It is quite telling that arguments are about "how much it benefited me in person" and not about "how does it fit with the Blender Foundation goals" or how it helps Blender. The Foundation is there for general public benefit - right?
I rather talk about a great program to help trainers everywhere. Free course material for classes, example tests, case studies, teacher companion docs, etc. There are really
millions
of schools out there.
3
3
3dcinetv
*
@Ton Roosendaal
* we are mentioning the personal side because the other parties (educational centers, individual artists, scientific research + development and professional studios) DID prefer using Blender above all other software options
after
the training. I think this has been stated goal from the beginning in the front (web) page of the BFCT program. In other words, it has been fulfilling it´s purpose for the public, studios, education and research since day 1. So far it has delivered: People like to use Blender because it delivers. Recent research on google trends: Blender Tutorials vs C4D tutorials, see how that spike favors Blender. And it´s not casualty. I´d say the BFCT people has also put out a great amount of training material to favor the use of Blender. When you mention "How it helps Blender", you're specifically addressing... what area?
Thanks.
1
p
piotao
*
@3dcinetv
* It is not so obvious. Look, I'm trying to understand Ton in the first place, having also my own thought aside. What do we have now in Blender Foundation?
good programmers and developers
awesome, rocket-science computer program for everything, called Blender
an engaged and mostly friendly community
an Open Source and FOSS culture, which is great.
What do we lack, as a whole environment, is:
good manual with some case studies (it's on the way, tbh)
no serious training program, covering all from zero to hero (only scattered stuff in Cloud)
no serious certification program which standarise Blender expertise
we have something called BFCT with very unclear process
So, in long run this is not good for growing Blender Company, and I think Ton is right. Unfortunately, we love BFCT because it serverd well to our internal benefits, but not for the whole community/world/etc. So now, we are probably asked what to propose to make things better.
So, maybe we should establish a 'certified training' first for the rest of the world, such Blender 101 for everybody, as a 'holy bible' and 'entry point', and THEN, and only then we should promote some certification based on this, on a let's say - natioanal level. Why not to create Blender International Office for coordinating such national effort? Pablo is already leading his own Spanish/Brazilian community, I could have mine in Poland, somebody else in other countries - and then, in those countries, why not to create Certification Centers under the auspicia of Blender Foundation? Think big - if we take out the old BFCT, let's give something way better! Blender for Kids in B3D101 is also fitting here.
So maybe we need as a whole community:
FIRST - good and established training resources
SECOND - and optional - let's create a real, proffesional certification program based on first tranings etc.
The other way - it may be to create BFCT to be hired in Blender Institute and effortlessly create such a huge chunks of tuts, to once and for all make it finally happen. Those tutors could be called Blender Foundation Certified Trainers. This is just another approach. One way or another, currently BFCT is lacking a serious control and quality, and this should be changed, and I agree with Ton with this.
1
c
christianclavet
*
@Ton Roosendaal
*
how does it fit with the Blender Foundation goals or how it helps Blender
If it's for home, there is no need, there is a lot of training online, and you can check training reviews most of the time.
My only concern for this is for
PRO users,
not for people that are using Blender at home.🤔
If you need staff; they need to comply to some criterias, standards, not only they need to understand the tool, but how to use it efficiently. Dropping the certification program will indeniably affect how Blender get into the industry, this could affect Blender goal of getting used professionnally.
I rather talk about a great program to help trainers everywhere.
If this program help the PRO users get certificates from the school or training centers that would be registered with the Blender Foundation it would be great! 😊
2
l
luciano
*
@Christian Clavet
* Ive never been asked or seen anyone for that matter being asked to show the certifications to work in maya, yet i work with a team of 450 people that are definitelly advanced users, your reputation precedes you same as a trainer. Credentials get corrupted easily.
1
t
tonAuthor
*
@Piotr Arłukowicz
* Focus on free resources on
blender.org
for educators is good plan. Foundation should invest in that. It could help raising the quality for teaching to kids and professionals everywhere.
2
p
piotao
*
@Ton Roosendaal
* I'm pretty much ready to share files, assets, assignments and miscellaneous stuff related to Blender training and teaching, because I'm doing this for years on academic level. Right now, in next week at my University I will be discussing how to open an entirely new graphics division isolated from our computer science faculty, dedicated to graphics, animation, multimedia and everything Blender can offer, and Blender will be THERE the main tool, forced by me in person. Consider this to be one of the first Blender-only dedicated university school. I'm going to pump that as far as I can because I now by heart that Blender is awesome, and I have to share that trust with other people. Ton, I really need to talk about how could I help and who will cooperate the effort on BF side.
2
3
3dcinetv
*
@Piotr Arłukowicz
* specially on the BFCT side. A
lot
of people asks me on the workshops I do: "hey, how do I become certified?". So there is a real life necessity to be certified, only not posted on the net, which means it is not invisible. On the contrary, people is VERY interested.
3
3dcinetv
*
@Luciano A. Muñoz Sessarego
* for some of the scientific research teams over the years of postings on Blender Network, it apparently gave them confidence that they will show their break throughs in science to
someone that have a solid sense of commitment, a mix of curiosity and passion to align into their services/product
; which most of the BFCT (if not all) profiles showcase very well. It´s not the same to lead as to be a follower. Companies in the medical/scientific research field posted this on their job requirements on BN every time. It is clear they are looking for certified Blender users for that reason.
s
siyuissiyu
*
@Ton Roosendaal
* I know I join this conversation quite late but why I searched this topic and arrived here is because I'm trying to set up a course that counts 2.5 credit in the Design school I work for, and BTW I'm from China, not the main city of China, but a rather under developing region of inland area, which means the students are generally poor English speaking, not able to learn much from the tuts and materials of Blender org nor from CG Youtubers, what they can count on is just translated resources from local network (we're not here to discuss the firewall issue). I'm here to say that, I know Blender is the RIGHT choice for Chinese students, but I learned Blender by myself from zero and now I use it for product design and teaching, all I get is from tutorials searched from Google, but now when I need to introduce Blender seriously to all the students and set up a course both online and offline, I really need something called system or structure. I'm using a structure invented by myself which I think is a better cognitive approach of getting to understand how Blender works, my course is going to be free to all university students, there're many tutorials in Chinese social networks, many of them are excellent and also taught in Chinese. But if I want to set up a Blender teaching section on an official academic platform with all the other Chinese online courses from all over the country, then I need to do better, but not alone. That's a essential meaning of this Trainer community or whatever you call it certificate. I hope to see there's a structured training course system.
t
tonAuthor
To clarify the number of 12 BFCTs: that's the people who renewed (paid the fee). There are also 28 non-active members. Makes the total: 40 people who signed up as BFCT in 12 years time.
3
c
christianclavet
*
@Ton Roosendaal
* Hi. You could seek for a certification partner, like
SideFX's doing
Won't be exactly the same since Blender is open source, but some of it still applies.
As 2.8 is getting much more popular, it would be interesting to have a way to have certifications.
EDIT:
If take too much ressources, I really recommend trying to find a partner for managing|Handling the certification program.
It would be nice that the certification program had specialisations. Blender
is covering so much
, it would be hard for anybody to know everything in details. For teachers, the full certification could be asked, but for example working as a modeler in a indy game compagny, would require the modeling specialized certification.
3
z
zanqdo
*
@Ton Roosendaal
* I was one of the first to be certified, and for a time it was good. I used to get a lot of calls back in the day. But this was because the list was put predominantly in the main
blender.org
site. As soon as the BFCT program was merged into the blender network I stopped getting any calls. I think the Blender Network idea was the failure, not the BFCT program I also remember people abusing the voting up system or even the alphabetical listing of names to appear first. I lost interest due to the blender network platform and never renewed. My 2C
2
3
3dcinetv
*
@Ton Roosendaal
* Is ther url list available? Where can we see those 12 active and the rest inactive? I´ve recently recieved an email about my BFCT status exactly 1 year after I wrote to ask on what´s the procedure for the renewal. Maybe other people didn´t receive that email as well in many years?
