do you struggle to learn blender it's probably because you're trying to learn it the normal way that is open YouTube search blender tutorial and immediately get overwhelmed or maybe you tried the other normal way that is go to college do the work get the degree that's normal I did it too this is me receiving my bachelor of animation and 3D modeling 3 years of work nine long trimesters I was a quote unquote 3D Pro but then I go to blender and I try to animate a character and I realize I literally don't know how to animate a character this normal way to learning 3D is broken not only broken it doesn't work but what if there was a different way a complete guide personalized for you that if followed will actually make you a 3D Pro in blender well there is and it's called the set framework this is the exact blueprint that I would follow if I was starting completely from scratch with 3D it'll take you from Noob To Pro and it's what 99% of people miss when starting with blender so let's break these levels down one at a time level one select this level is all about creating the foundation of a pro building your base before even starting blender if you have no knowledge of 3D there's no way that this is going to make any sense to you it's kind of like your first day in Skyrim hear me out in Skyrim you start off with a backstory finally awake you get to spend time building out your character and straight after that you're thrown into chaos for blender it's basically the same path except there's two crucial steps missing backstory and character without these you literally can't navigate the chaos by definition it's complete disorder and confusion this is why Step One is arguably the most important step in the entire blueprint and that is step one why blender why do you want to Lear blender seriously what why for some people it's I want to learn 3D for Game Dev I want to earn some side income with 3D I want to make VFX for movies I want to be a lizard and become dragon born whatever it is figuring this out before touching blender will ultimately set you up for Success without your y there's no strong reason for you to do the thing which leaves you with two options you'll either fail to learn blender or worse you won't even pick it up to begin with the reason I'm telling you this is because choosing your why is crucial but thankfully it's so easy to do when we utilize the Whey system it takes three steps here's how you do it step one Wonder this step is about exploring what got you interested in 3D maybe you saw some cool Motion Graphics or maybe a sweet animation on the big screen whatever it is find what inspired you and use this time to document that for example my inspiration was mostly video games I'm talking blinks the time sweeper Jet Set Radio Future and of course don't say it Skyrim once you've gathered all your inspiration put it into a folder or a mood board somewhere easily accessible because we're going to need it for step two analyze now I'd want to look over each of my Inspirations and start asking myself what do I think I want to pursue from these maybe I really like the cell shaded textures from Jet Set Radio or maybe I'd want to learn about environment art from Skyrim take some time on the step and really dig into what jumps out to you it may only be two or three things that's totally fine just note them down and put them to the side because now we're going to combine these with step three yield with both of these equations solved we basically know our why we just got to dig it out and the easiest way to do that is with this it's it's a circle but when you put two of these together with the exploration in one and the assessment in the other something magical happens when you start to combine them the middle starts to overlap and the reason or your why for blender becomes Crystal Clear there's so many ideas that start popping out of this thing and you really only need one that resonates with you to make it super clear you can copy this sentence structure to help figure out your why not going to lie this is probably the hardest part of the blueprint not to say that it's hard it's actually super easy but nobody does this and simply by choosing something anything you're going to be leagues ahead of everyone else I mean I had this one guy that was like I want to make Minecraft thumbnails so my videos perform better but having your Y is only half of the puzzle there's still one major piece that when connected will Skyrocket our progress for learning blender so what is it step two domain having your reason why for blender is amazing but choosing your domain is what will set you apart from the average person we don't want to jump into the chaos of learning blender because what would we learn there's no Direction yet having a domain first is so important and a lot of people just skip this step entirely which actually causes him to fall into the biggest trap when learning blender it looks like this everyone starts their Journey here at Rock Bottom knowing nothing about blender then they jump into the chaos thinking yeah I'll learn modeling they follow some tutorials learn the basics and their confidence is Sky High they think they know it all but as time goes on they learn new Concepts like subd modeling Edge flow topology hard surface this overwhelming amount of new knowledge kicks them down here to What's called the valley of Despair this is the Trap this is where most people give up or worse yet start the cycle again they say oh it's too hard I need something easier let me try animation okay so they start again they jump into the chaos learn the basics learn The Not So Basics and wind up exactly where they left off this happens over and over again which ultimately makes zero progress to the thing they actually wanted to do to begin with so how do we fix this how do we climb out of this hole and stop the cycle well it all comes back to the title of this step choosing your domain okay but like what is a domain you keep saying the word domain but what the does it mean what remember Skyrim oh my God we've got the