555 Blender Tutotials
FilmmakerIQ.com have published a list of a whopping 555 Blender tutorials.
Check it out here. While this is an exceptionally long list, I *am* a bit worried about its usability. It’s ordered by site and not by topic or difficulty, for example.
If we were to add a tutorial index to BlenderNation, how would you like to see it?
A tutorial list by category and user experience (Beginner, novice, advanced expert) would be VERY welcome!!!
This list over at FilmmakerIQ.com is a good list though. There are many topics that I’m going to find helpful. I just hope if you make a list, it stays maintained with active links and someone adds new tuts when the come across them.
I also hope FilmmakerIQ.com does the same.
But yeah, that would be VERY welcome from here. my vote is positive.
Sortable in any way you want of course, create a table of tutorials with fields like ‘difficulty’, ‘category’ and maybe ‘Blender version’, and allow users to sort on one of the fields.
Make the categorisation an interactive wiki so that when a community member finds an errror they can fix it directly (and add to it).
It’s a nice list to use as a starting point, but it has several shortcomings:
– It lists Flash material, which is a big no-no with OSS.
– The tuts aren’t graded, so it’s impossible to see how good they are.
– No indication of age or version number for each tut.
– The tuts should be arranged by difficulty or subject, as others have mentioned.
Whoah that’s a nice link, bookmarked. These things are only as useful as long as the links are active! A feature for users to add tags to a tutorial listing would be nice. Hopefully the ‘Broken Link’ tag won’t need to be added very often! :)
is not the way is organized, we will need and a search function to help us find what we need
check out my tutorial section …. I plan to add more, specially tutorials that will appear on this site
http://free3dmodels.fleshsoft.eu/blender_tutorials.php
I like this list very intersting
i’ll keep the link on my list of site!
but to make it easier to search things around
it would be nice to have some flexibility for searching
like if the list could be seens as
in alphabetical order
or in order of subject may be function of the difficutly level – basic – internediray -advance
also if there was a good search tool allowing to place a word or combinatin of words then search for page that contains theses words
that may help tosave time for a search
Thanks & keep up the good work
happy blendering
There should be more standardization on the way things are keyworded at the tutorial makers level.
It will always be difficult to find just the right tutorial but a search that narrows things down usually is really helpful. The user should be able to decide how things are sorted, be it by difficulty and/or topic and keywords, this will also make it easier for the people setting up the page to add new content. e.g. the guided search on newegg.com. The “other tutorials” section should be avoided. As blender matures more and more it will be increasingly difficult for the people that make the tutorials to personally guide the new users to the correct links.
let’s hope we don’t see one offering 666 tutorials! =P
Tagged, specifically with categories such as difficulty and subject, and possibly time to complete, version of blender it was done on and site. If the groundwork was put in place, the community could do much of this tagging, but it would really help to have something set up with these categories to make it easy to do so.
We have 606 Maya tutorials that will be posted this week. :)
I’m glad so many people found the list useful and we will explore finding new and better ways of organizing them.
some links are broken… 404 error
and…oops…. TUTOTIALS or tutorials ?
I’d like to see a tagging system in place. Such a system could relatievly easy to implement and would be essentially self-organising. Say some official tags; and possibly logged in users could define and use their own tags (and possibly make them public?).
@Neils, re: “It lists Flash material, which is a big no-no with OSS.”. I’m afraid I take issue with this. IMO, tutorial creators are free to use whatever tools they feel comfortable with and this decision should not be affected by Blenders distribution license. Particularly if they are making those tutorials available for free. Flash may be a no-no for RMS/de Raadt-esque zealots but if that crew choose to cut themselves off from a common format… Well, that’s their look-out.
Very usefull I´ve added my favorites.
tanks a lot
You can always just use your browser’s search function and search for what you would like to find.
If anyone reading this is thinking about writing another Blender book I’d suggest them to make one on MODELLING in Blender. All the books and tutorials I’ve read only cover a small part of the knowledge needed to be a good modeller.
I always check tutorials for the amount of cowbell held within
@CorsairX: Certainly creators are free to do whatever they want, but they should be aware that they’re creating a non-free product. A product that simply can’t be viewed on an open source system. That’s a fact: You can’t watch Flash on an open source system, unless Gnash or Swfdec have improved a lot lately. There are lots of common formats out there, but the distinction shouldn’t be common vs. uncommon, but rather free vs. restricted. It has nothing to do with RMS and everything to do with making content widely available, controlling the distribution chain and not supporting forces that would try to close things down.
