Best Of
Re: DeathStranding2 Sniper Rifle-- Need your critique to Learn
Looks super cool! Maybe you could consider adding some roughness variation to the grip and plastic parts to boost the realistic look.
AlexandrDm
2 ·
Re: People with Autism + ADHD innatentive who aren't medicated do you have any advice to be productive?
(This will probably not gonna get me liked by HR)
I worked in a vfx studio at a time while having auditory and visual hallucinations and was doing my job as if all is normal. Socializing was extremely hard, but I did. At some point I was able to cure my illnesses with no medication. Just intense sport, muay thai, jiujitsu, therapy, meditation, prayer, asking for help when possible.
There are people with all sorts of -tisms working in vfx, especially the adhd depressive type. It's a creative field. Discipline yourself, physically, mentally, spiritually. Turn your curses into blessings. There are no shortcuts. Small steps in repetition are important.
And have fun, this is the key. Start with something simple. If you have ADHD, then switch things up regularly to make training less boring. Don't undertake ambitious projects. Try perfecting small models to start with, you'd be amazed how much you can learn from that.
I worked in a vfx studio at a time while having auditory and visual hallucinations and was doing my job as if all is normal. Socializing was extremely hard, but I did. At some point I was able to cure my illnesses with no medication. Just intense sport, muay thai, jiujitsu, therapy, meditation, prayer, asking for help when possible.
There are people with all sorts of -tisms working in vfx, especially the adhd depressive type. It's a creative field. Discipline yourself, physically, mentally, spiritually. Turn your curses into blessings. There are no shortcuts. Small steps in repetition are important.
And have fun, this is the key. Start with something simple. If you have ADHD, then switch things up regularly to make training less boring. Don't undertake ambitious projects. Try perfecting small models to start with, you'd be amazed how much you can learn from that.
ashstorm91
1 ·
Re: People with Autism + ADHD innatentive who aren't medicated do you have any advice to be productive?
Hey everyone, I honestly never expected this post to get many comments on it, and it is nice to see that I wasn't ignored. Thanks again for taking your precious time for me. Yesterday night I went to watch a YouTube video to see how to model a hand, and here is my third attempt. It isn't done but it already looks so much better: https://imgur.com/gallery/hand-third-attempt-after-before-lMTntGf
You know, all of this motivation stuff is something I never truly grasped, I tell myself if people like John Carmack (huge ID Software fan) could work for 12 hours a day, barely sleeping, feeding himself with pepsi and pizza daily and knock it out of the park, there MUST be something that I am missing. It's kinda like I am expecting things to just fall under my feet and work not feeling like work, because if I am passionate about something, I should have fun all the time, right?
Let me give an example: When I play video games and I record myself doing a speedrun, it often takes multiple attempts before I can beat my own record. When I did a speedrun of Mirror's Edge and beat it in 59 minutes and 22 seconds, it was hard and stressful, I had to be very precise to trigger the glitches for certain long jumps that required it. There were times I got mad when I'd fail for the dumbest reasons, yet I'd give it another go, and another... you get the idea. Supposedly autistic people like repetition, it might be why it never bothered me much to start again. That's exactly what I am trying to reach with Blender, and 3D art in general.
Since there's like 95% chance of having ADHD, I tell myself "It's not fair! People have medications to help with their productivity and I don't, they got therapists that supports them and I don't, I lived with a narcissistic mother who messed me up pretty bad and I got her voice constantly in my head telling me I am a failure, how am I supposed to succeed?"
I think what I am missing is that I am not the only guy on this earth who suffers, I bet some people would kill to have my body or my life, while I am here complaining. Sometimes when life is hell we just have to push through the suck, even when it feels we are all alone in our battles. Life will reward us for our hard work. I don't know if that mindset is healthy, though. Luckily for me when I feel down and I don't wanna do art, it usually takes a few hours, a day or two to want to try again, and now I got a hand that looks like a hand.
