I've Been Using Blender Wrong for YEARS! - Maybe You Have Too...

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  • Опубликовано: 31 июл 2024
  • In this video, I want to talk about how my approach to making assets has changed recently. This will probably be a no-brainer for many people, but I'm sure I'm not the only person who has picked up so many good habits they become bad habits.
    You can get access to tutorials, behind the scenes content, material, assets, and loads of other stuff on Patreon - / decoded
    Facebook - / blenderdecoded
    Twitter - / decodedvfx
    Photo credit: www.pastel.cz
    #Blender #DECODED #B3d
    Chapters:
    00:00 Intro
    00:27 My old workflow
    02:11 Comparison
    03:46 Another example
    04:47 I already knew this stuff...

Комментарии • 1,1 тыс.

  • @DECODEDVFX
    @DECODEDVFX  3 года назад +657

    No idea why my voice sounds so rough here. You'd think I've been smoking unfiltered Woodbines since I was five. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

    • @keithkool
      @keithkool 3 года назад +69

      It's your quick&dirty voice.

    • @DECODEDVFX
      @DECODEDVFX  3 года назад +67

      @@keithkool lol. It's my "sixth attempt at recording at 2am voice".

    • @gouravdas7557
      @gouravdas7557 3 года назад +17

      lol sounds actually great.

    • @FlashySenap
      @FlashySenap 3 года назад +6

      I like voices rough XD
      Also rly nice video. Trying to do blender stuff myself tho Im into game assets and weapons and such so Im really trying to learn and adopt the "correct" workflow there. I would say tho. Better to learn the proper methods and get a good workflow with it first then you can cut corners as you become proficient at stuff that needs it and those that doesn't. but again a proper model can be reused in more than one scene, a quick model cannot.

    • @ViprazDesigns
      @ViprazDesigns 3 года назад +2

      @@DECODEDVFX great video as always 😁 Would you be interested in joining my discord server for 3D youtubers? So far Daniel Krafft, Corza and I are the only members, it could be awesome if you want to join😁

  • @RCoryCollins
    @RCoryCollins 3 года назад +1881

    The years learning the proper way to do things is not wasted.
    “Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.”
    ― Pablo Picasso

    • @verficationaccount
      @verficationaccount 3 года назад +54

      I was going to say just that. One big part of doing stuff professionally (and by that I mean on time and in budget) is to know what to do to minimize effort and save time. If you do this stuff as a hobby that doesn´t matter at all - as long as you´re happy with your result your workflow and over-designing is no ones business.

    • @thenout
      @thenout 3 года назад +7

      That sums up my rather long comment in a nutshell :D So true!

    • @ceegeevibes1335
      @ceegeevibes1335 3 года назад +13

      to know the techniques is GOLD! to break them is FUN! - you always know how to do it correctly if needed RIGHT ?!?

    • @gumball1328
      @gumball1328 3 года назад

      Excellent.

    • @porky1118
      @porky1118 3 года назад

      I wanted to write something similar.

  • @sariminator
    @sariminator 3 года назад +1054

    AKA the method Ian Hubert made famous haha! Great video as always mate

    • @DECODEDVFX
      @DECODEDVFX  3 года назад +146

      Yes, Ian does a lot of this type of work.

    • @10p_b3_cruzyumie.6
      @10p_b3_cruzyumie.6 3 года назад +8

      Lazy

    • @AaronRotenberg
      @AaronRotenberg 3 года назад +160

      Don't overthink it. The ducks sure don't.

    • @emma_ruth_design
      @emma_ruth_design 3 года назад +11

      @@AaronRotenberg this...this is beautiful

    • @GreenMagic0
      @GreenMagic0 3 года назад +17

      I am of fan of a great CG artist, director Sir Ian Hubbert!

  • @alexnemec
    @alexnemec 3 года назад +291

    Probably one of the most important things they taught me in art school: Dont waste your time rendering fine detail with a three-bristle-brush, learn how to create the illusion of it with a single stroke.

    • @MikkoRantalainen
      @MikkoRantalainen 3 года назад +14

      I agree. The target should be analogous to being Bob Ross of Blender.

    • @GeorgeZaharia
      @GeorgeZaharia 2 года назад +2

      in painting yea ... but use the same mentality in more "fiddly requirement environment" and that thing will cause a whole lot of problems. take ur time and do it properly. ul save time and money and stress long down the road. better spend 30 extra minutes on one thing than "patching it" to look good and then spend 10days or 20days figure out why ur game keeps crashing ...

    • @cameron7374
      @cameron7374 2 года назад +1

      @@GeorgeZaharia For code, this is a completely different story. Code can also be done sloppy, hacky and fast if it doesn't need to be the proper way for whatever you're working on. (quick script that you'll use once, tiny utility that doesn't do much or need much) But as soon as you get close to a larger codebase, that shit needs to be very well structured from the start.
      But art and assets aren't code. Sure, game assets often need to be nice from all angles and distances but in the end, players won't scrutinize the topology or techniques as long as it looks right and is ok performance-wise.

  • @ArthurMcGDM
    @ArthurMcGDM 3 года назад +491

    As a musician, it took me many years to learn the same thing. I used to create my sounds from scratch and tweak all my effects from scratch. Often the result was WORSE than just using presets. Often times, more work does not mean better. It just simply means time wasted. The end product is all that matters.

    • @P-B-G_YT
      @P-B-G_YT 3 года назад +13

      Your comment made me think of this video which I watched a couple days ago. I see the connection between what Jimmy Hendrix did with playing to his own rhythm, what recording to a metronome in beat is like, and what the DECODED video suggests. How Jimi Hendrix invented his own timing ruclips.net/video/Q-3oFreydHo/видео.html As a musician you'll also find the video informative.

