The Complete 3D Artist: Learn 3D Art by Creating 3 Scenes | Discount Coupon for Udemy Course

Welcome to The Complete 3D Artist in this video I'd like to introduce you to the course

In this video I will take you through the overall structure of the course and touch on some one the exciting techniques and skills you will learn in this course and the 3 different projects you will complete too.

In this video I will quickly discuss the additional onine help and feedback that you can access as a student of this course.

In this video I will give to a quick crash course introduction to 3D co-ordinates and the basic sub-objects that make up every 3D object, vertices, edges and faces (or polygons). 

In this video I will briefly introduce you to some of the popular 3D content creation software that is available and their main uses. 

Although you will not be using any of these applications in this course, it is important to understand the core concepts which are fundamental to 3D art are applicable to any software you choose to move on to in the future.

In this video I will show you how to download Blender 3.0 from Blender.org or by using the most efficient Blender Launcher program.

Setting up Blender 3.0 the first time you use it

In this video we will look at Blender's main menus

In this video we will look at Blender's default workspaces.

In this video we will look at customising the layout of Blender, creating new editor windows, workspaces and closing editors.

In this video we will look at some basic editor settings and options.

In this video we will cover navigation in the viewport with and without moving the camera. Also a demo files is attached to help you practice and learn the numpad navigation hotkeys.

In this video we will look at moving, rotating and scaling objects.

In this video I cover some fundamental concepts such as verts, edges, faces and normals.

In this video I will show you 5 different methods of finding and selecting modelling tools

In this video we start looking at the modelling tool shelf, starting with the add cube tool

In this video we look at one of the most frequently used tools, extrude

In this video we look at the inset tool

In this video we look at the bevel tool

In this video we look at the Loop Cut and Offset Edge Loop Cut tools, as well as the Loop Cut and Slide hotkey Ctrl +R

The this video we will look at the knife tool, a very powerful modelling tool and the bisect tools, a very frustrating one.

In this video I will introduce you to this section on downloading, installing and navigating Blender.

Since the release of this course, certain videos in this section have been subtitled with "Interface", these are the original videos in this section. Others, subtitles with "Basics" have been added to offer students an easier transition from learning to navigate in Blender to starting your first models.

The challenges set in these "Basics" videos will give you time to practice navigating in Blender, using the translate, rotate & rotate gizmos, experience using some of the basic hotkeys like Shift + A to add objects and moving in and out of Object and Edit mode.

You will also be able to gradually add some of the most basic, but powerful modeling tools in 3D art to your arsenal with each video in this section. By the end of it, you should have enough basic experience in Blender to cope with even the most challenging modeling tutorials in Section 3: Modeling 101.

In this video I will guide you through the install process for Blender. You will also download some demo scenes from Blender.org that can be used later to practice customizing the interface and navigating in a 3D scene.

In this video I will discuss the new version of Blender 2.8 and why you might want to avoid it until you are more familiar with Blender 2.79.

In this video we will open Blender for the first time and then customize the default start up screen by creating our own workspace and saving a new Start-up File

in this video you will make some adjustments to your User Preferences in order to make the most of Blender's additional Add-ons as well as your GPU's CUDA processing abilities.

Several tools that will be used in the modelling, texturing and compositing sections of this course are only available with certain Add-Ons enabled. These include Mesh>Edit Tools 2, Mesh>Looptools, Mesh>F2, Mesh>Inset Polygon, Mesh>Relax, Add Curve>Extra Objects, Add Mesh>Extra Object, Object>Bool Tool, Pie Menu>3D Viewport Pie Menus, Node>Node Wrangler. These are all disabled, but included in Blender by default, they should be enabled in your default scene, user settings saved and the start-up file saved to make sure they are always available.

In this video I will teach you how to navigate a 3D scene. You will learn to orbit, pan and zoom the viewport as well as learn to use your number pad to quickly change to several default views.

I will also discuss the difference between orthographic and perspective views.

In this video I'll discuss the 3D cursor, this is a fairly unique tool in Blender and it can be tricky to master. I'll teach you a powerful and quick way to control it.

The this video you will learn how to add, select and delete objects.

In the video I refer to it as CTRL + D but it is actually SHIFT + D. I've added a text caption in the video to address this. Thanks to Steven for spotting this error.

In this video I will discuss object transforms. Transforms is the term for tranlating (moving), rotating or scaling (stretching or resizing) a 3D object.

We will also briefly discuss the difference between Global transform orientation and Local transform orientation.

In this video I will discuss the Info Bar or Information Panel, this is where we can find the File, Render, Window & Help menus. As well as the Workspaces, Scenes and Render Engine drop-down menus.

It also has some statistics on your scene such as poly counts and number of objects.

In this video you will learn about the Outliner Editor Window. 

This basically shows the hierarchical structure of your scene. It contains all your objects, meshes, modifiers, constraints, materials etc.

We will learn a useful option and hotkey to find selected objects in the Outliner quickly and also how to hide objects in the viewport and much more.

You can download the BMW and Classroom Blender files from https://www.blender.org/download/demo-files/

In this video I'll show you the most important parts of the 3D View or the 3D Editor Window. 

I'll discuss the main View, Select, Add & Object drop down menus, different Object Interaction Modes and different viewport render modes.

We'll also briefly discuss the Rendered Viewport Preview mode and Cycles renderer.

In this video I'll briefly discuss several of the different sections in the Properties Editor Window.

This window has many, many sections and options so I'll only go over the most important parts so we can get started on our first project.

Some sections like the Render, Material, Texture, Camera & Lamp Object Data will be discussed in more detail later in the course.

This is the first of several additional videos in this section added since the launch of the course. These videos were added after student feedback suggested that there should be some more videos on the basics of modeling before starting to create models of the first scene.

In this video you will learn about the differences between Object mode, where you manipulate objects, and Edit Mode where you are able to manipulate vertices, edges and faces as well as access all the modeling tools.

In this video I will show you the 4 different types of extrude. For the most part you will use these on faces (although they can be used on edges and sometimes vertices).

At the end of this video you will be able to create some very basic models from primitive geometry like cubes, cylinder and sphere etc. You should take some time after the video to practice using this tool on several types of primitive object and experiment with extruding faces, edges and vertices, singularly or in groups.

One of the tools show here, Extrude and Reshape, will only appear if you have the Mesh>Edit Tools 2 Add-ons enabled. If it isn't in the list of add-ons in user preferences, you can find the scripts in the resources of this video, just unzip and drag the folder straight into the C:\Program Files\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.79\scripts\addons or equivalent folder in your Blender install folder.

In this video I will show you the extremely useful Inset Faces tool. This allows you to scale down a face or selection of faces while creating additonal geometry from the selections original boundary to its new boundary. It's very much like extrude, but instead of moving a selection, you are scaling it.

At the end of this video you should have a good understanding of how versatile this tool is. With some practice, and combining it with extrude, you should be able to create some pretty advanced models, like a stair stepped Pyramid for example.

In this video I will start but showing you how to select edge loops and edge rings. I will then show you the Lopo Cut & Slide tool, this allows you to add an edge loop (providing there is a valid edge ring to connect). You can add multiple edge loops at one time, slide them and also have them bow in or out using the Smoothness value and type options. 

