[Rant] Tutorials
Sorry of this is the wrong place but it's annoying the hell out of me and I need to get it off my chest.
I'm sick and tired of every yokel with a 5$ PC mic and some desktop recording software thinking they can make a video tutorial. PROTIP: recording yourself modeling something is NOT a tutorial. I don't go into a tutorial so I can watch sped-up footage of a pro with his quick-bound tools flying through a model and giving a bad narration of whats vaguely going on.
Get yourself sorted. God forbid you script some of the dialogue so you convey it properly, or maybe explain the tools you're using. These crappy tutorials are everywhere and its become a chore trying to find legitimate ones. It's just frustrating, when you're already hitting your head on the desk trying to figure something out.
I'm sick and tired of every yokel with a 5$ PC mic and some desktop recording software thinking they can make a video tutorial. PROTIP: recording yourself modeling something is NOT a tutorial. I don't go into a tutorial so I can watch sped-up footage of a pro with his quick-bound tools flying through a model and giving a bad narration of whats vaguely going on.
Get yourself sorted. God forbid you script some of the dialogue so you convey it properly, or maybe explain the tools you're using. These crappy tutorials are everywhere and its become a chore trying to find legitimate ones. It's just frustrating, when you're already hitting your head on the desk trying to figure something out.
Replies
teaching you anything.
When you're a beginner then yeah I agree, they are terrible and I too used to watch stuff with horrible audio and 8x speed and be like 'ok so how is this helping me?'.
But once you've got basics down then they become a nice insight into an artists workflow and often I'll pick up tips here and there. Especially hard surface vids, seeing how people model is definitely useful.
The way I see it is that they're two totally different levels of tutorial aimed at different levels of artist. I think Racer445 even prefaced one of his latest hard-surface vids by saying 'this is not a beginner tutorial' and he's right. I know what my hotkeys are, I know what the connect button does so why would I want the instructor to explain it to me every time he/she uses it.
I think this thread is pointless... You are hating on people who take their own time from their busy schedule to try and show their workflow (you should be able to pickup at least SOME techniques from watching a sped up version) or techniques they use to do something faster, or easier, or more efficient.
I do agree that some tutorials are harder to follow, but to make a thread hating on people trying to help the art community is silly and selfish. You also have a great knowledgeable community here that, for example, if you can't figure out what a person is doing to get a certain result, you can always ask.
And... if that's not working for you, you can always spend a shit ton of money and go to a 3D course that'll probably teach you the same amount of content that a 2 hour video can teach, but in a span of 2 - 3 years instead
/rant
Hater's gonna hate :P
;p
"ur doin it wrong!"
Learning puppetshop where 100% of the documentation was video, was extremely frustrating. I ended up making my own help docs that focused on the specific things I used. When people have to do that, just to use your product I suggest going the extra mile and giving them the docs they need, especially when they pay for it! Which probably explains why its free now...
For general theory or demonstrations, video is totally fine. Especially if its just throw up on the web at no cost to me.
I'm with Vig though, I prefer the pic/text combo, when it's done correctly.
And Jason, I for one appreciate someone who puts the time into a tutorial. I've done them myself, and sometimes it can feel like a very thankless task. BUT, if you don't convey your information correctly, then you are wasting your time too. Why not make all that effort worthwhile for everyone?
*Puts away soapbox*
the one thing i've learned from making tutorials (and making actual tutorials later on with a good mic, hours upon hours of editing, proper audio mastering, and taking time to get it through the publisher's edits) is that they never teach the most essential skill that you need as an artist/intelligent human beingthinking for yourself.
even when i had a dollar store microphone i always tried to encourage free thinking in my videos, and it's very hard to do so without backlash from the viewers. if you remove parts and say "if you've modeled this much, you can figure out the rest" you get yelled at because they want step-by-step hand holding through the whole thing. if you suggest alternate methods, they'll never look into them. if you yell at them and repeat yourself over and over, they won't listen.
