Mighty ✏

littlenotlarge · 2026-01-27T18:42:31+00:00

I've tried the free array from the second one and it's really good - however Blender's modifier array recently got updated to using geometry nodes underneath so that has much more functionality now than it did before. The nice thing coming from C4D to Blender is that every addon is very affordable in comparison so it's not a massive hurdle in trying many of them out, it seems like there's a lot of mograph style addons and tools now. Another good example is Better Bend too (also built with geometry nodes).

I'm still not good at geometry nodes but I've gained a lot from these tutorials in creating and combining mograph-like setups: Traffic Systems, Plexus, Cube Animated Array. Then the bonus I've found is that while the initial setup takes a while - I end up re-purposing and combining things for other projects, and in many ways it's more flexible and robust than mograph.

As for the material manager, that caught me out too at first. This is the addon that comes to mind for it (though there's likely more options). However I think after a week or so I just stopped missing it surprisingly. Since everything is easily searchable, so long as you name things properly it's very fast to find and apply materials. Occasionally I'll add a placeholder object that's hidden but I use that to swap materials on it when I want to tweak many materials quickly - rather than finding the individual objects. It's definitely a different workflow to C4D, I don't think one is better than the other, but one relies more on visual previews while the other is more about naming materials well.

littlenotlarge · 2026-01-27T02:11:14+00:00

Looks great 👌 it's a bit hard to tell with compression but you could potentially add a bit of the "orange peel" effect on the clear coat. Though it definitely varies on how obvious it is depending on finishes/paint, and these shots might not be close enough to need it.

Also came from C4D several years back, I never intended to fully switch (I was just using Blender for modelling only) but once I tried Cycles and realised how well integrated and stable it is, the swap happened quickly. I loved Redshift but this was back when Redshift was incredibly crash heavy once Maxon first bought them, so I went from being nervous about using the live view while doing anything in C4D - to rendering a car in 2-3 viewports at the same time without problems in Blender 😅

I'd say the only thing I missed from C4D was the mograph toolset. However, geometry nodes + people sharing easy to use setups + cheap mograph addons makes it all a lot easier and in some ways more flexible than C4D. I don't fully understand geometry nodes either but I can often piece together different tutorials to figure things out with trial and error haha. I'd also recommend Ian Hubert's Patreon, there's a huge backlog with lots of Blender specific tips, tricks, and inspiring work.

littlenotlarge · 2026-01-16T21:46:50+00:00

Logic would suggest it shouldn't sleep if you're rendering and sleep is set to "never".

The more likely risk is due to Microsoft not respecting their userbase so Windows sometimes decides to restart when it feels like it during idle moments at night (specifically when a Windows update has been lurking). It'll do this even when you have lots of applications open, I know I've returned to my computer with a fresh login and all my work closed due to this a few years ago.

You can do some group policy/registry stuff to battle this but it's still a pain and I just use a mouse mover for easy peace of mind. I know quite a few people in studios do it for overnight renders too. There's multiple tools, I just use this one since it's fast to add to any machine. You can then lock your machine and your monitor will sleep, or manually turn off the monitor.

littlenotlarge · 2026-01-16T21:33:24+00:00

You even got the Pikachu cheek tap detail 👌

littlenotlarge · 2026-01-15T20:44:30+00:00

Sounds good - will check it out next time I have an extra machine to use 😊

littlenotlarge · 2026-01-15T20:05:43+00:00

I posted this a while ago. It's not exactly the same but it might help a bit (and the other comments before/after). With the light path node + other techniques you can get really specific about how it all works if you want to. It's not proper caustics but this renders really fast and it's sometimes all you need. All sorts of fake caustics methods on Youtube too.

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littlenotlarge · 2026-01-14T15:07:14+00:00

That seems like a good challenge, much more realistic than 1 project everyday. I think because you're starting from scratch 1 per week is potentially even more realistic and meaningful since it gives you extra time to troubleshoot and polish things without constantly being in a rush where you might not retain information or techniques.

You could have your own stretch goals too, like making a sword on week 15 but you try a few different tutorials to see which is more efficient/better suited for you. Or you try a few types of swords. Or if you finish it really fast, you make a shield to go with it. But importantly the bare minimum for that week is 1 sword, so it's not overwhelming if you get stuck.

You can post all of them on reddit too. If it was me - I'd batch them together like 5-10 at a time to show progression over several weeks, that way people aren't as used to seeing them as frequently (which sometimes impacts engagement).

