Hi guys, I'm just going to add a few links here from the you tube tutorials I come across over time. They maybe of interest to any new member to GG and Blender. If your like me you will hopefully find them interesting and learn a little too.

The first one is for anybody wanting to make a building and is patiently waiting for the new release of EBE (Easy Building Editor).



Modeling and Texturing a Building in Blender by Michael McCann @ Wayward Art Company

His playlist

Thankyou gd for opening this thread, anyone new to Blender like me better first dive in the tutorials in order to learn how to work with Blender.
My general feel is that this is a very comprehensive software with lots of possibilities.

That is one of the videos i watched when i was first learning Blender, it was very helpful.

The series of videos that i found most helpful for beginners was one that was filmed by Jay (unfamilia) one of the forum mods here.

He did a series of videos that takes you from first steps of Blender creation all the way through to getting the model into GameGuru.

I would highly recommend these videos as the first videos to watch if you're new to Blender and GameGuru, for the basics you don't really need any other videos

(yes, i know they say Blender to FPSC-Reloaded, Reloaded was the original name for GameGuru, the videos are still totally valid)

Intro


PlayList:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPgQfd5bb4g&list=PL2fWo8eoaiUZpZDk5hNqwKTuQXWT8hm3f

List of videos in the play list:
1: Intro
2: Base Mesh
3: Unwrapping
4: Textures
5: Export and Import
6: Adding Minor Damage
7: Damage Texturing
8: Adding Serious Damage
9: Serious Damage Texturing
10: Basic Animation

Blender (in my opinion) is just as good, if not better than most of the top modelling programs on the market, and it's free. The only problem with Blender is they have built it heavily around shortcut keys rather than menus, so it takes a little while to learn the keys (personally i prefer shortcut keys to menus, i've never been able to learn 3DS Max, but i picked Blender up in a few weeks), but once you get used to them it's such an easy program to use.

That is what surprises me the most, i've used Blender one time about 4 years back to convert a file into i3d for Farming simulator.
3dmax is maybe the tool to use for characters in combination with autodesk character creator, that is something i'm going to try in the first month next year, but Blender first
Thank you Belidos, i know what to do this weekend, open Blender and watch this series of tutorials.

I forgot to mention, although the video in the first post is great to learn from, it's not the best for beginners.

He starts off well, explaining everything, but the further he gets into the video, the less he explains, and the faster he models, you really need to stop and rewind quite a bit, especially the texturing part, he kinds of rushes through that.

Which is a shame because the texturing part is the part people struggle with, and the one part that has some real top notch tips.

For example; his unwrapping/texturing technique is to have two UV unwraps, a cube unwrap which is the unwrap for the render, and a normal UV unwrap for baking.

Doing it this way actually makes it so much easier to get your textures right because you don't have to worry so much about rotating, aligning, and moving your textures about as much. Unfortunately he rushed through doing that part and doesn't explain what he's doing, you can work it out by rewinding and watching a few times, and a bit of guess work, but it's a little confusing to beginners.

Some other Blender tutorial series i like to refer to form time to time are the ones by Steve at CG Geeks:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCG8AxMVa6eutIGxrdnDxWpQ


and, Alimayo Arango
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_47ItRT9U4nnElhSK8JcmQ

HI Belidos, I started off using the above videos you posted from another post here. It's great to see them here too. Belidos can you put the you tube video in a playlist as it takes a while for this page to load. Thanks.

I added the first video as it has a good way of using materials to create one image texture maps in blender. This will save time using 3rd party apps like gimp, etc.

Like Belidos said blender is more about using shortcuts then menus so this next image may help. I have it printed, cut-out and laminated on my desk for easy access. It will save you a lot of time scrolling back through posts and you tube trying to work-out the keys they are using lol


^ Use the attached image below for better resolution ^

I will update this keyboard short-cuts image above soon to bring it up to date Blender 2.7+


I also use a desktop Presentation Ring Binder for this sort of thing it maybe worth the money @ £15.