it also seems that when people finish tutorials and move on to try and make their own stuff they take the tutorial presenter's word as gospel, and never challenge themselves to try and better their work. it's why you see so many metal textures that look like mine or peterk's, so many props that look like eat3d's or kaleb's dumpster, and so many characters that look deformed because the person who made it did not feel the need to explore anatomy after watching the tutorial.
i've found that the problem lies within the tutorial format itself. when people go into tutorials they want step-by-step hand holding throughout the entire thing, and you MUST explain every tiny thing in detail or they get confused. this is understandable for new artists, but it harms them later on because they do tend to take the presenters word as the absolute truth and never branch out, never aim higher, and they usually seem less likely to take critique to heart.
anyway, what i've taken out of this whole experience truly is that people will never learn, and thus ends my rant.
No, i'm hating on people who just record themselves modeling something. People who actually take time out of their busy schedule, sit down, and make a good tutorial have my many, many thanks. People who press "record" when they decide to model something and call it a tutorial because they did a rushed voiceover do not garner the same level of praise.
I suppose its easy to say "lol you need a video tutorial?" when you're already a pro, I tend to have similar opinions on other guitar forums. As with any skill you've always got the beginners wanting it to be easier. My rant in particular stems from the fact theres very little in the way of tutorials for hard surface modeling in Maya. It's not as abundant as Max tutorials so when I finnaly find something, and it turns out to be zero help, yea its a bit frustrating.
to be fair, creating a good modeling tutorial is a really hard task. modeling is extremely simple once you figure out all the technical aspects, and that'll only come after looking at a basic tutorial to figure out what that all means and lots and lots of time spent creating models.
that said, modeling with maya is the same as modeling for max/blender/xsi/lightwave/modo/silo/etc, the only difference is where the tools are located.
IF you cant be bothered to write up a tutorial outline at least for people, you know, who like to read versus seeing yet another narcissistic person "helping" others by tubing it. Please don't.
Or worse when I ask for that particular gem you point me to your video versus saying what it is. That is SUCH a waste of my time.
[ame]
even if they use some hotkey you don't know, then do some homework and figure out what they did. you won't be a pro overnight by watching a video and having someone hold your hand. Half the tutorials/work files i learned from i had to deconstruct or reverse engineer to figure out how it worked. it might sound like a lot of wasted time but its the process of figuring out why and what someone is doing that makes you more productive.
and what video are you have such a big deal with?
See, I think that's part of it. It depends on what your purpose is for the tutorial. IMO, tutorials can't teach you creativity. I was looking for tutorials that helped me understand the tools, and I was disappointed when most did as the original post stated.... watching someone make a model.
The only time I want a tutorial showing how to model something, is if there is something technically difficult about how to form a particular shape. That's fairly rare for most tutorials.
Exactly. I've been working with the software for awhile but lack fundamentals and a good understanding of using the tools, and the various rules and workflows of poly modeling. What I want is a good explination of how the tools work, and a nice demonstration of how the artist uses those tools. I could care less about just watching him fly through some nice model because I have zero intrest in re-creating whatever he's making.
I've been seriously considering it, Gnomon in particular because i've heard they have great Maya tutorials. I'm just worried about getting more of the same.
Although I could be wrong about the Gnomon Maya DVD; I've never actually watched it. I'm just basing this off of what I've read throughout the forums as I only have the Eat3D DVDs.
I've only personally seen 2 of their videos and thought they where great.
http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/store/product/542/Hard-Surface-Shading-and-Texturing
Which was by Niel Blevins who is a master at documenting things, so its no surprise his video is well thought out with high production quality.
The other was:
http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/store/product/213/Head-Modeling-for-Games
I was mostly looking for Maya tips and tricks and it was alright for that. I agreed with 99.999% of it. But I don't think it would of been too helpful for a beginner, he skipped over things they might throw their hands up at.
This
As Vig said, a great deal of Gnomon stuff is exactly the stuff you said you didn't like in the original post.
Digital Tutors has got stacks and stacks of Maya stuff which is well planned, well delivered training which is actually pretty enjoyable.
