There are a lot of great Blender tutorials and many of them are terrible. Have you ever wondered what the most-viewed Blender tutorial of all time is?
The most popular (by views) Blender tutorial video was uploaded in 2022 by Polyfjord, a digital artist from Norway who makes some incredible stuff. The video was “How to Create Robotic Arms in Blender.”
Two years later, it has over 35 million views. Read below for more about the tutorial, or just watch it right now…
From scratch, Polyfjord creates four robotic arms reminiscent of “Doc Oc” from Spiderman. He models, rigs and animates the arms during the 20-minute video.
Along the way, we watch Polyfjord model an individual joint of the arms and then duplicate it (he did it manually without an array modifier). Then he shows how to add an armature for animating the robotic arm. His technique of adding a single bone and then subdividing it was a really helpful tip.
The video is also a great introduction to inverse kinematics, which is on my list of 50 Blender terms you should know.
The tutorial continues to cover how to attach the robotic arms, using parenting, to a human character downloaded for free from Mixamo.
Polyfjord’s step-by-step explanation simplifies a complex creation into something that any novice can replicate. His generous donation of time in creating this video has apparently helped millions of Blender users worldwide.
I personally found the tutorial very useful. I of course was also fascinated as to why this video got so many view compared to other great Blender tutorials. I learned something about that also.
Brandon Stocking
