SCHEDULE – 3 CLASSES
- Dates: April 14th – April 28th
- Thursday afternoons (for 3 sessions)
- Time: 5:00pm-6:30pm PST
- Location: online classes via Discord
IMPORTANT – This is an Intermediate-Level Workshop. Prior experience with Blender or 3D app is necessary. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to call Otto directly at (619)354-3656 or email: otto@fxdojo.com
Class Description
Blender has been forging ahead in the content creation industry, pioneering the trend of procedural workflows. Nodes (also known as visual building blocks of code) help artists conceptualize and produce more iterations at a faster pace. Geometry nodes specifically focus on modeling, whereas animation and rigging nodes are for movement.
Curves and Rotation Utility nodes
The common analogy of Photoshop versus Illustrator is well suited to describe the difference between mesh data and curve data. Building with Geometry Nodes starts with curves and is more dependent on understanding mathematical relationships than the location of vertices. Students will solve puzzles and creatively experiment using just a handful of nodes to learn how versatile they can be.
Switch network for stop motion style animation
Since geometry nodes are like looking at a roadmap of code, the simple on/off concept of a Switch is a great place to start. Students will learn to animate appearing and disappearing models as a first exercise.
Geometry nodes are perfect for repetition with variation
Instancing is a form of duplicating, and a common practice for CG artists who are dealing with repetition. For example, creating dozens of needles on a cactus is easily achieved by instancing a primitive cone. However, art usually looks better (and more natural) with variation and some needles should be longer than others. Students will learn to customize attributes like size and rotation using different node networks.
Node Editor navigation and management
Speaking of node networks, an important fundamental skill of a CG artist is navigation within the app. This 3 week class will help students develop the muscle memory and instincts to work with nodes, not only in Blender but any professional visual effects package with a node editor. This would include Maya, Houdini, Unreal, Unity, to name a few.
What you need to join the class
- Computer, PC or Mac (unfortunately iPads and other tablets won't work for this class)
- 3-button mouse is highly recommended (but touchpad will work)
- Reliable Internet connection
- Blender version 3.1 (free download)
- Discord (free download)
- A Discord account (free)
IMPORTANT – if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to call Otto directly at (619)354-3656 or email: otto@fxdojo.com