Planet Blender

Smoke: Fixes
Blender Physics Development - 2009-10-02 15:33:10

Hey,

Some people reported problems with collision objects and dissolving smoke. This should (hopefully) work in svn now.

This also completes the task of bringing the features back which were available before the introduction of cache and new drawing system.

It reminded me to only take little steps at one time and not try to get all things done at one time – which resulted in more bugs and user frustration.

—

Update: I also fixed a problem with the fame hall and updated it to include the latest donations, please correct me if something is wrong, thanks!

magic numbers
digital janitor - 2009-10-02 12:58:00

A friend of mine asked me if I could make a little script for him that toggles the background in xsi between green and gray. And I said "sure, give me a few minutes". It didn't take long though, but the number that xsi wanted to show either green or gray was a little funny.

#python script
current = Application.Preferences.GetPreferenceValue("Scenecolors.backgroundcol")
if current == 16711935:
       Application.Preferences.SetPreferenceValue("Scenecolors.backgroundcol", 2139062271)
else:
       Application.Preferences.SetPreferenceValue("Scenecolors.backgroundcol", 16711935)
Application.SceneRefresh()

and I also had to do a JScript one since he didn't python installed (!?!!)

//JScript
var current = Preferences.GetPreferenceValue("Scenecolors.backgroundcol");
if (current == 16711935)
{
 Preferences.SetPreferenceValue("Scenecolors.backgroundcol",2139062271);
}
else
{
 Preferences.SetPreferenceValue("Scenecolors.backgroundcol",16711935);
}
SceneRefresh();

And just so that you know,
gray according to xsi is: 2139062271 ( R=127, G=127, B=127, A=255 )
green according to xsi is: 16711935 ( R=0, G=255, B=0, A=255 )

2.5 tour #9 part 2: Animation
Blender Labrat - 2009-10-02 10:42:00

this part covers the new animation system

it covers
- Basic Keyframing
- Keying sets
- Fcurve basics
- Modifiers
- Drivers ( didn't want to work but i showed the procedure)
- Quat V Eulars
- NLA editor

so anyway here it is 2.5 tour Part2: animation

http://mfoxdogg.com/2_5_tour_animation.ogg

Hope you all enjoy it

Us the Robots - Timelapse
Vimeo / Blender3D [Time lapse] - 2009-10-02 08:48:57

Timelapse showing the making of UtR #47 from start to finish.

Music: Klute - Part of Me

Cast: Sam Brubaker

Mancandy announces Durian
Vimeo / Blender3D [Animation/Videos] - 2009-10-02 08:20:20

Mancandy gets asked by a dubious little director to announce the Durian project, followed the sites codec advice but playback can be a little 'choppy', seems to skip random frames and freeze a lot.

Cast: david bolton

Urban Etiquette
BlenderNation - 2009-10-02 06:49:49

Living dead pixels, winner of the Suzanne Animation Festival 2007, has created a series of short animations for Finnish television to make you think about 'urban etiquette'. Jere, Pete & Jussi write: Urban etiquette is a series of twenty pairs of five-second animation, created as channel idents for Channel Four Finland / Nelonen. The aim was to [...]

An Expanded Technical Definition of Ray Tracing
Open Source Animation - 2009-10-02 05:23:57

Ray tracing is a computer graphics technique which helps create the illusion of a photorealistic image. It refers to the way the light simulated in a digital environment (or “ray”) interacts with digital objects. Under a normal, non-ray tracing technique, the individual particles of light simply end at the first surface they interact with and illuminate it. Under a ray tracing technique, the computer uses a model to simulate the illumination caused when light bounces off a surface.

In real life, not all the light particles react with the surfaces in the same way: some bounce off at each angle, some are absorbed by the surface, some shine right through. The model determines how each light particle will react based on the location of the light source and the properties of the object in question. The characteristic of the surface will determine whether the object will cast a shadow, refract the light all the way to the other side, or reflect the light back to the camera. It is useful to direct the computer’s resources to focus on the digital light since shadows, refractions, and reflections are all properties of light.

The image below highlights a normal, non ray traced technique. Notice the lack of shadows and the ghostly feeling that the colored balls are not three-dimensional objects. This is because the light is simply a flat projection and does not calculate how the light should react with the other objects.

In the ray traced image below, it possible to see the reflections, the shadows, and the refractions of light. The relationship of the individual objects to one another and each object’s position in digital space are more clear. The final ray traced image has greater definition and better subtle illumination than the non-ray traced image.

Ray tracing is computationally intensive. Because the system needs to calculate the path of millions of light particles, it takes time and computing resources to create the final image. As a result, the current application of ray tracing is limited to visualizations which can be created in advance, such as computer-animated films. Video games, for example, have a basic structure similar to a computer-animated film but cannot take advantage of ray tracing because the environment is being continuously updated by the user and cannot be pre-visualized. As computing power increases, however, it will be possible to utilize the technique in real-time.

The Producer’s Report #87 - Wicked!
Phil McCoy's Posts - Project London - 2009-10-02 02:49:10

...that's what Jen Forbes said about tonight's review of visual effects shots, "Wicked!" Even more wicked is the fact that we have less than a hundred visual effects shots remaining!

Jen reports that Jen Page has finished her ADR sessions. She is working to schedule Josh's reamaining sessions and to collect and evaluate the few remaining scenes that Dan Andrews is finishing up to determine if we need to schedule sessions with John Fantasia, Andrew Evans and Justin Tracy.

All in all, we are pretty excited about the progress being made.

Here are the stats.

Status of Visual Effects (VFX) Shots:
Number remaining: 97 WE BROKE A HUNDRED!
Number in progress: 11
Number completed: 520
Percentage remaining: 15.7%

Doom: "Drowning" (calculated by Ian)

Projected date for completion of all VFX:
21 January 2010 (based on projected time estimates of all tasks)
28 January 2010 (based on spreadsheet items completed per week)

This week’s recommendations:
Ian: "Holding your breath under water as long as you can," it's a blast.
Jen: "Do You Want to Date my Avatar" by Felicia Day


Nate: "In The Light" by Led Zeppelin. It's a good darn song.
Phil: “Ten Years Gone” by Led Zeppelin. It's a darn good song.

Cheers,

Phil McCoy, Executive Producer
on behalf of Nathan McCoy (left), Producer and Phil McCoy (right)