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[Trevor Dunbar]

Post questions or answer questions for Blender. http://www.blender.org/. Go!

[Hayden Scott-Baron]

Here's an obvious question - what tutorials do people recommend for getting started?

I come from seven years 3DS MAX experience, but I find Blender's interface to be pretty fruity. Are there any tutorials specifically for low poly modelling and UV editing? That's  90% of what I'll be wanting it for.

[Ivan]

The most important thing for Blender I think is a good default blender config file. I've been an active blender user for years now, but I still get completely dumbfounded by the default interface. I'd share mine but it seems to be incompatible with the new blender version, so I have to upgrade it first.

Blender saves all its settings in a .blend file just like it scenes, so once you're done customziing, just go to File->Save Default Settings, and it will restore your current state (including whatever's in your scene and all your customized colors and settings) as the default when you starte the program or create a new file.

[Damian]

Blenders a great program and game engine once you know how to use it.


I've used blender and will be using blender for my course at College, but I've always found Blenderartists.org a good source of inspiration(mainly the forum section!)and has an awesome tutorial section which helped my twin with the same probem as you Hayden.
http://blenderartists.org/cms/content/view/17/53/

And for interested Indie gamers/developers:
http://blenderartists.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=35
Go check out that epic screenshots thread.

[Afinostux]

Here's an obvious question - what tutorials do people recommend for getting started?

I come from seven years 3DS MAX experience, but I find Blender's interface to be pretty fruity. Are there any tutorials specifically for low poly modelling and UV editing? That's  90% of what I'll be wanting it for.

I totally recommend this book to get started. It walks you through a couple tasks you've probably done a million times, but it always explains what blender does differently and why.

Also has an art section halfway through the book that is kind of rad.

As for internet tutorials, I would recommend looking for video tutorials, then customizing the interface once you have an idea what you'll need.

[Moth]

Here's an obvious question - what tutorials do people recommend for getting started?

I come from seven years 3DS MAX experience, but I find Blender's interface to be pretty fruity. Are there any tutorials specifically for low poly modelling and UV editing? That's  90% of what I'll be wanting it for.

I managed to very easily make a character in Blender after I watched this

(maybe I shouldn't be recommending tutorials though because I'm no expert or anything).

[Ivan]

I actually wouldn't recommend Blender as a modelling tool. I love it to death and I use it for everything else (texturing, skinning, animation), but for modelling you're always better off with something that's a dedicated modelling tool (Winds3d, Silo, Modo).

[thedaemon]

I actually wouldn't recommend Blender as a modelling tool. I love it to death and I use it for everything else (texturing, skinning, animation), but for modelling you're always better off with something that's a dedicated modelling tool (Winds3d, Silo, Modo).

Wings3d seconded. I use blender for everything else though. UVW in Wings or Blender, about the same.

[Hayden Scott-Baron]

Wait, so the advice is that one avoids using Blender for modelling? Very motivational!

[thedaemon]

Well, I learned on wings3d because when I started Blender was terrible (for a new person) and wings was easy, as it was based on Nendo and has the winged-edge data structure.(Which means you basically have no holes in meshes.) It's great to learn how to box model. Blender recently has gotten better, and with the new version coming up (2.5) and b-mesh it should be equal to all poly modelers. That being said it has other recent additions like a good wings3d style Mirror command (making organic modeling easier) and many of the poly tools are there. The problem is that Blender tesselates your model while you are deleting and adding edges and verticies because it doesn't like anything over quads or tris. A 5 sided polygon is turned into a 4 and a 3, quad tri. But with wings you can have a 1000 sided polygon, and it will stay that way. Wings gives you more WIP, creative control, while blender expects you to know the final mesh, or to work poly by poly. You can box model with it, but if this is your style of modeling, use wings for speed.

[John Nesky]

Is it useful to have polys with more than 4 sides when you're creating an organic surface, like a face?

[Afinostux]

Is it useful to have polys with more than 4 sides when you're creating an organic surface, like a face?

Probably not, since you end up with less control over triangles. An n-sided poly is usually handled as a bunch of triangles fanning out from a point, so someone who is good at polygonz can typically do better.

[Pishtaco]

Is it useful to have polys with more than 4 sides when you're creating an organic surface, like a face?

If you're trying to make bendy surfaces, then I'd guess no. On the other hand I've been making some very low-poly aeroplanes, where, say, the upper surface of the wing is one big flat polygon. It needs to get broken up into triangles when it's rendered, but it would be mildly annoying if the modeller insisted on displaying it as a bunch of triangles when I'm modelling it (I'm using wings3d).

[John Nesky]

Ok good, then I don't feel bad about having been using Blender to make characters all this time. 

[easynam]

Are there any good video tutorials for rigging so that a model can be animated? (I think it's rigging anyway)

I would like to have a go animating something I made in wings.

[Squiggly_P]

I've not watched it entirely, but this dude looks like he knows what he's talking about.  He gets a lot of things right, as far as common mistakes that some people make when they rig stuff.  Might be a bit more advanced than you want, but you'll probably learn a ton by checking this one out.





Just the first part there, he's got two more in his channel thing, and they're new, so he'll probably add more in the future.

[John Nesky]

That's awesome, thanks for posting that.

[easynam]

How do I get the armature bones panel to appear?

EDIT: Ah, I need to be in edit mode.

[thedaemon]

Is it useful to have polys with more than 4 sides when you're creating an organic surface, like a face?

Yes. While working on a model I sometimes have many 5+sided polygons, but only temporarily as I work on the surface adding more edges and controlling edge loops as I work. People who have never worked this way don't understand the importance of 5+sided polygons. It's never the final result as I reduce to quads most of the time manually, because you can get a better control of the mesh if you work in the details. It's kind of like sculpting.

[+peter]

So I dunno how much interest there is here, but I figured I'd also offer any Blender help to anybody who needs/wants it.
I've been using it for about 2 years now, and have touched upon almost all of its features at one point or another.
Shoot me a PM if you feel like it.