Planet Blender

Christmas Support
Tinker Code - 2009-12-24 23:39:46

Hi all, This is a friend of Farsthary (the manager of the blog) Perhaps you already know this, but a a  few dollars are equivalent to an average wage in Cuba and they are more appreciated over there than anywhere else because of the embargo which  increases the cost of everyday life commodities.. So if you want like [...]

painted wall
Matt Ebb - 2009-12-24 23:20:57

afternoon in Newtown

Killer feature – Multifluid interactions at last in Blender!!!
Tinker Code - 2009-12-24 23:18:47

Hi guys I don’t know if it’s the same for you, but since the incredible inclusion of the Elbeem fluid simulator in Blender I track every release trying to make this simple set up: mixing realistically a red fluid with a blue one, sadly without success. My ignorance about CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) at that [...]

It’s that time of the year…
mike's digital anthology - 2009-12-24 21:56:20

Happy Holidays!
Blender to RenderMan - 2009-12-24 21:41:00




Happy Holidays to all!

We want to wish all the best of times and safe travels! This post is a long time coming, considering that there has never been a holiday related post here before but this year is different. Why is it so different than any other year? Well Blender to Renderman has become a valid project this year, at least we like to think so. This has stood the test of time and criticism, has pushed development in other areas, not to mention more people are becoming aware and using these tools for their own needs. Considering that Aqsis is one of 3 external rendering examples featured on the Blender website, I think the efforts done by everyone past and present have started to come to light. While this website is only one effort to bring a community together, the idea and practice of exporting Blender scenes to Renderman RIB files has been around for at least 7 years. It has only been in the past 2 years things have really picked up and only this past year that our efforts are taken seriously and not "Yet Another Project".

Not to say that the previous year was bad, not at all, in fact that year was a step towards the right direction. However even today this is still in it's infancy and we all have a ways to go before we see more start ups using these tools to develop their own animations. As mentioned in the previous post, some already have, we applaud them and encourage them, cheering them on because the more people that use these tools that are not directly involved in the development of Mosaic, Blender, Aqsis or Pixie then that means that we as a community have at least helped steer others in that direction. The tools we use and developed had also been used for research, in the form of RenderAnts, a GPU based Renderman visualization tool.

2009 was also the starting point in which "Project Widow" began, something that we wish would have been completed by now but due to the complexity and just the fact that this has not been done before using these tools, production is still in progress. This project helped in the development of Aqsis, with the multilayer OpenEXR display driver, as well as RIB Mosaic, with the addition of these EXR driver presets. While the production is slow, things are starting to pick up and we are chugging away, hoping that by next years SIGGRAPH we will have something to present. Regardless when it gets done, it will get done, some way, some how.

With Blender 2.50 on the horizon things are taking a turn. If anyone has downloaded the Alpha release you will notice that the interface has gone through a massive transformation. While an interface is only the nice presentation of the underlying code, this interface has truly changed from the Blender we all have been used to over the past 10 years. What is more important though is the Render API, the one thing that many have been waiting for years to come to light. At this point in time it is not known exactly when this will be added but development is supposedly in the works according to one of the Blender devs. This is one of the most important steps towards a more solid link between Blender and Renderman, in fact it is better for ANY render engine period! Be it Luxrender, MentalRay, VRay... whatever the case may be this will offer that ability to choose which render engine one wants to use, with better access to the data that was previously blocked by the Python API.

RIB Mosaic will also go under a massive change, mainly because in order to continue development Eric is forced to, since Blender is using Python 3.x and Mosaic was developed for the 2.5x Python, thus a substantial break of code. Also according to Eric in this recent post there will be a change in how Mosaic will not only function but how we will interface to Renderman. The current Mosaic uses a single pane system in the Python script window, the shader system alone is a massive series of RSL code that tries to replicate the Blender materials, the options and settings are there to try to include each feature and option for every single well known RiSpec render engine available. This has made development hard for Eric because it seemed to go beyond what was expected of the project. According to his latest post, RIB Mosaic will be more or less a framework for others to build upon, be Aqsis, Pixie, 3Delight or PRMan. This way he can concentrate primarily with Mosaic as it is rather than fixing the minute details for each renderer. "Pipelines" are described as these functions for each renderer, such as a pipeline for Aqsis shadow maps will be different than a pipeline for point clouds for Pixie. This approach will also allow others to develop pipelines for each rendering engine and then share them. The idea is to change the approach on how Blender and Renderman are to be used, rather than replicating Blender's material and lighting system, it will encourage users to take advantage of the true power of Renderman from the start. This idea is very similar to how Maya and Houdini approach the Renderman interface, the 3D app is just the geometry and animation engine while Renderman is the primary rendering system and thus anything built in the app is designed to be rendered as such. Not only will this encourage new users to really learn Renderman, it will also help more experienced users unlock the power of Renderman as it has been done for many years by the likes of Pixar and Industrial Light and Magic (for instance).

So changes all around are happening this year and even more so next year. Each year that I have been involved to some degree or another I get more excited about it, not because I am involved per se, it is more because this has been a desire of mine to see happen at all. The first taste of Renderman I had was in 2002 when I had been using Lightwave and downloaded 3Delight and Aqsis to be used with this export script Light-R. Since then I have not looked back and I can tell you hands down that anything done now using these tools has surpassed the Lightwave work I had played with years ago. That is why I am excited about this, the efforts done by many people have not only made the ability possible but work very well together and has reached all over the globe. We are not this massive corporation with millions in marketing funds, we are not even an animation studio.... most of us are just your average geek programmer or artist that have this desire to continue on.

