- Mar 12, 2019
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I started learning 3D 2 weeks ago with the goal to eventually create porn games. These are some (normal) objects and scenes I made. Feedback Welcome!
- Thread starter Noxusa
- Start date
Not bad for this stage.
The sword metal is a bit too shiny unless its a sword meant for decoration or ceremony.
Kitchen is ok though there are some factors that make it seem not realistic. The counter top doesn't have an over hang. They do in most cases in real life and there is a purpose for it. It has to do with preventing liquids making additional mess running down the face of the counter. Instead it falls to the floor where it can be mopped up without you having to also wipe the from of the counter off. There are other issues but just look at some real stuff in kitchens of the majority of it. That said it isn't bad.
The bridge appears to be made out of section not sure if that is intentional or not.
The grass is a bit to uniform. Even in a freshly cut lawn you can find more variance in RL. You could allow more tilt and curviture and the lower blade sites the less chance it would be cut. thus it can be longer.
The sword metal is a bit too shiny unless its a sword meant for decoration or ceremony.
Kitchen is ok though there are some factors that make it seem not realistic. The counter top doesn't have an over hang. They do in most cases in real life and there is a purpose for it. It has to do with preventing liquids making additional mess running down the face of the counter. Instead it falls to the floor where it can be mopped up without you having to also wipe the from of the counter off. There are other issues but just look at some real stuff in kitchens of the majority of it. That said it isn't bad.
The bridge appears to be made out of section not sure if that is intentional or not.
The grass is a bit to uniform. Even in a freshly cut lawn you can find more variance in RL. You could allow more tilt and curviture and the lower blade sites the less chance it would be cut. thus it can be longer.
- Mar 12, 2019
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Yeah the grass in particular is bad mainly because my main goal was to get a dense look first. Curvature and variety is another step I still need to do, but I'm planning on using another technique for grass.
Whatever you do don't beat yourself up over any of it. It's a learning curve everyone doing it had to go through.
What program are you using? It's a bit hard to go into specific parts and how to improve them without knowing what your using 
.
But some general feedback.
The sword looks a bit to flat. Swords aren't completely flat, they are more like a flatted diamond in their section (flat at the sides, more mass in the middle). For the texture you could maybe add some dirt to it.
The kitchen is alright. The gap between the cupboard doors feels a bit to large, and it could use some more color/contrast (different materials), but the set-up is alright.
Grass is just weird overall. Grass isnt a triangle, and isnt that uniform qua length/size/color. You already said you wanted to try it differently, so whats your plan on that?
.But some general feedback.
The sword looks a bit to flat. Swords aren't completely flat, they are more like a flatted diamond in their section (flat at the sides, more mass in the middle). For the texture you could maybe add some dirt to it.
The kitchen is alright. The gap between the cupboard doors feels a bit to large, and it could use some more color/contrast (different materials), but the set-up is alright.
Grass is just weird overall. Grass isnt a triangle, and isnt that uniform qua length/size/color. You already said you wanted to try it differently, so whats your plan on that?
Neat. Definitely looks like a good start. A few minor things (kinda only relevant depending on how photorealistic you want things to get) to get started, going by image - the sword's handle looks too slick to provide much grip. I'm not the hugest fan of the hand guard, but I think it serves its purpose well enough for the overall level of quality you have here.
The kitchen cabinets look fine, but it does feel a bit weird that they so perfectly match the color and material of the oven like others have said. I'd also consider raising the burner covers a bit off the surface of the oven and rounding the corners of the appliances more, as well as setting the edge of the refrigerator door a bit deeper into the appliance.
Others have addressed grass height, but I noticed that the surface of the bridge looks like the surface of some bathrooms (the little tiles). That feels...not right. You can get away with cement bricks, a smooth-ish surface, or wood planks, but probably not small tiles.
Still, hell of a lot better than I've ever done with this kinda tech. Good job!