At the end of this video you should be able to create some pretty interesting models from primitives and you will be able to cut edges into your models to create more geometry to inset, extrude etc.

In this video I will give you an overview of the Bevel tool, one of the most versatile tools in 3D modeling. It can be used to smooth sharp corners or chamfer edges, create interesting profiles for things like paneling, skirting boards or furniture and countless other uses.

At the end of this video you will be able to create chamfers, bevels and inward curving profiles on objects, you will be able to quickly create a sphere from a cube, create a dome and finally, you will find out the most important use for adding a bevel to your edges, add realism to your models.

In this video I will show the differences between deleting and dissolving sub-objects. Depending on which type of sub-object you are deleting or dissolving, the effects can vary dramatically. For example, you can't dissolve a single face, but you can delete it, leaving a hole in the mesh. You can delete a vertex, which will in turn delete all the faces that share that vertex, again leaving a hole, but dissolving a vert will remove the vert and any edge it shares without removing the faces. knowing when or if you should delete or dissolve sub-objects can be extremely useful. You will also learn some ways to remove extra vertices by merging or removing doubles.

At the end of this video you will be able to get rid of extra edges, vertices and reduce the poly count of your objects while retaining the overall shape of them. As well as being able to remove unwanted vertices using the remove doubles tool, which can help reduce errors caused by some complex modeling tasks later in the course.

In this video You will learn some of the basic methods for filling holes in your mesh using Fill Edges/Faces tool (F), Grid Fill and the Bridge Edge Loops tools (Ctrl + E> Bridge Edge Loops). I will also briefly show you the Connect Vert Path Tool (J).

These methods can be used to join together separate meshes in the same object, fill holes after deleting faces and many, many other uses.

In this video I will show the the basic ways to cut detail into your model using the Knife, Knife Project, Bisect and Select Tools. I'll also show some of the limitations of each and way some work better than others.

At the end of this video you should be able to add edges to your models accurately in order to allow for more complex modeling.

In this video I will explain origins & pivot points and how they relate to scaling and rotating. I will also show you how to move the origin point of your object, how to reset your origin point and how the 3D cursor can help you do this.

I will also discuss pivot points for groups of objects, how you can define different pivots such as by bounding box, 3D cursor, by active element or by individual origins. I will also show you how to manipulate objects by scaling and rotating their origins, without actually affecting their geometry, only their location in 3D Space in relation to a shared pivot point.

At the end of this video you should have a very good knowledge of what origins and pivot points do, how to move them and how to manipulate multiple objects at the same time, using individual or shared pivot points.

In this first video on Modifiers, I will briefly discuss the Modifier Stack, adding modifiers and their basic functions such as the Render & Eye Icons and changing their order.

I will also discuss the 4 basic settings in the Boolean Modifier, before looking at each operation type in depth in the next few video lessons.

In this video I will discuss using the Boolean modifier, set to a Union Operation. I'll discuss how this differs from just joining to different objects together and why using Booleans is often quicker.

In this video I will discuss the difference operation in the Boolean modifier and how to use it. I will also discuss live editing using Booleans and how the Boolean modifier works in edit mode.

In this final video on the Boolean modifier, I will discuss intersect mode, this is probably the least used of the Boolean operations but when used creatively it can result in very interesting models.

I will also show you how to use multiple booleans, how to apply or bake your booleans to your model and why you may want to use a combination of Live and Baked booleans on your models.

In this video I will show the the Proportional Editing tool. This tool is a staple of 3D software, it's usually described as soft selection in most other software. In Blender there are a few extra tricks it can do, including working on multiple objects. There are also several types of falloff that can be used to achieve exactly the shape you want
With some practice you should be able to utilize this tool to create nice flowing or even randomized effects.

This is a very simple to use modifier that lets you create symmetrical objects on multiple axes. There a few setting that you should know about, Merge, Clipping and Mirror Object. In this video I will demonstrate the modifier and highlight the uses for these setting and some potential pitfalls you may fall into when using this modifier. I use the Mirror modifier a lot throughout the entire course, so its best to learn about it early so you don't get confused later.

In this video I will discuss the Subdivision Surface modifier. This can be used to increase the amount of geometry on an object and smooth out angled surfaces, or just subdivide faces to make displacement maps produce higher quality effects.

This modifier will be used extensively throughout the course for both organic and hard surfaces. At the end of this video you will have all the knowledge you need to use this modifier correctly.

Test your knowledge of Blender with this short quiz

In this video I will introduce you to the section on basic 3D modeling.

In this video I will show you show I found some of the reference images I used to plan my final image.

I will look for common objects and composition to get an idea of how the final image may look.

After watching this video, gather your own reference to create your own, unique still life scene.

In this video I will block out a simple still life scene using basic primitive like spheres, cubes and cones. Don't worry if you can't follow along with some of the modeling here, as I create the final models of each of the pieces of fruit, decanter and cheese etc, I will explain exactly what tools I am using and why.

After watching this video please use some reference videos you have found to block out your own scene.

My scene at the end of this video is available to download in this video's resources. You can then work from than in future lessons, or create your own blocking from scratch.

In this video I will start setting up the scene for the final objects and model the table.

You learn about the Bevel modifier and why having a scale of 1,1,1 is important when you use some modifiers. I'll also show you how to change your object surface smoothing from flat to smooth to remove faceting.

The initial scene file is available in resources.

In this video I will model the chopping board using a background image for reference and bezier curves to create the shape.

You will also learn about why I use 4 sided polys where I can, how subdivision surfaces can be tightened using control edge loops and inset poly tools. Finally I will mirror the top half of the board to create the bottom half of the board.

In this video I will look at some reference images of oranges and think about what characteristics I would need to replicate in my model in order to great a realistic result.

In this video I will use proportional editing for the first time this is where transforms on vertices, edges and faces affect unselected sub-objects based on different types & radius of fall-off, like smooth, sharp, random etc. We will be using Proportional Fall-off quite about in this section as it works really well on organic models.

After creating a base model of an orange, I will duplicate it and add some other details for a slightly different orange and a lemon

In this video I will model an apple. Again, I'll start by examining the object I am modeling to make sure I understand the characteristics that identify the shape as an apple. 

I use continue to use the proportional editing to create the organic details that I need.

Following on from the previous lessons I will model a pear. This time I will model directly from a background image to make sure I get the shape perfect but I'll also emphasis that you don't have to follow the reference exactly.

In this video I will model a peach using a slightly different technique than before. I will start with a bezier curve to create the profile of the peach and use the Spin tool to turn it into a 3D object.

In this video I will model a wine glass. I will show you how to import a image onto a plane that can be used to help modeling.

In this video I will build on the techniques used in the last video, however I will show you another modifier, Solidify, that you can use to add thickness you your objects.

In this video I will use the meshes of the glass and decanter to create meshes for the liquids that will fill them. 

In this video I will use some more simple modeling techniques to create various blocks of cheese.

In this video I will discuss boolean operations and why they are not always the best option for creating certain models. Instead I will show you a way of manually creating a similar effect by combining 2 objects.

In this video I will continue to show you some techniques to create the Swiss cheese model. I will show you how you can use a combination of our first technique to set up Booleans. 

