My bad; I hadn't realized there was a mobile version. It's only $10? I was thinking about getting a tablet, so this is certainly something to look into. Is it easy to import/export back and forth between a tablet and computer?

Somewhat. If you use the free Creative Cloud service, its stupidly simple. Otherwise its a bit of a two step process.

Is there a specific tablet you would suggest?

Hi,

My only concern is that, though Blender and GIMP give professional results, you are going to have a good month or two of hard work in learning enough about these software to become effective in a workflow pipeline. By that time you will still be on fundamentals for the most part. You need to estimate if this will allow you to keep pace with all that you have in the course or not. Best case scenario, in my opinion, is that you will be scrambling with at least twice the workload to adapt Blender and GIMP to a course not designed for them.

I'm not in a rush to learn everything at once. Doing that would probably bring poor results. Right now I'm trying to focus on C#, but I'll most likely watch some Blender tutorials on the side.

Right now I'm trying to focus on C#, but I'll most likely watch some Blender tutorials on the side.

Many game developers initially under estimate the amount of work needed to effectively learn a graphics software such as Blender, just so you know. However, if you only want to learn a few things so you can merely import and export in a model file format for the purposes of your game source code development, then there should be no major obstacle.

Many game developers initially under estimate the amount of work needed to effectively learn a graphics software such as Blender, just so you know. However, if you only want to learn a few things so you can merely import and export in a model file format for the purposes of your game source code development, then there should be no major obstacle.

Pretty much that. I'm trying to get my friend to study the art aspects of game design, that way I won't need to learn everything.

Do you know of any tutorials that focus on getting a character model ready to put in a game? I want to put a character in a level and play around with it to see what I learn. I found some models on http://tf3dm.com/ but I'm not sure what to do with them, or if they're even low-poly enough to use.

Do you know of any tutorials that focus on getting a character model ready to put in a game?

You could use Mixamo:

http://www.mixamo.com

Or you could use Iclone:

http://www.reallusion.com/iclone/

Each has costs and such, but requires less knowledge of 3d modeling and such just to get started with models.

Do you know of any tutorials that focus on getting a character model ready to put in a game?

The Blender community has tons of tutorials and so does YouTube. There are plenty of third party communities and tutorials that cover Blender, even in some obscure websites.

Do you know of any tutorials that focus on getting a character model ready to put in a game?

You could use Mixamo:

http://www.mixamo.com

Or you could use Iclone:

http://www.reallusion.com/iclone/

Each has costs and such, but requires less knowledge of 3d modeling and such just to get started with models.

Both look interesting. Do you recommend one over the other?

The Blender community has tons of tutorials and so does YouTube. There are plenty of third party communities and tutorials that cover Blender, even in some obscure websites.

Is what I'm referring to called rigging?

Rigging usually refers to making virtual bones of a character, adding flesh to them so the bones and the rest of the character move together, and making animations - the "bones" move a certain way. There are many tutorials on this sort of thing.

Serapth, thanks for the tutorial link, that is helpful! :)

I might suggest iclone. Mixamo looks like a subscription trap. Of course, you have to pay fir content for iclone also.