I Think i have found a new hobby

rdgracer71 · **Joined:** Dec 11, 2011 **Posts:** 532

i just down loaded "blender". I'm not sure if i will ever be able to learn how to use it as well as i have learned to use gimp, but i am gonna give it a try. Gimp has been fun to learn, but I think the newness of it has worn off. Plus i won't to expand to other things and learn more and bigger things. Like i say it looks like it may take a while to get use to it, but i am in no hurry. I learned gimp on my own pretty much. So i wanna try something new. I am a artist, and from what i have seen, it will be right up my alley. i will try and post some pics here of what i do, if that is ok on this site. i will keep my post of my blender work on the off topic section. By no means does this mean i am done with gimp. well i gotta run. talk to you guys later. Wish me luck with this new software. :bigthup

rdgracer71 · **Joined:** Dec 11, 2011 **Posts:** 532

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ay7fgeQC1WI

i watched this video. this guy is very helpful. he takes his time and tells you every move to make. for some reason on making it i lost my work during the steps. and it's way to late to re-start now. i guess i will have to wait to tomorrow to re try it. but i think i have learned some things already. i really think i am gonna like playing with this software. i think the things you can do with this are limitless.

rdgracer71 · **Joined:** Dec 11, 2011 **Posts:** 532

the guy in the video is making an alarm clock. it looked pretty cool. and i think he has many others to follow.

Erisian · **Posted:** Mon Mar 11, 2013 9:24 am **(#4)**

I wish you all the luck in the world and I strongly advise you to search for tutorials on Youtube and the net generally. Blender is difficult at first and you have to learn all the keyboard shortcuts. Most menus are hidden but if you can learn it it is worthwhile. It will take you from working with primitives through sculpting colouring and texturing right up to boning and animating and even has a game engine. There is a downloadable film made with Blender called Sintel. Try googling Sintel and see what it is capable of.

K1TesseraEna · **Joined:** Sep 22, 2012 **Posts:** 2089 **Location:** US

Good luck and don't give up. I agree with Erisian, follow the tutorial series for beginners just to get an idea on how the damn thing thinks and works then go to more complicated stuff. Unlike GIMP, Blender cannot be mastered solely by the tutorials, without some in-depth knowledge. Even established Blender artist admit they need to improve on lighting, rendering, material/texture techniques, etc. Fortunately, there are books on that written by the professionals. Still, not a lot of documentation on game simulation, rigging, animation and about half a million of other things blender

Me personally, got the thing rolling only after the 3rd approach to Blender. I did start and gave up 2 times. My last attempt about a year ago was a success, Blender has won my heart.

Xgeous · **Joined:** Aug 04, 2012 **Posts:** 32

Learning Blender is hard, but not impossible. I think we are both on the same path of learning Blender. Good luck in your journey. One day we might even help each other with a project rdgracer71. Thanks for the link :hi5

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rdgracer71 · **Joined:** Dec 11, 2011 **Posts:** 532

thanks guys. i may never be great at using blender. but for me, learning what i can will be a joy for me. sometimes i have hours to mess around with things and i am sure this will fill some of those hours. i have always wanted to do cartoons. i like to draw. i like making things with my hands. like i say it's a hobby. i have already gotten frustrated with it many times. lol :hehe

but it is the process of learning anything new. maybe one day i will be able to use it for something good. i feel like if your not learning something new you are never growing. i want to grow each and everyday. i will take it one day at a time. maybe even one minute at a time. :hehe

K1TesseraEna · **Joined:** Sep 22, 2012 **Posts:** 2089 **Location:** US

rdgracer71 wrote:

thanks guys. i may never be great at using blender. but for me, learning what i can will be a joy for me. sometimes i have hours to mess around with things and i am sure this will fill some of those hours. i have always wanted to do cartoons. i like to draw. i like making things with my hands. like i say it's a hobby. i have already gotten frustrated with it many times. lol :hehe

but it is the process of learning anything new. maybe one day i will be able to use it for something good. i feel like if your not learning something new you are never growing. i want to grow each and everyday. i will take it one day at a time. maybe even one minute at a time. :hehe

