Blender Help, Forums And Tutorial Links

[Lobo3433]

I wrote this tutorial in hopes that it might offer something new to consider when using Blender. I am sure some of you might already be running something similar to this with in your own work or production environments. But maybe many new to Blender might not be aware that running Multiple Blender Instances is possible. Since the actual PDF is to large to upload here you can find it here Multiple Blender Instances - PDF Tutorial - ShareCG I do welcome both positive and negative input hoping to be adding more tutorials soon

 

[Miss B]

Oh you know Lobo, I meant to tell you to come over here and post it when I read your post over at Renderosity. Glad to see you didn't need the prompting.

 

[Lobo3433]

Smile my pleasure I am hoping to get into more writing of tutorials since I tend to like written one a bit more than video there are a couple I am looking at to do after the holidays

 

[Miss B]

Oh I'm the same. I much prefer written tutorials than videos, so thanks in advance.

 

[Pendraia]

Welcome to the Hive Lobo...tutorials are always useful. I mainly use Zbrush these days but every now and then I attempt to learn Blender...it normally ends with my brains melted though.

 

[Miss B]

Yes, Blender takes time, and patience. It took me quite a while, probably over a year, to even feel slightly comfortable with it, and that was back when it had a horrifying UI. At least since version 5.4 (I think) it has the current, more sophisticated UI. You just need to take little steps, and finally it all clicks into place.

Of course, I don't do any animation, or even final scene renders, in Blender, so I only use it for modelling and UV Mapping.

 

[Lobo3433]

Hi Pendraia I actually been around for a while Miss B will hopefully vouch for me lol Blender uise to be allot hard to grasp when it was 2.49 starting with 2.5 and the major UI change it has become easier to learn there is still a learning curve but the main components to learning Blender is getting to know your Hotkeys that will in the long run vastly help you in learning Blender Andrew Price updated his free hotkey sheet that I add to this post and would be more than happy to help when ever someone gets stuck on something. I just got ZbrushCore to get me started before I make the full jump to Zbrush

 

[Miss B]

Oh yes, I can vouch for Lobo. He's the moderator of the Blender forum over at R'osity, and has been helpful to me more than once.

As for the Hotkeys, that's one of the things I love about Blender. I love using Hotkeys while I work, in fact, hated having to get used to using a mouse with my first Windows computer. I was so used to using the keyboard shortcuts to do anything I wanted back in the days of my DOS based computer. Hopefully you'll find them useful too Pen.

 

[Pendraia]

No need for someone to vouch for you...; )

I have tried Blender periodically since it first came out. Every now and then I'll get all enthusiastic and give it another try. Last time I did manage to actually do something in there by religiously following a tutorial so who knows, maybe one day. At the moment I love Zbrush...I was lucky enough to pick it up cheap at Daz through the platinum club many years ago. This latest release is my favourite though.

 

[eclark1894]

No need for someone to vouch for you...; )

I have tried Blender periodically since it first came out. Every now and then I'll get all enthusiastic and give it another try. Last time I did manage to actually do something in there by religiously following a tutorial so who knows, maybe one day. At the moment I love Zbrush...I was lucky enough to pick it up cheap at Daz through the platinum club many years ago. This latest release is my favourite though.

I'm no Blender guru or expert, but if I can help you, just ask.

 

[Pendraia]

Thanks Earl...next time I give it a go I'll be sure to ask.

 

[Miss B]

Last time I did manage to actually do something in there by religiously following a tutorial so who knows, maybe one day.

That's exactly how I learned. I just kept trying tutorials, and eventually, if you do something often enough, you get to remember it, and then do it automatically, so it becomes less of a trial and error.

 

[eclark1894]

Just stay away from the speed tutes.

 

[Pendraia]

Thanks...speed tutorials or videos are only good if you already have a certain level of knowledge...I've seen that with Zbrush.

 

[Miss B]

Very true. I saw links to tutorials I wanted to try, and then was disappointed, as they were only "concepts" of how to accomplish something; not the actual steps.

 

[eclark1894]

There's one that I'm addicted to by someone named "Blenderella". I've watched it so many times and I've managed to suss out some of the things she's doing, but not all.

 

[Miss B]

What's the topic, and where can we find it?

 

[eclark1894]

This is one of them. She is using the female mesh as a base, but she did make the female figure in the first place from scratch.

 

[Miss B]

Oh, this should be interesting, as I've never found it easy to do clothing in Blender. I've had much better success with clothing in Silo.

 

[kobaltkween]

Just to say, while it's easier to use Blender if you know the hotkeys, you don't have to. I began in 2.4x just using menus for everything but extruding, translating, and rotating. It's even easier now. Hotkeys are convenient, but most of what you'll want to do will be in the 3D window under Object in Object mode and Select and Mesh in Edit mode.

I've never had a problem making clothes in Blender. I've been able to model pretty much any clothing I want within a few hours, unless I'm spending time exploring techniques or topologies. That's why I have so very, very many unfinished projects (and almost all will probably remain unfinished). Admittedly, I tend to put details in my textures (including displacement and bump maps), because I like my clothes to be very versatile, and I found early on that if I modeled in detail, I had to fight to make what I wanted to make when I got to texturing. For instance, I'll probably never model a catsuit with sections and such, because then I couldn't change those sections around when I wanted to, and I can do just fine with maps. That said, I'm also good with jewelry, so it's not as if I have a problem with modeling details.

Point being, if you ask me questions about how to do something in Blender in terms of modeling clothes, there's at least a decent chance I can answer.

It's converting them into something that works for me, texturing them, etc. that's what takes my time and effort. If I could figure out how to make some fancy buttons work on Dawn's back, I'd have already made one dress I probably will finish into a product. I've tried rigging (which I suck at), I've tried dynamic-constrained, and I've tried dynamic - hard decorated. Everything distorts too much. I'm sure there's a way to do it, but I haven't found it so far. If anyone has advice, just let me know.

For those who like Zbrush, you might check out Blender's sculpting tools. They're nowhere near as smooth as Zbrush, but they're improving steadily. Not only is the Blender community holding Zbrush as the standard, but I'm seeing more and more crossover in the community galleries. As far as I can tell, Blender/Zbrush is becoming a pretty common pairing.