Planet Blender

The Producer’s Report #90 - Maritime Mayhem!
Phil McCoy's Posts - Project London - 2009-10-23 23:18:36

Captain Doug Pine, who plays Captain Doug Pine, skipper of Icaria's floating restaurant in Project London (seen above with actor, Geoffery Simmons) and Captain Doug Pine in real life, a real ships captain, was witness to a mutiny on the high seas just a few days ago. The story of his experience is unbelievable, but completely true. You can read all about it here. Captain Doug is now safe with his wife, updating his Facebook profile and planning next steps. For that we are all thankful!

Here are this weeks stats.

Status of Visual Effects (VFX) Shots:
Number remaining: 84
Number in progress: 6
Number completed: 534
Percentage remaining: 13.6%

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

This week’s recommendation: The U.S. Coast Guard's Boating Safety Resource Center

Cheers,

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

Dragosaurius at B-Conf 2009 !
malefico's spot - 2009-10-23 20:10:31

This little thingie I started for my beautiful daughter was seen today by people attending at Blender Conference 2009 during the Suzanne Awards Festival

I’m one of the 5 nominees to “Best Character Animation“. This is the second time I’ve been nominated for a Suzzie (my first was Plumíferos demo back then in 2005)

With all honesty this is not finished work yet. Sunday we’ll meet the winners and see what happened

Festival can be seen ONLINE using VLC or Quicktime >>> rtsp://darwin02.engagetv.com/debalie.sdp

Dragosaurio estás nominado !
malefico's spot - 2009-10-23 20:03:49

Esta pequeña cosita que empecé para mi hija fue vista hoy por la audiencia de la Blender Conference 2009 durante el Suzanne Awards Festival Es uno de los 5 nominados a “Best Character Animation“. Esta es la segunda vez en mi vida que estoy nominado para un Suzanne (la primera vez fue por el [...]

Fast like a 3d spaceship hyperdriving through a shaft
Starbright Illustrations (blog) - 2009-10-23 20:01:55

I’ve been experimenting at the interface between 2d black and white sketches, and full-colour 3d images again – this time with one of my cute little spaceships. I had had a sketch of a small elegant little spaceship hanging around for a while, here’s that spaceship sketch as if first appeared on Spiralcat, but when I saw that the word on Illustration Friday this week was “fast” I decided to work on it a bit more – and maybe turn it 3d.

On one of my many photosafaris I had taken a picture of a corner of a train corridor which I thought would look very nice as a high-tech background to a 3d image. The spaceship sketch cut out and made 3d by laying it on a mesh in Blender was already starting to look more effective – but I wanted it to look even more 3d illustration like.

I spent a few hours messing with the placement and intensity of the lights and sculpting the mesh that was supporting the spaceship sketch. I think the image is going in the right direction, but it’s far from complete yet.

I need to add a lot more 3d detail to the corridor that the spaceship is flying through and to the spaceship itself. Then the final touch will be using Photoshop to add some motion blur to the action in the background of the illustration. The whole thing has already come a long way from it’s individual elements though.

Spaceship artist out…

graphicall: http://twitpic.com/mmg6c After the suzanne awards, let's vote!
Twitter / graphicall - 2009-10-23 18:52:42

graphicall: http://twitpic.com/mmg6c After the suzanne awards, let's vote!

Free ebook on how to model high quality furniture models for architectural visualization
Blender 3D Architect - 2009-10-23 16:46:44

Even with lots of free assets available on the internet, it’s quite common for architectural visualization artists the need for modeling their own models. For instance, some of my clients create both the architectural plans and also the furniture. Since this furniture is exclusively created for those projects, I can’t find reference images or 3d [...] Related posts:

1. Free download of furniture models for architectural visualization If there is one thing that we really need to...
2. Free furniture models for architectural visualization projects If there is something that really can help a project...
3. Using furniture models from the 3d warehouse in Blender 2.50 If you are using Blender 3D for architectural visualization for...

[lang_es]Los Cristos de Bonta[/lang_es][lang_en]The Christs of Bonta[/lang_en]
Juan Pablo Bouza - 2009-10-23 14:48:39

[lang_es]Este es un trabajo que hice para la exposición de arte de Patricio Bonta, que se encuentra actualmente en el Centro Cultural Borges de Buenos Aires.

Para realizar el trabajo, únicamente utilicé una foto de frente de cada cuadro. Luego, generé los normal maps con el Gimp, y todo lo demás fue hecho [...]

