My Only Pluralsight Submission

How Things Changed — and Why Some Lessons Stayed the Same

If you’ve been following this thread on my journey with Digital-Tutors (now Pluralsight), you know I started with two courses that were technically labeled “advanced” — a cartoon shark rig and a car rig — but were really exercises in clear, practical fundamentals. Today I want to talk about something different. **3ds Max Rigging Fundamentals — my only course released under the standard Pluralsight** label. This was created in a very different moment — not just in my career, but in the evolution of online learning.

Things Have Changed Since the Digital-Tutors Days

When I was first contributing content:

• Remote work wasn’t normalized.
• People learned sequentially — lesson by lesson.
• Platforms were smaller, more focused, more niche.

Digital-Tutors felt like a community with a mission: Make learning accessible, structured, and real.

Now, learning platforms are vast. Algorithms surface content. Courses are categorized, tagged, optimized for discovery. The ecosystem is bigger and technically more advanced — but also noisier.

That’s not bad. It’s just different.

Why Fundamentals Still Matter

In the rigging fundamentals course, the challenge wasn’t making something flashy or complex. It was making concepts comprehensible.

Rigging is one of those areas in 3D that can either:

• feel impenetrable, or
• click in a moment

The difference is how it’s explained.

So even as tools changed and platforms grew, the core teaching principle stayed the same: Break things down into manageable, actionable steps.

Not because people are beginners — but because clear thinking always scales better than clever tricks. The shift from Digital-Tutors to Pluralsight mirrors a broader shift in how people learn online:

Then:

• Courses were discovered by intention
• You had to choose learning
• Learning meant commitment

Now:

• Content is everywhere
• Discovery is often passive
• Learning can become distraction

Platforms grew. Audiences grew. Noise grew too.

But people’s cognitive processes — how they actually learn — didn’t change. Clear structure still beats complexity. Practice still beats passive watching. Doing still beats consuming.

My Personal Takeaway as a Creator

Creating the rigging fundamentals course was different from earlier work in one key way: It felt less like contributing to a niche community and more like speaking into an increasingly crowded space.

That can feel intimidating — but it also makes clarity more valuable. Because while distribution has scaled, attention hasn’t.

Fundamentals don’t go viral. They go deep.

And that depth is what helps someone actually get better.

What Stayed Constant

Across every course I’ve contributed — shark, car rig, rigging fundamentals — one lesson has remained true: Teaching is more about enabling understanding than showing mastery.

People don’t remember exercises. They remember moments of clarity.

That’s why, even in an era of AI, adaptive learning, and recommendation engines, a well-structured, clearly explained lesson still matters. Because tools change — but cognitive friction doesn’t.

Looking Ahead

I’ll share more about some of my later work in training and coaching — both inside and outside the 3D world — in future posts. But for now, here’s the through-line I’m most grateful for: From small community beginnings to massive global platforms, learning remains human first.

We learn best when:

• complexity is guided,
• thinking is scaffolded, and
• meaning is prioritized over metrics.

Structure is not the opposite of creativity. Structure is what makes creativity shareable. And that’s something worth holding on to — no matter how platforms evolve.

Chat soon!