I am new to Blender and would like some advice on the best way to learn how to use it properly. Here are some things I would like to learn:
Best way to draw basic items lines/shapes
Best way to create animations
How to draw buildings and floor plans
In the past, I have used SketchUp for drawing and animating things but they are pricing me out of using the tool. Here are some things to know about me:
I am retired and have not had a sponsor/client for several years
Most of what I do is for fun
I would like to be able to draw models and animate some things
I am not an artist or an architect
In the past (while using SketchUp), I have relied on the SketchUp forum for support, suggestions and sharing information I am hoping I will get that kind of participation on this forum.
I would like to know about recommended sources for materials, textures and importable assets/midels
When starting with Blender, the thing I would recommend before anything else is to watch a series for beginners. The software is big and it’s a good idea to get a general overview of the main features so you can find your way around it before focussing on your own uses.
I can recommend this one if you have never used a full 3D software similar to Blender (sketchup is quite different).
There are other beginner series out there. Lots of people start with the doughnut series (the most popular one on Youtube) and you might see it recommended, but it’s a bit too complex for a complete beginner in my opinion and I would do it as a second, more intermediate series if anything.
For materials, an easy way is to search for CC0 textures. Those are completely free (public domain) sets of textures and there are entire sites of them.
To use those materials in Blender, you need to understand how to plug them in the material editor. Here is an explanation, best watched after you know the basics.
You might also want to enable the BlendKit extension, which will give you access to a lot of wonderful free materials (and objects).
When enabled you can search for a material in the N-Panel and literally drag and drop it onto your object! Many of the materials are very good, too. (I am currently in love with the Pointiness Aged Metal material by Paco Salas. Been using it a lot.)
A point of advice: it is easy to get caught in the Blender tutorial trap. You should definitely watch the Beginner’s Guide tutorials linked to you by etn249 — you need to have a good idea of how to use the software.
Heck, I’ve been using Blender since the NaN days, and I’ve had to watch to learn how to use the modern UI (which is a definite improvement).
But don’t get sucked into watching endless tutorials about doing things. Just… make stuff. If you get stuck or want to know how to do a certain thing, then you can easily find a tutorial on YouTube to help. You can usually find fairly short and easy to understand ones too, though for some features it is worth watching a more in-depth tutorial to really understand it.
Point is, spend your time creating instead of watching tutorials or other passive “learning” stuff. The best learning is by using the software!
I want to thank you guys for your feedback. I really agree with and appreciate your comments. I have looked at several videos and feel like I am learning about the tool but still have a long way to go.
@etn249, I want you to know that I had already starting looked at the first four parts of Gabbitt’s “Blender 5 Complete Beginners Guide.” and am about ready to start Part 5. I also appreciate the link to “CCO Public Domain Textures” and the link to the “Setup Texture Maps” video. I will probably install some of them.
@Duthomhas I have also taken a look at the “BlendKit extension” link and plan on taking advantage of that also.
Again, I appreciate the responses/feedback from both of you and plan on taking advantage of your advice. I should also let you know, I have been looking at other stuff and just want to learn things (kind of one topic at a time). As an example, I have been exploring the Grease Pencil add on and learning how to use it also. At some point, I plan on learning how to animate things as well.
The early part of learning Blender can feel like you are just slowly accumulating tools. Eventually, all those tools will fit together with practice and will feel natural to use. Don’t worry if it takes you some time, it does for everyone. As long as you enjoy the learning process itself and don’t go in with pre-conceived ideas or attempt to start on a massive project before you are ready, you will make it.
A good thing at first might be to start with smaller, lower stakes projects. When you have gained the basics, make something simple that’s your own, see if you hit any roadblock or maybe try adding in something simple you haven’t learned yet.
Don’t hesitate to ask for the next steps when you are ready or if you have a specific question.
I have decided to go at this kind of slowly. I just watched the entire Part 6 without doing anything. Next, I will watch it again but go do the steps and “play” with some of the tools to try to verify that I am understanding what I am seeing and how to use the various feature.
You know what is in the instructional videos, and roughly where the information is, so if you need it go back and watch that short bit again.
Otherwise you ought to be struggling to work the tools without help. That is where the real learning happens.
SOOooooooo, my recommendation is: model something. Pick something you think would be interesting, that you might use again sometime. Model a desk, a chair, a room with doors and doorknobs and hinges. Model a little robot with wheels and stick arms. Model a TV remote. Pick something that interests you and do it.
Sure, it’ll be a relative disaster (revisiting it years later you’ll cringe), but it’ll be done! You can look at it and say “I did it!”
I understand what you are saying and appreciate your response. However, just trying to model something is what lead me to the tutorial options. I did not really know what to do and/or how to get started. I used SketchUp for several years to draw equipment for a car wash. I had no idea how to go even the basic things in Blender. I have also done some building modeling with SketchUp and again, had no idea how to do that in Blender.
