Planet Blender v2 beta4 - 'Turning Pages'

hyakudanen
Matt Ebb - 2010-04-18 23:10:13

one hundred flowers bed
(tadao ando)
awaji-yumebutai
Thinking About The Future – 2
Arkavision - 2010-04-18 23:00:27

I still don’t like Maya. I don’t think I ever will. So if I use it, it’ll only be for work. Blender 2.5 and up can be configured to work like Maya (or any program really) – allowing potentially painless usage of both programs. I also like the freedom offered by opensource software. There’s no worry about breaking the license, or putting in software keys, or registering it to a node-locked computer when you also want to use it on your laptop…

My work is free when I use free software. The Blender Foundation keeps an archive of previous versions of Blender. Complicated works of art, such as animations, tend to break a little over time as features are enhanced or replaced – so this is important if you want to access and reuse old work without having to fix broken stuff. Even with Big Buck Bunny – produced just two years ago – the animation rigs are kinda messed up in current versions of Blender.

I myself experienced a sort of odd compatibility/license lock-down of my work recently. The Hulkwolf model was close to completion in 3DS-Max 9 – the lab I work in at school as a work study student has an educational license. Well, for no good reason other than to learn about the updates, I decided to take the work into a demo Max 2010 and finish it there. It wasn’t long before I realized that everything I was doing in 2010 was about to be locked down and inaccessible. Max 9 can’t open Max 2010 files. In fact, no version of 3DSMax can open a newer version of its own files. And sure, while Maya can do this, it’s still an unsettling experience. They say the most effort in a project is spent working on the last 10% – well, my last 10% is locked away in an inaccessible file, created by an expired demo. The best I can do is redo the work in Max 9 from an old file, or finish it in the freely available Blender.

Anyhoo… another experience was with Hash Animation Master. I bought a year license for that last year. I barely used it, but now I have 3d art files I can’t access anymore, because of it. C’est la vie, you could say – but does it have to be?

I think I’ll be using Blender for a long time. I’ll use professional software out of necessity, nothing more. Like they say, it’s the art that matters, not so much the tool you use.
Weekly update April 5-18
Freestyle integration into Blender - 2010-04-18 20:32:00

Over the last two weeks, the dev team was intensively working on major updates of the Freestyle Python API documentation. The idea was to incorporate the contents of the original Freestyle API reference manual into the Blender/Freestyle Python API implementation in the form of Sphinx-based docstrings (i.e., pieces of API descriptions in string literals). This [...]
Special delivery
Sintel, the Durian Open Movie Project - 2010-04-18 15:02:09

The kind of “pizza” that makes Ton happy.

Many many thanks to Arnd “Justa” M. who has created the awesome JUSTACLUSTER for us! In the next weeks we’ll fill the the other three drawers, and then we have 16 intel i7-930 nodes with 6 GB each rendering for us.
The Duelist, Technical stuff to get my art Vega Strike compatible
Starbright Illustrations (blog) - 2010-04-18 14:27:51

Looming from the gloom

I’m thinking of creating a spaceship for Vega Strike. On the wiki page where they invite submissions they mention the following list of points to take into consideration. So before I create my powerful and feared spaceship it looks like I have some reading to do. OK let’s take a look…

Considerations for a successful model submission:
- Model is in the requirements list ->
Duelist
Heavy Fighter constructed by High-Born Luxury Transport Conglomerate under contract from the Hunter’s Guild
Humanity
Hunter
Artstyle guide:Hunter’s Guild
1
N

concept required
OPEN
- Abides to faction visual guidelines
The Vega strike faction is listed as Hunter’s Guild, but the wiki page was blank when I looked, so I did a Google search and still, I couldn’t find any information at all! I’ll keep looking.
- Has approved concept
OK first I’ll do the concept. And the rest of the points will follow at later stages.
- Provides model source file (blender, Wings3D, …)
- Provides OBJ file
- Has model mesh, shield mesh, LoD meshes, helper meshes
- Provides uncompressed textures in png format (and optionally faction textures)
- Provides texture source files (GIMP, …)
- Provides HUD png image with correct orientation
- Provides units.csv file entry
Some interesting points I also noted were;-

The textures I create – (is a spaceship a texture?) – will have to be compressed with nVidia texture tools on my Ubuntu machine. The guide in this post explains how to add the nVidia package to Ubuntu. It is a great how-to but it forgets the command…
```
sudo ./configure
```
which should be entered before make. Once installed this package will create DDS files. It didn’t install properly for me however, so to begin with I’ll use the Gimp-dds plug-in, it is good enough for testing apparently and downloads quickly and easily from the Ubuntu package manager.

I came across an interesting looking media player called XBMC while I was searching for these instructions (the post with the nVidia how-to is on the XBMC forums).

Installing XBMC required me to run update manager which I’ve been avoiding because I don’t want it to mess up my kernel. I’ve customised my kernel so it will support my Bamboo Graphics Tablet. I found this workaround for the kernel update issue, and now my kernel should stay in it’s pristine state. I also just realised that my workflow could be tighter. I start by being interested in making 3D spaceships, I need a new graphics package, I need to know how to get it to work with Ubuntu, I get distracted by a media player, I install the media player, this requires me to tinker with update manager etc etc. I’m really going to have to stop this tinkering and focus.

