So I’ve been learning 3d animation…Grace of a wonderful software that happens to be entirely free, called Blender…Now this software happens to have a very steep learning curve…The first 3 days, each day I spent learning, then surfing for easier programs…It was about day 5 of Blender that it started to open up a bit for me…I was over the hump…It was still hard, but I had learnt some basic tasks that I knew I needed down the road…
I learned first how to rig…Rigging means sticking bones inside a shape, then being able to move the bones inside & the shape will move too…
I also learned how to make hair…Hair is hard to make…But once you make hair, watching it move & flow as your character moves is truly a joy…
The 3rd important lesson I learned was how to make features of an object move…Like blinking eyes, or a nose that grows, or ears that wiggle…These are called deformations & are ruled by things called Shape keys in Blender…
But today, while watching Part 2 of a tutorial on how to make a pirate flag blow in the wind, I felt wanderlust again…Was I going to be trapped in derivation because if I strayed from these tutorials, I would be astray? Could I ever just be creative?
So I downloaded the free trial of Lightwave 3d…Now this is a $1,500.00 program that you can try for free for 30 days…
It was the only program that appealed to me…It looked more intuitive, & it was…
My problem was I had already put so much blood, sweat & tears into Blender…This program was a breeze…I almost immediately missed the difficulty…Sounds crazy right?
It’s like living in a cold, snowy country & all of a sudden it’s warm every day…You might think you’d be happy for the warmth…But honestly, you start to miss the suffering…Put a Canadian into a warm climate & they are useless…They have nothing to talk about…When your main topic of conversation is the weather, & you take away that, well, we have nothing to say…
It’s like that with Lightwave…It’s a breeze…So I didn’t like that…The easy part…I like difficult things…People too…I married a porcupine…My favourite type of person…A challenge!
Well, I thought, I’ll use it for the month, then let it go…But I had a secret fear…What if I started to like it? After the free trial…Would I con my husband into letting me buy it? Probably…I can talk him into most things…
Did I need a $1,500.00 program? No…No, no, no, no, no…
It is nice…Esoteric…But no I don’t need that…
Anyways, the decision was made for me later this evening…
We watched some television, had some dinner…A late episode of The Good Wife…(Basketball game moved the shows to later…)
So then I wanted to look something up on Google…The Samsung Tv Commercial, that song, the spiritual with the beat, it is a song called “Run” by a band in England called “kill the Kid”…Dumb name for a band…Great song…That thumping song in the background while gladiators & such run around in the guy’s tv set…
That’s when I noticed…My snow leopard Desktop Mac was slower…Real slow…Hmmm…Ah…I remembered…Blender, in the reviews, was said to be very memory light…Small program, used up not much space…Light…Blend files were light too…
Lightwave 3d not so much…Files were big…Big…I mean even that content file was almost 400 megabytes…That wasn’t even the program…Lightwave actually runs on two programs that sync together…One is a modeler, one is an animator…Anyways Lightwave was slowing down my computer…
Wham…Found the deinstall icon & clicked it…Gee it even took like 3 minutes to deinstall all the files…I trashed it all…Didn’t keep anything…
Felt better…
Nobody stops me from getting to my email…No program was worth that…My communications on the internet with other artists & humans & cats are too important…Art is great but you gotta have contact…A slow computer will prevent you from talking to others…besides I could have crashed it…
I also just saved us $1,500 dollars I probably would have felt tempted to spend…
I also now have the next 30 days to perfect my Blender knowledge, rather than learning a new program from scratch again…
I am back to difficult…But I love that…I do feel better…
I also know my husband loves me more because I am using a free program…Instead of him resenting the money I spent, he is supporting my education…Awesome…
So that was my decision today…I guess I am a Blender girl…The adrenalin rush when I learn something & am able to repeat it in action is huge…The sadness I feel when I fail is also huge…These emotions are becoming addictive…But in a good way, like exercising…
If you want to join me, Blender is free…I will be here to help you along if you need help or just a fellow miscreant…
Happy Easter, Sari Grove