Blender 3.5 (opens in new tab)

I recommend starting right out of the gate with a modest project goal in mind, such as something neat to 3d print, or a simulation of interesting gears turning.

The period where you feel like you’re progressing the least and struggling the most is actually when you’re learning fastest.

Yep, same here. I remember years ago playing around with the student version of 3DS Max, was able to create and animate quite complex scenes for my school presentations in minutes, everything was very intuitive and stable. Trying to use Blender feels like I'm wrestling with the interface most of the time, while not being entirely sure what's going on the rest of the time.

Got to admit overall it looks better and better. Wish they took some time to redesign the interface properly, not just 'improve' it. The current one is still mostly looks and feels like 2.x

The UI "dead-ends" a lot, where you get into a state where, "why is the wireframe not showing?", or, "why aren't the transform gizmos displaying and why is my screen now one single screen with no UI?" Especially Macbook Pro, where you don't have a numpad.

One way to get through this is to save a startup file, and just keep going back to it. I wish there was a "reset UI to default startup file state while preserving current file"

I kind of did the same. The hours may have added up though — I finally started grokking it a bit.

Actually, what finally worked was to have a very specific (small) project in mind. For me it was to figure out how to model a plastic storage bin. I struggled for days on that one — making all the rookie mistakes.

Having now done several follow-on projects in Blender I think I could go back and create that plastic storage bin in less than an hour.

It's going to just take time. But having a small, achievable goal/project in mind will give you the excuse to get there.

For anyone just getting started, no video tutorials really clicked for me until I found Grant Abbitt's: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLn3ukorJv4vuU3ILv3g3x...

Obviously no guarantees of instant savantism, but never say never!!

To reiterate what others have said, one doesn’t just “learn blender”, it’s way too complicated a software with too many parts for different roles/jobs. Instead focus on a goal. Have a project in mind and pursue the learnings to complete the project. Start small like “I want to model and render a small room” to get the feel for sculpting and modeling, materials and lighting.

I like books and lots of little nougats of information you can piece together: like how you can learn code or an SDK. So for me, this book has been great: https://www.blendersecrets.org/book

Check this, his vids were the best for me (and then his stuff on ArtStation, but paid :| )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2U0MiZSV9A

What kinda thing would you want to make?

Blender can do so many things. I personally use it to draw pretty things to be 3d printed, and then cast out of metal. But there are people who use it to composite things into live action footage, people who make game assets, and a lot more.

I'm with you. For me it's also about motivation, and getting past that point where you can do basic things, and then learn by doing. I'm on a Mac, but I do have a big monitor with a wide keyboard, so I could give that a try.

Udemy has some good courses for which you never should pay more than $20 and they always have offers. It's not about time, but it's about getting yourself motivated to do that course day after day.

Do you want to render photorealistic images or make models for a video game engine or....

It's really helpful to have a goal or project in mind, something extremely small. The classic for photoreal is the donut, just a donut on a plate.

For game models, I made some low poly missiles and a small cityscape that looks like trash but now I know how to use blender.

I started playing with the game editor in the pre 2.79 versions. It's Amazing how easy you Can Do cool little games. I find it much pleasant to use than unity, because blender is a all in one solution. The game player embed a python interpreter. It would be fun to use it to create a data visualiser. Unfortunally, theses pre-2.79 are not compatible with new Intel drivers for 520 and 630 chipset : selecting an object in a second layer make the software crashing. I found an old 520 driver, and it is working fine, but at this day I didn't find any driver version compatible with blender < 2.79 for Intel 630 graphics.

Polygon Runway has a good intro tutorial. But like you, I'm in a similar boat. Play around with it for a couple hours and can't get back into it even when I really want to. I think it's a matter of building a good habit.

This is the course you are looking for.

https://cgmasters.com/blender-for-complete-and-total-beginne...

the blender doughnut project video series is a pretty good intro to them and your complexity can go up quite a bit

You're not alone. I think it's a problem with all 3D modelling and CAD software as well - it's all amazing - but it's all really quite horrible to use.

Just think how easy it is to do simple things like cutting and pasting selections in 2D (even with any number of layers) with tools like Photoshop, Pixelmator Pro and GIMP - now you try doing that in Blender or Fusion 360 and you'll quickly find that not only is not at all intuitive - it's a bloody nightmare.

I can recommend this paid course on skillshare. I know the author and he is super professional. A really dedicated person doing a short film and sharing everything in a course.

https://www.skillshare.com/en/classes/Filmmaking-with-Blende...

Did you try https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIoXOplUvAw ?

You must endlessly google for the first week(s) to learn how to use it. Luckily I have only encountered a few issues where stack did not have an existing answer.

The youtube tutorials out there are sometimes OK but typically mediocre and annoying, so I learned most by having a problem to solve and figuring it out step by step.

