The path to proficiency in the realm of 3D art is a long and twisted one – much more so than I anticipated when I set out on this adventure. I plan to share some learning, insights, frustrations and achievements as I continue my journey, hopefully helping you along your own path to enjoyment and success.
Allow me an extremely brief self-introduction. My name is Russ, and I began exploring 3D worlds and 3D art about five years ago, when I entered Second Life. I became fascinated with the possibilities of Second Life photography, and immersed myself in it. But after a while, disappointment grew as I realized that the limitations of generating real-time graphics prevented me from producing the kind of near-photo-realistic results I was hoping for.
Then a few years ago I learned of a free offer for a 3D “studio” program called DAZ Studio, and decided to give it a whirl. That was the beginning of an intensive crash course of self education in 3D graphics that continues and accelerates to this day. I’ve invested thousands of hours, and thousands of dollars, in this new “hobby,” and I’ve decided to share some of my learnings and experiences here, with the intent of helping others get started.
I will try to avoid being overly pedantic, so this will not be an attempt to cover the world of 3D from soup to nuts… it will be more a free-form exploration of lots of topics in no particular order, as I think of things that might be of interest to anyone who may also be exploring the field. And I will confess that this will be partly for my own benefit, as I have learned that writing and sharing my experiences greatly helps me organize my thoughts and retain my learnings. In my next post I will survey the field of software tools I am aware of, and give some of my impressions about the purposes and characteristics of some of them that I am most familiar with.
So that’s it… that is the purpose of this blog, and a glimpse of what I plan going forward. Let me know what you think, and what you would like to see here.
Regards,
~ Russ
3dexplorer 