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Advice on Jumping into 3D Motion


cababa

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Hello!

 

I was hoping to get a little bit of guidance from some more experienced 3d creators. I have decided to take a 6 month sabbatical to teach myself 3d motion software in the hopes of pursuing it as a career. I understand that 6 months is not enough to become a professional but you gotta start somewhere and this is me starting!

 

The only problem is that I am a bit overwhelmed by the amount of software, job roles, plug ins, and overall pockets of specialization that exist within the 3d universe. I have seen titles such as hard surface modeler, organic modeler, texture artist, FX artist… but I am not entirely sure which one I belong to. I have examples of the kind of work that I want to be able to create in 3D but I’m not sure what steps to take in order to start moving closer to this goal or what this goal is even called!

 

Fluids, particles, growths, soft bodies, hard bodies, the possibilities seem infinite! I'm not interested in creating characters or props but rather approaching it from a more abstract design perspective as I have been an abstract textiles and sculpture artist for the last 6 years. My goal is to be able to create works such as the ones seen in the reference  links below. 

 

https://vimeo.com/444870504

https://vimeo.com/324551046

https://vimeo.com/276239706

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HqvQfk_svc

 

My questions are: 

 

- What software should I focus on to create this kind of work? My research suggests a combination of c4d and Houdini does this sound correct?

 

- I have been learning rhino 3d for the last year so I am not entirely inexperienced in 3d software, however I have zero experience in animation. Should I learn 2d animation before I jump in to 3d motion?       

                                                   

- Is there a specific job title for people who create work such as the references shared? How can I monetize this (hopefully) future skillset? 

 

Any and all help is appreciated as I am feeling quite overwhelmed and don’t really know what my next steps should be.

 

Edited by Cerbera
removed formatting (see edit history)
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Hey Cababa,

 

I've had a 15 year career in motion design.   

Doing sculptural work like your references are going to be fun to make but probably pretty difficult to monetize.  I recommend you practice what you love, keep it fresh and a studio may like to incorporate your style into commercial work.   Continually develop a demo reel to get those commercial contracts.  Start billing those at around $350/day (US) In a few years you can get up to $500/day. 

 

As far as technique, of course I would recommend c4d and a good renderer.   For GPU rendering use Redshift or Octane, if you render on your CPU use Corona Renderer (more for archive).  Knowing these will help you pretty easily get into commercial production for a little film but mostly commercial agency and corporate brand work.   

 

For your references get good at displacement mapping and volume rendering.   Get Xparticles as a plugin. 

 

Best thing is to learn the fundamentals, sounds like you have a base in sculpture, great start, learn about 3 point lighting, color theory etc etc.  and buy Drawing On The Right Side of The Brain, its a classic to help you tap into the subconscious well of creativity.

 

For animation, learn the 12 principles of motion.   

 

Follow Motionographer, School of Motion and Wine after Coffee.  

 

Most of all, never ever ever never ever stop learning, learn every day.   Learn to pick up new software and just click around, break it and restart fresh.  You'll develop fast. 

 

Have fun!

Gabriel

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Gabriel covered a lot of great points. I would throw in a couple more. Just because you have cool software, don't dismiss the importance of actual design and composition. I always tell the younger people I've trained over the years (mostly After Effects), "when your animation stops, it still has to look great."

 

Would also be helpful to be familiar with traditional photography techniques and lighting. Render engines like Corona, which is what I use, attempt to be as real-world as possible. Depending on what you create, make your scenes real-world scale. This will help to get predictable results. Most of those examples you posted are pretty abstract, minus the cool dynamics sneaker stuff. Like they were made for a screen behind a DJ or something. Not sure what the market is for that sort of thing. Start with simple scenes and work you way up. To get to that level of work for the sneaker video, I'm sure there's plenty of Xpresso work in there. YouTube is your friend. Lots of free learning there, plus all the paid learning too. Mograph+Effectors and all the Deformers give you an amazing tool-set to create all sorts of abstract things. Many are non-destructive.

 

I would be careful not to overwhelm yourself with tons of plug-ins up front, otherwise you'll be good at a lot of things, but a master of none.

 

Don't be afraid to post back with a more specific question. There are plenty of people here (some from MAXON) that can point you in the right direction. I've talked too much....

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@BigAl3DHello!

 

Thank you for your response!

 

I've been trying to build a self teaching syllabus using the research I’ve accumulated so that I can be as efficient as possible in my 6 month learning runway!. 

 

Do you have suggestions for a self teach syllabus? Any specific order in which you would learn certain concepts or notions so that they build up on top of each other in an intuitive way? Essentially if you could travel back in time and give your past self some advice on how to navigate learning motion graphics/VFX knowing what you know today what would it be?
 

Thanks!


 

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Some of the fastest progress I've seen people make is by doing everydays. Force yourself to make a little render or animation every day and post it somewhere to share with the world (a blog, Instagram, this forum). If you can keep that up for 6 months I'm sure you'll be amazed at your progress. 

And don't be discouraged if a lot of it looks bad. 😉 Google for "everydays"  for some inspiration. Beeple is a well know designer who became quite famous doing everydays, but there are many more. Usually these will be quite abstract.

If you want a 3D motion/design career it's probably good to be more of a generalist (compared to something like VFX where it's more specialised) so your will need to know a bit of everything.

Would be good to also try and tackle some less abstract things like rendering a nice photo real product packshot, a logo animation, or a car. 

If you can produce a nice and varied portfolio, this will make it easier to attract clients, or get your foot in the door for a job or internship at a studio.

 

C4D and Houdini is a great combination for this kind of work.

I think I would focus first on C4D as Houdini does have a steep learning curve. Redshift is a very good and popular renderer. A good computer with one or more fast GPU's will make your life easier as a renderer like Redshift will run on the GPU (great for fast look development)

As you are a textile and sculpture artist, I think it would be good and fun for you to also dive into making materials. Many of these abstract pieces are quite simple geometry but with interesting materials.

 

With many motion design artists and studios, you will see they do a lot of personal, often abstract kind of work to explore. Then elements of this will wind up in commercial projects. 

 

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  • 1 month later...

I’m also new to this journey and I must say I’ve learned a lot from Cineversity. I’ve been practicing their tutorials with my wife who’s a design engineer and recently became interested. It’s great to have a life partner interested in learning, but there’s also great folks here who share your passion. 

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Ah, I see. I was a draftsman in my younger years and I did a little work drawing (by hand) plans for a structural engineers. I mostly drew plans for mechanical, electrical, plumbing and then moved to civil engineering. Mostly soil erosion and sediment control, site plans, etc. Then the machines took over and shortly after, became self-aware.  😉

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