Hi guys, I just joined the community! I'm very excited to be here. I'm relatively new to blender. So my goal is to animate and rig well for a game i want to make similar to The isle evrima. My question is, how much do i need to know about the other aspects of blender, such as modeling? If im only animating and rigging, would it be a waste of time to learn anything about modeling, or should i learn the basics of everything and than focus in on rigging and animating? sorry if this question is confusing.
-SirKaioMan
Hi Kai,
Welcome!
It won't harm to learn a little bit about Modeling at least (Fundamentals of Modeling). You obviously don't have to become an expert modeler, but sometimes you'll need to change something on the models you get, so some basic knowledge is good. Also, compared to the time you'll spend learning Rigging and Animating, it'll be a really small investment.
But it's up to you, you can also immediately dive into Animation and Rigging and only start learning Modeling basics, when the need occurs.
I completely agree with Martin. It's best to do what you enjoy first. If you don't enjoy modeling, then don't force yourself to do it.
But I also believe that if you have knowledge of modeling and topology, it will help you MAYBE with animating, etc.
But the time will come, as they say “it's not a sprint, it's a marathon”
Yes, agreeing with everyone else. You can just focus on animating and rigging and neglect the other areas and it would be ok. But it's generally better if you have an overview understanding of it all and learn the basics of modeling and such.
Think about it like you're a racecar driver. You can be the best, fastest and most awesome racer and maybe you've never seen what's inside the hood once you pop it open. You have no concept of what an engine is or gasoline, not even that the wheels have air inside. That doesn't sound like an ideal situation. It's best if you're not totally in the dark of what a car is and what's under the hood. Yeah you don't know how to fix the engine if it breaks, but you're not unware of what an engine is either, you're not totally in the dark when it comes to what makes it move. If you have a basic idea of what a car is and how it works, you might even know a trick or two on how to get it going again.
Just another reply to agree with everyone. :D
Even when just rigging and animating you are going to have to understand the basics of how the model you are working with was constructed. An example of this would be if you were attempting to rig and animate a model that had really bad topology. You might end up feeling like an absolute failure because nothing seems to working right or looking good when it's not your fault at all!
Being able to look at the model in an informed way to determine if it will support the type of animations you eventually want it to do is important. If your "toolkit" also includes some basic mesh editing skills that makes you even more powerful in that regard because you can make changes to the model to improve its performance.
So imo, something like the CORE modeling course would be useful in the long run. If you are very new to Blender I'd suggest going with the Blender Basics overview series and then the CORE modeling course, moving into rigging and animating.
Have fun!
For rigging: Yes you want basic modeling knowledge and a lot of topology knowledge. Especially for game rigging, because you don't want to waste resources with corrective bones and shape keys(morph targets).
For animation: no you don't need to know modeling. The rigger will have fixed it or sent it back to the modeler. I will say that you may want to spend a little time in Blenders VSE(Video Sequence Editor). Learn to add video strips and clip them when needed. Why you ask? Motion study. Adding a video then switching to preview mode you can use the annotation tool to Mark out movements and go thru the video frame by frame. There are software designed for this if you have the money, but I just use blender's VSE. Outside of Blender you will want to study acting too. I think Wayne talks about this in one of his courses.
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Note: this is for game animation. For video animation it depends on the area. For FX/sim and environment animation you will need physiics and/or sculpting.