First lesson of Blender @ Cattid-Sapienza
Trickle Project - 2009-10-23 14:06:28

You can follow the first lesson of Blender at Cattid-Sapienza
with Daniele Casoria and Alessandro Pantanella copying this url on VLC media player:

http://151.100.62.131:8000/cattid_stream.ogv

We hope you enjoy it!!

How to pick up and drop an object in Blender
harkyman.com - 2009-10-23 12:56:43

As I’ve answered this question a number of times on the forums recently, I’m going to put up a definitive post here. Hopefully anyone who searches for something like “how to pick up and put down an object in Blender” will find this and save everyone the trouble of asking again.

It’s a common situation in animation — a character needs to pick something up, carry it around, then sit is down. There are a number of ways to do it, but here’s the most reliable way I’ve come across. There are a lot of steps, each one critical. Follow this recipe and you’ll be able to do it:

Setup
1. Place your object in its starting position.
2. Add a Child Of constraint to the object, targeting the main hand bone of your character.
3. Your object will “jump” when you attach it to the hand with this constraint, so press the Set Offset button on the constraint panel to fix it.
4. Set a LocRot key on the object. This fixes its starting position.
5. On the Constraint panel, set the Influence slider to 0.0 and press the Key button to record it.

The Grab
1. Animate the hand into place around the object
2. Back up one frame
3. On the Object’s Constraint panel, press the Key button to once again record an Influence 0.0 keyframe.
4. Advance one frame
5. Change the Influence slider to 1.0, and set another Key for it
6. The object jumps out of position. First press Clear Offset then Set Offset on the Constraint panel to fix it
7. The hand now has full control of the object. Animate the hand/body/etc. to do whatever you like.

If a pick up is all that is in your shot, you’re done. However, if you need to sit the object down…

The Drop
1. Animate the hand so that the object appears in it’s resting position, i.e. on the desk, shelf, etc.
2. Back up one frame
3. Set another Key for the Constraint Influence at 1.0
4. Set a LocRot key on the object
5. Advance one frame
6. Set a VisualLocRot key on the object
7. Move the Constraint Influence slider to 0.0 and set a Key

At this point, the display screws up. It shows the object moving back to its initial position. This is an animation display bug. Advance and Reverse the frame counter once and you’ll see that it is where it is supposed to be.

The hand and object are now free to move about independently. Congratulations — you can now do something in 3D in nineteens steps that even a one year old can do in real life!

chromanid
BlenderNation - 2009-10-23 12:00:39

Very uncomfortable yet intriguing to see; I kept thinking of Elephants Dream while watching this.

New full-time Blender developer: Matt Ebb
BlenderNation - 2009-10-23 09:39:05

The Blender Foundation have received sponsorship to hire a full-time Blender developer for 9 months to work on Blender 2.5. If the project goes well, they will pay for another period to work on other Blender projects. Ton just announced that Matt Ebb (Blender coding/animation guru) has agreed to fill the position. The sponsoring party [...]

Blender Conference Live Video
BlenderNation - 2009-10-23 09:11:46

The Blender Conference 2009 can be followed live here (Quicktime or VLC required). A full overview is available on the website of De Balie (page auto-translated from the original page in Dutch). Enjoy! BlenderNation will be at the scene tomorrow and I'll try to make a decent video report of the event.

Blender icon for OSX
BlenderNation - 2009-10-23 09:00:35

Joeri Kassenaar has created a Blender folder icon for OSX users. Nice and clean.

Very simple 2 player networking in Python
mike's digital anthology - 2009-10-23 05:15:21

A while ago, I posted a simple demo I made in the Blender game engine that let’s 2 player interact with each other over the internet, all it is required is a really simple networking script and the IP address of the two players.  Here is as youtube video of it in action, mouse-over the video to see some caption text.

The laptop on the left is physically separated from the desktop to the right, linked only by a wireless internet connection. And as you can see, input made to the desktop computer is sent across the network to the laptop, in realtime.