I will go back to add more details now. 
meltdawn
1 ·
Re: People with Autism + ADHD innatentive who aren't medicated do you have any advice to be productive?
Holy shit, you're like me. Maybe my thoughts can help.
Inattentive ADHD and autism is a pretty common combination, and a destructive one at that.
The 'tism made me unwaveringly principled, with no other acceptable substitute to my moral code than a better one.
Divide by ADHD, and my ability to act in accordance became, let's say, flimsy. The resulting cognitive dissonance was *chef's kiss* perfection.
It's the perfect combination to make me fuck up, hyper-fixate on exactly that, and make me feel all kinds of bad about myself.
Oh, what's that? ADHD comes bundled with depression? Can't patch it out? A core feature, you say? Oh. Oh no.
It escalated so slowly and over so many years that I didn't recognize that I'd lost control, completely becoming a passenger in my life.
All I could do was look at my failures and impotently claw at fixing things. It's not that I didn't try, I tried so fucking hard, but all of my effort and energy was spent trying to fix the wrong things.
I truly hope you're not unknowingly fighting for your life as I was, completely unaware of the danger I was in, and that I had malaphorically brought a spoon to a gun fight.
In retrospect, it's easy to put into words with introspect, how and why things worsened to the degree that they did. Of course at the time I didn't know even half of it. I didn't truly understand how ADHD functioned, how destructive it was, so all of the effort to improve my situation were focused on the wrong things. As I got older, the weight of it all became too much, and I had to completely break down to realize that I needed help if I was going to survive.
[Intentional tonal shift]
I said all of that so you'd take me seriously when I say that therapy will not give you the ability to focus.
I'm lucky! In Socialist Norway, therapy is free, and so are the drugs. Or, well, free enough.
The first thing I learned in therapy, is about therapy, that its' one and only function is to help point you in the direction of the information that you need, so that you can eventually help yourself. That sounds so obvious, but I hadn't really considered what the process would look like.
Once they had pointed, therapy instantly became useless to me. I completely took over, and fixed what needed fixing.
Most of the things that bother us are linked to not achieving our goals, despite all the work we put in. Things like altering expectations, fundamental reasoning of why we think we want something, what success is defined as, etc. are the most impactful changes one can do.
Again, therapy can only tell you this, and inspire you to do the work. Then you go find the things that can better help you, like support groups, proper self-help guides, etc.
For me, one of the most useful tools were the insight gained from youtube channels by and for people that have different types of ADHD that would share their experiences, thoughts and epiphanies that helped them realize WHY their brain was wonky, and what they needed to do to get better.
In a sense, solving ADHD related mental health issues through therapy is like reprogramming your brain. Therapy is a "coding for dummies" book.
If I may equate this to something you are fundamentally good at, 3d modelling: You didn't need a "3d modelling for dummies" book, you needed a support forum like Polycount. The rest you did yourself.
Remember when I said therapy is free? If I had to pay for it, I'd be seriously let down. Imagine having paid to go to school so you could learn how to model something, and literally all they did was say "Yeah you're bad at topology. Go to Polycount and ask them how to get better.".
I'm not saying therapy is a scam, but I personally didn't need it after I had started the process. A lot of people need their help and guidance and support, but I am not that person, and based on your posts I don't think you are either.
Remember when I said drugs are free? They're $30/month. If they had cost me $1000 a month, they'd be well worth it. Without them, I still randomly fail by getting distracted, hyper-fixate on the wrong things, randomly pivot into doing something technically productive but not in accordance with my priority list, still get distracted, so eventually still end up depressed, anxious, stressed, overworked because I have to overcompensate, and feeling like I've failed myself due to the 'tism.
All of that shit is due to the frontal-lobe shenanigans which unmedicated ADHD directly causes, and that aspect can't be helped with any amount of therapy self-help.
If it seems like I'm projecting a whole lot here, please excuse me. I'm only trying to give my take on such a situation, with my personal experience, and English isn't my first language.
Thanks for coming to the first part of my TED talk, my name is Faeniel.