1
r
ridegg86
*
@Ton Roosendaal
* The numbers are really surprising that so few have applied. But this may be due to the fact that the program was not well enough presented, its benefits and meaning explained. The internet barely comes out hits for the program or personal experiences. A teaching community could be attractive where materials can be shared with each other. Unfortunately, I applied in August, when the BFCT was already standing. I am happy to offer all my notes and curriculum to a teaching community. It could easily get 3D education into the mainstream, but it’s clear that people are demanding certifications. The portfolio, and the fact that someone can also teach; two different things! Teaching is a bottom-up process and you also have to learn to teach !.
p
piotao
So, am I maybe the one of those 12 dedicated strangers, who really love the idea and always were faithful? We are Blender Evangelists. I'm a BFCT since 2012 (accredited by Willem from South Afrika I presume), on BN since 2014. I proposed several improvements and updates to BFCT program already, including splitting the program to two parts: education and business. It was in 2018, when I proposed Blender Foundation Certified Professional, along with BFCE SMITH, which was the new acronym for different specializations withing the certificate. Well, the answer was positive but passive, in terms "we have a lot of going on, will return to this". So, now, at this juncture, I clearly see how the things might be working, and please forgive me my harsh honesty, if I'm wrong: it seems that you guys have no heart for this project and no human resources to allocate to make those things right. The old was a great idea BFCT and then sucked a little. BN was a step into the right direction, and of course it was all about the infrastructure, not about Blender or BFCT itself. Strangely, all that effort was made! Then, BFCT was degraded to single tag on some website. When BN did not grow as expected, taking BFCT out is then a logical step, but I feel that this is a step back. BFCT is a different thing and need more love than even BN! We already have some success stories. There are people who got the new job and contacts due to BN. I was so proud of BFCT that I put this tag next to my name. The universities I work on REQUESTED some Blender certificate from me, to allow me to teach Blender! Unfortunately, for years of asking I did not get any certificate on paper, I have nothing to hang up on the wall, so for my institution my promises that I'm BFCT looks silly. This is not the right way of making BFCT, so if removing bad things is that what Ton is proposing, I'm in. But after throwing old and bad BFCT habits, shortcomings and deficiencies, we should rather discuss how to improve, not how to remove. Not having anything like certification process, will take Blender Foundation back to the level of kids play in kindergarten, in business level of thinking.
I agree with Ton, that there is probably no point of keeping the part of effort for only few strangers like me. But I think that this is time to make BFCT great again, by taking it seriously and making it, as it was said - a real certificate. So let's think how we can improve the quality of certification process, including some parts of BN, which seems to be a good platform for that.
2
3
3dcinetv
*
@Piotr Arłukowicz
* just for anyone else reading: BN = Blender Network (a professional Job and profile website a'la LinkedIn).
I belive it´s the right direction: Splitting BFCT for Education and BFC for Business.
I still think the new certifications should be specialized ones. 21 areas in Blender for specialization. So anyone looking for "BFCT Sculpting tools" will have only top training on those. I can´t imagine ArchViz guys doing retopo, if you ask me. They should care for lighting and enviornment so they could look for a BFCT ArchViz.
Tagging the professional categories for specialization could be another consideration.
t
tonAuthor
*
@Piotr Arłukowicz
* I agree it's unfortunate that the Blender Network team had no time to tackle it. I also realize that certifications or degrees are required in some by some institutions. Just tell the university that Blender Foundation doesn't provide certification, and that knowing Blender well
and
knowing how to train people is a skill that can be better proven by a track record and portfolio. If they would not hire Blender trainers because we (BF) doesn't certify people, send them to me.
2
b
bernardo.iraci
Hi! I am crossposting from BA. I don't actually know what is the process at the moment to be a BFCT, so I might be saying stuff that is already there.
blender trainer is a very broad term (or trainer in general). A program like blender touches so many different kind of knowledge that I believe it to be very hard to have someone with “trainer” skills along the whole pipeline.
I think maybe one good way of avoiding situations like the one mentioned by @DavidRivera would be to have trainers certified in different areas. You can’t expect a “certified blender trainer” who is mainly specialized in, say, modeling and scultping, to know that alembic particles vectors. As probably someone who is more a techincal artist, won’t be able to give really good trainings on the sculpting side of blender. So maybe we need to have some separation especially between more artistic or technical skills.
On top of that, I don’t know what are the requirements at the moment to become a certified trainer. It goes without saying, that to be a certified trainer you would have to follow some course and pass some exam that can… well… certify properly your knowledge :smiley:
Those are my two cents.
Just a little fun fact. I am not a certified blender trainer, but once I've been contacted by a company to conduct a training and they thought I was one. I feel my general blender knowledge is good, but that's not the point. I am not a certified trainer. I have no idea where they got that idea, but I guess it shows that at the moment something about this system is not working...
1
p
piotao
*
@bernardo.iraci
* I propose something like that year ago. Seems like the program did not have enough love or time.
J
Josephbburg
I propose to stop with certification now. Not only because of lack of
interest, lack of quality in the program, but especially because it does
not support the Blender Foundation's goal - which is about supporting
projects on
blender.org
related to making Blender.
This is really the crux of the issue. I've been wanting to try to get certified for a while, but I agree that it's best to keep BF focused on its core mission.
1
s
shaun.wegscheid
I've been checking on Blender occasionally here or there for a few years. I was interested in the BFCT. In both Career-related courses for high school students in Texas public edu and in the International Baccalaureate program, both governing entities want to see students earning certifications.
Adobe has certs. Apple has some. Microsoft has some. There's a few programming languages with certs.
The desire for free course materials, examples tests, etc are all nice and fine, but the governing entities want students to be able to earn certs, so... How does certs help Blender? Well, not teaching students Blender because it doesn't have certs sure doesn't help Blender.
If the design wasn't meeting the goal, its unfortunate the answer was to can it instead of redesign it.
r
ridegg86
The numbers are really surprising that so few have applied. But this may be due to the fact that the program was not well enough presented, its benefits and meaning explained. The internet barely comes out hits for the program or personal experiences.
A teaching community could be attractive where materials can be shared with each other. Unfortunately, I applied in August, when the BFCT was already standing. I am happy to offer all my notes and curriculum to a teaching community.
It could easily get 3D education into the mainstream, but it’s clear that people are demanding certifications. The portfolio, and the fact that someone can also teach; two different things! Teaching is a bottom-up process and you also have to learn to teach !.
i
iggual
It took me a while to think about how to reply on Ton's BFCT canceling. I tried to be short but there's so much to say about 12 years, ha!
First, dear dr. Ton, thank you for all that you gave us! Not only such an amazing tools, open movies, lectures, conferences and amazing overall knowledge, but also your community social master art which is as precious as Blender!
I am the one who needed some kind of Blender certificate back in 2007 and i got it! So thank you again Ton, BFCT surely served me well back then. I am happy to say that all those hundreds of students from my past doesn't need me any more. I learned that the best teachers make themselves unnecessary.:)
When i first time opened Blender it didn't have an 'undo' implemented yet, i closed it and thought how marvelous it would be to have it open and free to implement much more than undo! I don't know if i tuned back then onto some Ton's blender cosmic internet channel or something, but in 2002 actually my wish came true, Blender is free!\o/:)
My Blender journeys through all those years was epic and eclectic like are all those Blender multiverses inside multiverses.
From epic patent illustrations (coders thank you for Freestyle! btw), then some NASA supported projects (yeah never a straight answer btw:), a book about 3D print, scientific electron acoustics projects, (can not tell you how exciting it was for me BCON 2019 to see all new epic scientific talks! btw) and last but not least project like this epic animation "The Box" by my dear Dušan Kastelic who also got like a cherry on a cake Blender Suzanne Award! Thank you Dušan, & thank you Blender community!!
