Hey everyone,
I am new to 3D, to Blender, and to this community, and I am really excited to be here.
I come today with a rather strange question (it’s going to be really hard to explain, so hopefully you can follow my string of thought). Here goes: What is the ultimate 3D product/end result? What do 3D artists aim to accomplish with 3D? Basically what is the 3D tool meant to create?
On forums and websites we see a lot of amazing 2D artwork rendered from 3D. So it seems like that 2D artwork is the final product for the artists that post it, or is it? Because when it comes to schools, they mostly teach 3D as part of animation, VFX, or game development curriculums and never as just a tool for 2D artwork? Does this mean that 3D is very tightly related to motion and those 2D images that we see online are just intermediate snippets of what are larger projects?
I guess I am just trying to see how 3D fits in with all the other art forms and I would also be very interested to hear about what you have in mind when you fire up Blender? What product do you want to create? And why do you choose 3D tools versus something else?
It is pretty easy … these are a number (3) and a letter (D).
Typically it is an abbreviation of “three dimensional”. This itself is just a property of something else that is not mentioned. It does not even mention what the dimensions are. It typically means width, height, and depth in some order.
Regarding Blender 3D means three dimensional modelling. Blender enables you to easily describe (model) geometries that we recognize as something with width, height, and depth. To be honest you even get more dimensions such as time.
Blender does not create physical 3D objects. It creates 2D (two dimensional) images from 3D data. Why that? because your monitor displays 2D images only.
When you have a Monitor that displays 3D images it would be a different thing. The idea is not that far away. Today you already can display stereoscopic images that we humans can recognize as 3D images. This technique is available since decades. In future we might get even better methods with other display methods. You can even create physical 3D objects with a 3D printer.
I hope you see the output is not limited to 2D images. But 2D images is what we typically use in out daily world. Keep in mind even a 2D image is a physical 3D object (a flat plane). All you do is to project the 2D image on the surface of that object. ;).
Before I forget … using 3D data to create a 2D image is just a helper. You are still free to use 2D data to create the image. You can even combine them.
3D is just one of the ways to create 2d artworks but has some advantages. The reason it is used for still images is because it is accurate like the real world. 3d enables u to use a camera like a photographer to render images, it also has perspective down accurately, you can simulate real world materials with realistic lighting. 3d also enables u to change camera angles like a photographer whereas painting 2d doesn’t.
So there are ppl who use 3d for just still images for the reasons above. Also there are 3d artists who may not have very good 2d drawing/painting/ draughtmanship skills. With 3d, this is possible though this does not make the process any easier. 3D is more technical, scientific and by it’s own right, takes a lot of practice to understand to get good results.
The beauty about 3d is that you just focus on your materials, modelling, composition, camera and lighting like in the real world, rather than on brushes stokes, blending, perspective lines, lighting while painting among other things.
Most of all with 3d, you can achieve accurate photorealism if that’s the goal.
Retsnom, interesting that you bring up 3D displays. I guess once they become the norm we will see 3D separate itself more from 2D on which it is now entirely dependent and I bet in general we will see a giant spike in people wanting to learn 3D.
Melvi, I’m interested in creating still images (I have a background in photo), and I was wondering if I should do it via 2D like digital painting, but you bring up valid points - with 3D with have control over different parameters than with 2D and for some people like me who don’t have great 2D skills that might be a more intuitive approach.
My next question is tightly related, so I guess I’ll just post it in this thread. If we look at the industry, is there any demand for still images created via 3D, or are those mostly limited to personal art? How do people make money with 3D stills? It appears that the people who work in the industry are either in animation or game dev. I am not very interested in motion at this time, so I am wondering if there is a career path out there making photorealistic stills or concept art kind of things? What industries would need those sort of images?
most interestingly it fits into our 3d world as well with some video techniques, go visit hollywood.
As for ultimate, its a taste thing there no objectief unviversal rules to describe ultimate art.
In fact the universe itself might not be aware that we here create art, after all we’re so incredibly tiny.
I do product renders like this from time to time. These are used for marketing materials, and the marketing world has a constant demand for still images. that’s one way to make money, but it certainly isn’t high art.
