Where to Start.....?

Support Basics & Interface
1

As you might know from my previous posts, I’m totally new to 3D. Heck, I can’t even draw!! But there is a method to this madness (or means to an end, or what-not…), despite this, I still have many ideas for ships, movies, etc. that need to be released…and led, etc; if you know what I mean.

So my question is, since tutorials are scattered here and there, and there doesn’t seem to be any one perfect book (the Blender 2.3 guide seems to be just slightly out-of-date; no offense).

Sure, I could check out the wiki, and the tutorial list, and I’ve done that. But can anyone suggest a plam, I dunno, something? There doesn’t seem to be a complete list of tutorials, and I understand that, Blender is a complicated program overseen by a community effort, so I understand that everything’s not perfect. But, like I said, a plan or something would be nice, for Blenderhead wanabees like myself. I have the Blender 2.3 manual, and I intend on printing out the wiki tutorials and such, and reading the documentation, but if anyone can suggest something, or a place with more completed tutorials, that would be nice.

I watched part of the Blender 2005 conference thingy, and training dvds were mentioned, this would be great, especially for guys like me who need to overcome their lazyness struggle…

Thanks in advance, LC

P.S.: Someone should write a Blender Bible for the next book on Blender, which would probably be Blender 2.4; when is that coming out anyway?

2

Ok, well its hard to tell somebody perhaps what they should do especially in this broad of an area. If you’ve checked out and done pretty much every tutorial from the list at the top of this forum I have some suggestions:

-Start doing things on your own
-Do tutorials from other software

Both have one main goal- application. By applying what you’ve learned is the only way to ever retain it and improve upon it. Think about school:
You learn addition in the first grade. You go home and do homework on it and by 3rd grade your doing it in your head. You learn algebra in seventh grade. You do homework on it that you could not have completed had you not understood 1st grade. You go to Trig and Calculus. You do your homework there which you could not have done without 1st or seventh grade.

See everything builds on the fact that you’ve applied and retained simpler concepts. Doing things on your own and tutorials from other software ensures that you retain and build upon the basic blender tutorials. The nice thing is you can go look what you need back up, which helps you retain stuff even more.

As frustrating as it may be, experimenting in blender is the best thing you can do.

3

I started fiddling with blender more than a year ago. I did the tutorials on the blender website. The gingerbread one is a great way to learn many things

I only bought the 2.3 guide after several months to learn more and have a hard copy which i could physically handle (Its kinda easier to work with the book open in front of you and blender on your screen rather than alt tabing all the time and also because i wanted to support the foundation :D)

The best way to learn is to play around with blender, blend blend and blend on!. PRactice makes perfect. Dont expect to achieve incredible results at first though, and there are a lot of tutorials out there too!

Good luck :smiley:

4

Seeing as how Blender 2.4 is now Beta, I don’t think it’ll be too long (although I admit, I don’t know what the average release cycle for Blender releases are).

Regarding learning, I find it easier to learn through trial&error. However, Blender is so complex/different from what you may be used to, that it makes learning the interface and stuff through trial&error impractical. If you have a fast enough connection (you need to download a some 100 MB), I suggest going here. Those Video Tutorials helped me learn the basics of Blender. They, together with some other Video Tutorials that you can find, should help you get so far that you’ll be able to use Google and these forums to learn new features.

I’ve only been using Blender seriously for 3 days now, and I know my way around it pretty well, considering the short amount of time spent.

5

Blender Basics Classroom Tutorial Book:
http://www.cdschools.org/54223045235521/blank/browse.asp?A=383&BMDRN=2000&BCOB=0&C=55205

This book in pdf format is a good starting point, although not 100 % up to date. You can find all changes in the past Blender releases here:
http://www.blender.org/cms/Releaselogs.34.0.html

6

Great! Thanks a lot guys. And yeah, I have absolutely no exerience with other 3D apps; aside from fiddling around with Milkshape, Anim8or, and GMAX. (Ok, I suppose by experience I mean accomplishments; but I just fiddlede around with them, and never really made any progress.)

Thanks for everything! And by the way, does anyone know if they are seriously considering making training dvds? That would be the best; not to say I’m going to wait for that though…

Thanks again, LC