Scarlett Posted August 27, 2005 Share Posted August 27, 2005 Hi, I've been lurking here for a few weeks and thought I'd introduce myself. My educational background is in interior design and I'm currently working for an architect specializing in outpatient healthcare facilites. I've been using 2d AutoCAD for about 7 years and have become bored making lines and circles. So I thought I'd learn max and start working with volumes and color. I picked up a copy of max and a computer that could handle it and started on the tutorials... and I'm finding it a lot more confusing than I thought it would be. I have 2 million stupid questions and nowhere to find answers. A quick internet search located two Discrete certified training centers in Los Angeles, both of them offering one class that focuses on game design. Would this be of any value or is it significantly different from architectural design? Does anyone know of a private tutor or unofficial classes in the LA area? How did you lean how to do this and how long did it take to become proficient? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bugga_Guy Posted August 28, 2005 Share Posted August 28, 2005 Although I am pretty comfortable with max, I still don't know it 100% - and its been 6 years You may want to tryout online learning from http://www.lynda.com or http://www.vtc.com(I really should be getting money from these guys, after all the plugs I have made), its cheaper and will give you a good idea how to use max. It won't give architectural design examples, but it will show you how to get a good grasp of the software. I seen fellow 3D visualizers spend thousands of dollars and time in nightschool classes learning max for architectural design here in toronto, but their stuff wasn't all that hot. My 2 cents. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luckytohaveher Posted August 28, 2005 Share Posted August 28, 2005 Take the classes! I taught myself. Way too long.. Way too hard... The classes may not be tailor to your field; however, buttons is buttons and settings is settings... Beside, gaming design may actually be more beneficial than something specialized in interiors or architecture. They don't neccessarily have to deal with reality and as such may have a totally different way of looking at the problem. It could be very insightful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scarlett Posted August 28, 2005 Author Share Posted August 28, 2005 I lived in Windsor for a while.... not too far from Toronto, relatively speaking. I can confidently say that after 7 years I know about 40% of what CAD if capable of. Fortunately, that's about all I need to know to make a set of construction documents. The classes may not be tailor to your field; however, buttons is buttons and settings is settings... LOL. That's what I was thinking when I first picked up max. I figured - hey, it's basically made by the same guys that make CAD, how much different can it be? And a lot of the commands have the same name... but hugely different meanings or results, which I'm finding quite frustrating. I've also been lurking at some of the game art boards (yes, I have a lurking problem) and they talk about things like UV mapping, baking textures, basic anatomy and how to skin and rig said anatomy and edge loops. If anyone could enlighten me as to what an edge loop is, I'd be very grateful. I haven't been able to figure out that one yet. Point is, their focus seems to be vastly different from what I've seen in the architectural crowd which seems to lean toward light, shadow and reflections, textures and the artistry of a scene that draws the viewer in. I'd hate to waste half a semester learning how to rig and animate a boss monster when it's highly unlikely I'll ever use that in an architectural setting. But I'm still leaning heavily towards taking a class, if just for the benefit of having a real, live person to field all my newbie questions. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oluv Posted August 28, 2005 Share Posted August 28, 2005 well, maybe skinning a monster is not what you need, but understanding texture baking, uv-mapping, and realtime-set development might be very useful. maybe now you are still not thinking of it, but imagine you have the knowledge of how to create your interiors as real-time enviroments and your customers can move around within your gi-baked creations, maybe even with 3d-shutter glasses or with headmounted displays. they will certainly be impressed, so will you realtime modeling it is lot's of fun and you won't have to wait hours for one single rendering, but rather you wait once for baking your textures, or lightmaps, and then you can move around inside your finished model. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nbasir Posted August 28, 2005 Share Posted August 28, 2005 Hi Scarlett Welcome to the world of Max! I faced the same problem when I started using max for the first time. I think No one can make himself a pro max user without spending a huge time playing with it. My advice would be- 1. at first make youself comfortable with the very basic tools like create and transform. 2. then try to explore more complex areas of max but do not dig too much at the very begining. 3. Try to build very simple scenes using the basic create and transform tools. Play with these tools to create everything in your imagination and find what is not possible and try to solve it. 4. Then view your creation from various angles and lighting condition. try to use various scene navigation commands. try to immitate real world viewing angles and perspectives. 5. Then make yorself familer with very basic tools and menues. For this purpose you can consult your 1st 2/3 tutorials from the online help. 6. when you can atleast create and navigate within max environment, then follow the first 2-3 modelling tutorials from the manual. Dont try to complete all the tutorial chronologically and for God sake dont try to understand everything at the very first time. Reapeat the same tutorials for better understanding. You will find new ways of doing the same thing if you repeat. 