Wouldn't it be an idea to open a pinned thread in which users could suggest things/ topics they would like to learn more about? There propably would be a huge variety of ideas and a course takes some time but it might be helpful for instructors to see if a large amount of users want to learn more about a specific topic. I for example would love to learn more about creating game assets (similar to the weapon course) or how to build an atual scene full of assets. Also a course on how to create an interior visualization and use textures and lighting to make it look as photorealistic as possible (similar to the architectual visualization course) would be awesome.
Just an idea on how the website could be improved.
I think a rigging bootcamp would be quite nice.
As far as I can tell all the rigging courses are on a fundamental level or focused on technical subjects and very specific.. not really any intermediate/advanced courses on human(oid) or creatures, or a more broad understanding of complex rigging and the process of that.
Would be great to learn this in the bootcamp format, both technical and character/creature, so you can really comprehend the mechanics behind everything in the rigging process, and so you can learn how to build your own complex rigs for everything you want! 😊
2D Animation using Blender 2.8 course!
I would love a 2D animation using the new grease pencil in Blender 2.8. I've been fiddling around with it on my own but I would love a class that went through making an animation in that including character design sketch/concept, drawing in blender, rigging, etc.
I would also really like a course about drawing your own blueprints.
Sorry if it's a bit late reply but you check CGMasters' tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSqiswfVb5k
Hope that helps
tbrbn The problem with that tutorial is that it requires existing near-orthographic photographs of the thing you're drawing a blueprint of.
Power ups for the animation learning flow, to make it more complete :)
@waylow tagging you to plant these ideas in you head, see if the seed grows 😉
- Creature Animation
quadruple locomotion, animal behavior, flying creatures, fantasy creatures
- Rigging Essentials Series, with the same kind of build up as Wayne's Character Animation Suite
rigging bootcamp (fundamentals), character rigging & facial rigging, creature rigging, machine rigging
- Game Animation
short movies (as mentioned a couple of posts before this one), but also how characters interact. Fighting (the interaction with enemies), interaction with environment, etc.
what is the workflow to create this, how do you make this work in Unity, do you have to code a bit? Also the enemies, how to create AI that uses the animated actions, etc.
(maybe a bit of this is also covered in the game dev section? But it would be nice to have a couple of courses that go in depth into this subject, really focused on the animation part)
--> more on game animation in the next couple of posts below
Class / workshop idea
Maybe it would be cool to do a class / workshop where you focus for one month to make a finish product, where all participants work together and tackle a part of it. Some do modeling, some shading, some animating, some coding, etc.
Like one class could be making a short animation clip, guided by Wayne and Kent.
And one class could be making a game, guided by Jonathan Lampel and Jonathan Gonzalez.
This would give us experience with working as a team, deadlines, tackling big projects, professional workflow, and it gives you a really awesome finished product for your portfolio.
ssmurfmier1985 Can you clarify a bit more on what you're referring to in game animation? Are you referring to having animations synced to specific actions in game, or just within things like cutscenes? It's something I'd talk with Wayne Dixon about as he's our resident animation expert. I'd like more game animation courses myself, but from the creation side of things that's one area I'm not skilled in. Using them in Unity is no problem as long as they're built specifically for how they would be used in game.
Regarding your post about having a community based workshop. I think that would be great, but I'm also hesitant to follow that approach as we have seen on the community quite a few attempts at building a game and it didn't really lead to anything that I saw. So it would be great if everyone in the workshop was on board and treated it like a studio environment that kept to the deadlines imposed on them.
jgonzalez I mean both actually.
A course on how to animate / create cut scenes with Unity would be one.
And also a course (or rather a series of courses) on animations synced to specific actions in game, like fighting moves, grabbing and pushing things, etc. How to create and tailor animation specifically for games, and then on your side how to implement that in Unity. Something along these lines I was thinking: https://www.ianimate.net/workshops/game-animation.html
Those are such different ends of the spectrum I think, they are not the same.
Game dev is such a broad subject, and it entails so much more than we think, it would just be great to be able to choose a specific region of it to learn. And have more of the aspects of game dev to choose from here on CG Cookie!
I myself love games and am very interested in learning more about game dev, but things like coding are not really my thing. Tried coding a couple of times before but I always quit rather fast. I'm more a visual than a technical person. Game animation however, or modeling assets / environments (Lampels tank for example) and characters (Kents robot), are aspects I'm very interested in to learn!
