Tuts: Do you prefer videos or written tutorials?

[Morne Erasmus]

Hi all

 

I would like some comments on how you prefer to do quick online tutorials. Do you prefer watching videos or do you prefer going through something written with a bunch of screengrab images and descriptions? And why do you prefer this method?

[Zdravko Barisic]

1. For some special techniques and tips and trix, like learning some plugin....Bunch of screengrab images and descriptions is final winner!

They can be seen almost for 2mins, with eye-seeking over PDF

 

2. For poly modeling tutorials....video.

Its much informations, hints, etc....it can not be fited into PDF printscreens.

 

Hope this helped you!

[Fr3Drick Law Olmstead]

I agree with Zdravko that it depends on the subject matter to a certain extend. It also depends on the complexity of the particular project and what it is that I'm trying to get out of it. I don't want to go through a tutorial that has hundreds of screen caps only to find out that something got mixed up in step 152 and this just so happened to be a crucial step.

If I'm just looking to get an idea for the approach or get a general idea what a tool actually does, video is the way to go.

[howelaw1]

Honestly written tutorials with images I think are way better than videos, and the market is oversaturated with video tutorials. It's difficult to learn at your own pace with videos. Also they waste more bandwidth.

 

But obviously people who make tutorials love videos because they are easier to create than spending time creating a presentable format with text and images.

[heni30]

It depends on the video. Some videos the guy just keeps jerking the mouse around all over the place; very amateurish. Some others you can tell were done intelligently and are well paced and easy to follow. I enjoy these. I bought a couple by Christopher Nicols - 1 dvd and one online professional tutorial video and they were both excellent. A good verbal explanation of steps as they are happening helps a lot.

[notamondayfan]

I like video tuts for new software, techniques, etc. It takes me too long to read and digest a written tutorial for these type of things. That said a poor quality video tut isn't worth bothering with.

 

For in-depth references, such as a breakdown of what render settings do, then a written manual is always the winner.

 

Dean

[RyderSK]

Everyone correctly said, depends on content :- ) Though my primary sympathy lies with articles.

 

Articles better explain more complex problems, can go deeper in shorter time. One can also follow at their own pace, or quickly distill only

the necessary or interesting parts.

 

Video are simply easier to learn from they are must for some more in-hand action, like modelling, can show more content in less time, easier for beginners to follow.

Some sort of ultimate combination seems best approach to me :- ) Oddly I rarely see that.

[jasonstewart]

I almost always like videos more. I think its because I am seeing and hearing (or reading) about the same thing at the same time. With written tutorials I always find myself scrolling up and down all over to look at the image, then text, then image, then text etc.

 

The downside to videos is that if you want to revisit one part 6 months later it can be hard to find.