[OUTDATED!] How to get Started! Some tips and advice

Edit: This video was made way before Dawntrail! Some things have changed to put a character together since what I said here, and now I have an updated video tutorial on how to do it. New video about starting tips coming soon! I hope it's helpful!

Happy sunday!

Today I have a few tips and advice on how to get started if you want to learn how to animate FFXIV characters in Blender. Thank you Luna for requesting this video! I hope it's helpful :)

When someone asks me how to get started, I'm always worried about pointing out a good way. That's because I've seen people be overwhelmed by the amount of things you have to learn to start and give up, and I don't want that! I guarantee it's fun when you're finally able to actually make the things you want...the first steps can be daunting though, specially if you've never used any 3D software before.

And also, if I'm being completely honest, I myself am not the type to stop and watch thousands of tutorials in depth. Most of the time I get impatient and jump straight to it and then find out I could have watched a tutorial that would make my life easier. I'd say do what works for you. I'm giving you some alternatives but in the end, what matters is how you like to go about doing them, as long as it doesn't burn yourself out or unmotivates you.

So that's why I was very worried about putting out too much information at once! While making it, I was thinking of many other things I could include as tips, but since this is a "Get started" one, I decided not to include them. If anyone is interested, some of the things I've thought about including are:

• Project organization: how I set up my folders and scenes inside blender;

• Render settings: what I use, how to render your files;

• Premiere-specific basics on how to put together a layout and the final video together.

• How I set up the eyes for my characters (I don't use the Mektools one)

Just let me know if it's something you'd like to see next and I will make it.

Now, here's the links to the tutorials I've recommended in the video, and some extra ones as well:

• Blender's Video Editor:

Video Editing with Blender for Complete Beginners - Part 1 

Mentioned in the video. I didn't watch it (I don't know how to use that editor yet!), but it seems very complete.

• Blender Basics:

How to Animate in Blender: Learning the Basics 

Mentioned in the video. This is the most complete one I've seen on the topic. It's a bit long, though! It talks about animation, goes over the Blender interface and keys, and finishes with a classic Bouncing Ball tutorial.

If you'd rather watch a quicker, more straight to the point tutorials, here's some recommendations as well. This one teaches the absolute basic hotkeys in 10 minutes:

Blender Tutorial | ABSOLUTE BASICS in TEN Minutes | LeeDanielsART 

This one shows the absolute basics of the animation tools:

The ABSOLUTE BASICS of 3D Animation in BLENDER | LeeDanielsART Tutorial 

And this one focuses only on the bouncing ball exercise, but with the standard Blender cube! No rig download necessary.

Animation For Beginners! Learn to Animate like a PRO in blender 

• Sevoran's tutorials and Textools:

Mentioned in the video, getting the characters to Blender:

How To Get Your FFXIV Character From Textools to Blender for Animation: Blender 3.3 

He's also got one about getting the environments with Godbert:

How To Get FFXIV Environments/Maps into Blender using "Godbert" tool 

And he's got some really fun animations in the channel as well, check them out!!!

Just after I was done editing this video he releases a stream putting a character together with a new version of Blender and updated Mektools :P I still use the older version myself, I don't know if I'm going to update or not...decisions, decisions. If you're getting started, I think it's probably better to start from the most recent version, though! Here's the video:

Building a new FFXIV model in Blender 

• Animation Tutorials:

This could be considered a complete bonus to the "get started" part, since you can already get started from the things above, but I thought it'd be good to talk about it as well!

12 Principles of Animation (Official Full Series) 

The very basics of animation theory. There's also separate videos for each principles in the same channel!

Here's some of the Masterclass of the book mentioned in the video:

Richard Williams - The Animator's Survival Kit (playlist) 

And Blender-specific animation tips:

TOP 10 BLENDER ANIMATION TIPS | to help you Animate Faster! 

This channel is 100% dedicated to Blender animation, but it's not focused on the complete beginner. It's very directed at aspiring and professional animators. You might want to get more used to Blender before checking out their Blender videos.

They also have some videos not focused on the Blender tools, but animation in general, like this recent one on how to improve your eye for animation:

Master Animation WITHOUT Animating? 

And some specific animation tips, like this one about eyebrows:

Master Brow Animation with these EASY steps 

And I think that's all for now!! I really hope at least some of this is helpful. Thank you again Luna for requesting it. As always, if you have any questions, I'm always available here.

Thank you very much for your support!