    • @Fleischkopf
      @Fleischkopf 3 года назад +7

      and you mostly tweak the presets a little anyway, so nobody cares at the end. same with 3d assets. for this reason turbo squid exists 😁

    • @joechapman8208
      @joechapman8208 3 года назад +2

      Plus, you paid for those presets, so they're yours now.

    • @MaxMRasmussen
      @MaxMRasmussen 3 года назад +9

      If you see the piano as a preset, a lot of people have had luck with that one sound.

    • @cgcrafted4684
      @cgcrafted4684 3 года назад +2

      Im not a musician but I wanted to make soundtrack for my planned bkender animation. I used to experiment with ny own drums, original sounds etc. but I created quite horrible soundtracks but then I started using some drum assets and I could pretty much improvize cool melodies on top, following the base beats, and it ruend out a lot better and people told me its pretty good. I also created my own assets for Blender but I realized its more important to focus on my characters than some bqckground deco objects etc. Although sadly since its a stylized animation I csnt use too many normal assets.

  • @daneues94
    @daneues94 3 года назад +315

    This is why you gotta ask the question before you start: “What are you trying to do”

    • @robrobusa
      @robrobusa 3 года назад +6

      Sketch out the compo and then highlight your focal points. Choose detail accordingly.

    • @djC653
      @djC653 3 года назад +5

      @@robrobusa was going to mention 'draw it out first'. Hence the reason I'm trying to do Draw-A-Box, to improve my drawing.

    • @thedude4039
      @thedude4039 3 года назад +4

      @@djC653 I'm gonna draw a cube and see if this helps me make it better.
      Edit: I opened blender and blender automatically made a cube for me! Mission success.

    • @mijindani
      @mijindani 3 года назад

      Agree! best thing you can do before any project is ask yourself this question.

    • @jayerjavec
      @jayerjavec 3 года назад

      Better, what are you communicating.

  • @lewismassie
    @lewismassie 3 года назад +535

    It seems Ian Hubert really hit the nail on the head huh.
    And as someone who came into 3D modelling from mathematics, this absoluteness hounds my every action

    • @zachhoy
      @zachhoy 3 года назад +9

      exactly my reaction to this lol

    • @zachhoy
      @zachhoy 3 года назад +21

      also math/engineering background here, and switching to 'design' mindset has been interesting

    • @fahadus
      @fahadus 3 года назад +8

      If efficiency had a name.

    • @UHStudio
      @UHStudio 3 года назад +14

      Yep pretty much Ian Hubert's workflow

    • @jonathanshepherd4439
      @jonathanshepherd4439 3 года назад +4

      Moths!

  • @s0up_dev
    @s0up_dev 3 года назад +405

    This is perfectionism. It is a "disease" I struggle with as well

    • @joechapman8208
      @joechapman8208 3 года назад +30

      It can be a case of not having a clear vision for your project from the start, too. I've found myself stressing too much about the wrong things because I'm thinking, "But what if I want to frame a shot differently later, or fly a camera close to this thing?" which is a sign that I haven't solidly planned what I'm doing.

    • @aceparable1
      @aceparable1 3 года назад +15

      @@joechapman8208 There is one good thing about 3D. You can reuse everyday objects in future scenes or even put them up as assets for others to purchase. I think sometimes we should decide whether to round the quality up or down. If the model is almost good enough to sell then you might as well polish it. If you don't have any interest in selling or reusing the object then hack it together or even buy the assets where possible. Stop thinking like a worker and think like a boss. How much would it cost to make that dripping candle if you had to pay someone else a professional wage? If it is such a common item it will cost you $5-10 online. Actually I just found a candle pack on CGTrader for $5. Looks just as good. Realistic items are easy because you don't need to worry about your own art style. If you do stylized then it will be harder to purchase assets I will admit. But as artists we must value our time.

    • @bakedbeings
      @bakedbeings 3 года назад +2

      Perfectionism is perhaps a problematic term - i usually hear it invoked when someone's underdelivered/not finished something for themselves or someone else. It's ambiguous and positive, painting the failure with a sort of hazy virtue, when in truth they spent a lot of time on a rabbit hole that didn't contribute much to the planned outcome. I have those failures all the time, it's how we get better, but if we call it "perfectionism", it stops us looking at the real problem - the lack of focus, through issues as varied as anxiety (about the project anything else) executive function disorders, underestimating a challenge or a simple lack of the experience/perspective needed to determine what's really key to the project. 😀

    • @bakedbeings
      @bakedbeings 3 года назад

      I prefer learner or amateur. It takes humility to call yourself a learner or amateur rather than a perfectionist, but it comes with an attitude of improvement rather than being more discerning than others (implying the fault is external).

    • @aceparable1
      @aceparable1 3 года назад

      @@bakedbeings I agree. We can call it perfectionism, but we need to consider our goals and broad stroke the whole piece. Then do another pass with more detail if appropriate. I like to look at the imperfections in AAA games. Last of Us has low res shadows and almost no interactivity in the environment. BOTW has ugly environment textures often with too much detail. Weapons clip through clothing etc. These are some of the greatest games in history. Remember to think like an audience. Will they really notice or care? Make a table of primary, secondary and background items and give them the appropriate time allowance.

  • @KuroSanArts
    @KuroSanArts 3 года назад +64

    As someone who recently spent several hours modelling a lovely detailed shopfront awning, complete with brackets and screws into the walls, only to discover i can only see about 5% of a dark outline in the final scene anyway... I did a lot of nodding during this video...

    • @Gaukh
      @Gaukh 2 года назад +2

      Don't worry. We get 16k monitors at some point... They are going to notice the tiny pixel eventually... :D

    • @meandmyself5967
      @meandmyself5967 Год назад +2

      On the contrary, consider making a separate artistic render simply to show off your awning, and post it somewhere! Then, your beautiful awning, screws and all, can be appreciated separately for it's own relevance!

