Starting a kid on blender via GE?

Game Engine Game Engine Support and Discussion
1

Hi folks, I’d like to get my friend’s kid started in blender. He’s about 12, and not really savvy about this kind of stuff, he doesn’t really understand the mechanism of 3D modeling and animation.

However, as a kid he plays videogames, of course. I told him about how he can make his own games with this “free game development software” which of course piqued his interest. So I thought coming in through the GE might be a good way to get his feet wet, but I’m not sure if it might be the best place to start. As a kid, of course, the thought of being able to make his own videogames certainly had his eyebrows up. :slight_smile:

The thing is, I’m not sure how to go about getting him properly started on this. I saw the blender gamekit 2 book, but I don’t think that would be the first place he would need to go, is it? Or does this book assume you already have familiarity with blender?

I don’t want to overload him with stuff, I want him to be able to absorb an intelligent knowledge path to understanding the mechanisms behind what he sees and plays with on his PC and iPod Touch.

I myself don’t really have blender down all that well yet, and although I can be of help with my own understanding of modeling and animation, I’d like to point him towards resources he can access on his own, at his leisure.

I know there’s all sorts of tutorials here and over at blender3d, but as a kid who’s coming in on this cold, I would like some suggestions on what resources he can review, blender related or not, online or in print, that will build his foundation and knowledge base. I think starting him on little digestible tidbits of information will help him to start snowballing his understanding of it all.

Any suggestions on this is greatly appreciated. Thank you.

2

Buy the new Gamekit book. It’s a good introduction to all things 3D and gaming

3

I started with http://www.realityfactory.info/cms/

Its not straight forward making players and stuff but there’s a good tutorial which takes you all the way through making a game if you know nothing about the software here http://forum.realityfactory.info/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=443. Gives you a good basis of how computer games work. You can make a game where something tries to shoot you in less than a minute when you know what your doing.

On the other hand there is the old Blender Game Kit available here http://download.blender.org/documentation/gamekit1/ . Its for an older version of Blender but a lot of the knowledge is still OK and it takes you through making different games. New Game kit is available to buy from Blender.org

Blender Games Engine is excellent but I think you might have to learn too much at once.You could start him learning to 3D model in blender as a separate excercise. I moved on to Blender when wanted to make more adventuous things.

4

Buying the gamekit is the best thing. Kids are like sponges, If you get him programming now he will become very talented!

5

Thanks for your replies. The reality factory stuff looks very interesting. Hopefully going the GE route won’t take the focus away “from the prize”, so to speak, which is to learn 3D modeling with blender. I’m not familiar with RF, so I will assume you could integrate stuff made in blender or any other modeler into it.

6

I started blender when I was 11, I started developing applications and making homebrew when I was 10. I made crappy html sites when I was 8? So that goes to show as someone said kids are like sponges. Unfortunately a lot of people weren’t kids when they came out with crazy technology, I’m glad I was young.