This is BrainLog, a blog by Dan Sanderson. Older entries, from October 1999 through September 2010, are preserved for posterity, but are no longer maintained. See the front page and newer entries.

September 9, 2005

3D Buzz has free video tutorials for 3D art, programming, and math. Registration required for the free ones, paid membership required for the full series. The "Modelling on the fly" series shows a professional 3D modeller doing a complex model in real time, start to finish, which is neat. The only programming tutorial available for free only covers installing PHP and MySQL on Windows. All of the math ones are available for free. They're mostly review of high school math, but they're actually a nice little refresher in some cases. 3D Buzz has full training packages for purchase, and a free 4-times-weekly radio show.

Most impressive to me is how effective these training videos are using just a view of a computer screen, a few simple PowerPoint slides, and an empty Photoshop window for scratch handwriting space. I regularly dream about producing training videos like these with high production value animation and sound, but two guys sitting at a computer for an hour get most of the way there with much less preparation.