You're the man! Thanks for dropping a comment on my video. Much appreciated!

@@WillGibbons broooo, my two fav mentors in one placeee, wow.... i was always loved to export animation and models from blender to keyshot, i learned keyshot from WillGibbons

Thank you! I Really appreciate that.

Do you think I could become proficient with Blender in 100 days if I worked on it each day for a few hours?

@@pluto9000 Sure... as long as you stuck to a specific area of the software. I've heard from plenty of others who've spent years learning it and they all will admit there's still plenty they don't know. But in the end, you likely don't need to know how to use all of what Blender has to offer.

I think you make a lot of good observations and I can't really argue against them. Though, I'll add that it largely depends on the person and what they're doing for work. There will always be a group of designers who don't need to learn Blender as it would be too big a time investment without adding much to their core duties/roles in their jobs.

Thank you so much!

Thanks for watching!

Yeah, I guess so...

Wow! That's really great. I love that you had the confidence to use it on a client project. That's where the best learning happens.

I'm stoked to hear that! My hope with this video was to convince others they can learn this software if that's what they want to do. Of course, it'll take time and effort. But all great things do.

Hi Edon! Thank you, that's really nice of you.

You're not the only one! It can be tough to stay focused on one thing with how much we have competing for our attention. Thanks for the nice words!

Hey, thanks! I really appreciate it!

If you can learn CAD, you can learn Blender. Just have to be patient and be willing to be confused at times, haha

Thanks so much!

You are welcome!

Awesome! I wish you luck. As you mentioned, time makes a big difference. If someone is rushed and loses patience, then it's much harder to have those breakthroughs.

Glad it was helpful!

Wow, thank you for such a such nice comment!

Great to hear! Just start and see how many days you can string together. You can do it!

I appreciate that! Thanks for taking time to comment!

Yes, thanks for bringing that up. The instagram clips are very short and condensed highlights. I won't lie, this was a big undertaking and at times got difficult. But I learned through this process that we should not assume things should be easy or quick to learn.

Happy to hear that. Thanks for the support! I hope to as well. Just comes down to time.

Thanks so much for the support! C4D is a great tool! Cool to see you bothered watching this even though you're not a Blender user. Cheers!

Cheers! I hope you are able to get back into it.

Awesome, Thank you! And best of luck!

Then you can ask me Blender-related questions if you find yourself in the situation of needing help 👍🏾

@@theGoogol Thanks!

@@WillGibbons : np! Blender's learning curve is not necessarily steep, it's more broad. If you know what you want to do with Blender, learning the necessary skills is easy ... Blender's learning curve becomes a problem when you want to learn everything Blender has to offer (that's near impossible).

You're welcome. As you saw, you can definitely render models created in either Blender or KeyShot. However, in furniture design, where you'll be dimensioning a lot and adjusting proportions, I don't think Blender would be an ideal software to use. But in the case of a realistic wicker material, sure. Or if creating cusions, then Blender would probably have some advantages. I think though, if I was tasked with designing furniture, I'd be using CAD. There are alternatives to Solidworks that are more affordable like Fusion 360, Onshape or a newer software that shows a lot of promise, Plasticity. I'd recommend looking at those, especially the last one I mentioned.

@@WillGibbons Well always value feedbacks Will! thanks a lot! yes I do pass my solidworks files to my factory or ask them to convert to CAD all the time. Looks like I won't be able to do that with blender!

Thanks for the encouragement!

Mission accomplished. Thanks David! And thanks for always being down to talk shop and help with random Blender questions.

I really appreciate that! Thanks for watching.

You can do it!

Thank you! It's fun. If you're curious, you should give it a go.

Thanks a lot!

Thank you 😊

Thanks for your comment! It's something I've experienced too, so don't feel bad! Learn and keep plugging away. Glad this was helpful!

thanks!

I hope you can too, if that's what you want. Just try to avoid making it an 'all-or-nothing' scenario. We all have good days and bad. But sticking with it is key. You got it!

