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Blender Tests and Impressions


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4 minutes ago, hvanderwegen said:

To expand on the earlier discussion how for example studios contribute back to the community and Blender's development:

 

Ubisoft switched to Blender for their upcoming feature-length TV animation. It is an interesting insight in their workflow.

 

More importantly, the studio developed a real-time collaboration tool called 'Mixer' which allows artists to remotely work simultaneously in real-time on a scene! They made that available to the community.

 

https://www.blender.org/user-stories/blender-and-the-rabbids/?utm_source=www-homepage

Yea, that one is crazy, I ve seen that before. 

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It was a stroke of genius to introduce the "LTS" (Long Term Support) version of Blender. It gives much more stability to the software, in particular for studios which seek that level of continued support.

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On 6/20/2021 at 4:03 AM, contrafibbularities said:

What I find a big turn-off in Blender actually is Blender tutorials. That's one thing that kept me from taking a closer look at Blender for a while. People speed-talking and throwing 20 abstract shortcust in your face in under 10 seconds and calling it a tutorial. Sometimes I think it is not so much the fact that Blender is indeed different and more complicated to learn than other 3D applications, but rather the way a lot of people teach Blender that makes it a lot harder for the average Joe to learn it. Especially if you're completely new to 3D. By comparison, C4D tutorials, both free and commercial, tend to be a lot better and easier to understand. 

 

I totally agree with Igor. I am taking a different approach to learning Blender, too, that is not necessarily based on how other people do it. Recently I saw a video on YouTube by a guy who uses it in a completely different way that is almost entirely based on pie menues instead of shortcuts. He completely changed Blender with a pie menu add-on to adjust it to his needs. And like Igor I am piecing things together from a ton of educational sources, trying to combine things to create my own workflow in Blender. Sure, that isn't super easy or super fast, but I too think it'll pay off in the long run. How you go about learning something is key to learning it. Having a background and some experience helps a lot because you can go about it in a different way and also avoid mistakes that I made when I first started learning 3D. 

 

Cheers,

Wolf3D

Wolf,

 

There is a lot you said there that I agree with. I laughed at your comments about trueSpace.  What a pile of crap and the way Caligari went under in the end (remember proTeam) really biased me against all subscription programs.

 

Relative to learning multiple programs, my struggle is finding the time as this is a hobby for me after all and not a full time vocations.  But with that said, the cost of the Udemy Blender 2.8/2.9 Encyclopedia just dropped in price again from $23.99 to $16.99 so I am probably going to purchase it.   I think Blender 3.0 is going to create a much stronger attraction for me as I hear more about some of the UI changes.  Personally, I hate learning via short cuts because I find I am always stopping the tutorial, rewinding 10 seconds, and listening to pick up that short cut again.   I feel like yelling at the instructor: "Yeah!  We know you are an expert!  Stop showing off and slow down!"

 

My wife, a high school advance calculus math teacher, told me that there are various learning styles and tested me to find out which style I learn best with.  I am a visual learner...I need to see it...so verbal shortcuts in a tutorial are barriers for me.  Modo tutorials also use a lot of verbal shortcuts and I think that prevented me from going further with the program (that and their whole object paradigm which for the life of my I still can not understand).  I do agree that C4D tutorials tend to be more "show" than "tell".

 

Oddly, as my time is limited, I tend to do most of my learning while working out on the exercise bike early each morning 4 days a week.  When Covid hit and the gyms closed, we canceled our gym membership, purchased an Echelon bike, some weights, a squat rack, and a 50 inch 4K internet enabled TV for the basement.  Set up a high-speed ethernet over powerline connection to the TV and now I can stream YouTube and purchased tutorials to watch while working out (thankfully 50 inch 4K TV's are pretty cheap because that is the only way to see the UI while on the bike).   The remote is attached to bike so I can rewind and repeat really interesting sections.   Something about just watching the tutorial, taking it all in rather than stopping and repeating the commands on my PC really help me internalize what I need to know.  While I may not exactly remember every single step, I do remember what needs to be done but more importantly (especially if it is good tutorial), the purpose, approach and the reasons behind it.  Also, once the technique is internalized, I also remember the tutorial it came from in case  I need a refresher while at the PC.    46 hours of Blender Encyclopedia training being streamed from Udemy may be the way to go for me to learn Blender.

 

I do feel that there will be a point in the future when the technology of all these programs catches up to each other and there is not that much to distinguish one program from another in terms of features, stability or ease-of-use.  At that point, the annual subscription or perpetual license costs will no longer be able to be cost justified.  In short, the changes/improvements will get less and less each year as time goes on but the upgrade/subscription costs will stay the same.  It will be at that point I move to Blender.

 

Dave

Sorry...but I simply do not have enough faith to be an atheist.

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32 minutes ago, 3D-Pangel said:

My wife, a high school advance calculus math teacher, told me that there are various learning styles and tested me to find out which style I learn best with.

What is the secret behind that, I think all would benefit from knowing this? 🙂 

 

33 minutes ago, 3D-Pangel said:

I do feel that there will be a point in the future when the technology of all these programs catches up to each other and there is not that much to distinguish one program from another in terms of features, stability or ease-of-use.

That's why you are seeing subscriptions at this point.

 

Apple have this issue where they don't sell much phones these days because each year they become better and better and at some point there is simply no need to change it as its already very good. And costs are not justified. I have my iPhone X for more than 2y now and I still have no reason to change it as it does everything I need perfectly. Even a battery is still decent.

