Weekly Update #1 - Learning how to Code, Blender Scene Progress, Future Plans

Hi!

This is a new series I'm starting (and my first one), which is, basically, a weekly update on how much progress I'm making in certain areas, what I'm learning, how that process is going, what plans I have for the future, how my personal projects are doing, etc.

I first want to thank @fitinfun for her help. She gave me a lot of advice about what to learn, what to focus on and why I should focus on becoming what I want first, instead of constantly trying new things without properly succeeding in anything. She also gave me the idea for this series, so, once again, thank you very much for all your help @fitinfun !

Now, I want to discuss a few things in this update, mainly the fact that I started learning how to code again, the progress I'm making with my second project in Blender and what plans I have for the future. Maybe I'll approach other topics as well, but as of right now, I'll focus on those.

Also, just a heads up, this update, being the first one, is gonna be quite long, since there's gonna be a lot of explaining I need to do. Future updates will be shorter, hopefully.

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So, for those of you who've been following me for a while, you know that when I was around 18 I decided to learn how to create websites. I learned HTML, CSS and some JavaScript and jQuery, but after I got convinced by some relatives to go to college, I gave up on web design and development to focus solely on learning as much as I needed in order to get good grades and to get my diploma.

I ended up quitting college after around 3 months because they weren't teaching anything I was interested in, and then I started working (or at least tried to work) as a freelancer, from home.

Thing is, I didn't get back to web design and development after I decided to quit college. I wasn't good enough to make any money, and that's exactly what I needed - money. So, I focused on other things and, ultimately, abandoned the idea of ever becoming a web designer/developer.

Lately however, I've been more and more interested in learning how to code once again. But this time, I decided I wasn't gonna learn to code for the sake of curiosity, and instead, I was gonna do it with a clear objective in mind - learning as much as I needed to get a job. I want to become a programmer (web developer, to be more specific).

I chose web development for two reasons: first, I already know HTML and CSS, and while I forgot a few things, it's easy to relearn everything and second, from what I've heard, web design and development is the easiest thing you can do related to programming to get a job really quick, and that's pretty much what I need.

So, I started relearning HTML, CSS and, soon, JavaScript, using FreeCodeCamp. I already had an account, so all I had to do was to reset all my progress and start all over again. That turned out to be a good idea.

Apparently I remember quite a lot, especially about HTML, and I can still use CSS at a decent level. I was able to finish the first section of the first "course" in less than a day, so that's that.

I also decided to start working on a really simple "page" where I'll write all the things I either don't remember properly, or don't use often, both related to HTML and CSS, in order to be able to quickly get more information I need about them in case I forget something.

The page currently has very little CSS in it, and mainly HTML, but soon I will start adding a navigation menu on the left side that will help me get to each section really easily. Some sections also have links that direct me directly to some FreeCodeCamp challenges that contain information about different tags and practices that I may forget in the near future (like CSS animation using "@ keyframes").

I will also work on making that page look really good, of course. As of right now, my objective was to both write down the things I may forget that I don't use often, while also relearning how to properly write code. It takes a little bit of time to go from writing like this, to use things like "< br />" or "< strong >" and "< /strong >" to make sure everything looks good in HTML. Luckily, I relearned how to do that fairly fast, without pressing the wrong keys all the time.

Something else that made me really happy, besides remembering a lot about HTML and CSS, is the fact that now, unlike a few years ago, I actually understand certain concepts and properties. Back then I knew about them and I knew how to use them more or less, but now I understand them.

For example, something I had huge problems with was the "position" property in CSS. I couldn't understand the difference and relation between "position: relative;" and "position: absolute;" so every time I worked on a project, I had huge problems aligning things and making everything look the way I wanted.

Now I finally understand how those properties work. I used both the lessons from FreeCodeCamp and also this video to figure out how positioning works:

I also had to figure out how much time I am willing to spend coding, since I have a lot of other things to do and that's something I focused on this week.

I tried coding for one hour on Monday, which was not enough, not even close. Two was better, but ultimately, 3+ hours of coding a day seems to be, more or less, the amount that suits me, at least now, that I'm learning. Hopefully I'll get back to 6+ hours of code every day, but until then, I'm gonna stick to 3+ hours since I have to work on other things as well.

Well, that's pretty much it about coding, at least for this section. I'm gonna talk about what I plan on learning and doing next, in the last section of this update.

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It's been a while since I shared with you my last blender project, the Dark Souls Scene.

Since then I didn't talk about my next Blender project at all, and for a good reason - it's a lot more complex than the Dark Souls scene, and it requires quite a lot of time and work.

Here's a little example of how a part of that scene looks like, in Blender, with no render:

That took quite a lot of time, and it's only one part of the scene. I already worked on and finished another part (that I won't show now), and I already started working on the third part of the scene. I'm not sure if the final result will have 3 or 4 parts (or more), but I'm gonna have to see.

The reason this takes so long is because while I love to work in Blender, I have to do other things as well, and the fact that I'm not really good in Blender means that I have to spend a lot more time than others working on certain models.

