Suggestions for new courses

[Wayne Dixon]

@smurfmier1985 

Oh come on Miersy, I’m still trying to keep up with your last request that rhymes with “igging ootcamp”!

(you’ll be happy to know that something is happening soon)

But I’ll see what I can fit in with the NLA.  Fun fact: I pronouce it as a word, nn-lah. It’s more fun.

(NLA and character animation are not friends by the way, it creates bad body mechanics)

[smurfmier1985]

@waylow Lol, I have to ask wayyy in advance because I know it takes you guys a while to create courses and tuts 😉

(Awesome!!! 😄)

Curious to see what it is useful for then 😊 Though I’ve read it had great updates in 2.8. I read about it in this Blender Artist thread. This fellow made an sort of animation layer addon for Blender, but:

  

A developer made a patch to Blender 2.80 and now it officially has Additive NLA Animation layers; https://developer.blender.org/rBde662e7cd3b3ca45c4220e3830c32e2b3496c9fe 21
which thankfully makes the bulk of my addon redundant.

  

So perhaps it works better now? 😬

   

[smurfmier1985]

  

Livestream Series Request

  

I recently watched the old livestream about freelancing and it left me wanting to know more! Since you guys always promote wanting to give us a curriculum that gets us ready to work in the industry, I prepose a livestream series that fits / supplements this vision: 

  

I would love to see a series about working in CG / Game Dev, with different topics and livestreams throughout the year(s).

  

The freelancing stream covered the modeling side with @jlampel & @theluthier , and the animation side with @waylow , but I also want to learn about working in game dev @jgonzalez . 

  

Suggestions for topics to cover:

  

• Freelancing 

• How to successfully create & sell assets/addons/etc. at the Blender Market & Unity Asset Store 

• Working in a studio 

• Teaching CG 

• How to juggle between a day job and freelancing on the side 

• How to start a business

• Tips for building you portfolio and making demo reels 

• Live critique for portfolio work and demo reels 

• Finding a job 

• Interviews with people from all the industries -> modelers, animators, game artists, concept artist, business owners, freelancers, developers, etc. -> working in animation studios, vfx, game studios, advertisement/commercial company’s, etc. (for example I loved the interview with Tanner Kalstrom about GameTextures.com!)

  

  

There are probably a lot more topics to cover! Hope you guys like this idea 😊

  

[Jonathan Gonzalez]

@smurfmier1985  Yes, unfortunately you can’t get very far in game development without having knowledge of programming.  That said I am looking at bridging that gap and helping people get into game development without having to dedicate a lot of time to learning programming. 

Visual Programming will be coming soon and I’ll also be creating some premade scripts that we can use to piece together various games so that those who don’t want to get into the technical details can still build games and focus on the design aspects of a game. I’ve also thought about having another course before the Game Programming Bootcamp that just covers game logic. Discussing the game mechanic “flow” and how to visually see that. Nonetheless programming seems complex at first, then it just clicks and you start to understand how it all comes together, just start small. 

Regarding animation I’m looking at trying some Unity specific animation tools to animate rigs within Unity, right now it’s mostly just generic animations.  This is mostly to speed up the animation workflow and to also give people an idea of how to quickly iterate through animations or make minor adjustments within game. 

[smurfmier1985]

@jgonzalez Awesome! a lot of good stuff coming up I hear, looking forward to it 😊

I do want to give you a compliment. Started watching the C# Bootcamp yesterday to see if my fear for coding was justified, but honestly you explain this really well! Super comprehensible. So when the time comes I think I’ll give it a go 🙂

Though starting with Visual Scripting and/or a Game Logic Course sounds really really great. I think that will make learning the process a lot easier, like a Visual Beginner Intro for less technical people! 😉 And perhaps Visual Scripting will also replace the simpler and most common scripts in the future? so that will be a real valuable skill to learn then 😎

[Jonathan Gonzalez]

@smurfmier1985 Thanks! I’m glad you’re liking the course so far. I feel the same way when it comes to learning the art side of things, so the feeling is mutual. What helps me is just watching the video, no commitment to actually doing anything and it usually ends up being a lot better than I thought. 

