[Bf-education] Blender user certification

Wed Dec 4 14:05:31 CET 2013

Dear Octavio & all,

this is very important idea. I'm not every aware of previous discussion in
this list you've mentioned. Recently, right after bcon13 in Blender
Institute I've discussed similar subjects with Francesco, and now some of
the ideas and projects are waiting for their time. The idea of creating a
"standarized set" of tasks or tests for Blender is great and we definitely
should have this a bit lighten up.

So I would like to join to the topic, and let me point some things I
consider quite important.

Blender tests or tasks system should be done to prove students can do
things in Blender. This should also take into account their knowledge
level. So, at the very beginning they have to solve simple tasks, and the
difficulty should increase in time. There are a number of different courses
and targets in Blender Education. Some schools are teaching FX only, some
does only 3d graphics or games. I've seen such cases. The standardized set
should be then split into different areas and for different user cases.
This is simple and straightforward.

You can thinkabout such standard set of grade/exam tasks also in a way when
they all directs you to a specific goal. For example, students should have
different tasks solved when they are going to be VFX manager, compositing
artists or riggers/modelers.

Let me say what I'm using for my students (about 120-150 regular students a
year in two/three universities +more that 2000 subscribers on my YT
channel):

In the graphics3d class there are number of simple tasks:
1. Blender Configuration: the task is to setup Blender for modeling using
some hints from tutorials, pretty simple.
2. Blender Modeling 1: the task is to build simple cubes and other building
bricks a scene where there's simple building and snowmans, all aligned with
grid directly. Another good task is to build a city using only GRS
transformations and simple objects.
3. Blender Modeling 2: the task is to build simple barrel using only object
mode and modifiers.
4. Blender Modeling 3: the task is edit meshes in Edit Mode and create a
simple thing from students surroundings: chair, lcd monitor, etc.
5. Blender Modeling 4: the task is to sculpt human face using Edit/Sculpt
Mode.
6. Blender Lighting: let students create a simple object nicely exposed in
a scene and lit it with three-point lights.
7. Blender Lighting: the task is to create average complex scene and lit it
properly with environmental and directional light, to create a desired mood
8. Blender Internal Materials: let students create a set of basic materials
to mimic glass, shiny metal, chalk, rubber, clay, milk, clean wax, etc.
9. Blender Internal Textures: let students make all materials in given
ready-made scene along with textures, using images, surface effects, etc.
10. Blender Texture Mapping: students have to create an object textured
photorealistic using projection or stencil painting. A mossy stone is a
good task or another nature elements.
11. Blender Postprocessing: the task is to make a full render with added
vignette, depth of field, chromatic aberrations, etc.
12. Blender Postprocessing: let's create a Jedi from a green-screen photo,
using entirely Blender Node system along with keying/masking. This is very
funny task and students often loves it, as everybody loves Starwars :)
13. Cycles Materials: the task is to create all materials from Blender
obtained in task 8.
14. Cycles Textures: the task is to create natural-looking material and
render a photorealistic scene.
15. Blender complex scene: the task is to make a complex scene in Blender,
so there's a modeling, texturing, lighting and compositing involved, the
usage of Blender Internal or Cycles is required.

Usually I have such a task set given to students on a week-after-week
fashion and they progress can be monitored very easily. The only problem is
when I give them more than one task. Giving four tasks to them each week
causes me to open, check, usually render and grade more than 400 blender
files a week, so this is painful job sometimes :)

For animation class I have a totally different approach, and I'm not going
to show all details here. There are usually 10-15 tasks to do too,
including animation, simulation, game engine, etc.
My version of a standardized set is intended for 101 classes and for people
who do not know anything about Blender and 3d graphics at all. So this
course is just a basic one.

I would love to see others ideas for tasks, and maybe, as Octavio suggested
we can at least collect good example tasks from different areas of Blender
knowledge. Let's do it! :)

Should I make a WIKI page to collect such tasks in some organized form?

pz
piotr
--
Piotr Arlukowicz
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2013/12/4 Octavio Mendez <octavio at g-blender.org>

> Hello everyone!
>
> Time ago we discuss about a blender user certification on this list, and
> sadly we do not reach any result. Since then, has been growing interest in
> the subject by blender students, schools, and training centers.
>
> I would like to bring back the topic and see if we can work together on
> that:
>
> Ton suggests not to put the efforts on the certification itself, but on
> the creation of standardized tests (like "Basic modeling") and offer this
> to schools and colleges to certify students with.
>
> He suggest to: "you can name it very smart in a way people perceive it as
> official, but the certificate would still be officiallly issued by the
> school itself. It is what Adobe does for photoshop for example."
>
> Who are interested? :)
>
> --
> *Octavio A. Méndez Sánchez*
> octavio at g-blender.org
> www.g-blender.org
> 044 473 1034906
> @octagesimal
>
> _______________________________________________
> Bf-education mailing list
> Bf-education at blender.org
> http://lists.blender.org/mailman/listinfo/bf-education
>
>
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