The kitchen cabinets look fine, but it does feel a bit weird that they so perfectly match the color and material of the oven like others have said. I'd also consider raising the burner covers a bit off the surface of the oven and rounding the corners of the appliances more, as well as setting the edge of the refrigerator door a bit deeper into the appliance.
Others have addressed grass height, but I noticed that the surface of the bridge looks like the surface of some bathrooms (the little tiles). That feels...not right. You can get away with cement bricks, a smooth-ish surface, or wood planks, but probably not small tiles.
Still, hell of a lot better than I've ever done with this kinda tech. Good job!
This looks right for about 2 weeks in, a cheap way to deal with stoves, use induction burners or glass top. No more need to model the metal, gas, flame, or electric coil burners.
- May 28, 2018
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I wouldn't worry to much about the grass. It's hard to make grass look realistic, and unless you have a monster rig, your renders will take a big hit. I use grass sometimes (no pun intended), but I limit it to close up.
The biggest things about rendering good scenes is this:
1. Lighting. This is the most important thing to any render.
2. Good textures. Daz and many other programs, and products associated with it have really bad, and really good textures. So find good textures and reuse them. The more good textures you have the better. Skin is a major one. There are a few really good skins that I use. I create a character, then use a good skin on that character from another model or product. Of course, you can't use the same skin on all of them, so either learn to customize the skin, or find good skins from multiple sources.
3. Customized character models. I usually create my characters from 2 or more different models. The reason Lexi is so hard to re-create is that I made her from a base model, and 3 other models mixed in, with multiple morphs.
4. Immersion. A good example is outdoor city scenes. Have other people around, otherwise it looks like a ghost town. For indoors, think about what would be in the room you are rendering. Would there be clothes on the floor of a bedroom or bathroom? Look around your own house, and your own city. Of course you have to limit this cause unless you have a monster rig with multiple GPUs, you can only render so much.
5. Good poses. Too many games use prefabbed poses with very little if any corrections. This can make or break your game. You have a couple choices here. You can customize your own poses and have really life like scenes, but the downside to this is that it's more time consuming (why I only update every couple months). If you want to use a lot of prefabs to speed up development, that's fine, but you're gonna have to be really good with camera angles.
6. Render settings. This one is hard to nail down because each rig is different.
7. Environment models. Think about the the models you use for your environment. You can find a lot of rooms out there, but look very close. Some of them have sharp edges on everything, the counters, furniture, etc. But sharp edges are actually rare in your house. Even the edge of your counters are very slightly beveled. Sharp edges kill the look of a room. Find environments that include the small realistic details. Of course all this depends on the style of renders you're doing. Anything can be made to look good if it matches your style.
The biggest things about rendering good scenes is this:
1. Lighting. This is the most important thing to any render.
2. Good textures. Daz and many other programs, and products associated with it have really bad, and really good textures. So find good textures and reuse them. The more good textures you have the better. Skin is a major one. There are a few really good skins that I use. I create a character, then use a good skin on that character from another model or product. Of course, you can't use the same skin on all of them, so either learn to customize the skin, or find good skins from multiple sources.
3. Customized character models. I usually create my characters from 2 or more different models. The reason Lexi is so hard to re-create is that I made her from a base model, and 3 other models mixed in, with multiple morphs.
4. Immersion. A good example is outdoor city scenes. Have other people around, otherwise it looks like a ghost town. For indoors, think about what would be in the room you are rendering. Would there be clothes on the floor of a bedroom or bathroom? Look around your own house, and your own city. Of course you have to limit this cause unless you have a monster rig with multiple GPUs, you can only render so much.
5. Good poses. Too many games use prefabbed poses with very little if any corrections. This can make or break your game. You have a couple choices here. You can customize your own poses and have really life like scenes, but the downside to this is that it's more time consuming (why I only update every couple months). If you want to use a lot of prefabs to speed up development, that's fine, but you're gonna have to be really good with camera angles.