If you like to create cartoons you may consider Synfig Studio as an alternative that suits the case better than Blender.
Like any other Open Source software it is totally free and less complicated. Plus it is compatible with Inkscape (with SIF exporter extension) and GIMP (gimp2synfig plugin)

Lurifax73 · **Posted:** Mon Mar 11, 2013 4:28 pm **(#9)**

Yes, Blender give me lots of fun and cost nothing.
My latest project vill take terrible amount of time to render, something like 24 hours.
Blender 2.66 Renderengine Cycle.

K1TesseraEna · **Joined:** Sep 22, 2012 **Posts:** 2089 **Location:** US

Lurifax73 wrote:

Yes, Blender give me lots of fun and cost nothing.
My latest project vill take terrible amount of time to render, something like 24 hours.
Blender 2.66 Renderengine Cycle.

That's seems a lot of time for such a simple scene, Lurifax. You're on Mac, I already know that, but is it a Macbook or desktop and what graphic card do you have?

rdgracer71 · **Joined:** Dec 11, 2011 **Posts:** 532

a little down right now. was just working with blender and every time i hit the button to show some detail like this guy says to do the whole blender shuts down. i have lost my work like three times and had to restart it. waiting now for my computer to do a system scan. i may end my time with blender if this problem continues. such a bummer. at least it didn't cost me a dime.

Lurifax73 · **Posted:** Mon Mar 11, 2013 5:07 pm **(#12)**

K1TesseraEna wrote:

Lurifax73 wrote:

Yes, Blender give me lots of fun and cost nothing.
My latest project vill take terrible amount of time to render, something like 24 hours.
Blender 2.66 Renderengine Cycle.

That's seems a lot of time for such a simple scene, Lurifax. You're on Mac, I already know that, but is it a Macbook or desktop and what graphic card do you have?

Yes I think I know where the problem is, but I dont like to spoil this rendering.
When you render cycle you have Samling - Render at 1000, but this first time I animate the project and therefore I need to use H264-Avi to get a VimeoVideo out of it. I think my brand new iMac with 16GB ram work hard. I think the blendfile render both cycle and the animation at the same time. Rendering look fine after 33 frames. I have 220 frames left. Do you know where the problem is. Yesterday I try to render with animate on cycle rendering. Lock terrible.
Thanks
Lurifax.

Lurifax73 · **Posted:** Mon Mar 11, 2013 5:14 pm **(#13)**

rdgracer71 wrote:

:(

a little down right now. was just working with blender and every time i hit the button to show some detail like this guy says to do the whole blender shuts down. i have lost my work like three times and had to restart it. waiting now for my computer to do a system scan. i may end my time with blender if this problem continues. such a bummer. at least it didn't cost me a dime.

Ar you sure you have the right version to your computer. If your computer run on 32 bits you need to have the same on Blender.

rdgracer71 · **Joined:** Dec 11, 2011 **Posts:** 532

Lurifax73 wrote:

rdgracer71 wrote:

:(

a little down right now. was just working with blender and every time i hit the button to show some detail like this guy says to do the whole blender shuts down. i have lost my work like three times and had to restart it. waiting now for my computer to do a system scan. i may end my time with blender if this problem continues. such a bummer. at least it didn't cost me a dime.

Ar you sure you have the right version to your computer. If your computer run on 32 bits you need to have the same on Blender.

I just checked my pc. and it runs on 64 bit. But i can not remember which blender i down loaded. So i guess i will delete it and re down load it making sure i have the 64 bit blender. man still a bummer.

rdgracer71 · **Joined:** Dec 11, 2011 **Posts:** 532

I just deleted blender and re downloaded it again making sure i downloaded 64 bit blender(my pc is run on 64 bit). i loaded up the file i was working on and it is still shutting down on it's own. So i have no clue what the problem is.

