Thank you Can you hear me? Yeah. All right Hi, everyone things that you all join me here. I'm I'm deck Zachariah is Reinhardt, but I think this a bit complicated. So call me. Call me. Just Zeck if you like and This time I want to show you some sculpting stuff I'm a freelance artist. I also do some blender training and I just love sculpting and Over the past years. I practice sculpting a lot and I think I will just show you some Some things that I learned in the past few years So but before I start I Want to show you a short teaser. I was working on in the last couple of days it's basically about a product I am working on it's somehow related to sculpting and Let's show this first and Thanks a lot Yeah, this is a product. I'm working on for almost a year now So I hope everything will work right so that I can publish this in December and I have to Say a huge. Thank you to render street. I know Mario's Thanks a lot because they made it possible that I can render this whole thing in just one day. I have left So a lot a huge. Thank you Okay Well, this is a advanced sculpting workshop But still I want to show you how I learned sculpting because I think it's important for all of the people that Do not know how to sculpt So I have this little Sheets here. So this is basically my My my my way on how I learned sculpting so Certainly important is to just learn the fundamentals to to get to know the the tools what you are using there no matter what tools you are using in my case certainly blender and I find it pretty useful if you start sculpting start with very simple Fantasy feed creatures or characters because there you don't need to take much care about Anatomy or something like this and then Certainly practice is a very important part of sculpting. I will talk about that in a second After you practice for a while, certainly you should improve your workflows Over the years every year. I learn new stuff and it's pretty helpful after you have some experience to just watch Professionals sculpting and time lapses So if you're a beginner watching time lapses and have no idea what they are doing there I guess it's more important if you have more experience then the time lapses are very helpful Then improve your efficiency and there I want to draw some attention on sculpt January Which is a project I started with a friend manual over there and This is basically the the thing that gets me going. So let me show you some stuff here 2014 manual came to me and asked me Hey, should we do a challenge in January? Just do one sculpting every day and I saw it Well, it's a cool idea. It sounds challenging and I just wanted to learn sculpting really bad and Then we just started Skype January I saw it well not just not do it alone Just make a Facebook group and invite other people to join and so Skype January was born and yeah I did it twice completely and in 2017 I did like 12 because I just wanted to improve the quality a bit So to see how I improved over the years. I just show you What I did this is 2015 where we started the whole thing so down there we for every for every day in the whole month we pick a topic and Don't know you can see the topic and how much time I needed for the sculpting's and Yeah, it's basically where I really started sculpting. It's not the best stuff But I learned a lot really a lot so and there I also try to make it pretty fast so most of the things are really rough and not pretty polished and It was a very hard challenge to do it every day Besides your job and family life and all this stuff. So sometimes I just worked until late at night to get this done but Pushing you through there and really finishing everything helps a lot So I just Skip through here a bit So this just should give you an idea how I started then in 2016 I also finished the whole months After one month of sculpting you are super tired of sculpting and doesn't touch it for the next few months But I think you can see that in the next year. I improved quite a bit and Also the sculpting time got shorter By the way, the videos you also can watch online just Google for a sculpt January so and 2017 as mentioned I did not all the 31 sculpting but a few of them and Also, I challenged myself to shade the sculptings in a very specific way Here you can see some of them some are my own creations some are Used concept art for from art station or this one here's by a David Roir, I had a baby at this. I still have a baby, but that's the reason why I did something like this Yeah, and this one was the last sculpting I did for sculpt January and this one was the first I did in 2015 and I guess you can see there's a little bit improvement in there So I really recommend you if you want to learn sculpting then Go ahead and practice in sculpt January. So certainly next January 2018 We will have another sculpt January. You can find it on my website Just basically just Google for sculpt January and you will find it Well, the internet is slow. I guess and also on Facebook. This is a sculpt January group where the most action takes place But you still can participate if you are not on Facebook. So you don't have to be on Facebook All right Let's go over to the actual sculpting process Certainly before we start we should prepare ourselves one important thing some of the things you just do once it's Set up the graphics tablet So I just will switch between the slide and what I'm doing here So just search for the way cam settings. It's in German here. Sorry for that But I just explain what I set up here because if you were think on blender You always navigate with a mouse wheel by clicking the mouse wheel To change the viewport angle and so on and if you just have the standard settings of the pen It doesn't work. So you have to switch mouse and pen and this is not really useful So what I like to do is to set the lower button of this pen to the middle mouse click So it's basically clicking this button here and the upper to the right click. So sometimes you have to do a right click and The other thing I do is to switch from this hover click to this click and tap I think it's your personal preference I really like this click and tap that means I have to click the button and just when I hit the Graphics tablet then this button will affect So and in this way I can easily navigate and blender by just So just have to check if everything is right here Because I just want to have one screen or two So, okay So this you can also change So now I just click the middle mouse button and when I'm drawing on the tablet basically I can rotate the view While holding down shift I can move this around and with control I can zoom in and out and this is pretty easy and now I just can control my whole viewport with only the pen and the keyboard So then the other thing let's close this one The other thing I have here is enable what would take around selection I mean, this is in general a cool thing. I have this always on but especially for sculpting This is also pretty helpful because if I switch to sculpt mode and enable dynamic topology I will tell about this a little bit later And if I now sculpt somewhere here and make changes The the view will lock this place where sculpted and then I can rotate around this specific spot So when I sculpt here, it will around this area when I sculpt here This will rotate around this area and this is extremely helpful because if you have this off It can be pretty annoying to Control where you are if you sculpt here and then the camera is rotating in a completely different direction You always have to move your fewer wound So I really recommend enabling this one so then install the sculpt tools add-on this Contains basically tools which you have in blender already, but just in one place so you can access them a bit quicker This is an external add-on you have to download them just Google sculpt tools add-on for blender If you don't want to do this you also can enable the bull tools and the modifier tools Which allows you to do the main things I do with the sculpt tools add-on as well So you can find it over here. It's an actual fact nothing really you do in sculpt mode It's more like using boolean operations for merging objects or Remaching the objects quickly or apply all the modifiers from all the selected objects But as mentioned you also can do this with the bull tools. I have this enabled already You can find it over here. I guess It also has this boolean operations to quickly add boolean modifiers and so on It's much faster than go in here at boolean modifier and so on and then we have this modifier tools You can find it here, which basically allows you if you have modifiers on here To apply all modifiers from all the selected objects and so on so why we need this I will show you in a second Then enable mad caps or quick preferences Mad caps we can find here in the property in a properties panel under shading. We can enable the mad caps it's quickly collapses and This are basically Some kind of shading which will lie above the whole scene and you can choose between different shading modes And this just helps you to to understand the shape of the thing you are sculpting even better But I read somewhere online that this also takes a bit of performance. I don't know how much this really Effects but there's also this quick preferences add-on which you can download for free there you can basically change the Solid shading lighting and there are some presets and I also always use this dark gray Adjust this a bit because here you really good can see The edges of the object and they can read the the shape of your objects pretty well so this makes this even easier to sculpt on and Yeah, one other thing is entering auto graphic view I find it really hard if you are with numpad 5 let me enable the shortcuts here So if you are in a perspective view, it's pretty hard To sculpt in this area and then back here So you don't know the relation between the the proportions you're sculpting here. So and if you're entering Autographic view is numpad 5. It's it's much better to see it. It's just something I experienced So I it's hard to describe this in a proper way But yeah, just try it out for yourself Certainly is some areas if you're sculpting a character and want to sculpt under the arm For example, you have to switch to perspective view from time to time But in most cases, this is pretty helpful and the last thing I do is also on the list here enable only render that means if you under display click on only render all the grid the helping objects and so on will be disabled and you just have The object itself and for sculpting itself You just basically need the 3d viewport and the tool shelf Sometimes and then you can scout and there's also a little trick if you for example press alt f 11 You have this window less full-screen mode and if you press alt and f 10 in addition you have this full Full-screen mode from the 3d view and now you can easily sculpt without any distractions So to to get back to the original view you press alt f 10 again or up in this corner. You can click this button here So this are the basic things I do to prepare for sculpting So let's go on here sculpting workflow. Okay So over the years I Developed my sculpting workflow, or maybe I just steal from other artists. I don't remember anymore But I mean some of the things are certain for any 3d projects like using references or concepts depending on what you want to sculpt. It's always super important Then building up a solid base mesh. This is what I used to do that means some people are just starting with a sphere and Dragging all the forms out of