For part two, I'll answer the second half of your question.
Inattentive ADHD and autism is a pretty common combination, and a destructive one at that.
The 'tism made me unwaveringly principled, with no other acceptable substitute to my moral code than a better one.
Divide by ADHD, and my ability to act in accordance became, let's say, flimsy. The resulting cognitive dissonance was *chef's kiss* perfection.
It's the perfect combination to make me fuck up, hyper-fixate on exactly that, and make me feel all kinds of bad about myself.
Oh, what's that? ADHD comes bundled with depression? Can't patch it out? A core feature, you say? Oh. Oh no.
It escalated so slowly and over so many years that I didn't recognize that I'd lost control, completely becoming a passenger in my life.
All I could do was look at my failures and impotently claw at fixing things. It's not that I didn't try, I tried so fucking hard, but all of my effort and energy was spent trying to fix the wrong things.
I truly hope you're not unknowingly fighting for your life as I was, completely unaware of the danger I was in, and that I had malaphorically brought a spoon to a gun fight.
In retrospect, it's easy to put into words with introspect, how and why things worsened to the degree that they did. Of course at the time I didn't know even half of it. I didn't truly understand how ADHD functioned, how destructive it was, so all of the effort to improve my situation were focused on the wrong things. As I got older, the weight of it all became too much, and I had to completely break down to realize that I needed help if I was going to survive.
[Intentional tonal shift]
I said all of that so you'd take me seriously when I say that therapy will not give you the ability to focus.
I'm lucky! In Socialist Norway, therapy is free, and so are the drugs. Or, well, free enough.
The first thing I learned in therapy, is about therapy, that its' one and only function is to help point you in the direction of the information that you need, so that you can eventually help yourself. That sounds so obvious, but I hadn't really considered what the process would look like.
Once they had pointed, therapy instantly became useless to me. I completely took over, and fixed what needed fixing.
Most of the things that bother us are linked to not achieving our goals, despite all the work we put in. Things like altering expectations, fundamental reasoning of why we think we want something, what success is defined as, etc. are the most impactful changes one can do.
Again, therapy can only tell you this, and inspire you to do the work. Then you go find the things that can better help you, like support groups, proper self-help guides, etc.
For me, one of the most useful tools were the insight gained from youtube channels by and for people that have different types of ADHD that would share their experiences, thoughts and epiphanies that helped them realize WHY their brain was wonky, and what they needed to do to get better.
In a sense, solving ADHD related mental health issues through therapy is like reprogramming your brain. Therapy is a "coding for dummies" book.
If I may equate this to something you are fundamentally good at, 3d modelling: You didn't need a "3d modelling for dummies" book, you needed a support forum like Polycount. The rest you did yourself.
Remember when I said therapy is free? If I had to pay for it, I'd be seriously let down. Imagine having paid to go to school so you could learn how to model something, and literally all they did was say "Yeah you're bad at topology. Go to Polycount and ask them how to get better.".
I'm not saying therapy is a scam, but I personally didn't need it after I had started the process. A lot of people need their help and guidance and support, but I am not that person, and based on your posts I don't think you are either.
Remember when I said drugs are free? They're $30/month. If they had cost me $1000 a month, they'd be well worth it. Without them, I still randomly fail by getting distracted, hyper-fixate on the wrong things, randomly pivot into doing something technically productive but not in accordance with my priority list, still get distracted, so eventually still end up depressed, anxious, stressed, overworked because I have to overcompensate, and feeling like I've failed myself due to the 'tism.
All of that shit is due to the frontal-lobe shenanigans which unmedicated ADHD directly causes, and that aspect can't be helped with any amount of therapy self-help.
If it seems like I'm projecting a whole lot here, please excuse me. I'm only trying to give my take on such a situation, with my personal experience, and English isn't my first language.
Thanks for coming to the first part of my TED talk, my name is Faeniel.
For part two, I'll answer the second half of your question.
