Blender Foundation Certified Trainer Program Launched
The Blender Foundation Certified Trainer (BFCT) Program has been officially launched. The 12-member review board for the program has put a lot of effort into getting it off the ground and we’re ready to see how well it will work. If you teach or train people in Blender, get your application materials together, because we’re accepting applications now!
A certified trainer should target at least one of the following audiences:
- Corporations who want employees trained in Blender
- School/College/University teachers who want to integrate Blender in classes
- Individual 3D artists who want to become trained in Blender
A certified trainer cannot give BFCT status to people who have attended their classes, however they are fully free to define their own courses or own student certification programs.
Since one of the goals here is to increase the quality of Blender education in general, there are some pretty strict requirements for the application process. If you are interested in becoming a Blender Foundation Certified Trainer, please carefully read through the essential criteria on the website. Once certified, trainers will be listed on the blender.org website with relevant information about what they teach and how to reach them.
As the program grows and moves forward, we will continue to review and improve the process, especially in this first year of its existence. First things first, though: we are eager to review applications from the Blender educational community!
I’ve been anxiously waiting for this ever since it was announced! Great work guys!
I think this is great news for Blender. Well done!
I’ll buy the first certified trainer dinner when he/she is in Amsterdam :)
Great! i was waiting for that too! Thanks!
Very good. If Blender is to be pushed into a professional application, this is the way to go: provision of services. That counts much, much more than just new features.
What about certified training if the trainer focuses on the GE only ( of course, this involves modelling / texturing etc, but just not final rendering )?
@Mal: This is a general Blender trainer certification. You can offer game engine-only training, of course, but you should be able to demonstrate a firm grasp of the rest of Blender as well. The evaluation criteria lists 10 facets of Blender. You should be able to exhibit your understanding of at least 7 of them.
Bart… be carefull… I live nearby!
This is great news! Thanks!
Great News. :)
I’ve always wondered what “certifed” ment. Now I know LOL.
Still curious though, what are those 10 facets you mention? If you’re allowed to reveal those of course,
@Freakydude: Oh man… that’s embarrassing. It’s fixed now. thanks for the catch. The 10 different skillsets are listed in the evaluation criteria on the certified trainer page. For those of you who don’t feel like clicking, they are: Modeling, Materials/Texturing, Rigging, Animation, Compositing, Lighting, Scripting, Rendering (internal/external), Dynamics/Simulation (fluids, particles, softbodies, etc.), and Pipeline integration.
Woot! xD
That is really awesome! =)
Thanks a lot!
Very cool guys! Congrats Fweeb and the others in the group. I know you guys have put a lot of time into this!
this is great news!
And as Serge Gielkens said,
is important to blenders future
(and all the blender using artists,
that want to get job’s using blender
[not that its impossible now, though]).
Well… Since I wrote a book for use in the classroom, I better see if I can get certified :-)
How creditable will that certificate actually be?
I find the idea good, I am not sure if the policy is good.
The price for a one year certificate is a little mh different to what I know
from other training certificates.
I actually think good about ta re-evaluation but keep in mind
that the work also might pile up. I do not know how many will apply for this
certificate. A year by year might seriously a little bit to deep.
Modeling in Blender does not improve that much that you have to catch up with
new tools, techniques, skills.
I would rather maybe have an online gallery/portfolio and require freshing, expanding
this as part of the certificate continuation.
As a applicant for the professor position my portfolio and CV was the key to get the job.
Now as a professor it is required for me to stay active through exhibiting my work, producing
new work, writing papers, and other scholar activities.
I got hired for 3D and Blender is the main program for organic modeling in CAD,
product rendering ad product simulation and integration Blender with standard CAD
programs.
2 design companies here already use Blender for modeling and product rendering as well.
A third, TigerDesign is evaluating it comarped to Max.
@cekuhen: The certificate is as credible as the Blender Foundation is. As far as I know, no other organization is more qualified to recognize a trainer as being qualified for certification.
