Not Your Average Software Debate
polycounter lvl 4
Hey guys,
I've been wanting to get my son started learning 3d modeling for a while. He's 12 now, and absolutely loves building stuff in Minecraft or any level editor for any game that has one.
Currently, and for the last 14 or so years, I'm a fulltime animator. Prior to that I was more of a jack-of-all trades (like we all were back then), but primarily did character modeling in Lightwave. So when I do modeling stuff now, whether it's for personal stuff or the odd small task at work, I'll use Modo. Modo owns. But my hunch is that Modo might not be the most friendly entry vehicle (I could be wrong, that would actually be great if I was).
So my question is, do you feel any software is more learning friendly for modeling than the others? Is there any that felt particularly bad or unintuitive? If anyone has any actual experience teaching young kids that would be great to hear as well.
I've been wanting to get my son started learning 3d modeling for a while. He's 12 now, and absolutely loves building stuff in Minecraft or any level editor for any game that has one.
Currently, and for the last 14 or so years, I'm a fulltime animator. Prior to that I was more of a jack-of-all trades (like we all were back then), but primarily did character modeling in Lightwave. So when I do modeling stuff now, whether it's for personal stuff or the odd small task at work, I'll use Modo. Modo owns. But my hunch is that Modo might not be the most friendly entry vehicle (I could be wrong, that would actually be great if I was).
So my question is, do you feel any software is more learning friendly for modeling than the others? Is there any that felt particularly bad or unintuitive? If anyone has any actual experience teaching young kids that would be great to hear as well.
Replies
I would think that a very intuitive way to get into modeling would be setup whatever program you end up picking in such a way that boolean operations are *very* easy to access - like setting simple scripts and buttons to make the combining process as straightforward as possible.
Now of course one could argue that a solid handle of polygon modeling is necessary, but that's more of a technical thing really and is better left for later.
As a matter of fact, I personally originally got into modeling by messing around with trueSpace 2, which had a very solid boolean engine. I had no idea what a polygon or an edge loop was back then, but it didn't prevent me from modeling Star Wars and Gundam models as well as engine parts quite accurately ! And to this day this is still the way I tackle my blockouts (combined with some sculpting of course.)
From there I would say that some old version of trueSpace could be interesting to look at, but it might just be too antiquated by now. When it comes to more modern packages, last year I was following the development of curvy 3d, which seemed promising but I have not kept up with it since then.
http://www.curvy3d.com/
And then there is also voxels editors, which would be a great follow up to his interest in Minecraft. After trying out a few of them I found Magicavoxel to be very robust.
https://voxel.codeplex.com/
You could also post your question on the BlenderArtists forums - maybe someone might be able to help you put together a simplified UI for simple boolean and sculpting operations. And then there is also Modo with Meshfusion, but that might be too expensive and maybe too complex, as you said. Both could act as a stepping stone into more complex and "proper" modeling techniques later on.
Good luck !
i would recommend max for learning, but i am clearly biased here since i started with max.
the modifier stack is just a lot easier to handle then mayas history and its cool that you have a button for most of the modeling operations, so you never feel too lost, since the function you are looking for is probably one of the buttons that are there anyway.
might also depend on your kid, maby he finds the gesture based menus in maya way more intuitive.
@huffer--To be honest, Max is one of the only ones I'm leaning away from. Only because even though I'd used it professionally years ago, it's been so long since I've touched it I'd be back to newbie status now. But hearing that you jumped into it at his age, and by yourself no less, is pretty inspiring and cool to hear. Thank you.
@pior--Wow, great post. To be honest, I hadn't even thought about going with a boolean focused approach, but that's an interesting thought. I'm teetering on the edge of trying to focus on the 'real' way to do stuff and just letting him have fun in a sandbox. He would likely have a ton of fun with a boolean approach. And trueSpace! Haha. That would be interesting indeed for him to learn, since that was my first app I ever touched as well, back in ... '96 I believe. Now I sound old. One of the first things I ever did was a full AT-AT, modeled all with booleans, animated FK-only. If I remember right, I had to animate the pieces individually, then parent them together because once the hierarchy was created the animations were merged...Ahh. TrueSpace. Again, thank you taking the time to put together that post and I will look into those apps.
@ZacD--I hadn't even considered Sculptris, to be honest. How is it with a mouse? Not sure I'm going to be dropping a tablet on him any time soon. UE4 is definitely going to be down the road. And/or Unity. But he's done tons of arranging other people's pieces in other level editors. I've been amazed at some of the levels he's made in an old game he still loves called MarbleBlast. I'm excited to see what he can build, when he can literally model anything he can imagine.
