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Is it worth the trouble for an eventual User to learn Blender?

I don't do animations, but I like to edit some personal videos with a pinch of VFX. I always read that it is great and powerful, but has a difficult UI. I always wanted to learn it, but time is limited.



Definitely worth it. As it's a visual tool you won't learn by reading about it, nor can you learn Blender knowing everything about it's features (it would be like getting good at chess by reading chess rules)... what I mean is you have to learn by doing many small experiments and using visual guides.

I recommend doing the Doughnut tutorial by Blender Guru first, then move to CrossMind Studio, another really great one is Ducky 3D. Default Cube is great, but some of the stuff is a bit advanced. Polygon Runway is good but got bored of the same style. The best for more advanced users I've seen so far is Polyfjord, just next level stuff, can't recommend that channel enough.


Polyfjord is fantastic. If you're interested in the filmmaking/VFX side of things at an intermediate to advanced level, I can't recommend Ian Hubert enough. His YouTube channel is legendary but his Patreon is even better, tons and tons of informal, unscripted videos of just him making stuff and narrating while he does it. I know that's not everyone's cup of tea but I personally feel like I've learned most of what I know about blender from those videos!


Thanks for the Hubert recommendation, he is definitely pushing the boundaries of what can be done and showing it, but at the level I'm at (occasional user, 2 years in), his videos to me seemed a bit like the famous "How to draw an Owl" picture... I didn't know he had Patreon, I'm already a member of CrossMind Studio and Polyfjord, will definitely check it out. Thanks again.


yeah his Lazy Tutorials definitely feel a little "draw an Owl", but his longer form videos on Patreon are much more laid back and (I feel) accessible.


Make the donut: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIoXOplUvAw It's kind of a right of passage for Blender newbies.

I learned (well.. I'm learning) Blender this year and I'm glad I did. It's very intimidating at first, but you get the hang of it, and then you can't imagine a world without it. I now even prefer it to stuff like Photoshop for doing simple graphics work.


I never thought about using Blender instead of Photoshop or Gimp. Do you have any good reference?


I think it is. I started few months ago and I really love the journey so far.

I dont think Blender itself is that complicated, what is difficult is

1) Find what type of 3d you want do. 2) Do it nicely

The 3d field is enormous and you and depending what you do you will follow a specific technique and workflow.

You don't need to learn everything just with a 1% of Blender you can do pretty great stuff!


While you can edit with Blender (and with some very powerful functions) there is also Kdenlive Video Editor which has been very good for simpler edits. Depends a bit on what you want to do.


Obligatory plug for the free version of DaVinci Resolve, too. Excellent fully featured editing software that even has a pretty good compositor too.


DaVinci Resolve is excellent, but not open source.


You also can't use integrated graphics with it, which is silly.


If you have never learned 3D modeling it’s really a lot of fun. If you start by doing some tutorials you can get started pretty easily.


As with anything, what starts out as complex gets easier with exposure. I'm still at the beginning stages but I've really enjoyed the journey so far.




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