[Bf-education] Introducing myself

[Luis Belerique]

Good day everybody,

I´m new to this list (actually i joined a few days ago but this is my first
mail), so i would like to introduce myself.

My name is Luís Belerique, i live in Portugal, more precisely in the city of
Porto. I´m currently studying astronomy at the University of Porto. But when
i´m not banging my head in physics books, i work with Blender.
I use Blender in a somewhat irregular basis since 2002, starting to work
with it when it was 2.25, but now i have more time to dedicate myself to it
:D.

Recently i proposed an introductory course in Blender to an education center
here in Porto, a financially supported course by EU funds (that means the
students will not pay anything for the course).
To my surprise, it was accepted and in only three days time the class filled
up, some people are already in a "waiting line" for a possible second course
(but this second course will not be supported by EU funds :( ). This kind of
reaction astoshined me, this means that there´s a need (or at least,
interest) of CG education here.

I am a certified educator (i have a diploma called CAP), but although i´m
not a newcomer to the Blender software, i need to improve my skills in some
aspects (i use it mostly for modelling for real time rendering). I have the
Blender 2.3 official guide (a very good resource but, unfortunately or
fortunately, it depends on the point of view) and a ton of tutorials,
example files and documentation (about 5 GBs ... i am really addicted in
tutorials...).

The point is, i want to make this a good course (Blender deserves it) so i
wonder if there are any guidelines you could provide me in shaping it. I
planned this course for 45 hours, and the main "skeleton" of it is this:

1 - Basics (UI, 3D Navigation, Vital Functions) - 6 hours
2 - Object Mode and Editing (creating primitives, transforming,
visualization,...) - 3 hours
3 - Modelling (polygon,  subsurf, NURBS) -  9 hours
4 - Materials and Textures - 6 hours
5 - Lighting and Camera -  3 hours
6 - Animation 1 (keyframing, IPO)  -  6 hours
7 - Animation 2 (armatures) - 6 hours
8 - Special Effects (particles, volumetric lighting) -  3 hours
9 - Rendering - 2 hours

This is only a very basic intro to Blender, but it´s successful , there´s a
chance of making an advanced course in Blender, but i want to start slow.
Probably i will change the quantity of hours in the first and second
"chapters", maybe it will be 3 hours in the first and 6 hours in the
second...

I have around four months to prepare the course, so this will probably be
adjusted considering the changes in future versions of Blender (right now i
remember the Node Editor in 2.42).
So please, tell me your opinion about the structure of my course and share
experiences in education in Blender.

I'm sorry about this enormous text, if you made it this far i congratulate
you :D.

Best regards,

Luís Belerique
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