In 1988 prof. dr. Igor Grabec introduced me his neural network AI even before it was patented and told me about some future AI tools that will follow. I must admit that i didn't believe that i will see in my lifetime machines that will think similar like human and that will be able to predict some human behaviors more that 97% accurate!!?? The machine brain that will drive cars, write like Shakespeare, paint like Picasso and compose like Beethoven!? No, that looked so impossible to me!
Interesting, in 2015 i met professor again, he even kindly wrote his opinion in my book and it turned out that he is also an inventor of the first 3D printer! I didn't know that! He gave me a patent copy from 1969!
So in our friendly chat we went through all those amazing AI tools and ideas. He said that he don't think that we will see soon all that.. Of course, that was almost 30 years ago when we first time talked about! But then at the end of the year 2015 it was like a silent but HUGE AI explosion of all that impressive AI tools that evolving now so fast!
This year we got first AI implementation in Blender. That's EPIC! It's hard to imagine Blender in 10 years more than ever before, but i can imagine some fancy tools that will follow in the next years. On example, amazing tools like Eskil Steenberg presented, and all recent AI papers are just mind boggling!
Here is a snippet of my correspondence with the AI brain (introduced to me as Betsy) about 3D modeling education supported by AI, she said:
"If you feel that the skills learned in your industry or specific role have a direct impact on future outcomes in the field, what might you be thinking about creating?
The Future of 3D Modeling is a joint project between the European Commission and the Royal Society. The partners are currently planning a new international initiative to tackle the challenges created by new 3D modeling technologies and their integration into the broader design process.
Please contact
Daniël van Leeuwen, Senior Researcher, University of Edinburgh,
Rohan Kumar, Director, European Commission Centre for 3D Modeling & Interactive Data Sciences,
Christoph Beitlerle, Senior Software Developer, University of Amsterdam,"
So Ton, before i contact all these professors (i censored quote phone numbers and emails for any case:) i would like to know if you already have Blender AI education research team on some road map? I would like to see that! I guess you have in Blender 101 sleeve more surprises than one would expect, ha!
For closing i would like to say that i believe that Ton still encouraging Blender education, and i agree that is the best certificate your own portfolio and simply passion for teaching. I had really amazing experiences as a teacher, but although i got some requests already i currently enjoy more to be in a student sit again ha, (Animation Nodes, btw), here on a beautiful island Tenerife where i can easy imagine myself on some Blender course & of course Institute too! & fun way to learn Spanish!
... and now it seems that discussion is over. BFCT R.I.P.
c
christianclavet
*
@Piotr Arłukowicz
* . From the replies and explanation I've read on this so far, it does'nt have a purpose anymore.
Blender is one of the best 3D tools right now for *
personnal work
*, and I was thinking stopping the certification would make it very difficult for Blender being used in the industry (VFX, GameDEV, Scientific, Architectural, etc). But It seem I was wrong.
*
@Luciano A. Muñoz Sessarego
*:
Ive never been asked or seen anyone for that matter being asked to show the certifications to work in maya, yet i work with a team of 450 people that are definitelly advanced users, your reputation precedes you same as a trainer. Credentials get corrupted easily.
In my case, I was trained at Ubisoft Campus (Montreal,Canada) as Level Designer and used 3DS Max and never got a chance to get to work. Might be the reputation... Anyway, here they ask only for people that already work in the industry (egg-chicken paradigm😊😋)
My best hope is that Blender be used professionnaly, and that we could see more movies|games that have used Blender in their pipeline.
As *
@Ton Roosendaal
* mentionned:
... What do they want is professional support though (as in, riggers, consultants, pipeline experts, scripters, etc).
Hope something can be done for that. (via
Blender Network
?)
3
3dcinetv
@Ton a few proposals have gone by now, maybe it´s time to narrow the options? What are the choices we could aspire from those? Please let us know. Thanks.
p
piotao
I created a #BFCT chat room on Blender Chat, if anybody wish to talk in 'real time' there. It would be nice to have somebody from BF there to help us to understand what could be the better for BF than BFCT. I can agree that we need a stronger certificate program. So maybe some external - national - center of certification? With some blessing from BF, but not personal, only institutional? Let's discuss there before this thread become too occluded. (?)
3
3dcinetv
*
@Piotr Arłukowicz
* if we keep the talk here, other communities can land into this topic. Taking Ton to another chat for something he asked here is deviating the original purpose of the thread. Let's just stick with the basics as this is already a fine thread to follow (figuratively speaking).
p
piotao
*
@3dcinetv
* Sure, no problem. But I afraid Ton is right: not much of us here. Few fanatics could do too few to create any substantial movement this time.
3
3dcinetv
*
@Piotr Arłukowicz
* are you implying we are doing this as
fans
?. If you are, you´re totally missing the point here.
I already mention participation is lagging now, because there are a lot of people working heads down into their own projects, but this thread started as a direct email from Ton himself, and even though there is a list, and I know there are people reading, few want to invest time to propose possible solutions to BFCT. So, since there are already some proposals, let's read what the considered ones will be, from Ton himself as the next step.
p
piotao
*
@3dcinetv
* Hey, no hard feelings; I'm not implying anything, and the attendance in this thread is rather poor, which speaks for itself. Imagine what may happen if Ton go crazy and say that He is closing Blender Institute :) I consider myself as a pro and crazy Blender lover, and of course I do Blender stuff for living, mainly teaching tho.
3
3dcinetv
*
@Piotr Arłukowicz
* for past -less relevant news- Ton has posted on twitter about the subject. People react with thousand likes and shares, but I haven´t seen this news post on his twitter account, so I take it there is no real urgency to make this as visible as we could think...
p
piotao
I'm on a fourth or fifth round of mailing with people and thinking. Thank you Ton for clarification. I think I start to understand the matter partially. The idea He may be having now is that giving individuals a personal gratification in current form of BFCT (without anything really certified) is inappropriate as Blender grows. And having this low-quality service do not serve well. Similarly (forgive me) such Autodesk is not endorsing single people personally - this is my "certified" trainer. They have they own certificates yes, but on a business level they are more anonymous. Is this a valid point of understanding? Do I grasp correctly why BFCT in current form is tagged as 'bad' for the Future?
3
3dcinetv
*
@Piotr Arłukowicz
* pardon me if I miss interpret: Eliminating official trainers will help the use of Blender? I thought evaluation for BFCT took a closer look on the individual's industry experience as a requirement. If that wasn´t the case, then I agree, we need to re-inforce a better method. Cannot give BFCT to someone with a hobbyist interest only, because it won't work as a solution trainer for a studio. In this I want to make a clear point: no experience, no BFCT. The way to "measure" that, is that if the applicant wants to specialize in a certain area, let him/her present their proof-of-case theme and let the BF decide on the certification endorsement. I think this is how most of the educational system and professional guilds do their approvals. 99% Sure.
1
3
3dcinetv
*
@3dcinetv
* This is why medical post-degree schools delight on their comrade's expositions in a review session. It´s like have BlendCon serve as platform for Blender Case studies (studios or artists) about a certain specific area (games, movies, advertising, AR/VR, mobile, Scientific research, Stream media, etc..) :D
p
piotao
Let me stress this: now we are facing a situation where there is a BE or BE NOT of about all BFCT program, which was very important to few of us for years. I'm opting for refreshing it, and for reorganization. Ton pointed out that there is few ppl only in this, but this may be due to the lack of more intense effort and poor discoverability. If we agree somehow that BFCT is really worthy to be kept and improved I'm going to post my years-ago poposal about how to split and how to organize the whole board. But if decision is made already, what can we do? What if even worse: if decision WILL be made basing on our reactions?
3
3dcinetv
*
@Piotr Arłukowicz
* I made a call for Ton and the team involved in reviewing the BFCT applications once again, and more over the review of a solid proposal to endorse the current listing. So the fact they opened this thread, could be sign this is "being considered"? -I guess. Let´s hope Ton replies to these posts...
