Reply To: Not for beginner

[Adrian Bellworthy]

My advice in learning 3D is learn the software first. Then go on to tackle a Treasure Chest

Start at the beginning. Installing and setting up Blender, and follow each lesson in turn in Learn Blender 2.8 – Your Complete Tutorial Guide , you will get to the treasure chest, but remember, the real treasure is in the knowledge. 

I often watch a new course on CGCookie from start to finish without even opening Blender. Then start again at the beginning and follow along in Blender. 

I spent so long watching free content on YouTube, mainly Andrew Price AKA BlenderGuru, (I do like to listen to his podcast, some good discussion topics), and others including Grant Abbitt who I do like to watch occasionally still. But…. now I look back I learnt how to model a donut, it turned out great, but I found I didn’t learn the fundamentals, the why. I like to watch the live streams on CGCookie, because you can watch professionals at work, Creating simple EEVEE environments in Blender is one of my favourite series, I have watched the complete series twice without even following in Blender, you get to watch Kent make adjustments to values and see the result as it happens, with an explanation. But not only that, when things don’t go to plan, the problem solving is all part of the process and helpful to watch, and it’s entertaining, especially reading the chat.  We can all follow, press this button enter this value, hey presto a donut, but when we want to take the next step and model our own ideas, there’s the blank, how do I start. I want to model a house, but not a gingerbread house with icing and sprinkles. Look beyond the donut, what is the donut tutorial about? It’s about building a brand, gaining a following. Think of the revenue from YouTube, I mean 24 Videos on making a donut and a cup of coffee, really. Fair play to the guy, but it’s less about education than it is about the branding. 24 lessons on CGCookie and you will have a complete set of animated game assets ready for Unity, with an understanding and knowledge of how it all works, and that is the value for any student anywhere.

I’m into my second year on CGCookie, and it has been invaluable to my progress in 3D. In my opinion @theluthier , @jlampel and others on CGCookie are the best of the best. And the CGCookie community, you won’t find a better place for support and advice. And there is the CGCookie YouTube channel, loads of tips and tricks and entertainment and it’s all free.

So….. 

Start at the beginning, If you find something hard to follow and don’t understand you can do two things,

1. Ask a question, don’t be afraid to ask, you may feel it makes you look stupid, but remember we all started at the beginning and probably had the same questions.

2. Take a step back, maybe you are getting ahead of yourself. Imagine a curve, or draw a curve on a piece of paper if you are suffering creators block, this is your learning curve, you need to stick to this curve, you maybe eager to get further ahead on this curve, but if you try taking a detour you are probably going to get lost, and miss out on fundamentals and run into problems later on.

And as a bonus,

3.  Enjoy it, get involved in the collaborations and you will make some friends. Eat cookies and carry on.