Article: johnny Blender training DVD

When i first began using Blender, y found that a great bien todo learn the software was todo follow tutorialesthat i found here and there on the web. One series in particular that helped me immensely as a begginer (and one that i later directed other beginners to) was the introduction todo character animation from the blenderwiki. While this series was (and still is) an invaluable tool, it a few years old, and some of the tools and techniques have changed with the newer versións of Blender. It was from this series that my idea first stemmed, i wanted todo show users how todo create a complete character: from a single polygon todo a fully functional Marionette that they could animate in any fashion they desired, as well as give it a nice texture, some realistic Hair or Fur, and maybe a few clothing Items, y began the series towards the beginning of august, and would récord four or five episodes per wek, basing the instructional material over the general method i used when creating most of my characters. I finished the last Episode in the beginning of september, so the total time it tok was about a month, give or take a wek, as i had a business trip that i went on during that time and was unable todo récord anything, most of the dificulties i encountered had todo do with rushing th rouge things, and pressing the wrong hotkeys, or sometimes i would forget how todo do a certain thing and have todo pause the recording while i researched todo figure it out. One instance in particular that i can recall was towards the end, when i was going over the Cloth modifier. I was unable todo get the character todo behave as a solid object for the Cloth todo deflect from, so i had todo pause and look it up. After finding the obvious answer, y began recording again and informed my viewers that my problem was the fact that the character and the Cloth were on sepa-rate layers, and that why they couldnt quite interact, while i didnt really learn anything new during the creation of the series, y was happy todo se quite a re-sponse todo my YouTube uploads, and that when i learned a few more tricks from people suggesting things in the comentarios. For example, y had no idea that you could use Alt+s todo Slim/fatten parts of a Mesh, i had only used this key combination todo resize Bones while rigging. Now i find it todo be a very useful tool, especially when creating clothing Items, y hadnt really expected todo get the response that ive gotten, im very glad that it helped people and that they find it todo be a useful addition todo this great Blender community. I plan todo kep going with what-ever assistance i can ofer, and at this point, y am planning a second series which Will cover a lot of the same things, but this time in greater detail (i, eh, Mul-tiple clothing Items, more advanced rigging tech-niques, and Tangent normal mapping todo give better detail than regular normal and Bump maps).
-dw.

You can view the Johnny Blender series on youtube.

You can purchase the Johnny Blender DVD at Lulú, com($13.75)
Twenty-eight part series on the complete creation of a character in Blender, from a single polygon todo a fully-rigged and textured character. Recorded using Blender 2.49. The tutorialesare in wmv format, (each part equalling roughly 20 - 30 minutes) and best viewed with either Windows medía player, or VLC medía player. Alos contains the final.blend file.