I made another post in Blender artists as well.
@BoneStudios is very active in all these threads, he's a BFCT as well as other artists, and not many are showing up. I think everyone is very busy these days.
3
3dcinetv
Terminating the BFCT is almost counter intuitive if you ask me, since big companies require -only- certified technicians in this software ALL THE TIME. Imagining publishing a book with no previous endorsement from Blender Foundation on "Blender X fundamentals" and heavens knows who's writing that and what experience would he have to make such book....
Maybe a "SPECIALIZED BFCT in X Blender area" could work?
t
tonAuthor
*
@3dcinetv
* You are living in a complete different universe than I am. I really talk to a lot of corporations and a certification program never came on the table. What do they want is professional support though (as in, riggers, consultants, pipeline experts, scripters, etc).
3
3dcinetv
*
@Ton Roosendaal
* yes, you're right. All the more reason to not revoke the BFCT but rather specialize it. I´ve seen blender doing marvelous stuff with arduinos. The next animatronic era could start right off in Blender, but a specialized BFCT is needed for that.
m
masterxeon1001
I like being a BFCT but I know without it life would go on. I aspire to take it to the next level in my evangelical work and maybe visit studios and do workshops etc.
3
3dcinetv
I have been invited to many organizations to do live workshops because they trust that I have done a lot of Blender presentations online and offline driving the edge of techniques and tools from version 2.79 onward, endorsed by being BFCT. It required me to give straight answer to deep technical problems on studios using Blender or implementing solutions on their own pipelines with other proprietary software.
Their trust is confirmed on how the certified trainers are endorsed by the Blender Foundation
, thus bringing prestige and confidence using the software.
I have been given the opportunity to work with such venturous software developers exploring creativity and Blender has stand the tests, addons and new implementations.
These 3d industry-professionals have confidence when they work along side a BFCT. I can only speak for my cases, but I´m mostly sure many others will be in this position through out the world as certified trainers.
Having 20+ years in the advertisement industry, terminating the BFCT would rather hurt the solid commitment that all BFCT pursue: The efficient implementation of Blender for studio production across all platforms and media.
My proposal is
: Ultimately, there should be "specialized" training like the Blender Foundation was offering back in March 2018. For example: "Migrating from 3DsMax to Blender", "Using Particles for physics simulations", among others; and have those programs expand upon review from the BFCT applicant. This is a way to search for specialized trainer, rather than an average 3d generalist.
The BFCT applicant submits his specialized trainer program and the Blender Foundation evaluates the trainer and his program to emit official certification.
b
blenderuser1436282
*
@3dcinetv
* this proposal is a good idea I must say ! ,
for me BFCT, was the starting point to look for some serious inhouse trainers... if it will be removed, a good sorting criteria is missing, but I agree, I can look much closer to their artwork and published tutorials / books to get ones teaching style and knowledge, too, it'll be okay for me.
If some more "specialized" trainings do come close, I would suggest to host them not only at the Foundation, but in different countries, too
1
t
tonAuthor
*
@3dcinetv
* We offered top quality specialized training in Blender Institute, promoted on the
blender.org
frontpage. Hardly anyone signed up.
I think it was a mix of 'too expensive' and 'not useful to only do it in one place only''. We are going to invest instead in public and open (free) material for educators on
blender.org
.
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piotao
*
@Ton Roosendaal
* That's true. Price tag is to high for example for me (and probably for lots of other eastern countries) to even think of participating. I was interested in 1/3 of Gottfried Hoffman's training about simulations. Those trainings are valuable resource, but the market for them will be rather limited.
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@Ton Roosendaal
* maybe not everyone could afford (time and travel wise) to go physically to the Blender Institute. Which is another reason why BFCT should keep evaluating trainers by project (like a thesis or a phd white paper). This is my proposal. I think most of us have already posted good ideas. I wonder how will this move forward?
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piotao
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@3dcinetv
* I proposed to reorganize BFCT and split it into 'the old' BFCT for educators, and for BFCE for business (Blender Foundation Certified Expert). Then, this tag could be specialized by adding a class letter, like SMITH, where each letter stands for a specific area: S=stationary, M=movable, I=iterative, T=technical, H=hell of other things. If needed, such a classification could have letters added denoting level, but I don't think we have to go that far. So, Sergey for example will excel in BFCE "T" class, as a lead developer, and Hjalti, our loved animator could easily have BFCE "M". Testing, grading, and classification of all such skills, organizing a review board is not too big hassle and this could be self-sustained because such a business cert has to be paid; however, I think Ton is not interested in such solution, because I proposed this year ago. The only thing I can't yet understand, which bothers me, is WHY Ton is thinking that certification is a waste at all. It is certainly not required; as Ton said, no single company asked for this, but from the other hand it rather won't hurt either. Organizing this process will take far less effort than creating BN I think, but, well. We better focus on how to improve the overall quality of Blender resources, materials for educators and for everybody who wants to learn, and if this will be rich and excellent site with plenty of resources, then we may return to this point. I don't quite like the idea of having external certification system somewhere, but again, well, what could we do? :)
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Josephbburg
*
@Ton Roosendaal
* I was really interested in the pipeline training, but it wasn't possible for me to go to Amsterdam. The price was similar to comparable workshops (in the USA at least), but too much for me. It's a great idea but I think it will be hard to make it work in-person.
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@Josephbburg
* much of everyone else's thoughts and intentions as well... too far to travel. Localized training on every country was supposed to be another goal of the BFCTs....
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@Piotr Arłukowicz
* are you BlenderPirate? Because if you're not, and Ton is not making any news for all of the posted solutions, I would guess decision was taken on day 1 from making this thread... because up to this point not even Andrew Price or any other top trainer has manifested here...nor any other top level artists from all over the globe. That´s strange considering the significant amount Portugal, Italy and Brazil have regarding training on their communities, websites and blender conferences... (yes, I know, right? they even have up to 2 top level conferences a year, in some countries)...
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piotao
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@3dcinetv
* Well, you see, again Ton was right. He told that there are only 12 active and valid BFCT our there, looking at their BN profiles. Yet a lot more is on BF-education mailing list, but not many replied. I doubt if Andrew is BFCT. So this clearly is showing that the important BFCT matter is of no interest. OR - and this may be the case - no one cares, because BF-edu list went to spam and not everyone is exposed to blender-today or Blender Nation, or anywhere, where this post was put. I saw this only by email 2 days after. So, I think we may have reduced visibility here, but nevertheless, only 12 BFCT is staggering. Sad, but true. Meh, I was soooo proud, I could be a BFCT along all those masters. But let's think creative: we could help to prepare best of the best materials and stuff for everybody, which is good, and then, maybe we convince Ton, to have something like 'Certified Educational Resources', which we can use for teaching. One thing which still gives me to scratch my head is how those big companies will react to the revoke of BFCT. I think that still there are few of those who counted on that, as well as universities and public/social institutions. They just want the paper "just because", and sometimes, for teaching this is the requirement. This problem is not decided nor solved in any way right now. Another question is why BFCT was introduced, who wanted that and what reasoning was then sufficient to start with that program. I suspect that the goals were good and the only lack of love and care eroded the whole certification process.
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@Piotr Arłukowicz
* so you´ve read the posts on the mailing list? 2014-2017 most of those emails asked for certification, or specialized trainer. Some of those emails even asked for a program that covered K12 education synchronized with the BN at some degree. So training material was already asked for. Having a "universal (¿?) standarized follow through Blender program for teaching" was already petition. Maybe those users need to "upgrade" and have their own EDUCATIONAL community here on
Blender.Community
. I think that could go North, pretty quickly. What do you think, @Ton Roosendaal?
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phreest
I think it's a good idea to eliminate certifications. If someone claims to be certified, they should also have the skillset and portfolio to go along with it. Hence, looking at the portfolio and talking through an assignment reveals a ton about who to work with on an upcoming project.