By thinking logically about why the Booleans didn't work in the last video, you can better prepare your meshes so the Boolean operations require much less tidy up. The combination of both techniques ends up being faster than either technique alone.

To finish off the Swiss cheese model I need to adjust the mesh slightly to keep good topology and edge flow. This allows the mesh to smooth better when the Subsurface Division modifier is applied.

I'll use two new functions, the Knife tool and the merge vertices tools. These allow us to draw edges directly onto the mesh and remove vertices to keep quad polygons.

In this video  will model the handle of the cheese knife using box modeling techniques.

in this video I will continue to model the blade of the knife. Here I discuss the important of edge loops and control edges even on a model that should have some blunt and some very sharp edges.

In this video I will finish off the knife model. I will Use Booleans, properly planned, to create the metal cylinders than attach the handle to the blade and I will mirror the handle to finish it off.

In this video I will move all of our models into place to achieve a pleasing composition on which to test out Blenders lighting tools in the next section.

Test Your Knowledge of Basic 3D Modeling with this short quiz

In this video I will introduce you to the section on The Node Editor and creating basic shader trees.

In this video I will make some adjustments to the scene before starting to light the scene. This includes applying a simple diffuse material to all the objects and adding a camera so we can look at out objects from a consistent angle.

In this video I will look at the Point Lamp and its settings.

In this video I will discuss Spot Lamp in Blender and its various settings. Don't forget to experiment with this type of light between videos.

In this video I will discuss the Area Lamp in Blender and its various settings. Don't forget to experiment with this type of light between videos.

In this video I will discuss the Sun map in Blender. I will also discuss the relationship between the Sun Lamp's Gizmos and the way it illuminates. I'll also use a Sun lamp in conjunction with light from the Sky using a High Dynamic Range Image.

In this video I will discuss using emissive surfaces to light your scene.

In this video I will use various HDR (High Dynamic Range) images to light the scene.

Test your Knowledge on 3D lighting in this short quiz

In this video I will introduce the section on the Node Editor.

In this video I will briefly discuss the Node Editor specifically for creating materials and shaders.

In the video I will discuss the Node Wrangler plug-in which has several useful tools and hotkeys for speeding u the materials creation workflow.

In this video I will discuss the various different shader nodes available in Blender and some uses for those nodes.

In this video I will discuss various texture nodes. I tend to split these into a few different categories, utility nodes, image nodes and procedurals.

In this video I will discuss the color nodes. These can be used to adjust or combine existing textures and images.

In this video I will discuss the vector nodes. Only a few of these are really useful to us.

In this video I will discuss some of the converter nodes. Several of these can be very useful.

In this video I will briefly discuss the Add Shader and Mix Shader Nodes, used for combining 2 shaders together.

In this video I will discuss how the Vector input/outputs on many nodes can affect how textures appear on objects. I will break down a technique where you can adjust the scale of your textures on individual axes using Separate RGB/Combine RGB nodes and MixRGB nodes. I will also show that distortion can by applied to images or procedural textures using this technique. I will show how this can be used in a procedural wood texture in a later section.

In this video I will introduce you to the section on the UV unwrapping process

In this video I will explain what UVs are and how UV co-ordinates relate to texture mapping and how UV vertices, edges and faces relate to the vertices, edges and faces of your 3D model.

In this video I will show you the basic Unwrapping tool. In order to make full use of it, I will describe how marking seams allows you to cut up your model so it can be laid out flat in a UV map.

In this video I will discuss using the Smart UV Project tool to create some initial UVs. Then I will use the Stitch tool to re-arrange and stitch together some of the faces to reduce the number of UV islands.

This video has a brief description and example of the Lightmap Pack. This tool is used almost exclusively in game art creation, specifically for baking lighting information into game assets and environments.

This tool allows you to flatten out areas of quads into very even rows or grids or squares or rectangles. This can be really useful for unwrapping certain types of meshes, but it can require a bit of additional editing to make sure the UVs are not distorted or stretched. I'll also show you the Pack Islands tool.

In this video I will briefly discuss cube, cylinder and spherical projection mapping. These techniques tend to be very specialised and not used for standard unwrapping of models and objects. For the most part they tend to be used for environment mapping.

This is another very specialised tool for mapping textures to models. This works based on the camera's view of the objects and as such is really only suitable for stills and, in some cases, visual effects.

In this video I will show you a model from BlenderSwap.com that we will use to practice our unwrapping process.

I will show you the unwrapping that has been used on the model based on a pre-made photographic texture.

In this video I will draw your attention to a couple of errors on the
model that need to be fixed before it can be unwrapped (the fixed file
is provided for you). I will then show you the workflow for unwrapping
the wall and roof, stitching some together and moving and rotating
islands.

In this video I'll continue unwrapping this model, concentrating on some of the more intricate parts.

In this video I will show you another couple of hints to help unwrap your models, including evening out the scale of your islands by sing Average Island Scale and Packing your UVs back in to the UV space.

In this video I'll unwrap parts of the roof section, the chimney and loft windows.

In this video I will continue to unwrap the model

In this video I will finish up unwrapping the model

In this video I will show you how to pack your UV map efficiently in the UV space

In this video I will look at the duplicate windows and show you how to unwrap one objects and use it across your scene, saving time having to unwrap multiple objects.

In this video I will show you how to export your UV in order to use them in a 3rd party program like GiMP or Photoshop

Test your knowledge of UV Unwrapping with this short quiz

In this video I will introduce you to the section on creating materials for all the objects in the scene

In this video I will discuss how to create your own Material Library. We will create a few very simple shaders in an empty scene and apply them to fake-users, then we will open up our Still Life project file and append these into our scene.

I will also download a Test Scene will Shader Totem from Blender.org (the link is provided in the section notes, and attached to this video).

In this video I will describe the workflow for creating materials, from customising the workspace to looking at reference materials.

In this video I will start building the bump map component of the orange shader.

In this video I will continue to tweak the bump map component of the Orange skin shader and use it to control the color and roughness components

In this video I will beign to tweak the Orange Skin shader in order to use it as the basis of the Lemon Skin shader.

Following on from the previous videos, I will complete the process of creating a Citris Skin node group that can be used for any type of Orange, Lime or Lemon skins.

In this video I will begin the process of creating the Pear skin shader

In this video I wil tweak the bump and roughness components of the Pear Skin shader

In this video I will create a Glass shader using a mix of Glossy BSDF and Refraction BSDF nodes. I'll also discuss the use of different Fresnel effects to control the strength of reflection depending on angle of view.

In this video I will create a very simple Wine shader.

In this short video I will create the UVs for the Table top, apply the default scale of 1,1,1 and finally look at some reference images and collect some textures.

In this video I will use various texture maps and masks to create the diffuse texture for the table top.

In this video I will use aspects of the diffuse map to create a normal or bump map for the table surface.

In this video I will tweak the roughness of the table material using aspects of the bump and diffuse maps.

With all the basic parts of this complex material created, I will make some final tweaks to really give the shader the qualities that I want.

In this video I will look at some reference images of cheese to identify the characteristics of the real world object in order to recreate these characteristics in our cheese shader.

