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Some help with Blender Training Series needed...

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Some help with Blender Training Series needed... Empty Some help with Blender Training Series needed...

Post  Dobi Sat Jun 23, 2012 6:09 am

Alright, so I'm planning to make a training series about Blender for the Bulgarian media-dedicated site that me and some friends are developing. That would be something like a summer project for me.

Now, the problem is that besides the 1st episode in which I would introduce and explain the Blender GUI to the users, I'm not really sure how to continue. I mean, should I teach 'em how to model, texture and animate a character, or I would be better with modeling a vehicle, or something?

I understand that a character would be really nice because of all the topology and animating skills I would teach, but hard-surface machinery stuff have their own details and difficulties as well.

Or maybe I should do a robot series because it's both machinery AND humanoid...

What do you say?

Dobi

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Post  Strangebloke Sat Jun 23, 2012 10:07 am

Hi

Here's my suggestion. When I stated learning Blender last year I decided there were 3 things I needed to learn to get started. Modelling, texturing and lighting.
I would say after you basic interface introduction show them how to set up a decent basic lighting rig and save it as default blend so everything they do from then on looks it's best in test renders.
Then move onto a fairly simple model, Kernon used a rubber duck for example. Something that looks easy so it's not too intimidating to start with.
Then show them how to put a simple material on it, a realistic looking plastic for example.
Once you're through that they'll have got used to using the interface and been introduced to a lot of the basic features in Blender.
Then maybe move onto creating something simple to animate. After that you could set up an intermediate section with more detailed layered textures, bump mapping, alpha channels etc. A more advanced model, like a vehicle as you suggested.
Depending how much time you were wanting to spend on this of course Smile

Strangebloke

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Post  Xraygunner Sat Jun 23, 2012 3:22 pm

I think that sounds like a solid way to go there, Bloke. That'd get my vote. Besides, you can build on that type of thing. You could even get into simulation with water and such if you felt the need. My .02! Very Happy
Xraygunner
Xraygunner

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Post  Dobi Sat Jun 23, 2012 4:19 pm

Whoa, thanks!! After all the game modeling I've done through the last months I almost forgot that there was such a thing as "lighting"! Yeah, good point, I shall definetly include a begginer's lighting tutorial in the first couple of series.

Though I wouldn't teach them how to make light rigs in the very first tutorial just for the sake of hitting Ctrl+U afterwards. The plan is to make a lighting rig AFTER they textured their first model. That would be in like the 4th or 5th episode. Then I'll mention that if they like their rigs and would love to use them for their future projects, they should save it.


As for what should be the first model in the series, I already picked one - a simple battledrone-styled bot. I'll teach 'em Bulgarian newbies how to model it, UV map it, texture it and finally render it with a decent lighting and quality. That sounds pretty good to me.

Dobi

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Post  Strangebloke Sun Jun 24, 2012 7:29 pm

Oh yeah UV unwarpping. Forgot about that and I'm terrible at it Smile

The only reason I mentioned lighting before texturing is because I wish I'd done that. I've got a work in progress thread open here with a rock texture I'm working on. Spent ages matching the colours to a reference photo. Then when I set up the lighting the way it will be in the scene, all the colours looked different and I had to go back and do them again. Sad

Best of luck with your course. Sounds like it's going to be very helpful!

Strangebloke

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Post  Dobi Wed Jun 27, 2012 5:09 pm

Heh, recorded and edited the tutorial yesterday and uploaded it today. It ended up being 26mins long. What do you say - is that too much for a tutorial in which I explain what is Blender, where to download it from, what is the GUI consisted of, how to edit the GUI to your preffered specs, what to change in User prefferences for the start and how to use the Open/Load screens?

Dobi

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Post  Strangebloke Thu Jun 28, 2012 6:07 am

No that sounds about right to me. Some of it is listening to what you tell them and some of it is actual demonstration that they can join in with so around half an hour sounds OK to me.

If anyone's attention span is too short for that then they probably aren't going to get very far with 3D modelling anyway Smile

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Post  Dobi Thu Jun 28, 2012 10:02 am

Lol, man, you made a whole new topic. Very Happy

Strangebloke wrote:If anyone's attention span is too short for that then they probably aren't going to get very far with 3D modelling anyway Smile
That's completely true! I remember when I started I had to read those long interface and begining modeling tutorials on the old Blender Noob to Pro wikibook. There were times when I could barely stand to switch to the next part, but when I got through it, I was very happy.

Dobi

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