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piotao
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@phreest
* it's a bad idea. Let me use a comparison: when you are telling somebody that you have a First Certificate in English, so called FCE, no one is going to ask you about your grammar or other tests. Everyone will assume you know English at some level. Sometimes there is no time or no review in a process, and sometimes such a certificate guarantees a required minimal level, which is expected to be valid. BFCT is important and having it next to portfolio do not harms. Ton is right, the value of BFCT is equal to the value of certification.
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@phreest
* That's how I always would do it. Knowing the low barrier to become a BFCT, and the low barriers to get certifications in other places (usually just paying a lot of money), I always wondered who would ever take a certification for a creative training job seriously. The only thing that counts is portfolio.
Teaching 3d (or Blender) is niche, and certainly not as mainstream as teaching English.
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piotao
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@Ton Roosendaal
* We are working to make Blender as mainstream as English teaching!
Comparing certification and portfolio is like saying "- I know Blender", "-Show me", and then portfolio arises. The case with BFCT was like "- I know Blender and Blender Foundation confirms that", then goes "-WOW, OK, shut up and take our money", and everybody believes, because everybody believes Blender Foundation. I doubt if some of BFCT failed miserably lastly or something other happened. Or it's just a clearing. I still cry internally tho.
57 Comments
It is quite telling that arguments are about "how much it benefited me in person" and not about "how does it fit with the Blender Foundation goals" or how it helps Blender. The Foundation is there for general public benefit - right?
I rather talk about a great program to help trainers everywhere. Free course material for classes, example tests, case studies, teacher companion docs, etc. There are really millions of schools out there.
* @Ton Roosendaal * we are mentioning the personal side because the other parties (educational centers, individual artists, scientific research + development and professional studios) DID prefer using Blender above all other software options after the training. I think this has been stated goal from the beginning in the front (web) page of the BFCT program. In other words, it has been fulfilling it´s purpose for the public, studios, education and research since day 1. So far it has delivered: People like to use Blender because it delivers. Recent research on google trends: Blender Tutorials vs C4D tutorials, see how that spike favors Blender. And it´s not casualty. I´d say the BFCT people has also put out a great amount of training material to favor the use of Blender. When you mention "How it helps Blender", you're specifically addressing... what area? Thanks.
* @3dcinetv * It is not so obvious. Look, I'm trying to understand Ton in the first place, having also my own thought aside. What do we have now in Blender Foundation?
What do we lack, as a whole environment, is:
So, in long run this is not good for growing Blender Company, and I think Ton is right. Unfortunately, we love BFCT because it serverd well to our internal benefits, but not for the whole community/world/etc. So now, we are probably asked what to propose to make things better.
So, maybe we should establish a 'certified training' first for the rest of the world, such Blender 101 for everybody, as a 'holy bible' and 'entry point', and THEN, and only then we should promote some certification based on this, on a let's say - natioanal level. Why not to create Blender International Office for coordinating such national effort? Pablo is already leading his own Spanish/Brazilian community, I could have mine in Poland, somebody else in other countries - and then, in those countries, why not to create Certification Centers under the auspicia of Blender Foundation? Think big - if we take out the old BFCT, let's give something way better! Blender for Kids in B3D101 is also fitting here. So maybe we need as a whole community:
The other way - it may be to create BFCT to be hired in Blender Institute and effortlessly create such a huge chunks of tuts, to once and for all make it finally happen. Those tutors could be called Blender Foundation Certified Trainers. This is just another approach. One way or another, currently BFCT is lacking a serious control and quality, and this should be changed, and I agree with Ton with this.
* @Ton Roosendaal *
If it's for home, there is no need, there is a lot of training online, and you can check training reviews most of the time.
My only concern for this is for PRO users, not for people that are using Blender at home.🤔
If you need staff; they need to comply to some criterias, standards, not only they need to understand the tool, but how to use it efficiently. Dropping the certification program will indeniably affect how Blender get into the industry, this could affect Blender goal of getting used professionnally.
If this program help the PRO users get certificates from the school or training centers that would be registered with the Blender Foundation it would be great! 😊
* @Christian Clavet * Ive never been asked or seen anyone for that matter being asked to show the certifications to work in maya, yet i work with a team of 450 people that are definitelly advanced users, your reputation precedes you same as a trainer. Credentials get corrupted easily.
* @Piotr Arłukowicz * Focus on free resources on blender.org for educators is good plan. Foundation should invest in that. It could help raising the quality for teaching to kids and professionals everywhere.
* @Ton Roosendaal * I'm pretty much ready to share files, assets, assignments and miscellaneous stuff related to Blender training and teaching, because I'm doing this for years on academic level. Right now, in next week at my University I will be discussing how to open an entirely new graphics division isolated from our computer science faculty, dedicated to graphics, animation, multimedia and everything Blender can offer, and Blender will be THERE the main tool, forced by me in person. Consider this to be one of the first Blender-only dedicated university school. I'm going to pump that as far as I can because I now by heart that Blender is awesome, and I have to share that trust with other people. Ton, I really need to talk about how could I help and who will cooperate the effort on BF side.
* @Piotr Arłukowicz * specially on the BFCT side. A lot of people asks me on the workshops I do: "hey, how do I become certified?". So there is a real life necessity to be certified, only not posted on the net, which means it is not invisible. On the contrary, people is VERY interested.
* @Luciano A. Muñoz Sessarego * for some of the scientific research teams over the years of postings on Blender Network, it apparently gave them confidence that they will show their break throughs in science to someone that have a solid sense of commitment, a mix of curiosity and passion to align into their services/product ; which most of the BFCT (if not all) profiles showcase very well. It´s not the same to lead as to be a follower. Companies in the medical/scientific research field posted this on their job requirements on BN every time. It is clear they are looking for certified Blender users for that reason.
* @Ton Roosendaal * I know I join this conversation quite late but why I searched this topic and arrived here is because I'm trying to set up a course that counts 2.5 credit in the Design school I work for, and BTW I'm from China, not the main city of China, but a rather under developing region of inland area, which means the students are generally poor English speaking, not able to learn much from the tuts and materials of Blender org nor from CG Youtubers, what they can count on is just translated resources from local network (we're not here to discuss the firewall issue). I'm here to say that, I know Blender is the RIGHT choice for Chinese students, but I learned Blender by myself from zero and now I use it for product design and teaching, all I get is from tutorials searched from Google, but now when I need to introduce Blender seriously to all the students and set up a course both online and offline, I really need something called system or structure. I'm using a structure invented by myself which I think is a better cognitive approach of getting to understand how Blender works, my course is going to be free to all university students, there're many tutorials in Chinese social networks, many of them are excellent and also taught in Chinese. But if I want to set up a Blender teaching section on an official academic platform with all the other Chinese online courses from all over the country, then I need to do better, but not alone. That's a essential meaning of this Trainer community or whatever you call it certificate. I hope to see there's a structured training course system.
To clarify the number of 12 BFCTs: that's the people who renewed (paid the fee). There are also 28 non-active members. Makes the total: 40 people who signed up as BFCT in 12 years time.
* @Ton Roosendaal * Hi. You could seek for a certification partner, like SideFX's doing
Won't be exactly the same since Blender is open source, but some of it still applies.
As 2.8 is getting much more popular, it would be interesting to have a way to have certifications.
EDIT: If take too much ressources, I really recommend trying to find a partner for managing|Handling the certification program.
It would be nice that the certification program had specialisations. Blender is covering so much , it would be hard for anybody to know everything in details. For teachers, the full certification could be asked, but for example working as a modeler in a indy game compagny, would require the modeling specialized certification.
* @Ton Roosendaal * I was one of the first to be certified, and for a time it was good. I used to get a lot of calls back in the day. But this was because the list was put predominantly in the main blender.org site. As soon as the BFCT program was merged into the blender network I stopped getting any calls. I think the Blender Network idea was the failure, not the BFCT program I also remember people abusing the voting up system or even the alphabetical listing of names to appear first. I lost interest due to the blender network platform and never renewed. My 2C
* @Ton Roosendaal * Is ther url list available? Where can we see those 12 active and the rest inactive? I´ve recently recieved an email about my BFCT status exactly 1 year after I wrote to ask on what´s the procedure for the renewal. Maybe other people didn´t receive that email as well in many years?