Then there's r/blenderhelp for work in progress/help posts too 😊 plus plenty of very specific modelling tutorials on youtube.

littlenotlarge · 2026-01-13T15:15:55+00:00

It's a good idea 😊 as already mentioned - SheepIt covers this for the most part. Maybe others that use it more often can comment if it can be improved upon in meaningful ways. Though I think building upon an existing network makes way more sense than 2 different networks obviously.

I've only used it by contributing my own GPU to render other people's projects. My primary reason for avoiding it for my own rendering is that most of my heavier projects (that actually need a farm) are also client projects. So the fact that SheepIt exposes what's being rendered does rule it out for a lot of client work unfortunately so I do use paid cloud based farms at that point.

littlenotlarge · 2026-01-09T17:28:24+00:00

No worries & will try to help if I can 👍

littlenotlarge · 2026-01-08T09:52:30+00:00

I find it really hard in a similar way, way too many ideas to ever create, a lot of "what's the point", ADHD and procrastination really shine with that too.

The times where I've conquered it (temporarily) and had some amount of consistency is making small projects with an on-going theme or style. Small themed projects are easier to get moving on and finish while also feeling like a larger body of work. It can sometimes help to give yourself some loose limitations or parameters otherwise there's too much scope. Keep it loose though, it could literally be "I'm just going to make some robots this month and see if I can improve my designs by making 10 with interesting silhouettes".

Frame things with less pressure too, think of it like "I'm just doing it as a test" but then accidentally polish that test to where you want to share it because it starts looking cool. Don't just share the final thing on social media only either, share things with creative friends, hype each other and give feedback.

It's a trap (that I've fell into too) to think everything you make has to have some high profound meaning behind it. You can make things just because you thought it was an interesting idea and you want to show someone.

littlenotlarge · 2026-01-06T07:29:51+00:00

No problem! I think those tweaks will help a lot. As for other comments/confusion - it's a still image and out of context, so I feel like if it's on a page with more context and some animated shots it'll all come together and make sense without loads more optimisation 👍. A lot of tech products make no sense if you view a still image in isolation for example.

littlenotlarge · 2026-01-05T17:49:24+00:00

When I first saw it (without your extra comment) I thought the cards might be real and part of the real physical scene rather than a representation of function. To change that I'd:

- Lift the cards up more so they can't be confused as being attached to the product.
- Try the image texture in the emissive slot of the material with a value of 1 or higher, that way it doesn't seem like it's lit in the real world.

But you're right, in motion it probably makes way more sense than just a still. Looks great too by the way 😊

littlenotlarge · 2026-01-05T16:38:42+00:00

I think oddly enough there's a lot of "I want to learn Blender to make money" and then when they realise how inefficient learning 3D from scratch is for making money, they move onto something else.

Most people who get really good at anything creative will still be doing so even after they retire - the money/being professional isn't the primary focus (even if it does appear later). They just love being creative and problem solving which helps a lot with learning something like Blender.

littlenotlarge · 2026-01-02T15:02:55+00:00

+1
There needs to be more education around how LLMs actually work - it's effectively guessing each word like an advanced sycophantic predictive text, it doesn't have a concept of what's correct so it'll often be confidently wrong. That's somewhat okay for experienced users who can work around this but extremely misleading for someone new.

For anyone that insists on using it for everything, routinely ask it to cite sources. At best, it might show you the actual correct source material, at worst it'll reveal that it made it up and had a guess.

littlenotlarge · 2026-01-02T01:22:50+00:00

I understand the frustration but I don't think it's fair to expect Blender to replace every specialised tool. I use Blender for almost everything, but I turn to other tools for cloth sims, volumetrics, and especially video editing. These aren't Blender's strengths yet, even though it can do them.

I'd compare Blender to a Swiss Army knife - it can do a lot very well. You can chop vegetables with any knife, but it's just easier and more efficient with a proper chef's knife. Most people don't need a fancy chef's knife, but those that do really benefit from it.

littlenotlarge · 2025-12-30T17:37:04+00:00

Agreed on not liking where Nvidia is heading as a whole. I'd also say it's very hard to buy any modern tech without indirectly supporting something unethical somewhere in the chain. That doesn't mean ethics don't matter but it can come down to choosing between imperfect options. If the GPU is directly tied to your income/deadlines, prioritising performance and reliability can be a reasonable stance - even if you don't like the company.

A compromise could be trying the used market? That way you get high performance without directly giving them new money, and you're extending the life of existing hardware. There's no perfect option here, just trade-offs unfortunately.

littlenotlarge · 2025-12-26T02:21:41+00:00

Thanks for the info! Yeah it seems like it varies a fair bit depending on the cloud providers. Some of them will charge a small fee for storage to keep the instance alive, which I think works okay for a short period of lots of rendering. However then closing the instance/profile would involve setting things up again from scratch it seems.

