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Here's an interesting coverage of Blender Freestyle for Background Line Art by Leah Lee Comics
Good overview of hair settings in Blender with visual examples, prepare to be amazed. Hair still needs more tweeking then it should and costs in cpu/gpu cycles but it's inching it's way forward. At least it looks good if one has the time and hardware. ;)
Greebles, those things that add detail to sci-fi panels, can be used for cityscapes when doing establishing shots (distance flyovers, etc...) and many other uses. Chris Kuhn put up a video on making greebles that is a pretty good treatment of the topic. Of note is his demo of creating pipes. He also shows acceptable use of ngons, which not that long ago was frowned upon as it gave problems in various render engines, and still does if used incorrectly, but as he noted, using in a non-flexing, flat surface most render engines now handle them pretty well. Something that doesn't yet transfer as well between engines sometimes is the 'mark sharp' that is popular for saving on geomentry when staying within a single environment. When exporting, these often get converted to extra geometry or loose their sharpness so be aware of that for exporting to DAZ.
CG Masters just came out with their Animation Primer training series today (see it in action here.) While using it with DAZ characters will mean rerigging, there is a tool to partially automate the process called Rigify. If you have a real interest in animation then Blender along with the Cycles render engine (CPU, GPU and mixed modes) are well worth considering. While not being reimbursed in any way, I have used CG Masters training and consider it to be some of the best out there and reasonably priced, especially the Master It series and anything by Lee Salvemini. There are free tutorials on the site if anyone wants to get an idea of what their training is like before laying out credits for anything. Oh, and of course.. check out my Pinterest board for other resources and free training. ;)
Thanks for this thread.
I've found that Blender tends to be hard for two camps. One is the group that is already predisposed to another CG software, the other is the group that tends to fall for the hype of what certain people say and didn't give it half a chance.
People say that Maya is difficult as hell to use, but people will still stick with it, because "it's an industry standard" (meaning they dream of working at Disney one day). I would have given just about anything to have something like Blender around when I was a college freshman in the early 90's and trying to save up enough to get a copy of 3DS Max because I wanted to learn CGI.
Sometimes I think they should offer a paid version of Blender simply for people who can't find any value in something because it's free or affordable.
...I fall into the first camp mainly as I come from a lifelong traditional art background. Using a pointer device (I have an ergonomic trackball with very high resolution) comes far more natural to me than punching away at a keyboard while trying to remember a plethora of hotkey combinations.
I've given Blender repeated chances since ver 2.46 as well as each time a new release came out which I was told was better and "easier" to use. In the end it didn't take more than a few weeks after installing for me to remove it out of frustration as I still found it's UI and setup to get more in the way of rather than help me to learn the concepts modelling (which is what I originally looked to use it for as Hexagon has some serious instabilities)
Conversely as a writer, I dislike word processors that are heavily pointer dependent (like the current version of MS Word) as I find it reduces speed and efficiency since you have to keep removing one hand form the keyboard frequently. I still miss old WordPerfect 5.1 as it had a great setup that used the function keys as shortcuts for menus and editing tools. Much simpler than the embedded hotkeys Word used as it also included a template with the different combinations that went over the area of the keyboard where the function keys were.
Variety is part of being creative, both as individuals and as a society. I think the concept of 'accessible' is too often relegated to only people that are handicapped, whereas it should be extended to include different ways of interacting with the world around us. I've done interface design in the past and this was something I always tried to keep in mind.
Nelsonsmith, I fell into the second camp for a while. In the end I tried it because I really had no other option. More fool me for listening to the rampant negativity and seeming bias against it that I unfortunately initially came across.
To anyone thinking about trying Blender, always verify for yourself. Try and do that without the bias you have already been exposed to. I wasted way too much time based on what dissatisfied people were saying about it. Don't make the mistake of passing on it just because somebody who doesn't like it comprehensively writes it off.
If I had listened to what so many loyal Poser only users have to say about Daz Studio, look what I would have missed out on!
...I tend to use the term "accessible" in a much broader sense myself as well.
I'm glad there's a tutorial on the first page. I've tried Blender several times, and because the UI was not intuitive, I said, "forget this." Every time.
ZBrush was easier for me to learn than Blender, and lord knows, ZB is weird, kinda.
Maybe I'll give 'er another shot.
So, here is a newer beginners Blender tutorial. Guy is really laid back and informative..
