How to get Started! Beginner Tips and Guides

Hello! Here is my updated version of the "How to get Started" video. In this video I go over the software I use and recommend, where to get started learning, and how to learn animation. I hope this is helpful!

Down here I will link everything I've mentioned up there, from download links, to video recommendations.

Also, an extra advice that I didn't mention in the video: In the end, the most important thing to make the most of any learning journey in my opinion is to find out how YOU like to learn things, what works best for you and how you have the most fun while not getting frustrated. If you like watching many videos and tutorials, I hope this list feels complete enough for you and I can gladly help you find more if you need. If you prefer to just go out there and blind prog, just know there's a list of extra resources here that you can always come back to if you need some extra help!
If there's something you're looking for that's not here, let me know and I will get back to it as soon as possible. As I remember other helpful recommendations to add, I might come back and update the list.

Thank you very much for watching, and for your support, and happy animating!

Downloads - The Essential Softwares

• Blender

  The 3D software used to animate. It's free and really powerful - you can use it to animate, model, edit videos, and do a lot of cool stuff.

  You can get it on their website or via Steam.

• FFXIV Tex Tools

  What is used to extract the characters from the game and export them to Blender. You need FFXIV installed for it to work, but it doesn't directly alter your game unless you tell it to! It's a safe way to get the models without altering your game. But you can also alter your game and add mods with it.

• Mektools

  A Blender plugin used to import the models and rig them! You install it directly to Blender and it creates and additional tab there.

• Adobe Premiere

  The software I use to edit the videos. It's in the "essentials" list because I personally rely a lot on it, but you can replace it by any other video software of your liking (including Blender!). I do think it's a really nice software to use but...you know, think of what Himmel the Hero would do.

Downloads - Other helpful software

• Photopea

  Online, free alternative to Photoshop. It's useful if you want to edit and customize textures for your 3D models, edit custom backgrounds, and images in general.

• OBS

  It's a streaming and screen capture software. I use it regularly not only to record my screen to make Patreon videos, but also to record Youtube videos that I can use as overlays, SFXs and music. Alternatively, you could you those "Free youtube download" websites, but these past few days they haven't been working for me, so this is the guaranteed option!

• Meddle

  Alternative to Textools mentioned in the video. I don't know how to use it yet, but it works with Mektools to get the characters without going through Textools piecing everything together. It can also be done to export environments.

• XIVLauncher

  If you want to use Meddle, you will need this. It allows you to access and use third party tools in your game.

  Videos - Beginner Animation Tutorials

  If you're just getting started in Blender, I highly recommend trying out these first before anything else!

• How to Animate in Blender: Learning the Basics

  This is the best beginner tutorial for animation I have watched on Youtube to date. It goes over the basics on navigating Blender and the hotkeys, and how to animate a bouncing ball. It goes over some of the animation tools I use the most, like the Graph Editor!

  There's also a Part 2 and 3, that teach a very good workflow to think of your animations. Highly recommend it.

• Animation For Beginners! Learn to Animate like a PRO in Blender

  This one is a shorter, straight to the point, faster tutorial on how to animate a basic cube in Blender - no need to download external rigs. He quickly goes over some of the tools you will need, and some animation concepts that are also present in the first one. If you like your tutorials to be more fast-paced, this one is for you!

• Animating a walk cycle in Blender | Beginner Tutorial

  A little more advanced than the first two, whenever you feel like you're ready to animate full characters, it's worth checking this one out! Following a tutorial on these basic, yet complex, cycle movements is really helpful to get an idea on how to organize yourself to animate things like this.

• 12 Principles of Animation

  Not exactly a tutorial, but I do recommend watching it before going further in! It explains the basics 12 principles of animation, with examples and where to apply them. They're always present in animation, and is what makes the movement look smooth and pleasant to look at. As you practice and try to improve on it, you will start to notice them more and more in every animation you watch. From the simplest animations to the more complex, they're always there.

• What should I animate?? (Exercise List)

  This is the video I mentioned with a list of exercise recommendations if you prefer to practice animation in a more traditional, structured, by-difficulty order, and is interested in studying animation even further. It comes from a channel focused on animation as a career, so be mindful to consider how much this applies to your own goals!

Videos - My Tutorials

I have a few videos here that that I hope can be useful on your journey!

• Building and Rigging a Character

  This is the one you will need to get your character from FFXIV to Blender, and have it ready for animation! Updated and compatible to Dawntrail and the newest versions of Mektools and Blender.

• Project Setup Basics! Beginner Tips and Guides

  This video includes some Blender tips about project organization, how to get the rig to your scene, setup a video and audio reference to animate, and how to use Scenes to make your entire project in a single Blender file!

• Animation Tutorial: Easy tails, blinks and ears

  Some tips on how to quickly animate ears, tails and blinking characters! I use them a lot in every single video I make.

• Animation Timelapses Collection

  Not exactly animation tutorials, but sometimes I record myself while animating and share it with comments. Hopefully it could help by showing my thought process while animating something, how I set up references and apply the principles in every one of them.

• Inn Remake Series Collection

  While I was making the Late Night Visit video, I recorded the entire process and shared it in my videos here trying to show the step by step of everything. Hopefully it could explain how some of things were done and how I usually organize for a big project!

Animation channel recommendations

Here are some animation-focused channels and specific videos I found helpful, if you'd like some extra, focused content!

• Brian Kouhi

  This is the most complete Blender-focused animation channel I've seen. Not all videos are made for beginners, but he's got may varied videos, from helpful tips on how to improve as an animator, to quick tips on specific animations, videos about Blender, and some more animation career-focused ones.

• Animschool

  If you like more traditional classes, you might like this channel more! This is the Youtube channel of an animation course. You could go and pay for their lessons, but they're very animation-career focused (and expensive). The cool thing about it though is that they sometimes share parts of their lessons like tips on character posing, short classes on lip syncing and mouth shapes, and a lot of videos of animation exercises comparing the animation and the reference used by the student. It's where the Everything is a Bouncing Ball video I showed up there is from, worth watching!

• Alex on Story

  This is the channel where the best animation for beginners tutorial comes from. There's a few other tutorials here, so if you liked that one, I recommend checking the whole channel out!

Other Resources, Tips and Helpful Channels

These are some of my recommendations of other things to watch that I feel have helped me get better at animation and video making. If you like watching videos related to all of that in your free time, check them out!

• Ultimate Guide to Camera Movement

  The best video ever on camera movement, explaining every single technique with examples, how they're done, and what they mean. It really helps understand and have ideas on cameras to use on my own little videos.

• Ultimate Guide to Cinematic Lighting

  From the same channel as the video above, it's focused on lighting for cinema. It explains from a studio perspective, but since the camera and lights in Blender try to mimic those from reality, it's great basic theory to try to apply to our own projects! There's also a part 2.

• 曦曦鱼SAKANA

  This is the channel of a motion capture actress. It's GREAT reference to animate, and it's a nice study to watch and analyze her movement because she moves like an animated character! She takes animation principles and apply them directly to her movement. She exaggerates, moves in arcs, makes her emotions and expressions very clear and has a very nice rhythm to her movement! This video is a great example. I usually try to apply what she shows in my own recording of video references.