Nice keymap, there's a few missing and some of them are wrong though. For example it shows just M as merge, merge is alt+M, ctrl+M is mirror, and M on it's own is Move To New Layer.

Great topic gd.

Watched that first tut at work the other day, nothing happening at the Art Centre lol, and found some real useful tips in it. Thanks gd

The ones Unfamilar made as mentioned by Belidos, are definately the best starters. As for Alamayo Arango definitely subscribe to his channel I would suggest.

If I get time tonight I will wacth the glass one thanks Belidos

I would love to find some useful tuts on animations, basics like for doors and rotations are easy. But I would love to know how to get something to rotate when it is on an angle - still haven't worked that out - I bet it it simple!

Reliquia....

Hi Reliquia, this may help to cover [ angle animation in blender ]. It is a blackboard moment with a little blender thrown in but still great to give you the basics of rotation representation:

Axis angle
Euler
Quaternion

The first video covers Axis Angle and Euler. The second covers Quaternion.

When ever you get the time you may want to watch the 31 videos or pick one or two out from his blender rigging playlist Humane Rigging by Nathan Vegdahl.

If you need more info let me know... I hope this helps.

Reliquia, have you made many art pieces for GG having all that extra time on your hands?

I guess you can make a great horror game based on an art centre.

Did you see that?
What?
I swear that pictures eyes are following me across the room.
Your crazy. Come-on, we need to grab this painting and leave before day light. Hold the torch still.
Holly sh*t... It just wink at me. I'm out of here!
What the [MOD EDIT]... Come back. Come back. That will teach me "Never work with family!"
... to be continued.

lol

Please do not use profanity even abbreviated

Yeah good idea gd, would be great with VR at the Art Centre - some of the folk there think the place is haunted already lol !!

Thanks for the links will definitely be taking a look at them soon.

Reliquia....

We could have pictures that change location as well.

Dam it man, I told you to leave that painting in main gallery!
Heck will you stop freaking me out man, I DID LEAVE IT THERE
Woah let me out!
Errm, strewth the door is locked!!!

Reliquia....

If anybody is interested, Udemy are having a black friday sale starting today. They have a Blender course, it's 48.5 hours long, called "Learn 3D Modelling - The Complete Blender Creator Course", normally priced at £195, for black friday it's only £11.

I haven't personally used Udemy, so i can't really say how good it is, but i've heard good reports about them, and for only £11 you can't really go far wrong.

https://www.udemy.com/blendertutorial/

This you-tube video is for anybody who does not get on with Blender and want a free copy of Maya.

How To Get Maya 2017 for Free

Apparently it is, i haven't worked it out yet (Jay said a while ago he would do a tutorial on it but he hasn't yet), but i've been told it's easy. Apparently you animate the same as you would say for a door, then open up the graph editor and move the lines of influence about until it animates smooth.

Ah, well that's at least a lead thanks Belidos.

Still haven't found any tutorials orchestrated as well as Jay's - he has a good teaching ability I think.

Reliquia....

Ok, i think i have a method worked out, you need to go down to your header bar, where you have the mode drop down (object, edit etc) next to that is the display drop down (solid, wireframe, texture etc), next to that is your pivot point drop down (media, active cursor, etc), then you have your 3D manipulator tools, these are what we need.



Changing the dropdown that says global to local will change your manipulator tool from this:


to this:


This now means you can transform your object locally to the object by hitting the axis button twice, so for example:

If you want to rotate it on the X axis of the actual object, then pressing R, then X will give you this:


Then if you press X again, it will give you this:


and you wil be able to rotate around the length of the actual object instead of the global axis.

When you enter a key frame after rotating using this method, you get a smooth animation instead of it warping and adjusting in relation to the global axis.

I'm off of work for a week from tonight, so at some stage i will try to make a quick video tutorial showing this in more detail.