Best Of

マルコ said:

Hi everyone, I need your help to hopefully find the tools and learning material I'm looking for.

Hey!
Even though you have a ton of 3D modeling experience, it doesn't mean you can jump into Blender right off the bat. Knowing topology and general 3D concepts is a huge plus, but the interface here is completely different, the commands are different, and even the names of familiar functions vary. Things like working with the 3D cursor, pivot, and origin point (which are three different things, but all generally about the same concept) can be quite confusing at first.

That's why I'd still recommend going through a few simple tutorials. Just to get a feel for where the necessary functions are hidden in Blender, what they are called, and what the hotkeys are. Don't sit there trying to memorize shortcuts, that comes naturally with practice. Plus, there's always the handy search bar via F3 (or spacebar, depending on what you chose during the first launch) where you can just type the name of the function you need. There's no need to model Notre-Dame right away when you can test things out on basic cubes.

Here are the specific resources I'd recommend:

Blender Guru’s channel, but not the donut. At least check out his chair tutorial series https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hf2esGA7vCc 

It will give you a solid understanding of the UI using a simple object.

Blender Bros channel https://www.youtube.com/@PonteRyuurui/videos
You'll need to scroll back a bit to when the author was still modeling in Blender before switching to Plasticity. They offer great practice for hard surface and sci-fi. Hard surface modeling uses a maximum variety of techniques, making it the best school for mastering the software. In many videos, he use the HardOps addon (and I also recommend checking out the channel of its creator, masterxeon1001 https://www.youtube.com/@masterxeon1001/videos). This addon isn't mandatory, but I highly recommend it. It's not just for sci-fi, it generally simplifies and speeds up the workflow in Blender, making it much more convenient.

As for texturing, if you need a truly professional level, there aren't many options.

Either use Quixel Mixer https://quixel.com/products/mixer
It's great if you kept a library of materials from back when they were completely free, but even if you didn't, there is a decent basic set available.

Or look into Substance Painter https://store.steampowered.com/app/4329260/Substance_3D_Painter_2026/
It's the industry standard, and I highly recommend it. The software is paid, but you can buy a perpetual license on Steam

Great courses for Substance and the general pipeline:

A good free texturing course on ArtStation. It's highly regarded: https://www.artstation.com/learning/courses/owg/substance-painter-pushing-your-texturing-further/chapters/d3J/introduction

A fantastic comprehensive course (Blender + Substance)  "Hero Game Asset Creation" by FastTrackTutorials https://www.artstation.com/marketplace/p/lqYj/hero-game-asset-creation-in-depth-tutorial-course 
I've heard a ton of great reviews about it from acquaintances who were just starting out.

Hope this information helps, and good luck on your journey!