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mason
Student
South Brisbane, QLD
4
Questions
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how long will it take to fully learn blender, like modeling, animation, textures etc?
pls list all courses i can do aswell
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2 answers
Michelle M.
Actress
3284
Answers
Updated
Michelle’s Answer
Hello, Mason !
Like I said in my other response to your other question, no one is going to be able to tell you personally how long it will specifically take you to learn Blender. That is going to be totally up to you. It will depend on how long you spend learning it after you download it and how often you apply the things you learn. The more you use it, the more you will learn.
If you want to be a professional animator, the length of time you spend learning it should not be a concern. What should matter is that you have the dedication to explore programs for yourself and spend a lot of time on the computer.
Since you haven't mentioned what career you want or what school or college you'll be going to, it would be inaccurate to suggest classes or courses, but you can download Blender from the Blender website, explore and use it and it will not matter how short or long it will take you.
You didn't say if the classes you're asking about are in secondary school or college, so you'll have to check with the schools to see what courses they offer. Colleges usually have websites with information about major programs and the courses that are needed for a specific major. If you are in secondary school, ask you guidance counselor for a list of all graphics courses offered at you secondary school. If you still are unsure of what classes to take, ask a teacher or guidance counselor for assistance but make sure you state what career you will want to go into.
I hope this helps and I wish you all the best !
Like I said in my other response to your other question, no one is going to be able to tell you personally how long it will specifically take you to learn Blender. That is going to be totally up to you. It will depend on how long you spend learning it after you download it and how often you apply the things you learn. The more you use it, the more you will learn.
If you want to be a professional animator, the length of time you spend learning it should not be a concern. What should matter is that you have the dedication to explore programs for yourself and spend a lot of time on the computer.
Since you haven't mentioned what career you want or what school or college you'll be going to, it would be inaccurate to suggest classes or courses, but you can download Blender from the Blender website, explore and use it and it will not matter how short or long it will take you.
You didn't say if the classes you're asking about are in secondary school or college, so you'll have to check with the schools to see what courses they offer. Colleges usually have websites with information about major programs and the courses that are needed for a specific major. If you are in secondary school, ask you guidance counselor for a list of all graphics courses offered at you secondary school. If you still are unsure of what classes to take, ask a teacher or guidance counselor for assistance but make sure you state what career you will want to go into.
I hope this helps and I wish you all the best !
Ayush piriya
Senior 3D Content Creator | CGI & VFX
1
Answer
Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India
Updated
Ayush’s Answer
Hello Mason
As you did not clarify or specified what is your motive or for which you are trying to master blender, I will give you general and overall Learning path for Blender
1. Build a Rock-Solid Foundation (The "Why" and "How"):
Understand the Core Principles of Animation: Before even touching Blender, grasp the 12 Principles of Animation (squash & stretch, anticipation, follow-through, etc.). These are universal and will make your animations feel alive, not just moving objects.
Blender Interface & Navigation: Get comfortable. Learn shortcuts. This is your workspace, and efficiency here saves hours.
Modeling Basics: You can't animate what you can't create. Start with simple objects, understand polygons, vertices, edges, and modifiers.
Texturing & Shading: Make your models look good! Learn about PBR (Physically Based Rendering), UV unwrapping, and creating realistic materials.
Lighting Fundamentals: Lighting sets the mood and defines form. Understand different light types, shadows, and how to create atmosphere.
Camera Work: Think like a cinematographer. How do you frame a shot? What camera movements tell the story?
2. Dive into Animation (Bringing Things to Life):
Keyframing: This is the core of animation in Blender. Understand how to set keyframes for location, rotation, and scale.
Graph Editor: This is where the magic happens for fine-tuning. Learn to manipulate f-curves for smooth, dynamic motion. This is CRUCIAL for professional-looking animation.
Rigging: To animate characters or complex objects, you need a "skeleton." Learn to create armatures, set up inverse kinematics (IK) and forward kinematics (FK), and paint weights. This is often the steepest part of the learning curve for character animation.
Character Animation: Apply the 12 principles. Practice walk cycles, run cycles, emotional expressions. Study real-life movement.
Object Animation: Don't forget non-character animation – bouncing balls, mechanical movements, flowing liquids.
3. Backgrounds & Environments (Setting the Scene):
Modular Assets: Learn to create reusable pieces (trees, rocks, buildings) that you can scatter to build large environments efficiently.
Sculpting (for organic terrains): Use Blender's sculpting tools to create detailed landscapes, mountains, and organic shapes.
Procedural Textures & Shaders: Create complex materials without endless image textures. Think of realistic rock, wood, or dirt.
Asset Scattering (Geometry Nodes or Hair Particles): Learn to populate large areas with plants, rocks, and debris using efficient methods. Geometry Nodes are particularly powerful for this now.
World & Sky Textures: Use HDRI (High Dynamic Range Imaging) lighting to quickly get realistic outdoor lighting.
Set Dressing: Just like a film set, arrange your background elements to guide the eye and tell a story.
4. Master VFX (The "Wow" Factor):
Particles: Create rain, smoke, dust, sparks, fire, and explosions. This is a vast area, so start simple.