I will also use the Geometry node to begin to create a faked bright edge cause by subsurface scattering on the thinnest parts of the model.

In this video I will take the shader and tweak it to crete a Swiss cheese shader. This requires certain areas to pick up tighter reflections and by using the Geometry node again, I create a procedural mask to control our mix of glossy shaders.

In this video I will take the Swiss Cheese Shader and create a Cheese Node Group out of it. This will allow us to quickly create the other similar shaders we need.

In this video I will use the Cheese Node, adjust it for a Cheddar style cheese and add a bump map.

In this video I will separate the Edam style cheese model into two parts, the Red Wax object and the Cheese object. This makes creating the materials a little easier. I use a variation of the Cheese Node for the Edam, and make a Red Wax material from scratch. Again we use SSS shader, so expects longer render times for your previews.

In this video I re-model the Blue Cheese object. This will make the objects easier to texture as the actual geometry will begin more realistic.

In this video I will create the Rind material for the blue cheese object. Here I will create an interesting bump map and use it to control the color map.

After some trial and error trying to create the blue cheese material between videos, I decided to to just go ahead and create this shader using out reference photographic. Usually its possible to create fairly complex material using procedural textures, but in this case the blue cheese just had some interesting characteristics that I couldn't replicate at the level I wanted. Part of the this video required the use of 3rd party software to resize, skew, mirror and paint some of the final diffuse map. I used Photoshop, but GIMP (which is free) can also be used.

In this video I will add the bump and roughness characteristics to the blue cheese material. As the diffuse was based entirely on a photographic, I have to use Color Ramps to create the other maps I need.

In this video I will re-model the Brie style cheese object. Originally the edges were fairly sharp and the sides were flat, on the new model the edges will be very soft and the side will bulge out.

In this video I will begin work on the material for the brie style cheese. I will use a few different texture maps and combine them using a mask created using the Geometry Input node and a Separate RGB node to create a height map. The characteristics of this normal map are controlled by Color Ramp and the factors of RGB Mix nodes.

In this video I will re-iterate how the bump map is connected together. I will then create a color map for the diffuse shader from aspects of the bump and some new texture maps. 

In this video I will create a simple brushed metal shader for the knife blade.

In this video I will quickly make a few adjustments to the scene.

In this video I will make the initial greyscale map for the bamboo material.

In this video I will colorize the greyscale map for the bamboo material.

In this video I will add the reflections using fresnel and a simple bump map to the bamboo material.

In this video I will turn the bamboo material into a Bamboo Node Group for future use.

In this video I will use the Bamboo Node to texture the chopping board and the knife handle.

In this video I will create the diffuse part of the peach material using procedural texture nodes.

In this video I will create the bump for the peach material and use a number of other nodes to fake the characteristic fuzz on the surface of the peach.

In this video I will create a red apple shader from scratch using procedural textures.

In this video I will make a few little tweaks to the scene before I start creating some renders, adjusting the lighting and delving into the compositor for post production.

Test you knowledge on creating shaders in this short quiz

In this video I will introduce you to the section on Rendering and Compositing

In this video I will create and examine our first render, created with some default settings.

In this video I will show you how to download and update Blender's color management system in order to gain more control over the way the high dynamic range of our scene can be retained for our renders.

Please note if you installed Blender 2.79 or higher, you can access Filmic color mode without downloading any additional files.

In this video I will create a simple background plane so we wont have any empty space behind our objects.

In this video I will re-scale the scene to ensure that the size of the objects are much closer to their real world sizes, this should help when we adjust settings and use more realistic lighting techniques.

In this video I will set up a very simple lighting system.

In this video I will examine our second test render and decide what steps to take in order to improve it.

In this video I will make some changes to the scene and the render setting based on the last render test.

In this video I will quickly examine the last render and decide what steps I can take to improve it.

In this video I will begin creating a very simple room in which to place the scene, this will create some interesting reflections.

In this video I will add some shaders to the background room and begin creating a more advanced lighting set up.

In this video I will add a Sun Lamp to create the main light in the scene.

In this video I will finish off the lighting setup.

In this video I will make some final adjustments to the lighting set up to get the look that I want.

In this video I will make some adjustments to some of the materials to improve the look of some of the objects.

In this video I will discuss and set up render layers and render passes. These are used to break down the scene into several images that can be re-combined during compositing, allowing us to make a lot of adjustments without the need to re-render the scene.

In this video I will make some final adjustments to the render setting, render layers and render passes.

In this video I will examine the final test render, before out final render and make any last minute tweaks that may be required.

In this video I will create a basic composite of the combined render layers. This is the most basic type of compositing.

In this video I will begin creating a more advanced render composite using individual render passes.

in this video I will continue with the advanced compositing.

In this video I will continue compositing our layer passes.

In this video I will composite the ambient occlusion layer into the scene.

In this video I will use some compositing tricks to remove some of the unwanted noise from the scene. This can be achieved in the render by increasing the sample, but would greatly increase render times.

in this video I will show you how to add a depth of field effect to the render. I will be keeping it very subtle, but in some scene you may want to focus more on one particular area.

In this video I will show you how to use several of the color nodes in the compositor to do some color correction or color grading to the render.

In this video I will show you another couple of post production tips and tricks that you can use to improve your render.

In this video I will examine the final render and conclude the first project of the course.

Test your knowledge of cameras and rendering in this short quiz.

In this video I will introduce you to the second project, a model of an explorer style guitar. This projects is designed to increase your modeling skills by having you model a hard surface model of a guitar. You can work along with me using the same Blend files or why not choose a different type of guitar and model that instead.

Please download a the list of hotkeys that will come in useful for this section. All the hotkeys here are system defaults, I have added some of my own, but haven't included them here to avoid confusion. The downloadable PDF has Screeenshots of the Viewport Pie Menus That I often use.

In this video I will set up a new install of Blender Version 2.79.

This mostly consists of enabling some of the more useful add-ons that are disabled by default. I will be using some of these add-ons throughout this project.

In this video I will set up some very simple image planes using the "Add Image As Plane" add on. Later I will replace these image planes with background images.

After this video you should be able to quickly add reference images into your scenes to model with.

In this video I will give you a brief re-introduction to using Bezier curves. I will be creating several pieces of geometry in this project using one or more Bezier curves as a starting point. I'll cover the most useful hotkey for adding points, rotating and scale handles, as well as connecting points and subdividing segments.

After this video you should be able to quickly and precisely create complex Bezier curves that you can then use as the basis for complex polygonal objects.

In this video I will create the shape of the body of the guitar using a bezier curve.

After this video You should have a better understanding of how to create a complex Bezier curve.

In this video I will convert the initial Bezier curve object to a polygon object. I'll show you one technique to give it some thickness by using the extrude setting within the Object Data section of the Properties panel. I will also start working on the topology of this object and introduce the Polygon Inset tool.

After this video you should be able to convert your Bezier curves to a polygonal object.

In this video I will continue to work on the topolgy of the guitar body, attempting to keep all quads and improve the edge flow around the object. This will allow a subdivision surface modifier to be applied later. Good edge flow here helps you control how hard your edges are.

After this video you should have a good understanding to the process of taking a polygonal object created from a Bezier curve, and optimizing it by keeping good edge flow and all quads.