it, but I like to prepare The base mesh I will show you this and What I also see a lot of beginners doing Wong I would say is started with a very high resolution So if you start with a very high resolution and sculpt over it, it's just a pain and I can clearly understand why people stop sculpting then So in actual fact you can create pretty awesome Shapes already was a very low resolution. So this is Interesting, so let's get the first things first. I Want to show you on this example here. This was from Skype January 2017 How I basically did that this is 100% dynamic topology So I did not retopo this or texture paint this. This is 100% Dintopo and 100% procedural shaders on this So I used this nice concept art from Sergei Vasniev if I pronounce his name right I found this on art station And I really liked this the topic was turtle. So I don't want to scar this topic turtle and That's where I started So I hope planner will open up fast. Yeah, okay. This is the base mesh I created and For creating base measures I use very simple shapes you can see this one here is an actual fact just a cube with some extrusions and sub-serve modifier on this So basically you just add a cube Put a sub-serve modifier on this and then in edit mode depending or according to your Concept art you start building the shape just by extruding and scaling and moving the stuff around so and I used to Do all the parts like the limbs and in this case the head and the neck here as separate objects as you can see This is all separate also all the fingers here Because we will join them afterwards. So if I for example want to add a head here. I Would add for example another cube Put a sub-serve modifier on this then shape this a bit for example, whatever we wanted to create and In this way I create the basic shapes here and you can Use everything for creating your base measures For example, you can use curves if you like because also curves you can convert to mesh objects at the end You need mesh objects here the basic curve and in the curve settings for example, we can set the full method to full and then increase the depth here and the resolution and With alt s I can scale these dots here and this way you can add tentacles Tails or whatever and when you're done with all this you can convert this with alt C and Convert this to a mesh and now this is a mesh object and you can use this for sculpting the same way I Can use the skin modifier for example I did this here. You can see I'm only editing an edge here. Let me turn off the modifiers So this is what I have in the edit mode in actual fact Then I add a mirror to mirror this to the other side the skin modifier Which is creating the mesh around one edge and the sub-serve modifier to make it bit rounder Same thing I used for the fingers as you can see so it's pretty easy to just quickly build up some measures So you might ask yourself. Why don't you use a skin modifier for everything? Because the skin modifier was built to create base measures for sculpting but if you are Extruding a lot of things it might happen that you get these glitches here And if you then start sculpting and have this weird glitches Then you will have some bad errors in there and need to solve them later And this is not really fun. So I used to separate everything from each other So certainly if you want to do the fingers you just copy the arms go and edit mode quickly adjust this stuff So it also works pretty fast. So and how can I start sculpting now on this? we now I Usually do not join everything now because for example if I start with a very low resolution on sculpting and Sculpt over the fingers, then I totally destroy the fingers. So I usually just combine all the bigger parts from What I'm sculpting here like the arms and the body But right now we can't do this because we have all this modifiers on and there we use this sculpt tools add-on and Here I just can select everything and click on apply mods But first I want to increase the resolution so that every object has about the same resolution So Like this select everything apply mods and now from all the objects the modifiers are applied as you can see so now We need to join these things, but not with control J. This typical adjoining operation. It needs to be United with the boolean operation. So I click on this union You can also use a boolean modifier or the bool tools as mentioned and now if I fly inside this object You can see that we will have a hole in there. So both things are an actual fact connected with each other So now we can switch over to sculpt mode It's quickly Enable quick pref with a dark. Okay. I think it's fine Okay in sculpt mode when I start sculpting I Certainly enable dynamic topology. You also can do it with control D if you like and I recommend to switch The detail type method to constant detail Because otherwise You will have a different level of details according how close you are zooming into your object And now we have this fixed resolution slider. This is a divider for one blender unit so The bigger the number here the bigger the resolution is with this eyedropper you can click on your object and get the Resolution from this specific Edge you're clicking on so usually I go a bit higher than this This is the basic settings I have here in sculpt mode and also I always start to sculpt Symmetrically if possible because you will save a lot of time if in the first few detail rounds you just have a symmetric object So as you can see I just have the standard brushes in 99% of the cases I just use the standard brushes and In actual fact just a few of them The my main tool is a clay stripes brush. I think a lot of other artists will agree on that and And Yeah, we have some basic settings here like the radios the strings and so on I don't want to cover all this because this is more like a beginner topic We can change the resolution in viewport with by pressing F Or with control F. I can also Sorry shift F. I can control the strings. So in actual fact, I did not really need this thing here Also, all the brushes I can access through shortcuts. For example, if I press one two three four And so on as you can see up there. I can change The brushes and on my website. I also have this sculpting sheet sheet So if you want to have sheet sheet with all the sculpting brushes, you can find it there So and now Basically, if I just use the smooth brush I now want to smooth the transition between these two objects and go over here. This in actual fact works quite well but what I wanted to show you is Sometimes you just need to add some details there because the smooth brush is not adding details so I have to go over here if I Swim in here, you can see that I'm adding details by sculpting over here depending on the resolution you set here and In this way, I can quickly smooth this area and In just a second it looks like these two objects are in actual fact belonging to each other So smooth over it and in this way I can quickly Add some details I'm not an anatomy expert, so I use references I have this anatomy figure from 3d total comm which is pretty helpful because you can touch it and Turn it around and see how all this is interacting with each other So I really would recommend this and then we just use the basic brushes I also use a crease brush a lot to define The major shapes and you can see the resolution is pretty low at the moment and I just would start to define The basic shapes with holding down control I can take geometry away basically with normal left click I can add geometry and in this way I just start to define the basic shapes after a certain point when I'm fine with this I just take the next one and add it to my mesh using the scalp tools union and Then I can go on sometimes you can see that Dintopo is disabled so you have to enable this again and now as you can see I quickly smooth this area and Now the legs are also belonging through the body So now I want to skip this a bit All these iterations here are the original iterations So you can see what I did here Here you can see I added the arms to the body and sculpted some shapes And also you have to keep in mind that if you're looking at the concept art that most of the body is covered with This armor thing so certainly we don't need to sculpt everything in detail from the body Then let's go on with third one Here you can see here I also added the head and the neck to the body and sculpted even more details I think a detail level like this would totally be fine for the body itself If some claws are over it then you can see I added the legs and Sculpted even more you can see the detail level is a bit higher So I would recommend not just going higher and lower with a detail level just at a certain point where you realize that you can't go higher with a certain detail level you have then you Increase the details a bit and then go in the next detail level and if you're fine with this go a bit higher and at the next detail level so and as mentioned try to keep as low with the details as long as possible because unfortunately blender can't handle that much polygons that good so since I know from the beginning that I wanted to sculpt this specific concept art and also in the same angle at a certain point I added the camera for this perspective and Certainly the creature has not a symmetrical pose. So I started to pose this creature So I had the main details also for the arms on both sides So I don't need to sculpt them on both sides separately and then I just added an armature system So very basic stuff here and now I can Rotate the arm Like I needed Same thing I did for the other arm and as you can see at this stage I did not add the fingers here because the fingers are a bit different on both hands So I did not sculpt in in this stage And one important thing certainly if you have posed your creature Every time you add an armature system, there will be also a amateur modifier added So you have to apply this to go on with dynamic topology sculpting. Otherwise you get some weird glitches there so So here I added this armor thing. Let's quickly take a look in the modifiers here This is the base mesh basically so we will modify on this subsurf modifier solidify modifier to make it thick and Another subsurf to smooth this a bit So as you can see I did not Take much time to create the the base meshes and all these details on there You can put a lot of objects there, but I just sculpted them using the the crease brush and the clay stripes brush mainly Also, you can see here. I increased the resolution a bit so basically what I did is adding some shapes here then go in with a Crease brush you can see here and at this lines and In this way you can quickly Add this kind of shapes so it's super basic stuff I used here and also all these things I guess it doesn't even make sense But it looks like this on the concept art and it was fine to me in this case So this is also I'm not sure was the symmetry sculpting I guess you're not let's go a little bit on here Yeah, you can see here suppose much more clear also. I added more details to the legs I guess then the wooden stick I also added in the previous version and here you can see I adjusted my base mesh fingers So it's always possible to add base meshes or objects to your object or remove something For example, if you realize that the neck is completely not what you want You can for example quickly add an object here Select both and then also in the sculpt tools add-on or bull tools you can use a difference option to cut this off and Then you can add other objects there if you like or just sculpt over is check