Education category

I can never figure nodes out and this could help. Not sure how effective this idea would be, but I have a suspicion that node pros use the same formula for success every time.

*Idea acquired from python templates

The user manual wiki is rather behind the feature enhancements that have gone into the latest versions. It would be a good idea for those in the know to document this so that the community can fully utilise these features.

Also there are lots of good ideas and tips on the forums -- it would be good if these could be captured in the documentation and classified by subject.

I think it could be quite educational for viewers of Blender video tutorials if there were an option (preference) available to tutorial creators to display keys currently being pressed along with mouse buttons (left/right/middle) being clicked in the current view, much like the current object and/or camera names can be viewed on screen in the 3D View.

Due to how fast certain keystroke combinations can occur, and the disparity of frame rate of video capture, this might not be practical/possible in all situations where there are complex modeling or other activities underway.

One solution to the speed problem could be to offer the key/mouse combinations as "last key" pressed/"last mouse button" clicked and to display that information with a delay or to make it persist until the next keystroke/mouse click occurs.

Another solution, of course, is to proceed at a slower pace :-)

This came to mind after I posted a speed modeling session of mine a while back at BlenderArtists.org and someone expressed interest in what keys I had been using.

Under more ideal circumstances, such as someone intentionally going slower for tutorial purposes and recording the session at a higher frame rate, the real time visual key click/mouse click indicators could be extremely helpful.

These visual cues can also be helpful in the following manners:

- For new users, they can pay more attention the keystrokes/mouse clicks as necessary.

- For advanced users, they can ignore the visual cues and concentrate more on the work flow and tutorial provider's commentary.

- For the tutorial provider, there are at least three immediate benefits:


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Some video tutorials for begginers user, at the 1rs time that we open Blender, like 3DSmax or Maya.

this could be some link to the web page where we can found good Introduction video Tutorials.
Examples: www.gryllus.net
www.blendernewbies.com

quite simple!

note: I'm not, nor have anything to do with Gryllus or blendernewbies, I just think them are the best VT Blender web page in special for begginers users.

It would be nice if Blender Help (items appear on Blender Help menu like Python Scripting API, Getting Started, Hotkey ...) can be link on a local drive not via internet. So I can download all the documentations, save it on my local drive and use it anytime in Blender.

And there should be an option to tell Blender where the documents reside, you know It's good to put all documentations, tutorials, etc together in a seperate folder (maybe My_Documents) rather then in Blender's installation folder.

Also it would nice if all the help show in a tailor-made viewer (not in Internet Explorer or Firefox) that has some features like temporary relink to internet, update documentation, remember last position read, and we can put some notes.

I think it will ease a lot learning Blender that many people say Blender is hard to learn. Especial someone like me who don't have internet access in their home.

You must be familiar with the "Tip of the day" that appears on many softwares. It's very good for beginner.

Think about: If someone has just downloaded Blender and it's the first time he open Blender. He does some mouse clicks on the 3D View area, the cube object moved. He doesn't understand what's the rectangle mean. He tries to find some icons like rendering, make sphere, etc to figure out what Blender can do. He finds no icons, so he closes Blender and uninstalls it.

I think many people will do the same when he first time using Blender. At least I'm the one. :D

It's the good idea if Blender comes with "Tip of the day" feature that will show very simple tutorial at beginning. And it's has been planed so the tips will become more and more advanced.

It should be configureable to turn it on/off/reset. And the tips are categorize in Basic, Intermediate, Modeling, Rendering, Animation, Scripting so you can choose which item to disabled/enabled.

Also it will be cool it you can download new tips to add in to the Tip Library. Maybe someday you can write your own tutorial, save it as Blender Tips format, post it and download by the others.