Sacred Geometry: Comprehensive Course

100 Lessons | $44

No experience is required to take this course. You will learn how to draw all the essential constructions, plus 3 to 9 sided regular polygons. You can draw with a pencil, compass and ruler or using a free iOS app in this course. You'll also explore the golden ratio, draw classics such as the Flower Of Life and Metatron's Cube and see how sacred geometry relates to everything from DNA to the human body, how we see, to architecture, corporate logos, all the way up to the proportions of the planets.

Go to the course page
thumbnail image showing metatron's cube design

3D Characters In Unity

75 Lessons | $44

Using 100% free tools including Unity, this course shows you tools how to create, rig, animate, control and play with 3D characters in games and simulations using the keyboard or optionally with an Xbox One game controller. You will make a fully functional 3D puzzle-chase game using the characters you create. It's empowering to build such a game, not to mention how fun it is to play your own game!

Go to the course page
scene with multiple 3D characters including modern people in business attire, a robot and a medieval character.

7 Steps To Create Your Online Course

66 Lessons | $299

Do you want to sell your own online courses? It takes many different skills to do this well and I share all my pro tips from two decades of experience in seven major steps, from (1) Planning & preparation, (2) Hardware considerations, (3) Recording, (4) Audio post-production, (5) Video and overlay post-production, (6) Captions & subtitles in foreign languages, to (7) Configuring everything in your chosen online course platform.

Go to the course page
screen shot showing video and audio editing software

Earn Certificates

Upon successfully completing each of my signature courses

Each certificate is customized with your name, the course name, the date of completion, and unique certificate ID number. Each certificate has a custom QR code that links to the certificate's Accredible page, where you can prove your success and proudly share your achievement with others.

Example certificate earned from scott.training

3ds Max and VIZ for Architects

460 Lessons | Free

This classic course was originally published on DVD-ROM in 2007 at a time when 3ds Max and Autodesk VIZ coexisted (VIZ was the flavor of 3ds Max for ArchViz). Since then, VIZ was rolled back into 3ds Max and its features are still there.

This course is still a great way to learn the fundamentals of 3ds Max today. The core features remain the same. Most amazingly, Scott has made all 20+ hours of this course free!

Learn 3ds Max for free
building exterior rendering inside 3ds Max user interface

This section contains affiliate links and I will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on my links.

SketchUp Weekly

Add some clever new techniques to your SketchUp repertoire. In this weekly series, instructor Scott Onstott shares practical tips and tricks that can help you work smarter with this popular 3D modeling software. In each installment, Scott shares best practices for using the standard SketchUp toolset, as well as ways that you can leverage extensions to enhance your drawings. Learn techniques for importing and cleaning up CAD drawings, using math to model precise forms, and much more.

Explore this course

3D Architectural Modeling

with AutoCAD

Take your drawings from 2D to 3D with AutoCAD. In this course, instructor Scott Onstott helps you build your AutoCAD 2019 skills, one video at a time, as he steps through how to construct a 3D model. At the end of this course, you'll have modeled a complete 3D community center based on an archetypal midcentury design.

Explore this course

Advanced 3D Modeling

with AutoCAD

You can model almost any form imaginable with the AutoCAD 3D toolsets. In this project-based course, Scott Onstott teaches you the techniques required to solve complex modeling challenges in AutoCAD, while focusing on an innovative ebike design. Learn how to create each 3D component of the bicycle model.

Explore this course

3D Interiors from Photos

with SketchUp

Scott explains how to match SketchUp's coordinate system to the perspective implied in multiple photographs, allowing you to use photos to create 3D models. He demonstrates how to model objects like fireplaces, windows, doors, and walls from photo models, alter photo textures in SketchUp and retouch them in Photoshop, and model new textured objects. He also illustrates how to use a combination of layers, scenes, and materials to explore design alternatives.

Explore this course

3D Exteriors from Photos

with SketchUp

This course takes you step-by-step through how to use SketchUp to create a texture-mapped 3D model of building exteriors using photos. Learn how to leverage photo-matching features to enhance and evolve a model from several vantage points. Scott Onstott demonstrates how to rough in building volumes and roof slopes, handle complex roof scenarios, adjust the model to match perspectives, work with textures, use a library of materials and more.

Explore this course

Architectural Visualization

with Unity (realtime simulation)

Want to explore architectural models like you do video games? Learn to create architectural visualizations in Unity 2017, the free and full-featured game engine that enables you to turn 3D models into interactive experiences deployed across web, desktop, mobile, TV, consoles, and more. This project-based course takes you step-by-step through the development of an immersive environment for Frank Lloyd Wright's famous Fallingwater, named "the best all-time work of American architecture" by the American Institute of Architects.

