Thank god I watched that free course by Grant Abbitt on youtube, making a low poly treasure chest. It has Zero Bull, but twice the caffeine. Its loaded with best practice and techniques.
On the other hand, this course starts with making perfect geometric planks, but then the instructor says this shouldn't be perfect because its a low poly model. Awesome. Great. So why don't we instead make the planks less perfect like a low poly model to begin with? Seems the intent is to confuse students.
Forget the content, Cant they at least make tutorials without doing these overinflated self promotions ? Awwkay.. Now lets add some knife cuts. Beautiful. Great. Now we click here. Beautiful. Awesome. Great. Look at that.. Isn't it Great ? Awesome.
Hi Jane - I'm sorry to hear you've had a poor experience with this course. I'd like to help if you're still open to learning from this course.
I'm not quite following your criticism. Arguably all imperfect models begin as perfect primitives. Broader actions can be accomplished with simplified (perfect) geometry first and then gradually made imperfect according to artistic taste. This is simply a standard workflow concept for building anything, 3D or in reality.
So can you explain why that's confusing or what is not clear about the process?
I suggest you watch the video by Grant Abbitt on Youtube making a Treasure chest before narrating any further videos.
It is a waste of time to model something with geometric (Engineering) precision only to be made imperfect (gradually) to fit a diametrically opposite artistic style. Your style of modeling feels like (for example) you are taking too long to create a perfect model of a Photorealistic Wild Duck in the forest and then (claim) with (self rewarding awesomeness) to be inventing artistic ways to turn that Model into a Cartoon like a Donald Duck. In America, this is what they call a "Shot gun Approach". You are trying to target students who want to learn mesh modeling with Engineering /3D Printing precision and students who want to learn mesh modeling with the least engineering precision (Low poly style). When this happens from a so-called great instructor directing his/her students, it is perceived as a lack of direction or teaching skills.
In his video of the treasure chest, Grant Abbitt on the other hand, starts with a rough primitive mesh and ends with a rough low poly model. Along the way he teaches excellent techniques and his instructions are succinct and to the point. Never once does he beat around the bush, and never once he gives instructions without purpose.
Hello Jane Joel,
I think you lost your track a little here. Those two projects have the same object but very different goals. The "Abbitt" treasure chest is a completely different chest than the "Trammell" treasure chest. The style from Grant Abbitt is cartoonish in this case and Trammells is more realistically.
"It is a waste of time to model something with geometric (engineering) precision only to be made imperfect"
In my opinion this is not true and it's not the case here. Kent starts with the block-out. That means to create a basic shape of an object, so you get a base object you can work with and put details in. As you can see in the final result, there is a treasure chest with a lot of details and individuality in this object ( while it still is a "low-poly") whereas the "Abbitt" chest has only a few details. No wooden textures, just brown color and everything very basic.
"Forget the content, Cant they at least make tutorials without doing these overinflated self promotions?"
I guess this is depending on peoples taste. I don't mind this at all, but instead I do like it a lot. In my opinion it makes these courses a little more vivid and creates a motivating atmosphere.
"Along the way he [Grant Abbitt] teaches excellent techniques and his instructions are succinct and to the point. Never once does he beat around the bush, and never once he gives instructions without purpose."
That is true, Grant Abbitt does a good teaching, but Kent Trammell does even better in my opinion.
Greetings,
tobles
Hi Trammel.
Lets hope you will take the criticism constructively and make better tutorials in the future. Perhaps take it as a challenge and make some super awesome tutorials with narration, techniques and tutorial organization as good as some of these FREE tutorials on the internet. Or take it a (tougher) level higher challenge, take one of those "outdated obsolete tutorials on blender techniques" and recycle them using Blender 2.8+
Looking forward to buying those tasty technique 3dcookies that deserve a fair price.
And the last suggestion, remember, burnt cookies are burnt cookies won't get any better no matter how much brownie points you pile upon them.
Thank you for listening.
I woke up this morning and before seeing this post, was actually thinking that with all of the topics covered in this tutorial, that it would be a great course to recommend AFTER the little gameboy model. Yes, there are some things I think could be done a little better. Occasionally, I don't think the instructor explains the process of how to do something with quite enough detail. But I have been modeling for about 6 months and I can usually figure out what I am doing wrong on my own and if not, then there is ample help here in the comments. I find that people here whether they are employed by CGCookie or not will answer questions and try to help you quite quickly. Yes, 3D modeling just like anything with computers can be very frustrating at times. Has anyone here ever used Microsoft Word??? So while the course isn't perfect, it is certainly worthwhile. I am looking forward to finishing this up because the foundations here are gonna give me enough info to finish up a lot of projects that I have saved but felt like they are not quite done. Thanks, Kent.