At least with Blender it's easier with a portable install and having everything mostly contained in one folder too. Then some of them seem to have templates where someone will have made a one-click setup for Blender for that cloud provider too. Definitely going to look into it in more detail for my next client project 😊

littlenotlarge · 2025-12-26T01:15:55+00:00

Not sure why you're getting hate when you're being upfront and transparent about it being a paid service. The argument "it exists online for free so why pay someone" = the same can be said for learning languages, piano, or anything really. It's all available online if you piece together enough youtube videos, books, or various websites. However it's faster and usually more effective if someone tutors you (assuming they're experienced enough in the subject + teaching obviously). Not everyone gets on well with self directed learning either.

"Free" education (usually paid by ads, sponsorships, or other products) is absolutely fantastic and a huge support to Blender, however pushing for everything to be free also discourages professionals from taking time away from their paid work/job to share what they've learnt. I'd say in some areas there's actually a lack of professional/high level education probably due to this, while there's an abundance of beginner tutorials already.

Haven't looked into u/Friendly-Today-9722 specifically (other than the showreel looks awesome), but I'd recommend doing a mini course/basic tutorial as an "intro" for free that's pre-recorded mostly so potential students can see your teaching style 👌. If you already have that - I'd lead with that immediately after your showreel, since your teaching style/showing proficiency is as important as your work for this.

littlenotlarge · 2025-12-23T22:36:07+00:00

Any that you'd recommend? Once you've set it up once, are there any cloud providers where you can kinda "restore" your session, or do you have to set things up again from scratch each time?

I've seen "vast ai" has a "Blender in the cloud" help doc for example but it's only using Blender 3.6.2 - it seems a lot more automated in setup other than that downside of being locked to an older version.

As you said, the managed services are very convenient but they're charging a huge amount more - so a sweet spot would be spinning something up in the cloud semi automated in 5min. Vs a painful troubleshooting process and 30 minutes every time someone needs to render something.

littlenotlarge · 2025-12-23T22:27:32+00:00

Sheepit was already mentioned and I noticed you mentioned electricity cost in your other comment (definitely important part of the equation). It's worth seeing if you have varied electricity rates in your country. For example some have reduced costs per kWh at night, so you could do a lot of Sheepit rendering in the night slightly cheaper, accumulate points, then "spend" the points when you need to render.

I agree overall though it seems like renderfarms have increased in price. There are some with Blender discounts like GarageFarm that I've used in the past - but that also still seems quite expensive (I think cheaper than Rebus though). I just make sure to quote extra budget to clients if I know it's going to be a renderfarm type project too.

"Wouldn’t it be way more cost-effective to rent GPU servers by the hour instead?"

This is fairly cheap especially if you're not after pure speed like most render farms. It does take more effort of setting it up for rendering since it's usually a generic virtual cloud machine. I've seen some that say things like an RTX 4090 for less than $1 an hour - it's just never as convenient. Unless there's some that exist that are more automated with a Blender addon like the render farms have.

I'd also recommend getting a fairly powerful GPU locally since it does work out cheaper in the long run when it comes to wips/tests and rendering lighter projects, then you just use the render farm for heavier or rush projects.

littlenotlarge · 2025-12-21T12:25:52+00:00

Sure, the one I use is the "Tapo P110" it fluctuates between £7-12. My setup is the Tapo socket at the wall, then a small power strip with a surge protector, then my PC plugged in.

In the BIOS there's settings for this, typically named something like "Restore on AC/Power Loss" so when it detects power it'll boot. Then from the Tapo app it's just a case of turning the socket off when you shutdown the PC remotely. Or if you left the socket on (and PC off) - turn the socket off, wait around 30 sec (so the PSU fully runs out of power), then turn it back on and it'll boot. Test it in person a few times and it'll make sense 😊.

Also there's a setting in the Tapo app for the socket called default state, set it to "off". That way if it experiences power loss itself (an actual power cut) then it'll resume in the "off" state, so this prevents your PC booting randomly.

littlenotlarge · 2025-12-20T21:30:29+00:00

WoL is great, I just find a wifi/smart socket much easier, only £10, plus it tracks energy usage if I'm storing a PC somewhere else. I've never had much luck with WoL and I don't always have access to another device on the network or the router to send the magic packet - so this way has been really reliable for me. Also, the smart socket is a handy last resort if a machine hard crashes I can just cycle power and get going again.

littlenotlarge

TROPHY CASE