Great video series. Mine is currently rendering on a separate PC and I'm excited to see the final result after 20 hours of rendering. (Very old video card, so I can't specify GPU rendering). Starting to look into which one I'll be doing next, as my current preference is more on the modelling side than the animation.
I did want to just append a couple of notes of things I saw were different in 2.81. Nothing I couldn't work around, but I definitely had to deviate a bit from the instruction.
1: Keyframing looks to be structured differently, or perhaps I missed something somewhere. But I couldn't figure out how to make separate movement acceleration rates for camera and rocket. Almost like adding the second pair of keyframes for the camera movement were automatically linked to the rocket movement keyframes, and I couldn't figure out how to separate them. I'm hoping a tutorial down the road further goes into more advanced key-framing.
2: I didn't need the cone to cause a spread on my particles on the launch pad, they did that on their own once I turned on the collision for the launch pad. Almost as if they were interacting with each other. I ended up with a smoke column that spread out as well, instead of tapering inward. I preferred the look, so I kept it, but would like to know how to manage that for future projects.
3: Very minor, but "Look-Dev" mode is now something along the lines of "Preview Render", I can't remember off the top my my head and I'm at a different PC than the one I have Blender installed on.
Hi hhhaase,
I haven't watched Grant's course, however, I think I can help with a few of your questions.
1. If the keyframes are linked as you said, it is likely that you are using the same animation 'action' on the 2 different objects. So if you change 1, you are changing both. If you want them to be different, the 2 objects will need need their own actions (you can duplicate 1 action and then edit it if that's easier).
We do have many courses on more advanced keyframing, just check out any of the animation courses (there's a new fundamentals of animation for Blender 2.8 being added early next year)
2. If it works and you like it, then you can file that one as a 'happy accident'!! haha.
3. Yep, the developers keep changing things so "Look Dev" is now called "Material Preview"
Glad you made it to the end of the course. Keep going!
Wayne, that's exactly the issue I'm having. I just can't figure out how to split the two different actions into their own independent keyframe actions. In lightworks I'd just split them into different channels, I just don't know the equivalent mechanic in blender. I'll find it eventually I'm sure. It's not a huge concern for me at this point though, as I'm mostly learning blender in order to build 3D models for physical printing. It's a very different workflow from a CAD system, but I'm enjoying it so far.
The animation and surfacing is just a fun piece for me to goof around with. That first render finally finished, and I'm pretty happy with the result. I'll start working on another course here in a couple of days. I also woefully need a new graphics card that can GPU render, I'm still horsing around with an absolute antique at this point.
hhhaase, I see. That's easy.
Open the Action Editor (it's a sub editor of the Dope Sheet)
Then you will see the name of your action and some icons (on the right)
Your action will have a different name, maybe "CubeAction" if that was the first thing you animated, but that number 2 signifies that 2 objects are using this same data block. Click the number and it will copy it to make it a single user (aka separate it from both objects). It will then be called "YourAction.001" and the number 2 won't be there.
Hope that helps.
I haven't worked with the dope sheet and actions at all yet, so that's all Greek to me at the moment. But it did point me into the right direction. The lesson in question basically used a few quick hotkeys but didn't go into much depth at all with the keyframing in the animation. Nor did I expect it to for a first blender project type of lesson.
I re-expanded the keyframing sequence, and I don't know what the change was, but it's now showing all the objects as separate items now, with their own keyframes in the sequence. I can just right-click on the keyframe I need to change, and swap interpolations as needed. So I have everything moving along the interpolations I want.
I also threw a newer video card into the system today as well, so I can GPU render finally. Still tweaking the settings but I'm down to 29 seconds per frame from the previous 5 minutes 40 seconds. That will make things a lot more fun for me.
Now to get working on the treasure chest to continue my progress in the beginner curriculum.