Thanez
3 ·
Re: People with Autism + ADHD innatentive who aren't medicated do you have any advice to be productive?
Another endorsement for the writing things down. I create lists of things that have to be done in the day, that would be nice if they get done but the world won't end if they don't, then cross one by one. I do the same with projects: It's just series of small tasks I work through.
My writing setup it far from fancy, a pen and loose sheets of paper ripped from old notebooks from my student days that didn't get fully used up. I leave the lists on my desk or pinned up. The thing about physical lists is that I can't minimize and ignore and forget about them, and the friction of loading some stupid app in first place to create and edit them isn't there either, it's just pen and paper, so I feel far more inclined to keep up with them. And not trying to keep them in my head helps to not only in not forgetting things but to keep the stress down, otherwise there's this pressure of endless lists of lists of things to do and the weight alone of all these undone stuff, never crossed out, can wear you down pretty fast.
They're also helpful in studying. Producing something stunning on the first try is a happy accident, not a reasonable expectation. Sometimes previous knowledge from different areas (eg anatomy from drawing) carry over getting you better unexpectedly better results that early tries have any right to be, and this previous knowledge helps in reducing the amount of things you got to study, but don't count on luck; Make a conscious effort to keep the amount of things you're studying manageable and expectations grounded. Break down a study into small morsels, a list of tasks or subjects, pick only a couple to really study and settle for "it works" for the others. Every bit you study and understand now becomes something you don't need to worry as much in the next project. This knowledge accumulates, so give yourself the room to get things wrong now knowing this is what allows you to get them right in the future.
My writing setup it far from fancy, a pen and loose sheets of paper ripped from old notebooks from my student days that didn't get fully used up. I leave the lists on my desk or pinned up. The thing about physical lists is that I can't minimize and ignore and forget about them, and the friction of loading some stupid app in first place to create and edit them isn't there either, it's just pen and paper, so I feel far more inclined to keep up with them. And not trying to keep them in my head helps to not only in not forgetting things but to keep the stress down, otherwise there's this pressure of endless lists of lists of things to do and the weight alone of all these undone stuff, never crossed out, can wear you down pretty fast.
They're also helpful in studying. Producing something stunning on the first try is a happy accident, not a reasonable expectation. Sometimes previous knowledge from different areas (eg anatomy from drawing) carry over getting you better unexpectedly better results that early tries have any right to be, and this previous knowledge helps in reducing the amount of things you got to study, but don't count on luck; Make a conscious effort to keep the amount of things you're studying manageable and expectations grounded. Break down a study into small morsels, a list of tasks or subjects, pick only a couple to really study and settle for "it works" for the others. Every bit you study and understand now becomes something you don't need to worry as much in the next project. This knowledge accumulates, so give yourself the room to get things wrong now knowing this is what allows you to get them right in the future.
Celosia
1 ·
Re: People with Autism + ADHD innatentive who aren't medicated do you have any advice to be productive?
Reading this post is like looking in a mirror...
I'm not diagnosed with anything, but years of struggling with even "basic" aspects of life made me think that, yes, maybe I should've gone to a doctor. Alas, I can't afford it either (and even if I could, I still wouldn't be able to make myself go).
That said, I'm just a hobbyist, so my words probably don't carry much weight.
- don't underestimate brain biochemistry or whatever makes people have mood-swings and lose "motivation". Motivation IS bull, as in it shouldn't derail your projects. So you need to learn to recognize where these feelings come from and how to deal with them.
Sometimes you may have wildly different feelings on the same subject in a span of hours - it's important to remember how unreliable they are.
- basic physical exercise is deceptively important. I should know, because I don't do it and constantly have to pay the price ='D
- what somewhat helps me is keeping a notepad nearby and writing down ideas and steps to realize them. Then crossing them one by one, or re-writing as needed. These are crude, non-linear and sketchy and can be discarded at any moment.
Lists and drawings - just putting these things on paper is already a step forward. Plus, if I feel aimless, I can just open any page and do whatever is written there, step by step.
