Sorry guys! I’ve been working on The Legend Team quite a bit lately, and I probably should’ve gotten a post up sooner 😛
So, I like to think of myself as an advanced user when it comes to Blender (I mean, I don’t think I’m at the level of someone like Andrew Price or Jonathan Williamson…). If you classify yourself as above my talents, (or if you ARE Andrew Price or Jonathan Williamson lol) maybe you should stop reading 😉
So, if I had a nifty time machine and could go back in time, telling myself how to proceed when it came to learning Blender, some of what I would say may be on the lines below.
So, for starters, one thing I think you should be coming to the learning process with is desire. I think to a large extent, the amount you want to learn 3D will affect how quickly you learn things. If you come with a “Let’s do this!” attitude, you may learn 3D quite rapidly (well, if you keep that attitude ;)). If you come to the table with a “Let’s get this over with…” attitude, I’d like to see the types of renderings you come up with… 😛 So, once you have the desire to learn 3D, you should learn the interface. You can take two approaches:
1. Explorer
Pressing random buttons, experimenting, and toying around may help you learn eventually… (recommended for limited/no internet access)
2. Follower
There are a ton of great tutorials online, that can get you started in a jiffy.
I think finding a balance of both is good. If you like experimenting, you may learn new things that can be hard to find on the internet. However, there may be things on the internet that you wouldn’t find easily by experimenting yourself! Also, USE REFERENCE IMAGES FOR MOST OF YOUR MODELS!!! How can I emphasize this enough. Want a good model? I would recommend getting good reference images. I may even go so far as to likening (note: most circumstances, I think sometimes just sitting down to model is ok…) sitting down without reference images to a man who sits down to write a story without an outline… I think a lot of practice is needed for bigger projects. I would not recommend modeling a sports car as a first project 😛 Don’t be too ambitious, or you could get frustrated, and don’t be too un-ambitious either (hey look, I made a UV sphere!) or you may not get anywhere fast. Ah yes, speed. Don’t expect (unless you’re really fast) any beautiful renders in five minutes. If you’re gonna model, make sure you set some time aside to do it. And don’t be frustrated if it looks like junk after the first pass. Keep on moving… Also, don’t underestimate the compositor, learn how to use it!!! You ought to find it a nice help to you. At any rate, if you apply yourself, have a good computer, and patience, I think you will go far 😉
Hope this helped you in some capacity! Questions? Anything I missed? Are you Andrew Price or Jonathan Williamson? lol. feel free to comment below.
-Stopsecret
P.S: Feel free to request a tutorial on this page: Request A Tutorial
Stopsecret Design 