Explore this course

Design Visualization

with 3ds Max

If you want to visualize and sell your product, architectural, engineering, or landscaping designs to your clients before they are built, then 3ds Max is the tool for you. Learn how to use this incredibly sophisticated 3D modeling and rendering program to visualize almost anything you can imagine. In this course, author Scott Onstott shows you how to build walls, doors, windows, stairs, railings, moldings, cloth, pottery, furniture, grass, trees, landscapes, and much more, using splines, modifiers, Booleans, and NURBS modeling. You'll also learn to texture-map objects, light them with both direct and indirect illumination, place virtual cameras, render, and animate scenes.

Explore this course

Kitchen Design

with SketchUp Pro (2018)

Have you been thinking about renovating your kitchen? Design the kitchen of your dreams with SketchUp. This course teaches you how to design a new kitchen that fits your existing space using this easy-to-use 3D drawing program. Scott Onstott shows how to model and digitally demolish your current kitchen to make room for the new design, and start adding new cabinets, counters, appliances, fixtures, and lighting, as well as modern, must-have features such as a standalone island. Plus, learn how to create an animated walkthrough with first-person navigation and animation. Along the way, you can learn how to work with SketchUp layers, groups, components, styles, scenes, and ready-made models from the 3D Warehouse.

Explore this course

Designing a Tiny House

with SketchUp

In this course, author Scott Onstott shows step-by-step how to build a tiny house, including every virtual stud, sheet of plywood, and appliance going into the project. Along the way, he explores SketchUp features such as components, groups, layers, and textures. By building a house in SketchUp in this detailed manner, you can work out any unforeseen spatial conflicts in the design and virtually eliminate construction problems before you are in the field.

Explore this course

AutoCAD 2016 Essentials

Scott begins with the basics of the user interface and leads you step-by-step to learning how to draw the kind of precise, measured 2D drawings that form the basis of design communication the world over. Along the way, you'll learn how to create and modify geometry, layers, blocks, attributes, dimensions, layouts, and how to share your drawings with others.

Explore this course

AutoCAD 2015 Essentials

Scott Onstott has been using AutoCAD for 24 years and has witnessed its evolution into the world-leading application for computer-aided drafting and design. You too can harness its power and start creating detailed CAD drawings, whatever your field: design, architecture, or engineering. In this in-depth course, Scott shows you how to draw precise, measured 2D drawings—the basis of design communication the world over. Then he shows how to create and modify geometry, layers, blocks, attributes, dimensions, and layouts, and finally, how to start sharing your drawings with others.

Explore this course

Designing Dynamic Components

with SketchUp Pro

SketchUp dynamic components are reusable design elements with special attributes: parametric functions, interactivity, animation, and more. Creating your own dynamic components allows you to build a library of custom designs and easily share them with others. This training course shows how to use SketchUp Pro to build dynamic components from scratch. Instructor Scott Onstott starts by reviewing the pre-made dynamic components found in the Components panel and 3D Warehouse.

Explore this course

Designing Dynamic Blocks

with AutoCAD

Build intelligence into your AutoCAD drawings with dynamic blocks. Dynamic blocks allow you to quickly change the shape, size, position, orientation, and visibility of objects in blocks according to parameters and constraints that you define ahead of time. In this course, author Scott Onstott shows step-by-step how to build everything from static blocks to complex dynamic blocks that include parameters, actions, and geometric and dimensional constraints with preset attributes driven by fields. Once you have built and refined dynamic blocks, you will learn several methods to share your masterpieces with colleagues.

Explore this course

Ultimate Man-Cave or She-Shed

Designing with SketchUp

We all want a room to call our own. Personal structures like man caves and she sheds give you a hideaway from life stresses. Do you want a light and airy garden structure to curl up with a good book or to enjoy conversation with a friend, or would a lounge with a minibar where you can watch the game while working on your motorcycle be your idea of a good time? SketchUp, "the easiest, most fun, entirely free 3D drawing tool in the world," is the perfect program to design your unique space. Join Scott Onstott in this course, as he shows how to model an existing structure like a garage and transform it into a personal sanctuary with SketchUp's intuitive 3D toolset. Discover how to model walls, doors, windows, furniture, and even a private bathroom, and finesse your design with lighting and shading.

