FrellingHazmot Posted September 10, 2016 Share Posted September 10, 2016 (edited) "How do I get started?" I've been seeing this question being asked a lot on the forum. So instead of going crazy and replying to you guys individually with the same answer over and over. I thought this would be beneficial for anyone who needs some relief. I'm listing programs that I use or ones that are easily and readily available (there are a ton of other programs that I didn't list). I am by no means a professional but just genuinely interested in all things 3D, so without further a do: Best for beginners is Blender: Blender is free and the most versatile program out there to date ( and it's free) and it's good for transitioning to more advance programs like Maya or Max (which aren't free). You can download Blender for free here Did I forget to mention it's free? Zbrush Core Preferred method of sculpting over Blender. Excellent for beginners. ZClassroom Lesson - Chapter 3 - Navigating in ZBrushCore A cheap and condensed version of Zbrush still gives you all the necessary tools to create items for Tennogen. A must have for sculpting and texture painting ($150). Fundamentals: Polycount (The go to place for anything hardsurface and game related information) FZDSchool ( for concepting and design) Gnomon Workshop ( has awesome paid tutorials and classes available online by professionals) Youtube has a huge amount of tutorials for all these programs listed so go check em out! 3DModeling: Maya Maya Fundamentals: https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/maya/getting-started/caas/simplecontent/content/maya-documentation.html 3ds Max 3ds Max Fundamentals:https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/3ds-max (I don't know too much about Max since I've been pretty happy with Maya, so hopefully some other tennogen artists can provide some info and answer any questions regarding it.) Zbrush Zbrush Fundamentals:http://pixologic.com/zclassroom/ Modo 3D Coat Blender ** A good estimate for learning the basics is 6 months to 1 year. The more time you put in the better ( If you don't get stressed out it means you aren't doing it enough). Texture UV-unwrapping: 3D Coat Topogun headus UVLayout Blender Maya/Max Zbrush *not recommended Texture Baking: Knald (is extremely useful in my pipeline for baking out maps) Xnormal (is free and still pretty viable): Substance Painter (a must have) Marmoset (Recently added in Toolbag 3 not available in older versions!) Quixel Suite (you need Photoshop for this) Essentials: Superpng (a photoshop plug in to import/export out your alpha tintmask map) I highly recommend using this! Rendering: Marmoset (is King) Substance Painter Blender Maya/Max ( I don't recommend it unless you know what you're doing). Tech 101: I'm providing you with direct links from Polycount - A Practical Guide On Normal Mapping For Games - Article: Game Art Art - Become more efficient: Free or nearly free app's & websites to help us do our jobs... - Blender Mega Thread - FAQ: How u make dem mats? Hands-on mini-tuts for making materials and texturing - How The F*#% Do I Model This? - Reply for help with specific shapes - Of Bit Depths, Banding and Normal Maps - Skew you buddy! Making sense of skewed normal map details. - Tech Artist - What are you working on: FOREVER Edition! - Understanding averaged normals and ray projection/Who put waviness in my normal map? - xNormal - MASTER THREAD - You're making me hard. Making sense of hard edges, uvs, normal maps and vertex counts Guides and Tutorials: The Beginner's Guide to Physically Based Rendering DONTNOD Ent. PBR Guide You can get all you need for Tennogen including the ingame assets here If you're sitting on a giant wad of cash, you can look into going to an art school like Vancover Film School , Art Center , Gnomon Workshop or Academy of Art (while I don't recommend it since you can basically learn everything online now for free and you'd be paying off loans the rest of your life). Although, it's a good environment to be surrounded and engage with other people that have the same interests. There's also seminars you can do for a couple hundred buckaroos and not have to worry about taking out loans for schooling. My best advice to you since you're just starting out is to drown yourself in it as much as possible. Learning traditional fundamentals is extremely important in this field (Color Theory and Design, Concept Art, Anatomy, Head and Figures) and it will make you a better artist overall. A lot of the learning comes from trial and error, A LOT of coffee, and no porn! :P Please feel free to leave your technical questions or share other information that might be useful to people here. Hope this helps! Good luck and don't give up! <3 FrellingHazmot Edited July 22, 2017 by FrellingHazmot Updated Guides and Tutorials 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fredaven Posted September 11, 2016 Share Posted September 11, 2016 Pin pls Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HitsuSan Posted September 11, 2016 Share Posted September 11, 2016 This is great :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Syncrasis Posted September 11, 2016 Share Posted September 11, 2016 Also useful for understanding the way textures play together, and PBR in general: https://www.marmoset.co/toolbag/learn/pbr-theory http://www.marmoset.co/toolbag/learn/pbr-practice And an excellent overview of the entire process for game model creation: http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Texture_Baking :))))) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omni_Omega Posted September 13, 2016 Share Posted September 13, 2016 You know what? I've had such interest in Tennogen. I respect all of