backstory but now we need to choose who we want to be we need to select our character in Skyrim there's 10 playable characters all with specialized skills and abilities maybe you want to be a kaj maybe a lizard each one has pros and cons but selecting any one of these will change the way you play the entire game it's the same for blender and these characters kind of represent the 10 major domains of 3D lighting animation modeling you get the idea selecting one of these major skills will not only tell you what you want to learn but more importantly what you need to learn this is also known as choosing your Niche okay but how do I figure out my Niche we haven't even touched blender yet I know we're about to and the quickest way to selecting your Niche is by using the map method it looks like this and it starts at the top with stage one Musta here we want to find all our inspiration and dump it into this theoretical bucket and if you followed step one of this blueprint this part should be super easy the top level holds everything we find interesting about three nothing's filtered out yet until we open the gates to stage two assess we want to now identify all the tools and skills used for each piece of inspiration for example blinks the time sweeper this is my childhood game and there's so many skills that bring this thing to life like modeling texturing and animation but we're not choosing any of these yet we just want to figure out what skill excites us the most and filter out the rest and we do this by opening the final gate to stage three plot with your y statement at ready we want to match all these different skills to it if any of them don't align with this sentence get rid of it and once you do this exercise the bottom of the bucket will open up and one domain your Niche will basically be chosen for you this process is so powerful it simplifies the selection of your Niche and better yet completely destroys this trap that a lot of beginners fall into but having both of these puzzle pieces is kind of meaningless if we don't actually apply it to the final step of level one and that is step three Quest now that the puzzle is complete we need to look at the overall picture and ask ourselves the simplest question what do I actually see I've got my reason why I've got my Niche but what does this actually form when put together the overall puzzle picture is and should be blurry so how do we focus it well it's honestly way easier if I just no don't don't do it just do anything else anything else please for the love of God in Skyrim there's one ultimate Mainland Quest become dragon born as you progress through the first few quests you learn that you're this super rare person that can absorb dragon souls and literally cast Magic by Shou in as time goes on you realize becoming dragon born isn't actually your quest the main quest The Pinacle of the entire game is to stop the world from being eaten by a dragon the reason I'm telling you this is because the blurry puzzle pieces are actually just a blank map and to make sense of it we need to plot out our quests or in other words choose our goals without goals there's no real path for us to follow and if we jump into the chaos now we don't know where to go like we've got a pretty good idea but there's no heads up display no quests we're basically an NPC waiting for some kind of action I'm supposed to so how do we figure this out like what's the best way to set our goals well there's two options to doing this and honestly we already have a super solid foundation I mean 99% of people don't even have the map to begin with the first option looks like this and there's five stages stage one Define here we just want to set up a list of clear and specific goals and since we already have the thing we want to learn the skill we want to pursue and the reason why this part is so so easy I'd recommend making five goals to start with and the main key is to actually write them down none of these notion lists you can be as bold or as vulnerable as you want like this isn't something you're going to show anyone okay unless you leave it lying around like in Skyrim what what is this stage two why ask yourself why you want to achieve these goals here's just a few questions to help you figure it out the reason is most likely going to be very similar to your main reason for learning blender that's fine do the exercise anyway because having a deep understanding of the reason for your goal is so important it's it's honestly Priceless if you don't have a reason for any one of your goals you may as well just delete it but having these goals alone isn't enough like how do we get from here to there well this is where we move to stage three action plan simply put this is just planning the path to achieving the goal what do you need to do in order to get there for me I'm trying to animate characters so the easiest thing to do is just work backwards and figure out each major Milestone that's it stage four deadline this is exactly as it sounds setting a deadline for these goals not only creates this sense of urgency but it also helps you build out a timeline this way you're not going to take like 15 years to do the goal plus you also get to see where you should be at any given time stage five review every goal on your list probably isn't equal and and there may be some that are just straight up not even goals like for example learn blender's user interface you can do that in under an hour our goals shouldn't be these meaningless tasks but they also shouldn't be these insane unachievable ones either this stage is all about reviewing and adjusting your goals regularly I'm talking like once a month so doing this not only makes the goal easier but it usually makes it faster to to achieve as well that's the super quick rundown on setting your goals but there's actually a second method that I think is way better it's called The Habit stack method and once you understand how it works it's mindblowing let me give you an example two animators set up two identical goals they have one month to complete and showcase