Right now, I am looking at an interesting set of videos and currently concentrating on how to use some of the materials features (as an example how to make objects glow). I also have another set of videos I am working on that will wind up with a scene of an “old man”, a monster, a street, and some lighting. I think when I finish these two sets of videos, i will be at a point where I can pick a topic and venture out on my own.
I want you to know that I fully understand what you are saying, and at least somewhat agree, I feel that I needed to have some “basic” understanding of how to do things that would get me moving in the right direction. Again, I appreciate your response and feel that I am getting “much closer” to having a starting point.
Only you can judge your current readiness state. Randos on the internet can only offer their opinions. You have no obligation to explain yourself to anyone, let alone me. We just want to help, and you are perfectly free to take as much or as little from it as you wish, and we are fine with that. We’re glad you are using Blender and hope you find it rewarding. So, keep asking questions!
Just based on those words, that tutorial sounds far too advanced for where you are.
You cannot really associate your skills in SketchUp, with working in Blender. SketchUp has probably given you some good mental foundation for 3 dimensional thinking and layout, but the toolset and workflow is quite different (as you’ve noticed). Your learning approach needs to start at a lower baseline, not “model street scene that contains person and monster.”
I’m the one who suggested that tutorial series in an earlier post. If you haven’t seen it, it’s one of the easiest beginner series that’s available and it’s decently up to date. It doesn’t go into advanced modeling and does the characters with basic shapes only.
I’d suggest making objects and focus on textures later. An important thing to note is you shouldn’t model small details as I think people generally use normal maps for that.
You mentioned about drawing in SketchUp. In Blender, people don’t usually draw objects and instead use operations like scaling, bevel, extrude, etc to create objects. If you are referring to the orthographic drawings used for architecture, then I’d suggest creating those in a separate program (e.g. a drawing program like Photoshop or GIMP) and then importing them into Blender.
Regarding making buildings: I’d suggest to check out a lot of videos on making buildings in Blender. Also I would suggest watching different tutorial series first before starting them. Once you get an idea on what series fits best to what you want to do, then you should start it.
I completely understand what you are saying and i truly appreciate your response/feedback. However, you have to have a place to start. If you want to draw/model something, you need to understand some of the basic things about the software. As I mentioned before, I am going through a tutorial that is a little silly as a model, but it is teaching some basic things I need to understand.
I also just finished a 2nd set of tutorials that taught me a lot more things that I need to understand when using the basic modeling capabilities. While it is probably not where you would start, I now have some knowledge that I think will really help going forward. Again, it is kind of silly and very basic. It did give me some reasons to go off exploring some alternative features for the tools I was using. Just to give you a laugh, here is the result of this last set of tutorials.
Don’t laugh too hard but I think I learned a lot during this exercise. I am now going go back to my original set of tutorials, but I hope to use some of the things I learned in this set.
Couldn’t get it to come out as Chocolate but did change it to brown. I also did some other “messing around” to try to learn more about how to do things:
Cube - beveled the edges above the plane so that it looked a little “neater”. IMO Was basically using the bevel tool for the first time.
Ball - messed with the color a little to try to make it a little lighter.
Doughnut - messed around with the color a little. Could not get it to come out like the image you posted.
Monkey - did a little more experimenting. Wanted it to be more transparent. Did not end up exactly the way I wanted but looks a little more “glassy”. IMO
Background - made it transparent. Just had to see how that would look.
Again, all of this is just part of my learning experience. And yes, I do have a project in mind but it is going to take me some more testing/experimenting/learning to get there.
If you are going to be messing with materials and lighting, there is an important piece of info you should know about. Blender has 2 main render engines, Eevee and Cycles.
Eevee is the less accurate render engine that uses lots of trickery to get fast results, it works a lot like real-time graphics such as video games. Eevee is really fast, but limited and difficult to use and you aren’t going to fully figure it out without watching an explanation.
Cycles is the slower, but highly accurate render engine that uses the laws of optics. It works by shooting millions of light rays in the scene and bouncing them around until they add up to an image over time.
Right now, I can tell from your image that you are in Eevee. If you want predictable results, Cycles will be easier to understand and will mostly just work out of the box. Glass materials and reflections are hard to setup in Eevee and glowing objects don’t reliably emit light, but all that stuff just works in Cycles.
I should also add that the material preview mode always uses Eevee (it’s one of its reasons for existing, as a fast preview).
OK, I saved a copy of the file using Cycles. Yes, the glass is easier to make transparent. However, I am having some problems with the doughnut. I had originally wanted it to glow. I am not finding settings that let me adjust it. Can you point me int the right direction to understand this better with cycles?
BTW I really appreciate the feedback. As you can tell, I am just getting started with Blender and am not advancing quite as quickly as I was hoping. But I should also let you know that I am an older guy so sometimes it takes me a little longer to figure these things out. Blender seems to be a very powerful tool but has so many options it can be a little tricky to learn/figure out.
Should have made it brown.