@bestellen--I will be the professional in this arrangement. I'm a horrible teacher, however, so I'll do my best
@Tidal Blast--Oh, I agree. Modo is awesome. I'm not sure why I felt like it wouldn't be newbie friendly. Probably just because my own route to it was so convuluted. Coming from Lightwave which had segregated modeling and animation/rendering packages. When I started using it, I did pick it up quickly, but I guess I felt like that was just because I had a "Lightwave Vet" perspective. Thank you for the links.
@Goeddy--I feel pretty good he'll pick up arranging pieces in UE4 pretty easily, and he'll relish that stuff. Beyond that, who knows. But like I said up top, I wanna teach him how to make his own 'puzzle' pieces first. Another vote for Max. Good to hear, thanks.
Again thanks to to all of you, and maybe I'll update this thread and let you know how he does
I think the sculptris suggestion was a very important one and I would urge you to encourage use of a tablet especially with a developing person. Tablets dont have to be expensive, I have three 80 buck wacom models and they all work great. Concentrating long hours with a mouse can cause real physical damage. I use a mouse with my left and a bamboo touch in my right which I find a good combo.
If your kid is starting at such a young age you should only really have to lay out the basics. I always try to show people how to use the tools around them to solve problems they encounter with their projects. Learning to find the information is important and young minds usually catch on pretty quick.
Have lots of fun!
I picked up blender at some point in late-middle school/early-highschool I think and dabbled with maya and other programs too cause I was trying to find "professional" software. I eventually settled on blender cause I could model the same way I always have which is by extruding verts to make lines then filling the void. A lot of people seem to consider blender really complex compared to other tho so i'm not sure what good that does XD.
Personally it's still the easiest to me cause it's less picky about geometry.
The very first things I created were much simpler than poly models - mostly lofts and lathes and objects build from a combination of shapes. Later I did some poly modeling. I think the whole UVing thing was the hardest to get to terms with, and the least fun to do.
@iadagraca I too started out playing with splines. Splines are easy to grasp because it's just a line, and at the beginning they exist just in 2D space. It's a good starting point.
Personally I recommend Cinema 4D for beginners. It's got an easy drag and drop interface - a bit like Maya's outliner. Except there are more nodes (folders) which act as modifiers. Drop stuff into a modifier folder and the modifier gets applied. Pretty simple and very consistently executed. That way you can do lofts, lathes, mesh-smooths, apply projections and what not. Yet the program has all the power or a big 3D package. So you can play with lights, materials, animation and render it all too.
The way it works is very consistent - not like Max where you do one thing a certain way, and another similar thing a totally different way. Documentation is fairly good and there are enough users around to get help from. Commercially C4D is quite strong in visualization. It's got some really great renderers.
Intuitive != fast in production.
Im going to have to side with pior on this one.
Choose a simple modelling program where you don't need to worry about technicals. I had a very similar start. I was using nurbs in rhino 3d, just making cool stuff with booleans. The foolproof way of learning anything is to choose something so simple that you can't fail as your first project, because it will be harder than you thought. Then step up complexity for the next thing.
Maybe a simple modelling app would be good because of it's paired down functionality. So maybe Silo would be kickass for this.
Artists who have an analogue drawing background tend to produce superior work, particularly when it comes to sculpting due to having intimate knowledge of forms, tone, color theory, etc. Moreover, there's going to be a lot of Photoshop/Illustrator work regardless of which area of 3D he chooses to specialize.
It's also worth noting that programming, while a whole other beast, is essential if you want complete control over your workflow as opposed to being a slave to pre-packaged solutions. Programmers in general have vastly more power over artists in any production environment because they largely help define the production environment. Who knows? Your son might have that "coding gene" that may very well surpass his artistic abilities which he'll be able to capitalize on.
But it depends a little on what might suit your son.
Is he already keen on art? Does he draw a lot? Then encouraging his artistic side with something free like Sculptris http://pixologic.com/sculptris/ and a (very cheap Bamboo) graphics tablet would be the way to go. It's what I will do with my son once he's a bit older.
