CG Boost - Robotic Planet

Somebody once described sub-division modelling to me like this: "Solidworks, Fusion 360 etc are like Adobe Illustrator while Blender, 3D Studio Max are like Photoshop". It's not a revolutionary analogy but I thought it was quite good, coordinates and vectors vs pixels of colour, pragmatic order vs unrestrained freedom.

Like many industrial designers, I was introduced to Solidworks in university and it has featured heavily in my career ever since. I've kept my head in the game with all the usual ID software applications, Creo, Max, Fusion, Blender, Rhino (Grasshopper) and even lately Unreal Engine but it's always been hard to fully resolve a project outside of Solidworks due to it's ubiquity and the fact that it you have to get something made at the end of it Solidworks, for all it's creative limitations is great at that. Getting the opportunity to play in a world of unrestrained creative freedom when you have 3 hours to get the STL's to the printer is not easy to come by.

However this year I have been lucky enough to enjoy a bit of time away from the office and as I generally always like to have a project or piece of learning going on in the background I thought I would take the opportuniy to start a proper course on Blender to supplement my years of YouTube tutorial knowledge. In the end I opted for CG Boost's Robotic Planet course, as I type this I have one chapter left to go, but feel like I have seen more than enough to voice my opinion on it.

In short, this is a really great course that I cannot recommend highly enough, it is exceptionally well constructed, extremely clear and very well paced. The instructor, Louis du Mont must have been an English teacher in a previous life, so good is his elocution. I have been using Blender for years, but this course showed me so many features, workflows and shortcuts that I had no idea about. It also does a very good job of introducing industrial designers to the 20% of features in Blender that you are likely to use about 80% of the time (this is a notion I highly believe in), you won't find in-depth lessons in physics simulations or particle systems in this course, but what it has to offer for modelling, texturing, lighting and animation is second to none.

So finally, why do I like Blender and why do I advocate that industrial designers learn it? Well, a number of reasons, but if I were to name just three. Firstly, in my opinion CAD solutions are too rigid and limiting for early stage rapid ideation within ID, especially of form. Secondly, the sheer potential quality on offer, Blender is essentially free (but please contribute something) and can produce images and animations that in my opinion exceed those of standalone renders that cost thousands of pounds to maintain per year. Lastly, simply put, the huge potential on offer to tell your story. Need to show how liquid is pumped within your auto injector or how the steam leaves your coffee maker? Blender can do it, please go take a look:

www.cgboost.com/courses/robotic-planet

Also, just in case you have not come across him before, I highly recommend watching Derek Elliot for great industrial design related Blender content:

www.youtube.com/@DerekElliott