I am a beginner with 3D graphics and have only played with 3DS MAX for a few weeks. I am now more interested in Blender since it seems to do most of what the bigger apps do and I’m free to use it and sell work I create in the future.
Since I’m new to Blender which one should I start out learning on, 2.79 or 2.8, and why? I’ll invest in some training courses from Udemy this week but first need to know which version to learn on from scratch. Thanks for any advice.
I would say 2.8 at this point. It’s more userfriendly and also it will released in july i think so there is no huge changes planed that could break things.
Blender 2.8 is a beta that can crash, have bugs or advanced features that does not work at all.
As a new user that don’t know anything to 3D, you will not touch to advanced features and will probably not encounter bugs doing basic stuff.
Stable release of 2.80 is scheduled for this summer.
2.8 has a complete new interface with new keymap. Although it is still blender, users knowing 2.79 have to take time to retreive their marks in 2.8.
Currently 2.79 is stable release with advanced features working and available documentation.
For a beta, 2.8 have an impressive amount of addons and demos.
People are selling training courses although its UI is not stabilized.
There was a global topbar that became a topbar limited to editor area, last week.
A 2.8 build used for a tutorial produced, now, may show something that would be outdated in 2 months.
So that only make sense for people that will produce something interesting in the month they follow the courses.
For a new user with no 3D knowledge, it does not really make sense to invest efforts into learning 2.79.
But for same reason, it does not make sense to invest into courses for 2.8 before this summer.
You can take a look to online manual and free demos on blendercloud and free youtube demos until stable release.
It probably doens´t really matter. The important things to learn are the principles behind how stuff works in 3D in general and in Blender specifically.
A lot of things are the same in 3ds Max and Blender and even more things are the same in Blender 2.79 and 2.80. The only difference for most things is that the buttons are in different places.
The principles of polymodeling are the same in 3ds Max and Blender 2.79 or 2.80.
The same is true for Rendering, for Materials, Animation and Texturing.
If you have understood the fundamentals it is very easy to learn how to do them in a different tool.
Personally I´d go with 2.80 and simply read the manual from front to back while trying everything discribed in the manual. If something doesn´t work as discribed in the manual just move on to the next step as it might be a bug due it being in beta.
After doing that you are probably experinced enough that you can which next step is the best for you.
2.79 is good for begginrs. Why? There a lot of tutorials, documantations, addons and other resources that 2.8 doesn’t have yet. Stability is another point to choose 2.79 for begginer.
I’d go with 2.8. Yes it’s beta and can crash, but it’s not likely. I’m already using it almost exclusively in a production environment.
@ Spacemanjupiter …
Version 2.80 all the way my friend 
Like you I’m pretty new to Blender, was using 2.79b until very recently, and following all the tutorials on YouTube, of which there are many! Until a couple of months ago when I tried 2.80 ( early release, before the Beta versions ), the thing I noticed was, the 2.79 tutorials don’t really apply any more! There have been so many upgrades and new features in 2.80 that it’s vitually impossible to find anything anymore, all the options and buttons are in different places.
If you learn 2.79b now ( current stable release ) you will only have to re-learn everything in a few months time when Blender 2.80 is launched.
Best get acquainted with the latest version now … and as already said, as you’ll be learning the basics, it’s hardly going to crash as you’re simply testing the water and not doing anything too complicated.
The only drawback with 2.80 right now is, the lack of documentation to help you along the way ( 2.80 User Manual is in the pipeline ), and very few decent YouTube tutorials. But the YouTube videos available to you are quite basic anyway, as everybody is in pretty much the same boat!
Hope that helps mate, and good luck
TURK
Congrats on your move to Blender, I just love v2.8 more and more each day!
Being new to Blender, I’d say go straight to v2.8 since as others have stated it is way more friendly - and it really is coming together nicely.
I agree about not paying for any tutorials at this point in time since everything is in flux. I’d say eat up all the v2.8 tutorials you can find on YouTube, and practice other basic Blender tutorials, which can, in a lot of cases still be accomplished using v2.8.
If you find you have a need to use v2.79, I’d say try using the “Blender for Artists” setup which is more of a guided experience to using v2.79 (and the added benefit is they have a large amount of great tutorials which will get you comfortable with v2.79 quickly!)
Then if you’re like me, once you get comfortable with B for A, you’ll find yourself eventually wanting to go back to using v2.79 straight wo/any chaser (as you follow other v2.79 tutorials for example)…
I can’t see myself going back to v2.79, especially since all my beloved add-ons are now available in v2.8; HardOps, KitOps, BoxCutter, and DECALMachine!
