I am on a 20-hour masterclass. I just watched some parts of the video and I got to the part where I had to retopologize my character, the instructor said that it was very easy but honestly, I feel like I’m going to spend years learning it.
How do people use shader nodes? it looks too complicated for human understanding. It genuinely feels like the hardest part of any character.
How does a beginner like my overcome these?
Personally, I prefer to start with something simple and basic and build my skill gradually. Others prefer to jump in at the deep end. If you’re starting with a masterclass then perhaps you’re one of those. I guess my advice is to go back to something simpler.
Please don’t put your text in a code-block. It is insanely obnoxious to read.
Remove the [code]...[\code] wrapping your text, or the ``` from the top and bottom of your text, or the three or four spaces at the beginning of each line of your text… however you did it.
Your instructor is right — from a certain point of view.
Both things just take some time to get used to.
The only way to get comfortable with them is to just do them.
The good news is that you have a head-start: I presume your instructor took you over the basic techniques of doing both things. Don’t be afraid to mess up. That’s part of the learning process.
Don’t let worry stop you from just doing it. Save a copy of your data before starting, then the worst thing that can happen is that you’ll mess up and have to use the saved copy to start over.
Welcome to Blender!
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Well, first you’re talking about two very different things between shaders and retopo.
If you want the problem to be half simpler just focus on one area at a time…
On the overall many things in 3D aren’t straightforward, but still you can at least get the very basics.
Working with nodes on the overall is hard to grasp at fist, and expect to invest quite some time figuring this out. However this then opens a lot of door as compositing is very similar, geometry nodes also shares some concepts and many concepts are also found outside blender in corresponding applications.
So by learning compositing you also learn a bit of shading, knowing shading will help if you look into geometry nodes, so even if it’s hard it gets better with time.
My last advice is to pick your battles, focus on one area of interest at a time and learn only the very basics of others. Keep in mind that this stuff takes time. Most talented artists have years of experience and constant learning. 3D isn’t something you’ll figure out in 20 hours, but with a step by step attitude everything is approachable !
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Just as everyone else does learn things.. step by step. 
Or.. could you read and write in the first class ?? 
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Please don’t put your text in a code-block. It is insanely obnoxious to read.
This
20 hour masterclass?
Is it taught by a guru?
Learning 3d is not easy. 20 years maybe.
Read the forums, look at other people’s nodes.
Practise.
Hope that helps.
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It may at first. Don’t worry about it. Just use them for simple things and then you might need more complicated stuff in time and then you learn bit by bit and after a few years even most advanced stuff is OK.
Also: Please, don’t use code tags for regular text. That’s extremely inconvenient to read.
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When an instructor calls retopology “very easy”, they only mean the tools are mechanically simple—you are just extruding and snapping quads—not that figuring out edge flow is intuitive on your first try. It feels like it will take years to learn because jumping from freeform sculpting to strict technical constraints is a massive mental shift. The secret is realizing that character retopology isn’t an open-ended puzzle you have to invent from scratch. Every humanoid character follows the exact same solved blueprint: you lay down five or six foundational loops first (closed rings around the eyes and mouth, the mask loop, the line from the nose around the chin, and simple cylinders for the limbs) and then just bridge the gaps between them. Keep a color-coded facial topology diagram open next to your viewport and trace those main loops like paint-by-numbers until the pattern becomes muscle memory.
Shader nodes look too complicated for human understanding only when you stare at a giant procedural graph all at once. For actual character work, you almost never build massive math webs from scratch; ninety percent of the time, you are just plugging four baked texture maps (Base Color, Roughness, Normal, and Subsurface) straight into a single Principled BSDF node. When you do combine nodes, stop thinking of them as code and treat them like 2D image layers: a Mix node is just two layers with a blend mode, a ColorRamp is a Levels slider, and black-and-white connections are just layer masks. Turn on the Node Wrangler add-on and Ctrl + Shift + Left Click any node to preview what it does directly on your model—nobody reads a complex node tree in their head all at once, we just inspect it one step at a time.
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there are no horrors.
there are workflows you have not learned about how to use.
it might take [some] time, but the more you explore, the more enjoyable your journey will be.
happy 
ing!
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Without knowing which one, I can’t comment on whether it’s suitable for a beginner.
But speaking generally: a 20 hour class doesn’t mean that it will take you 20 hours to learn how to effectively use tools and workflows on a daily basis with ease. Some of these things may take you weeks and months to feel comfortable with; it’s a long process of study and practice, trial and error.
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Thanks for the reply
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Much appreciated. How is your experience with blender
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excellent [coming from alias then maya times, leaving this area of work for seventeen years then somewhat back into it, beginning again with v3.6.x].
happy ing!
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Okay. NIce. Blender is really interesting and nice to use
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Shader nodes have levels of complexity. You can choose to use only the easy parts at first, then build from there if you want once you understand the very basics. The basics are easy, but there is no ceiling to complexity.
You will find people doing crazy stuff in shaders with loads of math and making super complex effects. Don’t let those examples make you think you need to be at that level, the most basic parts are the most important.
I don’t know how much the course you are following tells you about shaders. I usually recommend this explanation, it covers the most important parts and is not really difficult.
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Thank for the valuable information. Highly appreciated.
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So sorry about that
Don’t be intimidated by shading nodes, they’re just little boxes with options that take something in, do something with it, and spit it out to the next node. They’re extremely simple individually, and if you right click any of the nodes, you can select the ‘online manual’ option to find out what all the options are for. The video below will help you too 
23 Viewport Rendering Lighting And Materials
Retopo on the other hand, yes that’s pretty hardcore. You would be forgiven for using Exoside Quadremesher or similar to do it for you when possible 
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FWIW: I don’t believe i"ve ever used retopo on anything.
It’s completely optional, and if you learn some basic modeling skills you may not even need to.
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It’s gonna be compulsory for me because I want my character to move.
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