Review of Blender tutorial app for iphone, ipad, itouch

Cost: $2.99 for the iphone

I don't remember how I found this last night, but I stumbled across it and was pretty excited that there was a tutorial app for the iphone (and pad and touch).  AND, it's actually video tutorials!!  Now I can learn Blender anywhere that I am!

So, basically this app has the video tutorials from a tutorial series many of you might already be familiar with: the Blender Beginner's course at http://gryllus.net/Blender/3D.html.  When I first started out, I watched some of these tutorials but not too many.  The basic reason was because I didn't really feel like they were organized in a step by step way.  Instead, it was just a bunch of short tutorials on different topics.

This app fixed that problem.  The tutorials are arranged in 6 learning units and are ordered in a very logical way.  It feels much more like you are moving through a structured course on Blender.  The tutorials cover everything from the very basic stuff of moving around, adding meshes, how to save, etc. to a detailed discussion of materials, modifiers, and other topics.  There are not tutorials on lighting nor animation, but this is an excellent introduction to Blender.

In addition, there is a VERY handy "Blender 3D Hot Keys" section that has a list of the most used hot keys.  Awesome!

So let me break down the app.  The ratings are out of 5 blenders. 

Interface:    (4/5)  The interface is intuitive and easy to navigate around.  The files are stored locally, so you can watch the videos even with no phone or 3g connectivity.   The only reason I didn't give it five blenders is because the tutorials are under an icon for "learning units" instead of in the "class structure" or "syllabus" sections - which is where one might logically place them.

Organization:   (4/5)  My only complaint with the organization is that the load screen has "course syllabus", but it is really hardware requirements and a very brief introduction.  That's not really a syllabus...   But, the organization of the learning units is superb.  The topics flow naturally from one to the next.  It's nice that each of the tutorials is only 5-8 minutes long and focuses on a single thing.  That makes it great for watching when you only have a little bit of time, but also great if you need to go back and see how to do something again.  You can go straight to the topic instead of digging through a long tutorial for the exact thing you were trying to figure out.

Content: (3/5)  Ok, so the content of the tutorials is fantastic.  I learned so much even in just one day by checking out random tutorials.  It was great.  Little shortcuts or details I didn't know about.  I haven't watched the materials sections yet, but I'm excited because there are separate tutorials on things like mirror materials, ramps, transparency, etc.  My biggest complaint with this app is that he refers throughout the introduction to PDF files that should be read after watching the tutorials, but the PDFs are not anywhere to be found.  There is no reference to an external website where they are (though I have my suspicions they will be the same tutorials on gryllus.net).  There are also supposed to be exercises, but they are not in the app itself.  Instead, to get the exercises you have to go to the "help" button and you can request the exercises through that (maybe they send the PDFs also?).    It was hard for me to only give it 3/5 because the video tutorials are so incredible.  If they never mentioned the PDFs, it would get 5/5.  But since they do mention it, they should deliver on the promise.

Overall: (4/5)  I wish I could give this app 5 blenders, but it just falls short because of a few problems that could easily be rectified.  Would I recommend this to someone?  You bet your blender I'd recommend it!!  They say there are 300 minutes worth of tutorials.  300 minutes of tutorials on my iphone for only $2.99?  That's awesome.

So if you still feel like you could use more help with some of the basics, and you have an iphone, I can't recommend this enough.