6. Render settings. This one is hard to nail down because each rig is different.
7. Environment models. Think about the the models you use for your environment. You can find a lot of rooms out there, but look very close. Some of them have sharp edges on everything, the counters, furniture, etc. But sharp edges are actually rare in your house. Even the edge of your counters are very slightly beveled. Sharp edges kill the look of a room. Find environments that include the small realistic details. Of course all this depends on the style of renders you're doing. Anything can be made to look good if it matches your style.
- Mar 12, 2019
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Thank you so much for your detailed input. I noticed too that many games have prefabbed models and poses. Ashley from Man of the House is basically the same character as the daughter from Dating My Daughter. It can instantly ruin the immersion if you see the same character in a different role.
It's for that exact reason that I'm learning Blender. I want to use nothing from other developers. I want to create everything on my own, which will take time and tons of effort, but I feel it's the right way to go. The most difficult thing will be to create character. It sounds like an insane task now, but I've been studying proportions and anatomy. I eventually want to rig those characters as well so that I have more freedom in my poses. I'm already working on some background renders as we speak.
My main trouble is creating characters. I'm going to have to learn sculpting for it and I'm not artistic in that regard. I want to have version 0.1 of my game to be released in about a year, but still. I'll also have to learn Ren'py and basic programming.
I really do want to push this through. If possible, I'd even like to make my job out of it.
- Mar 12, 2019
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I tried a few more things and ended up with this:What program are you using? It's a bit hard to go into specific parts and how to improve them without knowing what your using
But some general feedback.
The sword looks a bit to flat. Swords aren't completely flat, they are more like a flatted diamond in their section (flat at the sides, more mass in the middle). For the texture you could maybe add some dirt to it.
The kitchen is alright. The gap between the cupboard doors feels a bit to large, and it could use some more color/contrast (different materials), but the set-up is alright.
Grass is just weird overall. Grass isnt a triangle, and isnt that uniform qua length/size/color. You already said you wanted to try it differently, so whats your plan on that?
I made a grass model from scratch with some variations.
- May 28, 2018
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Creating you own characters from scratch would be one hell of a task, because not only do you have to create their shape, but you also have to create textures and morphs for them. You can do it much quicker by downloading models for DAZ, then customizing them. I've created some great characters that way.
Fair warning, the amount of customized stuff you're talking about doing will leave no time for you to develop a game. Not saying it can't be done, but I would consider some customized stuff, and some 3rd party stuff. That way you don't need to create customized stuff for every single thing you want to do while developing your game.
If you really want to create your own characters from scratch, look into Zbrush, and Substance Painter.
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What exactly do you mean with morphs? I'm willing to buy some textures for skin tones and such once I'm at a good point.
- May 28, 2018
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Well, if you plan to render in DAZ3D, your characters will need morphs for various things. Morphs can be anything from expressions to changes in their body, such as breast size, or breast movement. Installing genitals on them, etc. Creating a character in Blender and moving it to DAZ3d, and it being functional is a hard task. Blender does not import to Daz very well from what I hear.
However if you plan to develop and render in Blender, that's a whole new ballgame that I'm not familiar with enough to tell you what your limitations will be.
- Mar 12, 2019
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I see, your input is very helpful!
Yes, that's the only thing I'm still figuring out. With enough time, dedication and practice I will eventually be able to create realistic humans in Blender, but I'm still thinking about how I can easily customize the eyes and mouth for different expressions.
Well if your goal is to create characters and render them into blender, I would say I got a pretty good flow going. It's a bit hard to explain with just words, and as i'm going to work on a new character over the weekend, I could create some 'tutorials' about my work flow with pictures to push you hopefully in the right direction.
For now though, some parts to start with.
Making your own character from scratch is a very tedious and honestly absolutely waste of your time. Human bodies are in the very basics all the same (10 fingers, 2 eyes, etc.). Its much easier to learn, and overall way faster, to alter (called morphing) an existing character into a new one. You don't need to know how to sculpt at all for this.
