I hope I can actually stay on topic with this one, because I’m VERY angry!
Not with you guys, I wish the whole world was a community like Blender Artists…
Anyway, I just can’t hold it and I feel it poisoning me, so I thought it’s better to share it.
I’m 15 and I live in Greece. In high school, with the new educational system, we have to do projects, and I was quite looking forward to it, because my 3D and Video Editing experience would give my team an advantage.
So, after just a weekend, I go to school with my half finished and with a lot of mistakes intro, to show my progress.
The topic is “History of Cinema and the most influential movies”, and this was it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7Rgx9AoIvo
(The dislike is from a friend, he’s just kidding…)
When I showed it to the professor, he said: “Wow, very nice, where did you find it!?!?!?”
Me: “I created it from scratch using 3D software”
Professor: “Can you show the rest of us how you did it, so that other kids can do it to?”
That was one of the dumbest questions I’ve been asked.
I had to paitiently explain to him that I’ve been doing it for 3 years and that it takes a lot of time to learn how to create anything…
After that, some of my classmates saw it and they got angry! A whole other team was looking at me with envy for the whole hour! And while they were watching it, they were saying things like: “Oh, that’s not difficult!”, or “It’s simple really”. I just told them “Do it yourselves…”
After that, three of my team-members attacked me because I told the other team that I used Blender, like if they knew the name of the software they could do it as well! Like if it was easy and I just pressed a button to create everything! They didn’t talk to me the rest of the day!
The most annoying thing about this is that the “best” students were really jealous. They think that because their parents pay teachers and talk to professors and generally help them to get good marks, that I, who I get lower marks, I’m sort of stupid! They think that everything I do must be easy, because I do it and not them!
How can people be so stupid? I’m no genius myself, but I’m annoyed by stupidity!
How do you explain to other people what you do?
How do you make them see that it’s an art? That it’s difficult?
P.S.: I hope this is not going to be deleted it or something, I’m not sure how relevant it is even with the off-topic category…
If everything in the world was easy…we’d all be rocket scientists or something. LOL
My temptation is to tell you that haters are going to hate. But, somehow that just doesn’t sound right to me…even though it’s true.
I would take it as a sign of respect…Hey, show them the program. If they can do it, which they can’t, then…they’ll know something new. Personally, I’ve always been willing to show people whatever I know. I think it makes me seem like a nicer person, even though I really just want to tell people to leave me alone…and buy my stuff. LOL
I’ve been doing graphics for years, and 3D for a little over a year. So, when I see stuff like that…I just want to figure out how you did it. 
Unfortunately, I think you are describing a growing problem in the world. Everybody wants everything for free. But, nothing worth having in life ever is free.
I’ll tell you this though…Keep going and when you’re my age, 43, then see where you are. I bet you’ve made a bunch of movie in the movie industry. Good work and keep going.
Hey
That’s never happened to me before and I would actually take parts of it as compliments. Here is the solution: show them how you did it, give them the computer and tell them to do it without any help from you or anything else. Or you could get them to make something else from scratch and then when they can’t you make it and then they might be able to respect what you do.
And to explain it’s art show them the forum gallery.
I hate it when people see something good and think, oh, yeah, I could do that and that they will never have to practice or anything. I have only been using Blender for a few months and when I see something like this I still think ‘WOW, how did they do that’
Thank you for your replies.
The problem is that if I give them my computer with Blender opened, what they will do is left click XD…
Very impressed to hear of a 15yr old so obviously into anything. I’d take this as an opportunity to make friends. Maybe even make some extra money. Offer to give lessons on the side. I have a hard time explaining to ppl what I do in blender too. I usually just tell them its sorta like Toy Story or making a video game.
Everything is easy to someone who does not understand it.
the story is funny! … very nice work btw…
Kid… people your age aren’t mature. They don’t know how to interpret what they are feeling and they act out in peculiar ways. They form cliques and think their position in life (which is mainly based on their parents rather than themselves) is somehow the way things are supposed to be. You are fifteen and so are your classmates? The bad news is that their behavior will get a lot worse in the next few years.
