— Install Blender 4.x & After Effects trial / HitFilm
— Set project folders and autosave

— Orbit, pan, zoom
— Move, rotate, scale objects

— Insert location keyframes on a bouncing cube
— Graph Editor quick tour

— Extrude & inset to build a stylized treasure chest

— Apply base color & roughness
— Unwrap UVs for a wood texture

— Three-point lighting setup
— Depth-of-field camera focus

— Set samples, denoise, transparency
— Render still image

— Use Rigify to auto-rig a humanoid
— Pose in idle stance

— Squash & stretch ball bounce
— Timing and spacing exercise

— Block-to-splines workflow
— Loop the cycle on timeline

— Shape-keys for eyes & mouth
— Simple lip-sync test

— Dolly-in and orbit shots
— Animate focal length for zoom

— Emitter particles with gravity
— Tweak lifetime & material glow

— Quick Smoke domain
— Bake & render candle flame

— Low-res test → high-res bake
— Add shockwave particle ring

— Cell-fracture a wall
— Animate impact object

— Pouring chocolate or water splash
— Mesh & flip-solver basics

— Shoot short phone clip with green backdrop
— Export to After Effects

— Use Keylight to remove green
— Garbage-matte clean-up

— Track handheld shot
— Solve and export 3-D camera to Blender

— Import EXR with crypto-mattes
— Add glow & color balance

— Animate lower-third title in After Effects
— Use ease-in/ease-out graph

— RotoBrush to isolate foreground subject
— Feather and refine edges

— Adjustment layers, LUTs
— Match CG to live footage

— Add explosion sound and background score
— Sync peak frames with beats

— Render image sequence from Blender
— Assemble and export H.264 video in After Effects

— Trim shots, add transitions
— Insert title card and credits

— Reduce samples, use denoise
— Proxy playback in After Effects

— Create ArtStation / YouTube upload
— Write shot breakdown description

— Present VFX shot + animated loop to class
— Receive critique, certificates & next-steps advice