[ENDED] BC1-1808 – August 2018 Class Homepage – Getting Started with 3D Modeling & Blender 2.8

[Kent Trammell]

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Announcement #5 (9/4/18): This class if officially over. See page 26 for the closing post and don’t forget to fill out the questionnaire! 

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Announcement #4 (8/27/18): REMINDER that this week’s stream is on Wednesday, NOT Tuesday. I’m out of the office Monday (8/27) and Tuesday (8/28) but will be back in full grading force on Wednesday.

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Announcement #3 (8/6/18): New way to Submit Homework. Please create a unique forum thread to contain all your homework submissions for the month, rather than everyone submitting in this main thread. More info on page 12.

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Announcement #2 (8/7/18): Zsolt has done it again. He’s prepared the report card document for this month. Feel free to monitor your grades there throughout the next 4-5 weeks.

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Announcement #1 (8/6/18): Class is officially in session!

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**Experienced Blender users are Welcome! Clarification about involvement on page 2 of this thread.

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SYLLABUS

Welcome to the CGCookie Class: Getting Started with 3D Modeling & Blender 2.8! If you’re interested in computer graphics, 3D modeling, and you’re new to Blender / new to Blender 2.8, this class is where you need to be.

This “Class” format invites all Citizen members to focus together on a particular topic/skill for a month. Participation looks like this:

• RSVP and attend the Live Events
• Watch the pre-recorded education outlined below
• Ask questions
• Submit homework by creating a unique forum thread to contain all your homework submissions for the month.
• Generally be active in this thread

WHEN? The class will take place from August 6th – September 4th.

✅ WEEK 1: First Time with Blender 2.8 (August 6-12)

Abstract: The goal this week is to simply get familiar with the application. We’ve all been there: Opening Blender (or any 3D package), gazing at all the crazy UI, trying to orbit in the viewport, crying…Ok, maybe you were stronger than me and didn’t cry. But the reality is 3D software is daunting. There’s SO MUCH to digest especially when you’re a beginner.

This first week we’re going to overview Blender 2.8 and 3D from an absolutely beginner perspective. What is Blender for? What can it do? Wait, this isn’t a juicing seminar?

Goal of the Week: Get comfortable with Blender 2.8’s UI, viewport navigation, creation and position objects.

Pre-recorded course to watch:

• Blender Basics Course

Week 1 Live Event (Remember to RSVP!)

Homework:

• Spend 1 hour with 2.8 (or 2.79) per day
• Model with Primitives Exercise [post an image to this thread + link to your exercise page]

✅ WEEK 2: Pushing & Pulling Verts (August 13-19)

Abstract: Enter the world of mesh modeling: The oldest form of building 3D objects with your computer. We’ll discuss the technical art of “pushing and pulling verts” as modelers often call it. Welcome to this wild, geometric world!

Goal of the Week: Practicing editing a polygonal mesh’s components to create a custom 3D model.

Pre-recorded courses to watch:

• Mesh Modeling Fundamentals
• Modeling with Modifiers
• Mesh Modeling Bootcamp

Week 2 Live Event (Don’t forget to RSVP)

Homework:

• Model a 3D object using mesh modeling techniques [post image(s) to this thread]

✅WEEK 3: Digital Clay (August 20-26)

Abstract: Digital sculpting is the more artistically intuitive method of 3D modeling. If pushing and pulling verts felt like the hard way of doing things, sculpting will be a welcomed alternative!

Goal of the Week: Practice digital sculpting.

Pre-recorded courses to watch:

• Fundamentals of Digital Sculpting

Article to Read: Big Idea: Digital Tablets

Week 3 Live Event (Don’t forget to RSVP)

Homework:

• Do the Melvin sculpting exercise [post a link to your submission in a reply to this thread]
• Sculpt 3 primitives as demo’d in the live stream [post screenshots]
  • Cube from a sphere
  • Sphere from a cube
  • Cone from a sphere
• EXTRA CREDIT: Pick on of these options:
  • Sculpt a human face [post a screenshot]
  • Sculpt *something* of your choice [post a screenshot]
         

✅WEEK 4: Next Steps as a Blender Modeler (August 27-September 2)

Abstract: At this point, you’ve been introduced to the key 3D modeling methods. Meaning that you have the tools you need to MODEL STUFF! This is where practice will make perfect. This is where you build stuff.