- another thing is (briefly) switching projects and mediums if completely stuck. Staring at the same thing for an hour doesn't magically resolve any problems. But for example sketching it on paper may get you un-stuck - maybe you'll see exactly how to proceed, or find a new approach.
Look for what works for you. See how other people do things. Try different workflows: even if you don't end up following them, maybe it'll help you see things differently. Practice on smaller projects.
Try to keep yourself in motion, but also don't forget to just stop and take a break. Know your limits before breaking through them. There's always a feeling that you have to be doing something, but there need to be a healthy balance in everything.
Also, having fun is important! It may not be constant and all-encompassing, but there have to be some fun at least.
Look for what works for you. See how other people do things. Try different workflows: even if you don't end up following them, maybe it'll help you see things differently. Practice on smaller projects.
Try to keep yourself in motion, but also don't forget to just stop and take a break. Know your limits before breaking through them. There's always a feeling that you have to be doing something, but there need to be a healthy balance in everything.
Also, having fun is important! It may not be constant and all-encompassing, but there have to be some fun at least.
stray
2 ·
Learn to Draw in 100 Hours - Padlet Order List
Hi
Martina from "Nerdforge" created
a resource list of tutorials for learning to draw in 100 hours. They made a
video of her husband, Hansi, going through the tutorials in order and
documenting his progress.
I've made a Padlet if
anyone fancies giving it a go, your welcome 👍
https://padlet.com/littleclaude/learning-to-draw-8zhtxehblhgc6ort
I had a student many years ago who did 1-2 hours drawing per day and he become very good by the end of the year, here is his results - https://www.artstation.com/artwork/zAWVo2
littleclaude
3 ·
DeathStranding2 Sniper Rifle-- Need your critique to Learn
This is Tranq Sniper Rifle from deathstranding2. Basically I got lots of fusion360 modeling experience but this is my first attempt of rendering with Blender to get a clean pic. I've tried my best but I guess I will need others critique to improve. So I hope you can give me some advice, truly appreciate.
HOLLOVIA
3 ·
Re: Kyoto Modular Houses – Tsushinikai & Sonikai
Hey, this looks cool. I think you need to create a height blended material with a few layers, for the streets and roofs and stuff, so you can break up the monotony and paint in some fun grunge. It would help bring this environment closer to a professional level.
Ashervisalis
1 ·
Re: Early-Late 2000s CGI/Game Models
poopipe said:Mirai -( or nendo if you just bought the modelling part ) was glorious. Max didn't really catch up til version 4 almost a decade later and I'd argue that Maya still hasn't in some ways.
I think you got it all mixed up a little... 
Mirai, Nendo and Max 4 all came out around the same time - 1999-2000. Nichimen's Mirai was the 'next-gen' version of N-World, a 3D package associated with 90's console development - especially Nintendo - which itself originated from an early 3D package developed for a hardware maker (Symbolics) way back in the 80's or so. Nendo was a standalone modeller developed by a third party and only acquired by Nichimen (pretty sure about that) - unlike Mirai it was Windows-only and it didn't share all that much with Mirai really - a few modelling functions and somewhat similar interface. Not even file compatibility.
And Max 4 only became comparable to Nendo's poly modelling functions once Laszlo Sebo released the Meshtools script, followed up by a few other script makers getting in on the fun - csPolytools is one I remember in particular but there were others. By putting the functions into a custom quad menu you could largely emulate the working style of Nichimen's packages (very context-menu based). From Max 5 onwards you had most of these functions natively built into the software itself. I recall some Meshtools implementations behaved nicer than Autodeks's tho so the old scripts stuck around in my config until I abandoned the software in the 2010's.
As for Maya there was a German coder who implemented a whole bunch of Nendo and then some as a plugin for Maya in the early 2000's. Looked really cool when it was presented but it seems he went all commercial way too early so his addon didn't gain the traction needed and Maya users were stuck with the ancient default tools for a long time after. King size oof. 
thomasp
1 ·