Fluid Simulations: Generate realistic water, lava, and other liquids.
Cloth Simulations: Simulate flowing fabric for clothes, flags, or curtains.
Soft Body Dynamics: Create jiggle and deformation for squishy objects.
Compositing (Blender's Compositor): This is where you bring everything together. Learn about render passes, color correction, adding glows, blurs, depth of field, and integrating your VFX with your animation. This is where you make things look cinematic.
Tracking (Motion Tracking): If you want to integrate 3D elements into live-action footage, learn to track camera movement.
Community: Join Blender communities online (forums, Discord servers, Reddit). Ask questions, share your work, and learn from others.
Recommended Courses & Resources:
It's impossible to list all great courses, as new ones appear regularly, but here are some highly respected options that cover various aspects of your goals:
For a Strong Foundation (Beginner to Intermediate):
Blender Guru's Donut Tutorial (YouTube): While not a "course," this is an absolute rite of passage for every Blender user. It covers modeling, texturing, lighting, and rendering basics in a very accessible way.
Blender Animation Course by Wayne Dixon (Udemy/Artstation Learning): Often recommended for a good general introduction to animation principles and workflow in Blender.
Polygon Runway (YouTube/Paid Courses): Offers fantastic stylistic tutorials that teach a lot about modeling, texturing, and lighting for appealing results. Great for understanding stylized environments.
For Animation Mastery:
Pierrick Picaut's Character Animation Courses (Pierrick Picaut's Website/Gumroad): Pierrick is an industry professional and his courses on character rigging and animation are incredibly in-depth and highly regarded. This is a must if you want to animate characters seriously.
Blender Cloud (Subscription Service): Offers production files and tutorials from the Blender Institute's professional artists. It's a goldmine for advanced techniques, especially in character animation and rigging (e.g., the "Sprite Fright" production files).
For Environments & Backgrounds:
CGFasttrack's Courses (Website): Offers excellent courses on environment creation, often focusing on realism and efficient workflows. Look for their "Blender Environments" series.
Grant Abbitt (YouTube/Gumroad): Has many fantastic free and paid tutorials on modeling, sculpting, and creating environmental assets. His style is very clear and encouraging.
Ducky 3D (YouTube): While often focusing on abstract motion graphics, Ducky 3D provides a lot of insights into lighting, composition, and creating visually striking scenes, which is highly applicable to backgrounds.
For VFX & Compositing:
VFX Fundamentals in Blender by Curtis Holt (YouTube/Paid Courses): Curtis is known for his clear explanations of complex VFX topics, including particles, fluids, and compositing.
Blender Secrets (Website/Book/YouTube): Offers bite-sized tips and tricks for almost every aspect of Blender, including many useful VFX techniques. Great for quick problem-solving.
CG Cookie (Subscription Service): Offers a wide range of courses, including those on particles, physics simulations, and compositing. Their "Blender Fundamentals" course is also a great starting point.
Where to Find Them:
YouTube: An incredible free resource (Blender Guru, Grant Abbitt, Ducky 3D, SouthernShotty, Curtis Holt, etc.)
Udemy: Often has sales, so keep an eye out for well-rated Blender courses.
ArtStation Learning: Growing library of industry-focused tutorials.
Gumroad/Patreon: Many individual artists sell their courses directly here.
Blender Market: Sells assets, add-ons, and sometimes tutorials.
CG Cookie / Blender Cloud: Reputable subscription-based platforms.
My Final Advice:
Don't try to learn everything at once. Pick one area (e.g., modeling and basic animation), get comfortable with it, then add the next layer (e.g., texturing and lighting), then animation, then backgrounds, then VFX. It's a marathon, not a sprint. Celebrate your small victories, learn from your mistakes, and most importantly, have fun creating! Your passion will be your biggest motivator. Good luck!
As you did not clarify or specified what is your motive or for which you are trying to master blender, I will give you general and overall Learning path for Blender
1. Build a Rock-Solid Foundation (The "Why" and "How"):
Understand the Core Principles of Animation: Before even touching Blender, grasp the 12 Principles of Animation (squash & stretch, anticipation, follow-through, etc.). These are universal and will make your animations feel alive, not just moving objects.
Blender Interface & Navigation: Get comfortable. Learn shortcuts. This is your workspace, and efficiency here saves hours.
Modeling Basics: You can't animate what you can't create. Start with simple objects, understand polygons, vertices, edges, and modifiers.
Texturing & Shading: Make your models look good! Learn about PBR (Physically Based Rendering), UV unwrapping, and creating realistic materials.
Lighting Fundamentals: Lighting sets the mood and defines form. Understand different light types, shadows, and how to create atmosphere.
Camera Work: Think like a cinematographer. How do you frame a shot? What camera movements tell the story?
2. Dive into Animation (Bringing Things to Life):
Keyframing: This is the core of animation in Blender. Understand how to set keyframes for location, rotation, and scale.
Graph Editor: This is where the magic happens for fine-tuning. Learn to manipulate f-curves for smooth, dynamic motion. This is CRUCIAL for professional-looking animation.
