Helge Maus - Senior Trainer & Mentor 3d | animation | game art | game dev

The year is slowly coming to an end, and with it, our Blender training calendar for this year.

My last Blender Modeling course (2 days) in collaboration with Visualisierungs-Akademie Schweiz will take place online on December 18th and 19th. This is a german course.

Here’s the link to the course:
👉 https://visualisierungs-akademie.ch/de/kurs/blender-modelingkurs/ff1b0321-e948-41c1-bca6-1c23651e75ea

If you’d like to learn Blender or Godot online in English, check out the pixeltrain Academy website:
👉 https://www.pixeltrain.net/pixeltrains-academy/

Have a amazing weekend! 🙂

Helge

Blender 5.0 has arrived!

A new era for Blender has begun – Blender 5.0 is a major step forward.

Many new features are included in this version, but unfortunately, this also means that many artists with older hardware will now have to remain on Blender 4.5 LTS. Some platforms and hardware configurations are no longer supported! I will be taking this into account in my training courses.

Many areas have undergone a massive overhaul:
ACES Colorspace, color management in general, adaptive subdivision, multi-resolution baking, shader nodes improvements, NanoVDB, Compositor improvments, VSE, and of course, numerous improvements to Geometry Nodes.
I love specially the Drag & Drop compositor setups and the ability to save out node-setups for the use in other files.

Again the Blender team made a wonderful overview page for all the features:
https://www.blender.org/download/releases/5-0/

Here’s the usual feature overview as a video, this time over 50 minutes long:
https://youtu.be/4wEqD-jK0DU?si=Ah2WbuMHIp2OixY2

The Story Tools have also been integrated now:
https://youtu.be/4wEqD-jK0DU?si=Ah2WbuMHIp2OixY2

Here is also a nice overview for the Grease Pencil features:
https://youtu.be/WYZY4n3fRM0?si=mLoz83gI6VMXA-6I

And here for the Blender 5.0 Animations & Rigging updates:
https://youtu.be/s3kcPME65ic?si=SCA6NiqO_3-ZPb_0

Overall, a very large update. I’m curious to see how these features are received in practice by the community.

pixeltrain | Helge Maus is teaching online Blender & Godot

Here are the next dates for my Blender training courses (German and English, remote).
The German-language courses will be held in collaboration with the Visualisierungs-Akademie Schweiz GmbH:

🇩🇪 Blender Introduction Course, May 22 + May 23:
https://visualisierungs-akademie.ch/de/kurs/blender-einfuhrungskurs/21d29c48-ee8a-4549-a500-6f82f7ff7ddc

🇩🇪 Blender Rendering Course, June 12 and June 13:
https://visualisierungs-akademie.ch/de/kurs/blender-renderingkurs/98514946-325f-4818-bcdb-4f6b351a490b

🇩🇪 Blender Animation Course, July 3 and July 4:
https://visualisierungs-akademie.ch/de/kurs/blender-animationskurs/68ff897c-f766-4119-bea3-9f3422704d2f

🇩🇪 Blender Modeling Course, July 24 and July 25:
https://visualisierungs-akademie.ch/de/kurs/blender-modelingkurs/ff1b0321-e948-41c1-bca6-1c23651e75ea

The dates of my English Blender training courses (English, remote) are also available.
These courses consist of 4 sessions, each a half-day long.

🇬🇧 Blender Fundamentals course, starting May 22 + May 23:
https://www.pixeltrain.net/pixeltrains-academy/

🇬🇧 Blender Shading & Rendering course, starting June 09 + June 10:
https://www.pixeltrain.net/pixeltrains-academy/

🇬🇧 Blender Rigging & Animation course, starting July 07 + July 08:
https://www.pixeltrain.net/pixeltrains-academy/

More information and all dates can be found on my website.
Please contact me if you have any questions or specific training requests!

Blender 4.4.1 is released!

The first bug fix update for the current stable version of Blender has been released:

Blender 4.4.1
https://www.blender.org/download/

This version contains 108 bug fixes. A detailed list of changes and fixes can be found here:
https://developer.blender.org/docs/release_notes/4.4/corrective_releases/

At the same time, the current LTS (long-term support version) of Blender has been updated to Blender 4.2.9.