Yeah. Really Appreciate. Thanks

Nice! I would think you'd find Blender fairly easy to learn then. I did use MODO for about a year in 2014.

@@WillGibbons Thanks! I’m also curious if you have any thoughts about Cinema 4D? I find MODO to be perplexing… not intuitive at all. However I do like the UV features. I recently had issues with UV unwrapping in KS and I greatly appreciate the video you made on that topic. I would like to import the model into a poly program and see if I get better results.

Welcome aboard! Thanks :)

@@WillGibbons it's funny, I'm an industrial designer but I learned blender to do fun animations and such, but need to go re-learn solid works and CAD software again as it's been years @_@

Thanks! Houdini is a rad tool. I spent some time learning the very basics of it a few years ago and really loved it. However, I didn't want to become a houdini specialist. The market for that is pretty much work on a team for VFX in films and TV (too stressful and competitive) or offer simulations and FX for a creative agency, which means focusing on freelancing which I don't want to do. So, probably no Houdini for me. Blender's geometry nodes and simulation nodes will give me enough to play with as far as simulations and procedural workflows go.

Haha, crazy you could notice. I appreciate it. Yeah, been working on a very consistent routine 4 days a week for the past year or so.

Thank you!

I can't even tell you how much I appreciate your comment! Cheers!

That means so much to me! Thank you. I wish you the best as you set out to create your own animations!

I won't be dropping KeyShot. Currently, my plan is to use the best tool for the job, depending on what I need. Glad you like it!

Happy to hear that! You can do it.

I understand. Thanks for your comment. If you're burned out, take a break. But if you want to learn, then find a specific time each day or week where you can set aside an hour here and there. Focus on making some of your own mini projects. Focus on volume. Just get some momentum so you can keep pushing to create more advanced things. If you stick with it for a few months, I think you'll be glad you did.

My goal is not to move people away from KeyShot, but to show that learning Blender should not be so intimidating.

That's awesome. Thank you!

Cheers. That's really kind of you!

Thanks! good luck. I'll be happy to share tips for KeyShot users. That's 100% my plan, but I'm just going to have to get to it when I can. Probably in the next few months you'll see me begin to tackle topics like that in videos here. Best!

Thank you! Cheers!

Interesting! I've no doubt that 3Ds Max and Corona allow you to make some great work. Do you not use keyboard shortcuts in Max? You can use all menus in Blender since that's how I was introduced to it. But I find it easy to commit a new hotkey to memory every few days. Eventually, you get to the point where you've memorized enough. One thing that's also handy is you can just add almost any hotkey to a single quick menu. That's also super helpful for beginners since you only remember a single key to access all your most frequently-used tools. Cheers!

@@WillGibbons Hey Will. Yes, I use shortcuts in 3ds Max. I remember when I was trying to learn Blender, there was soooo much emphasis on memorizing keyboard shortcuts, it was just overwhelming! In 3ds Max, there is a lot less reliance on them. Most everything has a descriptive button which was just an easier approach to learning for me. I am not great a memorizing a list of shortcuts! Also I found Max much easier to use. I am also considering looking at Cinema as I hear it does motion graphics really well. But blender forces you into a peculiar way of working that really does not go with my learning style and it seems a lot more complicated to do simple tasks - IMHO. :)

I've heard this quite a bit. I've no experience with Maya, so I can't speak to this but that's quite interesting. I'm sure that's one other reason why it's become such a common tool in the VFX industry.

Super cool! Yeah, picking music each time got to be a bit annoying because searching for good music in the KZfaq and Instagram apps isn't the best experience. But glad you enjoyed the process and thanks for your comments!

Cheers! That means a lot :D

Many thanks! :)

Cheers!

I appreciate it! Thank you.

Thank you for the compliment!

Thank you very much!

On a basic level, yes. But if you ever try to UV unwrap CAD data that's been tessellated into triangles, then you'll find it doesn't make life easy and in some cases it's prohibitively messy. Same goes for deformations where you're animating bendy stuff.