the in topo here Sculpt over this and clear this area if you like so just smoothing add a little bit of details and Now he has no head anymore So what I will try to tell you is Sculpting is a very creative process. So not the first way you sculpt this will be perfect So it's always nice to change things and I also recommend not using undo just try to cut something off put something else there and Start to sculpt over it like you would do it in real life. So I think here was not much change Let's see some progress here so yeah now as a fun part here, I sculpted the back thing here and let's turn this around and Certainly also down here. I know that this thing will also just be viewed from one specific angle And certainly I don't want to put much more time in it than needed So I just sculpted the stuff that we can actually see from one side on the final model. You will see this even more So basically now it's just adding more and more details going higher with a detail level here You can see I think this is nearly the final thing You can see I also added some very simple eyes I also would recommend never put the eyes into the mesh itself joining this because it will be very hard to sculpt around the eyelets and so on because then they are merging with the eyes and you get some weird eye shapes and Yeah, also here if I turn it around you can see it's too face Yeah So what's still missing here is the details for this wooden stick But you also can see the hands were sculpted and I also added other stuff like here and at some point if we take a look under his Armour it's looking like this So I wanted to add some more details to the arm and if you have this big creature and Sculpt super high details. It can be quite slow at some point So in this case it was lucky because the whole body is covered with the armor And I just cut everything off and then if you sculpt on one object alone and add more details This is much quicker or smoother than if you have the whole body and sculpt on this thing so I just cut everything off and And then this way it was much easier to scout the whole thing So I guess let's jump a little bit further here So this was a final model. You can see I added some details here. These are just basically just a few strokes with a crease brush over here and a few strokes with a clay stripes brush so 99% of the cases I just use this two brushes and And for adding holes for example, I use The block brush so we can Use a different curve here just Substract by holding down control and I should increase the resolution But you can see that I can easily create holes and I use this for the eye holes To add the eyes there and if I need to create other holes So And let's finally check the final model here So and this is what we have here I added some basic light setup the camera certainly and the ground and as you can see even in the final shot I did not scout the rest on the other side and Let's see how much time we will have left but everything all the shading as mentioned is procedural generated. I Hope I can show you Some little things of this. So let's take a look here As you can see I used a reference. I created a solid base mesh I used a very low resolution from start on Then I used to keep everything separated especially the smaller things like the fingers and so on Then I increased the resolution in steps after I have a certain resolution done then I increase it not every time up and down and Here's a little trick I found out Not that long ago if you want to add this very high level like using textures Texture brushes to add for example skin Details that you can flood fill the whole mesh that means the whole mesh will have one resolution Then you turn off dynamic topology and then you can in actual fact sculpt quite smoothly so Let me show you this then it's even possible to have millions of polygons so That means in the standard sculpting settings so you don't need an add-on for this with dynamic topology You have this detail flat fill if you click on this this detail size you have here will be Filled the whole mesh so everything has the same resolution then But I have to increase this a bit Let me check this. This is 50 okay, let's double this and Let hit the button Certainly this can take a short while So let's check this you can see also from the outside it does not really show up but it has a quite high resolution now and I think I should increase this even more so that it starts lagging here. This can take some time so Anyway, if this takes too long, I will Stop this but It's pretty cool because after this you can turn off dynamic topology You have a even the subdivision everywhere and then you can pretty easy and smooth sculpt all the details on this stuff so Okay, you can see it now start lagging so let's disable dintopo and I hope I Don't tell shit here so and now Can see it's pretty smooth So compared to the other before it's pretty nice Certainly you will have much more polygons than before But you also have much more details Okay Let's go on to another topic Which I want to cover solving problems Everyone has sculpting problems So here are some Some things I used to do if I have some problems Yeah, if you know blender then you probably know apply scale. I also gave some sculpting workshops in Germany and There was this one guy who did this very special thing I have no idea how he did this But you can scale your objects in object mode like something like this Now you can see the z scale factor is at 30 and then somehow in edit mode He scaled it down probably So that it has a normal shape again But you can see the scaling factor in for the z direction is still 30. So if I now switch to We even get a warning up here that we have a non uniform scale And if I now start sculpting here that's enable this this Increases a bit like 20 and let's use a standard sculptor brush if I now sculpt on this You can see this weird thing is happening like it's scaling in this certain direction So and if something like this happens Undo this and then press ctrl a and apply the scale So you can see now this is back at one We have a uniform scale again, and if I now scale sculpt on here everything looks fine again So next thing is make normals consistent. This is especially if you want to join certain things with with the bull tools or the sculpting tools and one object has a negative scale for example Like sometimes you more objects by scaling this by a negative one so you have Negative scale and sometimes if you then apply the scaling you can see the normals are switching this we can see by the strange color this thing has and if we do not do this so the scale is still negative and we Will tool this Sorry not speed sculpt speed sculpt is by the way another cool sculpting add-on which is paid at cost ten euros You can find it online, which is also pretty helpful I can really recommend so and in this case Nothing happens. So Blender improved. That's nice But before it was like this and the two objects are not joining. It's like the difference option at taking stuff away So an actual fact I tried this yesterday, and I had no errors. So Good for us less problems So but anyway if you have ever problems with the normals It's pretty easy to solve this Basically you always can see it that your object has this very strange Color It's at something like this here in this case and normals are flipped that means the One face the one side of the face is showing up just switched to edit mode select everything and press control n Then this will be solved in most of the cases So we move doubles. This is also nice if you're for example It also happened to me once if you have an object and accidentally Duplicate this in edit mode. So you have basically two objects on the same spot While sculpting you did not really notice this so it still works, but I should apply the modifier So if I know sculpt here looks pretty nice But if you then again join objects with a boolean operation, then it can cause some bad troubles So an actual fact you did then if we take a look in here two vertices aligned on each other Select everything and down here you have this removed doubles So all the vertices which are on the same spot will be joined you can see quite a lot Were removed and then you can sculpt and join objects again pretty easily sometimes for example, if you already sculpted a lot on here and now want to add some other parts and Didn't realize this and then it's not sometimes not possible to do this remove Doubles because the vertices are shifting away from each other Then it's nice to make a quick remesh For this you can either use the scalp tools add-on With this remesh option or you do a quick remesh with the remesh modifier Which is basically the same thing just here you can access this a bit quicker Just increase the resolution to high quick on remesh Then the whole thing will be rebuilt with a new shape or a new new geometry But this strange overlapping things will be removed as well So if you ever have problems joining objects together, this is really one little trick Which can help you just remeshing the object and if you don't like the remesh algorithm from the remesh modifier I can recommend you this tool instant meshes, which is also for free. It's super easy to use Which allows you to quickly remesh your objects with a beautiful Yeah, topology basically so There you have even better Okay, time is running fast here. You can see it as well Yeah, and one thing I also want to show you is transferring details to the multi resolution modifier Imagine you have a very high resolution of your model and want to work with this somehow And your viewport is just lagging around and it's not taking much fun anymore So you can use this trick either for if you want to create a quality high quality production ready characters Or if you want to just quickly have basically levels you can turn on and off for your For your object. So here we have a example This year is a dynamic topology sculpting as you can see I did don't ask me what this thing is this thing here is Is a complete retop of this I did this manually because I wanted to animate this character But certainly you can just use a remesh modifier or this instant meshes tool to just quickly build Very simple retopology object. So this thing here has 5000 faces not much and I don't want to click but you can see it's it's a lot. I don't want to enter edit mode now because Then I probably crash What we now can do is To add The multiverse modifier. Let's do this from scratch. Let's add the multiverse modifier Which is similar to the subs of modifier. We can now subdivide the mesh a Few times and you will see that this looks Similar if we add a subs of modifier Then I will add the shrink web modifier and Here we can choose a target object. So in this case, it's a high-poly object. So let's Choose this and Now you can see that all the faces from our low resolution object will be projected on the high resolution object You can see we have some glitches in here because my retopo object Also has a mouse hole in there Let's discover the area from inside. So and Certainly, this will also be projected on our mesh But I in edit mode. I just created a vertex group for the mouse Area for the inner mouse area and in the shrink web modifier. We can exclude this area if we like so The shrink web will not apply on the inner part of this area So now comes the cool part you can do a few adjustments here, but you can see it already works quite well If it's doing something Please okay Just open this again. So, okay here. I've set up everything as you can see and