And here is the script, I’ll try to explain everything as best I can:

# Simple Python UDP networking demo Created by Mike Pan
# Todo: auto-self IP detection would be nice

# the following line loads the game module used by Python
# to access the Blender Game Engine API, and assigns it the alias G
import GameLogic as G
# load the network socket python module, we'll need it later
import socket

# define own IP address, and stores it as a property under GameLogic
# essentially making it accessible as a global variable
G.ownIP = "xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx"
# define peer IP address, stores it as a property under GameLogic
# again, essentially making it accessible as a global variable
G.peerIP = "xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx"
# define the port number (arbitrary), and the socket buffer size
# (4096 is a good starting point)
G.port = 4000
G.buffer = 4096

# create an IPV4 address with the pre-defined IP and the port number
addr = (G.peerIP, G.port)

# We'll add this line to all our communication, so when debugging,
# we won't get confused as to who send the packets.
signature = "Sent from " + G.ownIP

def init():
	# create an UDP socket for **sending** datagram
	G.sender = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_DGRAM)
	# time out is 10ms, pretty short for realworld application,
	#but enough for debugging over local network
	G.sender.settimeout(0.01)
	# this is important! by making this socket object a
	# non-blocking operation, all network stuff is run on
	# a separate thread, thus any network delay will not
	# cause the game to slow down
	G.sender.setblocking(0)

	# creates UDP socket for **receiving** datagram
	G.listener = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_DGRAM)
	# same as above, time out is 10ms
	G.listener.settimeout(0.01)
	# same as above, we also need to make sure network operations
	# will not slow down the main application
	G.listener.setblocking(0)

	# Win32 needs the socket binded:
	try:
	 G.listener.bind((G.ownIP, G.port))
	except:
	 print "Binding Listener failed"

def comm():
	# get the object that is attached to this script
	own = G.getCurrentController().owner

 	# receive from peer
	try:
		data, port = G.listener.recvfrom(G.buffer)
		# data contains all the data that came through,
		# it's a string, and we can do whatever we want
		# like print it out
		print data.split(',')
	# if the receiving fails, print something to notify the user
	except:
		print "Receive failed"

	# send to peer
	# generate data to be sent here,
	# send the position data across the network:
	string = str(own.worldPosition)+ ',' + signature

	# going to try to send the data
	try:
		G.sender.sendto(string, addr)
		# if sending fails, notify with error message
	except:
		print "Send failed"

That’s it! To use this script, we simply need to call init() once at the start of the game, and then comm() everytime you wish to send/receive some data (perhaps every 1/30th of a second). As mentioned, here is no ’server’ involved, the two peers connect direction to each other via a UDP socket. All the user has to do is specify the two IP addresses.

Trickle Project
BlenderNation - 2009-10-23 03:35:03

"Trickle Project" is a project created by Spark D.E., an Italian company that takes care about open source software philosophy and its spreading. Francesco Paglia and Lorenzo Pierfederici, the two guys who launched Trickle Project, have been invited to participate at Blender Conference 2009 to show what Trickle Project is and the philosophy that stands [...]

graphicall: http://twitpic.com/mjx40 Exclusive sneak peek at Suzanne Awards 09 intro! (Bassam's thumb up included!)
Twitter / graphicall - 2009-10-23 03:18:43

graphicall: http://twitpic.com/mjx40 Exclusive sneak peek at Suzanne Awards 09 intro! (Bassam's thumb up included!)

Great article on Renderosity.com
harkyman.com - 2009-10-23 01:40:17

Renderosity has an article about Building a Blender Bookshelf in which they talk about what books an artist would need to make the most of Blender. Jason van Gumster’s Blender for Dummies and Tony Mullen’s Mastering Blender are two of the books, while Animating with Blender, my own work, is the third.

The article makes good points about all three of the books, but I’m particularly proud of the section about Animating with Blender. First, they refer to the production values, down to typography and layout as “superb.” That may not seem like a big deal at first, but spend a number of days with your nose in a book and those little touches can make the difference between an effortless entry of informational into your mind and a fatigue inducing struggle.

Best quote:

What makes this really well-organized book so good is not only the organization of the information presented, but the down-to-earth writing style of Mr. Hess [Dude -- Mr. Hess is my father! -ed.]. Reading the book and going through each section you feel like the author is right next to you helping with mistakes and pointing out ways to save time.

And what the reviewer [Mr. Ricky Grove] does not tell you is that, in fact, I am right next to you. I am sneaky. I already went through your kitchen cupboards looking for pop tarts. By the time you turned around, I was gone. Out and down to the street, with your breakfast pastries in my greedy little mitts, and all because you bought my book. How awesome is that?

I just wanted to remind folks that until Blender 2.6 (the real gold release in the middle of next year) hits the stands, the Blender 2.4x series is still the stable production version to use. If you’re ready to move past making still scenes and just doing new feature test renders and haven’t already picked up Animating with Blender, you should think about it. If you’re interested, click through the ad on the side of the page and read the Amazon reviews. It’s worth it.

Thanks for your time!