As to the question regarding the policy, at this point it really *has* to be different from many other certificate programs. The review board is international and there are no training centers for live, in-person evaluation. Because of this, the entire process has to be managed over the Internet. We understand that there may be a substantial workload here for the review board, but we won’t know anything definitive until the program is in place and we see how many applications we receive. Also, the reason for the yearly renewal is because Blender is different from other software and changes very drastically from year to year. This is not just about modeling, but also the animation system, the overall GUI, and a constant onslaught of new features, just to name a few things. The current release of Blender that we have right now has a lot of differences and improvements on the release we had one year ago.
Also, there have been questions regarding the preferred language for applications. The certified trainer page on Blender.org has been updated to clarify this matter. In short: your letter of interest and resume/CV are required to be in English. Teaching samples may be in your native language, but please understand that reviewing these submissions may take a little longer than ones with teaching samples in English.
Great idea! And one more step to increase the acceptence of Blender, especially in commercial areas.
@Fweeb
I see your point. I think what concerns me a little is the category selection.
Look Blender offers many features, but not everybody is using them.
As much as I love character animation, my work environment simply is product
related. My main tasks are modeling, texturing, rendering, pipeline integration
animation for product design.
however the animation i should teach to product design students is way different than
animation of what i did during grad school, or you do in CG movies.
You see my point?
I am curious if it would be possible to simply have certificates for selective areas.
Not everybody is also good at everything.
This is an excellent idea, as long as reasonably high standards are maintained. Having the developer’s stamp of approval, for me, lends credibility to training material (Adobe’s support of Total Training, for instance), and the certification could encourage people to aim higher in producing their training books and videos. I’m sure having the certification wouldn’t hurt when trying to get a book or video production contract, either.
The certification would be nice and I’ve been teaching students, teachers and a few business professionals through the school district I work for for several years now, not to mention all the comments I’ve received from the Blender Basics book. However, I don’t think I’ll seek certification at this point because I’m not sure how it would help me for now. Not looking for additional work. I’m sure the price tag of $70+ (not sure of the current conversion) would help the foundation, but my wife wouldn’t see the need :-)
Pell ad Jim you have goo points.
Well the certificate for me is of no real use. But I am not in the training business as well.
However for book production this could be of use and also to start to maintain some sort
of respect to what comes from Blender since till today many do not seriously understand
how far open source evolved compared to industry standards.
@cekuhnen: The idea of specialized certificates was pretty heavily debated on the bf-education list a while ago and we also revisited it in the discussions with the review board. However, for a program just getting off of the ground, the process of specifying criteria and and selecting evaluation teams for specialized portions of Blender really overcomplicates things too quickly. We’d stagnate in bureaucracy before we even get started. Because of this, we decided that it would be best to start with a general certification. It is true that not everyone uses all the available features that Blender offers, but, again, we are not certifying users. We are certifying trainers. As such, it’s not an unreasonable expectation for a trainer to be comfortable with the majority of Blender’s capabilities. Of course, as the program grows, there is certainly a good possibility the specialized certification may be offered, but we have to get things off the ground first. :)
Fweeb
I think you missunderstoof me.
Lets talk about character animation for a moment.
Characters for me would be objects not human figures and thus is the animation process a lot simpler
because rigging is not as complex.
While for character animation pose and expression is important for me product understanding and usability is important to communicate in the animation.
Both are work – but I dare not to say that object animation is as complex as product animation.
Thus my concern is – let me say when I apply how to you rank the work I would show?
Would you internally consider the field I am working in Product Design or would you compare my work with measurements coming from feature film making? Do you see my point?
The unclear subject for me is how do you establish the term professional work?
In general I am positive about the certificate and the attempt to get Blender out of the free software corner and present it is free and powerful and capable to handle professional requirements.
I a curious abut how the certificate and this initiative will be perceived in the CG world.
i was wondering how i can become a student for blender so i can learn how to make video games and 3D graphic art i have been expieramenting with blender for some time now and i cant seem to find out how to make a game world where the sky meets the ground and not only that but how would i even put the buildings in it i would so love to be a student within the blender org. and even obtain a job with blender but i need the nessissary traing to be able to join. any way if any one can help me with this question on how to get traing please email me at [email protected] and please keep it only strictly bussiness this email is for business matters only
Sincerely
Anthony Webster