CLASS ANNOUNCEMENT #5 (Feb 1, 2018): The class is officially closed! Thanks to all who participated. Be sure to check page 43 for the closing "statement" and commendations.
CLASS ANNOUNCEMENT #4 (Jan 30, 2018): The timing worked out where this week's homework stretch is 10 days instead of the usual 7. So you've got extra time to complete the assignment! I'll look for submission through tomorrow, the 31st, and then I'll do a final post to close out the class.
BTW week 4's live event is archived if you missed it.
CLASS ANNOUNCEMENT #3 (Jan 15, 2018): Week 2 is done - We're halfway through the class! Today WEEK 3 begins where the focus is digital sculpting. This is a far more artistic method of shaping 3D models, so if you struggled in week 2, week 3 should be refreshing.
- Only 1 course to watch this week: Fundamentals of Digital Sculpting
- Live Event tomorrow at 2pm EST
- Please submit homework anytime between Jan 15 - Jan 21 with "BC1-1801 Week 3 Homework Submission" at the top of your post.
Keep up the awesome work, Class! So much creativity and hard work being contributed from everyone 🤘
CLASS ANNOUNCEMENT #2 (Jan 8, 2018): Week one is accomplished! Today WEEK 2 begins. We're moving forward from basic viewport interaction and into mesh modeling; into Edit Mode and the modifier stack.
- Reminder that you have 2 courses to watch this week: Mesh Modeling Fundamentals and Modeling with Modifiers.
- Live Event tomorrow at 2pm EST
- Please submit homework anytime between Jan 8 - Jan 14 with "BC1-1801 Week 2 Homework Submission" at the top of your post.
As always, don't hesitate to ask questions in this thread!
CLASS ANNOUNCEMENT #1 (Jan 2, 2018): The class has officially started! Today we held the first live event to kick things off. The recording will be published by tomorrow at the latest is now available in "Past Events".
That means it's now up to you to watch the Blender Basics Course and submit your homework to this thread. Please add a big, bold title to your homework submission reply so I can easily tell. Like this:
"BC1-1801 Week 1 Homework Submission"Also don't hesitate to ask questions along the way. I'll be checking this thread daily to answer questions, give advice, check homework.
This thread is for CG Cookie Citizens that are participating in the "Getting Started with 3D Modeling and Blender" class! Its purpose is to serve as central communication for all participating Citizens (excluding Hobby plan Citizens) to ask me and each other questions and to post homework. As the instructor of the class, I will be monitoring this thread on a daily basis (especially Mon-Thurs) throughout the month of January to review homework and answer questions.
This thread is intended only for Citizens who are participating in the class. Free members are welcome to observe the thread but please respect that communication is reserved for Citizens.
Welcome to the CGCookie Class: Getting Started with 3D Modeling & Blender! This is the first "Class" format where Citizen members are invited to focus together on a particular topic/skill together for a month. Participation is this:
It will take place from January 2nd through January 31st and the topic is for beginners that want to get into 3D modeling. The class is based on pre-recorded courses that students are expected to watch each week along with weekly Live Events.
Download the latest official version of Blender and watch the Blender Basics course. The goal this week is to simply get familiar with the application. We’ve all been there: Opening Blender (or any 3D package), gazing at all the crazy UI, trying to orbit in the viewport, crying...Ok, maybe you were stronger than me and didn’t cry. But the reality is 3D software is daunting. There’s SO MUCH to digest especially when you’re a beginner.
This first week we’re going to overview Blender and 3D from an absolutely beginner perspective. What is Blender for? What can it do? Wait, this isn’t a juicing seminar?
During the Live Event we're also going to open the floor, ask me anything (AMA) style, so I can answer all your questions about getting started with Blender.
HOMEWORK: Create a scene out of primitive shapes. It can be anything from a landscape to a spaceship to a character. Just get comfortable with creating and positioning mesh objects. Here's an example:
Take a screenshot of your scene and post it in a reply to this thread *during the week of Jan 1-6*.
Enter the world of mesh modeling! The oldest form of building objects in 3D, in the computer. We’ll discuss the technical art of “pushing and pulling verts” as modelers often call it. First, watch the Mesh Modeling Fundamentals and Modeling with Modifiers courses to be introduced to this wild, geometric world.
Practice makes perfect here and during this week's Live Event we’ll be mesh-modeling a few objects to demonstrate tools and workflow available with Blender. It’s ideal if you practice along with me!