Also how to set things up in Unity, things like lighting, shading, etc. But you already got some cool courses on that 😎
About the community workshop, I was indeed thinking of creating a studio environment type of project, so you can get experience with that, with deadlines and a professional workflow. But I can see and understand why it would be difficult to find enough people committed to it for a longer period to pull it off. A lot are just hobbyists I think, others prioritize other things..
I noticed during Kents classes every week more people drop out, only a fraction keeps submitting homework every week before the deadline, that would be a big issue in this type of project.
I can't right away think of a sure way to get enough people on board for a longer period of time, and then make them stick to it..
jgonzalez FYI, I also just updated my 'animation power ups' post to clarify more what I meant with Creature Animation and Rigging Essentials :)
jgonzalez Updated my posts couple of times so it hopefully gives you a good and clear answer.
If you need more clarification or additional answers please let me know. I'll be happy to provide it since these are the things I want to learn the most and which I'm most passionate about! 😊
REQUEST: I would like some added courses to the introductory flows on concept art. One course I would like is one that gives an overview over photoshop and the various workflows you can implement in it.
Example topics
* Working with layers (masks, shortcuts, overlays etc)
* Working effectively with a tablet (shortcut setups etc)
* Creating and saving brushes
* Good brushes for lineart sketching up to a finished product
Another course I would like is one that introduces the workflow of preparing and creating textures for your models rather than just using finished pre-prepared textures given to you.
Example topics
* Seamless textures
* Fixing lens distortion
* Evening out the brightness of a photograph
* Creating normal maps, displacement maps and specular maps from a basic diffuse texture
Lastly I would like to add that I think you guys are doing a great job and cgcookie is by far the best source for learning blender 3d among other things :)
Edit: Not sure if such a course would belong here on cgcookie but tips and tricks for actually taking good photographs of floors and walls to create textures from is also a topic that deserves it's own video.
ssmurfmier1985 Thanks. Next year I'd probably like to focus less on the technical side of things and more so on the art side. It's definitely an area that I think is not properly explored much anywhere yet is incredibly important for a game. I do like the idea of having a game animation bootcamp of sorts that covers similar topics of those you linked to.
In general I plan on covering more game art stuff in general in 2019. Unity is definitely making it easier for visual artists to sink their teeth into the engine.
I found an introductory course that gives a basic introduction to digital art and photoshop on cgcookie concept art channel on youtube.
Here is the first video in the series https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nN9gmMOpIvA&t=0s&list=PLLvF9bS4OaDnyy3MvYb5MUp4uKyAgmwcS&index=2.
Maybe users could realize some short videos. Best realizations may be rewarded... Some tips & triks videos...
ffedericoviolin We have created shorter videos before, we recently ended a fairly long series of short Blender tutorials we put up on Youtube. It's still something we do from time to time, although I haven't created any recently myself.
Creating Organic Characters & Creatures for Games
@theluthier tagging our Sculpting Hero! hope this sparks your interest 😉
There are only hard surface courses for game characters & assets -> robot character / also the tank is hard surface / weapons / modular environments (the only organic thing for games on CG Cookie I can think of is the stack of rocks asset, but please correct me if I'm wrong).
I would love a course on creating organic biped characters (humans or fantasy characters like a dwarf / orc / elf / etc.), and a course on different types of creatures (quadruple creatures like four-legged monsters & flying creatures like dragons), designed specifically for use in games!! 😄 Because I'm sure they come with their own set of challenges.
The whole process: sculpting, high poly retopo, sculpting details, low-poly retopo, creating normal map, texture painting & shading. Also rigging, and importing / using them in unity! 😎
And everything I'm forgetting (or maybe I got some things wrong that don't belong?) because I'm not familiar with this workflow, yet 😉
ssmurfmier1985 I'd love to see that too, although it's definitely an in-depth process that the Blender crew would be mostly responsible for. I'm all for creating unique characters both biped and not.
jgonzalez Yeah, I guess it would be mostly a Blender Crew process... Though afterwards you could take those characters and do something cool with them in Unity!! Complete the circle 😄
And you and @waylow can then use them to teach us Game Animation 😉