There is nothing wrong with the insistence to use ancient software, but make note of the fact that it would be for hobby use and that it shouldn’t be used for serious professional work (as your work will struggle to match the quality of work done with newer creative tools).
Of course, if we were talking about game engines it might be a little different, as some of the old solutions could provide an aesthetic look that can be quite complex to do in a modern solution (ie. some of the color, lighting, and geometry effects that were done in the 1990’s with software rendering, and in some cases those software engines are still getting features since they are now open source).
Renzatic
(Professor Emeritus Billy H. Wafflesmith XIV Esq.)
250
That takes some true dedication right there. All I was able to become semi-competent in were Street Fighter 2, and the first two Alphas.
I managed to get more than good enough to consistently beat my friends with 1 character in Samurai Showdown 2, Last Blade, Killer Instinct, Garou: Mark of the Wolves, KOF '98, and Mortal Kombat 2. All in the space of a few months. Learning all of them sort of at the same time did have a speed-up effect on learning in my opinion.
Before Soulcalibur IV came out on PS3, I trained for several weeks by using emulators and playing the old versions, I learnt all the moves of Mitsurugi, but also some other characters.
When the new game out and me and my friends were playing, to their shock I consistently beat the crap out of them in 8 out of 10 matches.
I never was a good competitive player before, especially compared to my friends, so that was a great revenge, but I also learned an important lesson here.
Whenever I was excited, emotionally invested and acted strategically (goal oriented), I failed.
Whenever I was empty of thoughts, emotions, strategies and desire to win, I crushed them like it was nothing.
Applied Zen works great, and good trained muscle memory makes the act of doing effortless (thinking it and doing becomes one).
I think it was at that time that I started to bring that gaming mindset to my work, and really started to optimize my workflow, so that it flows more.
Question to all (ex-)gamers: Have you brought the proper mindset of a gamer to your 3D work?
Gamers do have an advantage usually.
good Hand-eye coordination, awareness control / focus, heightened spatial awareness, faster threat identification, reflexes and muscle memory, high pressure to adapt to new things constantly, ability to maintain mental clarity in moments of high stress.
Do you actively use these abilities or do you let them rot?
Good point, I had never thought of that. Mostly I remember of approaching “impossible” tasks with a fun attitude. This is I think of where I did 1000% of my learning.
Is like trying to take down that gigantic dragon with a few arrows (I think it was in DragonAge Inquisition - btw Skyrim dragons are a joke they can be beat easily by exploiting AI bugs).
I assume that the template system they added in 2.79 can do this. It was developed as part of an old project called “blender 101”, that looked to simplify the interface for kids who were interested in 3d (work on the active tool system supposedly started as part of that project too). Look at what could be changed in the old blender pro template.
This is an issue I am finding myself having to grapple with more and more as the long list of complex apps I have needed to learn and master over the years has grown ever longer. Some things are there forever and of value for life. Like learning a language or a musical instrument or learning to sail. Even gaining a certain level of traditional art skills in life drawing for instance or clay figure sculpture. Much of the CGI tech and methodologies I worked so long and hard to learn in the past feel like like disposable knowledge. So many lost and abandoned dead apps workflows and methods litter my past now. My approach has been to try to cultivate a broadly focused core skills set outside of any one particular app and to approach all of CGI workflows from that wider perspective. But these fast evolving technologies still have to be constantly learned and re learned. But this is just how it is. The nature of the beast.
I think it’s true that Blender since 2.8 is improving leaps and bounds. I love the new set up. It’s also getting more and more compatible with other workflows too which is so great. I mentioned before that Alembic support has got really robust now. This has been a big deal for me as I have been able at last to integrate it fully into a bigger pipelines in actual production. I love the newer versions of Blender. Love Eevee. But I also still love the older 2.7 series too for it’s stability and speed.
As I mentioned before. Part of my work right now has been on animations and concepts for large scale gallery exhibitions. The machines at the studio I am doing this are quite old and don’t run 2.8. It’s primarily set up as a traditional sculpture and print making studio.
I am still using 2.79 there. I am also working with the older Blender render and still improving what I can do with it while working it in tandem with render layers and the compositor. But I am not frustrated about this. I am really enjoying it. It’s like riding a familiar comfortable old bicycle. Right now we have a great Blender 2.79 workflow that I keep trying to improve on and that has been getting us some really nice results. Hopefully I will be able to publicly post some of this work here soon. It’s still a great app and a great tool.
