0
$\begingroup$

This is kind of a broad and long question; sorry about that.

So I'm new to Blender and have been having a blast learning it. I really want to take it seriously and get better at it. I've been following tutorials and reading as much as I can. It's a bit overwhelming.

My issue is I'm using a 2012 MacBook with 8gb ram (don't have a GPU yet). Ram is soldered so I can't upgrade. Obviously this is an issue when my sculpts get too detailed and the mesh is super dense. I'm working on a character sculpt now and I've only really done the head so far and my computer can't handle it. I've tried remeshing in Blender (I'm about to try Instant Remesh), but my computer is just lagging so much to the point where its pretty much frozen. I know I need to get new equipment and that's the second part of my question, but I thought I'd be able to at least sculpt complex characters with my MacBook even if I couldn't rig and animate etc. Am I missing something? Any really good videos on remeshing?

Secondly, do you all have any suggestions for affordable equipment (laptop or desktop, gpu, ram, graphics tablet)? I'm currently furloughed and on a budget, but would like to invest in some decent equipment so I can progress. Like I said I'm trying to take this seriously. I'm at a point where I can't even work on stuff, because my computer is so slow and it's so frustrating, I don't know what to do.

Lastly, any general advice for someone relatively new to 3D modeling? I've been following tutorials (Blender Guru, Grant Abbitt, and some of Blender's official tutorials) Any other good resources or advice? Anything would be appreciated. I feel lost with all the information out there. Thanks in advance!

Also what do you all think the best work flow is for sculpting? Should I just do it in zBrush and import it into Blender. I've also heard you should sculpt, remesh, sculpt and repeat. Is this a good process.

And is the multires modifer a better solution for me than remesh?

Improve this question
$\endgroup$
3
  • $\begingroup$ Sculpting needs a lot of vertices so yes it can quickly slow down your computer, maybe for the moment learn the other basics of 3D like modelling, texturing, animating which are more important that sculpting at the beginning imho. When you'll buy a computer, pay attention to the graphic card, Nvidia is the reference, I've recently bought the HP Omen with the GTX 1660Ti which works pretty well, it is limited of course but it's also a good challenge to make nice things with limited means. But maybe ask on the Blender Artist site, which is more appropriate for these kind of questions. $\endgroup$
    – moonboots
    Commented Sep 24, 2020 at 8:21
  • $\begingroup$ Thanks @moonboots! I was able to remesh it eventually. My computer just wanted to take its time. I'm taking your advice and working on other aspects of 3d that my computer can handle in the mean time. Thanks for the recommendations. I really appreciate it! $\endgroup$
    – Ben G
    Commented Oct 3, 2020 at 19:02
  • $\begingroup$ Ok good luck ;) $\endgroup$
    – moonboots
    Commented Oct 3, 2020 at 19:34

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
0
$\begingroup$

Blenders voxel remesher is unfortunately really slow atm. It runs single threadedly on the CPU which basically means that it doesnt matter what hardware you have as long as its relatively recent (fast single core speeds matter, thats about it).

For my i9-12900K it takes about 15-25 seconds to remesh 20-30 million polys (intel 12th gen CPUs have the fastest single core performance atm, so this is about as fast as it gets).

Improve this answer
$\endgroup$

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .