Random comments inline.
Martin
John wrote:
>>Why are your projects becoming bigger and bigger? Just curious. Is it
due
>>to the polyo**** of the models you are using or is it due to using
texture
>>maps instead of procedural textures?
>
> As you have probably already read - I am a beginner, so I donīt know if
I
> use texture maps or procedural textures... What is the difference? And
how
> do I choose which to use?
Texture maps are image files that you bring in from "outside" 3DSM and
map to an object. Procedural textures are ones that you create inside
3DSM using the material editor. There is a big difference in how much of
the system resource are used depending on which method you use. For
instance, say you're building a house and you create a highly detailed
texture map in Photoshop for the exterior textures & bump map for the
model. That high-res external JPG/PSD/TIF image file might be a couple
megs in size - when you bring that into your scene and map it to the
model - the software now has to allocate RAM to hold that texture map.
Procedural textures on the other hand don't tax the system resouces as
much as they are generated internally from the software itself.
That's not to say it is a bad idea to use texture maps - just that you
need to anticipate the space that they need and try to optimize the
image files to make their files size as small as possible and/or to try
and make them into what is called seamless texture maps, which are small
amounts of textures that can be seamless tiled over a large area.
How do you choose which to use? There are tons of books / web sites /
tutorials out there that detail that a whole lot better than I could
here on the Usenet.
For instance - this is one of my favorite sites for learning about
texturing concepts.
http://www.neilblevins.com/cg_education/cg_education.htm
http://www.neilblevins.com/
> I guess my polycount is pretty high by now - as I build many rather
large
> buildings in the same project (houses etc...). What I do now is: I hide
the
> buildings that are finished - while I build new buildings. In that way
itīs
> not too slow while I am working - but when I "unhide all" it gets very
slow.
Ok - I'm going to say somethings that will make a lot of sense, but is
something that most people just ignore as it sounds like a lot of extra
work.
1) You need to plan your work - what you are wanting to accomplish - in
detail. If you are doing an animation, you need to write a script and
then story board all of the scenes. You need to break down the scenes
that you want to do and break those up into separate modeling /
animation projects - multiple project files. If you start off with an
exterior scene and then transition into an interior scene, don't make
that all one scene file - with a model that has both an exterior surface
and an interior. Make those two diffrent sets.
2) Don't model stuff that your are never going to see. I've seen too
many people completely model a static prop that is only going to be seen
for a few seconds from one side only. Model only what you need to be
seen. Also in that, develop different versions of the models that you
are using. Make maybe three versions - a detailed version with lots of
polys to be used for closeup work, an intermediate version to be used in
non-closeups, and a really low polycount version to be used in the
distance. Again, planning what you are going to need and do before
starting a project will help to make things work a lot better.
3) Model stuff seperately and then im****t it into your finished scene.
>>There are lots of ways to optimize things so as to not bog down your
>>system resources.
>
> How?
That is the sixty-four thousand dollar question.
I don't do 3d for a living myself - it's more just a hobby for me right
now. But I however do, do CAD (computer-aided drafting) for a living.
I've been doing that pretty much since AutoCAD first came out. But my
actual "schooling" wasn't in CAD, but rather in manual drafting - back
in the BC days (before computers). One of the things that I have noticed
with some of the young people that we hire / interview these days, they
know the software - but they don't really know what to do with it. The
analogy that I make is someone learning how to use MS Word, but not
learning english or how to write. So you get this person and then tell
them to write an article on "Tree Frogs of the South" and they end up
asking "how" do I do that. Leaning that "how" seems to be something that
isn't as well covered as operating the software is.
There are two ways (as I see it), to learn this "how";
1) Find someone that knows this stuff and get them to teach you, or let
you work with them to see how things are done.
2) Teach yourself - this is going to be the hardest way, as you are
going to have to read a lot of books and do a lot of tutorials and
experiment projects.
There are tons of web sites / books out there - but most of them mainly
are aimed at teaching how the software works - not how to best use it.
So you're going to have to ****ft a lot of sand to find the few gold
nuggets - and learn to recognize those bits of gold.
There are some books out there that have a lot of information - some do
attempt to cover how to develop / create / manage projects as well as
how to operate the software. Keep in mind there are LOTS of books and I
can only recommend the ones that I know of (and remember reading).
A few books that I found helpful; (keep in mind some of these are
probably old and out-of-print)
1) "3D Game Textures: Creating Professional Game Art using Photoshop",
by Luke Ahearn
2) "The Dark Side of Game Texturing", by David Franson
3) "inspired 3D Modeling and Texture Mapping", by Michael Ford & Kyle
Clark
4) "3D Graphics & Animation: From Starting Up to Standing Out", by Mark
Giambruno
5) "Gardner's guide to Animation Scriptwriting: The Writer's Road Map",
by Marilyn Webber
These are just a few - I've probably bought more than a hundred books
over the years. and I still constantly search the local used-book stores
for books. New these books are expensive (typical $50+), but every now
and then you can find old copies in a used-book store. Another great
source that I've recently found is Amazon.com, there are a lot of used
book stores selling through Amazon nowadays. About a month ago I bought
three Max books from one vendor and the whole batch of books only cost
me less than $20.
1) "3DS max|Magic", by Sean Bonney
2) 3ds max 5: Fundamentals", by Ted Boardman
3) "3ds Max for Windows"; by Michele Matossian
Another great book that I would recommend - but it is out-of-print and
not easy to get, is the book that Brian Taylor wrote about his work on
his "Rustboy" project. Some of this is covered on his web site
(www.rustboy.com), but not as in-depth as what he did in the book.
>>My guess also would be that you need more RAM, especially since you're
>>running Vista (hear it's a bit of a memory hog).
>
> Yes I thought so - I think Iīll buy some more RAM soon. But what about
the
> graphics card? Will it speed things up if I buy a better one?
Everything that I've heard says that you don't really need a super
expensive graphics card.
How much empty space do you have on your hard drive(s)? and have you
defraged your drives lately? Are they fast drives? Cleaning up your
drives and making more continuous space might help some too.
Martin
>
> John :o)
>
>
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