,
Ello
Put simply, I’m an idiot and I can’t even figure out where to begin.
I’m looking for the most basic of tutorials, the kind of thing that just shows me what the heck this button does Points at whatever button is used more than all the other buttons because EVERYONE knows what it does.
Oh, and I really need to be running whatever version of Blender the tutorials are using, nothing drives me nuts more than tutorials using buttons that I don’t have, or pressing hotkeys that I don’t know about.
“Get started in Blender” is one of the forum main menus.
But learning basic stuff about the program itself, these are the most accurate I know
Those also showcase some modeling tools, but don’t teach (optimal) workflows. Those you have to learn yourself by watching a ton of modeling tutorials, by practicing, and then combine your modeling knowledge with the tools you know to get to your own workflows.
Learn enough so you can make stuff, and learn more as you go. You’ll never be done with learning because the tools change, your knowledge and experience changes, so the workflows you learn are in a constant change. That’s how we keep up with a plethora of new and changed options every 3 months (although longer now because of 2.8).
Learning the program is relatively easy. Learning the fundamentals for whatever you do with it is the hard and time consuming part. The program is vast. It has tools that can be used for everything in the pipeline, so don’t expect to know it all, and don’t get discouraged because of the amount of available options.
A tutorial doesn’t usually teach fundamentals, nor workflows that apply to everything. Those don’t often even mention what the differences in requirements are for different end uses (still image, animation, game engine use, 3D printing, other), which can affect the whole pipeline, not just the workflows. They usually teach by showing an example, which is one of the definitions of a tutorial. You have to absorb a lot of information from many sources, and then process it.
If you get stuck and seek for help/answers to a problem, learn to do that the smart way. It’s not how well you describe your problem that gives you answers, it’s what tools you leave for others to understand the workflow and what you’re working with (context of your description), then tools to look into it and have the means to efficiently explain it back. That means
using images to help you explain. Include whole interface with screenshots
preparing and uploading an example .blend with the relevant assets/parts that can be used to replicate the problem. The less you can share, the more work it means preparing one because you have to delete objects/geometry/images or replace them. If your problem/questions involve a .blend, assume you’re wasting everyone’s time if you don’t include an example.
More about that in the tutorial linked in my signature.