My personal starting point is this great free model:
Since you seem completely new to blender I will quickly explain how he has set it-up: When you load up the project, you see the base character. In the properties menu (bottom left part), you should see a menu called shape keys; In here you can find all the different morph options for the body.
After you are done making the morphs, it's very important to apply them all to create your base model. Easiest way is by using a blender supported addon, that is by default disabled: Animation: Corrective Shape keys. At the top go into edit menu - preferences - search for the addon - and enable it. After activating the addon, you press the little dark grey arrow between the +/- and the two light gray arrows, next to the shape key menu. In here you chose the option: Create duplicate for editing. This will create a duplicate, with all the shape keys applied. I personally copy this base body into a new file.
Morphing the head requires a bit more work, especially as a beginner. Best advice I can give you on this part, is just practice, practice, and practice. Look at reference picks, and try to alter the head to look like your reference pick. For the head morph you should always put x-mirror on in the tool menu to start with, located at the left side of your 3D view; default hotkey to hide/show this menu is N. When you are in edit mode, you will find it in the tool section. Everyones face is majority mirrored. In the end just turn it off, and make some small alterations to create very subtle differences between the two parts. You don't have to add every minor detail to this (like pores, wrinkels, little imperfection etc), as this is something you will do with texturing.
For rigging, use the rigify addon. It's again a blender supported addon, which is disabled by default. Enable it (following the same steps as above). After enabling it you can add a complete human skeleton to your scene. You still need to position the bones right in your model, but it takes a lot of the annoying and tedious work away. Last time I used it all the head bones didn't work, and I just deleted them. Bones aren't a great way to create expressions anyway, so you are properly better of just deleting them. After you have placed the bones in the right position, press the green skeleton icon in the proporties menu (left bottom side), and press the generate rig button. This will pink the rig to your body, weight paint it, and create controllers for you to use. Just play with it, its a neat addon.
For expressions, you would use shape keys. With shape keys you can make alterations to your mesh, and save it as an alternative option. You would create different shape keys for different parts of the head, like the corner of your mouth, left eyebrow, etc. By combining them you can create different expressions. It's a bit hard to explain it without pictures, so you are properly better of googling this bit.
For hair I use particle systems. This can be used to create grass as well btw. It's hard to explain without pictures, just look into it if your interested in learning this system.
Lastly for texturing, you cannot really buy packs for this for the human body. Textures are created for a specific model, and wouldn't really fit for a different one. I personally use a different program called Substance painter for texturing; you export your model from blender into that program, paint the skin (or anything ells), export the different maps, and use those in blenders node system to apply them to your model. It's surprisingly easy and fast. It's a bit pricey (20 bucks a month), but in my opinion so worth it. I might be able to find a link for a pirated version (I used it a while back to see if the program was any good for me).
Well I think that's enough for now. There are still so much other parts, like making clothing, animations, etc. I could write something about it, but this seems good enough to start with. Creating your own assets, is a fair amount of work, but after a while it goes much faster then people think.
Good luck with your project!
For now though, some parts to start with.
Making your own character from scratch is a very tedious and honestly absolutely waste of your time. Human bodies are in the very basics all the same (10 fingers, 2 eyes, etc.). Its much easier to learn, and overall way faster, to alter (called morphing) an existing character into a new one. You don't need to know how to sculpt at all for this.
My personal starting point is this great free model:
You must be registered to see the links
. It's the basic DAZ model imported to blender, but the guy made a ton of shape-keys, to change the body shape. From fat, to super athletic, small breasts, large ones, etc. Pretty much everything you want to alter from a body perspective, is easy to achieve with this.Since you seem completely new to blender I will quickly explain how he has set it-up: When you load up the project, you see the base character. In the properties menu (bottom left part), you should see a menu called shape keys; In here you can find all the different morph options for the body.
After you are done making the morphs, it's very important to apply them all to create your base model. Easiest way is by using a blender supported addon, that is by default disabled: Animation: Corrective Shape keys. At the top go into edit menu - preferences - search for the addon - and enable it. After activating the addon, you press the little dark grey arrow between the +/- and the two light gray arrows, next to the shape key menu. In here you chose the option: Create duplicate for editing. This will create a duplicate, with all the shape keys applied. I personally copy this base body into a new file.