the work and effort put in, it fascinates me, the prospect is so attractive to me. But- I've just oogled at Tennogen for far to long. I think it's time I put my skills (Or lackthereof) to the test and enter the fray! ...When I actually get time to! For now I'll just research :P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FrellingHazmot Posted September 16, 2016 Author Share Posted September 16, 2016 On 9/13/2016 at 6:32 PM, Omni_Omega said: You know what? I've had such interest in Tennogen. I respect all of the work and effort put in, it fascinates me, the prospect is so attractive to me. But- I've just oogled at Tennogen for far to long. I think it's time I put my skills (Or lackthereof) to the test and enter the fray! ...When I actually get time to! For now I'll just research :P What helps me is to do "Batch" learning. Watch or read a tutorial THEN do it right after it's been taught until you fully understand it. Being engaged in what you're learning is way more beneficial then just doing research. It may feel overwhelming at first but if you micromanage what you're learning it'll be a piece of cake. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fredaven Posted September 16, 2016 Share Posted September 16, 2016 What helped me learn was having a clear goal that was achiveable. Not a goal that was "I want to make a warframe skin" that's a massive task in itself with many sub-parts to it. More things like. I want to make a flower pot Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Evanescent Posted September 17, 2016 Share Posted September 17, 2016 Thanks! Also someone pin this please! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DatDarkOne Posted February 9, 2017 Share Posted February 9, 2017 bumping this for future reference. Thanks for the guide. :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
supremeloser123 Posted February 20, 2017 Share Posted February 20, 2017 How do I get a semi transparent effect(like glass pane)? Im using blender, and i dont know if the effect is found in tennogen or blender itself(what effects have to be created via texturing?) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
(XBOX)EternalDrk Mako Posted February 20, 2017 Share Posted February 20, 2017 12 hours ago, supremeloser123 said: How do I get a semi transparent effect(like glass pane)? Im using blender, and i dont know if the effect is found in tennogen or blender itself(what effects have to be created via texturing?) those effects are found in uv layer , you apply emissives /transparency to create that effect Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FrellingHazmot Posted February 21, 2017 Author Share Posted February 21, 2017 You use it in post as an alpha layer in Photoshop. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FrellingHazmot Posted February 21, 2017 Author Share Posted February 21, 2017 (edited) To add what Syncrasis said, make sure to have different roughness/metallic values on your materials and texture variations, i.e cloth, leather, metal, plastics. I like to have a different material for each Tint. Don't make everything too specular or diffuse! Tutorials for Painter Here: Edited February 21, 2017 by -FrellingHazmot- Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
supremeloser123 Posted February 22, 2017 Share Posted February 22, 2017 On 2/20/2017 at 11:15 AM, (Xbox One)EternalDrk Mako said: those effects are found in uv layer , you apply emissives /transparency to create that effect Thanks! I dont really know how to find it, but i have a generally idea that it has things to do with the emissive image and alpha layers that you put onto tennogen. I'd like to know what weapon/cosmetic the tennogen steamworkshop help texturing guide shows for its maps, so i can see how each layer works for the object. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FrellingHazmot Posted February 22, 2017 Author Share Posted February 22, 2017 7 hours ago, supremeloser123 said: Thanks! I dont really know how to find it, but i have a generally idea that it has things to do with the emissive image and alpha layers that you put onto tennogen. I'd like to know what weapon/cosmetic the tennogen steamworkshop help texturing guide shows for its maps, so i can see how each layer works for the object. There's four tints total that you use: Red,Green, Blue and Alpha. The alpha is meant to be used as the fourth channel / fourth tint on your model , it's used for metallics (most of the time). The emissive map is a separate map done in post using either Substance Painter or Photoshop, with white being purely emissive. You don't need an alpha map for your emissive unless you want it to have 100% transparency. You can create the alpha channel which is found under the channels tab in Photoshop or what I do is paint the emissive in Substance Painter, and exporting the emissive channel out from there. Also, you should check out the Faq explaining how to use the channels under the Steam Workshop Guide: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
