Live Help - Blender/Open Sim Mesh Building Basics & More

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Ruby O'Degee
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Live Help - Blender/Open Sim Mesh Building Basics & More

Post by Ruby O'Degee »

First Week - Beta Week - Live Lessons
No Cost, Open to Public Build, Please see World Information Page (List of Materials and "Need to Haves")

Beginning on Monday 2/23 (next week) Waymarker 88221 will open its doors to participants interested in learning to blend their Open Sim building methods with Blender Mesh building methods during live basic lessons, live project lessons and coming soon live workshops hosted by myself and others. The workshops will be dedicated to the art of sharing what we've all learned about building authentic and optimized immersive environments in Open Sim.

The class will be limited to 9 participants on a first come, first serve basis. Basic classes that rotate on a 1st and 3rd week basis will begin at 8:30 PST (last about 40 minutes). Most days the basic classes will be followed by a 30-40 minute project class, so that builders have something to take home. Workshops are being scheduled for trhe 2nd and 3rd weeks of the month at the same location, times to be announced.
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Re: Live Help - Blender/Open Sim Mesh Building Basics & More

Post by Ilan Tochner »

Hi Ruby,

In order to increase visibility, I moved this topic to the Events and Activities section of the forum and left a link to it from the General Content Creation section where you originally created it.

If you change the title to include the time and date I can promote it to an announcement as well.
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Re: Live Help - Blender/Open Sim Mesh Building Basics & More

Post by Ruby O'Degee »

Schedule and Materials Needed For Classes
Class Schedule: Edit - See schedule following (March 2nd Post for Month of March)

Material Needed for Classes
Must Haves for Blender Basic Lessons (Please download and test before class begins)
Blender 2.73+ http://www.blender.org/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TeamViewer does not require downloading. An invitation will be sent to participants at the start of class, along with a Blender file that cannot be acquired inworld. TeamViewer is a sharing tool.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Basic Lessons will be taught via voice only. Participants will respond via TeamViewer Chat, but sounds will be heard via inworld and TeamViewer. ALL YOU NEED FOR BLENDER BASIC LESSONS IS Blender 2.73+ and Sound.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Blender Project & Workshop Lessons
Additional No Cost/Open Source programs that will be used during lessons:
*If participants choose to speak during project lessons, a headset w/microphone is required.
**Workshop host requirements will be posted prior to lesson time.
***Textures, some models and some maps will be provided by the instructor for Project Lessons or Workshops.
Last edited by Ruby O'Degee on Mon Mar 02, 2015 12:33 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Live Help - Blender/Open Sim Mesh Building Basics & More

Post by Dot Matrix »

I've just been to the first class of Blender Basics. It is excellent.

Ruby invites you to a "Team Viewer" session. This software enables you to see Ruby's computer screen as she demonstrates exactly what she is talking about. If you are confused (and Blender IS confusing!) or she is going too fast, you can let her know via Team Viewer, either by talking or by typing into a text-chat box. She will then go back over whatever was causing the difficulty.

Ruby provides a link to a Blender file ("Here's one I made earlier") that you can try things out on in real time. If things don't work as expected, again you can alert her, and she will take time to help you sort it out.

She also finds ways to relate the Blender interface with what we know from OpenSim or from the viewer interface, or from other software such as Photoshop or MS Word. The jargon can be confusing, but making associations with what you do know helps a lot.

If you have always been scared by the Blender interface, it's worth trying these classes.
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Re: Live Help - Blender/Open Sim Mesh Building Basics & More

Post by Ruby O'Degee »

Progress for the Project :)

I would like to publicly thank Dot Matrix, Ghaelen D'Lareh and Serene Jewell for helping me Beta test my lessons. What I suspected is turning out to be true - I will need to offer more classes at different times, so that I can get everything in. Also, Dot and Serene were nice enough to say they could help with the teaching of their own project lesson classes (TBA). Once they decide what to title their classes, I will promptly add them to the schedule.

I also want to thank Handy for giving me permission to add the times and dates to the Kitely calender and to Shelby for always supporting whatever the metaverse decides to do.

So more information coming soon. Maybe even a few weekend workshops so more folks can attend. What I like best is the sharing of building ideas. I can't wait to get those gatherings planned.
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Re: Live Help - Blender/Open Sim Mesh Building Basics & More

Post by Serene Jewell »

Looking forward to more of Ruby's classes. For anyone who has been thinking about learning Blender, this is an almost painless way to do it. You can watch Ruby's computer screen as she demonstrates something in Blender and you can try things out on your own local Blender as you go. This is a great way to learn - by watching and doing.
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Re: Live Help - Blender/Open Sim Mesh Building Basics & More

Post by Ruby O'Degee »

Learned from Beta Lessons:

To better accommodate participants live tutorials were added, and the schedule changed so that tutorials could be repeated during the same week. Also time to practice what was learned during tutorials could be planned, if classes were spread out over a longer period of time. The schedule is changed for March. April will repeat Tuesday and Wednesday class. A new schedule will published with dates for April, May and so on.

A Saturday day long tutorial (all 4 basic classes - one after the other) is planned March 28. This will give participants a chance to repeat tutorials. Also participants who can't come during the week will have a chance to attend during the weekend.