  • @piotrmatysiak6059
    @piotrmatysiak6059 3 года назад +111

    I know nothing about 3d modelling and came here by chance drinking evening beer, but yes I am fully convinced now this is the way to go!

    • @recettescuisines4146
      @recettescuisines4146 3 года назад +4

      😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣😭😭😹😹

    • @curtiswindover4564
      @curtiswindover4564 3 года назад +5

      Lolllll

    • @youtubetrailerpark
      @youtubetrailerpark 3 года назад +1

      One of the funniest comments I've ever read.

    • @donflamingo795
      @donflamingo795 2 года назад +1

      It actually applies to a lot of thing and not just 3d modelling/animation. Unless you are an engineer that build people house that is.

  • @MopyProductions
    @MopyProductions 3 года назад +218

    The best analogy I have come up with is "you don't need to build a world behind you camera"

    • @daniel4647
      @daniel4647 3 года назад +32

      But reflections :P

    • @Cypoes.graphics
      @Cypoes.graphics 3 года назад +15

      haha yeah. All my scenes. if you just move the camera one bit, everything breaks u see holes. It's perfected for the frame and nothing else. u can actually dl scenes from Pixar, same thing there. looks like jank from any other angle other than the cameras

    • @CombatKing1237
      @CombatKing1237 3 года назад +4

      *your

    • @daton3630
      @daton3630 3 года назад

      ​@@daniel4647 if you want reflections then you already know what to do

    • @BambeH
      @BambeH 3 года назад

      Moar HDRIs

  • @TheAmazingCowpig
    @TheAmazingCowpig 3 года назад +43

    The highest level of animation is about knowing how much you can cheat and get away with as long as the final product looks right, and doing so in the most workflow-efficient manner.

  • @fcsuper
    @fcsuper 3 года назад +72

    There was a children's show (Sesame Street, Electric Company, or maybe even a sitcom, I forget) episode that commented on how unnecessary texture is when the object is being viewed from a distance and isn't the focal point. One of the kids in the scene was painting a brick wall as the backdrop for a theater play. The girl was paining each brick with fine detail, and it was taking a long time. One of the adults on the project came along and let her know she didn't need all that detail. As an example, he showed her that her classmate was painting another brick wall with very simple detail. Man, that's a deep-cut memory you've sparked.

  • @MrTridac
    @MrTridac 3 года назад +92

    There's also a thing called "blocking" where you rough out your animation using only crude "stand-in" models and textures.
    Once you know where everything will be in the scene and what's lit, you'll polish the models as necessary.

    • @JohnDBlue
      @JohnDBlue 3 года назад +2

      I'm just starting to learn 3d modeling and animation, this sounds like something I'll wanna keep in mind 👌

    • @conahscreations
      @conahscreations 3 года назад +8

      @@JohnDBlue the best advise, and something you'll come to realise yourself eventually anyway, is to always start things simple and only make them as complex as they need to be, which is really the essence of this video too.
      Always start with blocking out, using simple shapes and making sure the 'form' and proportions are correct before moving forward.
      If you look at some good artists you'll realise that they can make even a few brush strokes look breath taking. I noticed this whilst playing Ghost of Tsushima where they use an ink bleeding effect and manage to paint entire scenes just from the way the black ink runs off and contrasts the white

    • @conahscreations
      @conahscreations 3 года назад +4

      I also find that keeping things simple makes learning the process much easier. Instead of thinking 'oh no how do I model this entire bedroom scene' you start thinking about it in terms of cubes and other primitive shapes, and then slowly build up the detail once you're ready

  • @g-kems
    @g-kems 3 года назад +31

    I liked when you point out Rembrandt quote at 5:48 “It’s actually distracting to the viewer if everything has the same amount of attention drawn to it”

  • @darshjoshi1641
    @darshjoshi1641 3 года назад +63

    That's exactly what Ian hubert has been trying to tell us. I have the same super detailed approach and I am not even an advanced blender user so it's especially difficult for me but seeing a video like this once in a while helps. thank you

  • @JaredOwen
    @JaredOwen 3 года назад +240

    Great tips - I have to keep relearning this lesson all the time.😬

  • @rhysfriesen
    @rhysfriesen 3 года назад +80

    This is very inspirational. I find myself getting sucked into perfecting small, inconsequential details and then getting very frustrated when I can't get them just right. It usually affects my mind set for the rest of the project. I will keep your advice in my mind and soldier forward.

    • @DECODEDVFX
      @DECODEDVFX  3 года назад +5

      yes, exactly!

    • @Kholaslittlespot1
      @Kholaslittlespot1 3 года назад +1

      Yeah, this kind of thinking might actually help me to bloody well finish some things. I'm the worst for leaving an idea half done. Must have hundreds of unfinished blends!

  • @thenout
    @thenout 3 года назад +48

    Good comment. One thing to add: Mastering the "correct and clean" way first is still vital to comprehend what and why you can omit or brush over. Those broad Rembrandt strokes work so well because he knows exactly how to do it proper, but is masterful enough to abstract it to fit the overall "feel" he was trying to communicate. This abstraction is prolly the highest form of artistic achievement. To put it differently: Don't educate yourself to be sloppy. Do the hard work (i.e. learning it proper) and then use your experience to deviate and use time-savers to your advantage.

  • @SoapSoapCrayon
    @SoapSoapCrayon 3 года назад +115

    So I'm a games programmer. This stuff happens at every level of the process. A UI designer, artist and programmer spent a combined 100 hours making a button animation that's visible to a player for 4 frames. It's always best to keep things in context, it's only cutting a corner if there's a corner there to cut! This took me so long to learn too, don't worry yourself, funnily enough, I'm pretty directly related to Rembrandt too.

