I had a great chat with director/illustrator Randy Glance in the evening about the state of 3D design software. Comparing programs like Adobe Dimension, 3DsMax, Adobe Aero, Blender were just a few of we spoke about. Contrasting and gauging user interface vs the learning curve was how we came to judge them respectively.
Randy’s experiences with product visualization, augmented reality and juxtaposed illustration, gives him a great intuitive insight on how to create and manipulate assets. Through a quick demonstration, Randy was able to showcase a whole line of virtual products on to preloaded assets and product packaging via Adobe Dimension. We discussed the efficiency but also the limitations. I was inspired with the nature of this talk. During the conversation we went over the features in Blender that allowed for much more immersive design. The process of forming mesh and creating texture with color and bump and displacement to emulate true texture with out disrupting the form of an object, and even a physics sImulator and light. The learning curve is higher on blender as each section of the program alters the tools and layouts of the interface.
Dragon!!! - Text cloaked with a plane (Cloth Physics) (Glass Texture)
The example above “Dragon!!!” was a 15 minute run through on some of Blender features, during our conversation.
We did discuss augmented reality with the Adobe Aero and both feel the limitations out weigh the benefits, as files can only be viewed through the Aero mobile app from our experience. The upside is that augmented reality programs run through a series image tracking techniques which potentially makes it easy to work around in posterity, for example video editing.
Other programs like 3DsMax, are also pretty good but can be a pricy subscription. But blender is open source and has become wildly efficient, also 3DsMax is not available for the Mac OS and we both use that regularly.
If you would like to learn more about, or see the work of Randy Glance Check out his website linked here:
Bonus: Blenders versatility makes it ideal for not only product design, but also sarcastic memes. From a role playing game stand point, what is a “Blue Potion” other than magic Viagra.
If you would like to learn how to model a similar bottle I suggest following @iltean on instagram
Blue Potion No. 9 - Low Poly Design