Morphing the head requires a bit more work, especially as a beginner. Best advice I can give you on this part, is just practice, practice, and practice. Look at reference picks, and try to alter the head to look like your reference pick. For the head morph you should always put x-mirror on in the tool menu to start with, located at the left side of your 3D view; default hotkey to hide/show this menu is N. When you are in edit mode, you will find it in the tool section. Everyones face is majority mirrored. In the end just turn it off, and make some small alterations to create very subtle differences between the two parts. You don't have to add every minor detail to this (like pores, wrinkels, little imperfection etc), as this is something you will do with texturing.
For rigging, use the rigify addon. It's again a blender supported addon, which is disabled by default. Enable it (following the same steps as above). After enabling it you can add a complete human skeleton to your scene. You still need to position the bones right in your model, but it takes a lot of the annoying and tedious work away. Last time I used it all the head bones didn't work, and I just deleted them. Bones aren't a great way to create expressions anyway, so you are properly better of just deleting them. After you have placed the bones in the right position, press the green skeleton icon in the proporties menu (left bottom side), and press the generate rig button. This will pink the rig to your body, weight paint it, and create controllers for you to use. Just play with it, its a neat addon.
For expressions, you would use shape keys. With shape keys you can make alterations to your mesh, and save it as an alternative option. You would create different shape keys for different parts of the head, like the corner of your mouth, left eyebrow, etc. By combining them you can create different expressions. It's a bit hard to explain it without pictures, so you are properly better of googling this bit.
For hair I use particle systems. This can be used to create grass as well btw. It's hard to explain without pictures, just look into it if your interested in learning this system.
Lastly for texturing, you cannot really buy packs for this for the human body. Textures are created for a specific model, and wouldn't really fit for a different one. I personally use a different program called Substance painter for texturing; you export your model from blender into that program, paint the skin (or anything ells), export the different maps, and use those in blenders node system to apply them to your model. It's surprisingly easy and fast. It's a bit pricey (20 bucks a month), but in my opinion so worth it. I might be able to find a link for a pirated version (I used it a while back to see if the program was any good for me).
Well I think that's enough for now. There are still so much other parts, like making clothing, animations, etc. I could write something about it, but this seems good enough to start with. Creating your own assets, is a fair amount of work, but after a while it goes much faster then people think.
Good luck with your project!
Here's some tips from someone with a little bit of experience:
Don't beat yourself up too much. All attempts at art is forward progress. It's important to know how to be critical of your own work, to learn to improve, but without putting yourself down.
Lots of small goals! The most common mistakes in game dev is making the scope of your game too large. It's also ridiculously easy to do, scope inflates so quickly and easily even for experienced devs. You can quickly lose sight of why you started when you feel like you're not making progress, so make sure to set yourself lots of small, attainable goals, to feel that bit of success all along the way.
Keep your scope small. I mentioned this in the previous point, but it really is important. People always underestimate their scope, I still think something is going to be easy and then it turns out to be really hard and take a long time. It's good to challenge yourself occasionally, in order to learn new things and expand your skill-set, but it's also vitally important that you can finish stuff and get feedback. Especially when you're starting, it's better to make 10 bad short games than it is to make 1 long game. Every time you start again, you get the chance to rework your pipeline and improve your methods, though just don't do a Duke Nukem Forever and keep giving up half way and starting again in a new engine for 15 years.
Don't beat yourself up too much. All attempts at art is forward progress. It's important to know how to be critical of your own work, to learn to improve, but without putting yourself down.
Lots of small goals! The most common mistakes in game dev is making the scope of your game too large. It's also ridiculously easy to do, scope inflates so quickly and easily even for experienced devs. You can quickly lose sight of why you started when you feel like you're not making progress, so make sure to set yourself lots of small, attainable goals, to feel that bit of success all along the way.