Project Lessons and Workshops are being scheduled, so its best to check the schedule from time to time http://waymarker88221.blogspot.com/
Schedule Basic Blender Mesh (Live Tutorials will be held providing 2 or more participants attend. Limit 9 participants per tutorial).
  • Tuesday 3/3/2015 - Blender Mesh Navigation 1 - 8:30 am PST and Blender Mesh Navigation 2 - 11:30 am PST (
    Wednesday 3/4/2015 Blender Mesh Navigation 2 - 8:30 am PST and Blender Mesh Navigation 1 - 11:30 am PST
    Tuesday 3/10/2015 - Blender Mesh Modeling 1- 8:30 am PST and Blender Mesh Modeling 2 - 11:30 am PST
    Wednesday 3/11/2015 Blender Mesh Modeling 2- 8:30 am PST and Blender Mesh Modeling 1 - 11:30 am PST
    Tuesday 3/17/2015 - Blender Mesh UV Unwrapping 1 - 8:30 am PST and Blender Mesh UV Unwrapping 2 - 11:30 am PST
    Wednesday 3/18/2015 Blender Mesh UV Unwrapping 2- 8:30 am PST and Blender Mesh UV Unwrapping 1 - 11:30 am PST
    Tuesday 3/24/2015 - Blender Mesh Retopology 1- 8:30 am PST Blender Mesh Retopology 2 - 11:30 am PST
    Wednesday 3/25/2015 Blender Mesh Retopology 2- 8:30 am PST and Blender Mesh Retopology 1 - 11:30 am PST
No Live Tutorials Week of March 30, 2015

Tutorials Include:
  • Blender Mesh Navigation 1 (Save, FileHeader, Tool Bar Preferences, Text Edit,Pie Menu Cursor, Selection, Align View, Tool Shelf, Outliner, N Properties, Operations, Tool Bar,Open & Join Screens,Object Mode, RSTranslate, RSGrab, Search)
    Blender Mesh Navigation 2 (Edit Mode View, View ports, Grease Pencil, Reference, Print UV Editor, Manipulators, V-E-F Transform -S-G, Make Paths, Absolute, World Background, Levels & Measure)
    Blender Mesh Modeling 1 (Adding Geometry, Selection Tools , Delete, Undo, Redo, Join,Remove Doubles,Extrusion, Loop cut and slide, Manipulators)
    Blender Mesh Modeling 2 (Generators, Decimation, Solidify, Edge split, Other Modifiers, Collision, Knife cut, Bevel, Dupliverts, HP Screw Modifier
    Blender Mesh UV Unwrapping 1 (Outliner Layers, Marking Seams, Unwrap Options, Laying out the Best Unwrap,Islands,Make Edge/Face,Pack Islands,Pin,Materials,Simple Texture)
    Blender Mesh UV Unwrapping 2 (Sync and Grab, Intuitive Texturing, Ambient Occlusion, Normal Map, Node Editor, Texture Blend,Exporting Textures, Mind Tex Demo)
    Blender Mesh Retopology 1 (Multi-Rez, Dynamic Topology,Triangulate Faces, Tris to Quads, Remesh, Shrinkwrap, Decimation & Normal Maps (Mesh Lab), Hi Poly to Lo Poly Model, Sculptris Demo)
    Blender Mesh Retopology 2 (Retopo by Contour, BSurface w Grease Pencil)
The classes will be held here: http://www.kitely.com/virtual-world/Rub ... rker-88221

Thanks to all of you who stopped by during the tour to preview Waymarker and the tutorial options. And yes PM, I didn't like the movie Maze Runner, but I was definitely influenced by those walls. What were those goofy spidery globs of evildoers anyhow? Reminded me of a bad and totally funny B movie :roll:
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Re: Live Help - Blender/Open Sim Mesh Building Basics & More

Post by Selby Evans »

I am carrying notice of this class on my blog (news and notes section) The link goes to the Kitely Calendar. As of now, I don't see the schedule on the calendar, but I am pretty sure I saw a notice indicating that it would be. I am also carrying a link to the Waymarker world page -- I am also carrying a link to that.
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Re: Live Help - Blender/Open Sim Mesh Building Basics & More

Post by Ruby O'Degee »

Hi Roxy:

There was no day of week schedule change. Actually the tutorials were scheduled Monday through Thursday. During the Beta week of testing the schedule, it was determined that the tutorials would be better scheduled only on Tuesday and Wednesday.


The tutorials repeat, so participants could still attend the concerts and participate in the tutorials at the alternate time. I don't think there will be a conflict. If there is one, I can eliminate the "repeating" tutorials and only do two tutorials a week. I added a second (do again) time for the convenience of participants. Only 10 avatars can visit the world at a time. So far only 2 Kitely residents participated. The other participants hypergridded in. This is a small group (intentional).

Ruby

Edit: I reviewed the calendar to find the time conflict. I did not see one for the times of 8:30 am and 11:30 am PST (Tuesday and Wednesday mornings). Are the concerts being held during the same time period? I noticed past concerts were held at different times/days during the week. The tutorials last only 45 minutes (over by 12:45). Which session would I need to reschedule if there is a participant conflict?
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