    • @willtn
      @willtn 3 года назад +2

      i hope 100 hours is an exaggeration 😅

    • @steprockmedia
      @steprockmedia 3 года назад +2

      Rembrandt? Fun story there I think!

    • @z-beeblebrox
      @z-beeblebrox 3 года назад +7

      @@willtn divided by 3, that's four days of a work week. Sounds like something that could easily happen in game production!

    • @DoctorPhileasFragg
      @DoctorPhileasFragg 3 года назад +1

      That isn't funny enough, I'm sorry.

    • @Pandahero-ce9fi
      @Pandahero-ce9fi 3 года назад +9

      as a fellow programmer I 100% can see people spending that amount of time making a button. when I first started I spent weeks making a damage effect that lasted 0.2 seconds

  • @sciverzero8197
    @sciverzero8197 3 года назад +169

    "Perfection is the enemy of Good Enough."
    as a solo Artist, Designer, and Coder, in that order, I learned long ago that sometimes sacrificing quality in order to ensure you actually finish is necessary.
    You can always go back later and fix things if you aren't working on a strict deadline. Having anything is better than having really beautiful nothing.

    • @SuWoopSparrow
      @SuWoopSparrow 3 года назад +8

      "Perfection is the enemy of Good Enough." Thats good for people early in their journey in order to get them being productive. Later, though, it can be an obstacle to greatness if they apply the philosophy too liberally.

    • @jeric_synergy8581
      @jeric_synergy8581 3 года назад +16

      "Having anything is better than having really beautiful nothing." Sometimes I'll bite my tongue critiquing something, because at least the creator DID something.

    • @EnderElohim
      @EnderElohim 3 года назад +1

      that is why people become specialist where their perfectionism work well. Because they can spend all of their time to just small aspect of huge picture.

    • @Soulsphere001
      @Soulsphere001 3 года назад +1

      That's so true. You can always add detail later, especially if it's art created on a computer.

  • @Myzelfa
    @Myzelfa 3 года назад +31

    Here's some actionable advice: if your end goal is a single frame or a simple animation, the camera should be one of the first things you set up. Check camera view periodically, and get used to thinking of that as the default view for the scene. Whenever you start to add detail or work on textures, go into camera first and think, "is this change going to be noticeable in the final result?"
    The desire for perfection isn't a flaw, it just needs to be tempered with the demands of time. This is why deadlines and time management are super important, even for a personal project. Assign a certain amount of time for each project, and figure out how much time that gives you to do each aspect of it. If you're not satisfied with one part of it at the end of the allotted time, you might be able to squeeze in extra time elsewhere, but it'll have to be at the expense of something else. Practice teaches, along with how to make things, how to make the right things at the right time for the use they're going to be put into.

    • @meandmyself5967
      @meandmyself5967 Год назад

      I think this is an extremely useful piece of advice. As you say, the desire for perfection isn't a flaw, but instead something that can be directed into a perfect final product, rather than a perfect piece of irrelevant information.

    • @tylerwinter512
      @tylerwinter512 Год назад

      Best comment I’ve read in a while! Great advice! I’m a professional photographer, so when I started learning blender, I immediately started doing what you’re saying. The first shortcut I learned was how to toggle in and out of camera view! Everybody always deletes the default cube, camera and light. Camera and lighting from the start is the way I work best..

  • @queertales
    @queertales 3 года назад +17

    This is actually quite a common approach in movies too, even when working with a team. Get the scene up super quick and rough, and progressively refine from there. That way your not wasting time on details nobody is going to see, and you can catch problem areas early on.

  • @pbonfanti
    @pbonfanti 3 года назад +17

    I don't think wrong is the word, as Bruce Lee said: "Before I learned the art, a punch was just a punch, and a kick, just a kick. After I learned the art, a punch was no longer a punch, a kick, no longer a kick. Now that I understand the art, a punch is just a punch and a kick is just a kick." The overdetailed perfectionism path is the learning part, mastering techniques, improving quality, training perception, being capable of doing very quality things, the simplifying and optimization sounds look the final stage, where "a punch is just a punch". The video is amazing mostly because of the ,amazing work, but a beginner trying to apply your last approach can do very awful things, because of skipping his own development.

    • @terrsham5607
      @terrsham5607 3 года назад +1

      Very true, what he missed is saying that you have to learn the fundamentals to be able to act like you didn't, and still end up with a work of art. Blender is not as easy as so many make out. Just because it's free doesn't mean it's easy. They give you the tool at no cost, you MUST learn the fundamentals to create.

    • @kojopiru5911
      @kojopiru5911 3 года назад +1

      I like the analogy of texting. If you don't know English (or insert language here) but try learning it from text shorthand then you'll never learn it. But once you know English why waste time typing it all out perfectly?

  • @SupaKoopaTroopa64
    @SupaKoopaTroopa64 3 года назад +18

    I work by the philosophy that the time spent on a certain part of a scene should be proportional to the time the viewer will spend looking at that component relative to all others.

  • @eklectiktoni
    @eklectiktoni 3 года назад +4

    I haven't been using Blender for years, in fact, I just started this year. But I am SO glad I stumbled upon this before I got too accustomed to the way I was doing it. You are right. No one can see all those tiny details in the final render. Definitely appreciated this!

  • @CheeseyCHV
    @CheeseyCHV 3 года назад +1

    So much important stuff in one short video, nice! This is good advice for beginners and advanced users. All of those things are so simple and yet so difficult and advanced.

  • @chanruzzi
    @chanruzzi 3 года назад +2

    I desperately need to start doing exactly that. It took some time to realize this but you're totally right. It's nice to know there are more artists going through the same stuff and actually being able to simply solve this problem they simply didn't know it existed!

