Planet Blender

walkway
Matt Ebb - 2010-04-20 23:07:42

water temple (hompukuji)
(tadao ando)

J Option Pain
Arkavision - 2010-04-20 22:27:50

I havn’t programmed anything in Java for the past 5 months, so I’m re-familiarizing myself with the language. After making a few small practice programs, I’m going to start work on a bigger warm-up app that will resize large numbers of images at once and with the 16bit algorithm instead of the 8bit one (using an Imagemagic library).

For info on why I would want to do that, read:
http://www.4p8.com/eric.brasseur/gamma.html

After all that, I should be ready to pursue the 6DOF game project in earnest.

Tips for making a professional spaceship mesh for games gratefully received
Starbright Illustrations (blog) - 2010-04-20 20:53:14

There’s been progress on the spaceship mesh. It might not look like much, but a lot has been going on underneath. I have alerted the community at the Vega Strike forums about my intentions of doing 3D stuff, and have received a cautiously welcoming reception, and a lot of good advice. You can read the tips for spaceship modeling I was given in the second post of this forum.

I am really into the idea of getting some professional grade 3D stuff done for Vega Strike, even if it doesn’t turn out to be my own spaceship designs, and I have already started incorporating their advice into the model I’m making.

To summarise what I think they are saying;-

Point one would be that I should stop worrying about how many polygons the model is made up of. Apparently the sky is the limit, numbers like 150,000 being bandied about for a space station. This is a great relief. I’m sure I had read that the number of polygons had to be kept down, but apparently this relates to old technology and I’m probably showing my age by even mentioning it.

I think the number of polygons has already doubled in my mesh.

Point two is that as many polygons should be rectangular as possible. If possible, every polygon on the model should be a quad. My model had a lot of triangles, but I immediately started turning them into quads. It’s not that tricky, and once you know that this stricture exists it shouldn’t be too much trouble to keep to it. Here we start with two triangles, ready to cause all sorts of problems in the rendering process.

Now they have been deleted and a nice new rectangle is sitting where they once were.

So Like I said, it might not look like much has changed in this render of the spaceship, but a lot is going on beneath the skin.

Blender 2.50: How to import and export from 3ds Max 2010
Blender 3D Architect - 2010-04-20 18:29:02

I still know a lot of architects and 3d artists that uses mostly 3ds Max for their visualization projects. Even in my classroom I have a few students that have to use both Blender and 3ds Max because of their jobs as interns in architectural offices, or animation studios. How good would be to be [...] Related posts:

1. Modeling for architecture: Blender 3D BevOb and 3ds Max Loft tools to create cornices Just by the time I was giving a course on...
2. Free e-book about rendering with Mental Ray for architectural visualization From all the renders used to create architectural visualization, I...
3. Comparison between YafaRay, LuxRender, Indigo Renderer and Maxwell Render for architecture The number of external renders engines compatible with Blender 3D...

Two years of blogging and a Branch gift !
Tinker Code - 2010-04-20 17:54:29

Hi friends! WOW! I’ve almost skipped the date, but this month Tinker Code (previously True Volumetrics ) has its second birthday. I’m very happy because this blog marks the same time I started with Blender as a green dev (and I still consider myself as a newbie). This blog has seen many of the first [...]

Tip: Add Ons Manager
Blender Cookie - 2010-04-20 15:40:57

In this quick Blender 2.5 video tip we demostrate the new Add Ons system in Blender 2.5 for managing and running scripts. This new system makes using external scripts a breeze and is already bundled with numerous excellent scripts that can great improve your workflow experience. Note: this tip was producded using Blender 2.5 revision 28305 [...]

http://blendercookie.com

Furry and Fetching
Open Source Animation - 2010-04-20 15:16:39

I had initially planned to follow Laika’s journey from her lift off to her death, but I realized that the most compelling part of Laika’s story occurs before she enters the capsule. She was found the winter before the launch on a Moscow street. Her hardiness against the Russian cold was one of the major factors that lead her to her selection.