Explore this course

Modeling from Photos

with SketchUp (2016)

Not sure which furniture will mesh with your living room design? With SketchUp, a 3D modeling program, you can take your architectural and material design ideas from your head to your screen. In this course, instructor Scott Onstott shows you how to use the free version of SketchUp to explore possible design scenarios using photos and 3D models. Scott explains how to match SketchUp's coordinate system to the perspective implied in multiple photographs, allowing you to use photos to create 3D models.

Explore this course

Kitchen Design

with SketchUp (2016)

Have you been thinking about renovating your kitchen? Design the kitchen of your dreams with SketchUp. This course teaches you how to design a new kitchen that fits your existing space using "the easiest, most fun, entirely free 3D drawing tool in the world." Scott Onstott shows how to model and demolish your current kitchen to make room for the new design, and start adding new cabinets, counters, appliances, fixtures, and lighting, as well as modern, must-have features such as a standalone island. Along the way, you'll learn how to work with SketchUp's layers, groups, components, styles, scenes, and ready-made models from the 3D Warehouse.

Explore this course

Bathroom Remodel

with SketchUp

In addition to boosting the resale value of your home, remodeling your bathroom can help you see your living space in a new, more positive light. In this course, learn how to use SketchUp—the easy-to-use 3D modeling software—to input your existing bathroom and remodel it in 3D using ten of the hottest remodeling trends. Throughout the course, Scott Onstott explains how to work with the tools, layers, materials, styles, and scenes in SketchUp, as well as how to use ready-made fixtures from the 3D Warehouse. He shows how to design floating vanity and vessel sinks, source a freestanding bath and rainshower, build a double-sided fireplace, and more.

Explore this course

Rendering with Twilight

inside SketchUp

Twilight is a popular rendering plugin for SketchUp. This course explains how to work with Twilight to prepare and optimize 3D models, materials, lighting, and environments for photo-realistic rendering, post-processing, and animation—all within SketchUp. Scott Onstott helps you get started by showing how to clean up geometry and materials, adjust texture mapping, apply Twilight templates, and compose scenes. He then demonstrates how to progressively render with increased realism as you add environmental illumination, interior lighting, special effects, and post-processing tweaks that result in the creation of beautiful imagery.

Explore this course

Shadow Studies

with SketchUp

Shadow studies are essential, as the play of light and shadow on architectural surfaces informs aesthetic perceptions, correlates with solar heat gain, affects how we use public spaces, impacts neighboring properties, and influences why we might choose a particular site. In this course, learn how to approach shadow studies using SketchUp, the popular 3D modeling application. Instructor Scott Onstott starts by examining how sunlight illuminates the earth at different latitudes and hemispheres, and explaining why solstices and equinoxes are the key times of year to analyze. Then, he demonstrates how to create a set of 3D helper tools based on a site's particular solar altitudes and azimuths. He goes on to use these tools to design an awning that provides shade during the summer and lets light in during the winter.

Explore this course

Documenting 3D Models

with AutoCAD

AutoCAD has several different methods available for projecting 2D drawings from 3D models. Join author Scott Onstott as he explores each of these methods, including projecting 2D drawings in model space and using viewports to view a model from various angles in paper space. The course's main focus is AutoCAD's advanced model-documentation features, which allow you to project plans, elevations, sections, and details from a 3D model directly onto layouts.

Explore this course

Working with Dimensions

in AutoCAD

For designs to be precisely built and manufactured, technical drawings need to show dimensions indicating measured lengths and angles, and in some cases geometric tolerances must be specified. In this AutoCAD training course, author Scott Onstott shows you how to create linear, aligned, angular, radial, diameter, continued, baseline, ordinate, and tolerance dimensions so you can precisely annotate any design. Plus, learn how to edit dimension styles, create sub-styles, temporarily override styles, control dimensional associativity, fine-tune dimension text, label features with multileaders, and much more.

Explore this course

Creating Sheet Sets

with AutoCAD

Build a sheet set from scratch and take advantage of all the automatic drawing-, sheet-, and callout-coordination functionality that AutoCAD has to offer. Scott Onstott teaches you not only how to use a sheet set, but also how to customize its templates and the dynamic attributed blocks and linked fields that automatically fill in relevant data from your sheets. By building intelligence into your drawings using AutoCAD sheet sets in this way, you'll never have drawing-coordination problems again—and that could mean fewer requests for information from your clients.

Explore this course

3D Surface Model Design

with AutoCAD 2015

You can model almost any form imaginable with AutoCAD's surface toolset. In this project-based course, Scott Onstott teaches you all the techniques required to solve complex modeling challenges in AutoCAD, while focusing on an innovative ebike design. Learn to create each 3D component of the bicycle model in this course.