In my experience you'll want to start with the sculpting mode. The vertex twiddling can come later. Rough "tutorial" for anyone interested:

1) start blender 2) switch to sculpt mode from the dropdown in the top left, by default it's set to "object mode" 3) Open the "remesh" dropdown in the top right and click "Remesh" in the panel that shows. 4) mess around with the brushes along the left side. Click and drag to use the brush. Click and drag middle mouse button to rotate around the sculpt. Scroll to zoom. Shift and drag middle mouse button to "offset" your view. 5) notice your sculpt starts getting kind of glitchy or low resolution, Go back to step 3 and repeat. You can lower the "voxel size" to increase sculpt resolution.

I feel like blender isn't especially hard to use these days, it just does a lot of things and has a lot of buttons which makes it hard for beginners. Ignore all the buttons you're not using and it's a lot more doable.

hey me too!! The video that finally helped me get going was this one from Imphenzia on YT: https://youtu.be/1jHUY3qoBu8

all his other stuff is great, like building and rigging a low-poly character. Instead of having to follow tutorials and make stuff I didn’t want to, he shows you how to use the tools to make what’s in your imagination!

I'd recommend a highly-rated book if you are starting from 0.

not every piece of software sticks, blender post 2.8 is an amazing achievement, but he'll never get me the way Maya does

Looks like GPT is the new 'blockchain', except it's the unwashed masses calling for it rather than VCs (I suppose the latter have learned some hard lessons recently).

Who am I kidding, VCs will be VCs.

Why would an open source 3d software integrate a commercial third party API that is not free, especially when the API is about text generation?

There are a few GPT and Stable Diffusion add ons

https://github.com/tin2tin/chatGPT_for_Blender_Screenwriter https://github.com/TREE-Ind/Blender-GPT

You thought an open source 3D animation program would have sophisticated text generation as a feature?

Dolphin comes to mind.

Godot.

Also PostgreSQL and KiCad major versions.

Glasgow Haskell Compiler!

Not even commercial ones!

Krita

Unreal Engine

The workflow difference starts to matter more than actual features, where for me the workflow for modelling in Blender is miles ahead than what you get in something like Unreal Engine.

Secondary and more technical, not everything has to or can be real-time rendered, and for that Blender is probably still king of the two, where Unreal Engine is optimized for real-time.

There are things you can only do in Blender, and vice-versa, so what the right tool is will as always depend on the job.

Yes, blender is mainly a modeling tool. You can plug it into many different renderers (technically, including an Unreal engine game where you exported your models). Epic subsidising it should hint at it not being a competitor :)

There are other niche tools in a creative pipeline, like Substance Painter for texturing and applying surface shaders. Blender has image and material edition capabilities, but they are more entry-level than competitors to Substance and GIMP/Photoshop.I think there's a niche for a lot more tools, including "AI" stable diffusion-like tools.

Also, blender used to have its own "Blender Game" engine.

Game engines like Unreal are incredible, but Blender still has capabilities they lack: unbiased rendering. Real-time engines work via a series of clever tricks and hacks. We've spent decades of effort on hiding the seams, but they are there if you know where to look.

As an example, take refraction. I can look up Newton's telescope dimensions, model the lenses in Blender, slap a glass material on there, and look down it to see an accurate view. (Minus diffraction and dispersion, and dispersion can be added manually.)

Real-time raytracing is an answer to this, but it's not quite there in it's current state. It still takes an order of magnitude or two longer to raytrace a frame than to rasterize it, so it's currently only used sparingly to touch up details.

Personally this is one of the areas I'd love to see Blender continue to develop. A spectral rendering option in Cycles would be invaluable when you want to render the Dark Side of the Moon logo.

Blender also renders in real time. It’s useful outside games, I like just drawing in it. It’s like a way more powerful Illustrator.

Unreal's modeling tools are fine for blocking out stuff but you still want to do proper modeling in an actual modeling software because of the modifiers & tools that make the process so much simpler and less cumbersome

It's the best example of how open source software can reach industry standard - and possibly above, in some ways.

It's 3d software used for movies, engineering, and even game creation.

You might find this link helpful - https://www.blender.org/about/

3D computer graphics software

blender my balls

I commented elsewhere so I sound like I am trying to push it. This book does it. I speak passionately about this because video tutorials just don’t do it for me. And you asked for a book but the other comment is a video. When you google Blender books it’s mostly people asking and people answering with videos references : https://www.blendersecrets.org/book

The fastest way to get started is to watch Blender Guru's excellent beginner donut series.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjEaoINr3zgFX8ZsChQVQ...

Also a reminder of how tenacious you gotta be in order to have "open source done right". Remember Blender is almost 30 years old.

You keep using that word "standard". I do not think it means what you think it means.

I only follow this stuff casually, but IIRC hair is notoriously difficult to render realistically without massive computing power. It doesn't surprise me that this would be called out as a leading feature.

That machine will run blender absolutely fine for simple tasks! Heck, I learned blender on a 2013 Core i7 MacBook Pro years ago, and even then it ran pretty darn smooth all things considered.