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

[Jake Korosi]

@theluthier thanks – your clarification does sound more familiar!

I’m conflicted about this course.  On the one hand I do intend to watch the live streams and maybe hang out in the thread and offer help or encouragement and that sort of thing.  But actually doing the exercises, and submitting material to be graded alongside the submissions by very new beginners (presumably) the course is mostly intended for?  I’m not so sure, it seems unfair to me, like a kind of sandbagging.  One of the class rules is “no flexing” and I kind of feel like that would be flexing, of a sort.

[William Miller]

@jakeblended I’m just going to attend the live streams.

[Aaron Rudderham]

@jakeblended  I feel conflicted too. I wanna do my best but on the other hand it’ll just feel like I’m just being a tryhard in an attempt to belittle newer users. But how do we determine what’s just going the extra mile and doing your best from being arrogant and doing it to primarily intimidate beginners to make yourself look good? Obviously intent is the main factor but I don’t really think you can determine that from a forum post unless they’re being obnoxiously blatant about it.

I felt a bit like this in the last week of the previous class but the difference there is that was a more advanced class to begin with, so we all were roughly within each others skill level. Here the disparity in experience is presumably going to be much larger.

I dunno, to be honest. I wanna try my absolute hardest but without coming across as a jerk, and I don’t know how that’d be done in a tolerable manner. Maybe I’m overthinking it. Maybe not. Either way I’m still looking forward to the class, maybe as it approaches we’ll gain insight on what will be considered respectable.

[Wilco Wilbrink]

I have kind of the same thing. I’m not a beginner, maybe just an advanced user, certainly no pro. But if I do my best, will I be discarded as a show off? I just want an honest critique on how I can improve.  There are still things I can learn from the beginners courses, I think.

[silentheart00]

@theluthier Oh Kent, those expressions in the class images are great!  Looking forward to the livestreams and helping everyone!  Excited to get digging into 2.8, as well!

[Jake Korosi]

@silentheart00 He is required to strike each pose at the beginning of that week’s livestream.

[silentheart00]

@jakeblended Yes.

[William Miller]

QUESTION:  How do I download Blender 2.8 Alpha?  When I do it from the Blender Builder page, it downloads the non-alpha version.

[Char Hunter]

@thecabbagedetective, @theluthier 

How about this.  Maybe we can post our lessons, but explain that we have more experience than a beginner.  Maybe post our blend files, so the beginners can download and pick apart our projects to ask questions.  That way, we’re helping and participating?  

Something like that?

[Jake Korosi]

@williamatics Are you downloading on Windows?  I just downloaded the “New Compiler” version for Windows 64bit and it shows the alpha tag in the splash screen.

[Kent Trammell]

Clarification for experienced users interested in this class

TL;DR – Try you’re hardest; always do your best within class context! If you’re concerned about ‘flexing’ I’d say that’s proof enough that your intentions are not to show-off. 

---

I see there’s some concern from experienced/advanced members about participating in the class but coming across as a ‘tryhard’; a show-off. It’s true that I always state in every class that show offs are not welcome here to flex. Let me try to clarify what I mean by that.

In a way, it’s intentionally ambiguous and meant to challenge someone to assess their actions preemptively more than it is a black and white rule. Honestly I’ve yet to see anyone flex in a class. And my metric for that is simply the fact that I’ve never sensed flexing and I’ve never seen students complain that someone is/seems to be flexing. I think that if someone is flexing, it will be easily sniffed out by the community. So far all participants have submitted homework according to their skill level within the context of the class and its assignments.

That’s key imo: Keeping within context. So for this class being aimed at beginners, intermediate-to-advanced users (non-beginners) support that aim by being an example and resource. @charmn-one is on point here:

…we can post our lessons, but explain that we have more experience than a beginner.  Maybe post our blend files, so the beginners can download and pick apart our projects to ask questions.  That way, we’re helping and participating?

That’s a fantastic approach to helping beginners! In fact if experienced users were absent from doing this, the class would be worse off. Having experienced users participating like this is a huge benefit.

On the other hand if experienced users submit clearly advanced homework and say nothing; offer no insight – that’s suspect. Frankly there’s not much room in the homework (aside from the last week I suppose) for flexing; they’re all pretty simple assignments that would be difficult to flex.

I hope that clears things up!

[Aaron Rudderham]

@theluthier  Aha, that clears some things up, thanks. I don’t believe anyone here has any intentions of flexing, it’s more so the concern that their skill will be misinterpreted as such. CGCookie – especially as a learning environment – is by far one of the most relaxed and friendly teaching platforms I’ve seen and we all want that to be maintained, but as you said it’s more than likely easy enough to sniff out the ne’er-do-wells, which is thankful because I’m rather dim when it comes to that haha.

I definitely agree with the proposition @charmn-one made, it seems like a great way to help out fellow students and personally, with the desire to be a VA, this would go hand-in-hand with that. Even last month, which was considerably more advanced, had a vast amount of helpful advice and solutions to problems (which thanks again to you all by the way, really got me out of some scrapes), so I believe us as a community are more than capable of being an asset to the teaching process.

[Bauke Post]

@theluthier Have you ever thought of asking some user reviews (with results) to promote classes here on CGCookie? If so, I’d be happy to write one :p. My hoverbike render is almost finished btw, so I could include that if it doesn’t look like complete garbage :).

[Kent Trammell]

@baukepost I would so appreciate that, Bauke! Oh man, to have a testimonial accompanied by your hoverbike, that’d be gold. I’ll ping you via intercom to discuss further 🙇🏻‍♂️

[Angel Roldan]

I’m looking forward to the live streams and the community participation! I was only able to catch the one sculpting live stream from the vehicle modeling course and it was fun, inspiring, and educational.

Good times. Thanks.

~angel

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