The Quickest Way to Learn Anything
Learning 3D is daunting. There is so much to learn. The packages are vast and packed with features.
And if you've spent a good chunk of your life using one particular package (as I have), the thought of learning another is about as appetising as a plate of dog food.
Where do you start? You're walking around a hall of mirrors, not knowing where to look. The obvious answer is YouTube, but the training you encounter there is not structured, and the quality is all over the place.
So the temptation is to give up and put it off for another day. That plate of dog food might be more tempting some other time, because you're certainly not in the mood for it now.
But here's the thing: there is an easy way to learn just about any new skill.
Take it one step at a time.
That's right. As obvious as it sounds, there are two compelling reasons for this.
The first and most obvious reason is that taking things one step at a time makes the whole process more manageable. You're more likely to make progress, more likely to remember what you've learned, and less likely to get frustrated.
But the second one is more counterintuitive. If you do this right, learning a new skill in small chunks is way more fun.
Why? Because of a concept I'm sure you're familiar with: the concept of flow as described by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.
The central idea of flow is that you should set the challenge of any task so that it stretches you enough to be stimulating, but not so much that you get frustrated.
And well-structured training will follow this pattern. Teach you core concepts at the right pace so that you are stretched just enough to be engaged, but not so much that you are frustrated.
And learning with this approach is fun. It feeds your curiosity and gets you sucked into the subject. Before you know it, you'll be hungry for more.
To really grasp a skill, you need to understand the fundamentals. It's not enough to watch step-by-step videos. You also need to understand what the instructor is thinking, what decisions they are making, and why they are making them.
You won't find that on YouTube.
Structured training is a much better use of your time, because a good course will teach you the fundamentals of the subject more quickly than any amount of picking and choosing random videos on YouTube.
With a structured course you can get from zero to hero in a couple of hours, without frustration. Two hours of video is enough to get you up and running, and then you can go and have fun and make your own stuff with confidence.
It's manageable. It's the fastest way to get you there. And it's also the most enjoyable approach because it feeds you knowledge at the right pace.
And most of all, it won't seem so daunting. Instead, it will be fun and leave you with a satisfying sense of accomplishment.