7. At this level you may go to a senior max user or some classes to get a basic knowledge of architectural visualization. 8. Pls remember Autocad is a technical drawing tool and max is an artistic tools. Dont try to use same method for getting the same result in both softwares. Think and act diffrently while using both softwares. 9. have some max books with practical examples for doing particular things. whenever you get time pls do the examples for your own and try to modify it. 10. Consult different arch. visualization forums and place your questions. 11. when you feel that you are ready to atleast teach beginner max students then go to a certified max trainer for problem specific custom classes. I think you got some idea. GoodLuck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher Nichols Posted August 29, 2005 Share Posted August 29, 2005 There is no reason to learn everything that MAX can do. You will not need to learn particle FX, Character rigging, + a million other anim methods. That was the reason they came up with VIZ. Then again, there is no reason to learn everything in VIZ either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ricardo Eloy Posted August 29, 2005 Share Posted August 29, 2005 I would just add one thing to Christopher's comment: you don't need to learn everything, but you do need to learn what you need and learn it well. I see lots of people complaining about lighting in Max, saying they need VRay/finalRender/Brazil/whatever to get decent results, but you can count in one hand those who actually know their way using radiosity or default lighting techniques. IMO, one should learn all there is to know about a tool before saying it doesn't fit his/her needs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher Nichols Posted August 29, 2005 Share Posted August 29, 2005 I would just add one thing to Christopher's comment: you don't need to learn everything, but you do need to learn what you need and learn it well. I see lots of people complaining about lighting in Max, saying they need VRay/finalRender/Brazil/whatever to get decent results, but you can count in one hand those who actually know their way using radiosity or default lighting techniques. IMO, one should learn all there is to know about a tool before saying it doesn't fit his/her needs. I agree with you BIG time on this one. There are amazing renders that come ouf of package before GI, just look at all the movies done still to this day using renderman, where people still use shadow maps, and raytracing often a luxury that people can't afford. If you look at some of the old renderings done in thsi Gallery, it is pretty humbling... http://raph.com/3dartists/artgallery/ag-r.html Many of them done on Pentium 2 and 3s... that is how old they are. Just to show that toold don't make for better images... people do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scarlett Posted August 30, 2005 Author Share Posted August 30, 2005 Thank you for all the responses. Okay, I feel a little better about the learning curve now. I've found a few good sources (free) for tutorials and will definitely check out what Autodesk has to offer, hopefully at a reasonable price. Does "student of life" qualify for a discount?. Someone here (sorry, don't remember the name) recently posted some beautiful scenes using the scanline renderer. That was very encouraging to see, as this whole endeavor has not been cheap and I shudder to think what the grand total would be after adding all these third party plug-ins. Real-time rendering sounds very cool... maybe learning a few things from the gamer gurus would be a good thing. Christopher, just checked out a few of the images on that link. WOW. Humbling, indeed. The work I see posted in the W.I.P. section here is way beyond anything I'm doing right now. Is there board on this site, or another site altogether, where I can post images of my problem pieces and get some insight as to why they're not working? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher Nichols Posted August 30, 2005 Share Posted August 30, 2005 Never be afraid to post your work and ask for help. It is the best way to learn. This site is a great resource. My only point in showing that gallery is that even back then (circa 1995 to 1998), people could do amazing things with the tools they have. And so can you. BTW, a good artistic "analogue" resource for you would be books on photography. After all, once you have modeled it, what you are doing is taking a picture of it.... and that is all about lighting, shading, and composition... just like a photograph. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
inasia Posted March 11, 2010 Share Posted March 11, 2010 Hi Scarlett Welcome to the world of Max! I faced the same problem when I started using max for the first time. I think No one can make himself a pro max user without spending a huge time playing with it. My advice would be- 1. at first make youself comfortable with the very basic tools like create and transform. 2. then try to explore more complex areas of max but do not dig too much at the very begining. 3. Try to build very simple scenes using the basic create and transform tools. Play with these tools to create everything in your imagination and find what is not possible and try to solve it. 4. Then view your creation from various angles and lighting condition. try to use various scene navigation commands. try to immitate real world viewing angles and perspectives. 5. Then make yorself familer with very basic tools and menues. For this purpose you can consult your 1st 2/3 tutorials from the online help. 6. when you can atleast create and navigate within max environment, then follow the first 2-3 modelling tutorials from the manual. Dont try to complete all the tutorial chronologically and for God sake dont try to understand everything at the very first time. Reapeat the same tutorials for better understanding. You will find new ways of doing the same thing if you repeat. 