Comment by sph
> If you're on the fence about picking up Blender I highly recommend taking the deep dive.
Yes! I have spent my August learning Blender, and it's become one of my favourite pieces of software ever; in my journey of learning game dev, 3D modeling has become one of my favourite tasks.
If one is looking for recommendation on learning material, the Udemy courses by Grant Abbitt are EXCELLENT. I'm totally unaffiliated, but I don't think I would've stuck around without as good a course. The whole course was a discounted $20 for 14 hours of learning material, from the very basics, to UV, texture painting, rigging and animation.
I know enough Blender to be dangerous now, but I am open to recommendation for intermediate and advanced courses. You can do a lot with Blender basic tools, but as a modeling software it is a mile deep and I know I'm just scratching the surface.
> Yes! I have spent my August learning Blender, and it's become one of my favourite pieces of software ever
Same. Started in July with the Donut tutorial and then got completely carried away in geometry nodes and automation.
Once the UI clicks, Blender is super intuitive and downright addictive to use. I realized, while I don’t actually want to work in 3D modeling for other reasons, I could totally live in Blender all day! Can’t think of any piece of software that made me feel so in love.
And don’t get me started on its capabilities. It’s even useful as a video editor and for drawing. I think the only thing it can’t do much is audio editing, but I wouldn’t be surprised if one day it’s becoming a DAW, too :D
I recommend to everyone: Learn the basics of Blender! Just dive in for a week or two. For universal creative output, it’s probably the single most powerful and useful tool you will ever encounter. Blender unlocks a whole new skill tree. I promise, you will look at the world, differently, how to express yourself, conceptualize and tackle a variety of problems. Even if you are, like me, not much interested in "graphic art", it’s so versatile for anything 3D, illustration or video. You can use it to visualize ideas for yourself or others, a 3D scratchpad, for 3D printing, illustrating math stuff, even simple physics simulations. Yes, there is a learning curve, but it’s pretty straight forward after the initial complexity shock. The UI is so thoughtful and consistent you get efficient with it very quickly. Totally worth it!
And Blender is free and open source, this skill enablement is permanent and unconditional! It’s an attestation to what’s possible.