If I now apply The shrink web modifier. Let's do this quickly. You can see it's still there. So All this information from the shrink web modifier now are stored inside the multi-web modifier That means if you have a other Order in the modifier stack this will not work So the shrink web modifier has to be below the multi-web modifier and now the cool thing I can basically change the levels of subdivisions here and Still have everything. So for example, if we now want to wick this Texture this animate this we just disable the multi-web modifier We can do all this stuff and then we enable this again Also, if you just want to create the static sculpting you can use the same trick You can add some quick armatures just pose your lowest object here For example, if I just go into edit mode, which is not really possible in In this high-resolution sculpting I now can pose is pretty simple And you will see that all the details from this multi-web modifier are still there So nothing will be lost here The only thing that you can't do is to add new geometry to the mesh inside So if I now add some lookouts here or just extrude something This will certainly break the whole thing then you have to do it again But the other cool thing if you find out that on some areas this maybe not looks that nice. You still can edit at Enter sorry you can still can enter The sculpt mode and multi-web modifier was created for sculpting. You certainly can still sculpt on the Multi-web modifier information. So if you like you can also add more information here Change this also subdivide this even higher to add even more details to the sculpting if you like and This is working pretty well Yeah four minutes left So I will probably not go to the live session Okay, just a few words about shading So sometimes you just want to create this Sculpting and want to present it in a nice way. You don't want to animate this So it's nice to quickly shade this without creating UV maps and so on and in this way We can use procedural textures or seamless textures and the box mapping also, we can use vertex painting that means we are painting on the geometry itself not on a texture in actual fact and We can mix a lot stuff. Let's quickly take a look in this one here The cat So quickly all this stuff here. This one here is 100 percent procedural no external textures used Here I only used a papers texture for the diapers here and a skin texture for the skin This is 100 percent procedural This is also nearly 100 percent only the skin they added a seamless texture But the rest is procedural and this one here is 100 percent procedural So I think you can get quite nice details. Yeah, so let's quickly jump into this This Okay, just quickly so As you can see the note setup is not that complicated. It's quickly Take a look here So and here you can see what I mean with mix mix mix I have a lot of these mix RGB nodes and I'm basically mixing different Procedural textures together here up here we have this geometry node with a pointiness feature which you can plug into a color ramp and then Highlight some features of this creature This I use as a mixing mask for this mix RGB nodes So I mix two colors that means one color will show up on the white areas and one color on the black areas So let's take a look in this. I can change the colors if I like Green for example, so I easily can add a little bit of details then This attribute node you can add and type in the vertex color information here. So I went over to the Vertex paint mode and just painted something on the on the model in this case the nose because the nose should have a different color in this case and This is basically also a black and white mask. I used to mix with this color here. Now it's green Something like this and a new color for the nose basically I can also change this if I like Then I added with this object coordinate nodes this object output I used for the standard noise texture with this base which is basically just this colorful noise. I Created two of them one with small details one with big details Then I put this into a color ramp then it will be black and white and I can control the contrast basically as you can see here And this again is also black and white. I used again as mix mask for another node here to add just a little bit of color variation in the skin Also this stuff here same thing if you retweak this color ramp We can see we just have a few dots left. I also mixed them into the whole thing if I zoom in you can see it and The other stuff you can ignore just put the principal shader in there or something like this I have not much a plan of Pbr shading so I put just something quickly together. So it looks somehow nice. I mixed the subsurf scattering shader in there And as you can see now, we have this quick shading and it looks kind of interesting Also the golden stuff here. It's even simpler. I guess This is the golden material Let me show you this again quickly Yeah Also, this one is just a class shader and diffuse shader for the eyes pretty simple I think what makes this look so cool is by having a Wim light so just a area light in the back and one light in the side So you have this nice lighting. So lighting is one of the most important thing to present your Objects. Well, but I guess they can ask people like lap. They will show you some nice tricks Yeah Certainly what one other thing I want to mention I can show you this on this example here Here I added a Waffnes map, which is also basically a very simple Noise texture and with this value you can control the Waffnes on some spots It looks waffer in this case like water is dropping on him. So you get this Subtle realism effect pretty quickly. So and in this case, I just show you the model not much more because Time is over. So, yeah Here it's pretty slow, but you can see here also has color in some areas and this was painted in vertex paint mode and Julian Kasper a nice sculptor by the way Just mentioned that in the latest Blender 2.79 build the vertex paint mode was highly improved And I just tested it because Before it was unusable basically, but now it's pretty cool. You don't have this glitches if you paint over an edge For example, so definitely check out the latest build and test the vertex paint mode Yeah, I think I could talk on and on and on So I just if I had time I just want to sculpt this little one of this little characters from La Landa Hushuka It's the artist you find on Artstation, but yeah, we don't have any time anymore, but I Saw this way. So if you want to learn sculpting join sculpt January Also, we have this weekly CG challenge, which is basically not just sculpting only You can join every two weeks. We have a new challenge with great prices and sponsors, so definitely check this out and Yeah, that's it basically


Welcome everyone and thanks for joining. I'm Eva Ponce. I'm the Executive Director of the MITx MicroMasters Program in Supply Chain Management and I'm co-hosting this event with Dr. Ima Borrella. She is the academic lead for our MicroMasters Program. Hi Ima. Hi Eva. I'm really excited to be here today sharing information about our massive open online program with this audience. This is awesome. Thank you Ima. But before we start we would like to know more about you. So let's try to kick off this event with a poll and please share with us in which area are you currently working?  So in this event we want to introduce our MicroMasters Program in Supply Chain Management and we want to do this for those of you interested in learning more about supply chain management. Whatever your background, wherever you are coming from, there is a place for you in supply chain management and this program is here right for you just to help you on that. The program is designed to provide you with the fundamental concepts you need to better understand supply chain complexity and also to deal with confidence with supply chain challenges. We will introduce to you tools and techniques that you can apply during the course and also on your daily job. The program has been designed to be very, very industry oriented and very applied. It's designed to learn and apply what you just learned. And through this asynchronous and flexible journey, the program will bring you many opportunities to grow academically and also professionally. This program will help you learn and also up a skill you in the field of supply chain management. And we also open the door to study a master's degree at MIT and also at many other universities. And you will learn from us and also from our alumni about their data experience through this program. So here is the plan. For the first 10 minutes, Iman Ngai, we will provide an overview of the MITx MicroMaster in Supply Chain Management Program. Then we will introduce our panel of MicroMaster's alumni and discuss with them about their experience, their experience with the program and also their experience about the impact of this program on their career. And the last 15 minutes are just for you. You can bring your questions to us. So please use the webinar question and answers feature to ask any questions you want to bring to this webinar. We really hope that this is aligned with your expectation. But just to be sure, please respond to the poll that is live now. So please go to the poll and let us know why are you here today, what you want to learn today. And while you are filling out the poll, Ima is going to give you an overview of the first courses, our great way to the MicroMaster Program in Supply Chain Management. So Ima, the floor is yours. Thank you, Eva. Let me share presentation that we have prepared. Here we go. So starting a MicroMaster's program might seem daunting. So we would like to start discussing something very specific, which are the entry courses to our program. SC0x, Supply Chain Analytics and SC1x Supply Chain Fundamentals. Most people start our program with one of these two courses. SC0x Supply Chain Analytics just introduces the most common analytical methods used by supply chain management practitioners, such as basic data management, probabilities, statistics, simulation, optimization, algorithms. It's a toolbox for you to apply to solve your supply chain challenges. While SC1x Supply Chain Fundamentals focuses on the three pillars of any supply chain, which are demand forecasting, inventory management, and transportation management. So we could say that SC0x is the toolbox and SC1x provides the foundation of your learning journey. I really would like to highlight that these courses are great for people new to the supply chain management field, but also useful for professionals with years of experience in operations. But maybe they do not have formal education in this space. Taking these courses really gives them with the tools and the confidence to take on new challenges. So for example, let's look at today's audience to see where are you coming from. Let me share the results from poll one. Here we go. So most of you come from the supply chain management area, which is logical because it's a supply chain management program. And we are happy about that, but that's 38% of the respondent, right? Then we have people from procurement, finance, marketing and sales, research and development, other areas. And some people who are not working at the moment, maybe taking a break, studying. So we love to see this because that's also what we are serving our program. We have like thousands of people taking our courses with many different backgrounds and supply chain management is of increasing interest to people from other areas in the company. So