Hi my name is Antonio, and I've created digitaltreats.com as a way for me to organize what I learned about Blender.  You might find the site helpful also, I try to post videos that explained something I didn't know in Blender. Sometimes when you watch a video there are some good tips that you think, where did I see that tip? I try to summarize them so I can use the search function and organization of this website.  I post all the things I find helpful when creating Cool Computer Graphics.  I call this section How to, these are some of the best Blender tutorials on the various subjects.  If you find this site helpful, consider helping me learn blender with with my Patreon Page. 

How to

 

Setup Blender Preferences

 

Motion Graphics

How to make a HUD   (heads up display) motion graphic

 

Claymation

Claymation, you can do Ardman (Wallace and Grommit, and Shawn the Sheep) Style claymation in Blender. Including Lip Snyc

 

Architecture

How to make a room

 

Make Great Montages

Make Product Models and Animation

 

Make Simulations

Do Cloth Simulation

 

Make a Logo

Make Wireframe Animations

 

Cars

Animate a car

 

Creatures

How to model a Dinosaur

How to Rig a DInosaur

 

Anime

How to make your own anime

How to make Anime like cartoon shaders

 

Mechs

How to Make, rig, animate a mech

 

VFK

Explosions

 

Space

How to make a space scene

How to make a nebulae for your space scene (in eevee)

How to make a planet in Space

How to make asteroids

Space Ship Interior

Space Exhaust without particles

How to make a Startrek Scene

How to make a Star Wars Scene

How to make Star Wars Starships

How to model Star Wars Characters

 

Environmental

How to make grass scenes

How To make Crystals

How to use photoshop to enhance your blender scene

How to add realism to your Environment

Landscapes

 

Nurnies Greeblies Cables

How to make Cables

 

Motion Capture

How to Get Motion Capture from a Camera

 

Financial

How to fund your Cg Projects

Helpful Tips

Begninner

Getting started on 3d, a podcast by Blender guru 

 

Intermediate

 

One of my favorite Tutorials because he Shows how to Model, Texture and Animate. How to make a Product video - He goes over how to use an audio file in Blender and how to sync up your animation to the music.  He uses modifiers to model the phone too.  He shows some lighting setup also. He makes an awesome phone commercial.  One important thing I noticed is how he setup his shots.  He used collections for each shot, and a trash collection with all the shot elements.  This makes for a quick workflow. No appending files.

 

 

Great simple tutorial on how to make a simple low poly tree with good detail.

Advanced

He models the tracks and cogs, and Animates the treads.  Advanced setup, easy steps. Very well thought out video.

 

How to do Retopology Tutorial, he uses several methods that might save you time.

 

 

Things you need to do or get for Great CG

Read this section first:  What do do before you open a 3d program like BLender

 

Disney can explain the CG Process better than I can.

 

Pixar Can also.

You can also read these papers from Pixar about how they make their movies:

 

Complete your shot checklist:

What is the first step to making an artwork
Thinking of an asset list what assets do you have that you can use in your artwork?
Composition is like several steps afterwards once you have elements and assets
You then sketch out what you want and use that as your blueprint or block it out in photoshop or a drawing program.  Some people even use primative shapes to block out a scene right in the 3d program.

Get Reference images for your Concept.  Goto Google, or bing or whatever search engine and simply  type in the images you want to get inspiration from.

Grab your reference photos, and you can bring them into blender using the import image plane.  You can then turn off the render tab for that plane,  So they don't render in your scene. (Upper right corner icon shaped like a monitor) Then you can have your images in the viewport.  Great for blueprints, or reference, because trying that workflow is more efficient.

 

Get Assets

Buy or Make Models

Texture Sites with free Textures

Get Objects

Get scenes

Get Add ons  (If the Add on saves you time, or allows you to do something you normally wouldn't consider, get the add on.) Some add-ons are fun too.

Get Free Music

Get Free Sounds

 

What file format to save in

What do you want to do in 3d

Good wisdom about ways to make money in Blender

Character Design

Product Design -

Steps to Creating a 3D Environment

Animation

 

Styles choose a style for your Animation or Image

How to make Ghibli and Stylized Animations

Realistic

3d or 2d Blender does both

Claymation, you can do Ardman (Wallace and Grommit, and Shawn the Sheep) Style claymation in Blender.

Concept Art Style

Gleb describes 14 different styles. Looks like he's mostly using the compositor in blender to achieve this. Interesting was the minecraft look which used a modifer.

 

 

 

Beginner

Watch this video before you do any CG. 

 

 

Great wisdom.  He's building up his library of assets, his technique, and learning cinematic techniques every day, doing small easy clips.  (So he doesn't get overwhelmed with all the work that goes into making a short animation.)  When he has all the parts he needs, then he can assemble his short, easily and quickly, and within a certain time frame.  (By parts, I mean, assets, knowledge, money, time, and a goal)  He mentions to have a script, a story board, a shot list, a look development (for style) and a plan.   He also mentions to have self imposed deadlines and a budget. 

 

 

Making an animation has a lot of the same principles of Film Making. This person describes the types of shots and uses of.  For now skip the part about microphones, He talks about lighting also. 

 

 

Learn Color Theory

Learn Lighting

Intermediate

He talks about how he creates a shot.

 

Learn Story telling

 

 

Learn Basic Camera Shots

Advanced

This person explains what he had to do to make a commercial with lots of shots, and goes through his cg process.  He mentions things that came up for him on his project. Using the link feature and separate files seemed like a forward thinking workflow. But I noticed that the link feature wouldn't allow you to do rigid body simulations, so you have to know when to use that feature. You get a feel that there is quite a lot to know to get to the point he's at. Character design, lighting design, Blocking out animation, Compositing, Getting scale correct.  Lot of hats he's wearing. I liked that he worked with other talented people, that helps.

  Learn Composition

 

Good video on composition. 

 

Learn to Get Funded

 

 

Learn about the people who already made great films.

It's important to realize that he started somewhere.  He went to film school, he was told not to go into film by his teachers, (who said there is no money in film)  He was influenced by his friends. (so choose your friends wisely.)  He choose his own path, and realized that he didn't want people telling him what to do.    He got married, and his wife had similar interests, and influenced him also.   The most fascinating part of the documentary is when after a car crash in he teens, he realized what he wanted to do and then focused on that goal and never stopped until he achieved that goal.  Sometimes focusing all day for days etc.  There is a lot of noise today out there.  If you can, focus on your goals.  If you have a lot of noise in your life.  Try to go back to your goals every time.  Your the only person who can get your goals achieved.  (Unless you have lots of money, then you can pay people to get your goals achieved)  

George was very creative, and the video talks about how he met with the guys who did documentaries on the college he went to.  He got those people to work on his first film because they had access to camera equipment and film. 

 

This video is about the Spider Man Movie, and how some of the shots were constructed.  A good idea of what actually goes into making a Marvel Class Movie.
Some of the shots look so real you can't detect which are the vfx.