But more into the philosophy: 3d is just another tool of communication. You can use it to communicate a concept or an idea that may be more difficult to communicate a different way. The final product is the message it delivers. That message could be “oh, that’s how a jet engine works” or “what happened to this rusty space ship?” or “that’s a bad-ass car”. 3d is just a medium of communication like clay or canvas or music.
Hi.
It’s all about emulate lighting, shading, shadows, reflection, refraction, etc.
You can emulate a 3D effect in such a way not very accurate with reality as I have done in GIMP here:
Or you can emulate a 3D effect more automatically and with more precise calculations using a 3D software like Blender. You can find these explanatory images out there on the Internet:
Everyone uses it differently. Some people prefer making one image and making it the best they can. A true work of art. Others like me use 3D (and thus Blender) to create VFX elements that I would be unable to do otherwise at the budget level I work at. For me, 3D enables me to tell the story I want to tell by augmenting what I can shoot for real on set.
3D is for anything you might use photography or video for, but more importantly, things you would like to do with photography or video, but can’t. It’s also for video games, simulations, VR, etc. And anything you might use 2D drawing tools for that’s easier to do with actual 3D objects.
hm in simple words its a method to express imagination.
And potentially that could mean a lot, imagination put man on the moon, and made great movies, and inspired people.
This question can only be answered one way: It depends on the intent of the artist who created the work. There is no one intent or final result. It varies a lot.
As you pointed out, 3D is a tool to create 2D imagery (moving or still) but it’s also used to create tool paths for machines or 3D printers and still other people may find even more uses for it.
In regards to making money from 3d stills, I am only a hobbiest when it comes to 3D, but i have still made a little bit of money from architectural visualisations and interior renders etc.
I posted some of my renders for a payed job a little while ago - here , I only made a few hundred £’s from this, but it’s all i expected to get from a few still renderings
But there are many ways to make money from stills, In the building industry, product development/marketing, advertisement, digital artwork etc etc.
There are also other avenues to take, such as selling materials, textures, HDR images and also 3d models.
And of course there’s the obvious advantage. If you create a scene in “3D” you can quickly experiment with view points, materials and lighting. Of course planning things out beforehand will reduce the need. But you can’t possibly account for everything that might occur down the road.
That might be even more useful if you wanted to do some commercial work. Not everything you do would be immediately accepted.
Being able to make the necessary adjustments, and do it quickly, would certainly be of value. It could feasibly be used as an assistant to concepting 2d images too. By creating the basic forms in 3D and then later doing a “paint-over” with an image editor. 3D offers a lot of flexibility.
as other mentioned before, there are a lot of ways to gain money. Some do stock image renderings - which usually is not masterclass art - some sale 3d models on turbosquid or blendermarket (like i do), others use 3d tools to gain real life canvas prints, such as Joey Camacho on rawandrendered.com
i think it possible to make a living using a combination of 3D model trading, 2d image trading, canvas printing (all three methods are internet based and customer indipendend) and direct customer hired jobs.
And thanks to the strong blender community, you can always get good help here.
Roken pretty much answered your question but i will just answer it for you.
3d modeling software is no different from a pencil or a sculpter’s chisel, it’s a tool used by watever the person chose to. in other words
it’s just one medium an artist use to achieve a purpose whether i be to express an idea or make money, or just bored.
let’s say your intention is to capture the beauty of a subject in portrait. you can either chose to use a pencil or blender to model in
3d or do it into 3d.
now what medium you choose depends on the effect you are trying to create
to answer you question, r3dfall, 3d as an art form is as legitmate as the person making it and how he is able to use it.
Maybe Im splitting hairs but Blender 3D can make physical 3D objects, With the 3D printer ability and BlenderCam.
Not to sound argumentative just info some may not know.
As for 3D for me:
I’ve been working with 3D since Autocad release 10 1988, so for me 3D has been a big interest for along time.
Autocad
Mechinical Desktop
Revit
Truespace
Inventor
3d Studio Max
SolidWorks
Rhino 3D
Mudbox
Pro -E
SolidEdge
Blender
