Modeling tool and learing

Every time I realize that having the focus primarily on programming, and as a one man team, limited me a lot not having skills in modeling, texturing and animation.
As reason for this I am trying to learn as much as I can in these areas.
I started with Blender. I really think it is a very hard piece of software, since its interface and how to perform various things seem to me, from my point of view, totally not intuitive, so for every little thing I need to do I need research a lot.
The question is, any of the other similar software, like MODO, which has a very attractive price for indies, or maya lt is simpler to use?, taking into account that I have not skills in these areas.
I use SD and SP (perhaps some choice is better than another for a good workflow with these tools).
I appreciate the help.
Alex.-

That depends from person to person. :wink: -> in my opinion blender was/is pretty easy to use. When I started with 3d modelling I tried 3ds , maya, C4D,… but somehow I stuck with blender, because I found all the controls and the UI pretty user friendly

Maya is easier than MODO and Blender is maybe more powerful than Maya and MODO. In Blender you have all the tools you need in one pack to create amazing VFXs and scenes. Have a look at the Blender-artist gallery :slight_smile:

(Edit: typos)

Blender UI is indeed not very intuitive, but i suggest you learning hotkeys - it can be hard to learn at first, but at the end, they will speed up your workflow very much. I’ve changed my main 3d software from 3dsMax to Blender (3dsMax licence cost…) and written down all the useful hotkeys on a piece of paper that lays right next to me when running Blender :slight_smile: So, from my experience, instead of searching every option via UI, it’s better to learn some hotkeys. Also, Epic did some Blender & UE workflow videos recently, for example this one.

Ok thanks for the tips, i think i will continue with Blender for a while, and i think i found the way to get all the hotkeys in a paper

:stuck_out_tongue:

Thanks !!

Haha, good idea :smiley: But do not include ALL hotkeys, it will give you a mess and it’ll be hard to find certain ones - add only these that you use often. In my case, i’ve managed to put all hotkeys i need (for modeling and animation) in one side of A6 paper :wink:

That’s how I did it (just with a A4 paper) -> best way to learn all the hotkeys :smiley:

I would suggest Blender, just crack down and watch some tutorials. Once you learn it, it becomes easier. I used to use C4D, then Maya, then 3DS , and I like Blender the most.

You have open source software (addons?) like MakeHuman, and MakeWalk (same people as MakeHuman). MakeHuman is a nice and easy way to make human characters. and MakeWalk allows you to import MoCap files for animation, which makes animation even easier.

TL;DR:
Stick with Blender, has a lot of cool open/free software and addons. Plus a lot more website that give out free assets to Blender users. Plus is as powerful, if not more, than 3DS /Maya plus…it’s FREE best thing about it.

I’m the same. I used 3ds for a while, then tried blender and I couldn’t stand it.

Now though. I would pick blender over anything else I’ve used. Not simply because its free. It genuinely works better than anything else I’ve used in the past.

Get used to a workflow in blender, you will find it very usable.