5 Worthwhile Purchases For 3d Artists

Posted on 30. Jan, 2010 by Andrew Price in Articles, Top 10

Ready to turn your hobby into a serious art form? These products will make your life that little bit easier.

1. CrazyBump

This amazing program creates detailed bump maps from any still image you throw at it. Watch the video on their homepage to see a demonstration. It’s simple, easy to use and the results are speak for themselves. Be warned, once you’ve used this program, it’s hard to live without it.

Price: $99 Personal / $299 Commercial License

Buy: crazybump.com

2. 3d World Subscription

Photo by: Hideki Saito

It’s certainly not the cheapest magazine around, but the value you get more than makes up for it. Every issue is jam packed with articles from industry professionals, an inspirational gallery of works, making of feature films and tons of tutorials.

Price: Yearly subscription – $80 UK / $90 Rest of the World

Buy: myfavouritemagazines.co.uk

3. CG Textures Membership

It’s no secret that the best place to find textures is CGTextures.com, but whilst the website lets you sign up for free, you are restricted to a tight download quota and smaller sized textures. A paid membership solves all these problems as well as giving you full access to their full sky map range, basically meaning it pays for itself on the first day.

Price: Starting at $65 a year

Buy: cgtextures.com

4. Digital Lighting and Rendering

This best selling book has become the industry standard for learning how to light your scene. From sub surf scattering to caustics, this book will teach you how to make your scene ridiculously good looking. If you’re serious about 3d, this book deserves a spot on your shelf.

Price: $37.80

Buy: amazon.com

5. Graphics Tablet

Photo by: andyp_uk

Whether it’s for 3d sculpting or just sketching out your ideas in photoshop first, a graphics tablet is definitely a good idea. A mouse can be cumbersome to work with at times, so it can help to work at the speed of your thoughts with a much more natural solution. Concept artist, David Revoy recommended the Bamboo Fun as an all round, cost effective tablet with more than enough features for what most artists will need.

Price: $299

Buy: wacom.com.au

So those are my 5 recommendations, what invaluable products do you recommend?

Tags: list, recommendations

31 Responses to “5 Worthwhile Purchases For 3d Artists”

Nick

31. Jan, 2010

Yay! first comment!

I recently bought a graphics tablet, and haven’t regretted it since. Will definitely look into buying the book.

Thanks Andrew!
basilsmith

31. Jan, 2010

Bamboo not work under Linux
Ja-Seen

01. Feb, 2010

Which tablets work with Linux??
Nixon

01. Feb, 2010

good hints..i wonder if the cheaper alternatives to wacom boards can do the trick too…
since 300$ could almost buy one an additional render comp almost….
wonder if anyone still uses handdrawn sketches and a scanner like me does
Joe

01. Feb, 2010

I just photograph my handdrawn sketches. free transformation tool… and feels faster than scan, and I hate the noise I still use a tablet but I have heard the bamboo is not good quality compared to the intuos 3 and 4…
talachem

01. Feb, 2010

I’ll definitely looking into some of the things you mentioned. Something I can’t image working without it the Space Navigator from 3D Connexion. Navigation in Blender and other apps becomes kind of second nature. I’m looking around with it, moving and rotating things, it is just so easy and precision.
Kagami

02. Feb, 2010

Bamboo works great on Linux (Ubuntu 9.10)!
CrazyBumb is cool software, realy
Cornell

03. Feb, 2010

Intuos4 also works fine with Ubuntu 9.10.
I also use a Bamboo at work and though the quality may not be the same as an Intuos, it is much much better value for your money.
Nosweat

03. Feb, 2010

Lighting and Rendering book is really good!
I also use CG textures alot.
I really want the Bamboo pad now!
Andrew Price

08. Feb, 2010

I haven’t heard of Bamboo not working on Linux. At the Blender Conference I think David Revoy was running Linux during his workshops and he was using the Bamboo for his tablet. So maybe just some Linux versions don’t work?
Andrew Price

08. Feb, 2010

@talachem
I’ve often wondered about the Space Navigator. I haven’t brought myself to buy one as I worry that I would become a complete spaz if I then had to switch to a mouse at a conference demo or something. Glad to hear that it works well with Blender though.
Eibriel

17. Feb, 2010

Well I’ve the bamboo, I will see the other things hehe.

(PD: Bamboo works out of box on Ubuntu)
Ben

18. Feb, 2010

Agree on the Bamboo, it’s a great value for money tablet, and well worth going for as your first one if you aren’t sure if the more expensive ones aren’t worth the money (I’m still not). Crazybump is great too.
I’d hold out on the CGtextures membership till you really feel like you need it though. I’m a huge fan of the site, but I’ve not yet really felt like I was missing out hugely by not being a member.
Matt

21. Feb, 2010

Do any of you know of a way to get a discount on 3d World?
Marc

21. Feb, 2010

I’m looking at getting a SpaceNavigator. I have an Intuos3 and it works great with Ubuntu.