In this video I will replace the simple image planes will Blenders built in Background image. These work a lot better as they still show up in Wireframe mode, not just Material/texture mode.

After this video You will be able to crete much better background images, to scale.

In this video I will use Bezier curves to create the shape of the neck and headstock.

After this video you will ave a better understanding of Bezier curves, particularly the ability to manipulate them in three dimensions instead of on a single plane.

In this video I will turn the Bezier curve into a poly object and prepare to optimize it for subdivision surfaces.

After this video you will have a better understanding of converting Bezier curves to Polygonal objects.

In this video I will finish off the headstock and start creating the rest of the neck using Bezier curves.

In this video I will create the addition block at the bottom of the neck that would usually attach the neck to the guitar.

After this video you will have a better understanding or joining two separate objects together into a single polygonal object.

In this video I will join together the headstock and the neck pieces. 

At the end of this video you will have a better understanding of the bridge tool, the Smooth vertex tool and you will be introduced to the Sculpt mode wit the Smoothing brush.

In this video I will extrude out the fingerboard part of the guitar and reshape it. This includes adding edge loops for all the frets. This requires a bit of work to make sure all the edges are perfectly straight.

At the end of this video you should have a better understanding of adding and sliding edge loops.

In this video I will start to add edge loops to the neck object to tighten all the corners when it is subdivided. 

At the end of this video you should have a better understanding of controlling corners using edge loops, the edge slide tool and generally how edge loops can affect a subdivided model.

In this video I will create a simple nut from a very basic shape, I will also move the neck down onto the main body of the guitar and adjust the nut to match where the strings will be.

At the end of this video you will have a better understanding or the move and rotate tools, the Bevel option and generally hard surface modeling.

In this video I will create the speed knobs for the guitar. These are black plastic bell knobs encased in a clear acrylic. I will create this on its own image plane using Duplicate Linked.

After this video you have a better understanding of Duplicate Linked, using image planes are reference and general hardsurface modeling.

In this video I will give the scene a general clean up, renaming objects, parenting objects and changing my work space so it displays some reference images for the upcoming videos. I will also turn on MatCap materials.

At the end of this video you will be able to set up a hierarchy between objects and child-parents relationships. You will also be able to add Matcap materials to your Solid display viewport for a higher quality viewport experience.

In this video I will create the Plate where the guitar lead is plugged into the jack. This is a tricky piece of geometry will a lot of curves and several holes. I will use a combination of edge loop modelling and booleans.

At the end of the video you will have a better understanding of booleans, mirroring and edge loops.

In this video I will create the actual hole where the jack goes and the nut that holds it in place. This model isn't very tricky, but there are some interesting characteristics of the model, such as the circular inner shape and the hexagonal outer shape, as well as differences in the sharpness of edges all over the object.

At the end of this video you should have a better understanding of planning your model to create the shape you need, while still managing to keep good edge flow and subdivision surfaces.

In this video I will Create a cross headed screw out of a UV Sphere. Objects like this can be create once and used all over complex objects or even in different scenes, so It worth spending time making a really nice looking object.

Most of the technique here are ones you will have used before, but starting with a less common primitive make things a lit trickier.

in this video I will create the button that the guitar strap would go on to. I will use a combination of photo reference, scale drawings and my own imagination to create this object. There nothing too tricky here, just basic edge loop modelling from a cylinder primitive.

in this video I will set up a new file in which to model the Humbuckers, I will also build the basic shape of the coils.

Over the Next 5 video you will learn the importance of separately modeling complex parts that can be later added to your scenes. Most of the modelling here uses techniques I have already covered but I go into more detail on why you might use certain techniques.

In this video I will build the plastic surrounding piece for the Humbuckers.

In this video I will make holes in the coils for the slugs ad screw and also add in the metal slugs to one of the coils

In this video I will create a flat-head screw for the other pickup coil and also add a strap of tape around both coils.

In this video I will tidy up the humbuckers themselves before saving and appending them to the original scene where I will add more screws and duplicate it to both bridge and neck pickup positions.

In this video I will create a new scene in which I will mode the first part of the bridge. Since I have already shown how to set up image places, several times, I will take this opportunity to update you on some changes I have made to my Blender Theme, add-ons and Hotkeys.

If you haven't already downloaded the Hotkey .pdf file at the start of this section, please do now as I will be using shortcut key and Hotkeys much more often from this point forward.

In this video I will start building the basic shape of the first part of the bridge. For the next several objects that I model I will be using a technique of working with more polys and beveling edges and set up smoothing groups to create a hard surface feel to the pieces instead of using subdivision surfaces and edge loops.

You will learn more about using booleans in this video and I will start using more hotkeys and shortcut keys.

In this video I continue to model that base mesh from the first bridge piece. I will use booleans again and several new shortcuts keys. 

In this video i will you use several techniques to take the base mesh and make it a more convincing hard surface model.

At the end of this video you will know how to Autosmooth surface normals, set up sharp edges to control normal smoothing and using Edge Bevel Weights in conjunction with the Bevel modifier to non-destructively bevel your edges.

In this video I will create a saddle that sits on the bridge where the guitar strings go. Again this peice will be good practice for looking at setting sharp edge, using auto-smooth and bevels. I will also create a holes through the object using a cylinder and the boolean tools again. 

In this video I will create a very simple bolt using using some very basic techniques. This will show you just how good a model can look by simply having good auto-smooth settings, bevel settings & starting with a good resolution. I will also use Local Mode of the first time, this basically hides everything in the scene except the selected object. This allows you to work on an object when usually other objects may be in the way or distracting.

In this video I will make a very tricky piece of geometry, die to the nature of the modeling technique I use, its better to smooth this piece using a subdivision surface modifier. I will also create a simple washer and duplicate all the repeating hardware created up to this point.

In this video I will be using the G, R and S hotkeys for moving, rotating and scaling in conjuction with the X, Y and Z keys to contraint these transforms to a single axis. I will also show you how to change the pivot point on a group of selected faces or objects from the default, median point of the selection to individual faces or objects and where this comes in useful.

In this video I will create the base mesh for the screw that hold the saddles in place. This will be one of the few screws on the model that will have a thread, which will be created later.

After you video you will know some addition hotkeys that you can use when scaling, rotating or moving objects or selections on particular global or local axes and also how to lock out one particular axes and only scale on the other 2.

In this video I will model the nut that the base screw goes into on one side of the bridge. There are a few tricky bits on this model, but nothing that hasn't been tackled before. I will also add the smoothing and bevel to the base screw before finishing it in the next video.

At the end of this video you will have seen how to thinking creatively to make edge selections, avoid overlapping verts when beveling and will have seen local mode being utilised again.

In this video I will add the thread element to the screw, finish off the duplicating and basically complete this main part of the bridge. 

At the end of this video you will know how to take a spiral object and turn it into the thread for the screw, including converting the curve to mesh. You will also see some more uses for locking out one axis when scaling an object.

In this video I will set up some reference images and an image plane to use when creating the final parts of the bridge system, the stopbar. 

I will also go on to create a simple bolt using a cylinder, booleans and bevels. 

At the end of this video you will have more experience moving and manipulating pivot point and origins, as well as how to creatively add edges to a model to manually create bevels.