Thank you for your comment! :D

Thanks for pointing that out! Yes, 100% what I did here could and should be applied to any tool someone might want to learn. And lots of people ask me about plugins/add-ons. I'm purposely avoiding them for the exact reasons you mentioned. I don't like relying on software that is developed by an individual and becoming dependent on it. I'd rather learn the 'vanilla' version of the software and only use add-ons very selectively and once I know the workflow without said add-on as you mentioned.

Some addons are not just time saver but they adds up blender functionality rather bloating the vanilla blender because blender is also made up of some code so i think after understanding blender, we can utilize some time saving tools, one addon called Mira tools should be a must have addon is missing in Vanilla blender which gives you total control over topology by giving you Nurbs like handles.​@@WillGibbons

Thank you! I hope to look into it!

Thank you!

😍

I completely understand. While the UVs were very simple in my projects, I can only imagine what character artists have to battle.

In theory, it's great. But converting NURBs to mesh leads to long, spiky triangles for surface mesh. Those become problematic when UV unwrapping, deforming or subdividing. It all depends on what you'll need to do in Blender. The topology of the mesh will affect how successful each tool will be.

Sure, great question. I followed a bunch of courses by CGFastTrack. They start very basic and by going through multiple courses, I built up some muscle memory. I'd still say I'm pretty basic at that. It takes a long time to be very efficient there.

Great questions! So, the short answer to your question about, whether or not you can deform CAD models in Blender the same way I did in this example is.... not with great results. I'll go deeper into this topic later, but good topology helps ensure the deformations are smooth and correct. But after importing CAD to Blender, your tessellation will not be optimized for bending or deformations like this. And that is one of the biggest issues with interoperability. I created a templated process for filming and editing. I shot the video on a gopro. Those files upload automatically to the cloud via wifi. I would grab those clips and bring them into DaVinci Resolve where I just essentially made a new timeline and applied my templates and exported the video. I would write a caption in Notion each day explaining what I did. Then, I'd put the exported video in a google drive folder I have sync'd to my phone. Then, I'd schedule the posts in Instagram or KZfaq and copy/paste my captions from the Notion app on my phone. Sounds like a lot, but that whole process only took about 10 minutes each day on average.

⁠@@WillGibbonsHave you seen Plasticity’s mesh exporter? It looks like you can take NURBS bodies and export to quads/ngons with pretty good topology. I haven’t had a chance to check it out, but I’m wondering if it could be a tool in a SW to Blender pipeline. Right now my studio actually uses KeyShot to retessalate CAD before bringing into Blender (if we need to use it) because Solidworks’ STL/OBJ exporter doesn’t really offer any granular control. That process leaves a lot to be desired as we still end up with triangles and bad topology. It would be nice to not have to re-model something like that buckle if you just want to do a deform.

@@WillGibbons very cool - thanks for the response!

Good question. For some form factors, I'd much prefer to model them in cad. Lots of hard surface items, anything with threads or lots of holes/extrusions. I prefer Blender for soft body elements, anything requiring complex patterns on organic surfaces or bending/deforming items that need to bend when animated or particles. Some years ago, I had a freelance project that required me to model some of those 3M dual lock strips. I could not have done that in CAD. So, for me Blender is additive. But I suspect in time, I'll spend more and more time in Blender and less time in other tools.

Good question. Kind of a gut feeling. I would look at the shape of the product and try to think of how I would make it in Blender. If it felt like I was confident I could get at least 80% of it right, then I would move forward with it. That means it should not be so hard that you get completely stuck and give up, but still have some challenges.

@@WillGibbons That's what make it difficult. Do I know enough to tackle a project on my own!? There is doubt then I go back to more tutorials; Even though I know what I am supposed to do. Thanks!

Not sure it has a name. It's one of the courses included in the CGFastTrack membership.

