I was just reading trough the Mod tech preview post and realized that many poeple put down blender because unless someon shows it to them they never get to see it in action or to its full capacity or what is capable of doig. most of the time when they are shown render the answer is always about the skll of the artist but they don;t see how blender makes it possible. I was thinking if for next release maybe the community could make a series of screencast where the new features are shown off like the sculpting tools and sky systems. I am not great at using blender but I was wondering if anyone would b einterested. I was tihnking that we can use capitotials.com or I can host thme myself or maybebittorent, but I would ike to know wha tothers think.
theres some already at youtube
just show enough people, and it will be sweet. i have already warmed 20 or more people to it, even if they will not use it themselves, they will know it and accept it.
Alltaken
For GNU/Linux users, you might want to take a look at the ‘Istanbul’ tool. (For Ubuntu users, you can get it using Add/Remove.) It’s a very simple (as in easy to use) screen recording tool. Note that the output it produces seems to work OK on Google Video, but not YouTube. Here’s a very rough sample:
You mean Blender should be packaged like Maya and 3ds Max with the start up video tutorials, showing the different aspects of the software like, modeling, transforming, texturing, lighting and animation?
That would increase the customer friendliness packaging but that would also increase the download time of Blender software IF these video tutorials were to be hard coded into the Blender software.
I suppose it could be made as an optional download for the user separate from the actual program itself. That way the download time of Blender software is kept at minimum.
Wolf,
I don’t think a full set of tutorials is meant here by the screencast, just a sizeable video showing the highlights of the new release. Not just focusing on the end result but on the way-to-get-there. A bit like the demo .blend file showing o all the latest goodies in the gaming engine but directly in movie format.
Having said that, I think you mentioned an advantage Blender has over the commercial ‘competition’. They have to provide a “package” every now and then which then acts as baseline until the next official release occurs… Blender can add things piecemeal & customized (special builds for special needs: PoV, Particles, Sculpt) waiting for the ‘official’ Blender release (which itself is on a much more aggressive timeline that the others) So any tutorials would not need to be packaged with Blender, everything is optional (Video tuts, material libs, premade rigs,…) Of course there are definite downsides to this like the lack of consistancy, the lack of a real pluggable library system (shift-F1 is not exactly fantastic and Pythoin scripts can be a pain) etc
The solution is just one click away - read the release logs.
I mean videos tha tjust show the new features. I know there are changelog but if you want to promote blender you can’t tell people in cgtalk or others read the chagelog. I know ther eare beginner tutorial for blender but the question most ask. Why should I learn Blender? Why should I use Blende rover product X? This is the same question that other packges have to answer to get a user base (Modo, Maya,etc…) If we show what Bldner bring to the table other will be more wiling to lear for example when modo 2.42 was released some people would said oh I can do that in X or Y package when the true was that some things were exclusive to Blender. For example when the fluid feature cmae out I did not use it until I saw the video frm Bldenr Sigrpah presentations then Iw a sable to see how to use it and just wha tit is capable of.
I guess to dot his we would need someone who is capable of using the new features like sculting.
OO! Videos that show all of the release logs in action
Modo style videos would be nice to have and would indeed help to show off features. We could find a few experienced users that can do this then submit them to the Blender website.
Yeah something lke that bu perhaps better qualioty and some audio or text would be nice. I am thinking that maybe we sohuld make a list of the videos needed what each vidoe sohuld show and maybe then we cna start taking volunteers.