Announcement #5 (9/4/18): This class if officially over. See page 26 for the closing post and don't forget to fill out the questionnaire!
Announcement #4 (8/27/18): REMINDER that this week's stream is on Wednesday, NOT Tuesday. I'm out of the office Monday (8/27) and Tuesday (8/28) but will be back in full grading force on Wednesday.
Announcement #3 (8/6/18): New way to Submit Homework. Please create a unique forum thread to contain all your homework submissions for the month, rather than everyone submitting in this main thread. More info on page 12.
Announcement #2 (8/7/18): Zsolt has done it again. He's prepared the report card document for this month. Feel free to monitor your grades there throughout the next 4-5 weeks.
Announcement #1 (8/6/18): Class is officially in session!
**Experienced Blender users are Welcome! Clarification about involvement on page 2 of this thread.
Welcome to the CGCookie Class: Getting Started with 3D Modeling & Blender 2.8! If you're interested in computer graphics, 3D modeling, and you're new to Blender / new to Blender 2.8, this class is where you need to be.
This "Class" format invites all Citizen members to focus together on a particular topic/skill for a month. Participation looks like this:
WHEN? The class will take place from August 6th - September 4th.
Abstract: 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 2.8 and 3D from an absolutely beginner perspective. What is Blender for? What can it do? Wait, this isn’t a juicing seminar?
Goal of the Week: Get comfortable with Blender 2.8's UI, viewport navigation, creation and position objects.
Pre-recorded course to watch:
Week 1 Live Event (Remember to RSVP!)
Homework:
Abstract: Enter the world of mesh modeling: The oldest form of building 3D objects with your computer. We’ll discuss the technical art of “pushing and pulling verts” as modelers often call it. Welcome to this wild, geometric world!
Goal of the Week: Practicing editing a polygonal mesh's components to create a custom 3D model.
Pre-recorded courses to watch:
Week 2 Live Event (Don't forget to RSVP)
Homework:
Abstract: 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!
Goal of the Week: Practice digital sculpting.
Pre-recorded courses to watch:
Article to Read: Big Idea: Digital Tablets
Week 3 Live Event (Don't forget to RSVP)
Homework:
Abstract: At this point, you've been introduced to the key 3D modeling methods. Meaning that you have the tools you need to MODEL STUFF! This is where practice will make perfect. This is where you build stuff.
Goal of the Week: Be inspired to continue modeling and spend the week modeling or sculpting a challenging object.
Pre-recorded courses to watch: Modeling in Blender Learning Flow
Week 4 Live Event (Don't forget to RSVP)
Homework:
This thread is reserved for CG Cookie Citizens that are participating in the "Getting Started with 3D Modeling & Blender 2.8" class. Its purpose is to serve as central communication for all participating Citizens (excluding Hobby plan Citizens) to ask Kent and fellow participants questions and to post homework. As the instructor of the class, Kent will be monitoring this thread on a daily basis (especially Mon-Thurs) throughout the month of Auguest to review homework and answer questions.
Free members are welcome to observe the thread but please respect that communication and participation is reserved for Citizens.
ccarrotnl Didnt try that no, but i will keep it in mind for later. Thanks:)
ccarrotnl Hi Wilco, do I have to adjust specific settings for it to export right? I saw a whole panel full of options when I tried to find where/how to export it, something about frames (animation settings?) and a ton of other options...
ssmurfmier1985 Good one. I completely missed that panel (LOL). So I didn't change anything. But seeing it now I would change the number of frames for animation to 1 if you're not animating. I was wondering why it was importing as an animation. I just set my end frame to 1 in the timeline window to stop it from exporting an animation.
Yeah just a reminder to everyone - addons are actually disabled globally in the 2.8 alpha, save for a very few exceptions. Specifically, any addon that has a yellow triangle warning sign at the right end of its row in the list, will NOT work. Even if you tick the box to "activate" it, it will be ignored. Which is the vast majority of them, and definitely any you try to install from a file yourself.