Surely an abandoned dog would have some sort of connection with her rescuer, with whomever showed her affection in the warm intior of a Soviet research lab. (This angle follows one of the storylines in Nick Abadzis’s graphic novel about the event.) The same researcher would use her trust to lure her into the capsule when the time came, betraying Laika

The idea appeals to me because it contains a story arc and two characters reacting to each other, both of which my initial version lacked. The visual metaphor of their interaction is a game of fetch, which they play throughout Laika’s training. The betrayal continues the metaphor: Laika haltingly enters the capsule to retrieve a ball and the door seals shut as soon as she enters.

With the complete storyboard laid out, I began creating the animatic. The animatic is a low resolution visualization of the entire film. Rendering is extremely time consuming, even more so with a thick layer of fur and realistic lighting, so the low resolution and the exclusion of shadows, anti-alising, and radiocity raytracing. Creating an animatic helps me outline the camera movement, the rhythm of the edit, and, most importantly, the character animation without the superfluous expense and distraction of a good render.

One of the most animotionally demanding scenes calls for a run cycle as Laika plays fetch with her rescuer. Rendering it as an animatic made it much easier to see problems in the animation.

Studying the motion, I realize that the run cycle needs to be more about the dog’s body than the legs. There should be a crunched but tuck in keyframe 2 and a full extension in keyframe 4.

And finally, here is an animatic of scene three, which shows Laika’s first consciousness after being rescued from the bitter cold. The lighting and coloring are inconsistent (the full render will look more like top image) and the arm model is a stand-in, but Liaka’s model and animation are nearly complete.

My Story
Blender Guru - 2010-04-20 14:48:24

Let me start the post by announcing that today is the 1 year anniversary of Blender Guru!

Put on your party hats people, ‘cos I know you’re as excited as I am!

So today I thought I’d write a special ‘get to know me’ type of post, where you can take an inside look at the man behind Blender Guru.

Who am I?

My name is Andrew Price and I run Blender Guru. I am 21 years old and live in Brisbane, Australia.

As well as updating Blender Guru, I fill my days working as a debt collector for Toyota. My job entails calling customers who haven’t paid their bills and trying to convince them why they should

In my part time, I also serve as a Reservist for the Australia Army. I train on Tuesday nights and some weekends.

When I’m not talking on the phone or shooting guns, I’m lighting weights at the gym. My dream is to one day weigh 90kg, but I can’t seem to break 80!

In August last year, I went to a party of a mutual friend and met my now girlfriend, Chloe Lim. She knows all about my obsession with blender, but doesn’t mind as long as it doesn’t cut into our “together time”

When did you start using Blender?

I started using blender 8 years ago, because I wanted to learn how to make cool looking 3d cars.

I queried google for “free 3d software” and came across this image on blender.org:

I was hooked.

Upon seeing this image I made a silent vow to learn the software well enough until I could one day create my own car.

How did you learn Blender?

My first week with Blender could best be described as embarrassing. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. In fact, if you check my post history on blenderartists.org you can see what a true burden I was to the community:

My learning style was the very definition of “play it by ear”. I randomly floated from tutorial to tutorial, finishing some and abandoning others until I could finally make something on my own. As I recall it was a cube man.

Through constant practice and learning new things I eventually nailed the basics and moved onto bigger projects and finally developed my own art style.

4 years from when I started, I was finally able to accomplish the dream that I set out to achieve:

Why Blender Guru?

I started Blender Guru in April last year as a way to raise my profile as a freelancing artist. I had heard that creating tutorials was the best way to get work so I registered the domain, blenderguru.com and started writing.

However it wasn’t until I attended the Blender conference in 2009, that my goal changed.

I was overwhelmed at the response I received. People who I had never met before were coming up to me, shaking my hand, and asking me when the next tutorial would be released. I was flabbergasted!

So from that day forth, I decided to make blender education my primary focus.

I am currently writing my first commercial eBook called, ‘The Wow Factor’, which you will hear me mention more of in the coming weeks.

Other Hobbies

As well as Blender, I also enjoy…

Going to music festivals:

Exploring the outdoors:

Today Blender Guru has over 4000 email subscribers, 1000 RSS subscribers and receives over 240,000 page views a month.

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