[quote name='Cdrandin' timestamp='1358481736' post='5022763']
creating character player and animations, but I have no idea on how to do any of that. I know how to do all the programming stuff and I do prefer programming.
[/quote]

Those are all different diciplines.

Over the years I've seen that for every programmer there are about 0.75 modelers and about 1.5 animators. So combined they are more than double the effort of programming.

If you simply need models, go get a copy of Spore. You can export the Collada models very easily and you don't need modeling and texturing experience.

You will still need to animate them, but since they are already fully rigged you can make simple animations for now, and get a real animator to provide better animations later.

I think if you are going to try it out, blender would not be my first choice. It's extremely confusing, and you have to know a lot of hotkeys.

I think your knowledge of Blender is out of date. Since the UI was reworked you don't need to know lots of hotkeys any more - everything is available through menus.

I think if you are going to try it out, blender would not be my first choice. It's extremely confusing, and you have to know a lot of hotkeys.

I think your knowledge of Blender is out of date. Since the UI was reworked you don't need to know lots of hotkeys any more - everything is available through menus.

Except most tutorials often use the hotkeys, so it's a bit hard for a beginner. Don't get me wrong Blender is an awesome and powerful program, but as a beginner, personally, It was really hard to start off on.

<blockquote class='ipsBlockquote'data-author="wizardpc" data-cid="5023112" data-time="1358580321"><p>
<quote class='ipsBlockquote'data-author="dave j" data-cid="5022988" data-time="1358544326"><p><quote class='ipsBlockquote'data-author="wizardpc" data-cid="5022959" data-time="1358537025"><p><br />
I think if you are going to try it out, blender would not be my first choice. It's extremely confusing, and you have to know a lot of hotkeys.</p></quote>
I think your knowledge of Blender is out of date. Since the UI was reworked you don't <em class='bbc'>need</em> to know lots of hotkeys any more - everything is available through menus.</p></quote>
<br />
Except most tutorials often use the hotkeys, so it's a bit hard for a beginner. Don't get me wrong Blender is an awesome and powerful program, but as a beginner, personally, It was really hard to start off on.</p></quote>

See I'm opposite. I had a friend who self taught himself Blender teach me Blender some years back. It took me less than an hour to understand where to find things.

Follow just a couple of tutorials. You'll learn the most common hot keys instantly.

I remember in a 3D class we took in school we used Blender while everyone else used 3DS Max. Everyone else wanted to use Blender because they could see how much easier it was to use and they understood it more.

The answer to your question is learn the basics if you plan on programming for animation. In my experience there are 2 types of modellers. Model for display and model for animation.

Model for display is a 3D model that is for display only. A good example are walls and trees. Anything that does not move.

Model for 3D animation is a bit more complex. You have to be able to make the model look good while in motion and it deforms properly.

I'm not saying learn 3D but study into it and there are tones of videos. Just Google "modelling for animation"

Another thing you could do is find a 3D modeller to set the model up for you. If you can display a picture of the mesh I can tell you if it can be animated correctly.