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Thursday, August 23, 2007

Poll: New Tutorial Feature?

Hey,

I've been thinking about how to make the videos easier to follow while actually trying to perform the steps.

I've created a new poll (in the sidebar to the right) asking:

Would having the tutorials pause after each major step, until you click a "Continue" button, be helpful?

It wouldn't be a big deal to add something like that if it will make for a better learning experience.

So, please cast your vote to let me know what you think.

Thanks!



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10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi there, an idea I jsut had which would make it better is if you had the option at the start of a video to play through with normal play/pause buttons OR to have it pause after each step. Maybe have a button you can use to toggle this function on and off.

I say this because it's always much more useful to watch a video tutorial through before even opening up the software.

roms said...

Hi, I agree with Jamie. I usually watch through the whole video before doing anything and it's sometimes interesting to just watch a tutorial without getting into doing it afterwards. Now, think of a movie where you would have to click after each actor says his text, NO way ! So, it sounds to me like there's gonna be a toggle button for the feature or no feature at all.
Great thanks for the tutorials anyway, bye

Anonymous said...

Hi! Why not use pause? I saw tutorials with many "klick next to continue" and thats not usable for first time viewing. So i vote "No".
BTW: Great tutorials, thanks!

Kernon Dillon said...

Thanks for the feedback!

I don't think there's a way that I could toggle this type of functionality. I guess the closest I could get to that would be to have two separate videos and provide the links.

The video pausing that I'm thinking about wouldn't pause at every single step, just at places where I think the viewer would naturally pause it themselves.

Another idea that I'm thinking about is that, at each pause, I could provide live links to more info. These links would provide a deeper study of some aspect of Blender that the current tutorial isn't really focused on. They would serve as built-in sidebars. The links would open in a new browser tab while the tutorial video remains paused until you return and click continue.

Anyway, these are just ideas at this point.

Any other ideas?

Anonymous said...

Please use external flv files for people who cant use flashplayer.

Anonymous said...

Please don't do anything to lengthen your tutorials. I already have to go to a friend's house to use his high speed connection in order to download your tuts. Also, although I have learned a lot from your tuts, I think you could do much to edit them down. Time is short for all of us, and the quicker we can learn something and get back to blendering, the better.

Kernon Dillon said...

What I'm proposing will not add a single second to the length of the tutorial.

What things can I do to make the tutorials shorter?

My Journal said...

Yes, yes, yes.. Pause buttons please. I take notes as you go. GREAT work!

Kernon Dillon said...

@anon
I think the majority of my tutorials are already in the flv format.

@david nist
I won't be adding the pause buttons because I would have to end up creating two different videos. However, for the longer tutorials, I'll be segmenting them more so that the TOC can serve more as an outline of the steps. That way, you can more easily see the overall process and quickly jump to a desired part of the process. We'll see how that works out. I'll also be making the scripts available so, you'll have the text of the tutorial as well.

Meinman said...

Hi,here's my two cents..
The things that I've liked about the tuts are the TOC and the tool-tips showing the keystrokes being used for certain actions. So, with that said, how about keeping those features and adding a tool-tip that simply suggests pausing? Thus making it an option for the viewer. Maybe adding some live links at that time pointing to a more detailed explanation of what you're doing, or maybe just a short paragraph as to why you think this particular concept is important.

For me, I've learned the most from your tuts. The pace and detail have been perfect. However, since I'm still new at this, any further insight that you can provide during the tuts will always be welcome!

Thanks for sharing your knowledge. It is very much appreciated!

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