But if he is leaning more towards technical modelling, I would go with polygon modelling. Although I've never tried it I've heard great things about Moi http://moi3d.com/ being simple and clear for beginners (with lots of Boolean operations which Pior recommended). Not cheap at $300 but there is a trial. There is also Silo, which is very cheap ($160) and can be purchased for next to nothing in a Steam sale (I got it for $30!). It has a simple, clear UI that is great for beginners http://www.nevercenter.com/silo/
Sculptris for ease of usage and to quickly get into 3D sculpting
+
Blender since it has Dynamic-topology sculptingin it which makes sculpting even easier and all the other nice things you could wish to use in a 3D Program like gpu rendering to have quick results which a kid really wants.
+ there are plenty of Minecraft tutorials in conjunction with Blender available.
should be a smooth transition.
But maybe it would be better to start with a major package as soon as possible, since you also get access to other cool features like rendering, animation, texturing, a modeling-only application kinda limits you. Plus, if he later wants to work in the industry he gets a head-start :poly124:
We're talking about getting a kid creating. Really the ONLY thing that should matter is that it is interesting enough that they want to keep doing it and it's fun. Lets not delude ourselves into thinking that we are preparing a 12 year old to work in the industry.
Important are Deformers like Bend/Twist/Lattice(Cage) and so on.
Blender is no option, i dont like it.
Modo Trial was okay after i changed a few options.
Wings3D and MOI are not my friends
Has somebody a few good videos from Silo2 or maybe learning Modo Indie as a Suit approach. Damns its hard.
Yeah but, you develop a different mindset working with NURBS, it's easy to create basic shapes with basic operations, but when he will start to make something a little more complex he might get lost in support lines and 2-way sweeps and debugging curves :poly122:. You have to be a little more precise and a little more patient - or you give up in frustration - might be a bit too much too ask for a kid. A bigger package than Moi might have both poly modeling and NURBS, so he could use the one or the other if he can't get the results he needs.
I had some college classmates that started with Rhino and Rhino only and they never got into poly modeling even now. I also don't think 12 years old is that young, three years later and he's already starting highschool. If he has a passion for games, who knows where it might lead, why not choose the from the start the route that gives the most options later in life?
I remember having my brain utterly fail at understanding uv mapping.
Find the best mesh modeling tutorials you can find, and then get him that package while he follows the tutorial. That way he can get up to speed on the boring technical stuff by following a good workflow, and make his own stuff quickly. (Especially see if you can get a modeling tutorial that ends with him importing his model in unity or whatever, so he can keep building world
I got a non-technically minded teammate to wrap her around unwrapping by comparing the process to papercraft and Tetris, and getting her to use an LSCM workflow. Might work with kids as well.
And I was slow to understand how to flow geometry around, while UVs were a snap for me. Neither of these things matter when learning the software itself though, at least initially. Another thing is that kids these days are growing up with computers and more-or-less standard UIs for all kinds of software. I can't speak for everyone in this thread, but we've all managed in one way or another.
I'd say that a kid could learn about any package these days, but I agree with shying away from max. The interfaces, resources and communities these days are excellent and vast compared to when I was a teenager, toying around with Scream Tracker, Photostyler and Povray.
truespace was heavily boolean based, but had a very small modeling toolset, which is advantageous when learning.
when modeling in 3ds max, i started off with editable mesh, since it had less features than
editable poly, and did exactly what you expected it to do.
mudbox is another program that is just bang-on intuitive. i think i spent less than 10 minutes teaching my 9 year old little sister how to use it.
its as easy as it gets, let him doodle stuff up and maybe take one of his designs, retopo, animate and bring it into an engine.
guess it would be pretty cool to see his own creation move around in an actual game engine.
then take it from there
It's better to mold people with its weird ways while they're still young!
In all honest though: one probably shouldn't underestimate childrens ability to learn (which greatly surpasses adults) so no choice is too hard.
Kid falls:
Kid: Oh well, I'll just get up and try again.
Adult falls:
Adult: OMG, did you see that? I almost died there! I am not going to continue this, it's waaaay too dangerous!
(In general, Adults tend to be a little more perfectionistic and afraid of consequences. It's why you see new software adaption more commonly amongst people who are tech savy, because to them a rendering glitch does not necessarily mean that the computer is going to explode, but rather that they came across something that needs to be solved)
/offtopic
i started with softimage 3D and later 3ds max at university but modelling i only started to enjoy when using a software called nendo, a little inexpensive modeller that just felt natural. only when someone ported over it's key modelling functionality to 3ds max i felt willing to make the switch back.
wings 3d and silo seem the spiritual successors of nendo. perhaps worth checking out if poly modelling is of interest. it is a bit of a 1990's skill in the days of zbrush though but good to have as fundamentals.
as an all in one solution i would also suggest blender if there's no preference already established. your wallet will thank you for starters and it looks like it is on a promising trajectory in general.