I have also put a lot of money toward Blender books and DVDs, and that’s been well worth it.
Kirill

24. Feb, 2010

I recommend to use some old Wacom Graphair tablet if you’re low on money. Ideal is A5 size. I have the big Intuos 3 A4… and it’s so big that I brings it to my work’s place very seldom.
Personally I don’t like Bamboo – it’s unhandy.
Tunyalit

01. Mar, 2010

Digital Lighting and Rendering

this book is publish for so long time ago
but it still be a thing like bible of rendering.
clecle

02. Mar, 2010

i’m still very young and i dont have money enoguh, and i’m still beginner

so

wouldnt you know about somewhere else i could get good textures, not as good as cgt textures, but good enough for know
David

07. Mar, 2010

I like this article, however I feel that you should edit the price under the graphics tablet heading. You have a bamboo pictured in the article, yet you have the pricing at more than I paid for my Intuos3. I agree that a graphics tablet is useful, but you’re price listing may discourage people from the thought. At my last look, you could find a bamboo on Amazon for less than $100 US. Even the Wacom website has a bamboo pen and touch for half the price you listed (in AU). Sorry to nitpick.
Chris

09. Mar, 2010

I don’t need a CGTextures membership. I make my own.

Got a Bamboo.

Everything else shown is nifty.
Mike

10. Mar, 2010

A digital camera, with video capture, is an asset.
ROUBAL

23. Mar, 2010

I like CrazyBump a lot. It is a very useful software, and it gives excellent results.

For the graphic tablet, last year I bought a very expensive Intuos 4 XL, with pen and the wireless mouse (around 900 euros!). I purchased it because I read on several places that it was necessary to work well on Full HD video editing.

It was a big error ! Yes, the tablet is awesome, but with the margins it takes so much room that I can’t leave it on my table when I don’t use it. When I use it, even with the very handy customizable keys, I have to put my PC keyboard very far on my left side, and it is really not easy at all to work. Added to that, I discovered that it was not necessary at all for video editing, and most of the time I use it in the A4 area…

Cherry on the (bad) cake, the pressure doesn’t work correctly in Blender.

So I could have saved at least 1/3 of the price and puchased a smaller one and something else more useful !
Traa1703

25. Mar, 2010

I’ve had good result with PixPlant 2. Especially since i can run it under Wine on Ubuntu 9.10. As and added bonus it can make your textures tileable. [URL]http://www.pixplant.com/[URL]
andre.roesti

30. Mar, 2010

6.) Subscribe to Blenderguru.com

I have the same Graphics Tablet as in the Picture.
Wasa

08. Apr, 2010

The bamboo pricing seems a bit off
I know it is a little more in some parts of the world
but it’s $99 for the small bamboo fun and $199 for the medium
at least in the states
and while wacom is very nice, you can get intuos features on a larger tablet for less than the price of the bamboo fun medium
you just have to deal with changing batteries once a year (ya they last that long) and the small weight difference and balance due to the battery and it’s position

cheers
D. Waschow

09. Apr, 2010

I borrowed a Space Navigator from a friend to try it out in Blender. I had it for about a week and never got it completely figured out to the point where it felt natural.

My biggest complaint using a Space Navigator is you lose a lot of speed if you’re a hotkey user like me. Instead of your left hand resting on the keyboard hitting hotkeys, you’re constantly going from keyboard to Navigator and back again, taking your eyes from the screen each time.

I gave the Navigator back to my friend and decided they aren’t for me. They’re well-built and work fine, but they’re not for me.
fjdcm61281

20. Apr, 2010

bamboo does works perfect on linux karmic
Marshall Hopkins

07. May, 2010

@ Andrew Price

I have used a space navigator at work for a very long time and they are small and compact and surprisingly cheap compared to what they used to cost(used to be $1k starting price about 5 years ago. We used to have a laptop with unigraphics that had a space navigator and it is basically pocket size. I have recently started learning blender and have been watching some of your fancy tutorials(thank you BTW). And it has taken some time to get used to using the mouse to navigate after using space balls for so long. So i think you would really like the space navigator but i agree that after you got used to it that you would possibly fumble around a little without one.

@everyone else

Also i recently bought a bamboo tablet to try out since i have wondered for a long time how well they work. Wacom has tablets as low as 49$ but they have some of the nice features removed to make them that cheap (such as the pen or touch feature). If you want a bamboo tablet with pen and touch the starting price is 99$. It was just dilivered today so ill try it out and post an update with my opinion.
Shane

17. May, 2010

I recently bought a Monoprice tablet for around $40. I wasn’t sure if I could really use one effectively, but it works beautifully. I know that some of the expensive models have all sorts of nifty features, but this one is solid and useful. It does exactly what I need it to do.

Someone posted about buying a $300 tablet if you weren’t sure that the more expensive ones were worth the money. Being a student, I went with the infinitely more affordable Monoprice and haven’t looked back.
Colin

12. Jun, 2010

Hi Andrew,
I tried Crazy Bump beta and was impressed, but I found that the price wasn’t worth it for the professional version. I instead got Genetica 3 and was super impressed. It’s node-based, has seamless texture generation, and has LOTS more features. I offer it at a discount through my site (click on my name). If anyone thinks that’s too much of a sales pitch then they can always buy straight from Spiral Graphics at less of a discount. Either way, it’s an AWESOME program.