their work and they're at the same skill level the first guy knows exactly how long each goal will AK and sets aside one day to crush them whereas the second guy he sees the goals differently instead of stacking up one day to get the work done he works on them every single day at the end of the month they both meet up to show their work and the first guy is tired and confused he's got two animations but this guy has five do you see what I'm saying not only is this guy's work going to be better but his skill and goals are going to exponentially increase this is the Habit stack method and it's just a simple mindset shift if you change the definition of your goals from outcome to activity it's almost impossible that you're not going to reach your goal because think about it your goal is just an output that happens after a certain amount of inputs and if you're inputting every day on repeat this causes three things to happen skill increase goal achievement and a killer habit it's super simple and the reason I like this option way more is because the tracking is night and day did you or did you not animate in blender today if the answer is no then you're not hitting the goal and if the answer is yes you're hitting it I'm just realizing now that this video is weirdly philosophical and if you're still watching congrats because now we're getting to the fun stuff we've got our foundation built our puzzle piece map is complete now we just need to follow it and we do this with level two enhance this level is all about how to actually learn blender no I'm not going to list up hundreds of different YouTube channels that cover a wide range of topics and skills with no actual guidance or meaningful discussion to help you I did that last year instead I'm going to go through the specific systems Frameworks and tools that I would use if I started again and step one is maybe my favorite system for learning anything I've learned more using this system than I did throughout my entire bachelor's degree so what is it step one play blender the program itself is inherently boring like it's hard to look at this screen and think all right and it gets worse when you actually start using blender because most of the tutorials look and sound like this hey guys so delete so what do you do when the only option to learn is borderline torture and the only alternative is to spend thousands of dollars on courses well I reckon I found the solution and it happened while I was doing the most boring activity I can think of Chess this monochrome checkerboard is the Pinnacle of boredom for me I could do literally anything else and have fun anything I'm watching pain tra but in 2020 something insane happened across the entire globe that I don't think anyone was ready for Jess became mainstream massive streamers started playing no I did miscalculate huge tournaments were being held oh and to top it off Netflix dropped this Banger TV show it was all anyone could talk about and what one day I found myself logging into chess.com and this is where everything changed for me instead of a boring checkerboard I had an exciting game achievement unlocks sound effects trophies leaderboards daily challenges League points League points this was amazing complex problems and learning was no longer boring to me I wasn't running away from this I was actually seeking it out the reason I'm telling you this story is because this step is all about play and this system is called gamification now obviously chess itself is a game and I'm still really bad at it like please don't look at my games holy but we can use this gamification system for blender and trust me when I say it'll make the learning process actually fun okay but like how do I do that like how do I make blender into a game well it's actually a pretty simple process and it's done in two stages stage one is create we want to build a game that would actually be fun to play I'm talking XP level UPS achievement unlocks and we do this by setting up a simple structure like this each box represents something different one for habits one for daily tasks one for major goals and one for rewards all you need to do now is fill these out and because we have our map from level one we can basically just copy paste a lot of this stuff into it so for example my boxes would look something like this and if I reach a goal I'd get a set amount of XP and gold or if I do a habit like open blender I get an XP Point okay but like how do I use this there's no character XP levels visuals this is just a fancy to-do list there's no game here well that's the problem you can't actually make blender a functioning game without having something that speaks to it it's not a game engine but I found the game engine that does this it's called Haba it's completely free and it does everything in stage one but for real there's character creation level UPS achievement outlooks sound effects you can even buy weapons potty up with people complete quests there's a pet system a pet system this is literally a video game for blender just for fun I've made a party so if you want to join me on some quests and learn 3D while doing it you can this system of gamification is priceless and if I had it from the beginning like you do it would have saved me so much time holy now that we know the fun way of learning we actually want to learn because this whole system is kind of pointless if we don't put it into practice and these next three steps are exactly how I would approach learning if I had my gamification and found foundation in place so what are they step two Advance this step is officially when we can start learning blender and since we have this insanely solid foundation we should know exactly what we need to learn but there's one massive problem for this section of the blueprint that I think a lot of you will face and the easiest way for me to explain this is with Skyrim Skyrim when Skyrim came out I spent an healthy amount of time playing it I'm talking 12 hours every day it was like an ivy drip of pure dopamine and my 15-year-old brain was loving it but one