Yes, thanks for pointing this out. I had done some very beginner-friendly tutorials/courses over the years, so I had some foundational knowledge, not to mention 10+ years of using and learning about 3D in various forms. That cycle I mentioned in the beginning where I'd learn, but then take long breaks and lose momentum... even though that happened, it helped me move through the beginner stuff much faster. I wasn't sure of how to explain that succinctly in the video.

I didn't find any issues. They recommend using the older builds so there is a 100% match between the tutorial and your version of Blender, which makes it easy enough. They are also redoing some of the beginner courses in 4.0 and newer.

@@WillGibbons Thanks for your quick response!

You can import models from Fusion to Blender, if you first convert them to a mesh like FBX, OBJ or STL. This mesh is not optimized for everything you may wish to do in Blender, like UV unwrapping or deformation animations. There are steps you can take to try to retopologize, but it's a lot of work. I decided learning how to model in Blender would be worth it regardless. I will still have to set aside time to learn a process that works well for getting CAD into Blender with some useable topology. Will check the link. Thanks!

Wow, definitely a different feeling tool than CATIA. But I could see it being a nice compliment as well. Best of luck! Consistency is key. I'm sure that's how you leaned CATIA.

Yeah, that's a tough spot to be in. If I were doing client work, I'd probably keep a license of KeyShot around. But I think you could probably make Blender work. It'd likely require some extra tools or add-ons to replace some KeyShot features though. Not sure if there's a good way to make Blender have a render queue or not. I'd say it's too soon for me to know for sure if I could truly only use Blender.

Ah, yeah, it's tough in the beginning sometimes depending on how much you have going on. No, I limited my time in Blender each day to about 1.5 hrs. Some days were a bit more, others a bit less. But it took a fair bit of extra energy/time to document the process like recording myself, writing captions and posting each day on social media. That... I don't really recommend as it introduces extra friction. I was also doing other work, but thankfully, my schedule allowed me to start my day with Blender and then move to other work later.

Possibly for quick exploration of softer or more organic forms. But in my experience, it's not fast for hard surface modeling compared to CAD. And it would depend on someone's speed. If it's slow to use Blender, then you probably could ideate in CAD faster. But if you know your designs will have soft body elements, cords, cables, cloth, fabric or other bendy things, then Blender would be more ideal I think.

CG Fast Track rigging course for beginners. They walked through how to rig that desk lamp in that course.

That's awesome! You can do it. It may take some time, but I think the end result would be well-worth it!

I use both the MX vertical and MX master. I switch back and forth between them since my wrist can get sore using one for a long time.

I do a lot of 3d modeling and adobe photoshop work, so I keep buying and returning mouses cause they don't work how I want them too

I have a blog post about my computer hardware here: www.willgibbons.com/computer/ At the bottom of that post, I have my computer specs. I currently am using an RTX3090Ti GPU.

@@WillGibbons Thank you! Also, nice video!

I haven't used many. Just UV Squares and Node Wrangler.

It's at CGFastTrack.com and you have to pay to access all their courses. The car is just one of many you get access to.

@@WillGibbons thank you

Many thanks!

Ah, I see. yeah, while there may be some add-ons available that, I'm not sure how many of those needs can be addressed in the basic Blender build.

Happy to hear I'm not the only one! haha

Thank you!

So far, I've only used a few add-ons: UV Squares, Node Wrangler... I think that's it. Next steps is to keep learning. But I won't be as strict about daily and I won't be sharing videos of my progress each day. :D

You seriously need to use add ons. They are so good. Maybe start with materialiq for material library and light wrangler for easier better lighting

Thank you!

Yeah, it was a bit of a challenge, but mostly flat surfaces. So, just pretty much needed to focus on creating decent topology so I could make the holes. The blade was a bit tricky too where it comes to a point, but that battle axe I did early on was a good primer since that had a blade on it too.

great job, how about the animation when the knife opens and the metall things move to block the blade it looks so realistic do u have a background with animation or is it your first time ?@@WillGibbons