If you want to follow game art worfklow specific stuff then Eat3D would be your ideal choice but they do focus on Max. As Racer mentioned, if you know your way around the software it really isn't an issue and you can follow along just fine.
Oldish rant, but still applies!
I get it, but these people still took the time to share with the world instead of keeping the time for themselves. This attitude of ' I WANT MORE ' is what gradually teaches pros to not share
+1
smart, motivated people will learn and get there eventually and might even be helped by a tutorial (I picked up some cool stuff from your tutorials for example), while the stupid people aren't going to be made into pro's by a tutorial.
You shouldn't let that bad part of the audience make you think that tutorials don't have their use anymore.
Tutorials help me to learn, I fail to see why that's a problem or why it's seen as some kind of 'weakness' to use them. Nor do I understand why it's a bad thing to critisisize poorly made wankfest ego videos showing off your mad modeling skillz, when all you wanted was some simple instructional videos. Obviously, this is not directed at people who actaully take the time to create a good Tutorial and are honestly trying to help people learn.
I mean, it's not like people need pros to share everything in-depth. A lot can be learned just from watching a timelapse or studying stills / renders. It's just bothersome looking for solutions and finding an excess of "tutorials" made by 14-year-olds who pirated X program yesterday. That's my peeve, anyway. I guess the rest of this thread is not really about that, is it. Since yon professional artists be pissed.
Hm. A tutorial is very different than a walkthrough; the former should actually teach the principles of something, the thought that goes into the work, whereas a walkthrough is treated like a paint-by-numbers by too many viewers. Those viewers seemingly don't have the mind to learn things on their own to begin with, so I don't think even the most amazing tutorial is going to necessarily enlighten them.
And I mean, there are different levels - you can teach the technical ins-and-outs of a program, or you can go into artistry and theory that can be applied to whatever application. I think there is a greater demand for "walkthrough" style introductory this-is-how-you-do-it videos, but in the end, if you ask me, the other style is much more valuable. Most programs have documentation; an advanced teacher (ie, professional sharing their ideas) should be able to focus on the practice in their videos. IMO.
this is the truest thing i've read on these forums.
it's saddening to see so many people on here not listen to walls of detailed critique i've given them, and even people who get offended when i give them honest critique. just because they've shared something certainly doesn't make it good, in the same way that just because someone made something and posted it in the pimping section doesn't force people to praise it.
I might be going off-topic here but...
To be honest, both taking and giving critisism is difficult in the beginning, and is something most people slowly learn.
I'm not defending people that ignore good crits though. ^^
People have different learning styles and will absorb information better if they are learning from their own personal style. there are many different models for learning styles but I think the simplest is the Fleming's VARK model. The model is split into 4 categories: visual learners, auditory learners, reading/writing learners, and kinesthetic or tactile learners. You guys can Google this stuff if you want to.
I think if you decide to make a tutorial you should try to incorporate these 4 learning styles. Of course, this would be extremely difficult but I'm sure someone here could come up with a decent format.
I found a pretty good website that's worth taking a look at.
http://cft.vanderbilt.edu/teaching-guides/pedagogical/how-people-learn/
I watch a lot of tutorials and usually come out learning 1 thing or 2 little things that makes me go, "hmm, that would be really got for X situation" not "oh that's how you make a robot, let me make the same robot and show off my skills!"
It's like a math teacher showing you how to do a math problem. Okay, now you have to use your free thinking to solve a similar problem, but not use the teachers aid to solve the EXACT problem again. That's just silly.
I have no problem with people making tutorials because I just love them. I got issues with people watching them, then posting up "their" work which is a copy of a tutorial.
Hehehe oh man the video series is BADD and I'm sorry for that :P But it was more of a postmortem, and I think I did an ok job with that... but I hear ya man, I'm sowwie
I DID come off like an ass in that post, I'm actually really sorry for wording it like that, my bad
"smart, motivated people will learn and get there eventually and might even be helped by a tutorial (I picked up some cool stuff from your tutorials for example), while the stupid people aren't going to be made into pro's by a tutorial."