7. At this level you may go to a senior max user or some classes to get a basic knowledge of architectural visualization. 8. Pls remember Autocad is a technical drawing tool and max is an artistic tools. Dont try to use same method for getting the same result in both softwares. Think and act diffrently while using both softwares. 9. have some max books with practical examples for doing particular things. whenever you get time pls do the examples for your own and try to modify it. 10. Consult different arch. visualization forums and place your questions. 11. when you feel that you are ready to atleast teach beginner max students then go to a certified max trainer for problem specific custom classes. I think you got some idea. GoodLuck Hi Nbasir, Salutations! one piece of good advice for a beginner like myself, Thank you very much. yes the road is long, but the path is filled with delightful treasure as we pick them along. Thank you again cheers inasia Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zpanzer Posted March 12, 2010 Share Posted March 12, 2010 I started out using 3Ds Max around 3-4 years ago and I found the best way(for me atleast) to learn max was just to try and do some small projects and recreate images I've seen other places. I'm still a beginner when it comes to 3d and I've only just been able to score a internship at a Viz company at the age of 19. I still got some time to do learn it all before I'm done studying. What I think you gotta do is to narrow down on what you want to learn first. For me the first part was modelling and texturing(they're both two huuuge fields that one can only hope to master at some point) and then moving on to rendering and lighting. Free tutorials can be a good help and they're definitely worth spending time on finding. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
inasia Posted March 13, 2010 Share Posted March 13, 2010 I started out using 3Ds Max around 3-4 years ago and I found the best way(for me atleast) to learn max was just to try and do some small projects and recreate images I've seen other places. I'm still a beginner when it comes to 3d and I've only just been able to score a internship at a Viz company at the age of 19. I still got some time to do learn it all before I'm done studying. What I think you gotta do is to narrow down on what you want to learn first. For me the first part was modelling and texturing(they're both two huuuge fields that one can only hope to master at some point) and then moving on to rendering and lighting. Free tutorials can be a good help and they're definitely worth spending time on finding. HI Zpanzer, Good morning, at your tender age of 19 and with three to four years of past experience, i must say you sure did have an early start and definitely a very bright future ahead of you, " the constant pursue of purpose will surely find you there". I have been searching much on beginners tutorials, and some which seem so easy is still a difficult task for me to accomplish, but be assure i have the determination, maybe today it seems difficult for me to understand the procedure, i have bookmark them for future references. Do you have any recommendations of beginner's beginner tutorials, for example, for now i can make a box with cover, a stair case with railings, it must sound so simple to the many many here, nevertheless i am so please with myself to be able to comprehend the how and what to do to make such simple objects. By the way, at this moment in time i like very much to swim in the building of houses designing realm. Thank you in advance cheers inasia Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
padre.ayuso Posted March 13, 2010 Share Posted March 13, 2010 What I think you gotta do is to narrow down on what you want to learn first. For me the first part was modelling and texturing(they're both two huuuge fields that one can only hope to master at some point) and then moving on to rendering and lighting. Free tutorials can be a good help and they're definitely worth spending time on finding. I agree with you completely. I first learnt modeling and when I was happy I could do modeling (walls, chairs, desks, light fixtures, etc.), then I started putting them together and then texturing them. Finally came lighting. It took me 4 months for me to do a decent rendering, but I was grateful to be able to do this full time as my job/training. Good luck! And yes, remember, one step at a time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grohu Posted March 13, 2010 Share Posted March 13, 2010 My recommendation is http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com Just make sure you choose max as a platform. Awesome tutorials on lightning, rendering, texturing and modeling as well. Just go one by one. Absolutely no need to buy them all at the same time. Take your time and follow the tutorials. Modeling architecture is the easiest thing of them all and if you put your mind to it you'll be doing it in no time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
inasia Posted March 13, 2010 Share Posted March 13, 2010 Good luck! And yes, remember, one step at a time. HI Padre.Ayuso, Thank you for the encouragement and the advice, " a journey of a million miles start with a step" Have a good day. cheers inasia Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
inasia Posted March 13, 2010 Share Posted March 13, 2010 Modeling architecture is the easiest thing of them all and if you put your mind to it you'll be doing it in no time. Hi Grohu, Thank you for the recommendation, yes indeed it is a good source of very useful information for a beginner like myself. Thank you again for sharing. cheers inasia Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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