Rigging: To animate characters or complex objects, you need a "skeleton." Learn to create armatures, set up inverse kinematics (IK) and forward kinematics (FK), and paint weights. This is often the steepest part of the learning curve for character animation.
Character Animation: Apply the 12 principles. Practice walk cycles, run cycles, emotional expressions. Study real-life movement.
Object Animation: Don't forget non-character animation – bouncing balls, mechanical movements, flowing liquids.
3. Backgrounds & Environments (Setting the Scene):
Modular Assets: Learn to create reusable pieces (trees, rocks, buildings) that you can scatter to build large environments efficiently.
Sculpting (for organic terrains): Use Blender's sculpting tools to create detailed landscapes, mountains, and organic shapes.
Procedural Textures & Shaders: Create complex materials without endless image textures. Think of realistic rock, wood, or dirt.
Asset Scattering (Geometry Nodes or Hair Particles): Learn to populate large areas with plants, rocks, and debris using efficient methods. Geometry Nodes are particularly powerful for this now.
World & Sky Textures: Use HDRI (High Dynamic Range Imaging) lighting to quickly get realistic outdoor lighting.
Set Dressing: Just like a film set, arrange your background elements to guide the eye and tell a story.
4. Master VFX (The "Wow" Factor):
Particles: Create rain, smoke, dust, sparks, fire, and explosions. This is a vast area, so start simple.
Fluid Simulations: Generate realistic water, lava, and other liquids.
Cloth Simulations: Simulate flowing fabric for clothes, flags, or curtains.
Soft Body Dynamics: Create jiggle and deformation for squishy objects.
Compositing (Blender's Compositor): This is where you bring everything together. Learn about render passes, color correction, adding glows, blurs, depth of field, and integrating your VFX with your animation. This is where you make things look cinematic.
Tracking (Motion Tracking): If you want to integrate 3D elements into live-action footage, learn to track camera movement.
Community: Join Blender communities online (forums, Discord servers, Reddit). Ask questions, share your work, and learn from others.
Recommended Courses & Resources:
It's impossible to list all great courses, as new ones appear regularly, but here are some highly respected options that cover various aspects of your goals:
For a Strong Foundation (Beginner to Intermediate):
Blender Guru's Donut Tutorial (YouTube): While not a "course," this is an absolute rite of passage for every Blender user. It covers modeling, texturing, lighting, and rendering basics in a very accessible way.
Blender Animation Course by Wayne Dixon (Udemy/Artstation Learning): Often recommended for a good general introduction to animation principles and workflow in Blender.
Polygon Runway (YouTube/Paid Courses): Offers fantastic stylistic tutorials that teach a lot about modeling, texturing, and lighting for appealing results. Great for understanding stylized environments.
For Animation Mastery:
Pierrick Picaut's Character Animation Courses (Pierrick Picaut's Website/Gumroad): Pierrick is an industry professional and his courses on character rigging and animation are incredibly in-depth and highly regarded. This is a must if you want to animate characters seriously.
Blender Cloud (Subscription Service): Offers production files and tutorials from the Blender Institute's professional artists. It's a goldmine for advanced techniques, especially in character animation and rigging (e.g., the "Sprite Fright" production files).
For Environments & Backgrounds:
CGFasttrack's Courses (Website): Offers excellent courses on environment creation, often focusing on realism and efficient workflows. Look for their "Blender Environments" series.
Grant Abbitt (YouTube/Gumroad): Has many fantastic free and paid tutorials on modeling, sculpting, and creating environmental assets. His style is very clear and encouraging.
Ducky 3D (YouTube): While often focusing on abstract motion graphics, Ducky 3D provides a lot of insights into lighting, composition, and creating visually striking scenes, which is highly applicable to backgrounds.
For VFX & Compositing:
VFX Fundamentals in Blender by Curtis Holt (YouTube/Paid Courses): Curtis is known for his clear explanations of complex VFX topics, including particles, fluids, and compositing.
Blender Secrets (Website/Book/YouTube): Offers bite-sized tips and tricks for almost every aspect of Blender, including many useful VFX techniques. Great for quick problem-solving.
CG Cookie (Subscription Service): Offers a wide range of courses, including those on particles, physics simulations, and compositing. Their "Blender Fundamentals" course is also a great starting point.
Where to Find Them:
YouTube: An incredible free resource (Blender Guru, Grant Abbitt, Ducky 3D, SouthernShotty, Curtis Holt, etc.)
Udemy: Often has sales, so keep an eye out for well-rated Blender courses.
ArtStation Learning: Growing library of industry-focused tutorials.
Gumroad/Patreon: Many individual artists sell their courses directly here.
Blender Market: Sells assets, add-ons, and sometimes tutorials.
CG Cookie / Blender Cloud: Reputable subscription-based platforms.
My Final Advice:
Don't try to learn everything at once. Pick one area (e.g., modeling and basic animation), get comfortable with it, then add the next layer (e.g., texturing and lighting), then animation, then backgrounds, then VFX. It's a marathon, not a sprint. Celebrate your small victories, learn from your mistakes, and most importantly, have fun creating! Your passion will be your biggest motivator. Good luck!