Wouldn't it be an idea to open a pinned thread in which users could suggest things/ topics they would like to learn more about? There propably would be a huge variety of ideas and a course takes some time but it might be helpful for instructors to see if a large amount of users want to learn more about a specific topic. I for example would love to learn more about creating game assets (similar to the weapon course) or how to build an atual scene full of assets. Also a course on how to create an interior visualization and use textures and lighting to make it look as photorealistic as possible (similar to the architectual visualization course) would be awesome.
Just an idea on how the website could be improved.
Hey, I'm currently rewatching the Modeling Weapons for a First Person Shooter course and noticed there was a "Rigging and Animating" course planned afterwards but seemingly never came out. I also saw in an article from 2017 that they already have been rigged and animated so I'm curious, has this course has been abandoned or is it still going to come out some day?
bbsdwerbeagentur As far as I know we don't have any immediate plans for such a course although it is something we're still interested in. Unfortunately the FPS project was put on hold indefinitely so a lot of the content associated with it was also put on hold. We still have the assets and we use them from time to time. Wayne might be interested in reviving a course of that nature. I would like to also have a course on building up the weapons in Unity with the animations. We did build out some basic mechanics a while back for all three weapons, so it would be fun to revisit them and make them really shine.
I recently signed up for a learning platform called Highbrow (https://gohighbrow.com/). Their style of teaching appeals to me for the following reasons:
I'd love to see more learning platforms adopt this approach to online learning. One thing I think would be really cool would be a year long curriculum for blender that focused on teaching one small thing (5 minute lessons) every day for a year. I think you'd see a lot more students following through with that approach to learning, and students would likely end up being impressed with the progress they make over that timeframe too.
Just a thought. :)
I would love to learn how to do this kind of toon shading with Evee. A series of toon shader styles that react to lighting changes / cast and receive shadows.
I am not looking for Photo Realism more of a realistic comic feel NPR.
https://blendermarket.com/products/komikaze
Thoughts?
jgonzalez and @smurfmier what about a turn-based strategy game that makes use of the assets from the Turret Game? You would get fighting mechanics and could cover all of the aspects mentioned and animation without the player responsiveness tripping you up, and cover a different aspect of gameplay as well as tackle the multiplayer aspect a little (for iOS and Android would be sweet). For reference I am thinking something along the lines of Outwitters (iOS Appstore) or HexGambit or Xcom style of gameplay. Thoughts?
joshuarigley That does sound quite awesome actually. I did have a similar idea a while back, but for modeling. So modeling one small thing that taught some unique skill or tool in a short tutorial that was done once per day. This not only makes modeling easier to tackle, but by providing something new daily it builds a habit of learning. 60 of these over the course of two months and you've learned quite a bit. Take it up a notch by revisiting the topic with texturing/shading.
Things like that though need to be something that is deep enough to cover over a long period without getting stale. It would be a fun content discussion with the crew to see if something like that is worth adding in.
blanchsb I would like to cover a turn based game in the future. Although I rarely if ever play turn based games outside of something like Civilization so I'd need to become familiar with the common mechanics used in those games.
jgonzalez Turn Based Strategy is not really my thing.. I rather see 3rd person controller, visual scripting bootcamp, epic boss fight, and a smash bros like game... but hey that's just me 😉
Traditional RPG though I do like! That's also turn based 🤘🏻😎
jgonzalez That's exactly what I was thinking. I believe that building up the habit of learning and practicing is just as important as the lessons themselves.
How about focusing the modeling and other 3D lessons around building up art assets for a video game project? You could probably cover a lot with the various objects that would need to be modeled for a game, and it would be kind of motivational knowing that you're working up towards something big. You could have the different areas of the 3D pipeline (modeling, texturing, lighting, animation, etc.) covered in 60 day sections, with the last section devoted to making a video game project (or several smaller game projects).
