So for anyone else out there learning Blender ( @masteraqua, @blogquantumreality, and @lonepower come to mind), I haven't even finished the Geometry Node tutorial series by CrossMind Studios, but I highly recommend it. It's not project-based learning, although there are projects he asks you to practice on, but instead he actually breaks down into the nitty gritty of how the whole thing works.
I plan to go through his Blender basics playlist, too, because just five videos into the Geometry Nodes playlist and I've already learned so much about the technical side of things. I expect to learn just as much from that playlist, too!
Today's endeavor was to learn something new in Blender, and I came across this neat tutorial on how to create clay animation. Although it was a node-heavy tutorial, I found it surprisingly easy to follow, thanks in large part to the author's clear explanation of the process.
After achieving the neat effect I was aiming for, I felt inspired to animate it! I stumbled upon a video about mouth animation and learned about Visemes, which involve the study of lip reading and mouth movements in animation. I did purchase a mouth pack for $5, but the video also detailed how to create your own mouth animation pack. It was incredibly informative and added a lot of value to my learning experience.
Tomorrow I want to animate this so keep posted ^_^
God. This. This was all I needed to fucking find. I had to filter through so many fucking articles and bullshit videos just find out how to simply draw fucking mesh for sculpting in Blender so I could make a fucking bow and some curvy hair without killing myself for hours and this shit took way too long to fucking find with how much garbage and other shit is just posted out there for doing something like this. This video is 51 seconds long and it should've been on the top of the fucking results list. Honestly just use the fucking bezier curve like this and then when you're done transform it into a mesh so you can sculpt on it and make the mirror modifier part of it as an object and this all you fucking need.
Going live for the first time tomorrow on TikTok! If you’re interested in Blender Tutorials, CC Shopping, and just watching other peoples gameplay; feel free to check it out! My username is sims3naho
I will be going live around 11am CST on Mondays and Tuesdays! Hope to see you there😋
did u build the diner in the actual game or in blender? if so in blender how did u get the pink and blue light bars they look lush
ahhh this is such an exciting question!!
so for starters-- building in game is an essential first step. you need an idea of what you're doing, where stuff goes, and most importantly: a list of all the objects and cc you're going to be using. sims 4 studio and sims 4 tray importer are your friends!
but, back to the question at hand:
the mesh itself is from here, and i'm a little obsessed with this entire set if you haven't noticed. but there are a few components to creating neon like that, and making them glow, too!
1. emission shader. my bestie... she replaces your principled bfsd node. if you're trying to make a texture glow, replace the node with an emission node, and you can control the strength all you want! if you just want some lights with no texture attached, as was the case in that render, it's even simpler: an emission node, and your material output, like so,
2. denoising. so here's the thing... using emissions as a light source like this? it creates a lot of noise. that's bad. we don't want that. to fix that, most of the work is gonna be done in the compositor, but there are some things we have to do before we're ready to hop over there. let's go view some layer properties!
under data, you're going to want to turn on "denoising data," and under light, at the bottom of the list, you want to turn on "ambient occlusion." these are important for when we hop over to the compositor.
everything else happens in the compositor, so if you're not familiar i'd suggest getting acquainted! this tutorial helped me a lot, but admitted it's a little tricky. do not hesitate to send me an ask if you're struggling and i'll hop in your dms!
before we worry about rendering our image, let's set up the nodes for denoising your image. (shout out to @wirefiish for helping me with this part, btw, it's been a game changer, and i cannot recommend enough that you save this node set up to your start file!) (also also: that "multiply" node is a math node, you have to select multiply from the drop down!)
the real trick to making your shit glow though?
3. glare node. the glare node is fucking aaaawesome! you pop it on the end of your current node set up, like so:
i like her a lot. she's fun. fog glow is what i tend to use, for a little dreamy, glowy look, but depending on what you're going for, there are a lot of really cool things you can do with it. first is my usual, the fog effect. second is the ghost effect, third is "simple star", and the last one is streaks.
@blogquantumreality (and anyone else who wants Blender tutorials)
CG Cookie is who you want to hit up first for the barest bones basics of how to use Blender. I'm talking how to navigate, "what does this button do," some basic terminology, things like that. They also have a lot of paid tutorials but I haven't tried those yet.
Blender Guru is the quintessential Blender Tutorial guy, he's very famous in the Blender community for his donut tutorial which is where almost everyone starts (including me)
Ryan King Art is the guy who does all the tutorials I follow to make my materials, and he did the tutorials I'm following for the river scene I'm working on right now, plus a ton others. I recommend setting him at, like, half speed on YouTube, though, he goes very fast lol
CG Fast Track has a free YouTube tutorial but their main strength is their paid tutorials, which are very comprehensive and come with a step-by-step guide to accompany the videos. The paid tutorials are expensive, so if you're interested in them keep an eye out for sales. The good news is that right now it's a lifetime membership, so once you pay the full fee you get everything they've already put out plus any new tutorials coming out in the future. They are going to be switching to a subscription model in the future but if you've already got the lifetime membership you'll be grandfathered in. Totally understandable if you don't want to do the paid route, though. The free tutorial they have up on YouTube is still great!
So yeah! Hopefully this is a good start! :) You can also search for "b3d tutorial" on YouTube to find more, these are just the channels I've found most useful for where I'm at in learning this beast of a program lol