something else that I would like to share with you today is that we know that many of you are working professionals. We know how difficult it is to find time to study. So the good thing about our online programs is that our online courses are asynchronous and ubiquitous. So you can watch the videos during your commute, just complete the practice problems at night, or actually whenever you find a moment and you have an internet connected device at home. So that's pretty convenient just to try to balance work, life and studies. And some of you may be wondering, will these courses be too boring or too theoretical? So I don't know if you're familiar with MIT's motto, which is mens et manus is Latin and it means mind and hand. So learn and apply. And this is exactly the approach that we have with our courses. You learn a concept or a tool and you immediately apply it to a practice problem within the course or to solve a problem beyond the course at your job. Students always share with us how quickly they have applied learnings from these courses in their jobs. So now that you know a little bit more about our online courses, Eva will tell you more about the whole program. Thank you, Inma. So the program includes five supply chain courses. So in addition to the first courses that Inma just presented, supply chain analytics and supply chain fundamentals, you can also learn supply chain design, supply chain dynamics and supply chain technologies and systems. One thing I wanted to highlight here is that our content is equivalent to MIT grad level courses. And at the end of the five supply chain courses, you need also to pass a comprehensive and final exam. Why? Because we want to bring value to the credential and we are going to do that through our rigorous assessment. As I mentioned, this is a picture from President Brave and Professor Josie Sheffi in one of our classrooms when they were introducing this innovative program. This is an Inma mention and online and massive program that we really want to bring value to this credential. And one way to do that is through this rigorous assessment and through the graduate level content that we are providing here. This credential also opened the doors to study at MIT. You can apply for the MIT master's degree after completing the entire program. After completing the comprehensive and final exam, you can apply to this master's degree. The credential also opened the doors to about 30 different universities across the world. You can apply to Arizona State University or Harvard Extension, Purdue University in the USA. You can also apply to the MIT's Zaragoza Logistics Center in Spain, to Queensland in Australia, and many other universities across the world. It's also globally recognized by the industry. So companies like Walmart, like CH Robinson, are using the MicroMaster content to upskill their employees. And companies like General Electric, or Toyota, or General Motor, Trumber J, are sending also the employees to the program. So finally, we also have companies that are hiring supply chain management professionals from this program. So as you can see, it's very, very connected with the industry. So, okay, so this is just a little bit an overview about our program. But now what we really want to do is to see if this webinar is aligned with your expectation. So let's have a look to the poll and let's discuss the results. Ima, do we have the results for the poll number two? Yes, we do have the results. And most of our audiences are here because they want to expand their supply chain knowledge. So as we saw that we have people from supply chain space, but also from other areas. So a lot of interesting supply chain and just wanted to deep dive into that. Some of you want to learn about the key concepts in the MicroMasters or are interested in adding the credential. But I love how like 14% just selected pure curiosity. So I guess many of you are just here just to see what this is about and just maybe see if this is something that may be interesting for you or not. So what we're going to do here is really, instead of just hearing about the program or about how different concepts can be applied to your jobs by Eva or myself, let's hear from our alumni. So Eva, would you like to introduce the panel? Definitely. I love to introduce the panel because as I mentioned, we think we believe that the best is to learn from our alumni, from those that already completed the entire program or already completed supply chain analytics or supply chain fundamentals and from their experience. So it's really my pleasure to introduce to you Jerry Nelson. Jerry is the Vice President of North America Surface Transportation at CH Robinson. Hey Jerry. Thank you for joining us today. Of course. Thank you for having me. Excellent. We also have with us Gaby. Gaby is a digital supply chain lead at Johnson and Johnson. Hi Gaby. Hello, hello everyone. Good afternoon. Good evening. Good morning. Thank you. And we also have with us Pranav. Pranav is a project program manager at Google. So the three of them has been completed supply chain analytics, supply chain fundamentals, Pranav and Jerry also completed the MicroMaster program. So we are very excited to have you joining today. Yeah. Let's start. So my first question is for you Jerry. I'm going to start with you. Why did you decide to take your first supply chain course? You're really, really busy with your full-time job. I think we're all busy with our full-time jobs and lives, that's for sure. But when I think back about why I decided to take it, when I came up through my formal education, my education was in organizational biology. So it had nothing to do with business. It had nothing to do with statistics, analytics, probability. I mean a lot of the things that we use on an everyday basis in supply chain. I had taken some other programs, post-graduate programs that I took. But then MIT really interested me really because it focused on things that I believed my customer would be impacted by. So really my focus was on my customer's experience. How do I think more like them? How do I understand their perspective to give them a better customer experience from my perspective? And really it did that and then some as a part of this program. This is awesome, Jerry. Thank you for sharing your experience. And Pranav, I'm curious about your learning journey. Which one was your first course? Yeah. So Eva, first of all, thank you so much for having us here. I started my journey in the year 2015 when I was still in school at Northeastern in Boston. And I started my online education with the MicroMasters courses with supply chain fundamentals and I was taking supply chain dynamics simultaneously. And I took analytics as a third course because at the time it was not offered year round. I think I really benefited from one of the most structured, comprehensive, and application-based online curriculums that currently exist out there in the domain of supply chain. The online courses really provided me a framework to understand what the nuances of an actual supply chain problem is that we face in our day to day jobs. How do you break it into smaller pieces and identify the right working methodology to actually solve the problem? I also wanted to share that it will be an understatement that how much of an impact the MicroMasters credential has made for me and changed the course of my professional career. While I was pursuing the credential, the learnings sort of helped me get a job in inbound logistics at Amazon. I then ended up completing the MicroMasters credential and that led me to getting accepted into the MIT residential program in SCM on campus. And all of that then eventually I graduated from the program and ended up in my current role at Google. And one thing that I want to share with the audience today is that having completed the online version as well as the on-campus program, I was I'm really blown away about like how intense and at par with the on-campus education is the MicroMasters credential is. The lectures, case studies, assignment problems and everything that is delivered online is at par with what is being taught on campus. So that is yeah, so these are some of the things that I want to share with everyone. Thank you, Pranav. And thank you also for showing this connection in between the online content plus the on-campus content. And also you mentioned about the flexibility of the online program like the MicroMasters. And this is the question I have for you, Gaby. How did this flexibility of an asynchronous program, because MicroMasters is online and asynchronous, how does this help you to achieve your learning goals and combine these with your daily responsibilities? Great question. First I'll just say I think the MicroMasters was thinking way ahead of what we would need in the future based on what we saw during COVID, right? MicroMasters has been ahead of learning and moving things online. And so what I'll share is very similar to Jerry, my background is in biomedical engineering and that's what I got my bachelor's in. And I had already been starting to see a future in pursuing a further education in supply chain management, specifically looking for to get my master's, but not sure exactly how. And when I had been recommended this MicroMasters specifically the supply chain analytics course first, that's when it really all started. And I love that it was online because I was working. I worked for Johnson & Johnson and every day is a busy day. There's constant action that's happening. And while still being driven and wanting to continue and further my education, this online course gave me that opportunity. And it was through this course that I was able to pair while working that started to open up that next chapter, which led me very similar to Pranav to go to MIT and complete the 10 month program in person. And I also completed the residential as Pranav did. That's excellent. This is great. Thank you for sharing your experience with that. And Ima, I'm sure you are curious about the concepts they learn how to apply. So definitely, yes. I think that really going to the specifics helps a lot to our audience, right? Because the program, it's like a big thing, a long commitment, but zero and one are right there. They got completed in three months. So I would love to know like what's something that you learned in one of these two intro courses that helped you create value to your daily job. So Pranav, would you like to share something? Yeah, sure. Ima, that's a great question. So in my five to six year long supply chain career, I've primarily been focused on demand planning, inventory management, and network design. And these are all topics that are in one way or the other covered in SC0X and SC1X. A couple of topics that really particularly stood out to me and something that I still go back to the course material every now and then to refer to some things are linear and nonlinear optimization models that is covered in SC0X. I think that's a topic that can frustrate a lot of people even at like a master's or a PhD level. And I love how simplified, like how much simple Chris makes that whole concept in those videos in SC0X. And it's so digestible.  