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1 hour ago, 3D-Pangel said:

My wife, a high school advance calculus math teacher, told me that there are various learning styles and tested me to find out which style I learn best with.  I am a visual learner...I need to see it...so verbal shortcuts in a tutorial are barriers for me.  Modo tutorials also use a lot of verbal shortcuts and I think that prevented me from going further with the program (that and their whole object paradigm which for the life of my I still can not understand).  I do agree that C4D tutorials tend to be more "show" than "tell".

 

I can somewhat relate to that. Over the years I've noticed that just watching a tutorial does absolutely nothing for me. I HAVE to do it myself, and if I stumble along the way that's even better, because then I have to find a solution myself and learn something in the process.

This is also the reason why I can't do long video tutorials; my mind just wanders and the second I see something cool I just want to do it myself. I've always been a "learning by doing" kind of guy which unfortunately for some things (including 3D) is the slowest and hardest way to learn something. I'm also prone to getting used to workflows in the "wrong" kind of way, meaning not using best practices.

Visit my Portfolio on Artstation.com & Follow me on Instagram

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My own learning path with Houdini is looking like this. In the morning when I woke up I would watch first an hour or two of tutorials as I get up pretty early, around 4. Then after I would take a nap until around 10 and do my day to day job which is luckly for now my home office. Then after I am done with work, I would work on the mini projects and explore what I have learn so far and try different things and see where I stand. After few hours of I would then go to bed and watch tutorials until I am feeling ready to sleep. Once I turn off all distractions and light then I would start thinking about what I have done today, seen in the tutorials and try to find ways in my mind how to connect them or try different things, or how would I approach to an issue I stumbled upon and simply trying to resolve it in my head and then try the solutions I was thinking of they next day. That I must admit works like a charm. I have resolved so many issue like that and it feels great as my mind doesn't wonder and think about anything negative, its quite fun having these exercises before falling a sleep. :cowboypistol:

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3 hours ago, Igor said:

What is the secret behind that, I think all would benefit from knowing this? 🙂 

This is not what my wife used to test me, but I think it may help.  I just searched for "What type of learner am I", and this site came up.  To validate that the site actually does what it says, I took the test and it confirms I  am a visual learner.  Only 20.6% of the population are visual learners.

 

It also said  that all visual learners are good looking, good natured, trust worthy and have a fine set of six-pack abs.  Yes....I can definitely vouch for the accuracy of that test. 😄

 

Dave

Sorry...but I simply do not have enough faith to be an atheist.

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35 minutes ago, 3D-Pangel said:

...

 

It also said  that all visual learners are good looking, good natured, trust worthy and have a fine set of six-pack abs.

Being a visual learner myself, that last quote should ring quite a lot of alarm bells and raise red flags ... definitely a scam-website 😉

... I don't even have a six-pack in the fridge.

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2 hours ago, Igor said:

My own learning path with Houdini is looking like this. In the morning when I woke up I would watch first an hour or two of tutorials as I get up pretty early, around 4. Then after I would take a nap until around 10 and do my day to day job which is luckly for now my home office. Then after I am done with work, I would work on the mini projects and explore what I have learn so far and try different things and see where I stand. After few hours of I would then go to bed and watch tutorials until I am feeling ready to sleep. Once I turn off all distractions and light then I would start thinking about what I have done today, seen in the tutorials and try to find ways in my mind how to connect them or try different things, or how would I approach to an issue I stumbled upon and simply trying to resolve it in my head and then try the solutions I was thinking of they next day. That I must admit works like a charm. I have resolved so many issue like that and it feels great as my mind doesn't wonder and think about anything negative, its quite fun having these exercises before falling a sleep. :cowboypistol:

 

Sounds like you quite literally immersed yourself in Houdini. Interesting!

Visit my Portfolio on Artstation.com & Follow me on Instagram

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16 hours ago, 3D-Pangel said:

It also said  that all visual learners are good looking, good natured, trust worthy and have a fine set of six-pack abs. 😄

 

Dave

Dave, from your stout posts, I've always imagined you as one of those guys who could show up on an info commercial at age 50, & flex those monster abs that embarrass the younger crowd. 

 

Now...before you lose all tone... get to it! Drop and give us 20! Hit those Blender videos! We are all eager for your feedback!

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I purchased the Blender Encyclopedia and so far am quite impressed with the course. It truly is an Encyclopedia that mixes both step-by-step training with individual training at the tool level.  They also explain each node of Cycles and Eevee.    Plus, if streaming at 1080P does not work for you, you can download each course which fits right into my workout set-up as the TV I use does have a USB port in the back which can be used as a source.  I also "hear" that they will update some courses with each major release as it was called the 2.8 Encyclopedia but they also say it covers 2.9 as well.

 

Overall, it is a pretty good reference for $16.99 (normally $103 after 6/23/21). 

 

Now the disappointing news.  I do NOT have a set of 6-pack abs.  If you think I do, you are confusing me with Hrvoje.  I mean, I am 60 years old after all and while I think I am doing pretty good for my age, I am still completely invisible to all should I walk the beach....and I am at peace with that.

 

Dave

Sorry...but I simply do not have enough faith to be an atheist.

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3 hours ago, 3D-Pangel said:

Overall, it is a pretty good reference for $16.99 (normally $103 after 6/23/21). 

 

Is it just a "reference", or would you suggest this for absolute Blender-beginners (not 3D-beginners)?

I might be tempted to look into Blender if this encyclopedia does provide a helping hand. I know, there are quite enough tutorials available, but as you seem to like it, it might as well fit my needs too.

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