K1TesseraEna · **Joined:** Sep 22, 2012 **Posts:** 2089 **Location:** US

Lurifax73 wrote:

Yes I think I know where the problem is, but I dont like to spoil this rendering.
When you render cycle you have Samling - Render at 1000, but this first time I animate the project and therefore I need to use H264-Avi to get a VimeoVideo out of it. I think my brand new iMac with 16GB ram work hard. I think the blendfile render both cycle and the animation at the same time. Rendering look fine after 33 frames. I have 220 frames left. Do you know where the problem is. Yesterday I try to render with animate on cycle rendering. Lock terrible.
Thanks
Lurifax.

the reason i asked you about graphic card is that if you have NVIDIA GTX you can download latest builds with CUDA Kernels for Mac from here. Well, CUDA Kernels allows you to use much faster GPU-based rendering rather than CPU-based.
I don't know if there are 2.66 Blender builds with CUDA for Mac, Windows and Linux versions there are plenty.

rdgracer71 wrote:

I just deleted blender and re downloaded it again making sure i downloaded 64 bit blender(my pc is run on 64 bit). i loaded up the file i was working on and it is still shutting down on it's own. So i have no clue what the problem is.

I haven't had my Blender crashed since version 2.5. The reason could be your OS isn't stable. You might want to clean up the registry. It gets bloated in time and slows down PC performance significantly. I use paid program for that but you can use a free version of CCleaner.

rdgracer71 · **Joined:** Dec 11, 2011 **Posts:** 532

well i'm done with it. I will never use a program that doesn't work right. My time is important and the last thing i wanna do is sit and and pull my hair out cause of a stupid program. :gaah

So i guess i will stick to gimp. I'm done with blender. it was a pretty neat program but not worth the trouble. to many crashes.

Lurifax73 · **Posted:** Tue Mar 12, 2013 2:24 am **(#18)**

K1TesseraEna wrote:

Lurifax73 wrote:

Yes I think I know where the problem is, but I dont like to spoil this rendering.
When you render cycle you have Samling - Render at 1000, but this first time I animate the project and therefore I need to use H264-Avi to get a VimeoVideo out of it. I think my brand new iMac with 16GB ram work hard. I think the blendfile render both cycle and the animation at the same time. Rendering look fine after 33 frames. I have 220 frames left. Do you know where the problem is. Yesterday I try to render with animate on cycle rendering. Lock terrible.
Thanks
Lurifax.

the reason i asked you about graphic card is that if you have NVIDIA GTX you can download latest builds with CUDA Kernels for Mac from here. Well, CUDA Kernels allows you to use much faster GPU-based rendering rather than CPU-based.

Graphics: AMD Radeon HD 6750 M 512MB. Ram: 4+4+4 = 12GB Processor: 2.5 GHz Intel Core i5.
It is not possible to change the graphic in an iMac i5 according to Apple Support.

I don't know if there are 2.66 Blender builds with CUDA for Mac, Windows and Linux versions there are plenty.

If you do not have enough RAM you can get this problem. Clean up your pc from junk. I clean my iMac with Clean My Mac few times each year

rdgracer71 wrote:

I just deleted blender and re downloaded it again making sure i downloaded 64 bit blender(my pc is run on 64 bit). i loaded up the file i was working on and it is still shutting down on it's own. So i have no clue what the problem is.

I haven't had my Blender crashed since version 2.5. The reason could be your OS isn't stable. You might want to clean up the registry. It gets bloated in time and slows down PC performance significantly. I use paid program for that but you can use a free version of CCleaner.

Erisian · **Posted:** Tue Mar 12, 2013 7:24 am **(#19)**

Have a look here.

http://www.sintel.org/

rdgracer71 · **Joined:** Dec 11, 2011 **Posts:** 532

Erisian wrote:

Have a look here.

http://www.sintel.org/

was this meant for me? Not sure what the link is for.