It led me to sort of not only just not be afraid of optimization problems, but also set up like basic solutions or back of a napkin solutions when you are having conversations with your teams using Excel. And the SC0X course really gives you the tools to hit the ground running and get started with optimization problems, which obviously if you're interested in, you can further grow your knowledge on that. And speaking of SC1X, I think the inventory management module is so, like I love that whole module because it gave me the skills to actually create like a supply and demand planning model for one of the jobs that I had where I saw the product family, I saw the historical data, and I immediately started tying back concepts that I learned in SC1X as to, oh, hey, this is like this model will work perfectly for these set of skews. And then there's another model which will work perfectly for the next set of skews. So I think both these two courses are probably the most analytical ones in the whole series of the MicroMasters credential. And that is not to feel intimidated by it. Actually, by analytical, it means that it will give you the tangible skill sets that you will need and you may apply in your day-to-day job. Thanks for now. I think that's a great framing, right? Like many people are scared because there's a lot of mathematical models. There's a lot of math in general in these two first courses, but I do agree there are toolbox, right? So it really gives you the confidence on these little tools that you can apply to many challenges and conversations. And yeah, and I love the inventory module too. Yes, so fun and so insightful. So Jerry, how was your experience with that? Do you have like some like daring concepts that you to really apply to some specific situations? Yeah, for sure. I'll echo what Pernoff said. You know, the optimization section in SC0x and the modeling and stuff, inventory modeling stuff in SC1x were definitely probably the two most impactful when I think about it day-to-day use. I do have a funny story and I told you guys this funny story but I will tell the funny story. So part of this experience I reached out to mentors, which one of which is one of my clients that I work with. And in talking with him and really kind of trying to apply this to my day-to-day life, I started asking questions as I learned topics. And one of the things that came up really was around why and when you order a specific type of product. So we need this product. We're going to manufacture something. Here's when I order it. And so I started asking questions around, you know, if you order this today, how come you decide to order it this way?  Why would you do it that way? He goes, I don't know why they're doing it that way. Let me go ask a question. And so it ended up being a really funny experience but not probably not funny for him. But as they looked into it, he went down to the person who ordered this product that they need for manufacturing. He said, hey, help me understand from your perspective why are you and when are you deciding to order a product? And she goes, well, every Monday I come in and I push this button.  She goes, I don't know.  And every Monday that's going to order product and that product is going to come to us. No rhyme, no reason, no information. And so what we learned is obviously applying when you should order, why you should order the cost, etc. It was just kind of a funny experience that a lot of this gets missed potentially in day to day and very large clients throughout the world. But it's a cool task. It's a cool skill to learn. And when I think about this toolbox, for me especially, it's understanding this toolbox to ask better questions of my customers, better questions of my clients. And I'll end with lead time and mode selection and trade-offs probably is something that everybody thinks about as we couldn't get product and things can't get here and how do we make better selections as shelves get empty and inventories get lean. So there's a lot that comes in zero and one X. Don't be overwhelmed. Please take it. Work your way through it. You will be happy on the end because this is a great, great program. Thanks, Jerry. I love that you brought the topic of the trade-offs, right? Because I see one X is all about the trade-offs. There's not one perfect solution. There's always a trade-off between cost and service level between one transportation model or the other. There's no one better than other. It's just what is a better fit for your challenge or what you're trying to achieve. So yeah, I think that's awesome. And also how learning these concepts helps you to open discussions with many different people. It can be a client. It can also be like another department at your company. So that's, I think that that's super helpful for supply chain managers that need to deal with everyone to make this work. So Gaby, how the MicroMasters courses help you advance your career? So more in general or if you want to say something specific about a specific concept that was specifically, especially useful for you, that would also be great. Thank you. I mean, just to echo what Jerry and Pernoff have been sharing. The fun going back to the analytics, that fundamentals piece. I have been out of school for years when I was going back and I was great at math when I was graduating university. I didn't feel like I was as great at math when I was looking at the MicroMasters, but Pernoff mentioned it. The MicroMasters breaks down the concept so well and you can quickly get back up to speed. It's kind of like riding a bike in my mind. So if you're nervous about or hesitant about that, I definitely encourage you just to do it and leave it. And the reason why and to answer the question more directly now, I mentioned a little bit earlier, but I started with SCDRX and that's really what opened the door that led me to campus where I completed SC1X. And then that really kind of opened the doors to multiple other courses where I was able to get my master's in supply chain management. I had worked with Johnson & Johnson prior in multiple different roles across the end-to-end supply chain, but then going back, I went back, I graduated from the program in 2020. So write what some would consider, I guess, now the beginning of COVID. And the big, big buzz at that time was data. But that data was all based on how we use it and we had to go back to these fundamentals. So it was really kind of this perfect timing when I was coming out of school. And so what these courses ended up opening the door for me to step into was this digital supply chain leading space. And so I now say it on an end-to-end leadership team within one of our medical device supply chains in Johnson & Johnson where my job is to look and understand how we are using our data to solve the exact problems that we were learning about in these courses. And it really requires to understand those fundamentals because you can have a lot of data, but if you don't know how to use it correctly and what formulas you're going to be using or how to even look at it and how to slice it, that data, it's not going to get you anywhere. And once again, I think it's gotten brought up, those tradeoffs are critical in today's environment and understanding what data is feeding that. And really that's what I'm doing. And so this really propelled me into my current space today, which has been a blast having a ton of fun every day is fun. So supply chains always fun. You always get a new flavor, I think, every week. So yeah, that's, I think, in short where it's led me. And what I think the great thing is those courses are still there. I still have all my notes, so it's great to go back and take a look at what I jotted down and my Excel sheets that are hard to wire pulling those out, right? So once again, that's just another benefit of these programs. Thank you, Gabby. Thanks for sharing your experience. I think that's, it's amazing how like you think the learning thing at CCRX were so valuable for really like making sense of all the data, right? That a company generates and really create insights that are useful to better run operations. I think that's a challenge that many companies are facing now and that I'm really glad that CCRX helped. And of course, for more advanced course, AC4x also like talks about data and technology and systems and could be a great fit if anyone in the audience is interested in these kind of topics. Excellent. So I think it's very helpful for our audience and especially those that said, I'm curious about what is inside the MicroMaster program to learn about your own experience and how you have been applying this to your daily job. There is one more topic I want to be here because we know that also there are companies that are using the MicroMaster content in order to upskill their employees. Jerry, CH Robinson is one example. We have also Walmart. We have many different companies using this content for that purpose just to upskill their employees. How are companies like yours value this program for this purpose? For sure. No, it's been great. So our company has always been focused on how do we continue to advance our employees internally? How do we upskill them? And really what I would say is more about our company. How do you present better? How do you do better sales negotiation? A lot of skills that we owned ourselves, that we managed, we have a team that did it. After going through this program, myself and another colleague went to our boss and said, this is different. We need something like this to be able to understand from a different perspective what this customer-centric approach that we take in our organization, we need to have an outside approach. We need to have something more than just our own regular internal company upskilling, which is still good. But how do we have something better? How do we have an advanced or an upper level, graduate level type experience? And so we worked really closely with yourself and others to come up with a program that we took in and we have our first cohort completing right now. The skills are really focused on, I would say, a little lighter layer than what you would go through the main program, but it's company sponsored. It's time sponsored by the company. We have internal networking that's set up and established across these groups. We have office hours set up with somebody from MIT and then also for myself. So Gabby, when you talk about pulling out spreadsheets and everything, because I'm going through this again just a little bit lighter, it is great because I'm like, oh, I remember that and I pull it out. I remember going through this and it's helping others learn and see and the lights going off on, well, that's why they're doing that. That's why that customer did this. You really get focused on what you know and what you know from the learning of your own organization. This program allows you to think about it perhaps what the other person is thinking and how do I apply what is best about my org to them so that they can see the value of both. And so the upskilling is great. We love this program. I love it because I get to redo it every single time, but it's been great. And I would say any organization that wants to look to upskill some of their top employees and that aren't necessarily looking for that full investment, this is the way to go because there is a huge value from it. Thank you, Jerry. And also you wrote one important thing here that is the modularity. We have different modules and these come using a very flexible way. So our learners can take just one course, 12 weeks, or the child micromaster program that is almost about 12 to a team month on average to complete it, or just to custom courses for companies that are tailored specifically about this content. So this kind of modular online education brings also this flexibility. That's great. So with that, I really want to say thank you, Jerry, Gabby and Parnaf