And this is also true of level editors offered with console games like Little Big Planet : they basically function like RTS games, with very solid error prevention when placing units.
With that in mind, I must say that I personally still have no definite answer to the question asked by the OP. I have been searching for such a piece of software for years ; that is to say, something that would allow for fast and accurate 3d form exploration, with as little technicalities getting in the way. But after a lot of searching I came back pretty much empty-handed, even considering that I do have a "regular" modeling background. That made me understand that obsessing with fast 3d prototyping was pretty much a pointless goal if there is no solid design as the foundation of the model in the first place - that foundation being either a real life reference, a solid design from imagination, or at the very least some kind of underlying and somewhat limiting structure. That is why Legos seem to trigger more creativity than Play-Doh ...
That being said, there are a few more programs that do a good job at bypassing the technical aspects of 3D, like Sketchup (used at some point by the Massive Black concept artists, and also used for actual game models in Kerbal Space Program) and 123D.
Sketchup :
Sketchup used in KSP :
http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/ArtyomZuev/20130731/197365/Environment_art_and_modeling_in_Kerbal_Space_Program.php
123D design :
I also have very found memories of playing with Organica years and years ago, but that is yet another piece of depreciated software. A lot of fun though !
oh boy! thread spin-off!
Well, there's different kinds of learning
Much of what we learn today is referencing old knowledge, while children will brute force and keep brute forcing when failing until everything is muscle memory.
Children probably doesn't understand the linguistic technical stuff behind languages they learn but they still do learn them more easily than any adult.
So a child will learn all the ways to do thing in a 3d modelling tool even though they won't be a fantastic artist to begin with.
We adults tend to hit brick walls and agonize over empty papers, and then we discuss the deeper meanings behind procrastination to no end, meanwhile children fail and do bad until they do good.
Many of todays older game developers were children that for many reasons were put in front of arcane operating systems and hardware with just a prompt to start with.
And while many devs probably started just like you said (there is nothing quite like having to struggle with a DOS prompt in order to learn about folder structures ! Been there done that
Adults however have the ability to set goals and stick to them, whereas kids seem to go wherever randomness takes them. I guess that's what I am trying to get at with the idea of using "limiting" software, as they tend to force creative responses.
Very interesting thread.
He's not that into drawing. Not like I was at his age anyway.
To be honest, I'm not trying to craft a future game artist. I'd agree focusing on traditional art skills would be the first step if that was my focus. But I just know building these worlds and designing levels is something he's reaaaaally into and so I'm just trying to give him more tools and freedom to do more of the stuff he loves. If he does end up being a future game artist, awesome
I don't underestimate him. But my worry is diving in too deep, too quick might overwhelm and make the whole thing a chore and less flat out fun. Basically, the risk of that outweighs any gain I could see him getting by diving in hardcore. If that makes any sense.
Haha. I'll tell him that. He knows very little about the company I work for, or much of the industry. But Notch and Mojang...are well known to him. Oh, and I have downloaded Blender and begun to poke around. I'm intrigued by it, and may end up posting on their forums as well as Pior suggested.
Wow, Nendo. That takes me back. I had a friend of mine at my first job that swore by it and ended up using it at work for his models. I remember being blown away by the ability to rotate using an edge as an axis...Lightwave didn't even have the concept of 'edges' at that point.
He is totally a build worlds guy. The latest is building mansions in Minecraft. 'This is the theatre, the bedroom', etc. That's what spurred this whole thing. I told him if he learned 3d modeling he could build anything he could imagine. Then I told him UE4 was being used for a lot of really cool architectural rendering and we watched a bunch on youTube.
Oh, and as for 'kids learn faster', I think that might be derived from the fact that it has been proven (from what I recall) in studies that children, like infants/toddlers, pick up language much, much faster than adults.
Thanks again guys for all the replies. Given me a lot to think about and I still am not sure which way to go.
After that I found Maya which didn't seem that complicated after gtkradient.
If I was my younger self now I would most likely try to use sketch up to model with. Most engine tools these days are a lot more complex. Although exploring the unknown is still a major factor as well. My younger self wanted to be able to do everything and explore how the games he liked were put together.
Still do now in many ways.
Also side note for designers out there, gmod is more powerful and easy to use than you would expect. It develops logical thinking skills quite well in a fun immediate way.
[ame]
Actually that program uses spline modeling in 3d space. which is why i said my modeling process in blender is similar.