Hello, I have been rendering in Blender for 4 years and I have done GFX for 7 months, and in this course I will teach you what you should do, and what you shouldn’t do, along with some common beginner mistakes. If you disagree on a certain topic, please bring it up in the comments. With that being said, let’s get started! DOs
Make your scene detailed
This one basically describes itself. If your scene doesn’t look detailed, then people are going to look away from it within seconds because it will look boring. You can have as good of a composition as you would like, but it would still look terrible without detail. For example, make sure to use a bump map and a displacement map on a brick texture.
Make sure your scene tells a story
I have seen one mistake beginners have done, where they just put a render of a Roblox avatar, add a background, and then put the logo. I don’t agree with this art style. What I like to do is make my scene tell a story. For example, if you are making a GFX for a hotel, show a happy customer talking to the check in person. Or, if you are making a GFX for a prison game, show a high tension scene where the police and the criminal are in a fight.
The scene should look immersive
It’s hard to describe this, but a good scene will kind of suck you in. It will make you look at the image for a long time, and it will direct your eyes towards certain objects in a way which the artist intended. (I studied traditional art so I use this concept a lot in my traditional art.)
Try experimenting with materials
Materials can help make your surface look detailed and look nice. Add a bump texture, displacement, roughness, ambient occlusion, or anything else to make it look as nice as possible. I get my materials from corona-materials.de since I use Cinema 4D with Corona Render, but another good source is polligon.com if you are using Blender.
Focus on the lighting
I cannot stress this enough. Lighting can make your whole scene come to life. If you put an HDRi just because somebody told you that you have to, but it doesn’t look good, add some custom lighting! Try maybe adding a lightroom, if you are doing a profile picture, or add some dramatic rim lighting. I recommend before you even get started with GFX, study lots of lighting! I would say lighting is one of the most important things you can learn. DON'Ts
Don’t add stock images from the web as your main attraction.
I have seen so many artists, taking a render of a roblox character, then using somebody else’s art, putting their roblox character on it, then calling it theirs. This is an unacceptable practice and is basically stealing other people’s art. I understand it may be easier to do it this method, but it just ends up not blending with your piece, and you are stealing somebody’s art. However, you can add uncopyrighted stock images as long as they are not the main attraction of your piece.
Don’t add models from roblox.
Of course, there are some exceptions to this rule, for example, if you were to want to make a GFX of Bloxy Cola, but generally models on roblox are lower quality than ones on other websites. If you want some free models, some sites I reccomend are cgtrader.com, turbosquid.com, and free3d.com.
Don’t use well known people on Roblox in your GFX unless you are given express permission or if you are making fanart.
Using youtubers or well known developers to market your game is generally a cheap move and is not ethical. Profiting off other peoples’ fame is not very considerate of their brand. Some people I have seen in GFX without permission are Flamingo, Denis, and Asimo3089.
Don’t forget to postproccess.
Some postproccessing in Photoshop can go a long way from making your render seem bland and boring, to making it seem interesting. If you are not willing to pay for Photoshop, another software I reccomend is darktable. Contrary to what others may say, pixlr.com and photopea.com are not good alternatives to photoshop and are in fact a lot less powerful and will get you worse results. Another good alternative for postproccessing is the inbuilt Blender color grader, if you go to the “compositing” tab.
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First off all, I didn’t “advertise it” because I am not making money off this guide. Also, I will cover how to do this later. What I mean by “Don’t add models from Roblox” is, for example, if you need a tree for your game, you should take it from a free model website, not from roblox, because roblox is game optimized, not optimized for renders.
Also,
Sounds like a lot of trivial tips & tricks that I have on my back of my hand… but the most important detail to highlight, that is not listed, is the color theory.
The Color Theory
Let’s say Breaking Bad, their use of color theory is excellent. Some of the scenes are filtered with a color and majority of the clothing is related and tied to something. This video for instance:
In a general case, each value on the hue sets a different tone on the story, allowing that to be emphasized. White tones are usually very holy. Red tones are very aggressive, deadly and dangerous. And there are many more descriptions that each color represents.
Saturation is important in some aspect of “age”. You can have hyper-saturated colors for a very, very childish palette that can be seen on children’s toys. Lesser saturated colors are usually mature and worn-out. Although it seems that they reflect joy and sorrow in this spectrum of colors, likewise the major and the minor chords. You can set the saturation based on what time it is set on, what audience is intended to view at it and the story behind it.
For the brightness, contrast or value, this aspect is typically related to bright vs. dark. Like in music, the lower frequencies are dark while the upper frequencies are bright. If you want your graphics to be very grim, dark and sinister, use a dark setting. Otherwise, bright setting. Contrast is important if you really want your image to be defined and dynamic, like the way we see motion(it’s all contrast-based).
This theory is applicable in all graphical work, from GFX/graphics designs to real-time renders in-game. It’s much like a fundament in contrast to music theory.
Blender is not at all complex. Roblox studio is a toy compared to it and is extreamly limiting. Once you learn blender it is a skill that will be useful for a long time.
I can’t even apply a texture in Blender, it’s hard to move around and Microsoft’s software is much easier to use. I’ll admit that the output isn’t as advanced but it’s still decent.
I have tried out microsoft 3d builder and it is very limiting and hard to use. You say that the tutorials “never work”, but maybe it is because you haven’t tried to learn. 3D builder is better for 3d printing.
I have, I’ve used about 4 YT tutorials and they don’t work and I even used DevForum tutorials and they didn’t work. I’d rather not argue about this so I won’t send another response.
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