DES 99/198

An introductory 3D modeling course

My team and I wanted to provide a course open to all students that would expose them to a variety of skills related to 3D computer graphics. We chose to teach the software, Blender 3D, because it is a well-supported free software with regular updates and a large community. This would allow our students to easily continue 3D modeling after graduation for their hobbies or careers.

As a standard quarter-long class at UC Davis, the course was divided into 10 weeks with 8 weeks covering 3D modeling, sculpting, character modeling, rigging and animation, procedural shading, image texturing, lighting, and rendering. The last 2 weeks were for students to dedicate to their final projects.

Year

2024

Role

Student Instructor, Class Assistant, Recorder

Tools

Blender 3D, Vectorworks, Canvas, Google Suite, Davinci Resolve, Discord

Skills

Teaching, 3D Modeling, Image Texturing, Camera Animation, Video Editing

Team

Elyssa Lieu

Allen Ma

Josemaria Araza

Darren Li

Akshanth Srivatsa

Kathy Nguyen

Student Reflections

“Before I started the class, I did not know anything about how to do 3D modeling. I have opened blender once in my life and did nothing, not even make a donut. I had taken DES51 two years ago, but barely remember anything about how to operate Rhino (also given that I started to hate CAD software). The farthest my knowledge extended to was knowing some language and the idea of certain operations (ie. extrude, boolean, rigging, etc.) After the class, I feel like I am comfortable of modeling majority if not anything I want. This class was able to lay the groundwork for my own research and personal development which honestly is the best thing a class could provide. Of course, I rated myself as an 8 because I still feel like I have an incredible amount of things I have yet to learn (ie. node coding such as materials or geometry nodes, UV unwrapping and texturing, physics simulation, etc.).”

-Derek Pan

“I came into this class without knowing pretty much anything about Blender and now I am much more confident with the software and my ability to create. I feel like I still have a lot to learn and a long way to go, but I never expected to be where I am today at the beginning of the quarter. My knowledge from homework assignments and lectures really helped my overall understanding and when I'm watching YouTube tutorials now, I find them a lot easier to follow since I have experience.”

-Shelby Campbell