Looking for Blender Resource Publishers
In the basement of the BlenderNation research labs, I’ve been working on a new part of the website: BlenderNation Links. BN Links will be a large database containing Blender tutorials, models, materials, textures, scripts… you name it! Everything neatly tagged and powered by an easy to use but powerful search system.
Thanks, and see you soon!
Bart
Bart – I’ll be doing textures in the near future. Downloads for free, obviously. I’ll let you know when those are up!
Hope you’re prepared for a MASSS of messages :P
What a killer idea!
I have a Blender Blog called Blender Maniacs when I use to prepare some free video-tutorials in Portuguese, my native language. I hope you could share a place in your project for International works.
I am Brazilian and I know we do not have many things in Portuguese about Blender. One good Blender teacher in Brazil is Allan Brito, but only one star can not solve all the country students needs. We can find other Brazilian sites, but they are not well organized for learning Blender.
I hope we can find in your project a place for Brazilian Blender community shares its knowledge and find its needs.
Best regards,
Tio Ilmo
good idea.
send messages through comments?
oops never mind
Good idea!
Just submitted the tutorials from my site.
Hi guys,
just a quick comment: all I need now is your contact information. BlenderNation Links will be a ‘self-service’ system where you can enter and maintain your own material.
Thanks!
Bart
great idea
The only problem I see, it´s the fact that times from times, all of those coll stuff disappear. Broken Links, Dead pages, changed locations, etc.
It would be usefull if, at every link posted, BN could then download the content, and when something goes wrong with the host/location/link/page, someone at BN could then pass the content to other people whose could host it in another location. Then BN will always have the possibility to fix the problem, without excessive traffic. I am translating Parts of Wiki. During work we found lots of broken links to video tutorials. Most of then, are simple changes that the autor did to the original pages, but someone forgot to update the link. But some of them disappeared. It´s better avoid this situation.
Bart, could you ask the authors to leave a copy of their contents with you to avoid this kind of situation in the future ?
About the tagging …
Are the tags only set by the person who submits the link? Or can everyone later on
add tags to the links if they think an important tag is missing?
That would allow the tagging to grow and become more complete over time.
Bart, for a long time now I’m hoping for a centralized archive for tutorials, models, materials and scripts as they are scattered all over the interwebs. One problem remains though, is that how complete you make your link farm, eventually sites will disappear and premium content might disappear forever with it. At least thats what i found in previous searches for say scripts and so on.
I wish we could have one massive server (sourceforge? blender.org?) to host all scripts and have some kind of repository browser in Blender itself to easily publish and retrieve content. Maybe with some way to have an auto generated list of credits in a text file too.
But having a link farm is the next best thing for now…
@Ivan, LOGAN: True, I’ll have to think how we can help with this. Still, we can’t solve all the problems on the web now, can we :) Let’s start with the link database and then see if we can maybe offer tutorial hosting as well.
@Axel: the tagging will be set by the tutorials author. If you think something is missing you can always leave a comment and the author will receive a notification of it. The challenge I had was to design something that was flexible yet structured enough so we can offer some kind of assisted search. Wait and see :)
I hope International languages like Brazilian Portuguese could have a chance to make part of this project.
Regards,
Tio Ilmo
@Tio: absolutely. In fact, I’m adding language support right now. The site and tags itself will still be in English, but you’ll be able to select another language to see only those tutorials. Does that sound ok?
Maybe I’ll add full multi-language support in the future, but as it is I already have enough work to get this going :)
Ranking System please!
there is lots of material out there in different quality (structure/understandability, quality of comment, resolution, outdated because for old blender versions), and I think therefore the database should have a ranking system, so that the best tutorials for a topic float at the top.
@Marcus: already planned! It’ll be there when we go live.
I really like this idea, although it’s not the first time somebody has attempted to gather resources together. It all depends on how much momentum it gains, how much support it gets, how much use it sees, and how much maintenance is applied.
The one item I have not seen mentioned that I think belongs with the other ‘resources’ is actual reference documents!. I’m always trying to find more detailed or up to date references on blender and they are just as scattered as the other resources.
By ‘reference’, I mean an attempt to document the behavior of all the tools and relationships.
I would describe the difference as that between driving somewhere and being given directions (a tutorial) and using a map with your location and destination on it. (reference document). Directions can be fast and easy, but if I make one wrong turn (and Blender is SO easy to make a wrong turn in), I’m lost! With a map, I can always figure out where I am and get back on track. I really like reference material but tutorials are easier and more popular.
Bart,
I got some free models from my website. The pyppet plugin is also available there. http://www.purokblender.com
I will evaluate Blender GE for education. I will keep you updated, it will result in a series of lectures.
hey Bart! Great concept! Lots to tackle. Are you looking to make a link to each individual asset, like each tutorial individually, or just links to sites or groups of tutorials?
I think tutorials could be better placed in the wiki. well you wanna start your own bart blender wiki be my guest.
@Papasmurf: Ideally to individual assets although that may be too much work for some repositories. In that case we can link to categories as well. The most important aspect is findability for the community.
@ysvry: SO glad to have your approval :)
Hello Bart!
I’ve got some downloads (including .blend of my pertfolio jobs) on my personal website. Also some tutorials, but they’re in Portuguese. Feel free to get’em all. ;)
I am a teacher from Ukraine. In my personal site I have a section with my simple tutorials and translated articles about Blender:
http://teachlab.ucoz.ua/publ/5
Also I have a branch for my 3D-models:
http://teachlab.ucoz.ua/load/7
I’ll sponsor my mindmap for this project. (you can read it online
at http://beam.to/blendermindmap) should be a good resource for you.
I think this is very useful Please keep up the great work.
I am trying to get my head around blender and prepare to teach it starting January 12. I’ve been going through BlenderBasics_4thEdition2011.pdf, and creating a Word file that I intend to share with my students as an addendum to that book. I’ve been having problems and asking questions in the blender.stackexchange.com and have been advised there to find a more up-to-date resource. What one would you choose if you were in my shoes?