* @Ton Roosendaal * The numbers are really surprising that so few have applied. But this may be due to the fact that the program was not well enough presented, its benefits and meaning explained. The internet barely comes out hits for the program or personal experiences. A teaching community could be attractive where materials can be shared with each other. Unfortunately, I applied in August, when the BFCT was already standing. I am happy to offer all my notes and curriculum to a teaching community. It could easily get 3D education into the mainstream, but it’s clear that people are demanding certifications. The portfolio, and the fact that someone can also teach; two different things! Teaching is a bottom-up process and you also have to learn to teach !.
So, am I maybe the one of those 12 dedicated strangers, who really love the idea and always were faithful? We are Blender Evangelists. I'm a BFCT since 2012 (accredited by Willem from South Afrika I presume), on BN since 2014. I proposed several improvements and updates to BFCT program already, including splitting the program to two parts: education and business. It was in 2018, when I proposed Blender Foundation Certified Professional, along with BFCE SMITH, which was the new acronym for different specializations withing the certificate. Well, the answer was positive but passive, in terms "we have a lot of going on, will return to this". So, now, at this juncture, I clearly see how the things might be working, and please forgive me my harsh honesty, if I'm wrong: it seems that you guys have no heart for this project and no human resources to allocate to make those things right. The old was a great idea BFCT and then sucked a little. BN was a step into the right direction, and of course it was all about the infrastructure, not about Blender or BFCT itself. Strangely, all that effort was made! Then, BFCT was degraded to single tag on some website. When BN did not grow as expected, taking BFCT out is then a logical step, but I feel that this is a step back. BFCT is a different thing and need more love than even BN! We already have some success stories. There are people who got the new job and contacts due to BN. I was so proud of BFCT that I put this tag next to my name. The universities I work on REQUESTED some Blender certificate from me, to allow me to teach Blender! Unfortunately, for years of asking I did not get any certificate on paper, I have nothing to hang up on the wall, so for my institution my promises that I'm BFCT looks silly. This is not the right way of making BFCT, so if removing bad things is that what Ton is proposing, I'm in. But after throwing old and bad BFCT habits, shortcomings and deficiencies, we should rather discuss how to improve, not how to remove. Not having anything like certification process, will take Blender Foundation back to the level of kids play in kindergarten, in business level of thinking. I agree with Ton, that there is probably no point of keeping the part of effort for only few strangers like me. But I think that this is time to make BFCT great again, by taking it seriously and making it, as it was said - a real certificate. So let's think how we can improve the quality of certification process, including some parts of BN, which seems to be a good platform for that.
* @Piotr Arłukowicz * just for anyone else reading: BN = Blender Network (a professional Job and profile website a'la LinkedIn).
I belive it´s the right direction: Splitting BFCT for Education and BFC for Business. I still think the new certifications should be specialized ones. 21 areas in Blender for specialization. So anyone looking for "BFCT Sculpting tools" will have only top training on those. I can´t imagine ArchViz guys doing retopo, if you ask me. They should care for lighting and enviornment so they could look for a BFCT ArchViz. Tagging the professional categories for specialization could be another consideration.
* @Piotr Arłukowicz * I agree it's unfortunate that the Blender Network team had no time to tackle it. I also realize that certifications or degrees are required in some by some institutions. Just tell the university that Blender Foundation doesn't provide certification, and that knowing Blender well and knowing how to train people is a skill that can be better proven by a track record and portfolio. If they would not hire Blender trainers because we (BF) doesn't certify people, send them to me.
Hi! I am crossposting from BA. I don't actually know what is the process at the moment to be a BFCT, so I might be saying stuff that is already there.
blender trainer is a very broad term (or trainer in general). A program like blender touches so many different kind of knowledge that I believe it to be very hard to have someone with “trainer” skills along the whole pipeline.
I think maybe one good way of avoiding situations like the one mentioned by @DavidRivera would be to have trainers certified in different areas. You can’t expect a “certified blender trainer” who is mainly specialized in, say, modeling and scultping, to know that alembic particles vectors. As probably someone who is more a techincal artist, won’t be able to give really good trainings on the sculpting side of blender. So maybe we need to have some separation especially between more artistic or technical skills.
On top of that, I don’t know what are the requirements at the moment to become a certified trainer. It goes without saying, that to be a certified trainer you would have to follow some course and pass some exam that can… well… certify properly your knowledge :smiley:
Those are my two cents.
Just a little fun fact. I am not a certified blender trainer, but once I've been contacted by a company to conduct a training and they thought I was one. I feel my general blender knowledge is good, but that's not the point. I am not a certified trainer. I have no idea where they got that idea, but I guess it shows that at the moment something about this system is not working...
* @bernardo.iraci * I propose something like that year ago. Seems like the program did not have enough love or time.
interest, lack of quality in the program, but especially because it does not support the Blender Foundation's goal - which is about supporting projects on blender.org related to making Blender.
This is really the crux of the issue. I've been wanting to try to get certified for a while, but I agree that it's best to keep BF focused on its core mission.
I've been checking on Blender occasionally here or there for a few years. I was interested in the BFCT. In both Career-related courses for high school students in Texas public edu and in the International Baccalaureate program, both governing entities want to see students earning certifications.
Adobe has certs. Apple has some. Microsoft has some. There's a few programming languages with certs.
The desire for free course materials, examples tests, etc are all nice and fine, but the governing entities want students to be able to earn certs, so... How does certs help Blender? Well, not teaching students Blender because it doesn't have certs sure doesn't help Blender.
If the design wasn't meeting the goal, its unfortunate the answer was to can it instead of redesign it.
The numbers are really surprising that so few have applied. But this may be due to the fact that the program was not well enough presented, its benefits and meaning explained. The internet barely comes out hits for the program or personal experiences. A teaching community could be attractive where materials can be shared with each other. Unfortunately, I applied in August, when the BFCT was already standing. I am happy to offer all my notes and curriculum to a teaching community. It could easily get 3D education into the mainstream, but it’s clear that people are demanding certifications. The portfolio, and the fact that someone can also teach; two different things! Teaching is a bottom-up process and you also have to learn to teach !.
It took me a while to think about how to reply on Ton's BFCT canceling. I tried to be short but there's so much to say about 12 years, ha!
First, dear dr. Ton, thank you for all that you gave us! Not only such an amazing tools, open movies, lectures, conferences and amazing overall knowledge, but also your community social master art which is as precious as Blender!
I am the one who needed some kind of Blender certificate back in 2007 and i got it! So thank you again Ton, BFCT surely served me well back then. I am happy to say that all those hundreds of students from my past doesn't need me any more. I learned that the best teachers make themselves unnecessary.:)
When i first time opened Blender it didn't have an 'undo' implemented yet, i closed it and thought how marvelous it would be to have it open and free to implement much more than undo! I don't know if i tuned back then onto some Ton's blender cosmic internet channel or something, but in 2002 actually my wish came true, Blender is free!\o/:)
My Blender journeys through all those years was epic and eclectic like are all those Blender multiverses inside multiverses. From epic patent illustrations (coders thank you for Freestyle! btw), then some NASA supported projects (yeah never a straight answer btw:), a book about 3D print, scientific electron acoustics projects, (can not tell you how exciting it was for me BCON 2019 to see all new epic scientific talks! btw) and last but not least project like this epic animation "The Box" by my dear Dušan Kastelic who also got like a cherry on a cake Blender Suzanne Award! Thank you Dušan, & thank you Blender community!!