day I wanted even more fun and I found this video an infinite power glitch and oh boy did it do just that I was one-shotting Giants dragons the literal final boss this was incredible for about a day because to quote the video itself this ruined the game this is exactly the same for blender rushing the learning stage and trying to find cheap tricks to look like a pro it's not going to end well there are no shortcuts trying to do this will ultimately ruin the game because if we try to rush the process or worse yet cheat the system one of two things will happen you'll burn out or you'll quit that's why this step is called Advance we don't want to Blitz to the end and pretend like we're a pro we want to advance through the stages of our goal so that we can become the person who can achieve that goal do you see what I'm saying for this stage since it is all about first steps with blender I'd spend some time doing the absolute fundamentals preferably in this order blender Basics Niche fundamentals intermediate Concepts and after about a week of initial blender experience I'd look at my goals and see if my path needs to be adjusted every week following that i' do it again and around this point in the process your path should be really solid which means we're ready to learn the next Concept in the blueprint and that is step three side quests now at this stage if you're 2 to 3 months into your Learning Journey tutorials become boring there's no creativity you're just following steps like a factory line sooner or later you're going to want to put your skills to the test and step outside your comfort zone no more mindlessly watching how to make animation 10 times easier so how do you break out of this cycle of watching and copying well it's kind of like side quests in [Music] Skyrim nothing just do it in Skyrim our map has a beine directly to the main quest but every now and then there's these smaller quests that pop up and they usually lead to these little caves on the side of our path if you accept the quest and complete the cave not only do you get some XP but you also get a bunch of items and rewards at the very end these caves are like weekly projects and doing them is so powerful because you don't just get a sweet project once complete you also get to learn a ton of new stuff while you're doing it okay but this isn't Skyrim no one's just going to give me weekly projects to do you're right and choosing them will ultimately depend on you so instead of doing your daily practice take a week and switch it up to a larger project based around the stuff you know for example you've probably seen one of these videos where I make a project in 24 hours the concept is stupid do not do this but choosing these three projects was actually super similar to the way I do it for a weekly one it literally takes three steps find a subject use it with your Niche and give yourself a constraint this combination limits what you can do because I mean you got a week it's not a lot of time but having this combination is actually what allows you to do the project in a week if you're really struggling to figure out what you want to do just steal some ideas from a community Discord and match it to your Niche kaizen's got a monthly prompt Clint has a weekly one there's so many ways to do this the main thing is to just do the project with the skills you have problem solve as you go and only watch tutorials if you really need them trust me I literally learned the concept of a null object in this video all on my own and I will never forget it now we can move on to the final step in level two the Pinnacle of learning blender and potentially the most powerful Concept in this entire video so what is it step step four Synergy at this stage we've got all these Core Concepts down and we should be pretty deep into our map but now the problem becomes how do we close this remaining gap between here and our goal the pathway is shorter but the challenges are way harder well the answer is skill trees please hear me out in Skyrim there's loads of different skills that you can level up as you play the game once you get enough XP and reach a certain level you can open the skill tree and unlock perks these are like upgrades and they make the overall skill way stronger which ultimately makes everything else way easier instead of running headon into a giant camp and getting yeated into the stratosphere I can take a step back learn stealth and literally one-hot them this is the concept of skill stacking and it's one of my favorite things to do and talk about because it essentially lets you close this remaining Gap with just a few moves let me give you an example two animators are trying to join a lead Animation Studio they both have the same experience projects and they apply at the exact same time both are identical on paper but once they submit who do you think's going to get the job obviously this guy and it's simply because he skill stacked both of these animations are literally the same but because one of them had great lighting compositing and rendering it's an instant win and to be honest the other guy probably didn't even get looked at the point I'm trying to make is having a Synergy of skills is invaluable but all of this is meaningless if you don't know where to start we already chose our skill tree at the beginning and all these other ones have like zero XP in them how do we level them up well wouldn't it be nice to actually have a specific skill tree one that you can open up and follow for modeling texturing and animation yes yes it would and my friend Derek actually made one recently this guy is a freelance Pro he's working with massive Brands but he's also got five original classes on skillshare and they're basically a mini skill tree this learning path jump starts your modeling texturing and my favorite animation he walks you through everything you need to know about about animation in under an hour plus since this is skillshare if you were to learn other stuff like sculpting or even some of my classes you can because skillshare has literally thousands