Blender For Dummies®, 2nd Edition

Blender IRC Channels on freenode.net

The ultimate place to go for instant discussion and feedback from other Blender users is the Blender IRC channels on freenode.net. IRC is Internet Relay Chat, one of the oldest protocols on the Internet. Using a chat program (called a client) like mIRC or Chatzilla or even the open source IM program, Pidgin, you can log into the freenode server. If you don't want to install anything, you can use a Web interface at http://webchat.freenode.net. Simply choose a nickname and join one of the many channels devoted to Blender.

In particular, the following channels may be most interesting to you:

• #blender: Kind of the obvious de facto official Blender channel. You can often get quick help here, but sometimes the channel is populated with people who only know as much about Blender as you do.
• #blenderchat: For general discussion, critique, and occasional help in Blender. This is probably the most active Blender channel on freenode and is a great place to interact directly with other Blender users.
• #blenderQA: As the name suggests, for getting your Blender questions answered. This is usually a pretty good place to go if you're having problems and need help quickly.
• #smc: Speed Modeling Contest. Visit this channel to really challenge yourself. Artists here organize challenges where everyone is given an object to model and a time limit (usually 30 minutes to an hour) to create that model and render it.
• #blendercoders: For people involved with actually writing ...