For example, the hydrant you see in the scene took me a lot more time to make than is should have. Same with the trash bags that you can see around, and the small details in the balconies of the buildings. All that, combined with the other things I have to do every day, takes a lot of time. Plus, once I'm done modelling, I'm gonna have to texture everything, and that's probably gonna be really annoying.

However, the good thing is that while it's a hard project to work on, I love working on it, and I make small amounts of progress whenever I do. As I said, two parts of it are already finished. I already started working on the third part, which already has a few elements in it, and I'm gonna have to decide what to work on next.

Unlike the Dark Souls scene, this one isn't on one layer any more. Every part of the scene is on a new layer, so, hopefully, I'm not gonna have as many problems with the Render process as I had before.

I would like to provide you with all kind of tutorials for everything I worked on in the scene, but the only element I needed help with was the hydrant. If you want to make one as well, I recommend this tutorial:

If you'll actually pay attention and follow the steps, and you won't be as stupid as I was, you'll be able to create the hydrant in 44 minutes, instead of 2 hours.

If you're new to Blender however, and you want to learn how to use this amazing piece of software, I recommend all the tutorials Andrew Price made, especially the ones that teach you how to make a scene with doughnuts.

You can find his channel here: https://www.youtube.com/user/AndrewPPrice

Beginner series/Doughnuts scene playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjEaoINr3zgHs8uzT3yqe4iHGfkCmMJ0P

That's pretty much all I have to say about 3D modelling for now. I'll keep you updated whenever I'll move forward with my scene.

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I'm gonna have to stop soon with this update since I'm already at almost 1400 words, so let's get to what plans I have for the future.

Obviously, while I have all kind of plans and projects to work on, I'm gonna keep writing. I like writing, it's something I can do fairly easily, something that brings me joy, so I will definitely not stop. I will still publish once a day on Steemit, and hopefully I'll do the same for Medium as well.

Then there's Graphic River and Creative Market. I still have to create design packages for those websites, and my intention is to start creating other things, not only photo effects, so I'll either have to spend time creating backgrounds, or something more complex like Resumes or Business Cards. I'll have to see.

Besides all that, I still want to work in Blender and finish more projects using that software.

Ultimately however, my main goal as of right now is to learn how to properly build websites, and to get a job at some point using that skill. In order to do that, there are a few things I need to learn how to do:

1. I need to learn how to properly structure my websites using HTML. It's easy to just throw "div" and "p" tags all around, but it takes some learning to figure out how to do it properly, especially with the new "< main >" and "< article >" tags introduced in HTML5. Besides the lessons at FreeCodeCamp, I'll also have to study some code that was used to build real websites, and that's what I plan on doing, maybe after I'm done with FreeCodeCamp, or while I learn there.

2. I need to learn how to use CSS really well, in order to be able to style whatever I want, however I want, without running into all kind of weird bugs. I was able to do it fairly well years ago, but now I want to do it a lot better.

3. After that, comes JavaScript. At 18 I was kinda scared of the language, so after learning the basics, I quickly switched to jQuery. Now I'm gonna focus on learning JavaScript first, as well as I can, and only after that look at libraries that will make certain things easier.

Then I'm gonna have to see.

Right now, my objective is to learn front-end development as well as possible (which involves HTML, CSS and JavaScript), and maybe even get a job with those skills. After that, I may take a look at some back-end languages, like PHP, maybe Python or even Node.js . I'm not sure if I'll love them, but I want to at least have a basic understanding of how they work.

My objective is to get a job, and not having a college degree means I have to work a little harder on personal projects, at least in my opinion. I wouldn't want to work on something as simple as a "digital agenda" and go to an employer with that "project" saying "Well, I created this digital agenda, so it surely means I'm able to work on anything on your website!"

I need to do something better, to have at least a few decent and fairly big projects that will more or less impress the people that will look at them. I already thought about a fairly complex game I would like to make using front-end languages and maybe even some back-end, if it comes to that. The game will require quite a lot of planning, but, if it's gonna be as good as I imagine it, it's gonna be worth it. I may also have to work with someone else on it, but that remains to be seen.

I'm gonna have to think about at least one or two more projects before even trying to get a job, and then work on my personal website, which will require some work as well.

Thing is, I have a plan, and hopefully, it's a fairly good one. In around a week I finished more than half of the first learning section on FreeCodeCamp called "Responsive Web Design Certification (300 hours)", and after I'm completely done with that section, I'm gonna work a little on the page I mentioned at the beginning of this update. Then I'm starting the new section, called "JavaScript Algorithms And Data Structures Certification(300 hours)".

After that, I'm gonna see.

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Well, if you got here, thanks for reading through all that mess. It's quite a long update, and hopefully future ones are gonna be shorter. I just wanted to make sure I explained everything as well as possible.

If you have any recommendations/advice for me, especially related to programming, feel free to leave it all in the comment section. As of right now I'm following a fairly "standard" path of learning, one that I hope will help me learn everything I need, but I'm sure there are people with different strategies, who may know of other ways as well.

Thank you again for reading, and I'll see you next week with another update.