Enjoy and have fun!
-Will
Why learn to use a version that is going away?? There are bugs in 2.8, but so what… there are bugs in 2.79 as well. If you are new to 3D, you will most likely not even be using the ‘buggy’ sections of the program anyway. I would stick with 2.8.
Yes go for 2.80. The switch from 2.79 and 2.80 will take extra time (at least two months) again especially if you are interested in EEVEE. Working with light, probes and baking in EEVEE is another concept (another render-engine than Cycles) in Blender 2.80. Both have cycles, only 2.80 had EEVEE.
There are enough video’s to find on YouTube and here. Better don’t invest yet. Start investing when you are sure it’s really necessary for you.
Ok thanks for all the info. I think what I will do is start with a course for learning 2.8 in and out. I already have some 2.79 courses for some specific things like fluids and modeling but I’ve heard that it isn’t all that hard to use 2.8 with some tutorials that were designed for 2.79. Might take a little F3 and googling to bridge gaps but I’ll start with 2.8 and keep using that with whatever courses I have.
Is the user interface different. I am a beginner. If they have moved the GUI around, I won’t be able to follow any tutorials.
If it is mostly the same, I would like to upgrade to 2.8. Primarily because I want to use MB-Lab 1.73.
I don’t know enough about Blender yet to require any advanced features, but if they switched up the GUI, I will be completely lost.
Anyway, I tried the MB Lab 165 in 2.79 but the documentation online is all for updated versions, so if I update blender I can use the online documentation and install MB lab 1.7.3. From what I can tell the difference between 1.6.5 and 1.7.3 is enormous, so I want to use it.
As Blender is the base program I want to learn I need it to be my priority, even if I cannot use MB Lab 1.7.3.
I need a cartoon type character and MakeHuman is just too realistic, that is the drive behind my upgrade. I want to make a troll.
It is ridiculous but I still want to see if anyone can tell me what to do about this.
Edit…
I downloaded the 1.7.3 version just now. the Readme files says it is ported to work with Blender 2.8. Does that mean I can use it on 2.79?
I mentioned that I am new, so if I start putting programs together that are not supposed to be together I could get weird errors. Then when I ask about them on forum, people won’t be able to help because I have illicitly tricked out my program.
Another problem with 2.80 is not everything is working yet. 2.79b has everything turned on. I’ve worked with both 2.79b and 2.80 and even with the stability problem, 2.80 is better. However I do not do every tyep of task that is done with blender. Another problem with using the beta is sometimes bugs are introduced during production. Sometimes there is a bug that will not get fixed for months. It would be best to use 2.79b when following the tutorials. If however you are learning on your own, then 2.80 sounds like a good idea.
Hi, if an addon is ported to 2.8 it will not work in 2.7x in most cases.
All default addons will be ported to 2.8 until release, they are maintained from Blender Foundation.
If you change from 2.7 to 2.8 it need some days to get familiar with the new UI and some more to learn the new shortcuts or add missing old ones.
As you are a newcomer don´t waist your time with 2.7.
Very helpful is the new “Quick Favorites” feature. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-2O8Wks2XY
There are many tutorials and videos for 2.8 today and all resources change to 2.8 anyway.
Save often (Ctrl+s) and keep copies of your work every few hours.
Cheers, mib
I think you’re being a bit apprehensive - take your time! Follow some simple YT tutorials and enjoy becoming more familiar with Blender.
I had dabbled for years w/Blender v2.5 to v2.7x. The SINGLE add-on that got me to finally sit down and seriously learn Blender was HardOPs! I just had to model that way!
For a whole summer, I had put down my Modo, (and Maya LT) and focused on Blender until I got comfortable.
So I can appreciate you wanting to learn MB-Lab, which I’m glad to see is being ported to Blender 2.8!
I’d say also give MakeHuman a try as well since it’s program agnostic - really nice characters can be made using that as well:
http://www.makehumancommunity.org/
The thing about Blender both v2.79 and v2.8 is, you CAN go back and forth between them once you get used to a handful of shortcuts, and some familiarity with modifiers etc.
If your main focus for now is MB-Lab, you can always create your characters in v2.79 (if the plugin works better there), and then open them in v2.8 which has the nicer user interface and experience (UI & UX).
There is also a great book on character design that helped me get comfortable with using and modeling with Blender:
https://www.amazon.com/Learning-Blender-Hands-Creating-Characters-dp-0134663462/dp/0134663462/ref=mt_paperback?_encoding=UTF8&me=&qid=
Give that book a try also to help expedite your learning Blender - highly recommended.
Have fun!
-Will