Very nice :)
I should mention, my Blender boards aren't reallly set up for someone who isn't comfortable with basically navigating the interface and fundamental aspects of box modeling. Even my 'fundamentals' board assumes that the person visiting has a basic understanding and goes on from there into mostly fundamentals that get overlooked but should be considered fundamentals. That is, fundamentals for intermediate users. Having said that, even beginner users can look at them so that they get a more rounded understanding of what types of approaches one might want to bring to blender as there are a lot of videos out there which hammer on just using box modeling and a small subset of features. This approach is inefficient, but one I've seen many advanced users use. Andrew Price (Blender Guru) for as great as his videos are, fell into this trap for years and is only recently looking at some of the other techniques such as using curves for modeling. I'm not picking on him, quite the opposite. I'm pointing out that even someone with his caliber of work and teaching can fall into that trap.
There are some good 'getting started' videos out there like this one.
Something else worth thinking about. Whenever I'm trying to learn something I automatically assume I will need to go through many tutorials 'at the same level' on a specific (subset) of tasks I'm trying to learn as it is often rare in my experience that one covering of a topic is enough. Anyone presenting material will by definition miss some aspects in my experience so we need to go to different sources on the exact same thing to get a fuller picture of whatever it is we are studying. The best tutorial on something isn't a tutorial but a group of tutorials which interlock to present a good understanding.
I still am considering doing a tutorial series that goes from 'brand new' to advanced. A series that incorporates playing nice with other software out there like DAZ, and covers artistic application of the tools. It's just that my vision is so big and things are changing so fast right now that it's become more of a challenge then I originally anticipated.
That's a very good point. When I was learning Lightwave and After Effects, I used at least two books on each designed to take you from zero to hero, and it was incredible where each book considered the best starting point to be with that software, and two, where there was overlap, how one book might detail something that the other book completely left out. Also repetition is good.
You should do that Gedd. Your always so informative and thorough!
While on the topic of Blender, here is a news item that just showed up in my feed today. Maybe this will end up inspiring a lot of folks to give the program a shot. It's certainly a use for Blender that I never considered before.
http://www.theverge.com/tldr/2016/6/28/12054990/calvin-and-hobbes-cartoon-strip-2d-3d-rendering
I don't think I watched many tutorials when I was learning Blender.
I knew I wanted to model spaceships in Blender, so what I did was I purchased a model from Turbosquid and reserse engineered it and then watched DanBrown CGI's model videos to see how he did what he did.
I did watch few of BlenderGuru's videos and those were it and relied heavily on Blender online manual.
I love Calvin and Hobbes!
That is super!
...again videos don't do much for me as I have a very low retention rate with film and video format. I need either a guidebook or tutorials in print format that I can either have opened on my second display to the section I need, or printed off and have next to my keyboard.
Sadly, video appears to have become the preferred format which pretty much leaves me on my own and Blender does not work very well with "seat of the pants" learning like Daz does.
Hate video tutorials also I don't have the tolerence for the back and forth trying to verify something and going to far each direction again and again
I've mostly just been lurking in the thread the last few days. I'm just starting to learn how to use Blender. I happen to love video tutorials if they are done right. I don't think I would have been able to learn how to use Blender as quickly as I have this time around. I tried to learn it a few years ago because my husband uses it and it was just way over my head. I gave up. I've been trying again recently and I really like the changes they've made to the whole layout. There were still some things I couldn't figure out how to do because most of the 'beginner' tutorials assumed I already knew how to do things like move around the workspace or just glossed over it fairly quickly. I found a series of tutorials on YouTube that I really liked and they have been very helpful. I like the teaching style of the video and I like the fact that the person doing the tutorial explains every step. I think a large part of learning from videos is finding the video that has the right teaching style suited for how you learn. Admittedly, though, not everyone can learn from a video, they just aren't wired that way. I just happened to find the right videos for me. Enough that I have actually managed to model 3 fairly simple things and then successfully bring those models into DS and render them in it. So, yes, some of us actually learn better from videos. While I can learn from books, I'm a very visual learner and I like being able to see how something is done as well as read how to do it.
So far, it's been fun and a few of us have been showing off our models in my thread so that's been fun. Kind of like a group effort. I think that's part of the fun for me this time around, too. I'm not really doing it by myself. I have a little bit of support from friends I've made here in the forums and we've shared some tips back and forth of what we've learned about using Blender.