Do you really intend to call yearning for freedom a “look-out”?
Tutotials? What are tutotials? ;)
Well, if you were to make a database, I wouldn’t want it to be ranked by difficulty. Instead, I would want it ranked out of usefulness to N00bs, Regular Users, and Pros. For example…
. N00B Ranking: +++
.. User Ranking: –+
…… Pro Rating: —
All users should also be able to add and search by tags. However, the tags should be separated by semicolons or commas, not spaces. That way “extrusion modeling” would be one tag, not two.
Finally, there should be a tutorial summery, and a list of prequesits for preforming the tutorial.
@Niels: Adobe has released a Firefox plugin for Linux as of Flash 10 (disclaimer: I haven’t used it so can’t comment on it’s functionality); the decision as to whether or not to use it now boils down to whether your comfortable with a binary only plug-in.
But that’s really besides the point. I don’t believe we should exclude information based on it’s format because for the average user, who can find a work around, it’s irrelevant. Tutorial writers might well be encouraged to use different formats but information shouldn’t be excluded because some users cannot, due to their own choices, view the information.
I think this debate is important and going to come to the fore over the next few years. Blenders user-base is growing (which is good!) and there is an increasing proportion of users who are attracted to Blender based on it’s capabilities and technical merits rather than it’s license and/or cost. For those users, who will eventually become the larger group, Blenders status as OSS is going to be irrelevant.
That demographic shift is likely to have a big impact on the Blender community as a whole. We will see more commercial work done with Blender and more paid services, such as paid tutorials and training. This may have a freezing effect on the community education sources. It will also bring philosophical changes to the community, which may cause dramas (witness the Colt thread!).
The shift is going to be much bigger impact on the distribution of information than whether or not tutorial writers use a proprietary format for their tutorials. Interesting times ahead!
I should note, incidentally, that I’m from a BSD background. When it comes to freedom, I believe in true freedom…. (hehe!)
The web devs for that site should support complete freedom by not using proprietary formats, and flash is a picky format anyway (my only internet pc is a Win95 with no flash support, so It would be nice to actually see the site, and the only way to do that is in standard html code…its the easiest anyway)
@Corsair: Thank you for explaining your position.
The Adobe plugin isn’t open source, which is exactly why we are in the situation we are: You can’t view Flash on an open source system.
I agree that “Tutorial writers might well be encouraged to use different formats”, and I think one obvious way of doing that is to not report on Flash (and other) material. Do you have other ideas?
Blenders status as OSS is *not* going to be irrelevant, since OSS is the main cause of its success. OSS makes it possible for a large group of developers to freely develop the code, for others to look at the code and learn from it, and to share it freely. OSS is the most relevant single fact about Blender.
We can discuss these things, and we may agree or disagree on various points. The big problem, IMO, is that there’s no discussion in general, Flash is just assumed. And that’s why I wrote my initial, somewhat inflammatory, comment. Maybe Blendernation could pick up on this topic?
@Niels: the way I see it is that I’ll need to add an indicator of the content type for each tutorial (HTML, PDF, Flash). Flash tutorials will most certainly NOT be excluded from publication. I do get your point, but that view of open source is too strict for me. 99% of the users don’t have issues with Flash so there’s no reason to exclude it.
Bart you are soo right. You’d just be as narrow minded to stick to one side of the source divide as the others. Here’s the thing. Merit. Lets judge a technology on merit. For tutorials flash is a great medium, thats why it’s so popular. Why do you need source of a flash tutorial. How does this affect the tutorial exactly? Being pro oss doesn’t have to mean being against anything not oss. People put reason before passion!
@alex blank …win95?? Please don’t blame the world for not being compatible with you. We all had to move on. Get ubuntu
@Bart: No, I dont’ think you get my point. I’m saying that we shouldn’t support formats that aren’t open to scrutiny and that we shouldn’t encourage others to install binary blobs. OSS is what makes Blender possible, supporting Flash is detrimental to that idea. Your notion — that if 99% of people think something is right, then it’s right — doesn’t work for me. After all, if 98% of all computers have Windows on them, why make Blender work on Linux? I’d suggest you look at the ideals and principles rather than the immediate practicalities.