Keep your scope small. I mentioned this in the previous point, but it really is important. People always underestimate their scope, I still think something is going to be easy and then it turns out to be really hard and take a long time. It's good to challenge yourself occasionally, in order to learn new things and expand your skill-set, but it's also vitally important that you can finish stuff and get feedback. Especially when you're starting, it's better to make 10 bad short games than it is to make 1 long game. Every time you start again, you get the chance to rework your pipeline and improve your methods, though just don't do a Duke Nukem Forever and keep giving up half way and starting again in a new engine for 15 years.
- Mar 12, 2019
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Thank you so much for all your input. I'm sorry it took a while to reply, last week was extremely busy.
I will take all your tips to heart and look at the addons you recommended. Creating environments is something I am getting better at. To the point where I can say that I can create almost every basic environment like a living room, bedroom and so forth.
It's creating characters that will be the biggest challenge for me and using them as well. The addon you mentioned really sounds interesting!
I had the exact same notion for my own project: everything is the same, I'm going to make something 100% new. I spent two months trying to model my own characters and finally got something half as good as Daz, but dropped that idea and instead decided to export customized Daz models and do some various sculpting onto them to get the final look I wanted. That saved me 20 hours per character model and the results were better.
Honestly, I spent almost seven months working on the game before I finally managed to release it last week. In that time, only about four weeks were spent coding. Everything else was dedicated to making, texturing, rendering, remaking, and rerendering 3d assets. That said, the first environment set that I made to a satisfying degree took me about 15 hours, but the most recent one only took 4. And it was way more detailed.
What I've learned:
- Premade assets are really useful and can be easily customized to suit your needs.
- Pride as an artist pushed me into a huge hole of wasted time. Throw that shit away.
- Tutorials are awesome.
Look into the kitbash sets for whatever genre you are doing. They're just basic stuff, but you can do a lot with your own texturing and displacement maps if you want them customized. Also, there's a Blender thread in the development section of this forum (also, my own Maya thread, which could be applicable to some Blender workflows). I'm not sure if looking through those will help you, but it couldn't hurt.
Honestly, I spent almost seven months working on the game before I finally managed to release it last week. In that time, only about four weeks were spent coding. Everything else was dedicated to making, texturing, rendering, remaking, and rerendering 3d assets. That said, the first environment set that I made to a satisfying degree took me about 15 hours, but the most recent one only took 4. And it was way more detailed.
What I've learned:
- Premade assets are really useful and can be easily customized to suit your needs.
- Pride as an artist pushed me into a huge hole of wasted time. Throw that shit away.
- Tutorials are awesome.
Look into the kitbash sets for whatever genre you are doing. They're just basic stuff, but you can do a lot with your own texturing and displacement maps if you want them customized. Also, there's a Blender thread in the development section of this forum (also, my own Maya thread, which could be applicable to some Blender workflows). I'm not sure if looking through those will help you, but it couldn't hurt.
- Mar 12, 2019
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How do you make sets? I mean as in how do you organize them? Do you make an entire living room and save it as a Blender project or do you make a separate project for each piece of furniture?
I think he just ment set as in a scene.
But I personally use sets consisting out of a lot of small pieces, which I copy to a new file to create a room or building.
It's more useful if you need/want a lot of different scenes. For example the project I'm working on is taken place in a steam punk city, with Victorian style buildings (the style you see in London, or in Paris). I want a lot of different locations, so making a set makes sense. Especially as Victorian style buildings are all about repetition and symmetry.
So I got a file with all kind of small parts: a couple different pillars, walls, walls with windows in it, pipes, clockwork, etc. It's just a large lego set really.
If I want to make a new building I just copy the part to a new file, maybe make some small changes (like different color of bricks), and just build a new scene pretty fast.
If you wanna get a clearer idea of what I mean look up game asset sets (for unity). They pretty much use the same concept: a fair amount of small parts, which you just place and copy to quickly create a buikding/room.