If you click the tick box for a disabled addon, you may notice a dark text box pop up at the bottom of prefs window; it doesn't last long and is difficult to read in time, but it does say that the addon is being ignored despite your activating it.
question when we follow this class and like for example if we have to start the sculpting but already once finished melvin. do we have to redo him or should we try to focus on the extra sculpt credit and just send a link to the sculped melvin from before ? (i do think i will be able to finish the melvin sculpt before the class start) .
yyukinoh1989 It's smart that you're already doing some homework in advance and that you've started with Melvin, because he takes a while to finish. From what I've heard you don't have to do the exercise again. Just provide the link to your exercise submission and focus during class on finishing the other two homework assignments for that week 😊
awesome to hear . he indeed takes longer then the previous exercises. just wondering during that week will he give certain restrictions for the homework or is it exactly like he already described it?
yyukinoh1989 It's pretty much like Kent describes it. Feel free to ask him during the streams if you could do anything differently since he's on vacation right now, I think.
Well... pulling up the bootstraps and buckling the safety belt. Have signed up for this course again. Started it in January and life took me away from it. May wind up starting out in 2.79 as I'm forever the skeptic. Nevertheless, the class will be a good one - only sorry didn't finish it last time.
And I promise not to submit stuff that was previously done back in January.
Week 4: Next Steps as a Blender Modeler
Pre-recorded courses to watch: Modeling in Blender Learning Flow
Homework:
- Model and/or sculpt something challenging this week! Try tackling a character, a vehicle, a houshold object, whatever. Show me what you've learned. Show me what you're capable of! [post images and/or a Sketchfab embed]
@theluthier / class mates who might know,
I have some questions,
For week 4 the pre-recorded courses are the ones in the modeling in blender learning flow, but the assignment says we can model whatever we want.
Just to be sure:
- For this assignment, do we have to choose one of the intermediate/advanced courses that are part of the modeling in blender learning flow?
- Or are we meant to select our own subject, create something new from scratch?
- Or are both options okay?
Also, is it for this final homework assignment allowed (if I have some time left) to try texturing / shading / normal map / etc.? Or just basic colors (and rendering with eevee), just like the first week's assignment?
ssmurfmier1985
well i wonder too about that . (also downloaden 2.8 blender (gonna instal it now trough ill still work in 2.79))
so Miranda youre going to model a eevee then ?
that is actually a nice idea.
yyukinoh1989 While the pokemon Eevee is pretty cute (though I think Umbreon is way cooler!), what I meant was using the new real time render engine that's introduced in blender 2.8, which coincidentaly also is called eevee. This new render engine is replacing the old blender internal engine. Cycles (the second, more realistic, render engine) will also still be there, just like in 2.79.
If you want to know more about rendering you should check out the fundamentals of rendering course fom the beginners learning flow https://www.cgcookie.com/course/introduction-to-rendering (if you haven't already seen it, don't know that of course 😎).
Anyway to answer your question, not eevee, but I'm working on an idea that popped up yesterday, but... that you will see in week 4 😉
ssmurfmier1985
Tought that you meant the pokemon xD .
good to know about rendering . i will have to take a look at it since i dont know anything about that so it might be handy to learn too already :).
i am curious about youre work looking forward to see the results of other members :)
yyukinoh1989 I'm looking forward to that too, very curious what everyone will come up with :)
ssmurfmier1985 Whilst I can't answer whether you're allowed to texture (but considering it's meant to be an "all-out" kinda thing I'd imagine that'd be okay), for the first set of questions the pre-recorded content is merely meant to be a guideline to what you're aiming for that week, think of them as references for your homework. For example last class when we were modeling a car exterior we were given pre-recorded videos related to hard surface modeling, and those courses may have given us some tips/practice before we worked on our own project, if that makes sense. Whereas the livestreams are a more engaging way of learning as you have a teacher showcasing what you're meant to do and answering questions as soon as they're asked the courses are much more slow but you can take them at your own pace, it's a really good idea to utilise both.
I'd imagine we're expected to model/sculpt our own object/character/scene as opposed to following one of the tutorials, though by all means definitely take elements from those courses and implement them into your own homework if you want! For example you could study the Introduction to Hard Surface Modeling course but instead of doing a stylized propeller plane as your homework you could take the tips and techniques from that course and instead a more realistically proportioned biplane, or hell, even something like a submarine! Hope that clears things up but I by no means am a determining voice, @theluthier will be able to give you a more concrete answer.
thecabbagedetective Thanks Aaron, that certainly clears things up! I really hope @theluthier will allow texturing and stuff when we have some time left, because I struggled with that during the fundamentals course, so I would like to try to improve on that. Also want to try a normal map, have something game style in mind so want to try to keep it low poly and use the normal map for more details. Never tried that so that will be interesting. We will see what his answer is when he's back from his well earned vacation :)