Trying my hand at making a computerized celtic knot...

[flyagaric]

I just finished this and kind of liked the results. I think the reflective coppery texture came out quite well.

Comments

[frozenbears]

that looks cool, especially the colours. makes me think of iced coffee.

has blender's interface improved at all, or is it the same confusing mess it was since the old days?

[flyagaric]

Blender has definitely improved quite a bit. Pretty much the whole screen is configurable to however one likes, and there are halfway decent context menus and mouseover popup hints. What is really lacking is any sense of flow control... There are many things that have a certain order that they must be done in or the process doesn't work, and Blender will go ahead and let you completely mess everything up with nary a complaint. Really I think good context sensitive help/documentation system would go a long way towards making Blender more usable. Fortunately, there are quite a few tutorials out there that describe how to do most of the basic things one would want to do, but you have to search them out.

Also, I think better layering controls, especially when working with materials and textures, would help a lot. I find myself clicking back and forth between things to compare values a lot, and its easy to get lost with what I was doing.

Still the best 3d modelling/rendering program for the money, tho...

[sylphbranching]

Nice work. 3d and the shiny reflectiveness definitely gives a nice look to a knot, like a copperycolored translucent plastic texture. This looks way better on my mac than PC, just fyi... The PC color settings are so dark on pcs that the background blends with the knotwork. Might want to try contrasting colors to avoid that or just lighten the background in the future.
Of curiosity, how long did it take to make this? After I conquer 2d vector graphics maybe I'll move on to 3d modeling (years from now or whenever;). I know illustrator has the ability to produce similar effects but I'm sure it's not nearly as powerful as a 3d program.
happy designing!

[flyagaric]

I think it took me about 5 hours to finish it. Now that I know how to di it, tho, I could probabl do it again in 2 hours. The learning curve for Blender is pretty steep, at least initially, so it is not quite as easy to just jump into as something like Illustrator is. Blender is getting better with each generation, but I still think it has a long way to go in the user-friendliness department. Some of the commercial packages, like Maya, are supposed to be quite a bit easier to use. I still think Blender is worth learning, it just takes a bit of commitment to figure it out.

Thanks for the PC tip! The slight palette differences between PC and Mac are always a source of frustration...

[sylphbranching]

Have you actually tried using Illustrator? I didn't find it "Easy to jump into" without assistance. The only thing I did successfully was design BFCU's business card (ie text manipulation). The pen tool, which does the vector curves in illustrator, functions really differently than your traditional bitmap paintbrush.

In adobe applications, you can set/embed color profiles so you can optimize images for viewing on pc/mac or for both, so you may be able to do the same for blender (?)

[flyagaric]

I didn't mean to imply that Illustrator was overall easy... I have only used it a few times, and it definitely has a steep learning curve of its own. Really I was trying to point out that Blender is cryptic and extremely non-intuitive, and add that to the headache of doing things in 3D in the first place, and it adds up to a barely workable solution. I have been trying to teach myself Blender off and on now for a few years, and every time I pick it up I have to relearn practically every command. I use it because it is free and I have access to it. If I had a copy of Maya, I don't think I would bother with Blender anymore.

I will have to look up and see if I can find a way to make Blender embed a color profile. If not, perhaps I can just take the image into Photoshop and have it embed a new profile that works better with the PC? I haven't done much with color profiles in Photoshop, except to occasionally convert images to web colors.

[palomarsquirrel]

pretty! As always, I'm impressed by your versatile grasp of pretty-making tools.