This might sound really weird, but high school was pretty transformative for me.

For most people, it was a period they'd much rather forget.

Being forced to sit and listen to stuff you don't care about for 8 hours per day - ugh. We'd much rather be working on something more productive!

...

Sometimes it's just fun to play around with random shapes in Blender.

It allows you to maintain and test your skills, improve your workflow, and create fun pieces to add to your collection.

I create several random shapes per week.

They might not have any particular function, but the important...

I get a lot of questions about how I set up my Blender files.

My setup is actually incredibly simple - just a few addons and settings that I tweak.

In the video above, I'll show you my basic viewport setup, installed addons, and how I configure my Blender scene for an efficient hard surface...

Could you defuse a bomb?

Of course not!

And why?

Because you lack of knowledge on explosives.

Can you cut a wire?

Sure you can!

It is a simple task, right?

What does this have to do with modeling?

Well, think about it.

You may not be able to create a dream scifi environment...yet.

But, maybe you...

It DOES NOT work!

What doesn't?

Decal Machine!

Yeah, tell me about it...

Here is a fun story for you.

I thought I knew it all regarding Decal Machine, until I ran into this issue.

One day I opened Blender, loaded in an old .blend file, and all of the decals were crazy purple.

Zero textures.

All gone!

And...

Modeling and texturing can be easy, and fun.

AND, both can be done quicker than you think.

Now, I know what you're thinking.

"I don't like cutting corners."

Ha! Agreed!

Shortcuts are a funny thing, though.

They will either hurt you or benefit you.

I take them whenever I can, but without compromising...

Modeling in Blender is not that difficult, especially if you have solid foundations.

However, the basics are not that hard to learn.

The true challenge lays in developing a solid and efficient workflow that suits your needs and modeling style.

In this Blender tutorial we will model a part of a...

Polygon modeling has its limitations.

These limitations stretch far beyond Blender and hard surface modeling.

A good example here would be bevels running through a complex mesh, or through other bevels.

That is where polygon modeling falls short.

The shading falls apart, and if the issue is...

Stop overcomplicating things in Blender.

Seriously.

We care about your success as a 3D Blender artist, and overcomplicating things will only make your learning slower and more tedious.

But sometimes you don't know when you're overcomplicating things.

Often times it just happens intuitively....

We love polygon modeling - we really do!

But sometimes, it just isn't as practical or efficient as other software like CAD.

You see, in polygon-based modeling, everything is defined by, well, polygons - the good ol' vertices, edges, and faces which define them. But in CAD software, polygons...

The key to mastering hard surface in Blender is immersion and regular practice.

Each time you challenge yourself to modeling an idea, you will run into obstacles.

Overcoming these will be your best teacher. In this Blender tutorial we will model a scifi shock absorber.

We will use quite a few...

When you think of booleans, you might think of basic stuff like cutting holes or running slice operations.

But the truth is, booleans can do a lot more.

Like, a LOT more.

You see, when I use booleans, most of the time I do indeed use the basic ones, like Difference or Union.

But...