Enjoy Blender!

PS. If you are looking for a “Blender Fundamentals class (English)” / “Blender Einführungs Kurs (deutsch)” you can find my details on: https://www.pixeltrain.net/events/

Blender Kurse 2025 mit Helge Maus - pixeltrain

The new dates for my next Blender training courses (German and English, remote) have been announced. The German-language courses will be held in collaboration with the Visualisierungs-Akademie Schweiz GmbH:

🇩🇪 Blender Introduction Course, March 27 and 28:

https://visualisierungs-akademie.ch/de/kurs/blender-einfuhrungskurs/21d29c48-ee8a-4549-a500-6f82f7ff7ddc

🇩🇪 Blender Rendering Course, June 12 and 13:

https://visualisierungs-akademie.ch/de/kurs/blender-renderingkurs/98514946-325f-4818-bcdb-4f6b351a490b

🇩🇪 Blender Animation Course, March 3 and 4 July:

https://visualisierungs-akademie.ch/de/kurs/blender-animationskurs/68ff897c-f766-4119-bea3-9f3422704d2f

🇩🇪 Blender Modeling Course, July 24th and 25th:

https://visualisierungs-akademie.ch/de/kurs/blender-modelingkurs/ff1b0321-e948-41c1-bca6-1c23651e75ea

The dates of my English Blender training courses (English, remote) are also available.
These courses are each four half-days long.

More information and all dates can be found on my website:

🇬🇧 https://www.pixeltrain.net/pixeltrains-academy/

Please contact me if you have any questions or specific training requests!

pixeltrain Blender Academy mit Senior Blender trainer Helge Maus

A quick reminder for all Blender enthusiasts:
Next week I’ll be starting two training courses for BlenderFundamentals:

pixeltrain Blender Academy – Fundamentals (with Senior Blender trainer Helge Maus)
starting from January 20th, remote, in 🇬🇧 English:
👉 shorturl.at/e8NG3

Blender Grundlagen Schulung (mit Senior Blender Trainer Helge Maus)
in collaboration with the Visualisierungs-Akademie Schweiz GmbH
January 23rd + 24th, remote, in 🇩🇪 German:
👉 shorturl.at/cXWj4

There are still seats available in both courses 🙂
I’m looking forward to seeing you,

Helge

Helge Maus with his dog Bailey at the beach.

Let’s talk 2025!

Yesterday was officially my first day at work and I would therefore like to wish you all a healthy, successful and happy year 2025. All the best for you personally and for your creative projects 🎨!

Like last year, I published my annual planning and a few thoughts on my (free) Patreon
👉 https://www.patreon.com/posts/lets-talk-about-119489745?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link

Have fun!
Helge

pixeltrain Blender Academy 2025 with Senior 3D-vfx-GameDev Trainer Helge Maus

Let’s go into a successful and creative year 2025.

If you want to learn Blender in a structured and practice-proven way, then I would like to introduce you to our pixeltrain Blender Academy.

With our module course system you build your own learning path tailored to your needs. The modules can be booked separately according to needs and prior knowledge.

pixeltrain’s Academy is characterized by small learning groups, well-structured units while keeping room to meet the needs of each individual.

All sessions are held live by Senior 3D & VFX trainer Helge Maus.

Module 1: Blender Fundamentals
20.+21. Jan.’25
27.+28. Jan.’25

Module 2: Blender Shading & Rendering
10.+11. Feb.’25
17.+18. Feb.’25

Module 3: Blender Animation & Rigging System
10.+11. Mar.’25
17.+18. Mar.’25

What’s included?

– Each module consists of 4 live sessions with a total length of 16 hours (4 x 4 hours)
– Each module takes two weeks with two sessions each week (Tuesday + Wednesday)
– Live sessions + downloadable recordings of each session
– Exercises + feedback
– Private discord channel for the students

Information and registration:
👉 https://www.pixeltrain.net/pixeltrains-academy/

If you have any questions, please let me know 🙂

Blender Goo Engine for NPR Rendering

Are you a fan of NPR Rendering or Anime in Blender? Big things are coming to Blender.

Screenshot

I’ve written a short article on my (free) Patreon about that:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/blender-npr-and-118284610?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link

Have fun!

Helge