I could never warm to Blender in the past. The 2.7x interface was too hard to grasp. However since the release of 2.8x I find it more appealing, especially after each time I use it. Love the modifiers and addons.

However one thing that really drives me nuts are the tutorials. I find them really difficult to follow as the instructors always uses short cuts. They are mentioned frequently instead of saying they are doing an edge loop or bevel or scale, they shout the short cut key. I use too much software to learn the shortcuts for Blender. My head is full of short cuts for Photoshop, Painter, 3D Coat, etc.

I would prefer to use my mouse. It works just fine in Hexagon 3D, Silo 3D, MOI3D. I fully understand it's faster to move about. BUT I have NO intentions on learning shortcuts. Besides I'm too old in my mid 60s.

Any suggestions on a series of good tutorials for 2.8x without short cuts?

AND PLEASE do not post something to the effect "Bite the bullet and learn the shortcuts". I'll consider that a TROLL attempt.

Cheers and many thanks

You might want to YouTube "Blender 2.8 basics Widgets" - that search brought up the first of two CGCookie's free videos on the basics of navigating Blender's interface. Whilst the 2nd video does explain the hotkey (shortcut) approach, it does explain the widget approach as well.

Unfortunately, the really fun videos that explain how to do all the amazingly cool stuff you really want to get to learning are all going to be hotkey-based. I tend to agree with you in terms of learning a lot of hotkeys: I'm getting into this digital audio workstation (DAW) called Reaper and I tend to go to the menus instead of learning the hotkey. However - and I'm 68 - I'm finding the menu approach too tedious for certain tasks and have finally come to realise that 1) almost all of the tutorials for Reaper focus on a hotkey approach and 2) the menu approach for certain tasks is ultimately working out much too tedious.

My gripe with Blender is that I had a decent amount of hotkeys memorised, and then in 2.8x, they "moved the cheese", so I'm having to relearn a bunch.

Another approach that have started taking some advantage with si enable the following add ons that will help cutting down memorizing so many short cuts the 3D Viewport Pie Menu will give an array of pie menus to get to perform many actions like shortcuts would for instance hiting the "a" usually selects all "alt a" is deselects all now when the Pie menu is enable when you hit "a" a Pie menu will come up with select deselect and several other options that you need to memorize short cuts to perform those actions. Another example hit "x" for delete will bring up a pie menu that lets choose from deleting vert, edges and faces or additional options for dissolved instead of delete or delete loop cut and several other options so granted you will still need to learn a couple of the base shortcuts but this might assist you. I hope this helps Blenders new version is made to minimize the learning curve

The unfortunate part is that if you are unable to learn some essential hotkeys, then video tutorials will almost be completely out of the question. Even the paid tutelage from places like Lynda.com or Digital-Tutors tend to do most things with the hotkeys in one way or another. If you can find some good PDF or text-based tutorials for 2.8, you might have better luck. I believe there are some early 2.8 books at Amazon that could be useful.

The problem with most text-based tutorial solutions is that they can very quickly become outdated as Blender Foundation has been updating the software with a new version every few months now. That means even a small point release can change a great number of things regarding navigation, addons or tool functions. As RobynsVeil has pointed out in her post, Blender has updated hotkey combinations drastically since 2.8, and many things will need to be re-learned or re-memorized.

Here's a link to some Amazon results that could help you out. I think learning through the written word will be better for you than video if hotkeys are out of the question. I'm sure they too will show you many hotkeys along the way, but at least it's done at your own pace and easily referred back upon. I might also suggest creating a written memo pad of some useful hotkeys in Blender that you could keep next to your keyboard, allowing you to conveniently refer to it as you work.

Blender 2.8 The Beginners Guide

Thanks very much for the replies.

In response to RobynsVeil - I've already watched those two tutorials on Blender Basics on CG Cookie youtube channel. Actually I watched them several times over the last year or so. I was hoping more for actual modeling tutorials preferably hard surfaces.

I already have addons installed on 2.82a ie: Chip Walters free version of KitOps, 3D Coat app link, piperator, bookgen, buildingtools, 3D Print, BmeshClean. I did install Fast Carve but disliked it very much. Too confusing to use and sometimes did not work. I may purchase HardOps and BoxCutter. I had a demo of "quad remesh" and used it when 3D Coat's retopo feature did not work or gave me results I did not like. The trial period expired yesterday. Not sure if I want to lease or purchase. Our Canadian dollar is near an all time low. I live in Nova Scotia it has been in disarray over this weekend's mass shooting. The largest in Canadian history.

I have Blender 2.79 with a free Sketchup import addon and only use it for that function.

I really do not want to learn shortcuts. I recall decades ago when I was a LAN administrator for 200 user local area netowrk (Novell Netware 3.12) and we migrated our users from the text based version of Word Perfect to the Windows version. They were elated using a mouse over shortcuts and macros. I feel the same way about 3D / 2D apps.

Cheers & many thanks.

Kenmo

It's been a long-time bugbear , but there is a version for artists : Bforartists https://www.bforartists.de/

Their blurb goes: "What is Bforartists? Bforartists is a complete free and open source 3D suite to create 3D content. It offers you the full 3D art pipeline to create game graphics, prerendered movies and stills. From modeling, sculpting, texturing, rigging, animation, rendering, up to post processing.

"Bforartists stands for Be For Artists. A reminder to develop for the user, not the programmer. Bforartists is a fork of the popluar open source 3d software Blender. The primary goal of the Bforartists fork is to deliver a better graphical UI and a better usability. This means a complete switch in the useage philosophy. Away from the hotkey and speed centered useage. Towards a user friendly and intuitive graphical UI. Note that Bforartists is fully functional. Every feature that works in Blender should also work in Bforartists."

infinity10 posted at 2:23PM Sat, 25 April 2020 - #4387261

It's been a long-time bugbear , but there is a version for artists : Bforartists https://www.bforartists.de/

Their blurb goes: "What is Bforartists? Bforartists is a complete free and open source 3D suite to create 3D content. It offers you the full 3D art pipeline to create game graphics, prerendered movies and stills. From modeling, sculpting, texturing, rigging, animation, rendering, up to post processing.

"Bforartists stands for Be For Artists. A reminder to develop for the user, not the programmer. Bforartists is a fork of the popluar open source 3d software Blender. The primary goal of the Bforartists fork is to deliver a better graphical UI and a better usability. This means a complete switch in the useage philosophy. Away from the hotkey and speed centered useage. Towards a user friendly and intuitive graphical UI. Note that Bforartists is fully functional. Every feature that works in Blender should also work in Bforartists."

WOW...many thanks for this. Installed it and love it. It's what the doctor ordered. I really do not want to set back in time to the late 1980s or early 1990s revisiting a world of MS DOS and shortcut keys.

Cheers & many thanks.