@Gedd If you do happen to finish a tutorial, I'd love to see it!
the developers of blender have been very clear on trying to learn Blender like you would Studio or most other applications by sitting down and clicking. The short answer is you can't. Just as a technician needs to train employees for a company specific application training is necessary for many of the key concepts of Blender. If you are not using the resources available on line to learn blender you might as well be trying to land a spaceship on an alien planet having no experience with it, which is also what blenders interface looks like to anyone who has not spent time with the many tutorials. There is no easy way to learn blender quickly because it's an application that does so many things and integrates much of itself with other aspects of the program, for instance animation tools, painting tools, sculpting tools, weight mapping tools, and particle physics can all be integrated with modeling tools to allow a potential of modeling that would either be difficult or impossible without them.
If you stick with it, work with it and learn some of it you will likely come to love it and be baffled as to why something this versatile, powerful and widely supported could be free when applications costing hundreds of dollars don't approach Blenders flexibility.
You are correct that was the approach Ton specifically held to for a long time and against much opposition, but, Ton actually went back on that somewhat with that at the last conference when he talked about 2.8. He specifically talked about coming up with a 'starter interface' as part of the whole redesign they are aiming for.
My take on it is that any force that pushes something like Apple, Microsoft or even Blender tends to be strong and this type of force tends to be strong in a particular vision. It therefore takes quite a bit to convince that force to consider changing direction (like turning a big ship.) With enough counter force, even these can change direction some, and I think that is what happened with Ton and the whole interface question.
While Andrew Price's vision did have some flaws which even he acknowledged after a bit of discussion, he did put forth the counter-force that focused the people who had been pushing for some changes, and while the changes that hopefully will work into Blender's interface and infrastructure design will come from many people, Andrew does deserve credit for helping overcome the resistance.
I've heard that Blender UI is messy/confusing or whatever a lot, but personally I think it's works very well. I love the hotkeys, so I don't have to waste time finding buttons and click to do simple stuff. There's left side menu for that ( it opens with "t" key ) in Blender too, if you prefer to click to do extract, rotate, scale or whatever operation. Not all actions, like dissolve vertices or remove doubles, have a hotkey, so sometimes you need to use that left side menu anyway, but what I think it's really great for, is to remind hotkeys. Just open the left side menu, and hover over the button to see the hotkey. It's really fast to learn most used keys, and once you get used to hotkeys, there's no going back to clicking.
I do admit that I've had to make some changes in the settings, that helps at least me to use program more efficiently. Firstly I enable File -> User Preferences -> Interface -> Rotate around selection, because I don't like the normal rotate. With that change Blender rotates around selected vertices, instead of around...uhmmm..I don't know. The default rotation is too weird for me
My next change is to use left mouse button for select like normal Windows UI works. That's from File -> User Preferences -> Input -> Select with = Left. I've tried that default right mouse select, but I just couldn't get my head around it, no matter how hard I tried. Since pretty much every other program I use uses left for select, at least for me Blender is so much easier to use with left mouse. Fortunately it's easy to change, but unfortunately most of the online tutorials etc. use right select, so if you change UI to use left select, you have to remember that in the tutorials.
Agreed Gedd. In this case Andrew = catalyst. I think. If it's given enough time and consideration the solution should be able to cater for most people, this is Blender after all. Since Blender is not entirely commercially driven the likelyhood of something good and beneficial being achieved might be greater than with some applications where the only consideration is the bottom line. It might also take a little longer and come about by a more convoluted process but I'm not sure that I'm in a position to complain too much. :)
Mendoman - WR will remove doubles. W is the specials menu hotkey. R is the in menu hotkey for removing the doubles. For those not aware, for anything that doesn't have a hotkey specifically listed, open the menu it resides in and find the underlined letter in the tool name. A combination of the menu hotkey followed by the designated letter will generally activate the desired tool.
That menu driven tool activation option is one available in Blender for those who like to work that way. It can all be done with mouse clicks and it's pretty intuitive as to which menu will hold a given tool.
...yeah, back when Andrew was proposing the UI change I was pretty excited. Watched his entire series on the proposal thinking finally, someone like me will actually be able to use Blender. When Ton mentioned at the conference that year it was not in the community's interest to attract new users but instead to upgrade the programme for the existing community, I was somewhat put off as it sounded a bit elitist. I actually addressed this asking how was the community supposed to grow if it doesn't attract new members? Never got a clear answer which put me off even more.
After that I ceased keeping up with Blender's development as I clearly felt unwelcome (even though my questions were very civil, far more then those of many who took it upon themselves to "critique" Andrew's initial proposal).
So I guess it becomes a situation "wait and see".
Here is some inspiration using Blender! Particle system / Fluid sims.
Your picture? Very Nice :)
Yup my picture ^-^