The site Tutorials — blender.org shows a Blender Fundamentals 2.8x
pointing to https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLa1F2ddGya_-UvuAqHAksYnB0qL9yWDO6
This should be updated to 3. ? or is mainly still valid ?
The basics mostly apply, yes. There might be some UI cleanups here and there that won’t exactly match the tutorial. The series should probably be updated at some point. Maybe for the current LTS (or some LTS in the future).
Maybe the description should be changed, so it does not show a first impression that it is outdated.
Possibly, but since every title includes “Blender 2.80 Fundamentals” I think it’s pretty clear.
- video is still understandable.
- video just shows an horizontal alignment of buttons of navigation gizmo that is currently vertical.
- An explanation about Collection tab is missing.
- video has an obsolete warning about Box Select in Outliner.
- video lacks a demo of Add Primitive active tool.
- video lacks to mention changes done in 2.9x (enabling/disabling at the right of names, collection display per 3D Viewport and collection tags).
- video is not talking about Geometry Nodes workspace. It gives an overcomplicated trick about creating a new area to show Graph Editor, instead of talking about Ctrl Tab shortcut. Default templates of blender may be considered outdated. None of them is showing Asset Browser. An update is needed.
- video does not show Active Tool Settings bar.
- Nothing is outdated.
- video does not show workspace property responsible for mode switch during workspaces switch.
- Still perfectly valid.
- video lacks a mention of Extrude Manifold tool.
- Still valid.
- demo is simple for a complicated Bevel tool. Its UI changed a lot, although settings demonstrated are still present.
- Warning about right click is outdated. A demo of new angle constraint of knife tool would be welcomed. Status bar is not sufficient for that. Behaviour of preview of Bisect tool also changed.
- Still perfectly valid.
- a demo of search menu called from connection extension from socket could be added.
- Still perfectly valid.
- Toolbar of UV Editor is just showing 4 transform tools, nowadays. But everything else is similar.
- video is outdated. Procedural textures has been improved to handle different amount of dimensions. Voronoi texture, used for demo, has changed a lot, with different names for settings and ability to output vectors.
- Still perfectly valid.
- A demo of Shift T shortcut would be welcomed.
- Most of video is still valid. A remark about Freestyle and Workbench is outdated. And, of course, because of Cycles refactor in Blender 3.0, half of part relative to Cycles is invalid.
- Dimensions panel has been renamed Format. Metadata panel aspect also changed to use a single column layout of its settings.2
- An explanation about Color Management overriding is missing.
- Although principles explained are valid, UI and workflow completely changed since Blender 3.0. Video is completely outdated.
- EEVEE’s Depth of Field and Motion Blur have been improved, have more settings and need more explanation. Hair panel has been renamed Curves.
- Constraints UI has changed. But that is not important in video. Video stays valid.
- Still perfectly valid.
- Still valid. Viewport Display panel just has a single column layout, now.
- Still valid. But viewers can be confused by constraints UI that has been polished.
- Same problem of viewers confused by UI polishing + Defaults of Track To constraint have changed.
- Same problem (accentuated by the fact that Transformation constraint has a lot of settings). An explanation of Mix modes would be welcomed.
- Still perfectly valid.
- Still perfectly valid.
- Front Faces Only has been moved. 2D FallOff has been renamed Projected.
- Still perfectly Valid.
- Still perfectly valid.
- Still valid. Just the Keying popover has been split. Options visible in video and missing in current UI are not explained, anyways.
- Still perfectly valid.
- Still valid. Just UI of F-curve modifier uses a single column layout.
- UI has changed. There is no more Brush menu. Although brushes behaviour changed, that has no consequence on validity of explanations of video, focused on roles of brushes.
Explanations about Normal Radius and Hardness are needed. The part about Falloff and Multiresolution modifier are outdated. A viewer will miss explanations about 1 third of brushes that are new, transform tools, gesture tools and filters. A glimpse about Remesh workflow is also needed. - Still perfectly valid.
To sum it up, only 2 videos are completely useless, 4 have an important part of them outdated, 5 could confuse viewer. Half of the remaining ones have a slight UI difference that will not annoy viewing or could benefit of mention of a new little trick. The other half does not require any update.
Basically, redoing those videos for 3.3 would mean hours of work for the whole, just to update less than a fifth of content.
Blender 3.3 is a new LTS but some basics will continue to evolve and be introduced ( Asset Browser, Viewport Compositor, EEVEE next, brush management, texture layers, etc…)
That is probably better to wait, until next LTS, blender 3.6.
8 Likes
Wow! Thank you for the detailed breakdown!
It more or less confirms my suspicion that most of them are still applicable.
Would be nice to see an update, maybe even before the next LTS (Blender 3.7 btw.).
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about video 35 : the file mentioned about only arm’s rig is messing, i couldn’t find it so there is already problem here.
also there is no official tutorial about Grease pencil for 2D users, in fact i saw an old one but there is big changes about IU and Modifiers and some operations so and about future developments projects …
by the way, are there any plans to update the features section? Features — blender.org it is also already quite outdated
1 Like
My humble opinion is, the BF shouldn’t have to provide a video tutorial series about the software each time a new “major version” is out.
Firstly because, producing even one series that widely covers the software isn’t something trivial to produce.
Secondly: since v2.80, the release numbering itself is completely unrelated to how big the changes are across versions. In other words, having a v2.9, v3.0 or whatever doesn’t mean there is a huge gap of features like we got with 2.8, and therefore isn’t an indicator of “need” for a new series to cover that change.
It’s cool that they made series for 2.7 and 2.8, and a few other topics, but it’s not a small fish to fry and it doesn’t need to be as often as every few shiny version number.
Right now the only big things really missing since v2.80 are the Asset Manager and Geo Nodes, but the community is already covering these subjects quite well, and they are basically feature under heavy works so maybe it’s a bit early to start making big official video series “just” for these.
If the BF decides to make new series anyways, I just hope they will involve the community. I’m sure there are plenty of people ready to get involved to make something for everyone.
3 Likes
I agree with this. Just a small note: The 2.8 series was produced by Dillon Gu, who is not part of the BF. I think in general they do a good job in getting the community involved. Like with tutorials, example files or the beloved splash screens.
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Yeah, it can take a significant amount of time if the videos are actually thorough, so every two-ish years or major version release seems to be about the right cadence. Feel free to reach out if you need a community created intro series in the future as we will likely be making them at the same time anyway.