@Hitechboy722: How do yo objectively measure merit? You can’t. On the other hand, it’s quite clear that Flash is *not* a great medium for tutorials, since they can’t be watched on an open source system. That’s just a fact.
@Niels: Actually, flash is one of the best mediums for tutorials, since most people *can* watch them without problem. The suffering of a few shouldn’t in this particular case not be made the suffering of many/all. The few that choose to not watch flash tutorials, choose to not watch them. It’s absolutely not necessary to rub that in for all, and I think that is quite a rude thing to do, too.
Blender works on Linux, because there are resources dedicated to making it happen so, not because of ideology alone. Same goes for any platform that is supported by Blender. It is about resources.
If a tutorial maker decides that flash is the best resource for them, then it is their choice, and that should be respected as such, too (as much as the choice of people to not use flash).
—
All in all, the list looks very impressive. Yet I’m sure that there’s a whole lot more out there to be found! I commend filmmakeriq on their effort. And thanks!
/Nathan
I would like to see the the index in order of subject, with a sub menu for degree of difficulty. also a search engine so we can zero in on a specific subject.
I think probably the most important thing to know is the blender version the tutorial is written for. Very frequently tutorials for older versions of blender don’t work as stated on more recent versions. Eg particle systems have been revamped in 2.46 and you often can’t find the buttons etc that are mentioned in some of the older tutorials.
Good too to know what “medium” (I use that term very loosely, just because I can’t think of a better one at the moment!) the tutorial is in. For me, for example, youtube videos are useless, as they are not downloadable and I don’t have access to the internet from home.
An indication of difficulty may be helpful, but will always be somewhat subjective.
A list of techniques covered in the tutorial would probably be more help than a ‘simple’ difficulty level – or an indication of assumed prior knowledge.
@Niels “On the other hand, it’s quite clear that Flash is *not* a great medium for tutorials, since they can’t be watched on an open source system. That’s just a fact.”
Perhaps I’m missing something, but I use Firefox (open source) and I seem to be able to play flash fine.
granted I’m using it on a windows machine, but a little research (Google) makes it clear that some people do use firefox on linux (also open source) and have no problems playing flash. (granted there were a fair number of hits about people having issues with that, but there seemed to be plenty of people having no problems)
Maybe I’m just confused about what you are calling “open source system”
hello
my “bete noire” are video tuts…so easy to do but so hard to use because of internet output…,think of people living in remote places of this world…anyway,thanks for people who do them
@TW: Niels is talking about the personal choice he’s made to run a system without any closed-source software like Flash. I’m a longterm linux user and while I’m not thrilled about it, I do use the non-open Flash plugin and Nvidia drivers.
I am new to Blender. I would love to see by Category and by difficulty. Since I am a beginner I would be looking for an introduction to Blender and it’s tools. I have very little, if not any, 3D program experience. I know other vector and pixel programs, no naming the obvious, but not 3D. So the concept of 3D, meshes, levels, layers and such would need to be explained.
Then of course moving forward to more difficult ones and then once I get a hang of the general tools I would search by category such as figure modeling, light source, environment modeling, adding color, etc, etc.
That would be my suggestion.
And about Neils comments. I do agree to an extent about Flash but there is no real cross platform alternative. I recant that. There probably are but do not come pre-installed on many computers or browsers. Blender is based on the Open-source concept, but having a video player that is open source is just going to have to be downloaded anyways whether it is Flash or some other player, Open source or not. The simple fact is that yes over 90% of video players and browsers use or integrate Flash player into their systems. Flash has been around for many, many years and probably will stay the industry norm for media players. They have the formula down to practically a science. I have seen many media players come and go yet the only cross-browser, cross-platform media player that has stayed a float is Flash.
The tutorial videos can be in Flash but if you animate your 3D render project, put it in any format that you want. There is no getting around it. Flash is the norm. Whether want to download the player or not, tutorials will continue to be made in Flash. If you don’t support that get an open source Flash renderer or player.
Like Hitechboy722 has mentioned, the world has moved on with accepting Flash as an viable option for video play. If not Flash people would have to download another program just to make their videos in. Another program to learn when people already know how to use a product that has been around for years.
Thanks