Dibs on the red base... Those blue jackals are after our secret plans!

What genuinely amazes me is how 'Photoshopish' can be intended to infer 'Amateurish'.

Last I checked, Photoshop was the 'Industry Standard'...which means if you don't have it mastered you are unlikely to be employed within the industry [digital imaging].

This apparent discrimination between one 3D 'style' and another is purely personal opinion....and the real determination of the 'style's' popular acceptance is not the number of people adopting it in their work as much as the number of people who truly appreciate the outcome.

As for 'arrogance' of self-worth.....that is professional suicide....trust me, I've been a Professional for over 30 years.

'Blowing your own horn' is otherwise known as 'auto-fellatio'....

No actual skinner within [or without] this community has ever attained fame and popularity through arrogance, and none ever will.

Those who attempt to consider themselves somehow superior are doomed to enjoy a lonely existence in their castle in the clouds.

Again I say.....'humility is your friend'....

 

Dibs on the red base... Those blue jackals are after our secret plans!

What Jafo said

uh oh that skin is turning green now (like the yeech skin I remember)

/me Squirts Dor with my super soaker ( I'll get even eventually)

Jafo the Sage speaketh the truth......

/me thinks I must be a real amature I haven't even mastered MS Paint

all ur bases are mine !!!!!

I believe you mean "All your bases are belong to us!"   

real amature

That'd be 'amateur.'

Get even w/ me? I don't think so...

/me goes back to LOS and takes away alllll of TasT points

Shhhhh......

Don't tell Dor I could care less about the points

/me wonders if Dor will run in to the trap I left for her there?

As of late, it seems to me that so very many of the more "3d" looking skins are, well, not well-done. Hippy has some great stuff. That skin of Mercury's above was wonderful (although not my thing)and there are some other great skinners. But many of the more 3d skins are just beveled buttons and stuff. Reminds me of the days when 3d buttons were first catching on on the web...I don't care for the look.

Someone mentioned Mormegil's Toon-XP. That's a great example of a graphic heavy 3d skin done VERY well. It's polished, it's fun. It's immersive. I like it.

At any rate, a few people seem pretty defensive, so here's the disclaimer: I've been around since WB was Neil's project pre 1.x. I've seen just about everything that's come along. This is my opinion, and I'm entitled to it.

But, IMHO, some of the best skins were some of the first, even though they "lacked" features. (I still love decoder.)

no i meant all ur bases are mine .. screw them other guys ......

wonder why it is no one has pointed out the 3D space and editing in Photoshop?

as far as textures go, use your layer styles and edit as desired save, the use it again and again with minor tweaks as you like.

3D in a 2d space is an illusion of depth, if anyone thinks you can not get that illusion with any graphics progem they are mistaken.

tis a silly argument considering that a skin rendered in 3d, is still only displayed with the illusion of depth because the 3d objet it not revolved in the least and the engine can not do that to begin with so it is a 2d snap shot of a 3d object. Anyone ready to purchase Maya or MAX for skinning along with the addons for the real life like rendering?

Unless someone is going to create a 3D GUI and skinning engine to handle huge rendered objects and beable to map them out as the move whats the point of going there?

Yeah right TasT Boogiemen don't scare meeeee... hehe

/me goes to LOS and takes away TasT "red" text (now that will hurt!)

/me shoots Dor with another Rubberband.............


You can't take my various text colors here HeheHAha

So, I plural, can Max or Maya export to bmp,jpg, or png? With png at least there is a z layer.

wonder why it is no one has pointed out the 3D space and editing in Photoshop?

because we are all noobs and dweebs.

z layer

What the heck is that?

depth, easily accomplished by the transparency.
[Message Edited]

Ah.

/me must investigate this further.....

ChasUGC: Most definitely can. I purchased 3DMax solely for skinning. For creating DesktopX animations I find it the best method. Used it for a DesktopX Wallpaper Changer widget and some other stuff. But it takes alot of work to get good at using it and I'm only just beginning really. Finding the time to do that along with everything else is tricky.

I think z layer is on the z axis. The third dimention if you will.

the transaprency layer is more properly called the alpha channel

I know that Tiggz. I was just referring to the fact that one can simulate depth with the alpha layer. Hence, the third axis or z axis or, z layer. I was thinking about this because its hard to retain any 3D effect with just the x,y plane in bitmaps, unless of course you have a background. I just asked because I'm experimenting for my next theme.

hehe, I knew you knew that
I think maybe when you render a scene in 3DSmax you can render a mask layer as well.
One of the most important elements in creating the illusion of depth, or height, is creating realistic looking shadows. Which kind of stumps me in those 3D proggies because to render a shadow you have to render it against a surface, whereas what you really want to do is render it against, er, a transparent thingy so that when the graphic becomes a dx object the shadow lies across your desktop background. Not sure if I explained myself very clearly there
Suffice it to say I'm a 3D noob It would be nice to learn those skills, but whenever I have a go, I always end up a quivering mess after a few hours of toil and only some pathetic looking blob to show for it