RedPhantom posted at 10:56AM Fri, 11 June 2021 - #4421015

I think that while some aspects of Blender are interconnected, they aren't all. If you want to import things from other software, you're still going to need to know the camera system, shading, rendering, lighting. But you won't need to know sculpting, modeling (unless you want to create more for your scene), scripting, animation (unless you're doing a video), etc. Granted, once you start doing that, you may start looking at other things to add. Wait, I can make a tornado?

How much you need to learn depends on what you want to accomplish. My first use for blender was a uv mapper. That's all. Nothing else. I modeled in wings and had been doing uv mapping in roadkill, but I didn't like it. I got tired of bouncing between wings and blender, so I decided to learn to model in it.

You are correct. You won't need to learn sculpting or modeling just to render a scene properly. However, it helps to have some basic understanding of these concepts to get the BEST possible renders. More specifically, a basic understanding of topology will ensure that the models you are using do not have surface or geometry errors that will cause certain defects or artifacts in your render. I know this isn't the biggest concern to most people, but you might be surprised to learn how often this happens among people who just have no idea about modeling or sculpting at all.

For example, perhaps an individual has downloaded certain stock models from a free resource like "3d Archive" or something of that nature. The models there are typically very old and have been created using techniques that are mostly obsolete by today's standards. All of those models are .3ds format, which is a very old 3dsmax file format from back in DOS era 3d modeling. It will only support 64k polygons per model, etc. These types of models will often contain many frustrating issues if used with a modern render engine like Cycles that some people who have zero knowledge about geometry or modeling may not know how to fix. Issues like overlapping faces (Z-fighting), flipped normals, light leaking, overlapping vertices, unwelded edges, and the list goes on. These are common problems often found in "free" models out there on the internet which could make or break an otherwise perfect render, and cost the user a few wasted hours or days trying to figure out how to fix this issue. Someone with basic knowledge about modeling could use Blender's tools to quickly repair these anomalies and save a ton of time and effort.

Topology problems in rendering is something not exclusive to just cheap or free models either. Some high-end models that you pay good money for may cause problems in Eevee render engine too. Some content creators may not design their models to work with real-time render engines like Eevee. Some models may not have the proper normal map configuration, some may not use PBR maps with their models, and still there can be geometry issues that will cause render artifacts in both Eevee and Cycles, even in high end models. Most of these issues are super simple to correct directly in Blender, if you just take some time to at least learn the basic tools. It may not be necessary, but it can go a long way in saving you some time in the end.

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