Hello everyone.
I made the decision to focus only on Blender and Python, discarding everything else.
I can, because I have time and I don’t actually need to do anything for a living.
Now, my question is: how can I get complete coverage of Blender’s tools and editors?
I mean, from the UV/Image editor to the Video editor and everything in between.
Is there a book about this? I read on this forum the official documentation is not recommended.
I don’t pretend to learn everything about CG in general, but at least to know Blender well enough to feel comfortable with it.
I currently don’t have an area to focus on, I’m interested on a bit of everything.
Note I plan to learn Python separately, so an eventual book about Blender should cover Blender and optionally Python.
That’s a tough one. How long does it take one to write a book, and read it by you. Meanwhile Blender probably changed a lot in such a way it is not beneficial to go that road i suppose.
Why don’t you start with the thing you are most interested in. Sculpting, material-nodes, modeling, color management, animation, rendering, archviz, compositing, video-editing, etc. Soon you will find the best threads here on the forum, and good tutorials.
Maybe you could explain if you have a more defined goal or not, and if so what it is what you want.
Do you want to make games, you want to develop addons, archviz, VideoFX, Animations, tutorials, etc.
Well, I’m mainly interested in modeling-related stuff, so picking from what you listed: sculpting, modeling, animation.
But in truth, I would like to learn every Blender’s editor (at least the modus operandi).
Are the official docs worth reading? Is that true they’re not?
For me it’s a combination, Check manual if it’s gives enough info, try things out, look for a tutorial, ask on the forum if need.
It’s different for each case, approach, person.
I suggest: do what attracts you the most, enjoy, follow passion.
But, well, it’s your party… It’s hard to tell you what’s best for you.
Pick a project. What you want to do. Start doing it. Google things you don’t know. Also Youtube. Implement the project as well as you possibly can while learnign a lot of new stuff and getting more efficient. At least that’s what works for me. Learning by doing.
Only way to get a complete coverage of everything Blender can provide is to read through the entire source code, and all of the popular addons. I’m not sure even all the devs have a complete coverage on all the abilities of Blender.
I hardly know anything about rigging or animating. I have used the movie editor twice. Yet I’m able to make 3D games with that knowledge.
Ok, I had a look around and made my decision: I would like to produce platform games in Blender, with a toonish graphics style.
Now, will you list me some resources to start with?
Obviously I could Google for it, but filtering out the garbage is not easy for anyone which is new to the topic.
Please, if you’re aware of any website or (better) YouTube channel which covers specifically this, then tell me.
Also please, don’t post general, obvious resources such as borncg or blender cookie.
Just model your character, UV unwrap it, then texture paint it. If you want to animate: rig it, then animate it. After that it’s pretty easy to just import for example into Unity 3D.
Making cartoonish style look good is not easy and often requires excellent artist(s) and both a very good technical implementation. Here’s a one shot at it (from GDC) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhGjCzxJV3E
I’m fairly certain you’re not going to get a ready baked answer here. I do recommend getting good at searching for the information yourself. It’s a constant and endless feedback loop of doing and educating yourself.