On my previous run-through, I sort of rushed through Blender Basics, didn't bother with much of "Press Start," and started rushing through Core. I've made a previous post about how I quickly got confused with this approach.
I have been going through Blender Basics much more slowly (I've learned loads), but I'm wondering what people would suggest I do next. The options are:
Everyone's journey is different, but I am just looking for other people's ideas to get a sense. I've got a fair bit of experience with shaders and texturing, but I am missing a lot of (possibly basic) modelling skills.
Difficult. I found “Press Start” really good and can only recommend it, although both courses stand for themselves and work independently. You don't need one to understand the other. However, I would certainly recommend the modeling course in the Core first, because I think that the basic functions and tricks are explained even more in this course (I haven't looked at it yet). Therefore, I would certainly look at this first and then continue with “Press Start” or you go to the far left on the icon with the 3 lines with the magnifying glass, go to “All Courses” and then set the filter as you want e.g. Modeling/Beginner. Then only the courses that are suitable for beginners will be suggested to you. There is also the Low Poly Muscle Car or the Snowman, which can also be very helpful in modeling.
I'm assuming you are using 4.2. For your 3rd question, CORE is an updated version of the fundamentals courses. going thru the older fundamentals doesn't hurt and Modeling boot camp (WARNING: it is using pre 2.80 UI so it uses right click select.) chapters 3, 4, and 5 will expand your modeling ability. It really depends on what your plans are for Blender. For 3D Printing and modeling:
-Read 6 tips for learning and
-Blender Basics
-CORE(At least modeling, sculpting, and maybe Physics)
-Then Other things like Press Start or Catch. I'd recommend the Sessions courses. There's currently 2 courses(Minimalism and Macro) and each section in the course can be done independently. Also they are roughly 2 hours(Watch time) each section.
-Blender Modifiers
-3D Printing or the newer PrintLab
If you plan on rendering images then you will need:
-CORE(Materials, Textures, Lighting, and maybe Compositing)
-Directing the camera
If you plan on animating:
- Concept Art and Draw. Maybe Panels
-If you want to get into the weeds of drawing then here's the 2D Drawing Playlist.
-CORE(Rigging, Animation, and Physics)
-Rig - Character Rigging
dillenbata3 - that 2D drawing playlist is amazing! Would there be any interest in some future CG Cookie material which covers some of these using Grease Pencil? I'm keen to try and create some!
I'm doing Press Start as we speak. It's really good. I hear what you're saying about pausing to catch up, but at a beginner's level (or at least, for me), keeping up in real-time would be a push. The last few videos of the Modelling section were 18 minutes, and took me an hour to complete each as I had to revert to a previous incremental save a couple of time, but I feel I have a good understanding. I noticed that as the course progressed I developed muscle memory which helped me move a bit faster. But at this stage, speed isn't really my priority.
I am personally looking forward to the Lighting, Texturing and Materials sections in Core, as they interest me the most, slightly more so than modeling, and I'm not all that into animation... yet.
The way I learned was to focus solely on stages of the pipeline one by one. Because when you are starting to learn, it is too much information if you jump from Modeling to Sculpting, to Texturing, to Lighting, to Compositing, rendering, Rigging, Animation, etc. You can go crazy and burn out very fast if you jump between stages.
So what I do is I focus on the first Fundamental, which is Modeling, when I finish it, I jump into courses and watch only the modeling parts. Then when I feel comfortable I jump to the next Fundamental which is Sculpting and then learn everything on courses that has to do with sculpting until I feel comfortable. Then jump to the next stage which is Lighting, so I watch the Fundamentals of Lighting, then learn the Fundamentals of materials and textures, now I can jump into those parts of the courses, and so on and so forth. So basically I compartmentalize all the information, to avoid getting stressed with so many things to learn.
Thanks all - that is helpful and has given me a lot to think about. A special mention has to go to dillenbata3 for the amount of detail in the response - thank you all so much - it's great to have such a good community here ❤️
To be fair I was bored and I just used my list of courses I've gone thru or are on my list to watch. Once I finish my animation project, I plan on learning to draw. Thus the 2D drawing playlist. I probably should add the grease pencil courses to it as well.