Ambrosia Garden Archive
    • Ambrosia Garden Archive

    • Graphics For Fools

       EV Developer's Corner
      7 9 460
      G
      G

      Alright. It's been said. Over and over again. Every one knows it. Graphics are hard. People who call it simple are either braging, have to much time, or are savants. I myself am hopeless at graphics. What this world needs, is a (Drumroll) user-friendly graphics program. Do these fabled things exist, or are they just fables, drunk talk?

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      What do you mean, I've got to get a life?

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    • M
      M

      ummm how about Photoshop and Infini-D.. both are very good and require little intelligence to use the basic features.

      PS is the only one I know of the you can "learn". There are just so many cools thing to do with it...

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      Unix for business
      Linux for development
      BeOS for media
      Mac OS for productivity
      Windows for solitaire

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    • G
      G

      Okay. I hadn't tried Photoshop. Thanks.

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      What do you mean, I've got to get a life?

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    • M
      M

      Graphics programs are (for the most part) very easy to use. It's doing graphics which is the hard part (eg, turning your concepts into pictures).

      For what it's worth, the best tip anyone ever gave me with 3d rendering (which is I guess what you're looking at) is to do all the fancy footwork with textures rather than with geometry. Much faster, much more satisfying, much more portable.

      Downloading a demo of Bryce might be the way to go to look at this one. Bryce is so easy to produce really excellent scenes.

      There's also an ingeneous program out there called Clayscape (www.clayscape.com ???) which is FREEWARE (best kind) which so totally cool for interactive 3d modelling, even if you're on an older machine (eg, a 200 Mhz 603e PPC -- i'm not talking about a IIci here).

      Awesome.

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      M A R T I N • T U R N E R

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    • W
      W

      Hmm. Here's what I say about various programs:

      Photoshop - for 2D graphics only. No (good) 3D capabilities, none without special plugins.

      *Infini-D - the most user-friendly 3D program out there. That's what I use, and I self-taught me a great deal of what I know about it. Unfortunately, it's been discontinued (I think). It was last being sold my MetaCreations (http://www.metacreations.com) but they've merged it with RayDream to form Carrara...

      Carrara - great features, mediocre interface (in ease of use and, all I can say is how it is for me), BUGGY AS HECK. Avoid, at least for now.

      *Bryce 4 - THE program for landscapes, not great for ships. Another 3D program is almost required to render ships in Bryce; you'd make the shapes in another and export to Bryce. Very primitive modelling (place things like spheres, cones, cylinders, that's about it).

      RayDream (any) - I don't think it's very intuitive.

      Mechanisto - ick ick ick! Not user-friendly, and it doesn't make as good stuff as the others.

      That's my list with my comments. I hope it helps.

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    • B
      B

      sigh wish I could even try to do 3D stuff. I know it's probably impossible, but is there any 3D prog out there that will work on an '040 w/o an FPU? I know I'm not going to get anything new for ages, so

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      -Basilisk-

      "That's offensive! Never call me Australian again!"

      AIM: EVBasilisk

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    • R
      R

      Quote

      Weepul 884 wrote:

      Mechanisto - ick ick ick! Not user-friendly, and it doesn't make as good stuff as the others.

      That's my list with my comments. I hope it helps.
      (/B)

      Mechanisto isn't bad, it just takes a while to learn how to use. Especially if you learn to do transforms well. Sometime, I will show off some of the things I've created in Mechanisto. Anyway, I don't have a credit card or cash to buy a commercial 3D program thats any good.

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      Raddy

      No beer and no TV make Homer something something...

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    • K
      K

      Quote

      Raddy wrote:
      **Mechanisto isn't bad, it just takes a while to learn how to use. Especially if you learn to do transforms well. Sometime, I will show off some of the things I've created in Mechanisto. Anyway, I don't have a credit card or cash to buy a commercial 3D program thats any good.
      **

      Would you mind showing me? I've done some neat stuff with Mechanisto too.

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      ~ThE kWaNzA mAn~
      "Thou shalt not mess with the fury of KwAnZa!"

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    • R
      R

      Quote

      Kwanzar wrote:
      **Would you mind showing me? I've done some neat stuff with Mechanisto too.

      **

      AHHH ok. I've been doing some ships for a plugin, but I probably have a whole bunch that I won't use. Anyway, I'll put together some object files and stuff and send them to you.

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      Raddy

      No beer and no TV make Homer something something...

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