supremeloser123 Posted February 27, 2017 Share Posted February 27, 2017 Ok, so the next question I have is about animations, like if i want something in my syandana to spin or rotate, and so i learned a rudimentary bit about how to animate (I use blender), but it didn't transfer into tennogen. Can i just not see it working, or is there something I dont know about I need to learn about? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FrellingHazmot Posted February 27, 2017 Author Share Posted February 27, 2017 21 hours ago, supremeloser123 said: Ok, so the next question I have is about animations, like if i want something in my syandana to spin or rotate, and so i learned a rudimentary bit about how to animate (I use blender), but it didn't transfer into tennogen. Can i just not see it working, or is there something I dont know about I need to learn about? You can't view animations in Tennogen, it's just a way for artists to export files over to the Dev team, that's it. You can however export your animation files out as an .fbx export when you send over your files via Tennogen. Keep in mind they also have time constraints so they might not have time to implement all your ideas, the simpler the better chances you have for it to be accepted. So if you have a million things rotating and animating they most likely wont accept it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FrellingHazmot Posted March 2, 2017 Author Share Posted March 2, 2017 Another good guide on PBR: http://blog.teamtreehouse.com/beginners-guide-physically-based-rendering-unity Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FrellingHazmot Posted March 2, 2017 Author Share Posted March 2, 2017 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FrellingHazmot Posted March 2, 2017 Author Share Posted March 2, 2017 If you aren't in the know... https://www.artstation.com/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EdwardMarlus Posted March 30, 2017 Share Posted March 30, 2017 So uhm... Hey there, I'm looking into getting into Tennogen but I don't know where to start. I'm looking into getting Blender now but I've worked to do sprites in the past with stuff like PaintDotNet. Do you have any advice for me, FrellingHazmot? Also, very nice TennoGen items you made by the way! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FrellingHazmot Posted April 5, 2017 Author Share Posted April 5, 2017 On 3/30/2017 at 5:52 PM, EdwardMarlus said: So uhm... Hey there, I'm looking into getting into Tennogen but I don't know where to start. I'm looking into getting Blender now but I've worked to do sprites in the past with stuff like PaintDotNet. Do you have any advice for me, FrellingHazmot? Also, very nice TennoGen items you made by the way! Sorry for the delayed response! It's been a crazy week since the deadline last week. I'm not all that familiar with Blender but it's the most accessible 3d program out there (there's a few Tennogen artist that use it) and looks to be the most user friendly in terms of the UI. I can only speak from personal experience here so others can chime in at anytime... I recommend you take the initiative and go through those tutorials. First, start off making small stupid little things (inanimate objects) to get yourself comfortable using Blender and other programs. Get involved in other 3d communities will help you immensely, places like Polycount, Artstation, and Youtube have already huge libraries of information at your disposal. Know the Foundations: I think the most important thing for an artist is to have a strong skill set of Concept and Design and Analysis of Forms. Get a good understanding of how colors interact and create mood, light and shadow. Make sure this is a solid design and that your primary shapes read before you start adding in all the secondary and tertiary details in 3D, think of it like fractals. A helpful thread to help you when designing: Go to this Basic Art Guide Get an Idea: First thing you should worry about when you're creating. Start doodling in that sketch book, if you can't draw, practice or in the meantime, find someone who can. What motivates you?: Look to things that inspires and motivates you: music, movies, video games, etc... Put the seat time in: Don't expect results if you don't put the time into it. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. Don't let haters get you down: Have fun making art and try to present fresh ideas. You can't please everyone. As for the pipeline of creating content from start to finish, can vary from person to program. I usually start out in 2d sketches in Photoshop then make a really low polygon sketch in Zbrush to elaborate on the idea and reiterate this process back and forth until I'm happy before moving onto secondary/tertiary forms. Hope this helps. If you have anymore questions ask away. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FrellingHazmot Posted April 6, 2017 Author Share Posted April 6, 2017 (edited) Here's some cool artists to check out.. https://www.artstation.com/artist/nivanhchanthara https://www.artstation.com/artist/robotpencil https://www.artstation.com/artist/milancho https://www.artstation.com/artist/harpiya https://www.artstation.com/artist/yemyam https://www.artstation.com/artist/ikameka https://www.artstation.com/artist/andychin https://www.artstation.com/artist/rodrigue_pralier https://www.artstation.com/artist/koryface Edited April 6, 2017 by -FrellingHazmot- Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
led2012WF Posted April 6, 2017 Share Posted April 6, 2017 8 hours ago, -FrellingHazmot- said: Here's some cool artists to check out.. https://www.artstation.com/artist/nivanhchanthara https://www.artstation.com/artist/robotpencil https://www.artstation.com/artist/milancho https://www.artstation.com/artist/harpiya https://www.artstation.com/artist/yemyam https://www.artstation.com/artist/ikameka https://www.artstation.com/artist/andychin https://www.artstation.com/artist/rodrigue_pralier https://www.artstation.com/artist/koryface Nivanh Chanthara's works are so freaking great! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FrellingHazmot Posted April 18, 2017 Author Share Posted April 18, 2017 A great workflow to use when you're creating 3D content (including Tennogen). You can apply this method to any software of your choosing: Art Spotlight: Drone Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now