Planet Blender

AVE-XR2 – Supercar concept
Blender Art Gallery - 2010-01-17 18:15:14

Render: Blender

Author’s Comment:

BY-NC-ND

Feedback Episode 01-10
processdiary.com - 2010-01-17 13:00:00




Well, it's the 100th episode, folks! A feedback one, too.
Feedback comes courtesy of:

• James Wadsworth
• Chris Oatley
• Lars Scheithauer
  
• Joseph Jolton
• Matt Forcum

James' work can be seen on: LAMLRadio
Chris Oatley, of course, can be reached via: Chris Oatley (dot) com
Matt's work can be found at Robot Beach

Two emails came from Maikhail P Schalk and Peter Palmiotti.

Mikhail's blog is getting on its feet, but if you have the time, go check it out: Patriarch Production

Peter's got a few places online where you can check out his work:

• www.peterpalmiotti.blogspot.com
• www.peterpalmiotti.deviantart.com
• www.peterpalmiotti.com

He is also starting a new podcast: Independent Road

Cheers, Everyone!


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Feedback Episode 01-10
processdiary.com - 2010-01-17 13:00:00

Well, it's the 100th episode, folks! A feedback one, too. Feedback comes courtesy of: James Wadsworth Chris Oatley Lars Scheithauer Joseph Jolton Matt Forcum James' work can be seen on: LAMLRadio Chris Oatley, of course, can be reach

Building a Better Earth
Open Source Animation - 2010-01-17 12:54:16

In order to capture the pure joy at being the first living thing in space, my next film, Laika, calls for a beautiful, highly detailed Earth model. I realized that this is not the first time I have tried to create an Earth to fit a scene, so I decided to dust off my old models and compare them to my new model.

For the Ancestor’s Tale, I included a shot of an asteroid hitting the Earth 65 million years ago. For this model, I used a single sub-surfaced sphere mapped with a NASA Blue Marble image. The texture map was edited in The GIMP to distort the shapes and positions of the continents to account for continental drift. I duplicated the sphere and changed the material to a Blender halo effect to create the blue atmosphere.

Earth 1.0 has many problems, but the unrealistic lightening is perhaps the most glaring. I used multiple light sources in different locations to ensure that the sphere was illuminated almost uniformly, forgetting that there is essentially one light source in the solar system.

About a year later, in Primitive Welcome, I made a similar scene featuring the entire Earth against a field of stars. I used a high-resolution satellite photo, which included clouds, and mapped it around a more-heavily sub-surfaced sphere. The atmosphere was a simply a separate, slightly larger sphere with a transparent blue hue.

Earth 2.0 looks much more realistic because of the single light source and shaders which create the nice falloff effect on the dark side of the planet. The stars are too bright and too consistant for realism.

For the latest model, I followed this fantastic Earth tutorial by William Chamberlin to the following result.

The tutorial led me through the process of using multiple spheres, each with different materials and textures, and compositing them all together using the node editor. The clouds, for example, are mapped onto a sphere which is only very slightly larger than the surface sphere.

Earth 3.0 will only be viewed from the point of view of the Sputnik 2 satellite, so the full Earth will never been in a frame. Instead, the audience will see the Earth from an angle like the one below.

I am satisfied with the result and encouraged by the steady increase in image quality through the years. The end result of a frame of animation will always be a mixture of realism, technical limitations, and stylization. I have yet to develop the look and feel of this film, but conveying the beauty and distance of the Earth is essential to the plot.

Creating an Axe Part 1
Blender Cookie - 2010-01-17 05:50:15

In this modeling tutorial we are going to go through the process of creating an axe in Blender 2.5. The tutorial follows the same general theme as the Exclusive Citizen weapon pack released prior to this tutorial. The tutorial demonstrates basic modeling techniques and good use of the Shrinkwrap and Solidify modifiers. Part 1 | Part [...]

http://blendercookie.com

Hello Fedora, Goodbye Ubuntu
goplexian.com - 2010-01-17 00:57:00

This week I switched my desktop from Ubuntu to Fedora, user wise I have had no issues with Ubuntu as a desktop it does pretty much everything I need it to do, and the same goes for Fedora.

