I can't get my head around Blender.

[bpgisme]

I used Moray (with Povray) for, gosh, maybe eight or nine years and holy cow I'm having tremendous difficulty in Blender. I wish I could export from Moray to Blender but that just doesn't work I'm told. Is there an easy tutorial or two to start small? I mean, I have made a surface and I have walked on it (yay!), but wow, the textures stuff is so different from what I'm used to I can't seem to wrap my head around it. Maybe I'm just getting too old to learn new things! I keep looking at tutorials but they start okay and then get way beyond what I know. And everything here that I've looked at assumes I've done all of the "Noob to Pro" thing which I haven't since bits of it aren't compatible with the version I'm using. And that's another thing, all these different versions! I am completely lost but I really want to learn.

Thanks for any advice...
-Bonnie
(PS- I did finally get Shell 111 to work and it was fun! )

[Preachr46]

Don't feel to bad bpgisme! I'm struggling with Blender too!

I know my way around Gimp pretty well. And can use Paint.NET even better. But when it comes to Blender, I end up out to sea!

I spent many years at sea, and it doesn't resemble Blender at all!

I'm also trying to learn K-3D in Ubuntu Linux. K-3D is only fully functional in Linux. So with both Blender and K-3D installed in Linux I can compare them side by side. It will probably confuse me even more!

[Zander]

Blender is weird and smells funny. I think it sneaks out at night and sacrifices chickens to Damballah. I hate it with a mighty hatingness.

I too have tried the Noob to Pro thing and got hopelessly confused, and while I have made a couple of Ages I didn't fall through, I can't stand the way the same procedure outlined in the tutorials produces different results every time, or no results at all. I use Vue. When I make a mistake in Vue it's obvious what I've done and I can put it right. And when I do everything right, everything works, frod it.

No reflection on the creators of the Blender tutorials, who are smart and savvy and know what they're doing. It's just me and Blender. I swear I caught it sniffing my raincoat the other night. If this goes on I'll have to get a restraining order.

[bpgisme]

Whew! Well, I'm glad I'm not alone!

Half the battle for me is that I can't find anything. If the particular tutorial says "to add X thing" I'm looking everywhere for the X button but what it really turns out to be is the W and the Y and Z buttons to get to the X button. Ugh. The dust mites and spiderwebs between my brain cells are in flames at this point from all the friction!

[andylegate]

With most people, Blender's interface is what is difficult. I spent several years using programs like Bryce and Raidiant, but Blender made me feel stupid.

However, I was very, very stubborn and refused to give up. For me, I decided instead of following all the Blender Tut's to instead simply learn how to call up basic shapes so I could just make a simple room. I kept at it, and over time things grew easier, where as today I don't even think twice about what key to hit, or how to use the mouse.

Might I recommend trying out Jennifer's Class room? Many people have been using it to learn how to get started with Blender and have reported that they learn much more than any of the wiki tutorials on Blender. Here's the link:

http://guildofwriters.com/wiki/BlenderBeginnersClassroomIndex

[bpgisme]

Yes, I agree. It's definitely the interface I'm having issues with. After I wrote this entry I went to show my daughter (who uses Bryce 5 mostly) what I know so far and I was surprised at what all I did learn in the past couple of days. I think I'm just falling down when things get more complicated.

Anyway, I'll go give Jennifer's Class a look. I saw it listed before, but I was in the middle of the "Getting Started With Writing" tutorial so I stuck with that.

Thanks!

(Thinking out loud here, I wonder if there's a printable list of keyboard commands for Blender?)

[Atheni33]

I know exactly how you feel bgpisme. Blender is the first 3D program I have ever used and the moment I saw the interface I knew this was NOT going to be fun. Personally I think the creators are masochists but.. I was determine to not let the interface drive me mad because I was so inspired by the wonderful ages that are being made. I don't remember the thread but there was a post about a Online Blender Course with video tutorials which I checked out. It's wonderful. Not everyone learns the same way, I'm more of a visual learner so I have to be shown what to do. Each video is about between 2-5 min long so it's quick to download or stream if you choose. The courses focuses on a specific function such as maneuvering about, rotating an object, path animation, UV textures, volumetric lighting and so on. There is also a hot keys cheat sheet you can download from the site. Don't give up ~Atheni33

Online Blender Course
http://www.gryllus.net/Blender/3D.html

[Dakro]

Heres the tutorials I used to learn in about two or three weeks, highly reccommend it

http://www.youtube.com/user/super3boy

[ametist]

@ bpgisme - I too recommend 'Jennifers classroom'. She made me start this whole adventure and now I'm completely hooked VERY good explanations there. And I did what Andy so elegant said - 'decide what you want to start with and then stuck to it til you're satisfied' Of course one never gets to that point, but...

This GoW forum is also an excellent place to find answers to questions, people tend to get stuck on the same issues.

What I find most difficult isn't really to learn what Blender can do (and here I 'know' about 10 % at time being ), I agree there are some very good online-courses 'out there' to learn from too, no, hardest thing is to get it into Uru with no glitches or flickering textures, as small amount of faces as possible, and so on. That's why I tend to lean on this forum, always good explanations here. Not to mention all these kind people here(some of them have already posted in this thread ) that takes time to answer us 'noobs' And those fantastic ages they write!!
Personally I'm still at the 'brown cube age' state /cough (though my cubes are greyish and made of rock )

@ Zander - Can't help laughing reading your post!

[Grogyan]

Heres the tutorials I used to learn in about two or three weeks, highly reccommend it

http://www.youtube.com/user/super3boy

I vote for this too

Although I learned by just surfing the web for tutorials for doing stuff that I wanted to do

Thats what I did to figure out how to split a window to create another, aka a Blender basic