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My proto-pre-newb questions thread
About Truespace Archives
These pages are a copy of the official truespace forums prior to their removal somewhere around 2011.
They are retained here for archive purposes only.
My proto-pre-newb questions thread // New Users
Post by PhilDawe // Aug 1, 2008, 9:44am
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PhilDawe
Total Posts: 2
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Hi there,
I noticed some folks starting threads to introduce themselves and to serve as a repository for their questions so I presumptuously decided to do the same. My name is Phil. This is a negative way of doing things but let me start out by telling you what I am not. I am not an artist or modeler, programmer or developer, nor a photographer or anybody who knows anything about computer graphics and animation. I am not familiar with the concepts, terminology or the jargon (and especially not the acronyms). Basically, I just dropped from the womb into trueSpace. I have toyed around with SketchUp sporadically. I came across this program by chance, after reading on a blog somewhere that it is now free. Decided to investigate and it seems quite interesting so I thought I would try to learn a few things and maybe make a few simple models. However, I feel a bit like a chimpanzee just dropped into the cockpit of an alien spacecraft. (Now that the program is free perhaps you will find some more ‘randoms’ popping up in here). Anyway, I have been watching Mr. Edwards’ Organic Modeling course videos and trying to follow along (I’m enjoying it too!)
My first question is: Can somebody provide me with a lesson plan? There are a lot of tutorials and videos (plus the manual and accompanying videos) and I’d like to know what ‘stuff’ I need to learn first in order to minimize my frustration and ease my way into things.
Thanks very much! |
Post by ghost--scout // Aug 1, 2008, 9:57am
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ghost--scout
Total Posts: 85
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I'm not the truespace expert, but from someone who's been learning ts since January this year, read the manual on the introductory tutorials, user interface, modeling and surfacing(pick a side, workspace is the future, model side is legacy and used for backwards compatability and importing objects). Also since they made 7.6 free they went ahead and made all the video courses free too so I would download those as well. Spend time learning what each of the tools do to each of the different objects. I learned more by making a cube and trying each of the different tools on the same cube without refreshing than I did by making a cube for each tool, or each variation on a tool. Workspace is good because of it's real-time rendering and it feels a bit more fluid for me, but it does not have the number of tools that model side does. Model side is the older interface, version 6.6, and it has a vast amount of tools (which are getting ported over to workspace side). If you have any questions at all just drop a line in the forums and one of the many experts here will be able to help you out. As a side note, I hear the video course "spirit of the interface" is a pretty good place to start. It also wouldn't hurt to print out the quick guide and having it sitting by you while modeling: sometimes I forget that there are tools in existence that could do exactly what I need until I browse over the quick guide and glance at the workspace/model tool bar layouts. As a second side-note, provided you have the bridge turned on (default is auto-on) you can move back and forth between model and workspace. I will have to defer to more experienced people, but I believe everything but animations will go between the two sides. |
Post by spacekdet // Aug 1, 2008, 9:58am
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spacekdet
Total Posts: 1360
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Welcome to the wonderful world of 3D and trueSpace.
Great idea on a 'Lesson Plan', maybe one of the tutorial masters can knock something together.
In the meantime, here's some glossary links (http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q=3D+Glossary&go=&form=QBF6) to get you up to speed on the jargon.
I've scraped together a few tutorial links here (http://www.spacekdet.com/tutorials/).
Also don't miss Steinie's Bakery. (http://forums1.caligari.com/truespace/showthread.php?p=10125)
and also Lunadude. (http://www.lunadude.com/) |
Post by Steinie // Aug 1, 2008, 10:12am
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Steinie
Total Posts: 3667
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PhilDawe, you've already been given enough information to keep you busy for a long time!
I just want to welcome you to these forums and I hope you and others chose to become regular users here. A growing active forum benefits everyone. Nice to have you here. |
Post by Dragneye // Aug 1, 2008, 12:24pm
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Dragneye
Total Posts: 602
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Welcome PhilDawe.
Being new to this New World, it is Quite easy to be overwhelmed. I know from experience :)
In my opinion, concentrate on one thing at a time: Interface - Modeling - Texturing - Lighting - Rendering... in that order. Almost everyone of these areas is not a week's worth of studying; it's month's work for each. Being artistic already, I figured "what's the big deal; I can relate. In a few weeks I can do this" so I jumped in attacking roughly all these areas together, and as friendly advice, it is NOT the way to go. It is not the most effective or efficient way overall. Best to study them one at a time; though they are Very inter-related, you will be 'struggling' much longer than is necessary by jumping in head first and avoiding an orderly approach. Your learning path will have to go in reverse many times, rather than continuously forward.
Enjoy the ride, Good Luck, and as you can tell from the other replies, it's a good crowd here; just ask. :D |
Post by PhilDawe // Aug 1, 2008, 1:34pm
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PhilDawe
Total Posts: 2
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Thank you all for your replies. The volume of info is pretty overwhelming. Regarding some of your points: I think I will just stick with the workspace side and turn the bridge 'off.' My computer isn't cutting edge by any stretch plus I figure I may as well stick with the interface (?) that is being implemented rather than phased out. Thank you spacekdet for the links, browsed through them (some) and I hope to be able to make use of them in the future. Also, thanks Dragneye for offering a 'path' - I will do as you have suggested. I expect just getting used to the widget thingy will take me weeks - I always seem to swing the view in the opposite direction I intended. |
Post by Jack Edwards // Aug 1, 2008, 5:06pm
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Jack Edwards
Total Posts: 4062
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Welcome Phill! :)
In addition to my course, you Justin Barrett has a modeling course for Workspace side available as well:
http://www.scatteredpixel.com/files/Page1.html
I agree with Dragneye. Don't worry about it too much if thing seem frustrating at first. There are a lot of skills and theory that need to be learned to do good 3D. Probably best to practice modeling fist. Then UV mapping and texture painting. That will give you a really solid foundation. From there you'll want to learn about lighting -- either real-time DirectX style lighting or pickup VRay ($300) and go photo realistic. Hopefully I'll have my Kerkythea plugin ready by then which will give a more affordable alternate photo render option for Workspace as well. |
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