I notice that there is an imbalance in the tutorials in blender, as a vast majority is beginner friendly only or still adapt to beginner method even in advanced tutorials. Also i understand that many dont want paid addons to cater to majority that dont have financial ability, But a lot of Free addon are being made and its a shame that many tutorials has not incorporate them to the users to add quality of life to intermmediate and advance user. whats your take on this?
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I think when lot of people get to the medium-advanced stage, they no longer need a 20 minute YouTube presentation on step by step.
By this point, they’ve learned enough that they actively seek an answer to their question, and then quickly move on to the next stage of their activities. They don’t need 20 mins of hand holding, nor want it. They also know that the Q/A has probably already happened for someone else, and they go look for it.
And many of the advanced people have more important things to do, than record free tutorials on YouTube that most viewers will just complain are too hard to understand.
There is advanced info out there beyond the beginner stage. But requires using a search engine to find it, and actually studying the results… an art which is becoming completely lost.
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Yes, this right here shoudl be a sticky.
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I personally just like watching Blender tutorials as a form of entertainment, not just to learn. And often, it’s easier for me to follow a video to figure out how I want to do something rather than go through the tedium of either digging through really old StackOverflow articles or posting for help on a place like here. I learn better from videos because text posts can omit tiny details that cause me to get stuck for who knows how long just because a forum post forgot to mention a specific menu or shortcut they used.
Because of that, yeah, I do wish there were more intermediate and advanced series, not just to learn from, but also because I love watching the creation process. Doesn’t help that my tastes seem to be more niche, given I’m not super intent on creating super realistic interior design scenes or houses (though, they do look cool).
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Which is why pretty much everyone of my videos are sub 10mins and if you don’t already know your way around Blender enough to at least make a basic ‘donut’, then you are on the wrong channel.
May help to explain why I have so few views, but still, there are already so many basic/beginner videos, etc around, I didn’t see the point in adding any more.
As for the use of addons, I’ve so far largely avoided the use and coverage of any ‘extras’. Partly because you just never know how long they will last or keep working. Even more of an issue with free ones.
So outside of core Blender and now the most common ones on the Extensions Platform (like Node Wrangler, Loop Tools, etc) I just don’t use.
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Beginner tutorials get lots of clicks because there are a lot more beginners than advanced users.
Youtubers want clicks.
→ lots of beginner videos
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There are surely things in the world that are a shame to humankind…
But people who makes free tutorials for blender have mostly these (or a mix of these) intentions:
- help beginners
- intensify there own knowledge/experience by and also → see point 1
- are hobby enthusiasts who want talk about their interest and maybe make a little money with some ads/ clicks/ merchandise
- make users to buy their more advanced tuts because they are profesionals layed of by the indudtry and they still love to make 3D -art
- live by making content (so they need a lot of clicks)
- and i properly missed some reasons
So making more advanced tutorials for free is really more work so they have to decide about efficiency and one should consider about why some people may demand this from them… for free…
Think about it.
Welp… I am sure that majority of Blender users are beginners, very early beginners. You can see numbers drop on any of basic tutorial series, like Donut by Blender Guru or Grant Abitt series.
There are more advanced tutorials out there. BlenderGuru has Anvil intermidate series, did You knew about it? Have You seen someone recommend it for someone?
Outgang studio has MASTERCLASS, free masterclass on UV unwrapping human head with free addons, 2 hours. And they had less than 100k views…(last time I checked)
It is not as delicious as “MAKE REALISTIC EYES IN 3 MINUTES”.
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Yes, the more experienced you get the more rare you are…
That’s why there are much more beginner with blender, and also more people sticking to beginner grade learning material…
Advanced learning material exists but it’s much more a niche content sadly…
And about addons, well it’s interesting indeed, personally I try to avoid them since it’s not always possible to use them in various studios, so I try to not depend on too many of them…
As for the kind of learning material I look for it’s more oriented toward general theory or very specific techniques / workflows …
I think advanced users prefers stuff like breakdowns rather than step by step tutorials.
Lastly, it’s not that advanced content doesn’t exist but it’s more that it’s buried under beginner’s friendly content… even if of course there is much less advanced content…
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Blender has become pretty popular so there is an increasing overlap of people who do tutorials and people who know some blender. So naturally there are more beginner tuts and the overlap shrinks the more advanced it gets. Basic ease of use addons are constantly mentioned in every second video (F2, node wrangler, mesh tools…) I can find tons of clips that cover specialized addons too.
Otherwise I always prefer vanilla blender in tutorials.
And there are quite a few tutors that go far beyond beginner level (johnny mathews, cartesiancaramel, erindale, cgdive, cgmatter just to name a few on youtube alone)
What are you looking for exactly?