  • @sunayama4650
    @sunayama4650 3 года назад +10

    This video sums up what I ended up learning in roughly the same amount of time. So don't worry. You're not the only one. Thanks for informing people about it!

  • @crow_music
    @crow_music 3 года назад +5

    Recently I discovered that this quick and dirty way worked very well for me starting out at blender again. It’s a lot of fun to see quick and good results

  • @StarHavensHero
    @StarHavensHero 3 года назад +1

    Really happy I stumbled upon your video in my recommended feed. As I’ve been learning more in depth with animation and modeling, I’ve been losing the forest for the trees. This really helped me mentally visualize my work flow.

  • @tsunchoo
    @tsunchoo 3 года назад

    Real nice, especially the anecdotes about Rembrandt and your own painting - stuff like that really helps to understand your basic thrust but more importantly shows that you know what you are actually talking about - not just another screen recording of someone awesome at Blender.

  • @NicolasDussartFathom45
    @NicolasDussartFathom45 3 года назад +5

    You nailed it man!! It took me like 10 years of practice to understand that. And I still sometimes do the mistake of spending too much time on invisible details.

  • @Floatharr
    @Floatharr 3 года назад +8

    Absolutely crucial bit of advice! Personally I try to establish a camera angle early on, make a small viewport that's always visible, and evaluate my scene through that during the creation process. That way I have an idea of what will be seen in the final frame at every stage of the process.

  • @SamMorseBrown
    @SamMorseBrown 3 года назад +2

    Awesome video!
    This was some extremely useful insight I probably needed, thanks very much.
    Good luck with your animation!

  • @davidroddick91
    @davidroddick91 3 года назад

    Thank you! I've been working on a couple of short animations, and I've been getting so caught up in modelling background stuff in great detail that I've become frustrated and shelved them. This video has given me the freedom to pick them up again.

  • @joelambert7128
    @joelambert7128 3 года назад +13

    I have had this problem working on my graduation project at university, though sometimes I think I have had it "in reverse". I have created a few assets that I did not think were up to snuff, and wasted hours tinkering with improvements to make, only to realize that the model I was working on would be obscured by depth of field, motion blur and aerial perspective, sometimes the added details were much too small to be resolved at the final render's resolution, even absent those other effects. Focusing your time and effort on the focal point of your image is a much more efficient way to work, and it will ultimately lead to a better quality result.

  • @VMP666
    @VMP666 3 года назад +4

    Ah man, you hit the nail on the head. I'm making my first 3D film at the moment (been animating in 2D for years now). I have this long scene inside of the ruined train station. I started animating my character entirely, climbing up the stairs, walking into the room, starting up an old computer etc. I've spent hours making sure the entire character is animated properly, cleaning up every single step, gesture, face expression. But when I finally set up cameras I asked myself, "why do all this work?". Most of what I animated wouldn't even show on screen, the feet of the character would show in maybe two shots, in some he wouldn't even be seen at all. And as you said, I animated in 2D for years, I know how and when to cut corners to save myself needless work and time! So now I rember to animate and show only what I need. Good thing I strarted 3D scanning my assets before I began building them from scratch and hand-painting them all!

  • @GarlicToastOooo
    @GarlicToastOooo 3 года назад +1

    Wonderful video! This kind of stuff cannot be overstated!

  • @HatzajaOfDaggerspine
    @HatzajaOfDaggerspine 3 года назад +1

    Realy helpful tip. defintly changes my approach at my illustrations and now, to my learning process for blender.

  • @danielnewton2390
    @danielnewton2390 3 года назад +18

    I think the vending machine is the donut of messy blender usage. Everyone seems to be making them to figure out this quick and dirty style of working.

  • @StephGV2
    @StephGV2 3 года назад +10

    A friend of mine used to say "Perfection is the enemy of 'Good enough'". When I was working previz, I found out how dodgy a scene can still look great. Anyone working in games knows too. If the object or scenery is far enough away in the shot, it can be shoddily modeled, rendered, touched up in Photoshop and put on a forest of image planes in the background to thicken up the scene. You can have billions of polygons worth of scenery in a shot that way.
    Anyway, love the cheap coverups. Great suggestions.
    Man, we put a lot of labor into making things *not* look perfect, clean and freshly made. It's a shame when we waste time on "B" scenery that could be better put to use spending more time on something that will be seen.

  • @thefinn0tube_
    @thefinn0tube_ 3 года назад +1

    Fantastic video mate. When you're working in an environment where anything and everything can be made super high res, it often takes away from the final product like you say. Human brains are great at interpreting very basic shapes and the best artists know that and use it really well.

  • @tarikhafid4668
    @tarikhafid4668 3 года назад

    In my opinion, this is the most helpful video I've seen all these years learning blender trough RUclips channel. Keep on making such inspiring and motivating videos,

  • @iandowwright
    @iandowwright 3 года назад +6

    This is one of the things I wish I learned earlier on. It clicked for me when I spent an evening modelling one of those nitrous canisters that litter the streets in London. I modelled it, simulated squashing it and then textured it, it looked perfect. In the final scene it was no more than the glint of a couple of white pixels.

    • @DECODEDVFX
      @DECODEDVFX  3 года назад +3

      Yeah, I remember making loads of litter to cover the floor of a subway for a render. Cigarette butts, crisp packs, fake newspaper pages, McDonald's cups, etc. I ended up not even using most of it because it was distracting, and the few assets I did use could have been low poly models with a simple texture applied.

  • @CoderGuyMan
    @CoderGuyMan 3 года назад +7

    Makes perfect sense. Hollywood has been doing that for years using facades as their sets and matte paintings and so forth. Thanks for the video.

  • @glenn_r_frank_author
    @glenn_r_frank_author 3 года назад +1

    This is encouraging to users like me who see all the elaborate work others do sometimes which is beyond me... but for simple still renders and even simple video animations that are not needing that kind of detail and perfection... even I can pull that off!

