Learning to use Blender (Animation)

Introduction:

Moving from something you know well to something new can be tough. For me, that meant going from Autodesk Maya, which I've used for a long time, to Blender. I started a Blender animation course with ToAnimate to learn from the beginning, and it's been quite the ride.

Learning the Basics:

Blender is different from Maya, especially when you start. The course from ToAnimate helped a lot, but it was still hard to get used to the new ways of doing things that I did easily in Maya.

Facing Challenges:

Sometimes, it's been really hard. There were days when nothing seemed to work. My animation didn't look right, or the controls didn't do what I expected. It reminded me of my first days learning Maya.

When Things Go Right:

But when things do work, it feels amazing. Getting a movement just right or making a character act the way I want it to in Blender makes all the tough times worth it.

Using Unreal Engine:

I also started using Unreal Engine to make my animations look even better. But moving my animations from Blender to Unreal wasn't easy. I had a lot of trouble, especially with the character and camera animations.

Finding a Solution:

In the end, I found a way to move my animations using something called Alembic Cache. This helped a lot because the original setup I had in Blender didn't work in Unreal.

Reflections and Looking Forward:

I'm still learning every day. Sometimes I have to go back and re-learn things to really understand them. But that's okay. I know that learning new software is like that, and it's all part of the process.

Conclusion:

I wanted to share my story for anyone else who might be thinking about making a change in the software they use for animation. It can be hard, but it's also exciting and rewarding. If you keep going, you can find your way through the challenges.

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• Here's a sneak peek at my current project – a work-in-progress animation test in Unreal Engine. This is a raw glimpse into the iterative process of bringing my Blender animations to life within the powerful rendering world of Unreal. While it's not the final product, it's an exciting step in the journey of refinement and learning. Stay tuned for more updates as I continue to polish and perfect the motion and storytelling in this piece.

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