Blender is where most new TAs start - it's free, it's everywhere, and its Python API is genuinely good. What nobody hands you is the production part: making Blender shake hands with engines, pipelines, and teams. That's this section.
The starter kit: units, axes, pivots, and export presets - so your asset lands in Unreal or Unity correctly on the first try, not the fifth.
-> B-02Houdini thinking, Blender dialect. Fields and attributes explained through building an actual scatter tool an artist could use.
-> B-03Copy-ready recipes - batch exports, auto-LODs, scene audits, custom properties - each with the gotcha that would otherwise cost you an hour.
->Three honest reasons. It's the zero-cost on-ramp: every skill on the Start Here path is practicable in Blender tonight, license-free - which is why indie studios (and increasingly mid-size ones) build whole pipelines on it. The Python story is first-class: everything the UI does, bpy does - the API and the application are the same program, which makes it the best DCC to learn automation in. And it forces pipeline literacy: because Blender isn't the industry default, using it professionally means mastering the export handshake - units, axes, naming, metadata - which is exactly the knowledge that makes you valuable in any DCC. Learn the handshake here, and Maya's version of it is a Tuesday.
What Blender won't cover: AAA character rigging pipelines still speak Maya, and heavyweight proceduralism belongs to Houdini. That's fine. Depth in Blender plus literacy in the handshakes transfers further than people expect.
The Technical Artist