HOMEWORK: Model either 1, 2, or 3 unique objects using mesh-modeling techniques. They can be as simple or as complex as you like, but they can't be primitives. I want to see that you've used mesh tools to significantly customize your shapes. For example, you could model a hammer, a cell phone, a keyboard, a game controller, a picture frame, a coffee cup - choose something fun!
Take a screenshot of your shaded model + wireframe-over shaded (as pictured above) and post it in a reply to this thread *during the week of Jan 7-14*.
Digital sculpting is the more artistically intuitive method of 3D modeling. If pushing and pulling verts felt like the hard way of doing things, sculpting will be a welcomed alternative! Watch the Fundamentals of Digital Sculpting course this week.
During the Live Event, we'll discuss the pros and cons of digital sculpting as well as how it compares to mesh modeling. Again, practice makes perfect with any craft, and we will also practice sculpting. Be sure to have your pen and tablet ready!
HOMEWORK: *Submit during the week of Jan 15-21*
There’s still much more to learn about modeling with Blender. Remember, it’s a craft. Time + practice is the only way to develop your modeling skills.
This week your challenge is to dive into the Modeling in Blender Learning Flow. While the class gives you a boost, the Flow takes you further into intermediate and advanced modeling techniques/workflows. Test the waters and see how far you can go this week.
During the Live Event we'll discuss the journey of becoming a skilled modeler as well as the potential for turning it into a career. Finally, I’m going to sift through homework submissions to commend my favorites and offer critiques!
HOMEWORK: Model and/or sculpt something challenging this week! Try tackling a character or a complex vehicle, etc. Show me what you've learned; what you're capable of!
Take a screenshot of your shaded model and post it in a reply to this thread *during the week of Jan 21-31*.
I was hoping to get a little more done in this assignment. So I did what I could with the time I had.
I think Grant is right. with the Constant Detail setting, you want higher Resolution and with Relative, you want a lower Detail Size. It seems a little counter intuitive, but think of it this way, with a Constant detail, to increase the amount of geometry, you want go Higher. If you're using Relative, you're doing the detail across more screen pixels, so the geometry will be lower.
It's a bit more advanced topic for this particular class, but you can set up render layers and render your scene in different pieces. Or use old "TV" tricks and overlay the foreground on top of a "background" that has the mountains, with the sky being yet another layer or as a part of that background layer. Either way, great job! I thought it seemed familiar when I saw what Matthew said :D
BC1-1801 Week 3 Homework Submission (pt 2)
For whatever reason, I don't think I've ever done this exercise, but it was still fun to do. I could probably spend another couple of hours working on him, but he's starting to take shape (though I just realized I forgot the hands :D )
As I was working on this, I noticed something that you may have run into and wondered what to do about it. There were times when I was rotating around a part and it seemed to "disappear", but when I would pull back a little, it was there again. This is actually not a bug, but rather what you're experiencing is called "clipping". Blender clips very close and very far because if we were to truly have an "infinite" world, render times would be WAY longer than they are. So to keep things manageable, it "clips" the extremes. However, if you happen to be finding that a given extreme is happening to "quickly" for you, you can adjust this. It's in the "n" properties panel (the one that comes up on the right when you press the N key) under View. By default, blender clips anything closer than 1/10th of a blender unit or further than 1000. This is fine for most projects, but changing either of these will adjust at what point blender starts clipping. So if you need more when you're close in, just change it to 0.01 for example, and you can then zoom in that much closer before it starts clipping.
The other thing I wanted to mention is that while you can use the skin modifier to create a basemesh, you can also use the techniques from the last couple of weeks and sometimes get even closer. Or better yet, combine the skin modifier with the basic primitives and/or mesh modeling we did last week. There's an add-on called "Bool Tool" that will add another tool set to the Tools tab that will allow you to "Boolean" your objects together. It works just like the Boolean modifier, but instead of having to do it on one object at a time, it can work on multiple objects at once.
Before using it, I'd recommend applying at least your scale and make sure your normals are facing the right way, but I find it helpful to create a basemesh just as fast and/or slightly closer than just the skin modifier can get you. (And if you ever watch any ZBrush sculpting, this is pretty close to how they can join shapes as well.) Once you have joined your objects, a little inflate and smoothing can help the transitions between pieces.
(This is also a function that is in another tool I like called Sculpt Tools UI, which Kent talks about in some of his other course. Some of the other functions of that particular tool aren't in Blender that I'm aware of, though.)