  • @toulouse2k
    @toulouse2k 3 года назад

    Wow, you made a bunch of improvements in this update! Well done!

  • @TehBurek
    @TehBurek 3 года назад +43

    It's a delicate balance, with destructive extremes on both ends, that's for sure.
    I'm a programmer primarily, been for a long time, I dabble in Blender here and there, but I recognize the same struggle in both fields. It's got a lot to do with your general attitude and motivation. You can slip into that mode where you're using "perfectionism" as an excuse to just show off, to do unnecessary things just to prove that you can do them, and so that nobody else might think there's even a single thing you haven't thought of, not a single outlandish future you haven't proofed against. And on the other end, you've got your Chads with "being thoughtful and thorough is for wusses" attitude, who use that overconfident machoism as an excuse to just be reckless and overall do sub-par work.
    Sweet-spot is somewhere between those two extremes, and its position will depend on what the job is, who you are, what your skill set is, what's expected for the future of the project, etc. There isn't a simple answer, but what can help you is to always look back on your process with brutal honesty, and admit to yourself when you see it actually made no sense to put so much time and effort into a thing, that it made no real impact; and also, when you see that cutting corners in some area really came back to bite you down the line. The more honest and realistic you can be in those assessments, the better you will calibrate your inner compass for such stuff, and you'll have less misfires in the future.

  • @BlazertronGames
    @BlazertronGames 3 года назад +6

    Yeah, Ian Hubert's videos really get me inspired with 3d. Makes you realise that you can make good looking results without an insane amount of work.

  • @Dekoyy
    @Dekoyy 3 года назад +2

    I like how you applied this idea to drawing as well, something I needed to hear

  • @ChaosPromotions
    @ChaosPromotions 2 года назад

    Bro you're a wizard and an inspiration. I tried to follow but you said so much stuff that i have no clue. But wow. Amazing man.

  • @JackLyttle
    @JackLyttle 3 года назад +3

    So much this. I feel that a lot of the Blender community is geared towards making models for selling on websites. Most of the stuff I do is for specific shots, animations and uses, and it's that that defines how much work I put in. I think getting the level of detail right usually involves going *slightly* beyond what can be clearly seen, but not by much.

  • @akunekochan
    @akunekochan 3 года назад +22

    My biggest problem is remembering that not even little detail matters, not that I don't know. I have the same issue drawing too ;-;

    • @maythesciencebewithyou
      @maythesciencebewithyou 3 года назад +1

      If you do it for yourself and like to to look at all the details, then it's allright. But if you do something as a job, don't do more than necessary.

  • @erobertwald
    @erobertwald 3 года назад

    Thanks for posting this. I tend to swear the small details like this when I am modeling and texturing. I’ll be using this to remind myself to relax on that more.

  • @octosalias5785
    @octosalias5785 2 года назад +1

    Thank you, I needed to hear this, for both 3D and 2D art. I know that for patterns its best to leave something to the imaginaton but I can get lost in the woods with over-detailing

  • @konstig.
    @konstig. 3 года назад +7

    I picked up Blender at around the same time and have somewhat consistently been able to create animations for clients.
    Exactly as you pointed out, that precise way of working had to be thrown out the window. Compositing can also be extremely useful, especially working with any type of fluid sim.

  • @flyntot
    @flyntot 3 года назад +7

    my mind is blown, now it's time to jump into blender and see what magic we can do with that starting cube

  • @AlexKeyes299
    @AlexKeyes299 3 года назад +1

    i really appreciate artist who can take a step back from their work and go, hey maybe i dont need to put so much effort in that bit. really makes a difference in the work

  • @ShawnFerrell
    @ShawnFerrell 2 года назад +1

    Thank you. I needed this. I was spending too much time on detail, and forgot about the big picture!

  • @docbadwrench792
    @docbadwrench792 3 года назад +9

    Excellent observations. I am so guilty of this. It's funny, 15-18 years ago I worked a lot in Second Life. I used to iterate so fast, mainly because SL made it almost impossible to create the kinds of complex meshes we take for granted in Blender. Now that I’ve spent a year in Blender, I appear to have forgotten the value of keeping things simple. :)

  • @ColdCutz
    @ColdCutz 3 года назад +3

    3:32 Harrison Ford: “Kid, it ain’t that kind of movie “ boy was he wrong.

  • @wakegary
    @wakegary 3 года назад

    Fantastic advice. I'm glad I found this early. Just getting started and my OCD has me microediting faces that won't even be visible in the render. I like that this is focusing on the final shot, not the integrity of the scene in 360 as if the end user will explore it in VR, looking for crappy areas. It reminds me of Van Gogh. It's the feeling of the piece... if that part hits, nothing else matters. But it is pretty cool to know you made an air tight world in case you want to visit it again from different perspectives. Either way, I haven't seen any other videos that approach this subject, so big up yourself on this one.

  • @techpriestmarx4356
    @techpriestmarx4356 3 года назад +1

    Very well said. This has actually changed my outlook on my work in a positive way. This is something every 3D artist needs to watch.

  • @thirdofherne9232
    @thirdofherne9232 3 года назад +3

    I've known this for a while but have soooo much trouble actually doing it. I can't stop myself making stuff look 'right'. I think it's because while we model each individual element they ARE the hero shot.

  • @bizzydizzy
    @bizzydizzy 3 года назад +6

    I have spent three days trying to get an animal toe just right. This video is in the nick of time! Thanks.

  • @ashevillewine9973
    @ashevillewine9973 3 года назад +1

    Yep, I need to come back and watch this vid, oh, about once a week. My old-skool start in 3d (think Lightwave and 3d Studio R4) haunts me to this day. Subscribed, for sure.

