CATCH - Creating a Pokéball in Blender

Instructor:
Kaizen

A Blender training(er) tutorial with CG Cookie and Kaizen! 

Learn Blender hard-surface modeling, and dive into Geometry Nodes.

By tackling topics such as hard-surface modeling, shading, texture painting, decals, animation and Geometry Nodes you can be sure to feel more comfortable in your abilities as a Blender user by the end of this! 

...And have a custom Pokémon ball to use in the field! 😎

With 20 video lessons 3 student exercises and 2 quizzes this is a great course to learn and get mentor feedback along the way for Premium members. 

Let's get started

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Are you brand new to Blender?

These courses should help you get up to speed in no time.

Course Overview

Chapter One

Covering the Basics and choosing a render engine.

This course begins with  3D modeling principles, followed by lessons on texturing,  rigging, and constraints for animation, and using Geometry Nodes for procedural workflows.

Chapter two

The creation of the Pokéball

In this 1st real action lesson for the CATCH course we'll be diving into Blender 3D to create the outer shell of this courses subject; The Pokéball!

Chapter three

Texturing and Shading our 3D Model

These lessons cover the basics of procedural shading, advanced techniques using smart masks, detail enhancement through texture painting, and the application of decals. A quiz follows, testing your knowledge!

Chapter Four

Diving into Rigging and Animation

This chapter focuses on animating a Pokéball, starting with rigging, enhancing it through Geometry Nodes, and optionally exploring rigidbody simulation using Geometry Nodes if time permits.

Ready to dive into this project?

Watch the Course
This tutorial is independently created and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Pokémon. All trademarks mentioned belong to their respective owners.

Get this course and 266 others by joining CG Cookie

Awarded upon completion:
100xp +
Course Curriculum
5 Reviews
  • M
    Kate Ha(Metaxa) ·

    My favourite course here <3 Kaizen you are the best! ;)

  • f
    Damian Rękas(firrost) ·

    I found the course to be an enjoyable and interesting project just in time to warm up after a long break from Blender. It made me remember a lot of techniques and options.
    I also really like the organisation of objects and nodes. This is a good habit to learn for any beginner. The project is clearly guided and interesting.
     The only complaint would be that the state of the project at the end of an episode was not always the same as at the beginning of the next one e.g. some extra node we didn't add etc. It's nothing serious, but it might have thrown some people off guard.
    Overall the course is good for beginners as well as more experienced users looking for an enjoyable project combining different skills.

  • Dean Ylong(TheBurger200) ·

    This course was well packaged, taking you through a cool small project covering modelling, texturing and animation.

    I liked the approach for teaching / creating procedural textures, such as grouping nodes together that contribute to surface scratches. It helped keep the node editor organized, which in return helps in reviewing and editing values after the lessons.

    Overall, I enjoyed this course and think it's an approachable project for beginners.

  • Sascha Feider(SFE-Viz) ·

    This was a well done course showcasing some neat modelling, texturing and animation techniques that are approachable for beginners who haven't delved into some topics yet, especially basic animations.

    One star short of five for me though. I noticed some continuation flaws where for example a mix colour node gets deleted, that wasn't there in the previous lesson. (chapter 3.3). It becomes clear later where it came from. While minor it can be confusing at that point. Plus the float curve got brushed over very fast, I was missing info what it actually does and how it works for beginners.

    Overall though a clear recommendation for this course.

    • author kaizen ·

      Thanks for the kind words and review! Fair enough on the continuation feedback.

  • Martin Aversa(cgtin) ·

    I'd say this is a good course for beginners, it shows you some cool techniques both for modeling and texturing. The rigging and animation are a good friendly aproach if you are still a bit new to those concepts.

    10/10 recommend

    • author Wes Burke(wesburke) ·

      Hey Martin, thank you for the review and taking the course! 

    • author kaizen ·

      Thanks for reviewing my course. I'm happy to hear you found it useful and beginner friendly!