In this video I will create the main shape of the stopbar object. I will use many tools I have already showed you and put them all together to create this fairly tricky piece of geometry. 

At the end of this video you should be able to think creatively about how to create a complex objects, with several repeating sections. When to use mirror and array and when to add additional details

In this video I will finish off the modeling of the Stopbar and add the bevels & sharps. 

In this video you will learn more about creative ways to make edge and face selections and convert those selections to more useful ones for mark sharp edges, or applying bevel weights.

In this video I will make the last few adjustments to the bridge before saving the file and appending the model to the final guitar scene.

You will gain more experience appending models to separate scenes. This helps you keep a library of different objects that you can use throughout your future projects. You will also learn about parenting a complex group of objects to an Empty in order to easily move, scale or rotate it.

In this video I will create an object that contains all the edges I want to create the Frets on. This will be achieved by duplicating the neck mesh and deleting everything but those edges. Later I will turn this object into a spline object.

In this video I will create another Bezier Curve, this will be the profile of the frets. I can then convert the object created int eh previous video, the Fret Curves to a bezier curve. I can can then combine both objects to create the base mesh for the frets.

In this video I will create a boolean object that will chop the ends of each fret, fill in the empty faces and create the smooth edges needed for every fret, at the same time.

I will then apply a smoothing and bevel to the object to catch highlights on the sharper edges.

In this video I just rename some of the objects and Empties in my scene, delete some of the objects that are no longer needed and adjust the scale of the scene slightly so the guitar fits better in the background grid.

Keeping your scene organised is good practice and should be done regularly so that you can easily identify what objects in you Outliner are at a glance.

In this video I will set up some image planes and reference images to start working on the machine heads. I will create several cylinder shape and by splitting and joining them I will make a complex piece of geometry. I will also use the Boolean modifier again.

At the end of this video you should think more about how you can create a complex object by combining some very simple primitive objects.

In this video I will add the piece of geometry where the machine head is screwed into the back of the headstock. This base mesh for this is another cylinder, I create a hole through it and then reshape it to match the image planes. I can then connect it to the main piece of geometry.

At the end of this video you should be able to think about how best to adjust your geometry to join two mesh together with out replying on the Boolean modifier.

In this video I will finish off this piece of geometry with a Boolean, but this time using the Union operator which combines two objects into one. I will also set the smoothing and the bevel on the object and fix an issue with some overlapping geometry.

In this video I being work on the tuning peg, part of the machine head. This created from a simple cube. I will make use of the mirror modifier to reduce the amount of work I need to do and also the proportional editing tools to create some smooth curved surfaces.

In this video I will finish off the tuning peg and add the plastic and rubber parts that are sandwiched between the peg and the machine head proper.

I will also rescale some of these parts and move them to their final positions.

In this video I will model the part of the machine head where the string wraps around. This part is fairly simple to create but takes a fair bit of tidying up to get looking correct.

In this video I will add the washer and the nut that attaches to the top side of the head stock and hold the machine head in place. I will also add a screw for the screw part that was modeled in part 2 of the Machine Head videos.

I will use pieces from the guitar scene and append them in it the machine head scene and just do a little remodeling on them.

In this video I will rename everything, create a custom empty to the scene using a cube then parent everything to it. I will then append it to the guitar scene, duplicate it and move it into place.

This will finish off the machine head section and you will learn more about using empties and parenting obejcts together to move , rotate and scale them easily.

In this video I will set up a reference image of the model I want to create and add a background image into the scene. I will begin by creating the switch itself out of a couple of spheres just using basic subdivision surface modeling with extrusions, insets and edge loops.

Finally i will parent the plastic part to the metal part and move the pivot point of the switch to where the real switch would actually pivot from when switched.

In this video i will create a cylinder with a thread on the outside. I will create it from a cylinder and use an interesting method to create a spiral that can be scale out to create the threads.

Finally I will flatten the top, add thickness, some edge loops and a subsurface modifier to make it very smooth but sharp.

In this video I will create the nut and an inner part of the switch. These are pretty simple objects and don;t take long to create. Here I will emphasis the use of reference images to judge and proportionals of the models you are making when you can't use use image planes or background images for sizes.

In this video i will create a disc object with text cut into the surface. I will keep all my modifiers active, this type of non destructive modelling means that I can easily go back and change the text later, without having to re-model the whole object. I also retain control over the size of my bevels and the number of subdivision levels.

In this video I will rename all my objects, create an Empty to parents everything to and save my file. I can then append the Pickup Selector Switch to my guitar scene, move and scale it to size.

Again I will be using photo reference to judge the size of this object.

In this video I will create the guitar strings by using a curve spiral as a base and converting it to a bezier curve so I can add additional segments and adjust the bezier handles to get the proper string shape.

I can then use the curve properties to add thickness to the string. 

I will also show a timelapse of the process of duplicating this string and using it to create the other additional strings. This was a long process so I only show this process once, instead of five times.

In this video i will quickly show you the process for creating the metal plate or the back of the guitar body where the neck is bolted on. This is shown as a time lapse as the modeling process is extremely simple and only uses techniques used else where in the section.

In this video I will show you how I create the truss rod cover which is a small plastic plate that sits on the headstock. I create one half of this pace with a bezier curve and convert it to a mesh. It is then duplicated, rotated and joined to create the final outline. I then and a chamfer to the side of the object using inset, remove doubles and dissolve edges. Finally I use the knife tool to add an edge which will eventually be the point where the object is split into two different materials. Again most of the techniques have been used a lot in this project so several of the parts are sped up a fair bit.

In this video I will add the Truss Rod Cover Screws, duplicated from elsewhere on the mesh and discuss the unwrapping process.

In this video I will address an issue with geometry jumping from place to place and reverting back to either the center of the scene or its last position due to accidentally creating keyframes. Although there's no way to find out how this happened, I have accidentally added some keyframes to some objects. In this video I will show you an easy way or removing every keyframe from a scene.

In this video I will remove the links and parenting from every objects so i can apply the scale transform to every object. As mentioned in previous videos, having an objects scale at anything other 1,1,1 can results in issues with unwrapping, the look of modifiers and textures. in our case there are a lot of duplicate linked objects, these links must be broken first before applying the scale.

In this video I will show you a very useful Add-On called Batch Operations/Manager. This add-on allows you to select groups of objects based on their modifiers (or materials), apply, add and delete multiple modifiers at once.

I can use this tool to apply a lot of the mirror, boolean, solidify and array modifiers very quickly and also make the subdivision surface modifers more uniform.

In this video I will show you where to find the Tex Tools Add-on that can be used to improve Blender's Unwrapping toolset. I recommend installing this add on, especially if you plan on doing all your texturing in Blender but still want to use a similar workflow to 3rd Party Software like Substance Painter.

In this video I will unwrap a single object using some of Text Tool's and Blenders native unwrapping tools.

In this video I will separate my objects onto different visible layers according to the texture set or texture atlas they will be part off. So the Body and Neck will be on their own layers, the metal objects on one and the plastic objects on another.

This allows me to quickly hide all the layers but the one I am working on and use a border selection to select o deselect them all very quickly.