I think it’s good to move forward and with the field of digital technology things obviously move at a dizzying pace. But I don’t think we should automatically disregard older workflows just because they are older. Or those that still prefer them.
I’m old enough to remember WordPerfect for DOS: the funny colored letters on a character-mode screen, finger contortions to type in all the shift+control+scractch-your-nose command sequences which you somehow had to memorize. And then, “along came the Macintosh,” and I never looked back. The original versions of Blender that I started with reminded me very much of that world. And there was very little documentation. The “total UI makeover” that happened several years ago now was probably the most-significant development ever to take place in this world until EEVEE arrived. The developers did a fantastic job with it.
Your writing here is well understood by this reader from personal experience.
Here it is April 2021 and I am finally beginning (to be interpreted as back to the starting line) to understand the changes made starting 2.8. Since the release of this 2.8 version I have wandered around on my own trying to use 2.8 and intimidated find myself going back to 2.79 or earlier.
I am only a dabbler at this program, jump into Blender on and off when I have some spare time. Never used any other 3d modeling software, too poor to afford buying anything like the prices I seen on Autodesk products like Maya or 3D Max. I am by no means any type of artistic genius and as the slogan goes “Don’t give up your day job” leaves me in a situation where I have to work and make a living doing other types of things outside of graphic arts.
Started using Blender approximately 8 years ago starting with 2.43 to 2.48 and a book entitled “Blender for Dummies” second edition by Jason Van Gumster. Had to start over when the 2.6 versions started changing everything yet found the turnover a positive experience. When 2.79 was released I was at a point where progress seemed to be made using Blender and following books I would buy in local retail stores or on-line. Did not have internet at home between 2009 and 2020, instead followed books for learning at home with personal use of older computers. I found the changes made in 2.8 leaving me totally lost with the exception of modelling and sculpting. Someone at a Deviant Art forum sent a reply to a forum I started there about my complaints concerning changes in Blender. I was provided by this person advice to look into You-Tube video tutorials. Took up that advice and discovered something I never realized was there at You-Tube. Find these videos are beginning to help me understand how some of the features have changed in 2.8 and beyond.
I am still having problems with one important thing. Created a lot of Blender files over the years that have all kinds of simple objects created while practicing. Cannot seem to open a lot of them in the 2.8 or later series. Tried following a short video tutorial on the topic of Appending yet many of my files still won’t open.
Considering the changes I have experienced over the years with Blender, seems to me you need to isolate files for these different versions. If you intend long term use of Blender, start separate folder directories for files created using each series of version changes where you also keep different standalone versions of the program that will be compatible with the files you create using that software. I am beginning to run into a confusing mess of .blend files when combining older files with newer created where I cannot tell which files will work and open correctly in which version of Blender. To prepare for future changes that may occur, and I suspect that the 3.0 series will again bring about new changes, having everything in separate directories/folders may be helpful.
My hobby is downloading the oldest files on Blendswap.com and updating them to work in 2.80+ I have yet to find a file that will not open. There have been 2 or 3 files that did not open properly. Many files where all materials have to be created from scratch because of the lack of Blender Internal Render Engine. Many files where you have to dig deep into the blender file data and reorganize things before you can understand why some things aren’t visible (this task also often reduces the file size from over 50mb to under 5mb). But, I have yet to encounter an old file that totally will not open.
Because they might be using various modifiers that are lost if you export to obj. Easier to just add cycles materials and fix whatever’s broken in the particle systems. Plus I’m talking about full scenes with many objects sometimes. Waste of time to export all of them to obj and re-import them to Blender.
Would not surprise me, another thing in this complex program that I never realized existed.
Would not surprise me to find out I have wasted countless time doing something to compensate for a problem that is a mistake. You have an answer to the problem instead of my work around strategy.
Work around is generally a good strategy for a lot of other programs yet with Blender not so practical since there is a solution to the problem the user is unaware of many times.
I’m curious to know what other programs you are familiar with. I have seen people with limited knowledge of many programs (photoshop, illustrator, after effects, maya, bryce 3d, microsoft word, excel, powerpoint, publisher, numerous text editors,WordPress, html, css, javascript, php, python) doing the strangest things because they are unaware of features that exist within the tool.