  • @ashenarchitect5463
    @ashenarchitect5463 3 года назад

    This is actually exactly what I've been looking for as well! I recently realised that I've been spending far too much time on the individual parts.
    Yeah, I do spend more time on my procedural textures and other renders - for my other reasons - but I just realised what was wrong with this since I've meant to do some smaller videos as well. Thank you so much for all this advice, and I can't thank you enough for helping me learn as much as I do about Blender! You're amazing!

  • @DonTNguyen
    @DonTNguyen 3 года назад +14

    I work as a designer and concept artist on animated shows. We use Blender to get our ideas out because it's very fast to work in and we don't concern ourselves with clean typology, Ngons, 3D modeling best practices otherwise we're not going to get anywhere. Once design gets approved then all that stuff matters as the Modelling department builds the asset.

  • @DeclanMBrennan
    @DeclanMBrennan 3 года назад +3

    I'm primarily a software developer but premature optimisation and perfectionism can apply to us as well. Many years ago, after a successful handoff of my first program to a very happy client, the feedback from my boss was: "If you can deliver a program that is that good, you could have delivered a program that was good enough in half the time."
    *Breadth first, then depth only where it is needed.*

  • @planetarta
    @planetarta 3 года назад +1

    Man i think you're 100% right. I recently learned that i care way too much and spend way too much time on my renders/modelling when the client would have been happy with it 2 hours/days ago. Really need to stop being such a perfectionist and just get it done quick - nobody really notices that much! great video

  • @regularnoah
    @regularnoah 2 года назад +1

    Really nice video and I’m impressed with your skills in short times

  • @MrCshx
    @MrCshx 3 года назад +14

    Good point at all. In this case, I strongly recommend to all be armed with Hardops, Mechmashine, Zenuv and other small tools like Miratools, Machinetools, Decalmachine, Kitops and so on. It will take some time to learn and even can break your view at vanilla Blender, but in the end, you will be amazed how fast you can approach the same results.

    • @jimmysgameclips
      @jimmysgameclips 3 года назад +1

      It's funny I think Meshmachine is bloody brilliant yet the 1 dollar MachineTools is what I use even more. But yeah, absolutely worth it for both. Couldn't get on with decalmachine as I don't understand how the mesh decals work exactly, which is a shame because it seems fantastic

    • @SchemingGoldberg
      @SchemingGoldberg 3 года назад +2

      @@jimmysgameclips A decal is just a plane with a texture on it. And a trimsheet is a collection of decals which can be easily and quickly applied to an object. I recommend watching Ryuurui, he has some videos on DecalMachine. The official MACHIN3 channel is also good.

    • @MrCshx
      @MrCshx 3 года назад

      @@jimmysgameclips As Paul already noticed - it's just a plane with normal map texture, allowing you to avoid the work with some small details. If you need a full model outside of the Blender - later you can bake it with your UV map and work with it in Substance Painter. For example, if you constantly do the same forms on your mesh - you can create your own Decals and just kitbashing with your personal style. The KitOps on the other hand do the same things but with mesh inserts via life-boolean (you do not apply it before the final result). Meaning that you can basically work in a non-destructive manner and prototyping things pretty quickly based on simple geometry form like a cube (at raw form). But on top of all these things Is Hardops. Since it's not just some live-boolean addon, but it provides tons of tools and scripts that drastically change your speed of modelling in Blender.

    • @ysfdesign
      @ysfdesign 3 года назад

      Don't forget the up and coming HyperCursor. I've got my eye on that for buying upon launch.

  • @stevemartin2563
    @stevemartin2563 3 года назад +3

    It's definitely about what you want to do and how you manage yourself doing it. There's not point to make a complex mesh for 50 pixels on screen, but likewise half-assing a key object can kill a render. Know what you want to make, allow for some experimentation and balance your time doing it.

  • @DangitDigital
    @DangitDigital 3 года назад +1

    Nice one! I feel like this is super relevant to my own process right now.

  • @cupajoe99
    @cupajoe99 3 года назад +1

    Great advice. Finishing up my first VFX heavy project now, and it took a while to learn this lesson. It's super tempting to feel like there's a "right way" to build out a scene, or that it was "cheating" to take shortcuts. Something that's helped me is just figuring out where I can use a 2D asset within a scene instead of having to model or simulate something complex (trees, smoke). Sometimes supplementing a render with photographed elements will even make it look better.

  • @steprockmedia
    @steprockmedia 3 года назад +5

    Knowing what and when to go quickly is a key to being a pro. After 20+ years of graphic design I realized that subtle details are usually pointless and make little difference in the final result! Unless they DO make a difference, and it's up to you to know which is which. ;)

  • @4.0.4
    @4.0.4 3 года назад +3

    Man I can relate to this so much. Not 3D, but the feeling is the same. You polish every small bit of a turd in the corner and you don't even feel accomplished when you look at the final result, where none of that hard work is there to be seen.

    • @DECODEDVFX
      @DECODEDVFX  3 года назад

      Exactly. It's actually really disheartening when you spend loads of time on something only for it to have a tiny effect on the final result.

  • @functionform
    @functionform 3 года назад +1

    Great video. Really applies to so many art forms

  • @Im.IsaacMarcos
    @Im.IsaacMarcos 3 года назад +2

    Totally needed to see this video, that's amazing!

  • @yezzzsir
    @yezzzsir 3 года назад +3

    I remember that story by Mark Hamill. He does a great impression of Harrison Ford while he tells it lol!

  • @MarvinXOnline
    @MarvinXOnline 3 года назад +3

    Brilliant!

  • @marcovalentinoalvarado3290
    @marcovalentinoalvarado3290 3 года назад

    Those cans looks really awesome dude, wonderful job :)

  • @fearcry
    @fearcry 3 года назад +1

    You are not alone, thank you for sharing Decoded :)

  • @cyber_robot889
    @cyber_robot889 3 года назад +45

    I can't say you have doing it wrong. Basically it's and workflow depends on your goals and porpoises.