You can’t do anything about your classmates. Learn how to tolerate them.
You can’t do much about your teammates. Learn how to work with them.
You can pick your friends. Be discriminating, and pick people who support you and you can support in return.
Well, 3D really can be a hard thing to understand and explain in part because there is so much terminology involved in the process from idea to final image. Terms like…
Polygon
Modeling
Texturing
Shading
Lighting
Global Illumination
Diffuse
Specular
Raytracing
Sampling
Progressive rendering
Convergence
Noise
Post-Pro
Compositing
Layers
Ngons
UV
Unwrap
ect…
That’s not to say that other students have the right to attack you and trash you just because you said something that they don’t fully grasp (what kind of virtues do they teach in the Greek school system anyway?), but as I can say from experience, the process of 3D is not just something you can explain without devoting an entire lecture’s worth of teaching.
I know the feel, I used my 3D ‘skills’ in school as well, at one point I had everyone staring at me (not fun) half the class had to move so they could see ~3~If I recall I was making a house at the time… (eh, this addition is off-topic, whatever) It didn’t even turn out well (I was challenging myself to see if I could create a house in less than 30 minutes (interior and exterior) it turned out fairly decent albeit featureless)
Actually, I didn’t know what convergence was XD Now I do…
Well said, I concur.
It’s not everyone’s cup of tea that blender is for sure.
Wiser than your years you are padawan.
This is sorta like how it happens with games, people ask “what language did you use to make that” as if that is all you need to know to make a game.
With rare exceptions, the tool doesn’t make the artist (often, when the tool matters more than the user’s artistic talent, the real artist is actually who came up with the tool in the first place).
There are a lot of assholes in the world. There are some nice people too. It is not easy telling them apart, and people sometimes act different in different circumstances. Like with pretty much everything else, you should hope for the best, but be prepared for the worst.
Another factor in what happened though, is most people are used to stupid “wizards” where they just have to keep clicking “next” to get something done without them even needing to understand why each step is being done.
Well, as it turned out, the professor got so interested that he actually downloaded Blender and watched some videos, so, now he knows how difficult it really is… He also showed my videos to the whole class!
My teamates showed some more respect and like the idea of the video.
It also helped that I got a 20 in geometry while a specific classmate who tried to diminish my efforts got 18.5. hehe
Now I also have to create some posters for the Comenius project. It’s project that involves schools from 5 different countries doing ,what else, a project. The best poster wins something, dunno what…
Thank you for your replies, they really helped…
They win the pride of accomplishing something and winning!!
Well I’m 16 and I think I’ve been having kind of similar experience.
I mentioned blender to a few friends and they talked me into talking about it in front of the whole class with a slideshow… (when I had the opportunity).
99% of the people didn’t understand since I mentioned the word “polygon” :).
The difference is that they somehow don’t give a shit / aren’t picking up on me because of it…
And when they actually asked me what’s so interesting, I gave them my character and turned on proportional editing, and they’re having fun with making my characters penis bigger, or ading boobs :)…
Keep doing what you like… They’re the ones who should be ashamed for being just a sheeps in a crowd… 
If the audience doesn’t understand what is being presented, then it is up to the presenter to deliver the material in a way they understand. This is an important part of delivering information - to know your audience. Instead of using the word polygon, you need to use something common - a triangle - then work from there. If you talk above their understanding, they will lose interest.
It’s good that your teacher’s downloaded Blender and shown the class that it is harder than it looks, now it might earn you some more respect. I think it was Orinoco that said you can pick your friends so if they still give you a bit of hassle, don’t be friends with them simple. I’m in secondary school and non of my friends understood (well some of them still don’t) CG but then I got two of them to download blender and I taught them the basics. So you could get a couple of your friends to download Blender, teach them a bit and then you and them could pass on ideas and stuff and help each other. Could work.
Good luck with the poster!