Guild of Writers

Ehren,
before you quit, there is at least one other person standing in the dark with you: ME.
I still have trouble with the same things (and others) you are describing.
One of the things i do is take Jennifer's new lessons and break them down into a more memorable (for me) outline. This is the way i started Lesson 5:

Lesson 5

Today we will be learning how to save a considerable amount of
time in placing objects together,
as well as getting in practice about how to
.....create,
.....color, and
.....transform objects.

Tip: Try using the Tab key to switch from
Object mode to

Edit mode,
it may be more convenient for you.

Let's start off with a blank screen, so go ahead and delete the cube you get whenever you first start up Blender.
.....[Edit Mode > Mesh > Delete > All]

In its place, create a new object, a plane
.....[topBlender Menu Bar > Add, Mesh, Plane ]

What do we notice? Well, the plane has been created so that it is facing you full on, instead of facing away from you at an angle. Move to a different viewpoint using
.....free form rotation [Alt+Lclick+drag]
and try creating another plane. This plane too is created to be facing you full on.

In fact, no matter where you are looking when you create the plane, it will always be created so that it faces you full on. This can be a very useful capability, as we will find out shortly.

etc etc end of my redo etc etc
.............................................................................

But probably what helps the most, after reducing the lessons to a series of commands (or at least an outline like this), is go back a rework Lesson One, then Two, etc all over again.

I find that without knowing (really KNOWING) the blender page and its buttons, you have to follow the lesson sheet exactly.

One of the big buggaboos is Object mode vs Edit mode. The same commands often do not work the same in different modes.

You really have to work at it when you don't have a pc background, and sort of make it second nature. For me, i'm having trouble finding the time to do it.
Other beginners may have better conceptual methods for going about it. Go ahead, and find your own way.

Blessings in your hard work.

Welcome Ehren, welcome Sophia.

Well, let's see here. First, I'm glad that you're getting along nicely, Sophia. Your little tree is perfect, although the cone looks a bit squashed! That's what happens when you get kicked off the canyon by explorers I guess. (And if you think my tutorials are good, ha! You should see some of the ones out there that really go to town--they have complete pictures, movies even!)

Now Ehren, let's see if we can get this straightened out.

I guess because the starting things were so easy, I thought I had a chance at really learning this, but now the lessons say to add objects and stuff and I don't get the proper way to do that?

I can see you are very eager to learn Blender. This is an excellent desire, and if you stick to your study of the program be sure that you will succeed in your goal. So, to start with, here's what I suspect is causing the majority of your problems...you've got to master the material in one lesson before moving on to the next lesson; no skipping allowed. Otherwise it can get confusing pretty quick! The effect that is occurring is this: Suppose you were building a house; first you'd lay the foundation, then the walls, and then the roof. But if you were to skip ahead without completing the foundation first, it's hard to put up the walls and even worse to put up the roof! So I would recommend that you begin the lessons over again, but this time, when you have a problem just post and ask me (or most anyone else on the Builders forum) about it. Then you'll understand how to do whatever it was the lesson called for, and if a future lesson requires that skill, then you won't be left without the knowledge to complete the future lesson. So where is the first point in the lessons that you had trouble at? We can start unraveling the problems you're currently having there. And don't worry; the first steps are the hardest when learning Blender--it just gets easier as you go on with it...

Another good point is this one that pappou makes:

I find that without knowing (really KNOWING) the blender page and its buttons, you have to follow the lesson sheet exactly.

This is quite true at the moment; for now, your knowledge has outstripped your experience--but experience will come in time. When you're learning to perform a new task, first you obey the instructions carefully; the next time you do the task you glance over the instructions without reading so carefully; and the next time you do the task you only read the instructions when you're stuck and can't remember how to do something; and finally when your learning is complete you don't even look at the instructions anymore when you do the task. So don't worry, it's normal to need to go back to reread how to do a Blender procedure, even after you've done it a few times--especially if it's been a few days since you did the procedure. The best thing you can do to help yourself is to practice and avoid forgetting what you've already learned.
If you spend, say, 20 minute minutes each day reworking a lesson's material, finding new ways of applying it, and doing your own experiments with it, your skill with Blender will grow like crazy. You will build familiarity with the procedures and with Blender's interface, and things will become easy for you. By contrast, if you spend long periods of time (say, a week) without practicing, or neglect to apply what you've learned, you'll find that you'll have lost much of what you had previously gained--which is a bummer, because then you have to start over again.
So practice or I'll feed you to the alligators!
And I'll add some suggested assignments to go between lessons to help you out with exercising your new skills...when I get time. We'll also work on extending the skills you've learned so to broader cases. And finally, I'll try to make it more convenient for you to find the procedures that you might have forgotten; that way you won't have to spend so much time looking them up. When I get time (which will probably be in, oh, about two weeksish.)

