frame it would give me nothing usable back, and that kind of defeats the purpose for me since I want to have practical usage of it.

This makes me think about my glorydays as a teen when I seleced Visual Basic in school instead of 3dMax.... lol... Would I have chosen differently todaym given they were the only choice? Probably not,yet there is so much in life to learn and so little time.