$20

weekly

or $175 for 9 classes

Intro to 3D Modeling and Animation in Blender 3D

Ages 9-14

Live Group Course

This 9-week course will be all about the basics of the Blender 3D program, learning how to create a simple object, assigning it a material as well as texturing it, animating it, lighting the scene, and rendering the simple object.

Andrew Rodenhiser

Live video meetings

1x per week, 9 weeks

5-9 learners per class

60 min

About Learning Overview Teacher Reviews

What's included

9 live meetings

9 in-class hours

Homework

4+ hours per week. From Weeks 4-8, upload your progress on working on your objects every week (.blend file) to the correct week folder inside your name folder that I send to your parents/guardians, due Sunday at 3:00 PM EST.

Grading

Your work, including your presentation on Week 9 (which you don't upload, but will show during the Monday meeting) will be graded on a score from 1 to 5, with 5 being the best. Your weekly grade will be sent to your parents or guardians via private message on Outschool. A late submission will automatically receive a 1 until I get the submission. For every day that the assignment is late, I will have to deduct 1 grade point (e.g. A submission that would have been a 5 would be a 4).

Class Experience

Learn how to model, texture, and animate simple 3D objects in this 9-week Intro to Blender course! Blender is a free 3D computer graphics software program that is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. We will meet every Monday at 7:00 PM EST except for May 19 and May 26. Lesson 8 will be on June 2 and Lesson 9 will be on June 9. You will be assigned homework during weeks 4-8, which is simply uploading your progress (.blend file) to the folder with your name and the correct week that I will share with your parents/guardians. During Week 9, there will be no assignment submission to your Google Drive folder and instead I will grade based on what you present during the meeting on June 9. I will send your parents/guardians your grade for the week via private message on Outschool including Week 9. Your homework each week is due Sunday by 3:00 PM EST. In addition to a number grade (1-5), I will upload video feedback of your progress to the corresponding week folder in your name Google Drive folder I send to your parents/guardians via private message on Outschool! You will be graded each week starting with Week 4, including Week 9 in which I'll give your finished presentation a grade.

Learning Goals

You will learn how to navigate Blender's basic features including the viewport, 3D cursor, the Move, Rotate, and Scale tools, the Add Mesh menu, Object/Edit Mode, Properties menu, Outliner, Shading tab, UV Editing tab, Timeline, Camera, and Rendering tab.

You will learn how to add, edit, transform (move, rotate, scale), combine, separate, and delete meshes.

Syllabus

9 Lessons

over 9 Weeks

Lesson 1:

Welcome to Blender

 This week, I’ll teach you a little about the background information of Blender and how to install it onto your computer. Make sure you go read Blender’s minimum system and hardware requirements BEFORE THE COURSE STARTS, so the program works well on your computer, otherwise this course won’t be as fun as intended. Finally, we’ll go over the menus in Blender and what’s called the user interface so it doesn’t look so scary next time.

60 mins online live lesson

Lesson 2:

Blender's Basic Navigation and Tools

 This week, we’ll start getting down to business with a 3D shape, or as it’s called in Blender, a mesh! I’ll be demonstrating with a cube. You’ll learn how to select and move the mesh around up, down, sideways, and all in between. You’ll also learn how to rotate it and scale it (make it bigger, smaller, skinnier, wider). Furthermore, you’ll learn how to navigate the 3D viewport (pan the view, zoom in and zoom out, and rotate the view), add more meshes, and delete the meshes you have.

60 mins online live lesson

Lesson 3:

Editing Meshes

 This week, I’ll teach you the difference between Blender’s Object Mode and Edit Mode. I’ll show you how to edit meshes in Blender and what meshes are made of (components: vertices, edges, and faces). Additionally, I’ll teach you how to add, manipulate, and delete components.

60 mins online live lesson

Lesson 4:

Model An Object

 Now we get to the actual object modeling! You’re going to take what you learned from the past couple of weeks and really put it into practice. In this lesson, you’ll learn about the importance of reference images and sometimes even having the object you’re trying to model physically with you in person so you can look at it from all angles while you’re modeling it in Blender. You’ll also learn about Blender’s modifiers, which makes life a whole lot easier while modeling!

60 mins online live lesson

Other Details

Parental Guidance

Just so you know, there will be a two-week gap of no classes beginning May 19. I am leaving on vacation on May 19 and will not return until May 28. I will not have my computer with me during those days. Thus, Week 8 will start on June 2 instead of May 19 and Week 9 will start on June 9. Outschool will call the weeks after I get back from my vacation Weeks 10 and 11. Think of these as Weeks 8 and 9. Big Buck Bunny and Caminandes are 3D short films made in Blender that students can watch but please be aware that they contain references to mortality, as well as cartoon violence. CHARGE is a 3D short film made in Blender that students can watch but please be aware that it contains violence (no blood/gore though). Spring is a 3D short film made in Blender that students can watch but please be aware that the creatures featured in it may be a little scary for small children.

Supply List

IMPORTANT!!! Please read!!! 

