Planet Blender

The Ian Report #486 - "Exosuit" The Novella
Ian Hubert's Posts - Project London - 2010-03-04 22:53:20

Just recorded two more outstanding vocal performances from Jen Page and Jeannine Clarke this evening. We got some great stuff, which has already been plugged into the animation timeline. Yesterday we had a recording session with Michael Donovan and Josh Truax, recorded by the talented Justin Faylona. These are going to be some great new additions to the film, and it was awesome seeing all those folks again! I can't wait for us all to be able to watch the movie.

I'm rendering out one last shot from Nate Taylor, featuring the Arizona exosuit leaping up from his back with a little help from his rocket. It's pretty darn great! I think I'm gonna head in to the edit suite tomorrow and look the film over and see if there's anything we're forgetting (always possible!). Final picture lock is my biggest priority right now! It is an exciting one!

When I first wrote the script, I googled "Exosuit" and was surprised to find there were hardly any results- especially results pertaining to robotic exo-skeletons (unless if I'm completely manufacturing this memory... which is possible. It would have taken place 3 years ago—and it really doesn't seem likely that it wasn't already a common word). I was pretty pumped to have stumbled upon what I viewed as a 'new word'. Since then, though, it's become a pretty common. The end. Wasn't that a fantastic story?

Ian Hubert
Writer Director

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Meeting minutes February 28th, 2010
BlenderNation - 2010-03-04 19:40:41

Biggest news: the release of 2.5 alpha 2. Ton Roosendaal writes: Hi all, 2.5 test build A new testbuild for 2.5 alpha1 is required, especially the ‘textures get lost’ bug makes it unusable. (Has been released wednesday 3 march). Proposal: get confirmed that this bug has been fixed, and check if svn status is at least a bit acceptable. Unless showstoppers get reported [...]

Tony Mullen - 3D for IPhone Apps with Blender and SIO2 - Book Review
Adventures In Blender Diary Entries - 2010-03-04 17:00:00

Tony Mullen - 3D for IPhone Apps with Blender and SIO2 - Book Review

Tony Mullen and Claudio Andaur - Blender Studio Projects - Digital Movie Making - Book Review
Adventures In Blender Diary Entries - 2010-03-04 17:00:00

Tony Mullen and Claudio Andaur - Blender Studio Projects - Digital Movie Making - Book Review

Michel Anders - Blender 2.49 Scripting - eBook Review
Adventures In Blender Diary Entries - 2010-03-04 17:00:00

Michel Anders - Blender 2.49 Scripting - eBook Review

Sintel Face Rig (Yet Again!) and Neck
Sintel, the Durian Open Movie Project - 2010-03-04 15:52:15

I know you all are probably sick of my posts. Rigging is so boring, after all. No one wants to hear me talk about it. So I’ll keep this short.

(I’m being sarcastic!)

First, here is the final Sintel face rig:

face_rig_final.ogv

I’m not particularly happy with the control scheme. It can be pretty clunky. But it’s fast to hook up, and very general (it’s got us covered for pretty much anything we might throw at it). And that’s why we went with it.
The basic idea is that there are controls on the rig that, when selected, bring up sliders in the n-panel relevant to that part of the face. Most of the controls themselves don’t do anything, they just act as access points for the sliders. This keeps things reasonably organized, and at least somewhat visually related to the face. But it also makes manipulating the face a two-step process, and you can’t slide multiple sliders at once. So there are definite drawbacks.

(And yes, her eyes are crazy yellow! Bwa ha ha ha! Actually, I’m just messing with the other animators by changing the proxy eye color every day. Tee hee. So if the eye animation in Sintel sucks, you can blame me.)

On another topic, we also have a new neck rig:

neck_rig_01.ogv

The deformations in this video aren’t so great for demonstrating the rig (it’s not the final weighting, and there are some obvious issues with it). I might make another video later to demo it a bit better. But the basic idea is that we now have separate controls for the neck and the head which can be rotated independently, and the actual neck bones maintain a smooth and plausible curve to accommodate the rotations of both controls. At least, as smooth and plausible as possible given the rotations.

Previously we only had a single control, which was clearly not enough to specify the range of poses that the human head and neck can be in.

—Nathan

EDIT:
By popular request, the face rig:
sintel_face_rig.blend
The inside mouth is not yet complete (which is why it doesn’t match up with the mouth shape keys).

The community support arrived :) !!!!
Tinker Code - 2010-03-04 14:46:08

WOW! I’m really speechless: this monday, Blendiac and WifeofBlendiac arrived! Last time we saw it was a year ago, but time flies We are having some great times together, and I’m learning a lot from them. I want to thank everyone who has contributed to make this possible, I take you all into account, I [...]

The Making of a Pirate Captain
BlenderNation - 2010-03-04 10:41:44

UK artist Ben Simonds has given some powerful insight into the making of his Pirate Captain. Ben Simonds writes: After learning so  much from last year’s blending life competition, I couldn’t wait to test out what I’d learned since in making my entry this year. It was tremendous fun to do and I had great [...]

Last day at the institute
Sintel, the Durian Open Movie Project - 2010-03-04 10:39:59

Hey community! How are you all?

Well my journey at the institute comes to an end.  I was suppose to stay here up until the end of the projects, but stuff came up (i.e. Life and job!) which I can’t put aside! And so, I am leaving tomorrow afternoon to go back in the cold winter of Montreal, Canada.

And, for the people that were on IRC and the live stream during the sprint or the people who read the ‘rumours’ on the intertubes, no Ton didn’t fire me   Back during the sprint me and Ton were just joking about my departure, because hey, it’s better to laugh about it than to cry!

My stay here was fantastic. The whole team is so friendly and the atmosphere in the studio is really good so far (might get more aggressive in the last few week of production when people sleep 2-3hours per night haha!) and I wish them all good luck on finishing this really ambitious project!

But don’t worry community, Ton has plans for everything (because he cares alot about the community and the project we’re doing for you guys!). I will be working on some stuff over the internet from my home in Montreal, and Ton will also announce quite a few BIG news in the next few days.

So, community, don’t shed a tear for my departure, for this project is already in very good hands!

Hopefully you will understand my position and that I had to go back home. And I will keep my promise of working  from home

and look we should still all be happy

animation practice, #3
digital janitor - 2010-03-04 08:16:00

"freeway" blocking 03 from Stefan Andersson on Vimeo.

[ Vimeo quicktime ] ( right click to save movie )

Another hour of animation. I realized today that I'm trying to animation too much in just an hour each day. So I'm gonna concentrate on smaller chunks. All in all it's just over 4 hours of animation now, so I think I'm doing it too fast (in real life that is half a work day....).
BTW, instead of watching the vimeo link I recommend you download the quicktime.

Call for Content: Blenderart Magazine #27
BlenderNation - 2010-03-04 06:00:16

It’s time again to start thinking about articles, tutorials and images for Issue # 27 of Blenderart Magazine. The theme for this issue is Shadow Showdown: Achieving Light/Shadow Balance Light without shadows is just, well bright. Good lighting generally shows a good balance of light vs. shadows. This never seems to be an easy task, even with [...]

使用しなかった(BlogPet)
CG系blog - 2010-03-04 02:13:25

FDTKは、使用しなかった。

*このエントリは、ブログペットの「輪ゴム」が書きました。