digital tutors

loki1991

i have been looking at some of the tutorials on digital tutors and was wondering what other people think about them. at the moment im looking at getting a few months of subscription to burn through a some of their tutorials over Christmas and was wondering what other peoples experience have been with them.

slipsius

I've enjoyed them. Some arent too detailed, but others are great. They teach the tools pretty well. Not really sure what you`re looking for though. evniro? animation? rigging? lighting?

WarrenM

I have a yearly subscription and I think they're great. I watch them in bed before going to sleep most nights on my iPad. They add content faster than I can watch it ...

loki1991

ohh yeah i should of added that. honestly at the moment i would love to work on hand painted style that you see in world of warcraft and wild star. creating stuff from props to fully rigged characters. however they don't have exactly what i want but there were a few tutorials that i seen that should give me the skills find a way that works for me to create that sort of style and in other styles as a bonus.


http://www.digitaltutors.com/learningpath/61-Digital-Painting-in-Photoshop-v2
this for some better photoshop sklills

http://www.digitaltutors.com/learningpath/51-Modeling-for-Character-Artists-in-Maya
this for character design.


http://www.digitaltutors.com/learningpath/38-How-to-Get-Started-in-Unity
http://www.digitaltutors.com/learningpath/18-Unity-Mobile-Game-Development
these two for the basic working of unity



the unity stuff is mostly so i have a proper understanding of how stuff works there, and in other game engines, so once good enough i could maybe put props up on the unity store.

Desperad0

Digital Tutors is awesome! Their vids are the easiest to follow and understand - especially for someone new to 3D. And they cover all the programs I'm trying to learn right now. I am thinking of getting my own subscription as well - after hand-in, move-out, and finding a semi-reliable source of internet (aka September).

ExcessiveZero

Fantastic clear and concise, its the only service I have paid for to learn off and not regretted the money spent.

JamesArk

I'm a big fan, but my college gave us a free subscription as part of our tuition fees so I never actually sought it out in the first place. That being said it's very awesome.

My only issue is that I have a monthly download cap and all of their videos are in a pretty high resolution so managing that gets a little rough.

Velktri

DT is built with a broad scope in mind, much like a university is built to teach you all aspects of 3D. If you're just starting out in 3D, DT will help you learn the programs and general workflows extremely fast. I found that once you are more experienced, the courses are slower and a little redundant simply because they want you to make sure you know everything. Even then the creative development courses are very good for experienced artists.

I also found that the 2D concept courses are pretty nice if you're a novice concept artist.

CyberGameArts

DT is built with a broad scope in mind, much like a university is built to teach you all aspects of 3D. If you're just starting out in 3D, DT will help you learn the programs and general workflows extremely fast. I found that once you are more experienced, the courses are slower and a little redundant simply because they want you to make sure you know everything. Even then the creative development courses are very good for experienced artists.

I also found that the 2D concept courses are pretty nice if you're a novice concept artist.

Velktri brought it on the spot. I personally liked it alot at the beginning when I was still lost in the vast world of 3d. Like everyone said, its a great way to learn the tools and get familiar with some of the workflows.
However I feel like the more I learn and know, the DT tutorials become kinda boring. They keep on stressing the tools, which is great at first, but becomes a drag once a one becomes a bit more advanced. I personally prefer to learn concepts rather than the buttons I need to press, a theme I feel is more present on sites such as Eat3d or 3dMotive. This is also emphasized by the fact that DT keeps on publishing courses with the same core idea coupled with the usual step-by-step tutorial scheme; The same thing over and over again.
Anyways, its a great site with an overwhelming amount of knowledge in one place, maybe just a bit to concentrated and repetitive at times (for the more advanced artists I suppose ) But for the beginning its definitely worth the money.:D

Cheers!

moof

I'm a thorough fan of DT. Think it's definitely worth it.

Vysuki

I've tried digital tutors. I found I'd sub for a month, learn some programs and then didn't find much of what they had on there that great. As mentioned, they teach tools well.

I found 3d motive to be much better and still keep a sub running with them for new content and referencing if I need to. They explain why they do things and the choices you have. They also show some of the bad ways of doing things and the reason why.

3Dmotive also have a handpainted series that is really great!

a3sthesia

I don't know if I would have been able to make it through Uni without some of those Digital Tutors lessons. They're not perfect, but they're definitely worth the money. Unlike Uni

Baron Flame

It depends from tutorial to tutorial.
The "introduction to" tutorials are a great place to get acquainted/re-acquainted with whatever it is that you are learning. You pick up neat tips and tricks, handy advice and stuff like that.
I recently jumped softwares, Maya to Max, and they really helped speed up the process. They get you started.