My point in sharing this, though, is that there are several ways to come up with a basemesh, whether it be from the skin modifier, mesh modeling the base, or mesh modeling/primitive/basemesh joining. Find the workflow that works for you!
Lovely scene you got there. What king of creature lives in that acorn-house? :D Also good job with the primitives, very pure shapes
Maybe try to smooth out some of that rugged area in the right eye and get some shape in the root of the horns with crease brush. Overall it seems successful sculpt for me with just a small amount of finishing touch needed
BC1-1801 Week 3 Homework Submission (Part 3)
One final piece to round out week 3 for me.. .This is one I did as a "30 minute" exercise to help show that it doesn't take a lot of detail to start seeing the shape come together. There's still a lot of work for this to be a "completed" piece to get the anatomy right and to get it to look more like a fox, but considering this is only about 30 minutes of sculpting starting from an icosphere, (And about 15-20 minutes coloring it after) I think this turned out pretty well. The coloring definitely helps in this particular case, because without the coloring, you might thing it closer to a wolf or dog. I think I might work some more on this one later. (This also does help to show why you want to retopolize.. If you look, you can see how messy the coloring is. With a proper mesh that can be UV unwrapped, you can get much better results.)
One thing to add to the clipping issue that gradyp mentioned: if you make any changes in the N panel, you also want to update the values in your Camera settings (select the Camera object, go to Object Data tab and you'll see it in the "Lens" section). Otherwise you might end up with Viewport looking OK and nothing being displayed in the render. Happened to a friend of mine. Ahem, cough :-).
Thanks for sharing this gradyp. Very motivational! Makes me want to dig back into all the projects I gave up on over the years.
Which artists do you watch on twitch?
This looks really good 
deadly_cicada! You seemed to get the hang of sculpting pretty quick. The one note I have is that Melvin's left leg is half the thickness of the right. But overall, great stuff!
It's an A for quality and effort but a C for completeness.
Thanks for the encouragement at the end! That's gold.
Excellent work ppaulhaynes1955. Is this your first head sculpt? If so, it's a great first time 👍
Your primitives are really strong too. Only crit is that the sides of the cube are a little messy when they could be smooth and flat. But the shapes of all 3 are spot on!
Feels like you could have spent a little more time with Melvin. It's pretty good overall, but it's a little lumpy and the arm is unfinished.
Still this week you've earned an A no doubt 👏
BC1-1801 Week 3 Homework Submission
3: Primitive-2
Again !
The left small one is that I noticed it would be very small and gave up.
But I never give up to improve of my Blender skill... and surprised the lead of Wacom-Pen by its speedy shortening :)
I agree that the unified theme is a great touch. You primitives are good but a little mush/bumpy. The spider is a cool idea! Spiders give me the creeps as does your sculpt, so good job there 😅 The legs are bit lumpy and inconsistent in thickness.
Melvin is your strongest imo. Feels the most polished. It maybe suffers a little from single-angle-favor, meaning it looks great from the front and ok from other angles.
Still those are minor notes. Definitely an A this week!
Good advice from gradyp. You did awesome this week 
ljsstudio! It looks like you picked up sculpting quite well. Might be the best Melvin I've seen so far 👍
Solid work on your primitives as well. I forget how cumbersome it can be to get used to dyntopo settings. I'm a broken record, but practice will develop the familiarity till it's second nature.
I hate to do it: This is an easy A for quality but B for completeness 😕 #feelsbadman
"only 2 sculpts..." with textures and lighting! Lol great work shiennar. Your Melvin is fantastic. One of the best I've seen period. Your primitives are super polished. Top 3 I've seen this week. And what's not to love about your acorn house and mushroom? You've got skillz 😎 And you're patient with polishing.
A+ work for sure 👏
I agree with swikni - Good sculpt overall, just in need of a little TLC. There's a big lump under his left arm-pit area, the eyes could use more definition (small detail size [more polygons] and subdivide edges method for details/creasing).
Overall though, the shape of the character is good aside from the backside being too flat. Plump it out to secure a the general roundness.
I've recorded your primitive submission and this guy, which means an A for effort/quality but a B for completeness.
You're full of good advice gradyp! Thanks for taking the time to share this kind of insight with everyone. It makes this thread rich with valuable info.
Your Melvin is an interesting take. Kinda like you intentionally put your own spin on the character's design. You remember in Toy Story 3 when Mr Potato Head swapped his body for a tortilla? This version of Melvin is like that for me! He's more flat than he is round and has a cactus-man aesthetic about him. A little bumpy in spots.