Now I'm not saying you aren't smart or motivated, I just think that for those artists who you look upto today... they didn't rely on one form of learning, but in my experience, the most important form of learning is just doing.
I know this thread was about videos that don't explain, they just show their model, but yar... just putting in my 2 cents :P
There's a lot of pretty vague 'don't ever cross the streams' kind of warnings in a lot of tutorials, both professional and amateur, without explaining why crossing the streams would cause every molecule in your body to explode at the speed of light.
Whether this is because the instructor doesn't know, can't explain it adequately or assumes the audience already knows, the result is the same - people doing things because they saw someone do it that way one time, without an explanation as to why they did it that way.
Reminds me of a story about a woman cooking a ham. Before putting it in the pan, she cut one end off the ham. Confused, her husband asked her why she cut the end off. She said 'because my mom always cut the end off.'
So they asked her mom why she cut the end off the ham before cooking it. 'Because my mom always cut the end off,' replied the woman's mother. So they go to the retirement home and ask Grandma why she cut the end off the ham before cooking it.
'Because it wouldn't fit in the pan otherwise,' said Grandma.
Can't... seem... to find... the make art button... damn it!
In this case I feel like its up to the person viewing the tutorials to A: do research or B: view other tutorials and compare/contrast methods and C: ask people at polycount
I mean really, its up to you to learn what you want...if your path of knowledge doesn't lead you from one edge of the internets to the other....then your doin' it wrong. If some tutorials don't put it right in your face then you gotta look around and find out.
I understand what you are saying, and it would have saved me a lot of time in the past when I was learning how to do this stuff...but I wouldn't have learned a lot of things that I have if I had my hand held in one direction.
Hell, I'm a characters guy but I still enjoy your videos, and I cracked up when you said "cause I'm da best mayng I deed it" when referring to long/thin polys during your AK videos.
I agree with several of the previous posts that there's worlds apart in someone hitting record and someone who really sets out to make a good tutorial. It's what makes (most) professional tutorials so useful; someone sat down and planned things out, outlined, refined, trial-and-errored their way into something useful before recording. It's a bit like a lecture from notes vs a free-form 'I'm going to talk about stuff' lecture. Most anybody can do the first with enough time and effort, but you've got to both know your shit and be a great communicator to pull the second one off.
If you hate video's like those, you can always..you know, not watch it.
I think 80% of tutorials in general can be disregarded because now your an amateur, and now you learnt how to ao bake 100% so you make a video helping beginners, in an attempt to bring yourself to pro-level. I did it myself.
In the end, good tutorials are highly useful. And i agree alot with what racer's said.
Now following a tutorial step by step can be ok when you are getting your feet wet and trying to learn the basics if it is a beginners tutorial but you need to know when a tutorial is too advanced for you. Too often do I see people trying to do a lot of high poly modeling when its clear they still dont have a good foundation in even basic modeling. You need to crawl before you can walk and walk before you can run so dont try and go from beginner to professional industry quality over night because it just wont happen. You will end up having weak foundation skills which will hurt you in the long run and hurt every other process you want to add on top of the basic foundations such as high poly modeling.
I will agree from your posts that you do sound a tad ungrateful for free tutorials as it seems you haven't yet paid for one. Now I think everyone, even those who create tutorials should be subject to criticism as no ones work is perfect and critique and feedback is the only way to improve ones work. Just try to give more productive feedback instead of ranting about things you are getting for free
Aaaargh Jason man I was being completely sarcastic (bad idea on the internet I guess).
I found your videos very helpful and thought it was very generous of you to give an in depth commentary on how you made a big, complete environment. You tackled a lot of difficult points and I think any aspiring env artist could learn a lot.
Sorry you took it wrong, I feel like an ass! I was just humouring the thread.
In my opinion there should be MORE real-life production overview/workflow type stuff than "click here and put in this number to get the same result" which I guess the OP is talking about. Sharing is everything.. but there are ways and means to do it.
Of course it's easy to say "oh well don't use/watch them", and that kind of attitude is creeping into every aspect of life now from the latest films to real-life news events.