for bringing your experience and for sharing this with our audience. I think this is the best way to show how the program works and in your own words and your own experience. So thank you so much for joining us today. And now we are going to take the questions and answers from our learners and also another poll. I think Ima has another poll for them. I'll save that for a little bit later. But I would like to thank Gabby, Jerry and Parnaf too. I think it's really inspiring to hear about your journey and how you applied or what you learned so that that's what gets us going and improving the courses even farther. So thank you so much for being with us today. Thank you. Have a great day. Have a great day. Okay, so now let's go to Q&A. Eva, do you want to start or do you want me to start? I'm here for you, Ima. Whatever works for you. Okay, so let me start with the first question. It's very specific. So it's about the exam. What is the passing rate of the exam? I assume that this question is from Rim Jim Singh. And I guess this person is asking about the passing rate of the whole course, not just one exam. All our courses have SC0X. Our other courses have two exams, a midterm and a final, plus grade D assignments every week. So the passing rate of the whole course really depends on the course, right? For the first courses, the passing rate is about 70-80%, let's say, of people who just completed the whole course. And in the other courses, so two, three, four, the passing rate is a little bit higher. Because as we mentioned earlier, zero and one are the entry points to the MicroMasters. So maybe people are not as engaged or they don't know what you expect. But then once people go through the first courses, they get the dynamic and just I guess save enough time every week to study. So yeah, around 70-80%, I would say. And the time invested, we estimate is around 10 hours per week. So that's if that's also like of interest for you to plan ahead if you want to enroll in one of our courses. Yeah. I just wanted to add that the pass bar per course is 60%. So you need to score above 60% in order to pass and receive the certificate in that course. Great. So, Eva, this one is for you. How many people complete the MicroMasters every year? Ooh, that's a great question. So in total, we have a we have about in total half a million of learners that have been enrolled in any of our SCX courses. We have been granted about 50,000 certificates per year. I would say we are offering 10 courses per year. We are granted about 8,000 certificates per year in our 10 courses. Great. So I have one comment from memory Mathema saying previously registered in SCX, but got very overwhelmed by the mathematics because it has never been their strength. But now there are confidence and they're going to sign up again for the course. So good luck with that. Go for it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Yes, this is going to be helpful. And we have many learners that at the beginning they are struggling with. And at the end of the day, they review the videos, they go through the practice problem, and then they go through that. Sometimes there are a couple of weeks that are a little bit struggling, I would say, but once you buzz that, I think you are ready to to continue and go for the program. Right. So we have one question from Jim Dagan. And he's asking, are the tools that are used all open source, for example, optimization and statistic, etc. So we do use spreadsheets as a basic tool for the whole MicroMasters. You can use Excel if you have a license, otherwise you can use LibreOffice, you can Google spreadsheets. So it's really up to you. But just so you know, that's the key tool, the key basic tool that we have at the program. Then we use SAS too. We introduce Nelogy. We introduce other tools that you can use. There are free versions, free license for those, but not necessarily open source. We try to facilitate that the tools that we use are available for anyone who wants to use them for educational purposes. Eva, they are asking if MIT has a graduate program in supply chain management. Yes, it should be. Of course, we have a graduate program is the master's science of applied science in supply chain management. There are two options. You have a 10 month residential program and a five month residential program. So MicroMasters, once you complete the entire credential with us, this opens the door to you in order to apply to what we call the blended program. This master's degree at MIT that you only need to spend one full semester in order to receive the master's degree in supply chain management. The master's degree is 100% on campus in person and it's a great compliment to the 100% online MicroMaster program. The MicroMaster was designed for democratizing knowledge, one thing, and open this knowledge in supply chain management to anyone from anywhere in the world, but also to open the door to those that want to apply to a residential program at MIT in an accelerated way. So just spending one full semester, you can apply, you need to get admission for sure, and then after that semester, you will receive the master's degree in supply chain management at MIT. Right. So next question, Funda Bekar is asking, is it possible to take free courses? So the course is for free and then take the exam and certificates with the CCNL cost. Yes, that's something that we would like to make very clear too. All the contents for the courses are open and available for anyone who wants to enroll and just, you know, to watch the lessons and do the practice problems. The all that material is available for free, but if you want to have access to exam graded assignments and get a certificate upon passing the course, then you'll have to pay a small fee. The fees, either $200 or $300, depending on the course, $200 for a CC0X, $300 for the rest of the courses, and $200 for the comprehensive final exam. But all the information is in the MicroMasters webpage that will be shared in the chat by Lisa. So Lisa, please if you could share the link, that would be helpful for our audience. Yeah, and then Phil is asking if the course lectures are prerecorded. So maybe another one. Yes, in the MicroMasters program, as we mentioned, all of the content is asynchronous content. This means that you have video lectures that you can watch at any time. We provide most of our courses at instructor pace. This means that we deliver every Wednesday one week of content and you can go through the videos and watch the video whenever you have time, solve the practice problems and all of these things. So all of this is asynchronous. And we have our first course of writing analytics that is self-paced. This means that we release all of the content at the very beginning of the course and you can review the entire content whenever you have time to do that. And of course, we have a schedule, a final exams, a meeting and final exams in each of our courses that there are certain dates that we announced at the very beginning in the first week of the course. So you can look for that time in order to take the exam whenever the exam is scheduled. Great. So Stan is asking if it is better to take a C1X or a C0X first or if one leads to another. So that's a great question, Stan. Thanks for bringing that because of course, we're introducing both courses in this webinar as the entry points to the MicroMasters. So we designed the MicroMasters to be taken in order, so 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4. That's on the CFX at the end. That's the ideal path in our opinion. But then many people are taking the courses in different orders. So I could start with the C0X if you can just follow that order because it just, as we mentioned, is a toolbox. So it will teach you the basic analytic techniques that you need to succeed in the other courses. So it will give you a refresher on probability that is very important for a C1X, a refresher on optimization or an introduction to optimization that is super important for a C2X, etc. But if you feel like you're not so appealed by starting with the toolbox and you just want to start with demand forecasting and inventory management and transportation, that's also a possibility. Those are more focused on these concepts. And you could actually enroll in the C0X at the same time and you know, just go to C0X as a reference and review some of the videos about the specific techniques that you need for a C1X. So this is really flexible. Eva, would you like to add something here? Yes, what you just mentioned, that this also depends on your math background and depending on that math background and your time availability. If you have that, probably you can take at the same time C0X and 1X. If you need to really go through the toolbox first, then I fully agree with you. I recommend you to take C0X and then C1X and take it in order. But the program is flexible. There is no mandatory prerequisite in order to take one course before the other. It's just that we highly recommend you to take in order. Or if you have the time and availability and the right math background, probably you can take two courses at the same time. We have a variety with thousands of learners. You can imagine that we have a variety of learners doing many different paths. But the most common one is to take in sequence one after the other. Yeah, but there is no prerequisite. So actually you could go and just complete a C3X. The topics in that course interest you more. You could also take it as a standalone course. That's also a possibility. Yeah, the only prerequisite is for the CFX, for the final comprehensive exam. For that one, you need to complete and pass the five supply chain courses in order to be able to take the final comprehensive exam. And this makes sense because as the name said, it's a comprehensive exam just to check that you know you have the fundamental knowledge for the entire program. So this is the only one that you need to complete in advance the five courses. So Javier Sanchez has a great question here. He's asking if a C3X opened on August 27, is it realistic to sign today and still be on time to complete the exam? Or would you recommend to wait until January opening? So for a C3X, actually, maybe we didn't emphasize it enough, but a C3X is a self-paced course, meaning that you can take it at your own pace. Once you enroll, all the contents are available, and you can just start taking the modules.  