I tried to dig into character animation the last weeks. In the end I looked at my stuff and thought about just leaving animation aside, because everything just didn’t look good. Isn’t it better to really focus on one aspect instead of being an average modeler, average texturing artist, average animator at the same time?
Seems like professionals are specialists for a reason, no?
Also, when I think of the most outstanding Blender artists, one certain area pops up where they seem to focus on (or at least where they are extremely good at).
Whether you’re bad, good, fantastic or a 3D God you will almost always specialise in one area (or two areas) of 3D. It’s just the way that people develop (some are obviously better than others). Wanting to be perfect in everything is a major stumbling block for newbies wanting to make their own movies in Blender or any other 3D application (I know, I’ve done it) - and some people just have to learn it the hard way.
Myself, I prefer modelling and animation, because those are the areas I feel that I’m good at - but give me a task involving materials and I fall flat on my face, and I don’t mind admitting that - I’m bad at materials, but I can always get better.
I suck so bad at animating, it’s not even funny. I have left that side completely and I don’t even care to learn it to be quite honest. Thus, I have leaned more towards doing the modelling and texturing aspect.
I think I have improved with every mesh I have modelled and every texture I have done. I hope to continue that process as well.
If anyone is interested in any of my blend files for animating puposes, just drop me a line and I would be more than happy to let you have the hassle of doing it.
it’s kinda hard to specialise in one area just because your good at modelling at that particular moment, maybe you’d be a really good animator but you just haven’t practiced alot. So i think it’s always a good idea to practice all area’s of 3D before you specialise.
And it’s not a bad idea to specialise in more than one area like modelling, texturing lighting is a nice mix. Or animation, rigging.
Well, just like modelling, there are things you learn each time you animate something; you even learn about modelling while animating. It doesn’t just happen, you have to work at it at least as much as you work at modelling. One difference I’ve found is that I learned more about animation by looking at files and tuts of other people (not just Blender) than I learned by looking at other people’s modelling.
well i guess it depends on what you have to do.
sometimes an allrounder is better and ok and in
other situations the crack is needed.
in the studios i worked and visited there were
modelers, animators, and others.
so pick what you can do best. in case you are not good
with animtion which also is very complex and time consuming
just dont do it. you will not do yourself a favour.
Animation, modeling, trexturing, and coding all take a lot of time and effort. You’re not going to get perfect (or maybe even satisfactory) results on your first attempt. What I suggest is that you find out which aspect of 3D you enjoy doing the most and then focus on that. If it turns out that you enjoy animating more than anything else even though your animations suck, just continue to focus on learning more about animating until you’ve mastered it. Then learn even more about it! There’s no point in becoming a master modeler if you don’t enjoy modeling. Being an all-around 3D person is okay, but chances are that you’ll never become great unless you focus on something.
I’m terrible at everything, except at making sketchy concept art. I know people who are great in the animation part, but not so good with detailed modeling. Others are very good at modeling, but don’t really know much about lighting or texturing. It takes practice, and a great deal of patience, to become a specialist at everything 3D, but many don’t pay attention to whether they’re better at one part, rather than the other.
I say if either modeling, texturing, animation, pressing the big fat render button is what you’re best at, keep at it. If you want to get better at the other aspects of 3D, sure you can, but that one thing you were already good at will most likely remain your strongest point.
…bleh, ignore all that garbage I just wrote. I think I tend to start rambling after the first sentence, heh…
“A specialist is someone who knows more and more about less and less. Until he finally knows absolutely everything about absolutely nothing.”
Well, putting that qoute aside, yeah, that’s how a person usually develops. Sooner or later you will see which areas interest you the most, and you will specialize in that. I, for example, do mostly modelling/materials and some lighting, but no real animation…
Of course, focusing too much on any one thing, and missing ‘the big picture’ can be a problem, ie: as part of a team effort, you might not do all aspects of a job, but you should have a general understanding of those other aspects as well.
One thing to note is that when we talk about being rubbish at animation etc… we really should ellaborate on what aspect of it seems rubbish.
When phrases like “gosh I’m rubbish at animation” pop up regularly, it’s perhaps a little comforting to realise that animation in the 3D sense encompasses so many areas.
If, for instance, you have trouble animating an organic character with full walk cycles etc… that doesn’t mean that you haven’t got a gift for special effects, explosions and so forth.
Maybe you could animate a vehicle better than a character. Who knows.
With 3D there’s certainly a lot of areas to play about in and with. Some folk are confident with modelling, as has already been mentioned. Others will be pure geniuses with GIMP/Photoshop or music creation.
I’d recommend that folk not get too downhearted when they’re watching DVD bonus features and start to think “I’m so damn awful, I’ll never fit in anywhere.”
There’s a well respected approach to creating good CG animation and it’s based entirely on the principle of teamwork and each person just doing that little thing they’re really good at.
So, what everyone is basicly saying is you get what you put into it. You can be good at just about anything you want, as long as your willing to put the years of practice into it.
I don’t know, but I dare to say I have decent knowledge on most of the blender’s fucntions excluding python, and some constraint stuff. At least on the modelling/animating/texturing area.
But I can’t say I’d be excellent in them. I usually can help if someone asks for assistance.
If you want to go into the industry and work professionally, then yes, you will need to specialize. However, specializing doesn’t mean being exclusive. Being semi-decent at everything, but great at one thing is a good goal to aim for.
At some smaller companies you occasionally need to pick up the slack in areas outside of your specialty. Plus, knowing how the other aspects of the process work (even if you’re not that great at them) will help you integrate yourself into a pipeline better.
I am not aiming for the 3D industry, I was just wondering if others also say: “I’m a modeler, not an animator” or else. It’s a bit hard for me to make such a decision, especially because Blender’s animation tools have become pretty good now.
So I will just stop trying to do character animation for now and focus on modeling and texturing.
