Training DVD: Blender Inside Out
The Blender Institute has released a new training DVD, this time with a twist: it’s aimed at explaining Blender for experienced 3D designers in other 3D software. (Or as they say it: A perfect gift for your Maya or Max friends! ;-)
Ton writes:
Here’s the latest in our Creative Commons dvd training series: “Blender Inside Out”. I’ve asked Jonathan Williamson from cgcookie.com – they have experience with other 3d tools – to make a cool collection of videos for experienced 3D artists; to explain Blender for them by using metaphors and methods they know.
The DVDs will get printed around July 10th, and get shipped to you before August. As usual – profits on our dvd bizz goes to supporting open movie projects like Mango! And as a bonus this time; it will allow us to do a bigger presentation at Siggraph – spreading free copies of this DVD to the audience as well!
The DVD is on presale for € 24.75, but you can also get a free copy at the Blender booth on SIGGGRAPH.
Link
This is what I need for all my colleagues! A good move! Thanks! ;) (Let the revolution begin…!)
How it usually goes when I speak to my pro friends (I am not a pro, I use Blender as a hobbyist).
Me : “Blender could do that fast” (it’s true, I do nice stuffs…)
Pro : “Ok, were are the layers?”
Me : “Is that really useful? I generally use a pattern to remember what is where…”
Pro : “It’s not going to work for me then. Bye.”
why not just tell them where the layers are?
cause it’s a secret
sadly layers is a bit of a strange fish in blender … I’m sure people manage but back in my MAX days layers seemed more intuitive. Naming of layers is something I’d like to see in blender
I’ve had to go from Blender to Max… Max layers, while immediately making sense, seem slower and cumbersome. I actually get annoyed at times because I have to open and use the layer window just to change the visibility of various layers.
I feel your pain, only the reverse of it ;D
Tanks for offering this!
How it usually goes when I look at commercial 3D apps:
Me: “You have to switch your tool just to do simple 3D navigation? Bye!”
This.
Well, the main problem I have when trying to convince my professional friends to jump to Blender is really the lack of layer management. I don’t think the number of layer is what turn them off (though…) but the fact that you can’t give them a name is a fatal flaw for most of them.
They work with maya, and I have no recent experience on this software, so I can’t say if they are not pulling my leg. Maybe they are just too lazy to learn Blender.
Each time I speak to them about a new exciting stuff in Blender it always goes down to “how about the layers”.
Maddening right?
Give them a copy with the Layer Manager add-on installed:
http://www.blendernation.com/2012/05/19/add-on-layer-manager/
Thanks for the tip! Only naming layers is already a nice feature. I’ve been having trouble to make my students understand and remember the layers they’re using.
A better layer system (names, hierarchies, unlimited) is on our todo for years, but in order to make it really good it’s not trivial really. Knowing many maya/max artists who did give Blender a serious try, I would say your friends probably don’t want to anyway; there is always another feature they’ll miss. There’s no obligation to use Blender you know!
BTW: 4 Maya users giving up a year on paying Autodesk fees is enough (10k) to fund a developer to make an awesome layer system. :)
Maya starts at $5,495 dollar (Auw).
I love this. I was trained on Maya at school, use it at work and own a version at home.
I am excited by the direction the Blender development is going. So I grab Blender, spend a few days learning, then get frustrated, and drop it. A year later I start all over again trying to learn Blender.
(I think it’s difficult for me to make any real progress, because I have deeply ingrained Maya’s metaphor and Blender’s cg metaphor is so widely different — and because I am busy, I really don’t have the time with the mind-shift)
Hey guys, the ‘links’ on the bottom, Blender.org e-shop: Blender Inside Out etc aren’t working…. I’m on Safari mac if that make a difference.
Fixed, sorry!
This will be quite useful to me. I’m developing an indie game and I’ll be assembling a small team of developers pretty darn soon. While I will not require for them to use Blender in their workflow, I will prefer that they at least be familiar with using Blender, so that they can better work with me (since I am primarily using Blender myself).
Being at least familiar with Blender will also give them access to some time-saving features with Blender. It’s perhaps the fastest 3D modeler out there in terms of modeling (I highly prefer Blender’s default shortcut keys and mouse button navigation over Maya’s defaults). It features the brilliant and growing Cycles (which is gradually gaining more notice out there for its speedy “cheating” photorealistic results). And I think Blender excels over programs like Maya with its UV texturing tools (texturing is so easy to use in Blender and kind of a pain in Maya).
Since the game project’s quite large, Blender can be a real time-saver. To give you an idea of what I mean, the game has over 100 maps across 10 fully-traversable continents, measuring at about 1,000 sq. miles/ 2,590 sq. km altogether, plus the additional continents that will be later available as downloadable content. That means quite a lot of different props and characters to model. Why spend like 10 minutes modeling a prop with Maya’s slow modeling workflow when it takes like 5 minutes with Blender’s speedy modeling workflow? That time spent really adds up.
Once you learn Blender, when you go back to seeing other programs, you wonder why they did some things the hard way (like holding Alt just to navigate the view? Basic navigation should be largely a one-handed function.). I hope this DVD will encourage more artists to adopt Blender in their workflow, and benefit from the advantages present in Blender that they might not have noticed before.
I think this DVD is a great move for Blender, and I personally think Ton couldn’t have asked for anyone better to produce this series than Jonathan Williamson from CGCookie to do the job of making the transition easier for experienced users of other software. I think this will definitely help a lot of experienced users of other tools to better work with those who use Blender in their workflow, and to help them realize some of the time-saving features they can incorporate into their workflow by using Blender.
(Oh, and good luck at SIGGRAPH this year, Blender Foundation!)
“Once you learn Blender, when you go back to seeing other programs, you
wonder why they did some things the hard way (like holding Alt just to
navigate the view? Basic navigation should be largely a one-handed
function.)”
I knoooow… and not even Alt Gr, in my experience. This detail makes me question EVERY UI/interaction decision in that piece of software. When I relearn it, I’ll have a LOT of customization to do
I’m not quite sure what you’re talking about there–were you talking about Blender’s UI/interaction or another software’s UI/interaction?
24,75 turns into 32,85 in checkout. Auw.
Can you create a download version?
Or point me to a torrent? I’ll donate the 25,= Donation will save me the tax.