So as the title suggests I am new to blender. Over the last few weeks I have watched and attempted to replicate various tutorials. Blender really is an amazing piece of software, the idea of 3d modelling has always been a concept I was really interested in, and with blender I can create my own digital art free of charge. Notice how I said “attempted” to replicate tutorials… well that’s the thing I really suck at Blender. I genuinely enjoy using Blender as a hobby but im so bad it i can barely follow a tutorial! Its a very frustrating experience for me. It also doesn’t help that I live at home and the pc I use is situated in the corner of the living room, where i can rarely get left alone without loud noises or someone constantly peering over my shoulder. Also its a piece of crap with a practically non-existent graphics card. Now the purpose of this post isn’t for me to cry woe is me. I would just appreciate some advice from experienced users.
I’m also new to Blender and 3D modelling.
I did try the odd online video tutorial on youtube for awhile, with about the same amount of success that you got. I ended up buying the Blender Foundation: The Essential Guide a,d registering on Lynda.com for their Blender 2.6 Essential course. The later is a more complete “course” on Blender than the disjointed tutorial that you can found on the web. They take the time to explain the interface, toold, gizmo and keyboard shortcut that most web tutorial gloss over or assume that you already know them.
As for modelling, try to find a physical model of an object to replicate in Blender. It’s a bit hard trying to go from scratch when you don’t really master the tools at your disposition. In my case, I bought 2 scale plastic model/kit, one of a russian KV-1 tank and one of a ruined ww2 era town house. I’ll be using them as model and build a 3D diorama.
You just have to play with it until you get comfortable. Learn how to navigate the scene, add objects, edit mode versus object mode, etc. It takes time, but like anything else it will get easier, and once you know the basics you can move on from there. Don’t try to build a car first, build a couch, or a chair. Most importantly, don’t give up. Learning new software is difficult at first (and in your case compounded by the location and age of your equipment), but you’ll be rewarded later on and happy that you stuck with it.
BTW: CGCookie.com has an excellent beginner series of tutorials that will help you get started.
The Blender learning curve is WAY longer than a few weeks. My suggestion is to take a weekend and run through these beginner tutorials:
http://www.gryllus.net/Blender/3D.html
Once you have a handle on these,the I would move to some of the more advanced tutorials. I installed and uninstalled blender 4 times before I “got it”. Now it is one of the primary tools in my workflow.
good luck!
Oh wow guys thanks for the encouraging replies! On the topic of hardware, are there any ways to reduce lagging and such in blender? Andrew Prices tut on making a rainy window was good but my pc didnt handle all the objects and crashed.
More ram and a better video card, nvidia based preferably. Just remember that if you are running a 32bit OS you’ll be limited to about 3 gigs of ram.