Hi there guys,

So, I'm new here, and I want to begin with a short story of mine, from the beginning of my successful career as a 3D artist - hopefully, it's gonna be a 5 minutes read.

While discussing with some friends of mine from the Design and Arts University in my city, I sometimes stop and wonder how I got where I am today in this modeling and rendering industry, without any studies.

They have very little knowledge of HOW to model…

Can you remember your first install of 3Ds Max or another 3D software and staring at the view-port with absolutely no idea what button to press?

I know.. I've been there, and it sucked. I think that I learned the hotkeys in about 3 months or so, before even remotely create a simple 3D object which was in front of me… the coffee mug…

What was your first 3D object which you gave life to and WHY did you start, in the first place? :)

For me, back in the days (about 10 years ago), it started with a burning desire - I was inspired by the NFS Porsche game and I always wanted to know how and who the hell created those three-dimensional cars and characters… It was mind-blowing!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk98rIGBMRw

I'm sure that you had a similar experience, and in small steps you somehow created something that you were very proud of. I even remember calling my mother and showing her my first 3D model :) but I am sure that she didn't really understood what was going on at that time.

And so it begun… I remember being on my computer for at least 10 hr/day, searching for online materials - books, tutorials, videos, articles, blogs, youtube… pretty much EVERYTHING that I could find to improve my non-existent skills - you name it, I searched for it already :).

Meanwhile, I was a student at one of the most prestigious law schools in Transylvania, BUT, I was always inspired to go back to my 3D projects, day in and day out - that was my true calling!

Long story short… I already worked for a few giants in design and visualization industry (Steelcase Inc. and Emerson Inc.) and I think the faded, 4yr old image, bombarded with lessons and information, got a lot more clear.

Now… I have to thank all the people out there who helped me a lot along the way their books and video tutorials, specially crafted for the aspiring 3D artists all around the world!

I am at a moment in my life when I want to give something back to the 3D community. I want to begin this by asking you what was your biggest hurdles and struggles that you had to face in the beginning?

Let's make sure that the new-starters will not make the same frustrating mistakes as we did! It would be great to see your answer with tips and words of wisdom for the beginners.

If the responses are positive - I will a lot of tutorials based on the insights that I'm getting from you guys, FREE for you and for this great community.

These are a few of my projects from my career timeline:

Thank you a lot!

Paul!

Hello, Paul! Thanks for introducing yourself to the community, and welcome to the 3d Modeling forum here at Renderosity. My name is John, and I'm currently the active Coordinator of this forum, as well as the 3dsmax and Blender forums. First, I'd like to say that you have a very intriguing story, and I'm very impressed that you decided to share it with us. Your work is impressive as well. I'm not familiar with the studios you've worked for, but certainly your experience and expertise will be most welcome here.

There are a few threads already started in our forum that you may find interesting, or may be able to help out our members with. Please feel free to familiarize yourself with the threads in this forum as well. Also, if you look around the Forum area of Renderosity, you will see there are forums for a great many variety of 3d software, including 3dsmax (which I personally use for all my modeling requirements as well). I encourage you to participate in that forum, if you have any 3dsmax-specific topics to share. We will be more than elated to have another active user there, as the forum tends to be quite slow. There aren't that many active 3dsmax users here, as I've come to find out myself. However, I'm very active in that forum, and there are a few lurkers over there, who might be inclined to come out of the shadows if you begin posting.

I feel inclined to let you know that in this particular forum, which is dedicated to 3d Modeling in a very general sense, there are users active who use many different packages for their modeling; like Blender, Cinema4D, Hexagon, and Silo. So it's best to keep any modeling threads or replies in this forum more general (like your original thread here). However, it's not a rule; you're certainly free to talk about 3dsmax here as well if you like. Just keep in mind that most of the users here come from other polygonal and nurbs based modeling packages.

With that said, I welcome you once again, and encourage you to have a look around the forum! Please feel free to jump in and reply to any thread that interests you. Have fun, and let me know if I can assist in any way!

Hello! As Luxxeon has already said, welcome! It's nice to see a new face here. I got started modelling several years back, but have only made little progress over the years. I use Blender as my tool of choice for modelling. It was a rocky relationship in the beginning, but has been a love affair for the ages lately! I'm mostly interested in hard surface modelling and texturing, but have come to appreciate organic modelling and sculpting as well. Again, I use Blender for the little bit of sculpting I do too.

I've never used 3dsmax, but I have seen tutorials where it was used, and have seen the work of those who use it, like our coordinator Luxxeon here, and I must say it's definitely on my bucket list to try it! If I hit the lottery, or come into a few thousand dollars to burn one day, I would love to buy it too! I think it looks like a wildly powerful modelling tool, and the renderings are incredible. Your models look amazing, so I'd sure be happy to see any tutorials you wanted to share, and hope you decide to stick around and participate in the forums here! I usually post to this forum, or over in the Blender one.

Thank you for the introduction, and for the clarifications - it rarely happens to get such a warm welcome on forums.

**LuxXeon **, I have taken a look at your portfolio and it looks awesome. What GPU do you have because the Octane renders are just perfect?

**HMorton **, I think that modeling in blender is basically the same as in 3ds Max. The tools might differ but as you stated, the price is the deal breaker. There is always the lovely 30 days trial version available. Did you consider using that? I think that as long as you don't make any profit, the autodesk team is more than happy to let you learn their software packages. I suppose that this is the reason why you can crack them so easy - learn for free / love the software / buy it for your business. (this is just a theory of mine)

Thanks, Poly3dJuke. The images in my gallery that used Octane to render were done over time with several different workstations, and different GPU configurations. Obviously, all of them were CUDA based cards, but some of the earliest Octane renders were done on a GTX660ti, and the latest ones were done with a GTX 750 Superclocked card, with I believe 2gb GDDR5. I've since upgraded my cards in all workstations again. Currently, I'm using a GTX 970, with 4 gb GDDR5. However, I rarely use Octane to render now. I'm very much involved with Corona for rendering these days.