If visual scripting is popular I’d probably keep that in for smaller game projects and tutorials. More technical programming would be kept for more in depth games that require it. 

[smurfmier1985]

  

Unity Livestream Request

  

Sometimes you guys do a movie review of short films made with Blender. 

But how about doing some reviews about short films (and games!) made with Unity?

Would love to see that 😊

  

Pssst, the first Adam short would be a great candidate to kick this off…

   

[Jonathan Gonzalez]

@smurfmier1985 I don’t know of many movies made with Unity other than the Adam series but for the game side of things it’s definitely something we’ve discussed in the past. We’re discussing a few new more live stream “show” ideas that are a bit lighter in mood and more relaxed and reviews and possibly “lets play” type streams are on the list. 

[smurfmier1985]

@jgonzalez Awesome! 😄

[William Ramos]

@zachzellman Yes Thats Awesome!

[Pavel Mazanik]

@theluthier some people here are doing anatomy stuff and so on. You have a realistic character modeling course, but it looks like it more about pipelines and workflow. It’s super cool but is not particularly aimed at anatomy. I think it will be cool to look at anatomy course by you, for it seems like you are the main digital sculptor on CGCookie 😀

And the second part about it may not be pleasant to read, but I want to be honest with my opinion. CGCookie have an anatomy course on it’s YouTube channel in CGC Classic series. I find them confusing. Let’s be honest, that’s not the result I want to aim.

This is.

It’s from Grassetti’s course on anatomy with ZBrush. It will be cool to see something like this for blender.

[Kent Trammell]

@nekronavt Indeed I see a lot of requests for anatomy videos here. Doris’ videos were great for getting someone pointed in the right direction but they were not the same visual quality as Grassetti’s course, that’s for sure.

Let me ask: When you (and others) say you want an anatomy course, do you expect to learn comprehensive anatomical bone names, muscle names, ligaments, and so on as a means to illustrate the 3D forms? Or do you simply want to learn how to form those shapes with or without the complex terminology?

[smurfmier1985]

@theluthier I can’t answer for the more serious sculptors like Pavel that want to specialize in this, but I am aiming to make some stylized characters for animation myself. And I believe knowing anatomy would really help even in that style to make it look believable and tangible. For me I rather learn how to make the shapes without all the difficult naming conventions. All the difficult names would turn me away from such a course. But again, I am not aiming to becoming a sculptor, I just wanna learn how to make a good looking character with good proportions in any style.

[John Sanderson]

@smurfmier1985 Ha.  That last sentence…  I’m sure the way I’m interpreting it is not quite what you intended, but it made me laugh. That’s all I want too.  @theluthier I definitely think there is a lot to be gained from being able to name the muscles and bony landmarks.  In one sense, their latin names aren’t all that important, but being able to call them something helps make them concrete and memorable.  “the teres major inserts onto the humerus from the base of the scapula” is much more descriptive and evocative for your brain than “there’s kind of a bulge here,” not because of the fanciness of the names, but because having names at all cements in your mind what’s really happening with the shape.  That being said, I think the classes in the realistic character course do a pretty good job of explaining your system.  All bodies are different, and I do think just a little anatomy knowledge can go a long way, it just comes down to practice.   I also think that knowledge is pretty accessible elsewhere, but there has also been a big demand for it…

[Pavel Mazanik]

@theluthier As a digital sculptor (if I dare to call myself that) I want to learn more about shapes, but I think it’s easier to learn something when you know how to name it. There is a difference if you know that it’s “latissimus dorsi” or “serratus anterior”, rather than “that big muscle on the back” and “that fan-shaped thing, that is mistaken for ribs”. So I think there is must be a compromise. Tho knowing latin names is a nice way to show off a bit 😂

I try to learn Latin names, but not the way I sit and just try to remember everything, it comes with time in itself.

PS. I second everything that @procyonlotor said.

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