Explore this course

3D Architectural Modeling

with AutoCAD 2015

Take your drawings from 2D to 3D with AutoCAD. Author Scott Onstott helps build your AutoCAD 2015 skills, one video at a time. You'll learn to extrude 2D plans into solid objects, cut out wall openings and add doors and windows, build 3D staircases, and model a complex roof surface. You'll also discover how to create a 3D tower and sculpt the surrounding landscape with NURBS.

Explore this course

Data Management

with AutoCAD 2013

In this workshop, AutoCAD expert and author Scott Onstott teaches you how to build intelligence into drawing objects so that the symbols used in your drawings carry meaning beyond simple geometric representations. Learn how to embed manufacturer, model, and pricing data into commonly used blocks; create invisible attributes that embed data in geometry without it appearing in the drawing area; and use field codes to display information from the AutoCAD database inside text objects. Plus, discover how to format, edit, and extract attribute data for use in external spreadsheets and/or for display within tables in AutoCAD drawings.

Explore this course

Customization Techniques

with AutoCAD 2013

In this workshop, expert and author Scott Onstott teaches you how to modify AutoCAD to better fit the way you work. He begins by showing you how to create a complex dynamic block that uses multiple visibility states, parameters, and actions so that one dynamic block can do the job of many static blocks. Then learn how to configure physical output devices, edit command aliases, and create custom panels and linetypes. Finally, discover how to automate repetitive tasks with action macros, scripts, and Lisp routines to craft tools for increased productivity.

Explore this course

3D Modeling

with AutoCAD 2013

If you're comfortable with 2D drawing in AutoCAD 2013 and ready to start creating and designing three-dimensional models, this workshop from AutoCAD expert and author Scott Onstott is for you. Learn about 3D navigation and wireframing; surface, solid, and mesh modeling techniques; designing and assigning materials; placing natural and artificial lights; and configuring both direct and global illumination rendering parameters to create photorealistic renderings. With the 3D techniques from this course, you can prepare to bring your designs one step closer to reality.

Explore this course

Space Planning

with AutoCAD 2013

This free workshop from expert and author Scott Onstott shows how to use AutoCAD 2013 to create and arrange a number of furniture blocks and then group typical arrangements of furniture so you can lay them out most efficiently in an office space. Along the way, gain experience with AutoCAD's editing tools and exercise creative freedom by deciding how to fit your own puzzle pieces together.

Explore this course

Architectural Drawing

with AutoCAD 2013

Tackle a real-world project in AutoCAD, drawing a cottage floor plan using the dimensions given in a pencil sketch that was scanned as an image, in this workshop from Scott Onstott. Follow along and see why he chooses certain tools, gain insight into his drawing strategies, and watch him improvise as a missing dimension forces him to draw the plan from a new direction.

Explore this course

Photoshop for Architects

In this Photoshop for Architects training course, expert trainer Scott Onstott provides a number of valuable techniques in order for you to get the most out of Photoshop in an architectural context. This course is designed for architects, engineers, builders, and anyone that uses photos, 2D drawings, and 3D models to communicate their design intentions. You should have a basic working knowledge of Photoshop and the tools that are available in order to get the most out of this tutorial.

Explore this course

Learning SketchUp

In this SketchUp training course Scott Onstott teaches you how to use this 3D modeling program designed for architects, engineers, designers. SketchUp comes in two versions, a free and paid version. This tutorial can be used with either version, and is designed for the absolute beginner. No prior experience with 3D modeling programs, or SketchUp specifically, is required. You will start by exploring the user interface for SketchUp, getting familiar and comfortable with navigating and where the tools are located. Scott utilizes many Ruby scripts, which are provided in the working files, and he will show you how to install and use the scripts throughout the course.

Explore this course

Scott is a pioneer in the creation and production of video training courses, with discs dating back to the year 2000 and the era of CDs.

  • Learning AutoCAD 2013 (video2brain & sybex, 8 hours)
  • 3ds Max for Architects (20.8 hours)
  • 3ds Max Foundation (13.5 hours)
  • Photoshop for Architects: CS3 Extended Edition (20.5 hours)
  • Photoshop for Architects (5.6 hours)
  • Learning Architectural Desktop 2006  (14.5 hours)
  • Learning AutoCAD 2002 Level 1 (8 hours)
  • AutoCAD 3D Modeling Level 2 (6 hours)
  • Learning Autodesk Revit 5 (9 hours)
  • Learning Autodesk VIZ 4 (7.5 hours)