Is anyone keeping up with Digital Tutors?
polycounter lvl 14
http://www.digitaltutors.com/dtlabs/
I think I'll be going back for a little bit as six months or less.
I thought this might interest you so I posted it.
I think I'll be going back for a little bit as six months or less.
I thought this might interest you so I posted it.
Replies
The 'building game characters' series with the biker dude is actually really very good. I've never actually followed it all the way through but it covers the entire game workflow, and I like how you can take it into rigging and animating, and IIRC even into Motionbuilder to do some looping game anims too. To go from a concept, through base mesh, sculpting, retopo and texturing, and then onto rigging and animation is really quite something I think.
The one thing I love about Digital Tutors, and I know some people actually prefer that this doesn't happen, is that they hold your hand through the entire process. Nothing at all is skipped, you literally see everything, at 1x speed, with the instructor explaining every step of the way. Sure, if you're more advanced, then the 2x speed stuff from Gnomon is cool, but for beginners, I don't think there's much that beats it.
It used to irk me to no end when I'd watch a 'beginners guide to character creation' somewhere and they'd go 'Ok now take the base mesh and carry on sculpting and we'll see you in the next video..... when we have a fully sculpted masterpiece that you couldn't even dream about producing in your wildest fantasies you n00b' or when they say 'I'll just speed up this tedious bit' and you're there thinking 'noooo I need to see that bit!'.
tl;dr I like Digital Tutors.
It is indeed awesome site to learn stuff thoroughly. instead of fast videos.
Also, you can watch half of the stuff on their site for free.
But yeah Eat3D and CG Academy have been far more useful to me. Looks like 3DMotive are quickly becoming that way too which is awesome.
I wanna know what's going on with CG Academy... no updates for ages.
But I would love to see more real in depth and advanced tutorials.
I do understand if they make a basics video for software like ZB, which adds major changed every couple of decades, but giving me constant Basics video for software like Max or Mudbox every year there is a new update? Talk about padding.
not to mention that when they do go advanced the concepts are quite sloppily explained. Their stuff needs some scripting. Its especially annoying when you know something they are trying to explain and realise they have it wrong. you start wondering about the veracity of the rest of the information. Thats not to say that they dont do some good stuff its just a bit hit and miss.
I also occasionaly lose fath in them when they do silly things, like in this one tutorial the guy wants to duplicate an object and mirror it in that axis (3ds max tut). Instead of doing Use Working Pivot=> Mirror (X,Y,Z), he duplicates the object, rotates it, and manuelly moves the object into position by dragging the move tool. And he does that OVER and OVER again!
A good art based tutorial would be the Biker guy that they started creating from the concept art, than sculpting it out as a high poly, than converting it to a low poly, than texturing, than animating.
I started XSI and they have really good resources for that one as well. I want to learn the ICE, rigging and animation. And I think there is a tutorial for exporting a next gen animated character in to OGRE 3d.
They have a lot of advanced tutorials and they are thorough.
Tbh I haven't really learned anything from Eat3d or Gnomon's tutorials... they go way too fast and assume too many things. Or don't really cover anything and the instructors just seem to be phoning it in.
For Example:
Photoshop
3ds Max 3rd page.
Softimage XSI 3-6 pages.
So people, who think that it isnt worth going back to this website, just compare eat3d, 3d motive, etc with DT and you'll see that DT is giving away soo much for free. It isnt exactly boring, I think its boring because many people assume that Digital tutors will do the speed modeling but they sit there model out a character thoroughly and guiding you through every step of the way. In many tutorials they would do just one section at the normal speed to show you how it is done, than if they require that step to be repeated, they would speed it up until they move on to the new step.
Stuff which many artists show on youtube for free, I think if you followed everyone from Polycount who has a Youtube channel, you would get the same level of 'free' from Digital Tutors.
I would like to see one other tutorial cover as much as eat3D did for ZBrush in their Hard Surface tutorial or one which covers as much as Gnomon's Cecil Kim and/or Sang Lee's tutorials do.
Just because you like DT, and haven't really dug in other websites and what they have to offer doesn't mean that they don't exist or that the bar isn't already set pretty high.
Once again, DT is great for beginners and intermediate level people, that's what they specialize in their tutorials. They do stuff alot 'by the book', but if you want to seriously level up, then you need to look elsewhere.
Really? Everything I've watched from them has been great.
No offense, I just happened to be obsessed about the way they go through the stuff at Digital Tutors and I havent found many people talking about it, so I thought it deserves a thread here.
Digital Tutors started me off on 3d arts and 2d arts, when I had no idea how to start. All I did before that was crappy doodle drawing and story writing for my ideas. After I studied via Digital Tutors for a year, I finally got a grip on the 3d stuff and can call myself an intermediate CG artist and I can actually bring something appropriate to the table (PNP of polycount). Now when someone talks about CG stuff I dont have to feel bad for not knowing the stuff because I kind of know it.
I got the rest of the help via critics on polycount alone that I really needed / still need in terms of refining my work before I move on to other stuff to study.
Like I said, the only way I'll study via Eat3d or 3d motive or any other subscription is, when I desperately want to learn UDK or Cry engine thoroughly, because thats the only thing Digital Tutors would not cover. The rest of the stuff is pretty great and worth a look since these guys have been around longer then the tutorial websites found today so I think they know what they are talking about.