Hi!
For some time now I have been rigging models of our product at work to be able to explain how parts work. The I can manage but everything else I need to get better at.
My workflow today is rigging in blender and exporting the animation to Keyshot, which is good if i manage to get everything right but horrible to edit.
Recently saw some stuff from Animagraffs and was wondering if anyone could recommend courses to get the skills needed to pull such videos off?
Also - is there an addon to use transparency for groups available, such as the one he uses? Since the model I'm working with has a few thousand parts that function is a must have - which is the reason I've been using Keyshot.
Thanks!
Hi Felix TTheTechnician ,
Google turned up this:
https://www.reddit.com/r/blender/comments/1ngvzw3/i_made_an_addon_to_manage_objects_transparency_by/
Or go directly to:
https://blenderbenn.gumroad.com/l/Tgroups
Not sure if it's any good, or if it even does what you want it to do, but you can chenck it out.
Hey,
Thanks! It looks real interesting. I'll check it out! :)
Dropping a video to show what I'm trying to achieve aswell: https://animagraffs.com/how-a-car-engine-works/
I believe you're saying you're good at rigging, but you want to learn everything else, like modeling, UV unwrapping, texturing, materials, lighting, etc. If that's the case, then yes, there's plenty of courses here to go from zero to hero in Blender.
I suggest to start with the basics, even if you already know how to go about Blender, there is always stuff that makes you go oh, I didn't know Blender could do that. So The Blender Basics: https://cgcookie.com/courses/blender-basics-an-introduction-to-blender-3d-4-5-lts
And then it's CORE, starting with Fundamentals of Mesh Modeling: https://cgcookie.com/p/core
Omar:
Yes the rigging part I'm comfortable with (even if theres alot of room for improvement) and it's the other parts that i want to focus on. It's just that theres such a massive amount of courses to choose from and well, time is limited..
Since I'm basing all the animations on CAD my thinking is that modeling might be ok at the basic level I'm at, where as lighting and materials might be more important.
If you take a peak at the video i linked to - is there any course you would recommend to begin with?
So far I've completed the fundamentals of animation, modeling and a few rigging courses and I'm currently working on lighting.
Martin:
I've tried the addon a bit while messing around in the viewport and it looks real promising!
It might take some time to get it in to an actual project since the addon has to pass security checks before being allowed on to my work computer - but as soon as I've tried it properly I'll write a review!
There's a lot going on there, to achieve such an animation, you're going to have to get very comfortable with modeling, shading, lighting and motion graphics it seems and more. That video is a full on small production. I'd say just start with modeling and think of nothing else, or you'll run the risk of burning out. You'll naturally feel when you're comfortable with one step and feel like you can go to the next, and only then you open your mind to UV'ing and shading, where most of the look will come from.
You'll probably need to hack a lot of the materials to get that look, because the shaders, broadly, are more for realism. There might be packs on Superhive that already have that look bundled in some node group, so that's cool. But anyways, just start with modeling and tune out everything else, that's what I do anyways, because if it feels like a impossible tall mountain, you'll just turn back, so one step at a time will get you to the top.