So back to the spaceships.

My work for Vega Strike will have to be released under a General Public License, or similar. I’ve got no problem with that. If anyone can use these spaceships, I can use them on my site too.

I will have to provide the blend file from Blender to the masters directory of the Vega Strike project and optimised DDS files to the data directory. They will then be available for use in the game and for changes and alterations if required in the future. That’s a bit of a pain but it’s just a couple of extra steps and it will make the material I produce a lot more usable to the creators of the game.

I think I’m going to be able to comply with the technical requirements, so it’s time to make a spaceship, or should I call it a unit?
Vega Strike, old-school, open-source, spaceship game. I’m interested.
Starbright Illustrations (blog) - 2010-04-18 09:55:09

To boldly go...

I’ve been interested in Vega Strike for a while. It is based on the old Elite space trading game and it is open source and supported by a big enthusiastic community.

The only problem is that my old zombie laptop’s graphics card just can’t handle a 3D game like Vega Strike. (it’s a card called the S3 Savage and it is apparently as old as the hills and just not very good at all).

As a 3D spaceship fan I am still very interested in the game though, and thought I might try to create a spaceship that conformed to the standards they use and try to get it included in the game. For a creative type like me that might be even more fun than playing!

Anyway to find out more about Vega Strike and to talk to the people who will say yay or nay to my spaceship (if and when I actually get it completed) I’ve joined the Vega Strike forum. It’s a gold mine of information about the way 3D graphics have to be formated for inclusion in a game and I think it will be a great project for me to learn how to do this.

So now I’ve got a bit of a learning curve ahead of me.
6DOF Project – Fighter Model
Arkavision - 2010-04-18 08:38:39

Recently I started work on a simple game project. The idea is to create a 6DOF game. 6DOF means 6 Degrees Of Freedom, it refers to the freedom of movement the player has in games such as Descent or Forsaken. These games are rare, so I thought I’d give it a shot.

For some idea of what I’m talking about, feel free to view the videos below from Youtube.
Descent 2 , Descent 3 , Forsaken 64

Most of my stuff is creatures, so this was a nice change of pace and an interesting challenge for me. I originally created the model for this project, but near its completion, I decided to put it on Turbosquid as well. It’s ok since this model was made without concept art or any preparation. My intent from the beginning was just to use it as a test model until I made some better ones.

Below are screenshots of the work. If you’re interested in using the model for your own projects, visit the Turbosquid page. It’s free.

I created the textures in GIMP (and Blender for the edge wear) when I discovered that 3DCoat wasn’t well suited for texturing low-poly models. So this model has the distinction of being one of my few projects done completely with open source software.

Also included in this post is a viewer program that will let you look at every angle of this model.
http://arkavision.com/share/demo_executable.zip
CG Survey Initial Results In
BlenderNation - 2010-04-18 07:23:29

The results from CGenie's Big CG Survey 2010 are in. Blender did quite well in a lot of areas.
Food for Thought
Reyn's Blog - 2010-04-18 05:05:00

Hi! Sorry I might have missed to repost these great words shared by Scott Wood as a comment to one of my recent blog posts."I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The function of man is to
Pinoy
Reyn's Blog - 2010-04-18 04:49:00

Took this photo on a birthday celebration somewhere in Bauang, La Union, Philippines."Pinoy" is a Philippine slang for "Filipino" or the people of the Philippines.This is a picture of poverty, camaraderie, and struggle, as might have seen and observed in the current state of the country.
Twitter: 2010-04-18
Matt Ebb - 2010-04-18 03:31:00
- a bit disappointed with fotolab, pitt st… i know, everyone makes mistakes :/ http://bit.ly/ao77a7 #
- Added app interaction presets to Blender – help needed adding configs for other 3d apps! http://bit.ly/bAzTPD #
- @kitsunenoir it's from this show: http://bit.ly/cLqgNC in reply to kitsunenoir #
- Vanishing Point by Bonsajo: http://bit.ly/ajZ1cH #
- Great animation: http://bit.ly/aMR1Ve #
The Producer’s Report #112 - Simple Math
Phil McCoy's Posts - Project London - 2010-04-18 00:30:00

Things are starting to add up. It's really true, we are in the home stretch. But the work to cross the finish line is still very significant. Today, we screened Project London for a group of local filmmakers and select crew members including the new Sound Design Team at the Grand Illusion Cinema in the U District.

It was a fantastic experience to see Project London projected on a big screen. It gave me a chance to see this movie that we've been staring at for such a long time with new eyes.

We are collecting some absolutely valuable constructive criticism from the attendees at this screening and totally pumped about what a large number of these suggestions will do to improve the Project London experience. We can't thank these friends and colleagues enough for their candid insights.

The Sound Design Team will be getting together next Sunday afternoon (time and location to be announced soon via email) to discuss next steps.

Thank you everyone for your continued support on this exciting journey.

Sincerely,

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

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