You can organize yourself just knowing that the final exam date is set. So this being said, I think now it opened out on August that you still have more than enough time to cover all the contents and be ready for the final exam in December. So yeah, I encourage you to enroll today, take a look, make a good plan and complete the course in this run. I don't think you need to wait until January. This being said, all the other courses in the MicroMasters, one, two, three, and four are instructor-paced, just so you know. So those courses, we release content on a weekly basis. And there are deadlines every week, or grading assignments that need to be submitted, and that will be part of the final grade of the course. So yes, so you have that in mind. SCRX, self-paced, one, two, three, and four are instructor-paced. Okay, Eva, let's, I'm just looking for a good question here. So there's a question about the admission requirements to the MIT Masters program after completing the MicroMasters. Yes, for that, the best thing is to reach out directly to the SCM team. Lisa and Sham, probably you can share through the chat, the email account. So, and also in the website, you can go and look at all of the prerequisites or all of the things that they are asking for in order to apply. All of the information is in the website, and also there is an email account that you can reach out and don't hesitate. If you are interested in that option, don't hesitate to reach out to the SCM team, and they will provide all of the details you need for that. Great. There are some questions about like the runs, the course runs, right? Specifically about the CFX. They're asking if there's a CFX in November, if there will still be a CFX in May. So the answer is yes. We run each course of this program. It runs twice per year. So we have an instance of the CFX in November, one in May, and then we have one run of SC1X that comes in fall. So it starts actually today, and then another one in spring. So then you'll see that we have two courses. You can just check the schedule in the MicroMasters webpage that Lisa shared in the chat, and you'll see that you have like these like two runs per year, so you can organize yourself to complete the courses in sequence, if that's your wish. Eva, there's a question about content. So they're asking if this course, or courses of the program covers lectures related to procurement. Yes, there is one module about procurement. So yes, you will find that in SC2X supply chain design. You can learn about procurement managing in our courses. Yes, supply chain design will be your course if you are interested in that part. And the syllabus are available in our website. So you can also go through the website and have a look to the content, or you can just enroll in the courses when they are open and have a look to the content. Yeah. But yes, procurement is in supply chain design. Really through your questions, as many of them are just comments or thinking notes. Thank you, Nautz. How do you welcome? How recognized and respected is the MicroMasters as compared to procurement certifications like NCI, PS, or ISM, or CPSM? This is a great question. Of course, these professional certificates are great and they have been there for many years. I would say that the difference with the MicroMasters program is that our content is graduate level content. And this is the main difference. It's equivalent to the content we are teaching at MIT in our graduate master's degree in supply chain management. And that's why it's also a pathway to a master's degree at MIT and also at more than 30 universities across the world. So I would say that the main difference is this graduate level content that we are providing and also connects a bit with the rigorous assessment that we need to have in this program in order to provide this value of being a pathway to a master's degree at MIT and at different universities. So this is one of the main differences. And this is why this program and the slide I showed with the President Ray Pat and my team, it was really an innovative way to educate the world in supply chain management with this graduate level in a fully online asynchronous mode, 100% online, and then with the opportunity to count 100% on campus to earn a master's degree in supply chain management. So there's one very specific question. It's about language. So will this program be in Spanish as well? Well, actually we do have subtitles in Spanish for SCRX in Spanish and Chinese as well as English, but not for the rest of the courses, at least not yet. So Eva. Yes. And not only that, the only thing that we have in Spanish Spanish and Chinese are the transcripts of the videos. However, the practice problems, the exams and the quick questions, all of these things are in English. So in order to earn the certificate or in order to complete the MicroMasters program, you need to understand English and you need to solve practice problems in English and complete all of the exams in English. So let's say that the language for the MicroMasters program in supply chain management is English. However, in the first course in supply chain analytics, we did the effort to translate the videos transcripts are available now in Spanish and Chinese. Yeah, but this is kind of a supplemental thing that can help you through the videos for sure, but definitely the exams and the practice problems are in English. Okay, so we have a question from Nicholas Tottenhofer. How one is about, you know, the possible software tools that for the potential problem sets or exam parts of SCRX. So I guess which tools are used in SCRX. Python are similar. So so far in SCRX, we do use spreadsheets as I mentioned. So we really go for the very basic we want everyone to be able to solve the problems and we would don't want the tool to be an impediment. We also have SAS in SCRX as a tool that we use for optimization. We use it for statistics to for regression. So that's one of the tools that we have and we also have any logic for simulation. So those are the tools that we have in SCRX as of today. The only one that is mandatory for everyone to learn is Excel or spreadsheets, as I mentioned earlier. We are exploring the introduction of other tools such as Python, but they are not in place yet. And also there's a question that if we have teaching assistants just supervising the courses or just providing support through the courses, Eva, would you like to answer that one? Yes, we have amazing teaching assistants from MIT that they are helping us to moderate the forums. Also they help us to review the materials and through the platform and they are also answering your questions through the email account. So for exam questions or for this assessment questions, we provide an email account and our teaching assistants are helping us to reply all of your questions through that email account. So yes, we have, we are very proud of our TAs because they are doing an extraordinary job through this program and trying to answer in 24 hours that for a massive program like this one is really a good service level, I would say. Okay, so we still have many more questions. Let me launch a poll and then we'll continue to answer a few more. So okay, so I have one final poll, which is just a question about what will you do now? So please answer and let's see a couple more questions before we wrap up. So we have one question for Oscar Guacima and he's asking about the affiliated universities. So which universities are affiliated to you from Australia? Because he's looking for like expanding his supply chain academic career there. He's actually going to apply for a doctorate. So we have Queensland University and we have one more university from Australia. I don't remember the name right away but that you can go through our website and the team please help send the website link where you can find all of the pathways for our MicroMaster credential. But in Australia at least you have two good universities that you can apply if you want to continue your academic career in Australia. Queensland is one of those and there is at least one more in Australia. Yeah. Maybe let's answer one final question that is about how the credential connects with the master's degree at MIT. Once again maybe just to make it very clear, right? So ring him is asking if the credential gives a direct admission or if in the application at least it will be considered as something like special or seen as very positive to have completed the credential. So maybe we can explain like the two options to complete a master's at MIT. Yes. So in order to apply for the accelerated way to earn the master's degree, the blended master's degree, you need to complete the entire MicroMaster credential. You need to earn the credential. Once you have the credential, you can apply to the master's blended degree that is one full semester in person on campus. You apply to that but you need to get admitted in that program in order to be able to complete the master's degree at MIT. So there is a regular admission pro process. It is mandatory to have MicroMaster credential in order to apply to the blended. There is another option that is the supply chain management residential program. This is a 10 month master's degree program supply chain management at MIT. You are going to earn at the end of the day the same degree, the same degree of master's applied science in supply chain management. To apply to that you is mandatory that you complete supply chain analytics. This is the only course that is mandatory to apply to the SCM residential. If you have completed the entire program, if you have completed more courses, the committee will take this into consideration but this will be one piece out of many other prerequisites that you need to fill in order to complete your admission process. Of course, there is a committee that design about the admission process and unfortunately I need to tell you this is very competitive or fortunately for us but not for you it's very competitive. So there are many applications and the committee needs to select only 40 people are admitted to each program each year. So it's competitive and if you are interested in that please look at all of the things you need to prepare in order to apply for that and yes in order to come to on campus you need to get that meeting. Great thanks Eva. So just before we wrap up Alan is telling us that he came to the Zoom meeting late due to just just some timing problems that may have happened to more of you and he was wondering if there will be a recorded video that they could watch later in the day because it's 2 a.m. where he is right now. So thanks for joining Alan. I know you must be tired and for everyone who joined late yes there will be an available video recording for the event so you can just refer to it later. It will be definitely shared as a follow-up to this webinar so it will be included in all the information that goes in that email and I guess it will be also loaded to YouTube right Eva? Yes that's my understanding. Okay so let's see the results of the poll. So what will you do now? So 30% of you will enroll in SC0x that's great starting point. You can do it right now because it's enrollment is open 17% of you will enroll in SC1x and let me remind you that if you want to enroll in both you can do so you can enroll and just check the contents for free and then deciding which one you want to just become a verified student if you want to focus just on one of them or maybe verifying both if you want to get both certificates at once. Many of you 60% will review materials on our website to just learn a little more about the program and deep dive in some of the things that we discussed today. 20% will sign up for the next webinar so I guess it was an entertaining webinar. Thanks so much and thanks to our panelists and there's a variety of things that you're going to do in addition to that some of you will head to work some of you will have lunch and some of you will head to bed so that shows how global the program is and we we love to see that you're joining from many many different parts of the world and many different time zones but thanks for the effort. Excellent so with that we just want to wrap up the webinar we really hope that you have enjoyed the the event and are more familiar now with the MicroMasters in supply chain management and how this program can help you to better understand the foundations of the supply chain and also gain the confidence you need to face the supply chain challenges. The world needs more than ever supply chain management professionals and we are here for you so thank you so much for joining us today have a great day or night. Bye thanks for joining.