I started from scratch with this tutorial. I have had very little experience with 3D modelling software although it has always been something I wanted to learn to do. I have recently been trying to get the hang of Autodesk's Maya but I have literally scratched the surface of what can be done with it. I found it difficult to find a decent tutorial I can work through.
I think I'm one of those people that can learn how to do something just by trying it out and randomly trying things, I have a lot of patience when learning I guess. These 3D programs like Maya and Blender however do not work that way, at least not with me, so I was quite pleased to find a 3D modelling module on my course.
Following the step by step instructions in this PDF, I very quickly learned the absolute basics from the first course and got the models made fairly easily. I wouldn't have minded not getting it right first time, as I would probably have discovered some extra tips but I'm sure I will find them eventually.
I didn't really have too many problems making the house, other than pressing the wrong hotkey every so often. A quick Ctrl+Z undo sorted that out. One thing I did think was odd was that Ctrl+W is the default save shortcut and not Ctrl+S, however Ctrl+S will also save.
After the house was done the castle was the next step, and since I had learned everything I needed making the house, this was a piece of cake. It was simply a matter of duplicate, transform and repeat. When it came to the tops of the towers I cleverly reshaped one and then duplicated that to make the others.When it came to rendering, fortunatly I had discovered from another students blog that pressing F3 will allow you to save a JPEG of the render.
For future reference, this is what was covered on this course:
Moving, rotating and scaling objects
Locking axis
Editing vertices of an object
Duplicating objects
Saving files
Rendering scenes
