Planet Blender

Blockheads.blend
Tears of Steel - 2012-03-20 17:54:04

Due to popular demand, and us being the sharing type, here is the blockheads file for your amusement!

BlockHeads_Release.blend

There is a readme text inside the file that explains the particulars of them all.

Now go out and make us some funny blockheads skits!!!

—————

Edit: People were having crashes with the file, possibly due to different versions of blender. This file *should* be ok!

BlockHeads_Release2.blend

080
Vimeo / Blender 3D - 2012-03-20 17:20:50

I am doing a one-creative-thing-a-day project for each of the 366 days of 2012, sharing my entries over on Google+. Most days they are just photos, but today I decided to do something a bit more challenging. A while ago I saw a tutorial on 3D Animation plus for a cute little effect using particle systems in Blender and wanted to try it out. This is the result.
Today, 20 March, is the 80th day of the project - 080, a super-bubblicious-looking number. What better day to make an animation of all these bubbles? :-)

Tutorial:
3danimationplus.com/tutorials-2/fresh-particle-effect

The #creative366project on Google+:
plus.google.com/u/0/116621242048023202918/about

My #creative366project album:
plus.google.com/u/0/photos/115244822505211094728/albums/5693778270843755297

Cast: Jonas Neergaard-Nielsen

Tags: Blender, animation, bubbles and 366 project

Course in Graphic Design and Advertising with Blender
BlenderNation - 2012-03-20 16:00:50

A new on-line Spanish Blender course. IHMAN writes: IHMAN – Escuela Online is a school dedicated to teach and divulge Blender. Our aim is help the Hispanic Blender Community with tutorials and courses in spanish. The course lasts for 13 … Continue reading →

BlockHeads
Tears of Steel - 2012-03-20 14:13:33

We’re starting to gear up for the animatic. With Ian getting the timing together with a storyboard edit, I’ve been rigigng up some low-poly, least-distracting, fast, quick and easy to use proxy characters I’ve affectionately named BlockHeads.

The idea is to use these with low res environments to really plan out how each scene and shot will be done. Obviously we’ll probably tweak it all alot once we start the actual filming. But for now this will give us a really solid idea on how each shot should be planned, how when and where we need to add detail and also what the film itself is going to be like.

Non-Blender: Transformers VFX Breakdown
BlenderNation - 2012-03-20 14:00:03

A nice breakdown of some of the VFX in Transformers: Dark of the Moon for your inspiration (via Andy).

[read the full article on blendernation.com]

Ocean + Dynamic Paint + Particles = ?
BlenderNation - 2012-03-20 10:00:02

By FelipeDR. FelipeDR writes: I created this video, for testing that Blender could do with your Ocean modifier, Dynamic Paint and particles. It’s a fake Realflow. Links BlenderArtists Thread Blend file (Blend Swap)  

George Maestri - Blender 2.6 Essential Training - Training Video Review
Adventures In Blender Diary Entries - 2012-03-20 10:00:00

Review of George Maestri - Blender 2.6 Essential Training - Training Video

Attitude
Reyn's Blog - 2012-03-20 09:27:00

"Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree." -Martin Luther Made with: Blender 2.62 (click image to enlarge) Camera-animated version:

Happy Birthday, Ton!
BlenderNation - 2012-03-20 09:22:30

Reached 52nd anniversary today. Still not too late to grow up! One day! :) — Ton Roosendaal (@tonroosendaal) March 20, 2012

Attitude
Vimeo / Blender 3D - 2012-03-20 08:35:40

"Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree." -Martin Luther

Made with: Blender 2.62

Cast: Reynante Martinez

Tags: attitude, optimism, joy, happiness, blender, 2.62, 3d, cg and animation

Melbourne Blender Society: two upcoming meetings
BlenderNation - 2012-03-20 03:00:56

Two Blender meetings are coming up in Melbourne A casual dinner on the 29th of March A more formal meeting at the end of April. See the MBS blog for details. (Via Alex)

Discovering Custom Hotkeys
3rD Movement - 2012-03-20 02:53:00

Well there are a few things even an experienced blender user may have not run across before... one such thing is: adding hotkeys manually. You know, you can right click on operations in menus to add or change hotkeys, but what about those times when you want to add a hotkey, but your can't add it with the right click menu.

For this example I will use one of my favorite useful add-on: Chromoly's Vertex Slide. It doesn't come with a hotkey assigned. You can find more information about this specific add-on if you wish in this thread.
The first step is to use the spacebar search, a menu or  a button to locate and activate the operation you are adding the hotkey for. When you use the operation and confirm the action. It will print out the operations you just completed. To be able to see the printed operator command you need to drag the top bar down. 

Note: There are a few other ways to view operator commands such as hovering over buttons and menu items long enough will give you a popup that shows you the python command.

Next go to your preferences with Ctrl-Alt-U, go to the
Input tab and go to the
3D View>Mesh key map, scroll down to the bottom of the mesh key maps to where you see the "Add New" button and press it. Then expand the new key map with the little triangle.

For this example the "mesh.vertex_slide" is the part that is important, the operation is doesn't need the bpy.ops. or the information in the brackets to work, so when you enter the operation into the blank text box it will recognize the operator and give you the options for the operation inside key map.

Note: Make sure the hotkey you intend to use is not being used or you may run into issues with crashing or hotkeys not working. In edit mode Alt-V is a free hotkey.

Now that you have a working hotkey, don't forget to drag the top window back up and save your default scene.

Keep Dreaming, Buddy!
3rD Movement - 2012-03-20 00:53:00

So I decided to pick up an old project that I started for a BWC (Blender World Cup) competition, I was not able to enter it due to some technical issues at render-time, But here is the finished image.



I called it "Dreamer" attempting to imply something about the image, but yeah... the rest is up to the viewer to interpret.

Just knock on the comments if you would like to grab a wallpaper version of the image :)