Before you start the course, it is extremely important that you have what are called the minimum software and hardware requirements on your computer. If you don’t have them, you will not be able to run Blender. 
Here’s what they are: (You can ask your parents or guardians for help with checking for these things)

Requirements
1.	Have one of the following operating systems installed on your computer: 
•	Windows 8.1 (64-bit) or newer (Windows 10 or 11 is recommended)
•	macOS 11.2 (Big Sur) or newer (macOS 14 [Sonoma] is recommended)
•	Linux glibc 2.28 or newer
 
2.	For Windows and Linux: At least a 4-core processor CPU with SSE4.2 support (8 cores is recommended --> I have a 2.20 GHz Intel® Core™ i7-10870H CPU with 8 cores) 
For Mac: Apple Silicon or Intel (Apple Silicon is recommended)
 
3.	At least 8 GB of RAM (but 32 GB is recommended --> I have 16 GB, which hasn’t been giving me many issues)

4.	
     For Windows and Linux: A graphics card with at least 2GB VRAM, OpenGL 4.3 or newer 
     To break it down:
      •	NVIDIA GeForce 400 and newer, Quadro Tesla GPU architecture and newer, 
                including RTX-based cards, with NVIDIA drivers
      •	AMD GCN 1st gen and newer
      •	Intel Broadwell architecture and newer
       (8GB VRAM is recommended --> My graphics card is an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 
        Laptop GPU with 5.86 GB of VRAM)

      For Mac: GPU with Metal 2.2 (AMD, Apple Silicon, or Intel [Skylake and newer])

5.	Mouse (Recommended: 3-button, but 2-button is ok), trackpad, or pen tablet
6.	Recommended: SSD, but an HDD is okay 
7.	Recommended: 1920x1080 screen resolution, but any screen size is ok

For more information, please visit the following links:
•	https://www.blender.org/download/requirements/
•	https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/render/cycles/gpu_rendering.html  <-- This is especially important because we’re going to be rendering (generating images and video) with your computer’s GPU instead of its CPU!

Important: It can be difficult to run Blender on a Chromebook. For this, you need the Linux app and to gain access to the Terminal app. For more information, go to https://cgcookie.com/posts/blender-3d-hardware-requirements-what-you-need-to-get-started-with-blender?form=MG0AV3&form=MG0AV3 and scroll down to the “Can you run Blender on a Chromebook?” heading. Please know that I have zero experience with Chromebooks, so I won’t be able to assist you with this.

External Resources

In addition to the Outschool classroom, this class uses:

Sources

You will be using Google Drive to upload your work each week from Weeks 4-8. I will send your name Google Drive folder link to your parents or guardians via private message on Outschool. Grades for Weeks 4-9 will be sent to your parents or guardians via private message on Outschool. You will also download and save free textures to your computer (inside a zipped folder containing JPGs, PNGs, and EXRs) from the Poly Haven website for Lesson 5. YouTube is optional and it will allow you to watch the videos I've shared down below. Optional Sources: Click or copy and paste each link below in your URL bar to read more about Blender's many features and see awesome videos that have been made with Blender! https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/index.html <-- This is the Blender online manual, where you can search for and find different topics related to Blender. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqz-KE-bpKQ <-- This is Big Buck Bunny: a short 3D film that was created by the Blender Institute! The tool used for the modeling, animation, rendering, and compositing of this film was Blender! This is the remastered 2014 version of the original film that came out in 2008. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YE7VzlLtp-4 <-- The original 2008 version of Big Buck Bunny! See how far 3D software capabilities have advanced since then? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXqq0ZvbOnk <-- Another short 3D film made by the Blender Studio using Blender! This one is called CHARGE. Watch until the end and you get to see short clips playing to the right of the credits showing behind-the-scenes work of the film in Blender! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhWc3b3KhnY <--Another short 3D film made by the Blender Studio, using Blender! This one is called Spring. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCejtdKK40o <-- The first episode of a 3D cartoon series called Caminandes made by the Blender Institute, using Blender! Please note that other software programs were used in addition to Blender for the production of these videos, particularly for some parts of the texturing, some animation, graphics, and the sound and music. Blender was the main program used, however.

Meet the teacher

Andrew Rodenhiser

Joined March, 2025

Profile

Teacher expertise and credentials

I have been using Blender since January 2015 when I was a sophomore in high school. I took 3D modeling and animation courses at my high school using Autodesk Maya while practicing learning Blender at home. Additionally, in September 2021, I graduated with a BA in Graphic Design and Media Arts, with a concentration in 3D modeling and animation, from Southern New Hampshire University. Post-graduation, I had the pleasure of creating 3D animated videos for three nonprofit organizations, who all appreciated my work. I mostly used Blender as my program of choice.

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Get The App

$20

Intro to 3D Modeling and Animation in Blender 3D

Ages 9-14

Live Group Course

Andrew Rodenhiser

What's included

9 live meetings

Homework

Grading

Class Experience

Learning Goals

Syllabus

9 Lessons

Lesson 1:

Welcome to Blender

60 mins online live lesson

Lesson 2:

Blender's Basic Navigation and Tools

60 mins online live lesson

Lesson 3:

Editing Meshes

60 mins online live lesson

Lesson 4:

Model An Object

60 mins online live lesson

Other Details

Parental Guidance

Supply List

External Resources

Sources

Meet the teacher

Andrew Rodenhiser

Teacher expertise and credentials

Reviews

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