Recommended books for Blender and UE4?

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1 comment, last by Scouting Ninja 7 years, 4 months ago

Hey guys, I'm currently starting to learn blender. I don't want to start UE4 until I can create assets easily in Blender. Does anybody know any good resources for learning these two applications? I have followed some tutorials for Blender which resulted in the clock and cup i attached. However the flower I attached is my first attempt at a very basic flower. As you can see, I have a large amount of work to do. Any recommendations? I'm trying to get to pixar and photorealistic levels so I can have an easy time when I start creating my dream game. I plan on getting a really powerful rig this upcoming summer.

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Hi I spent a while learning Blender last year. I usually prefer to use books as learning resources rather than online stuff. But I found in the case of Blender the online resources are far better.
I used a few tutorials from here to learn the basics:

https://tutsplus.com

Once I was able to box model stuff and rig and animate a model I used a few Youtube tutorials to do some more advanced stuff.

After I got the basics of the blender controls down I found that I could just take most Maya or 3DS tutorials or books and adapt them.

I do have two books that I found to be ok and these are:

https://www.amazon.com/Game-Character-Creation-Blender-Unity/dp/1118172728/ref=sr_1_23?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1480848172&sr=1-23&keywords=Blender

https://www.amazon.com/Character-Development-Blender-Jonathan-Williamson/dp/1435456254/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1480848226&sr=1-2&keywords=blender+character

I should point out that I'm a programmer not an artist but, as somebody who spent years trying to find free models on the internet and refusing to learn modelling because "I can't even draw stick figures". This was a massive accomplishment to me.

I will recommend the Blender foundations book to get started. It's a summary of all the basics that Blender can do.

Then after 1-2 years learning the basics you can advance onto something like the Blender master class book.

I find the best learning tool for Blender is just working your way through the wiki: https://wiki.blender.org/

There is a lot here that no book covers.

http://www.3dtotal.com/ Is a great website for learning. Remember the basics of 3D modeling stays the same, so once you understand what is where in Blender you can follow any 3D tutorial; it's the principals that matter not the software.

I'm trying to get to pixar and photorealistic levels so I can have an easy time when I start creating my dream game.

This will take years of dedicated study on 3D modeling before you can do it. Also 3D models used in Rendering and games is not the same thing. I recommend you learn both Unreal and Blender at the same time and make games with low graphics while you learn.

You want to lookup retopology, to learn how large models, make game models. Also looking for "Next gen game model creation" and "modular asset creation".

You need to learn all the texture types: Albedo map, Metal map, gloss map, AO map, Normal map, emissive map, bump map and subsurface maps.

Understanding how material works in real life is important for realistic renders. You will need to know some basics of lights for texture baking and for scene building.

I want to point out that making good models, animating, Audio producing, programming and game development are advance skills on there own. It takes years to learn to be good in even one of the topics, most people only "master" one in a lifetime.

Focus on what you like and hire professionals for the others. If you don't have the money it's more important to learn to work with what you have than it is to attempting learning all the skills needed to make a game.

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