So in the 2010 I believe that our efforts will become noticed more, not only by the Blender community but by the rest of the CG community, as well as the industry as a whole.

The image at the top was modeled by Jeremy Birn (yes of Pixar) and was the Lighting Challenge around this time last year. I never got to complete my render in time, until now. While it is not perfect, forgive me it was done last minute, it at least it is something festive! Not to mention the massive file size and poly count! The tree took up the majority of the render time and rightly so, each one of those needles are polygons! Post processing was done in GIMP.

See you next year!!

sketches #5
thisroomthatikeep - 2009-12-24 18:41:00

Violet from "Hogfather"



3 doodles from a sequence I've just started working on

meeeeeeeeeeeerry christmas to you all
digital janitor - 2009-12-24 12:28:00



our christmas tree this year. Happy Holidays everyone!

And let's not forget our gingerbread house

Merry Christmas!
Virgilio Vasconcelos - Animation - 2009-12-24 10:49:16

Besides being busy and not updating this blog for a while, there's always time to wish you a Merry Christmas. :)

[read the full article]

Photo Reference
Sintel, the Durian Open Movie Project - 2009-12-24 10:29:00

I’ve felt my progress being slower than I’d like it since getting here, one reason being my texture reference library. Usually I would select some photo reference as a base for a texture, blend some stuff together and then continue painting and tweaking the image textures from there. The problem with my library thus far is that it is a mix of free images and image packs I’ve purchased. Seeing as everything used to create the film ends up on the DVD’s as well - it makes sense that we use or make our own Creative Commons material to keep things simple.

Rather than sift through my lousy folder structure to figure out what parts of my existing library are ok, it’s just easier to take a bunch of new photos. Soenke has a nicer camera but for reference mine is ample so I thought I’d get into it today. Fortunately Amsterdam is a city with history and a range of weather so I only had to walk outside my apartment to start taking photos of weathered surfaces. A couple of quick small samples - my camera is 6 megapixel, so obviously the real ones are bigger.

I’m still not sure whether to use a mix of photo based and hand painted textures or whether to just use all hand painted, but a 2/3rds painted with 1/3rd photo based detailing (grime, grunge, dirt, etc) sounds like a promising mix. At any rate, it should be a nice bonus to have a Creative Commons reference library on the disk as well as the film’s production textures eh?

Camera battery is charged so time for round two…

Merry Christmas all!

- Ben

Those BMW Angel Eyes
mike's digital anthology - 2009-12-24 07:57:25

Continuing my work on this car, I’ve added the headlights today.  Apparently that’s what those rounded headlamps are called on a BMW – Angel Eyes.

And since a few of you asked about what lighting system I used, here is the setup I am using:

Sorry to disappoint.  Yes the car is lit with just a single Hemi light source.  (Take that David!)  The rest is done with Ambient Occlusion using an HDR image texture.

New Spaceboy Concept
Arkavision - 2009-12-24 06:28:23

Note to self, never call a concept final.

I’ve drawn a new concept, which is telling me that I should draw even more concepts.  Here is Eugene running alongside his pet cat Herbert, the landing gear you see is part of the space ship he pilots.  It’s becoming painfully obvious that Eugene is utterly generic in every possible way, and his cat isn’t especially interesting either.  Expect more concept work of these two in the future.

Interview: David Ward
Blender Cookie - 2009-12-24 05:05:56

David is Blender Cookie’s newest certified instructor to bless the ranks and we are super jazzed to have him. David has much to offer and has quite the daily life from the day job, Military job and of course bringing fresh blender cookies here for all. Who is David Ward and how did you come [...]

http://blendercookie.com

College for Creative Studies & Design helps finish PH2PC StoryBoarding
Prince Harming To Prince Charming - 2009-12-24 03:50:26

Animux Foundation is grateful for the support College for Creative Studies and Design’s (Detroit, MI) staff and students to help complete the storyboards for Prince Harming to Prince Charming short.

The talented students and supportive staff helped Animux complete the 8 minute short storyboard in a marathon 13 hour session. PH2PC is broken down into 14 sequences excluding the beginning and end titles. We started at sharp 8AM  on Dec 19,2010 and completed around 9PM.

The chair of  Entertainment Arts, Scott Bogoniewski ,  had given us an opportunity to talk about our project at a weekly Senior project review seminar at their auditorium.  Out of this, we were able to get 8 students who volunteered to do the storyboard on Dec 19th which would be guided by Steve Stanchfield. 

Steve and the students were in the studio at sharp 8AM and we were read the script in character where each student artist took up a character to act. We figured out the shot layouts during this reading with the insight from Steve and the students. Once we were done, we devided the shorts among the students to draw up the boards.  We took a lunch break and then the talented  students came back to draw the rest of the storyboards.  Amazing work ethic matched by their passion for their skill was very evident during the whole time.

GIANT CHARA!!(BlogPet)
CG系blog - 2009-12-24 02:09:17

FDTKの「GIANT CHARA!!」のまねしてかいてみるね

TKです。

*このエントリは、ブログペットの「輪ゴム」が書きました。