In this video I will create a texture atlas for all the objects on the Plastic layer. This involves using the Texture Atlas Add-On and temporarily merging all the objects into one and re-scaling and packing the existing UV's into a new layout that can be used to bake and texture multiple objects with a single material. Once the new UV's have been created, the objects will be separated into individual objects again, with their modifiers still intact.

In this video I will create a texture atlas for the objects on the Metals layer. Again I will use the Texture Atlas Add-On to merge the obects, layout the UV's, then separate and restore all the modifiers.

In this video I will show you how to export UV template for manual painting in Photoshop or GiMP etc. When exporting UV Template you have to use the Texture Atlas Add on again to temporarily merge the objects again in order to access the entire UV template again. 

In this video I will set up the mode for export into Substance Painter. I give each object a named material which will translate to a texture set in substance painter. This is a way to maintain those visible layers I set up in Blender to quickly select show or hide the different type of object based on their materials.

I then make sure I only have the objects I want to export selected and use Blender's Export option to create a .obj file, set up to retain all the smoothing groups, modifiers and triangulate any quads and n-gons in the scene.

Finally I will open the model in Substance Painter to make sure the Texture Sets/Materials have worked and that the model looks good, without holes or faceting.

In this video I will show you the final set up of the guitar model that I will take into Substance Painter for texturing. This is not meant to be a Substance Painter tutorial, I decided to include these videos just so you can see how I create the texture maps I will be applying to the model later back in Blender. Feel free to skip these video and create your shader directly in Blender.

To a certain extent this video is a re-do of the last one, although I will show the version of the guitar I textured using the last export and texture atlases. I had to split the texture atlases up, as even at 4K resolution, things like the screws and frets had barely any pixels and therefore had no detail.

In this video I will show you the basic process for creating baked maps that can be used to control the damage, wear, dust and dirt that I will be applying to the model later.

In this video I will show you my basic process for masking parts of the model and applying base textures.

In this video I will show you how to add decals to the model using alphas. At this stage the textures could be exported out and used in Blender, but in the forthcoming video I will add damage, wear, dust, dirt, scratches and other effects to the model to give it a more vintage, used feel instead of the perfect, brand new model I have now.

In this video I will show the techniques I use to add some damage to the guitar. This will introduce you to using mask generators, one of the most powerful tools in Substance Painter to create procedural damage.

In this video I will show you the techniques I use to add dirt, dust and grime to the guitar. This use the mask generators again, in conjunction with either fill layers, paint layers or procedural materials.

In this video I will show some techniques to add dirt, rust, scratches, edge damage and tarnishing to metal materials. In some cases this can be done in the materials themselves if the correct parameters have been built into the material or the effects can be created using smart marks, mask generators and other techniques.

In this video I will show you some techniques for adding subtle aging, damage and dirt to plastic materials.

In this video I will add some finishing touches to the guitar and show some of the adjustments I made to some of the textures between videos. This finishes off the texturing process in Substance Painter, just leaving the texture exporting process.

In this video I will export the texture maps from Substance Painter and we'll look at them to see our final textures.

In this video I will use several Image Nodes plugged into the Principled BSDF node to create the shaders for the guitar.

In this video I will create a shader for the acrylic knobs and fix the white text on the interior of the volume knob so that it is easily visible through the acrylic.

In this video I will create a metal shader for the strings Three of the strings are solid metal and the other 3 are nickel wound strings, so they also need an additional procedural texture to create the normal map.

In this video I will set up a simple camera, with a tall, thin resolution to show off the guitar.

In this video I will create a very quick test render of the guitar. This is too test the resolution, sample amount and the new denoising feature.

In this video I will use the test render to adjust the settings to create and examine a final render. This will have a higher resolution, higher samples and lower denoising settings. I will then show you how to save the file as both a .PNG and .exr (Multilayer OpenEXR) file that can be used for your portfolio or adjusted in post.

In this video I will show the basic set up for painting textures. This includes changing the workspace and creating the blank textures.

In this video I will go through all the basic settings in the brush tab of Texture Painting.

In this video I will go through all the basic settings in the stroke tab of Texture Painting.

In this video I will go through all the basic settings in the curve tab of Texture Painting.

In this video I will use create a custom Dirt Brush using a procedural texture, the node editor and some of the settings we have already looked at.

In this video I will set up using a texture instead of a solid color.

In this video I will demonstrate the use of Tiled Brush mapping

In this video I will demonstrate the use of Viewplane and Random brush Mapping

In this video I will demonstrate the use of 3D Brush mapping

In this video I will demonstrate the use of Stencil Brush Mapping and the use of face selection of mask during texture painting.

In this video I will briefly show you how to create a very simple scene, optimised for experimenting with Sculpt mode in Blender.

Here you can download some Infographics showing the most common and useful sculpting hotkeys for brush settings, changing brushes, masking and dyntopo.

In this video I will briefly discuss the use of the Multi-Resolution modifier as a way to sculpt on and store different levels of detail on a mesh.

In this video I will give a brief overview of the most important settings in the Dyntopo menu in the Sculpt Mode Toolshelf.

In this video I will give an overview of the main settings and sliders in the Brush Menu in the Sculpt Mode Toolshelf.

In this video I'll discuss using the curve settings on sculpting brushes.

In this video I will discuss brush stroke settings, in particular I;ll show which ones are more useful than others

In this video I discuss some of the options in the brush texture settings along with brush mapping types.

In this video I will show you the basic symmetry settings for mirroring on the x, y and/or  axes and also radial symmetry.

In this video I will show you the Locking setting in sculpt mode under the Symmetry/Locking sub-menu

In this video I will show you the tiling setting, similar to mirroring symmetry, this duplicates your strokes on other parts of your mesh.

In this video I will show you some of the masking and hiding options for sculpting. These can really help but preventing you accidentally sculpting on specific areas, selecting specific shapes or edges to sculpt against and even hide areas so you can see what you are doing a lot easier.

In this video I will discuss some recent upgrade to the version of Blender I used in this section

In this video I will discuss choosing reference images for your own interior scene, what to look for and what to avoid.

In this video I will download and install the BLAM camera calibration add-on that will allow you to set up a camera to precisely match your background or reference image.

In this video I will go through the basic process of solving a camera using a single vanishing point, from experience this is generally not the best method, especially from photographs, but will give the student a chance to become familiar with using the Movie Clip Editor and Grease Pencil Layers

In this video I will show the student the process form solving with 2 vanishing points, in many cases this will work pretty well, especially with images where the camera has very little tilt or roll. Again, following this process will let you become more familiar with the tools.

In this video I will show you a method of defining a 3rd vanishing point and this allows em to solve the camera from our first example with much more accuracy. 

Following on from the last video where the camera's rotations, focal length and other settings with solved, I will attempt to move the camera to a more physically accurate height and create some simple geometry to test then adjust the scale of the scene. Having the scene at the proper scale means that texturing and lighting with be much easier to get physically correct and realistic.

In this video I will show the process for using the background image to model geometry very quickly that matches the image, and is also to the correct proportions and scale when viewed from a different angle. This process can be use to create low poly proxies that can be created much more accurately in separate files and appended into the final scene later or replaced with downloaded models.