Goal of the Week: Be inspired to continue modeling and spend the week modeling or sculpting a challenging object.

Pre-recorded courses to watch: Modeling in Blender Learning Flow

Week 4 Live Event (Don’t forget to RSVP)

Homework:

• Model and/or sculpt something challenging this week! Try tackling a character, a vehicle, a houshold object, whatever. Show me what you’ve learned. Show me what you’re capable of! [post image(s) to this thread]

✅Class Wrap-Up Stream (First Tuesday in September)

We’ll be doing a 5th live stream to close out the class, review week 4 homework, and possibly a special guest.

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This thread is reserved for CG Cookie Citizens that are participating in the “Getting Started with 3D Modeling & Blender 2.8” class. Its purpose is to serve as central communication for all participating Citizens (excluding Hobby plan Citizens) to ask Kent and fellow participants questions and to post homework. As the instructor of the class, Kent will be monitoring this thread on a daily basis (especially Mon-Thurs) throughout the month of Auguest to review homework and answer questions.

Free members are welcome to observe the thread but please respect that communication and participation is reserved for Citizens.

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[Morten Fjellheim]

Looking forward to this, and its with 2.8, awesome:)

[smurfmier1985]

I have been excited about this class since I first saw it anounced, I’m in! 

2.8 is a great bonus, very cool 

[Bauke Post]

Wow, been a while since I’ve seen a class thread without more than one thousand posts:)

[Pavel Mazanik]

Isn’t it too early to get in touch with 2.8 seriously? Release candidate is only in late October. Although in any case it will be interesting.

[Thibaut Bourbon]

@nekronavt I think the alpha (or beta?) version is planned this august, and it apparently might be stable enough to cover the basics. I’ll be following that class for that purpose, whatever can help transitioning faster 🙂

[Pavel Mazanik]

@tbrbn It’s already in alpha 🙂 Your point is good. I agree.

@theluthier you have the Week 1 Live Event link incorrect.

[Kent Trammell]

@nekronavt Whoops, thanks for the correction! Just fixed it.

You make a good point that this class turned out to land in a weird time. While it’s been scheduled for a few months, I did not know 2.8 would be entering final stages. So if I teach 2.79, that info will likely be significantly outdated in a month of two following the class. But if I go with 2.8, will it be too early?

Based on the few hours I’ve spent using 2.8, I believe it will be stable enough for this class.

[Kent Trammell]

@baukepost haha right? 😅

[Jake Korosi]

All right, so maybe I should take the Getting Started class after all. ^^

I *think* I remember that in some live stream – maybe it was during the sculpt class?, @theluthier very briefly made mention that although he always used left-click select for Blender, he recently saw something that made him realize that the default right-click select is actually very useful in a certain way and he wished he had learned it that way instead, although I don’t remember what exactly it was that he had seen.  Am I just imagining all of that?  If not, I’m wondering if whether I could or should take advantage of the shift to 2.8 to try and switch to right-click select as well.

[Aaron Rudderham]

Here we go agaaaaaaain, need to get these commissions wrapped up before August haha. Looking forward to picking up some tips on this one, that and the possibility of helping out.

[Aaron Rudderham]

@baukepost Lets see if we can go for a new record this time, folks. I’ll place £30 on 2000+ posts.

[Pavel Mazanik]

@theluthier you still have some inconsistency in url of first and second events. Title says BC1-1808 and url says BC1-1807 🙂

[Kent Trammell]

@nekronavt Heh you’re an eagle eye! Yeah way back when I first scheduled I made the mistake of 1807 instead of 1808. So the URL got created with 1807 and I don’t have access to change the URL, only the title. Figured our one very busy dev had better things to do than correct my url mistake..but maybe I should ask him to fix it 😅

@jakeblended I don’t think I said that, as I don’t remember regretting going LMB select, but seem to remember someone saying that in a stream recently. Maybe Jonathan Williamson or Wayne Dixon 🤔 I do remember discovering Bassam Kurdali uses LMB select and it made me feel infinitely validated in my choice lol

[Wilco Wilbrink]

2.8; VERY interesting…

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