Things That Could Use Some Coherent Vid Tuts/Screencast Lectures

mortalhuman

This is a thread where you can post ideas for what could really use a good screencast, or share great screencasts, especially those that people request (post one if you know it and someone requests it).

I have no idea if people will participate in this, but the flow of the thread will be like:

1: People request stuff, asking for videos about specific topics related to 3d game art of any part of the processes.

2: someone posts "already exists: link" or make it and link it.

Maybe if it becomes something people are into and the thread lives, there can be a new video section added to the wiki here or something like that?

Videos can be 5 or 10 minutes or hours long.

They should have vocals and be in english, if you need someone to record vocals for your script, I will help and I am sure others will as well. Audio is just so much better than subtitles or music and "guess what I'm doing!" style of tutorials.

No problem with making them in your native language, but try and make it possible for someone to re-dub and share your work to the widest audience, This basically means writing a basic script that doesn't need to be exact but just be able to be recorded and matched to your content in a readable way and added to your video.

I will make videos if I see things I can cover, and I hope everyone jumps on this, because there just isn't enough training out there - I personally love watching this kind of stuff, even when I already know how to do something - there is always something new. If 2 minutes of an hour is something new, the whole vid is worth it to watch and feed into another artist's advice.

So, it doesn't matter if it already exists, it's okay to share existing tuts, but people are encouraged to make any request that they feel they have time to spend making it, cause the more the better in this type of stuff. You might watch 10 tuts of the same subject before you find that "teacher" who says it in a way that clicks in your mind definitively - but often there isn't even 2 tutorials on the web to go through, and the only one available doesn't seem to help you. It is far too easy when you already know how to do something to say "here is a video, look at it" and not realize that your own input and words on the subject would be far better than the shared video in some cases.

What do you guys think? This is a way to pool all of our knowledge and pool knowledge of existing training that is helpful, saving people who find this thread a lot of time sifting through sub-par or lacking tutorials all over the serps.

Eric Chadwick

Give me links to good stuff, and I'll add them to the wiki for you.
You could also use the Search tool, tons of stuff on here already.

CheeseOnToast

Honestly man, there's been a discussion on tutorial videos before and the general concensus was thet a well written document with illustrations gets to the point faster and makes for better reference since it's easier to go straight to the part you want.
Case in point : http://www.game-artist.net/forums/spotlight-articles/42-tutorial-hard-surface-texture-painting.html

That said, videos can be good *sometimes*, if they get to the point quickly and show something that's difficult to explain with stills. The Zclassroom videos mostly fall into this catagory, explaining a technique in a nice bite-size chunk without having to scrub through an hour long vid.

In short, more well-written documents > videos.

mortalhuman

Polar opposites; documents, written tutorials, help files bore the living f*ck out of me and I can never make it through that kind of stuff. :P

Video tutorials on the other hand are great entertainment even when you don't need them. Replace the TV with video tutorials, basically.

See, you're looking at it like reference or help, I'm looking at it like seeing the videos BEFORE you ever need the technique. So that when you need the technique, you already know it (because you enjoy watching other artists speak about their techniques).

In other words, imo, videos >>>>>>> documentations.

In terms of software training, it is a proven fact that video is the best possible way to learn to do things with hard to use software. Forget where I got it, but it's been studied, and seeing the mouse pointer in correlation to someone explaining what they are doing with said pointer is proven to be way better than written word, believe it or not. It's basically: seeing something done is better than reading about it happening.

For some people, text is better, you prove that, but for most people, videos are gold.

passerby

i really do have to agree with CheeseOnToast i much prefer documents if they are well written.

and video tutorials bore the fuck out of me.

but i also have no interest of learning things step by step or program i specific rather skim over things find the concept I'm having troubles with and work on that and learn how things work as i go instead of just imitating actions of a other.

and just seeing or reading how things are done is'nt going to teach you much at some point you got to jump in and just do and fuck up and learn why you fucked up.

Eric Chadwick

More art, less talk. Get makin' em already!

mortalhuman

On what subject? :P

I need some on how to use tree[d] or that other one - I cannot figure those tree programs out at all to get trees I consider usable.

There are tutorials, guides, and help files, and I can't get through them, when if there was a 15 minute video with vocals telling me what they are doing, it would be a launch pad to understand - within 15 minutes - the program, and then go off on my own exploration. Terminologies and text and images do nothing for me but confuse me.