In this video I will show you a technique of simply adding cubes and cyclinder to create very simple proxies for the object I need to model or download for my scene.

In this video I will create a simple proxy object for the couch, that I can later use as the base for the final couch model.

Here I will show some simple techniques for create the windows. In this case the white box or proxy objects are pretty much the final model, they just need to be unwrapped and have some bevels or chamfers added for realism.

In this video I will create the other walls and ceiling pieces as well as create some simple white box proxies for the roof jousts and try and get the angle of the roof correct.

In this video I will briefly show you an alternative version of the scene with many more proxy objects. The simplest of the model have actually been modeled to their final versions in some cases. This just saves time when the final models are not much more complex than creating a proxy from a primitive object. I will be using a combination of model from the previous videos and from this scene to create the final models and scene.

In this video I will append the couch proxy object to a new scene. This will allow me to model it to the high resolution version, unwrapped with textures separately so I can then append it back to the original, or any other scene easily. 

In this video I will use subdivision surface modifier and control loops to start model our the soft edges and surfaces of the couch model.

This video has limited narration and shows the modeling of the rest of the couch in timelapse.

In this video I will Unwrap one part of the couch using some simple techniques, trying to match the real seams of the material on the couch image.

This is a video with limited narration showing the unwrapping process of the rest of the couch.

In this video I will recombine the couch models, scale and pack the UVs,  add the additional legs in and add extra edge loops that I will use to subdivide the model for some basic sculpting.

In this video I will sculpt the couch model to make it more realistic. This is a very simple process if you do it one part at a time.

In this video I will texture the couch using some material I have in my regular start up file, these have to be adjusted to use the Principled Shader. In the following video I will create textures for this from scratch.

In this video I will create a very simple, fast shader using the Principled Shader for the couch legs. This is an alternative to using your own material library or downloading a shader or texture maps.

In this video I will find and download some texture maps to use with the principled shader to create the couch material.

In this video I will build a shader using the downloaded texture maps, I will use a few additional nodes to adjust the textures. The images are stored within the attached scene file, just create an image node and and find the file within the "Browse Image Dropdown Menu" next to the image name.

In this video I will show the progress so far on this scene and discuss the next steps I'll take to to finish it off.

In this video I will append the Proxy Barrel to a new scene and center it on the origin. I will then look at some reference images to get an idea of how to create a high poly barrel.

In this video I will model out 2 planks that can then be duplicated and rotated to create the rest of the barrel's shape.

In this video I will adjust and duplicate the planks in order to create the main shape of the barrel.

In this video I will create a single ring for the barrel.

In this video I will duplicate the initial ring and adjust them to give the barrel a little more character and have the rings be less uniform.

In this video I will use a combination of deform modifiers to wrap the rings around the barrel shape without flattening them or overly distorting them. I will also add some studs to the rings to attach them to the barrel.

In this video I will reduce the gaps between the rings and the planks and also unwrap them again to make much better use of the UV space.

In this video I will finish off the barrel model by creating planks in a rounded shape to cover the top and the bottom of the barrel openings. I will also unwrap these.

In this video I will create a very simple low poly version of the barrel model to I can later show the workflow for baking high poly details and maps to a low poly version for use in game engines or to speed up rendering.

In this video I will export out the high and low poly models. In Substance Painter I will bake some base mesh maps for Normals, Position, Ambient Occlusion etc that can be use to generate mask for more advanced texturing tasks.

In this video I will show you how to add some very simple base and smart materials to the high poly barrel model.

In this video I will add more layers of texture to the model using dirt maps and masks. The mask generators and editor give you a lot of control over procedural texturing.

In this video I will export the final texture maps and save them so they can be applied back to the high poly model in Blender.

In this video I will show you Blender's workflow for baking a texture map from the high poly model on to the low poly model.

In this video I will discuss some draw backs to trying to bake other types of maps in Blender such as roughness, metallic and height maps. I will also show you a trick the maps any texture map from the high poly to the low poly no matter what type of map.

In this video I will show you how to bake a normal map from the high poly model onto the low poly model using only Blender. I will also show you the result you can achieve by doing the same thing in Painter.

In this video I will go over a list of things still to complete in this scene and hopefully motivate you to finish your scene.

In this video I will go to Blendswap and download some model to finish off the scene.

In this video I will Show you how to unzip and then append downloaded objects into your scene.

In this video I will show you some of the models I have appended to the scene, along with how to adjust things like cushions to sit in your scenes more realistically.

In this video I will set up some lighting to use while creating the rest of the textures and to check that the scene is looking good.

In this video I will show you the changes I have made to my scene. These include adding some more objects, refining some of the existing models and expanding the space behind the camera so I can eventually create a 360 degree render that can be panned around in web apps or on tablet and smartphone app like Facebook.

In this video I will create and image based painted brick wall texture.

In this video I will make a matte and a glossy paint shader using the Principled shader.

In this video I will tweak some of the material based on some render previews and create an image based wooden floor using the principled shader.

In this video I use the Report Missing Files and Find Missing Files functions to fix any issues with pink (missing) textures in the scene after moving files.

In this video I set out a workflow for parenting, grouping and re-naming objects and moving them to a second layer. This helps organise the scene and should really be done as you go along, but to emphasis the uses, I left most of it until now.

In this video I show you what changes I made to the scene between videos, including all the new groups and layers. I also fix the thickness of the door frame and add a very simply modeled door. I time lapse the modeling process just because the techniques used are very simple and the video was getting too long.

In this video I will set up the rug object and move it to a new scene ready to have a particle syste applied to it.

In this video I will set up the particle system to create hair strands that will resemble a shaggy, long piled rug.

In this video I will set up the shader for the hair particles, this will improve the look of the hair strands.

In this video I will do a test render and tweak some of the render settings, particle system setting and shader setting to get a better result.

In this video I will show you a simple technique for creating a framed photo or painting from an image. This includes all the modelling, unwrapping, finding a texture map, creating a shader and doing a test render.

In this video I will show you some of the final tweaks and changes I have made to the scene before I move on to setting up a final render.

In this video I will show the final rendered image and discuss some of the sucesses and failures when trying to recreate the original photograph.

In this video I will use some of GIMP's image manipulation tools to clean up the "final" render to remove some fireflies and noise.

In this video I'm going to show you the Curve - Extra Objects add-on, specifically the spiral curves.

This add-on increases the amount of basic curves you can create. When it comes to spirals, you can create some objects that you would expect to be really simple to just go ahead and build, but they become incredibly frustrating in practice. 

I'll show you my process for creating a spring, converting from poly curves to bezier curves and I'll give you a complete overview of all 4 spiral type, each have dozens of uses and many can be tweaked into really cool shapes that will dumbfound other modelers in their complexity.

In this video I will show you a few different tools spread over two of the best poly modeling tools Blender has. I don't even think of these as add-ons because they are so useful and have become such a large part of my modeling workflow that they feel like they have always been in Blender.

You will learn to quickly create panels for vehicles, environments and robots with a few clicks by utilizing the Inset Fillet tool. And imagine being able to make any selection into a perfect circle, yeah, there's a tool for that too. 

Remember to explore these tools, experiment with them, let your imagination run wild, create a render and show it off on the group. Inspire and be inspired.