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Thankfully, I have found one artistic tool that makes me feel like I can actually create something that looks good and gives me a chance to get creative. I was a partner in DeMorgan Industries, the creators of www.WebSpice.com, which is now owned by Index Stock Imagery in New York (my current employer). At DeMorgan we created more than 2 million original and royalty-free Web images. About 30,000 of them were created using a 3D modeling tool called trueSpace (www.Caligari.com). trueSpace is a really amazing product - take a look around their site at some of the examples, and you¹ll see what I mean. Even though I was the marketing and sales guy, I had the opportunity to play with trueSpace and create some interesting 3D objects. I was lucky enough to have partners that were truly gifted at 3D design work. You can see examples of our work at the WebSpice.com site. I had some help creating the objects, but I really enjoyed the work. 3D modeling is like sculpting on the computer. Instead of spending most of your time cutting away at stone you assemble the scene or item you are trying to create by putting objects together. It¹s like sculpting in reverse. You have seen the amazing power of 3D modeling programs in movies, most strikingly (in my opinion) in Jurassic Park. All of the dinosaurs were created using 3D software, and then added to the real-world image. The power of 3D led to the suspension of disbelief, and you felt like running dinosaurs at the theater surrounded you. When I thought of writing a series
of articles on 3D modeling, I looked for a new program that ran
on both Mac & Windows. I prefer the Mac, but like to write
about products that run on both platforms. I was surprised to
see that Carrara Studio from Eovia ran on Windows and OS X. The
nice folks at Eovia (www.Eovia.com)
sent over a review copy and I did the review and testing under
OS X. Working in 3D takes a while to get used to. You can see by the screen capture you can view your work in several angles at once. The screen shows the Carrara 3D interface, which is strange on the first viewing, but after going through the demo it actually makes a lot of sense. The only problem I have with the interface is that it is different than most Mac OS X programs (and violates many of Apple¹s suggested guidelines for designing software). The program is fast, even on the test machine, a 500 megahertz PowerMac. If you look at the screen capture,
you¹ll see 3 windows with images. Most 3D work is done in
the wireframe mode, as seen in the upper right image. This is
much faster than a solid object, but doesn¹t give you the
detail of the final image. Once you assemble your image, you
have to run it through a process called “rendering.”
This takes the image you have created in wireframe mode and applies
color, texture and most importantly, lighting to the image. Rendering
can take a long time to process due to all of the reflections
and lighting effects. Carrara wins big points by including a
batch render feature that can let you process a group of images
at night, while you are sleeping. Stay tuned next month for part 2 of this article, where I show you step by step how to create 3D images in Carrara Studio. |
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I have zero (maybe even less) artistic talent.
I¹m not being hard on myself, I have skills in other areas
and I¹ve seen great artists at work, so I know my limits.
I can¹t draw, paint, or even create “modern art”
by throwing paint at a canvas. I know because I¹ve tried.