I am documentation challenged, I'm one of the people who NEED video or hands-on training.

Once I have understanding from there, THEN comes reading stuff as it makes sense to me as I read it at that point, and new things sink in easier - beginning learning stuff on paper destroys my whole motivation though, I cannot do it, I am quite sure I am not alone in that, with the studies mentioned about how video is superior for showing people how to properly use software.

I am more into reading forum posts, dynamic discussions, with the hope to add something useful as the major motivation of reading. I read threads here that I already know all about, for example, and there is almost always a little tidbit that makes me glad I read it. Just like I watch every re-make of "box modeling 101" that people make uselessly "just in case" there is something new they add to my perspective.

Just tired of there only being a few current gen materials tutorials, and tired of the most popularly advised ones to watch giving bad info and/or not even existing anymore. Tired of any other subject being pretty much the same story.

If I didn't have so few videos to watch, and didn't have such a hard time with written examples, then I would be much much further along in my path, this thread I was hoping would help the guys like me who really have a lot of artistic talent, but really need more instructional material, and my money is flat bone dry, I can't afford the paid stuff, and that is commercial when what I am looking to do here is make it a community thing for all potential 3d artists.

Example: http://glest.org/glest_board/index.php?topic=6299.0;wap2

Useless.

There are countless horrid tutorials like this on other subjects (barely anything is able to found for tree[d] in google - dare ya to try :P)

I've looked for years for good tutorials for game purposes, the only thing ever half decent is videos, and for game art, they are few and far between, and when the ONLY normal map baking tutorial, for example, is for a gun, wrong, AND deleted, well, it's like, useless.

Eric Chadwick

Well, I think it's like Kevin's thread about self-help... people learn the most by digging in there and getting their hands dirty, stumbling, making mistakes, but moving forward toward knowledge.

I taught myself tree[d] in a couple hours that way, made some suggestions to the author, who then posted new versions with my ideas in them.

SnowInChina

the thing is

if you request a tutorial, and there is already an existing one, chances are its already listed on the wiki

the thing i dont understand is
we have a "how do you model them shapes" sticky, which is really helpful
but we lack a general "problemthread"
now everyone who encounters a problem creates a new topic and after 1 day it gets sucked in the void and will never be seen again.
and unless the threadstarter specified the problem and didnt name it "I NEEDZ HELP" you cannot even search for it.

so why is there no general problem thread ? (and yeah, if someone had a problem which is shown in a tutorial, people could link it)

cryrid

now everyone who encounters a problem creates a new topic and after 1 day it gets sucked in the void and will never be seen again.
and unless the threadstarter specified the problem and didnt name it "I NEEDZ HELP" you cannot even search for it.

I think its better off this way. If done right, a thread's title and topic can give all the information needed to quickly identify what the general problem is and what program is being used. This lets the right people find it more quickly. And if the question has already been asked, its easy enough to find the existing threads and link to them for the valuable conversations within. Meanwhile if it were all contained a single thread, it's just going to be a mess to follow. And just because the thread would be stickied or at least stay on the front page, doesn't mean the posts within wouldn't be swallowed up by a hundred pages within the thread.

As for videos, I can see the advantage of them. I guess it depends on the video because some can be long and boring while others can be more precise and to the point. Some tools and concepts are just easier to understand when you see them actually being used

mortalhuman

Yea, more topics is more quick search results, google something with a site:polycount.com tack on the end of it even, whereas a single thread in itself could get indexed nicely with plenty of sub pages on it, it might never rank for all the things it touches on.

in one way, you use one thread, and then you hope when your searching for stuff, that info buried in the thread (a void of its own) will show up when you search for it - without a lot of other results above it.

In the other way, you have lots of single pages with pretty decisive topics, especially if someone writes them with intent to document or teach (tagged with tutorial, etc).

You wouldn't wanna search "problem topic: how can I fix dem shapez? site:polycount.com" and then skim through the thread til you find what you need, you wanna see what you need in that blue title text on google instead.

Here is prolly the most complete introductory series to blender ever. It might actually already be on your wiki:

http://gryllus.net/Blender/3D.html

pior

Well, what about restarting this thread and simply filling it with links to useful videos or tuts ?
And for videos, the rule would be to post a transcript of the technique being used so that one can use it without having to endure the video at all.