So you're probably wondering why anyone would jump ship when things seem to be going well and there are no major user issues.

The change started from a conversation with a friend, I told him I used Ubuntu as my desktop and he said to me that in his opinion Ubuntu was for "stupid people and ex-Windows users".

Well I was really flabbergasted, I thought how rude and unreasonable a thing to say!

It devolved quickly into a bit of an argument.

I told him that Ubuntu just happens to get many ex-Windows users because it is a great desktop, not because it is particularly catering to ex-Windows customers. Redhat on the other hand focuses more on servers and so they get a larger number of corresponding server customers.

To which he responded that actually Ubuntu says it is built for ex-windows users right on the front page of their website "Ubuntu is an open-source alternative to Windows", which it does say, and that Fedora is the one which is actually just trying to be a great desktop and doesn't even mention windows, which it doesn't. This is pretty much where our discussion ended.

Now I'm not trying to say that something written or not written on a website is the main reason I decided to change to Fedora, but it is what started the balls rolling so to speak.

After the conversation I started thinking about things.

So what if Ubuntu's mission is to target ex-Windows users?

If Ubuntu's mission really is to cater to ex-Windows users then it certainly explains their attraction and support of the Mono project, which is an open-source implementation of the .Net development framework.

A troubling example is that Ubuntu has recently announced that it will not be including the Gimp in their base install for Lucid Lynx, and instead will probably go with a mono application named f-spot.

Perhaps this also explains Ubuntu's decision write a close-source application and include it by default in their desktop, I'm talking about Ubuntu-One of course.

This got me in turn thinking about the warnings we've all heard about technology mono-cultures. Some say that Ubuntu is already pushing the 30% mark of installed Linux desktops.  And it is positioning itself well for the coming netbook explosion which could in turn lead to a lot more installs. This could eventually lead to a lack of diversity in the Linux desktop market.

<EDIT>

I'd like to just add a few words here to address some of the reaction I'm getting.

First of all, I'm not trying to say that Linux has become a mono-culture due to Ubuntu, I'm simply saying that given what things look like today there are dangers that the Linux Desktop landscape could become overwhelmingly dominated by a single distrobution if the trends we see today continue.

Ask yourself: What will this graph look like in 5 years if the trends we see today continue?

Secondly, my point is not to say Ubuntu is related to Windows, my point is that it seems Ubuntu is specifically targeting ex-Windows users as prospective clients, and that this fact could explain some of its recent behavior.

</EDIT>

So what does that have to do with Fedora?

Well, I'm an old-time Linux enthusiast. I think the first version of Linux I ever tried was from some CD's I found in a magazine back in the mid to late 90's, I think it was version 5 of Redhat.

I can still remember first learning about the ideals of free software and the importance of diversity and choice which gave rise to the creation of Linux and the open-source world as we know it today.

I've got nothing against Ubuntu it is a fine desktop but making a fine desktop isn't what separates us from Windows and Mac, and it never has.

What separates Linux are those old-school ideals of openness, diversity, and choice. These are area's where I think Redhat has held firm over the years and is continuing to do so today.

Maybe its my imagination but it seems that perhaps certain people have forgotten how we got here, and are getting a bit to wrapped up with doing all they can to sell their product, perhaps thinking that because it is Linux based the ends will justify the means. If that's the case, then I wouldn't feel comfortable using their products.

And so in conclusion, I still believe in the ideals of Linux, and I'm putting on my Fedora and heading to less crowded country.

Hello Fedora, Goodbye Ubuntu
goplexian.com - 2010-01-17 00:57:00

This week I switched my desktop from Ubuntu to Fedora, user wise I have had no issues with Ubuntu as a desktop it does pretty much everything I need it to do, and the same goes for Fedora. So you're probably wondering why anyone would jump ship when things seem to be going well and there are no major user issues. The change started from a conversation with a friend, I told him I used Ubuntu as my desktop and he said to me that in his opinion Ubuntu was for "stupid people and... ...

Scorpion
Blender Art Gallery - 2010-01-17 00:54:27

Description:

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