In 1988 prof. dr. Igor Grabec introduced me his neural network AI even before it was patented and told me about some future AI tools that will follow. I must admit that i didn't believe that i will see in my lifetime machines that will think similar like human and that will be able to predict some human behaviors more that 97% accurate!!?? The machine brain that will drive cars, write like Shakespeare, paint like Picasso and compose like Beethoven!? No, that looked so impossible to me! Interesting, in 2015 i met professor again, he even kindly wrote his opinion in my book and it turned out that he is also an inventor of the first 3D printer! I didn't know that! He gave me a patent copy from 1969! So in our friendly chat we went through all those amazing AI tools and ideas. He said that he don't think that we will see soon all that.. Of course, that was almost 30 years ago when we first time talked about! But then at the end of the year 2015 it was like a silent but HUGE AI explosion of all that impressive AI tools that evolving now so fast!
This year we got first AI implementation in Blender. That's EPIC! It's hard to imagine Blender in 10 years more than ever before, but i can imagine some fancy tools that will follow in the next years. On example, amazing tools like Eskil Steenberg presented, and all recent AI papers are just mind boggling!
Here is a snippet of my correspondence with the AI brain (introduced to me as Betsy) about 3D modeling education supported by AI, she said:
"If you feel that the skills learned in your industry or specific role have a direct impact on future outcomes in the field, what might you be thinking about creating?
The Future of 3D Modeling is a joint project between the European Commission and the Royal Society. The partners are currently planning a new international initiative to tackle the challenges created by new 3D modeling technologies and their integration into the broader design process.
Please contact
Daniël van Leeuwen, Senior Researcher, University of Edinburgh, Rohan Kumar, Director, European Commission Centre for 3D Modeling & Interactive Data Sciences, Christoph Beitlerle, Senior Software Developer, University of Amsterdam,"
So Ton, before i contact all these professors (i censored quote phone numbers and emails for any case:) i would like to know if you already have Blender AI education research team on some road map? I would like to see that! I guess you have in Blender 101 sleeve more surprises than one would expect, ha!
For closing i would like to say that i believe that Ton still encouraging Blender education, and i agree that is the best certificate your own portfolio and simply passion for teaching. I had really amazing experiences as a teacher, but although i got some requests already i currently enjoy more to be in a student sit again ha, (Animation Nodes, btw), here on a beautiful island Tenerife where i can easy imagine myself on some Blender course & of course Institute too! & fun way to learn Spanish!
Greetings from the magic islands: tinyurl.com/vuj53ff
Thank you again & cheers to all,
Igor
... and now it seems that discussion is over. BFCT R.I.P.
* @Piotr Arłukowicz * . From the replies and explanation I've read on this so far, it does'nt have a purpose anymore.
Blender is one of the best 3D tools right now for * personnal work *, and I was thinking stopping the certification would make it very difficult for Blender being used in the industry (VFX, GameDEV, Scientific, Architectural, etc). But It seem I was wrong.
* @Luciano A. Muñoz Sessarego *:
In my case, I was trained at Ubisoft Campus (Montreal,Canada) as Level Designer and used 3DS Max and never got a chance to get to work. Might be the reputation... Anyway, here they ask only for people that already work in the industry (egg-chicken paradigm😊😋)
My best hope is that Blender be used professionnaly, and that we could see more movies|games that have used Blender in their pipeline.
As * @Ton Roosendaal * mentionned:
Hope something can be done for that. (via Blender Network ?)
@Ton a few proposals have gone by now, maybe it´s time to narrow the options? What are the choices we could aspire from those? Please let us know. Thanks.
I created a #BFCT chat room on Blender Chat, if anybody wish to talk in 'real time' there. It would be nice to have somebody from BF there to help us to understand what could be the better for BF than BFCT. I can agree that we need a stronger certificate program. So maybe some external - national - center of certification? With some blessing from BF, but not personal, only institutional? Let's discuss there before this thread become too occluded. (?)
* @Piotr Arłukowicz * if we keep the talk here, other communities can land into this topic. Taking Ton to another chat for something he asked here is deviating the original purpose of the thread. Let's just stick with the basics as this is already a fine thread to follow (figuratively speaking).
* @3dcinetv * Sure, no problem. But I afraid Ton is right: not much of us here. Few fanatics could do too few to create any substantial movement this time.
* @Piotr Arłukowicz * are you implying we are doing this as fans ?. If you are, you´re totally missing the point here. I already mention participation is lagging now, because there are a lot of people working heads down into their own projects, but this thread started as a direct email from Ton himself, and even though there is a list, and I know there are people reading, few want to invest time to propose possible solutions to BFCT. So, since there are already some proposals, let's read what the considered ones will be, from Ton himself as the next step.
* @3dcinetv * Hey, no hard feelings; I'm not implying anything, and the attendance in this thread is rather poor, which speaks for itself. Imagine what may happen if Ton go crazy and say that He is closing Blender Institute :) I consider myself as a pro and crazy Blender lover, and of course I do Blender stuff for living, mainly teaching tho.
* @Piotr Arłukowicz * for past -less relevant news- Ton has posted on twitter about the subject. People react with thousand likes and shares, but I haven´t seen this news post on his twitter account, so I take it there is no real urgency to make this as visible as we could think...
I'm on a fourth or fifth round of mailing with people and thinking. Thank you Ton for clarification. I think I start to understand the matter partially. The idea He may be having now is that giving individuals a personal gratification in current form of BFCT (without anything really certified) is inappropriate as Blender grows. And having this low-quality service do not serve well. Similarly (forgive me) such Autodesk is not endorsing single people personally - this is my "certified" trainer. They have they own certificates yes, but on a business level they are more anonymous. Is this a valid point of understanding? Do I grasp correctly why BFCT in current form is tagged as 'bad' for the Future?
* @Piotr Arłukowicz * pardon me if I miss interpret: Eliminating official trainers will help the use of Blender? I thought evaluation for BFCT took a closer look on the individual's industry experience as a requirement. If that wasn´t the case, then I agree, we need to re-inforce a better method. Cannot give BFCT to someone with a hobbyist interest only, because it won't work as a solution trainer for a studio. In this I want to make a clear point: no experience, no BFCT. The way to "measure" that, is that if the applicant wants to specialize in a certain area, let him/her present their proof-of-case theme and let the BF decide on the certification endorsement. I think this is how most of the educational system and professional guilds do their approvals. 99% Sure.
* @3dcinetv * This is why medical post-degree schools delight on their comrade's expositions in a review session. It´s like have BlendCon serve as platform for Blender Case studies (studios or artists) about a certain specific area (games, movies, advertising, AR/VR, mobile, Scientific research, Stream media, etc..) :D
Let me stress this: now we are facing a situation where there is a BE or BE NOT of about all BFCT program, which was very important to few of us for years. I'm opting for refreshing it, and for reorganization. Ton pointed out that there is few ppl only in this, but this may be due to the lack of more intense effort and poor discoverability. If we agree somehow that BFCT is really worthy to be kept and improved I'm going to post my years-ago poposal about how to split and how to organize the whole board. But if decision is made already, what can we do? What if even worse: if decision WILL be made basing on our reactions?
* @Piotr Arłukowicz * I made a call for Ton and the team involved in reviewing the BFCT applications once again, and more over the review of a solid proposal to endorse the current listing. So the fact they opened this thread, could be sign this is "being considered"? -I guess. Let´s hope Ton replies to these posts... I made another post in Blender artists as well. @BoneStudios is very active in all these threads, he's a BFCT as well as other artists, and not many are showing up. I think everyone is very busy these days.
Terminating the BFCT is almost counter intuitive if you ask me, since big companies require -only- certified technicians in this software ALL THE TIME. Imagining publishing a book with no previous endorsement from Blender Foundation on "Blender X fundamentals" and heavens knows who's writing that and what experience would he have to make such book....
Maybe a "SPECIALIZED BFCT in X Blender area" could work?
* @3dcinetv * You are living in a complete different universe than I am. I really talk to a lot of corporations and a certification program never came on the table. What do they want is professional support though (as in, riggers, consultants, pipeline experts, scripters, etc).
