This roll of the dice project is a good introduction to the MACRO genre for a few reasons:

1. Small objects = heavy depth of field blur. Dice are 16 millimeters and thus a great opportunity to crank our bokeh blur dial up to 11.
   
   
2. Quick & Dirty yet high-fidelity modeling. Every model in-focus needs to be accurate, highly detailed and yet created quickly.
   
   
3. Very detailed material. Like the model, placing the camera so close means we must achieve extremely high detail in the surface quality. This includes scratches, paint imperfection, and specular breakup.
   

Having trouble keeping up?

Blender has a steep learning curve and it's a lot to keep track of, especially if you're new. Here's some tips for getting the most out of these lessons:

Slow down the playback

Our video player has the ability to slow down play back speed to 0.75x or 0.5x. This can be very useful for catching every detail of the workflow.

Watch each video twice

I highly recommend this approach to get the maximum informational value out of each lesson. Watch once for a broad grasp of the workflow, concepts, and techniques. You don't even need Blender open for this. Great for a commute or while you're prepping dinner.

Then watch through a second time with Blender open to follow along. Having an idea what's going to happen next will enable you to track the information much better.

Depending on how comfortable you are with Blender, you could even watch the entire chapter once before the second viewing.

Optional Pre-requisite Courses

Though this course is designed with Beginners in mind, it still assumes you're at least familiar with Blender's UI and basic concepts about 3D creation.

If this is your very first time opening Blender, it might be best if you watch some of these courses first:

1. Blender Basics
2. Press Start: Your Simple First Blender Project
3. Fundamentals of Materials and Shading
4. Fundamentals of Digital Lighting

Learn more like this?

Watch the first SESSIONS course: Minimalism

The seed that led to SESSIONS was actually planted years ago during livestreams. Kent recorded a bunch of projects to fit within a 2-hour streaming window and they're all collected in this Playlist! 👇