The more specialized ones, I don't really have a good or a bad opinion of them. I recently skimmed through the "Asset Workflows for Modular Level Design" one. It was okay, I did pick up a lot of things but it wasn't a lot.
I'd much rather prefer the ones from 3D motive, Gnomon and other such sources for advanced tutorials.

Hayden Zammit

I think their introductory courses where they're just teaching you the program are great. That said, I've watched a few of their series where I kept thinking, "There are better and faster ways he could be doing this."

Also seen a few by guest lecturers where they really skim over important stuff.

All in all, its an amazing resource though. I definitely learnt a heap of them.

Bibendum

Useful for learning software but I don't think it's very good for learning concepts about art.

Also not sure how they format their new videos but in the older ones they never skipped anything which made them very tedious to watch at times.

DrunkShaman

loki1991 wrote: »

i have been looking at some of the tutorials on digital tutors and was wondering what other people think about them. at the moment im looking at getting a few months of subscription to burn through a some of their tutorials over Christmas and was wondering what other peoples experience have been with them.

Their techniques, workflows and tips are kind outdated. However; It really pushes you towards learning the tools. Also there were new developments that pushed them to improve their techniques and they sort of did.

There are many DT tutorials that are free, do watch them and see if it interests you.

EDIT: I started with Digital tutors and would recommend it to any newbie who wishes to learn CG and get started. They make the break in to CG with tools and all easier and there are some what good tricks you might learn from them. But if you are looking for tutorials that pushes the art side of things I would strongly recommend Eat3d and Gnomon workshop.

loki1991

ohh so if i was to watch the photoshop one i linked here it would only teach me how to use photoshop rather then to actually draw that sort of stuff in photoshop?

Desperad0

Bibendum wrote: »

Useful for learning software but I don't think it's very good for learning concepts about art.

...

Yeah, but I'm okay with that. There's no one perfect site/school/etc for everything You gotta branch out and be resourceful to be a good artist anyway. Digital Tutor is very good for foundation in learning tools and techniques. Concept art stuff is better learned from art classes and just really seeing the world around you in person or in records.

loki1991

but that's the thing i want to learn styalized painted art used in world of warcraft and i have seen almost 0 decent tutorials on this subject.

Bibendum

3dmotive has a tutorial on painting textures by Tyson Murphy who works for Blizzard on the WoW team.

loki1991

https://www.3dmotive.com/f101801

omg yes this seems really good.


however the rest of the stuff seems ok but im not sure if i want to pay $30 for a month just for 1 tutorial.

WarrenM

You can pay $39 to download just the one if you want...

https://www.3dmotive.com/downloads

loki1991

that's more then if i just got a month subscription. thought it doesn't say what you get in the subscription.

IchII3D

In a nutshell Digital Tutors is fantastic for learning tools, but not very useful for teaching production methods. Its simply a "this is here, here and here and works like this..." but doesn't go into much depth about how these practices can be used. I have a Digital Tutors account and found is great for introduction to new programs, but found it lacking when it came to learning about areas I don't get much exposure to in a production environment.

WarrenM

loki

You seemed concerned about paying $30 a month, so I was showing you how you can pay one time for one tutorial is all. Yes, it's more than a month. But you don't have to subscribe and you can keep the tutorial on your hard drive forever.

Desperad0

How to paint stylized is more about painting in general. That's kind of harder to teach, and yeah I haven't seen teaching videos on that subjects, just loads of books and magazines if you're up for reading and making study drawings from them.

loki1991

@ichll3D so you would recommend it to start building skills but it will only get me half way and the other half i need to find out on my own?

what are other peoples preferences on these sort of sites?

AlexCatMasterSupreme

As someone who started with it and still uses it at times, when you are learning the basics of a program or the basics of part of a program, they are amazing, they not only tell you why to do things some ways and set up good workflows,but they also show you obscure tools that may save you HOURS when you are starting. With that said the end results are not amazing, but that's not the point, the point is to teach you building blocks. 3d motive, self exploration, eat 3d ect teach you the rest. I like them all, I prefer 3d motive and digital tutors.

I needed to learn maya for work, as well as all the dynamics, fur, rendering, and pretty much anything and everything it was very insightful.

loki1991

So you recommend starting here then just seeing what I can do and then look at getting more if needed from other sites?

SuperFranky

There are some good ones on their website, but overall i really dislike Digital Tutors' tutorials.