Speaking of video game projects, another suggestion I'd like to put down would be a course or two covering the Godot game engine (https://godotengine.org/). I know the courses here focus on Unity, but Godot is free and open source, and based on what I've seen it's shaping up to become the Blender of game engines.
joshuarigley It's definitely something I'd consider personally (daily tutorials), and it could be done with a project like you mentioned. Even got me thinking about possibly doing something like that with game development. A 60 day visual scripting bootcamp that covers a wide variety of mechanics to be used in a game. Any big project can be broken down in that way, we'd just need to plan it out properly and maybe have some sort of email campaign or drip system to experiment with that content format.
Regarding Godot it's been brought up a few times. I'm on the fence about it as I haven't seen anything amazing come out of it yet but if enough people support it we could look into creating something with it content wise.
ssmurfmier1985 RPGs are usually my least favorite games. The only traditional RPG I played and still get nostalgic about is Legend of Dragoon. I do enjoy fast paced games that have RPG elements to them like the Witcher 3 or even something like Deus Ex, but a traditional RPG project could be fun to tackle.
jgonzalez Didn't know Dragoon so I watched the review, sounds like a pretty fun and big game for that time! 😊 I like Pokémon and Persona 5, but those are the only RPG's I have. Great for when you are sick and can't handle fast action, but still want to enjoy some games 😉
But my favourite type of games is Action RPG and Action Adventure so also fast paced! Legend of Zelda, Kingdom Hearts, Horizon Zero Dawn, Final Fantasy 15. Just purchased Nier: Automata and God of War. Started playing GOW last night, what a beautiful game! 😄
I couldn't find anything on the website, and I am not sure if anything has been mentioned here or not, but I would really love a tutorial on making blender add-ons. Is that something that could be considered? I have experience in several programming languages, including python, so I would think that would be quite useful and fun to learn.
thebergh We do have a few resources for addons and I believe there is also something else in the works currently regarding Python addons. Here are the links to the existing content:
https://cgcookie.com/course/scripting-a-custom-rig-ui-add-on
https://cgcookie.com/course/scripting-with-python-handler-functions-in-blender
https://cgcookie.com/course/introduction-to-python-scripting/
jgonzalez Thanks for your reply. The "introduction to python scripting" course, I already took a look at. And since I do have some python experience already, I thought the course was slightly too simplistic. The other two, I only looked at briefly. I will go through those courses too, eventually. The "scripting a custom rig ui add on" is the closest to what I'm looking for, though. But again, seems a big short and more focused on scripting the rig. I was hoping for more in depth stuff, going through the entire process of creating an add-on, different options etc. But if as you said, that something is perhaps in the works already, I'm definitely looking forward to it!
thebergh Oh I didn't realize this was already published today: https://cgcookie.com/articles/blender-2-8-python-scripting-superpowers-for-non-programmers (which you already replied to)
I'm not sure how in-depth we'll go with Python as it tends to be one of those things few people request. If you have anything specific you'd like to learn let us know.
jgonzalez Yes, I agree. Don't think there would be too much interest in an in-depth course on python itself, and already lots on that out there. I was mostly just hoping for something like: these are the steps for creating an add-on, and different ways to integrate that into the blender UI. More focused on the add-on creation steps, rather than heavy on any specific coding. Especially now that blender 2.8 is here, thought that maybe there would be some changes in the way it's setup. I had been interested in it before but gave up on it after I couldn't find anything, but then after reading the article I started to feel an itch again. I can understand if there won't be enough interest for it. I just had to ask. :)
I'd love to see a deep dive on using Blender's procedural textures.
I have a cursory awareness of the different textures available (voronoi, musgrave etc.), but - based on textures you see other people produce - I think they are a lot more powerful than they initially seem.
A course covering each of them, the settings, and some common useful configurations would be cool.
please rework the course Fundamentals of Virtual Reality. The new SteamVR works very different from the old version. The old version of steamVR is not available anymore, therefore even downloading an antiquated Unity that is used in the course does not help. I did follow a tutorial on how to use the new version SteamVR 2.2 from "VR with Andrew" but I don't know how to translate it to the material from the course at CGCookie.