* @Ton Roosendaal * yes, you're right. All the more reason to not revoke the BFCT but rather specialize it. I´ve seen blender doing marvelous stuff with arduinos. The next animatronic era could start right off in Blender, but a specialized BFCT is needed for that.
I like being a BFCT but I know without it life would go on. I aspire to take it to the next level in my evangelical work and maybe visit studios and do workshops etc.
I have been invited to many organizations to do live workshops because they trust that I have done a lot of Blender presentations online and offline driving the edge of techniques and tools from version 2.79 onward, endorsed by being BFCT. It required me to give straight answer to deep technical problems on studios using Blender or implementing solutions on their own pipelines with other proprietary software. Their trust is confirmed on how the certified trainers are endorsed by the Blender Foundation , thus bringing prestige and confidence using the software.
I have been given the opportunity to work with such venturous software developers exploring creativity and Blender has stand the tests, addons and new implementations.
Having 20+ years in the advertisement industry, terminating the BFCT would rather hurt the solid commitment that all BFCT pursue: The efficient implementation of Blender for studio production across all platforms and media.
My proposal is : Ultimately, there should be "specialized" training like the Blender Foundation was offering back in March 2018. For example: "Migrating from 3DsMax to Blender", "Using Particles for physics simulations", among others; and have those programs expand upon review from the BFCT applicant. This is a way to search for specialized trainer, rather than an average 3d generalist.
The BFCT applicant submits his specialized trainer program and the Blender Foundation evaluates the trainer and his program to emit official certification.
* @3dcinetv * this proposal is a good idea I must say ! , for me BFCT, was the starting point to look for some serious inhouse trainers... if it will be removed, a good sorting criteria is missing, but I agree, I can look much closer to their artwork and published tutorials / books to get ones teaching style and knowledge, too, it'll be okay for me.
If some more "specialized" trainings do come close, I would suggest to host them not only at the Foundation, but in different countries, too
* @3dcinetv * We offered top quality specialized training in Blender Institute, promoted on the blender.org frontpage. Hardly anyone signed up.
I think it was a mix of 'too expensive' and 'not useful to only do it in one place only''. We are going to invest instead in public and open (free) material for educators on blender.org .
* @Ton Roosendaal * That's true. Price tag is to high for example for me (and probably for lots of other eastern countries) to even think of participating. I was interested in 1/3 of Gottfried Hoffman's training about simulations. Those trainings are valuable resource, but the market for them will be rather limited.
* @Ton Roosendaal * maybe not everyone could afford (time and travel wise) to go physically to the Blender Institute. Which is another reason why BFCT should keep evaluating trainers by project (like a thesis or a phd white paper). This is my proposal. I think most of us have already posted good ideas. I wonder how will this move forward?
* @3dcinetv * I proposed to reorganize BFCT and split it into 'the old' BFCT for educators, and for BFCE for business (Blender Foundation Certified Expert). Then, this tag could be specialized by adding a class letter, like SMITH, where each letter stands for a specific area: S=stationary, M=movable, I=iterative, T=technical, H=hell of other things. If needed, such a classification could have letters added denoting level, but I don't think we have to go that far. So, Sergey for example will excel in BFCE "T" class, as a lead developer, and Hjalti, our loved animator could easily have BFCE "M". Testing, grading, and classification of all such skills, organizing a review board is not too big hassle and this could be self-sustained because such a business cert has to be paid; however, I think Ton is not interested in such solution, because I proposed this year ago. The only thing I can't yet understand, which bothers me, is WHY Ton is thinking that certification is a waste at all. It is certainly not required; as Ton said, no single company asked for this, but from the other hand it rather won't hurt either. Organizing this process will take far less effort than creating BN I think, but, well. We better focus on how to improve the overall quality of Blender resources, materials for educators and for everybody who wants to learn, and if this will be rich and excellent site with plenty of resources, then we may return to this point. I don't quite like the idea of having external certification system somewhere, but again, well, what could we do? :)
* @Ton Roosendaal * I was really interested in the pipeline training, but it wasn't possible for me to go to Amsterdam. The price was similar to comparable workshops (in the USA at least), but too much for me. It's a great idea but I think it will be hard to make it work in-person.
* @Josephbburg * much of everyone else's thoughts and intentions as well... too far to travel. Localized training on every country was supposed to be another goal of the BFCTs....
* @Piotr Arłukowicz * are you BlenderPirate? Because if you're not, and Ton is not making any news for all of the posted solutions, I would guess decision was taken on day 1 from making this thread... because up to this point not even Andrew Price or any other top trainer has manifested here...nor any other top level artists from all over the globe. That´s strange considering the significant amount Portugal, Italy and Brazil have regarding training on their communities, websites and blender conferences... (yes, I know, right? they even have up to 2 top level conferences a year, in some countries)...
* @3dcinetv * Well, you see, again Ton was right. He told that there are only 12 active and valid BFCT our there, looking at their BN profiles. Yet a lot more is on BF-education mailing list, but not many replied. I doubt if Andrew is BFCT. So this clearly is showing that the important BFCT matter is of no interest. OR - and this may be the case - no one cares, because BF-edu list went to spam and not everyone is exposed to blender-today or Blender Nation, or anywhere, where this post was put. I saw this only by email 2 days after. So, I think we may have reduced visibility here, but nevertheless, only 12 BFCT is staggering. Sad, but true. Meh, I was soooo proud, I could be a BFCT along all those masters. But let's think creative: we could help to prepare best of the best materials and stuff for everybody, which is good, and then, maybe we convince Ton, to have something like 'Certified Educational Resources', which we can use for teaching. One thing which still gives me to scratch my head is how those big companies will react to the revoke of BFCT. I think that still there are few of those who counted on that, as well as universities and public/social institutions. They just want the paper "just because", and sometimes, for teaching this is the requirement. This problem is not decided nor solved in any way right now. Another question is why BFCT was introduced, who wanted that and what reasoning was then sufficient to start with that program. I suspect that the goals were good and the only lack of love and care eroded the whole certification process.
* @Piotr Arłukowicz * so you´ve read the posts on the mailing list? 2014-2017 most of those emails asked for certification, or specialized trainer. Some of those emails even asked for a program that covered K12 education synchronized with the BN at some degree. So training material was already asked for. Having a "universal (¿?) standarized follow through Blender program for teaching" was already petition. Maybe those users need to "upgrade" and have their own EDUCATIONAL community here on Blender.Community . I think that could go North, pretty quickly. What do you think, @Ton Roosendaal?
I think it's a good idea to eliminate certifications. If someone claims to be certified, they should also have the skillset and portfolio to go along with it. Hence, looking at the portfolio and talking through an assignment reveals a ton about who to work with on an upcoming project.
* @phreest * it's a bad idea. Let me use a comparison: when you are telling somebody that you have a First Certificate in English, so called FCE, no one is going to ask you about your grammar or other tests. Everyone will assume you know English at some level. Sometimes there is no time or no review in a process, and sometimes such a certificate guarantees a required minimal level, which is expected to be valid. BFCT is important and having it next to portfolio do not harms. Ton is right, the value of BFCT is equal to the value of certification.
* @phreest * That's how I always would do it. Knowing the low barrier to become a BFCT, and the low barriers to get certifications in other places (usually just paying a lot of money), I always wondered who would ever take a certification for a creative training job seriously. The only thing that counts is portfolio.
Teaching 3d (or Blender) is niche, and certainly not as mainstream as teaching English.
* @Ton Roosendaal * We are working to make Blender as mainstream as English teaching! Comparing certification and portfolio is like saying "- I know Blender", "-Show me", and then portfolio arises. The case with BFCT was like "- I know Blender and Blender Foundation confirms that", then goes "-WOW, OK, shut up and take our money", and everybody believes, because everybody believes Blender Foundation. I doubt if some of BFCT failed miserably lastly or something other happened. Or it's just a clearing. I still cry internally tho.