    • @johndeggendorf7826
      @johndeggendorf7826 3 года назад +9

      ....and if the porpoises are under water, who’s gonna see them anyway?!

    • @cyber_robot889
      @cyber_robot889 3 года назад

      @Michael Sankale NO! IT"S A FISH

    • @cyber_robot889
      @cyber_robot889 3 года назад

      @@johndeggendorf7826 You can't do it wrong if no one have it seen

    • @cyber_robot889
      @cyber_robot889 3 года назад +2

      purposes, е*учий т9, кек

    • @Doom.Slayer
      @Doom.Slayer 3 года назад

      @@cyber_robot889 No, porpoises are not fish, they are mammals.
      Sorry.

  • @surrealentertainment
    @surrealentertainment 3 года назад +3

    fuck yeah

  • @neur303
    @neur303 3 года назад +1

    I think it's good to be aware of all the little details and try to perfect them for yourself. Kind of a challenge to proof that you can improve them and hone your skills when it is necessary, but otherwise keep it simple :)
    Thanks for the reminder!

  • @umlooad
    @umlooad 3 года назад +1

    This is a very professional view of how to proceed and a very efficient way of working. I case efficiency is what you looking for. I learned this lesson from an experienced art director during way work in the multimedia industry years ago.

  • @realjayjobes1849
    @realjayjobes1849 3 года назад +3

    1:25 made me literally laugh out loud 😂😂😂

  • @pzez2781
    @pzez2781 3 года назад +3

    As someone said "Perfection is an enemy of Good"
    and btw which resources you came across to learn to make clean UVs, topologies all this standard "correct" methods, because from start I followed Ian, peter france all this guys who make stuff faster and I love this way but I'll also want to get decent knowledge of standard way.

    • @thornnorton5953
      @thornnorton5953 3 года назад +1

      Blender guru

    • @thornnorton5953
      @thornnorton5953 3 года назад +1

      You could try his workflow. He has a lot of proper workflow doing his projects.

  • @Huguillon
    @Huguillon 3 года назад

    Very good video, in my case I learned folllowing the correct way to do the work, following the "this is the way it must be done" and I'm still strugling trying to do what you say in this video, becaus you're right, this is the best way to do something

  • @ComeAlivewithMK
    @ComeAlivewithMK 2 года назад +1

    Very helpful-just starting out so MUCH APPRECIATED!

  • @shark3D
    @shark3D 3 года назад +1

    hah I love this because I'm a previz artist these days, and this is my life!
    first day of the previz job, coming from a game company where each model had to be as good as it could from every angle, and we spent a few weeks or months making every asset.... I sit down and I"m told to make an entire environment, 3 characters and some effects.... by the end of the day! I picked up a lot of the tricks you mentioned really quick (been doing previz for more than 10 years now, I love the speed of the work)

  • @UnderfundedScientist
    @UnderfundedScientist 3 года назад +1

    Keep up the great work, love the content as always

  • @TheDingsBoms
    @TheDingsBoms 3 года назад +1

    So true, thanks for pointing it out in such an eloquent way

  • @evindrews
    @evindrews 3 года назад

    I think what helps me is considering top-down and bottom-up design applications to whatever you're creating. Especially with artwork. great vid

  • @retro_manni
    @retro_manni 2 года назад

    Glad I stumbled across this. I take the same approach to painting, only add detail where necessary. But since I've been using Blender (1 week luckily) I have been trying to add super amounts of detail everywhere - My artistic brain went out the window and I have been completely geeking out on the technicals. At a point I started thinking "this would take ages if I was building a whole scene" - Luckily you have saved me from going down that road!

  • @richardthemagician8991
    @richardthemagician8991 2 года назад +1

    I find this video very informative, not just in terms of practicality, but in the approach to Art itself. I'm a painter and Sketch artist and this approach is something I discovered a long time ago. I only recently started learning how to create 3D art in blender and Unreal Engine. I completely forgot about this very basic artistic principle of minimalism versus detail when creating the 3D art. Thank you for the reminder.

  • @TacoMental
    @TacoMental 3 года назад +2

    I'm just about to start down the path of learning 3d modeling / rendering and this feels like really important knowledge. Thanks mate.

    • @himan12345678
      @himan12345678 3 года назад +1

      Also ruclips.net/video/CMm96KwOePI/видео.html that video from Corridor Digital from about 7:30 to 10:00 gives a good quick overview of things that you will simplify around when you master those concepts. He calls it visual beauty and basically says it's not really that important for that video he made and not to get hung up on it so you actually make stuff. The whole video is pretty great really and many of the concepts can be translated to 3d like the zones of grayscale concept. If you can tolerate the obnoxious in-video hijinks of them pointing out their website.

    • @himan12345678
      @himan12345678 3 года назад

      As others have pointed out. This is actually bad advice for beginners. I suggest reading through the comments especially the Bruce lee and picasso quotes, if I explained why it would end up quite a wall of text. Learn photorealism and full functional, high detail first, then learn how to simplify. Do use this as seeing the endpoint, think seeing a target across a bay and the only way to hit the target is trek up the mountain to get the height for your shot to actually make it to the target to hit it.
      This was my original first reply. I guess it somehow got deleted?? Maybe replying to myself with a link seemed spammy, idk? Good thing I keep copies of things I guess. The video recommendation doesn't make full sense without this original comment preceding it.

  • @MBGCORE
    @MBGCORE 2 года назад +1

    I'm not a Blender user but that was interesting with somes very good advises there, and yes I think some of the most important is to know wich details to focus on, it's like mastering where you want the viewer eyes to focus.