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It’s even interesting to learn how things are done in the real world… for example:
…after this you might get some idea how some “medivial” wood shingles house might look like if you have this in mind… ( Of course you do not have to make the shingles out of some cyinder first )…
But it’s the idea behind it which may make one understand the final task better and so make good 3D assets.
So it’s not about blender but about understanding the goal and what things one might have to consider but may not have to copy directly or can be omitted. Like:
You do no have to model what noone can see… but have to respect the “underlying structure” because this gives the whole object its unique form.
So this got a bit longish 
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Totally agree.
Someone able to do an advance tutorial is probably gainfully employed to do such a thing without compensation.
Here’s a challenge: Pay for one of those Houdini tutorials and translate that to Blender. I’ve seen a few sites doing that. They have some really advanced tutes. These guys, for example https://www.youtube.com/@Entagma
There are a few content creators who wax philisophically. What you seek seems available.
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So true.
Poly modeling is basically the same in most software. So is shading techniques, animation timing, etc.
Beginner tutorials focus on which buttons to push. You need to learn the theory and methods, not just the buttons. Watch people animate in Maya, do compositing in AE or Resolve - you’ll probably learn something you can bring into your blender workflow.
There’s an entire world of learning beyond Andrew the Donut Guru.
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That hit your nail on the head. I learned more about sculpting in Blender by watching the strokes and forms in Mudbox and ZBrush tutorials, and I learned painting following tutorials aimed at Photoshop users.
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After seeing this thread pop up again, I thought about the topic a bit more. Another issue with intermediate/advanced tutorials is as you go up in complexity, the use usually becomes more niche. More niche means less people need it, which means less views, which means less incentive to make them. It doesn’t help that Blender is pretty much an everything program when it comes to creative output.
And personally from my experience from being in other communities, the old guard tend to become less and less interested in helping new people climb the skills ranks since a lot of them get tired with answering the same noob questions over and over for years and years. Making advanced tutorials often begets a lot more questions because there’s a lot more variables and thus things that can go wrong, which is yet another reason people may be discouraged from making more advanced dedicated tutorials. This may also explain (besides financial incentive) courses since they kind of funnel people into a more manageable, dedicated group an expert can spend more qualitative time on than dozens, if not, hundreds of comments on a video.
The unfortunate thing about that point is that the people who don’t buy courses aren’t necessarily lacking in motivation, skill, or dedication, but may just simply be lacking the financial means to commit (especially in times like these), especially since they may not be sure if a specific course is right for them or if it’ll give them the skills they were looking for.
All in all, it’s a messy situation, but I do respect the few creators who still make more advanced tutorials, not for money or views, but simply for the love of the game and teaching other people stuff. For example, though I may not care for modeling vehicles, I really respect Ryan King’s tutorial series on creating a biplane from start to finish.
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That and the combination of Youtube’s algorithm and the near 0 revenue share from ads pretty much forcing a quantity over quality approach stuffed with clickbait thumbnails and titles, and this is just to have a measurable income.
Google over the years have advertised new features to help creators make more money, but in reality, it is just another lever they are expected to pull to compensate for falling revenue from other monetization changes. People are actually going back to the local library and looking for encyclopedias now because of the internet becoming a crapshoot for high quality information of any type, advanced Blender techniques not being an exception.
Once ChatGPT and other AI models end up becoming the source of most Blender guides (don’t laugh because this is in fact displacing everything written by professionals), then this forum and the Blender docs. will more or less become the last refuge of reliably high-quality information on the internet.
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Once ChatGPT and other AI models end up becoming the source of most Blender guides (don’t laugh because this is in fact displacing everything written by professionals), then this forum and the Blender docs. will more or less become the last refuge of reliably high-quality information on the internet.
I suspect it will eventually reach a boiling point to where people will realize the damage relying on such “resources” causes and stop. However, this will not go without causing a great deal of damage to the Blender community. I have seen a similar effect with programmers and software developers now realizing how harmful relying on a program such as ChatGPT in any capacity is (both for their work and their own personal development/capabilities) and removing the program from their tool set.
Another safe haven apart from those you mentioned are decentralized platforms such as Mastodon, PeerTube, Owncast, BookWyrm, Pixelfed, etc that do not have a monetary incentive for being there and are more closely moderated by people who genuinely care about their platform. Blender already uses PeerTube and this forum does in fact post to Mastodon already.
“Quite affordable” perhaps for you, but not someone who can barely afford rent. That 22$/month might instead have to be spent on groceries or medication. This simply might not be feasible for someone who just creates with Blender as a hobby, or someone in dire financial straits. I don’t doubt that these courses (especially CG Cookie’s) are of quality, but again, a lot of people are having major financial struggles at the moment.
I should note this isn’t me saying people should just make all their courses 100% free, but I’m just pointing out at how this entire situation is just unideal and I wish things were different.
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