And pappou, this tutorial explains pretty well what I mean when I say, "Add a new material": http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro/Quickie_Material
In the tutorial, note that this is the state that you should start off at when you create a new object--i.e., there should be no material in existence on the object yet: "...removes the material from the object, removes several tabs from the Button window, and removes a lot of information from the Material panel and replaces it with an "Add New" button." <--After you've reached this point in the tutorial, you'd just click the Add New button that they mention and voila, you've added a new material. Let me know if this makes sense? And here's a nice video tutorial that explains how to texture a complete cube instead of just one face, since I'm not going to have time to post a complete texturing tutorial for awhile. Let me know if it works out for you, or if there's something that didn't make sense: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVhhZ2KRr4Q&feature=user

...And Ehren, I meant to ask...What kind of mouse do you have? Does it have a wheel? How many buttons does it have?



Well, let's break these pillars down a bit. First, see what you can see about the top part. It is essentially a cylinder, with long circular trenches down the sides. How could you make these long, circular trenches? It would involve a boolean operation like the ones used for the vessel, surely, but how do we get a long circular object which which to cut the cylinder? Hint: UVsphere + Extrusion...

Jennifer_P wrote:...And Ehren, I meant to ask...What kind of mouse do you have? Does it have a wheel? How many buttons does it have?

Two-buttons and a wheel

Using the stuff I did manage to learn and some messing around, I decided to not re-read the guides yet or anything and just see what I could do on my own, it started off messing with shapes, but then I tried adding a tree.

I figured out the color problem I was having. It had to do if I added a new Mesh in Object or Edit mode. This was all using the basic shape things, like cones, cylinders, cubes (the fence and pyramid shape are edit cubes), icospheres. Finding Top, Front, and Side view helped a whole lot too.

This is my 3rd day trying to use Blender and this is what I came up with:

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I know it doesn't follow what the lessons say to do, but I figure it still is related to this thread since this is where I learned the things needed to do this.

Honestly, I'm impressed I could even do this, guess this shows how effective these lessons can be!

/me reports for duty and hands in homework for lesson 6 It's fun... not easy but fun. BTW I really have trouble with the boolean... it took me about 2 hours (yes really ) to get the gears right... is there a website that explains "difference" in more detail please?

Yay, that is very impressive Ehren, I love it!!!! Very Myst like indeed!

Edited to use my newfound spoiler capabilities

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Homework lesson 6

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Two-buttons and a wheel

Whew! Okay, good; I thought you might have a different mouse configuration from the ones these lessons work with.

And I'm very impressed with what you've created so far! Sophia's right, it is very Myst. I like the two little branchlets on main tree especially. Please keep posting what you come up with, it's fun to see how you're coming along in your modeling skills. And it doesn't matter to me whether you follow my lessons exactly or not--I do encourage everyone to go exploring on their own in Blender--just as long as you're learning to model and enjoying it.

/me reports for duty and hands in homework for lesson 6 It's fun... not easy but fun. BTW I really have trouble with the boolean... it took me about 2 hours (yes really ) to get the gears right... is there a website that explains "difference" in more detail please?

2 hours?!? (O.o) Oh you poor thing! /me scribbles down a note to work on lesson 6 as soon as possible
Here's a link that will hopefully explain things more clearly: http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Manual/Booleans
Well, if it's any consolation, those are the best gears I've seen yet...

Thanks I'll look into that, and practice some more Btw, with a little help I managed to get my first age converted and then I found out I misjudged of the perspective of my "huge age" just a TEENY tiny little tad...

Put in spoiler:

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Gulliver

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Ok, I know I am being noisy, but I have mostly caught up with the lessons now so I won't be quite so "postative" (for lack of a better word lol). First, my porcupine (lesson 8)

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Porcupine

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Second, moving on to lesson 9 (textures), whew, I think I understood it all, except the very last part... where you said we have to change the 3D view window to UV Face Select Mode. I have searched and searched (yes, the Internet as well) but I just can't seem to find it. I thought it should be in the picture I attached, but obviously it is not there. Help! When I export my age to Uru, Python give the warning "Textures set, but no UV coordinates available!" and no textures are visible in the age. Any idea what I am doing wrong? I am using Blender 2.45. Thanks! And when this is sorted out, I am all the way up-to-date with the lessons. I love 'm!

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UV Face Select mode?

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Well now you are certainly way ahead of me Sophia...

I like the porcupine, but now I'm not sure if I want to post the picture I was going to under something that good! I still only have used basic shapes all streached out in different ways really, and I couldn't get my age to export that's for sure!

Ehren, it is really hard to set up, and I had somebody go through every single mouse click with me, but once it is done, the rest is as easy as clicking File - Export And don't worry, we'll soon be catching up together, I find myself going back to previous lessons all the time!

Here is the tutorial to set it up http://alcugs.almlys.org/AgeCreationTutorialsList (but I'd recommend having somebody really computer savvy to help you anyway, I know I did)