of classes made by industry Pros on things like cooking and animation it's awesome this video is sponsored by skillshare obviously but if you're one of the elite 30% of people watching this right now you can get all of this for free because skillshare has hooked me up with an amazing offer for you the first 500 people to use my link below will get a 1 Monon free trial of skillshare it's limited to 500 people so if you missed it sorry but in all seriousness clicking that link really does help support the channel and it lets me do this whole YouTube thing for you for free click the link below and thank you to skillshare for sponsoring this video level three Thrive having these Core Concepts and Frameworks is amazing but to actually become a pro we need to do more than just put it into practice we need to show it off and build something for ourselves and this is exactly what step one is all about building a name for yourself online especially as an artist isn't easy whether it's getting discovered or even just posting your work it's kind of scary but doing this exercise of showing your stuff online is one of the best things you can do to increase your skill let me give you an example two artists meet up to show each other their latest piece this is their magnum opus and they've worked on this for over a week artist one says Hey SM great artwork what do you think of mine artist 2 says Hey SM great artwork what do you think of M he's he's speaking to a mirror without showing your stuff you're essentially in an echo chamber and this does way more harm than good I'm speaking from experience look at these renders of mine these are objectively you can ask anyone this is clearly amateur work but if I sat in that Echo chamber and told myself it was good I'd never grow as an artist and honestly I'd probably still be in there this is so important to do and if you're afraid of posting just do it under a fake account it'll get you comfortable with doing it and you can always just change the account in the future so now we know why to post but how do we build our name well it's the same way you build out an art gallery if I walked into the L Museum and saw this next to the monol Lisa someone's getting fired okay we want to treat our professional portfolio with curated polished pieces not this so now I'd set out to make three to five of my best pieces and showcase them in my portfolio these should be highlift projects that showcase your skills to the best of your ability you can host your portfolio on something like Squarespace or beand it doesn't really matter so now that our online Foundation is solid and our portfolio is sorted we can move on to step two evolve at this stage our map should be pretty much complete but just like Skyrim it can get kind of boring if all you're really in it for is the story you complete the thing and then you just turn it off and forget about it remember that trap I mentioned in level one once you're in this stage of the blueprint you're technically in another trap and it's this peak here we've successfully climbed out of the first trap but now we're in this weird intersection where our progress plateaus so what do you do when you don't know what to do well I think I found the solution it's a secret system that that every one of the big 3D creators are using right now and it lets them upgrade their skills infinitely it's called The Forge system anyone can do it it's five steps and it looks like this step one is find when we find something new in 3D it's pretty common that you want to try it out this step is all about that all you got to do is find or learn a new method that lets you create something awesome that's it step two operate with this new found knowledge we want to now create the thing and it could literally be anything maybe you learned that you can create simulations with null objects like me whatever it is take some time to create it because now we want to show it in step three reveal we already know showing our work is super important but doing this with the forge system is completely different we're not looking for pity likes or follows we're looking for specific feedback you usually along the lines of oh my God how did you do that the moment you see this or even if you don't it's time to initiate step four grow this is where everything comes together with our new creation we want to break it down and explain exactly how we did it again we're not doing this for attention we're doing this to solidify the new technique and grow our skill set if you can't explain a method or concept easily it's probably because you don't understand it yourself so doing this actually forces you to learn it and it's weirdly addictive step five evolve now that we've done this once all we want to do is quite simply repeat this concept and system is incredibly powerful and I don't know if you've spotted it yet but this is actually a flywheel each action feeds into the next which creates this amazing Loop effect of endless learning and don't take my word for it look at all these these huge creators who are actively doing this if you strip this thing down it's really just a method of teaching and honestly it's one of the most powerful ways to actually learn now look I I get it it's not easy to do this and it wasn't for me at the start either if you're more of a shy guy you can take the alternative route to teaching like Twitter threads with in-depth breakdowns Instagram carousels or dare I say it text to speech AI hey guys welcome to my blender Channel wait what wait no that's definitely not supposed to be in theen now let's be real for a sec this blueprint isn't perfect it skips a lot of steps and there's no exact instructions but genuinely following this guide from day one would have changed my entire life and I know for a fact it can help you too now you might be asking SM what about this last step well I saved this one for last because it's the biggest problem I see 3D artists make when trying to monetize their work and if you want to actually make money with 3D you'll want to watch this video right here