Is Blender as good as 3DS Max for professional 3D renderings?

I received this very good question in one of the comments:

Do you think Blender is as good as 3D max for professional 3D renderings?

Mike,
dk.lazyanimation.com

And my answer:

Mike,

Your question is a very good one, but I am really not the person to ask.  However, I will try to give you a good answer nonetheless.

As you well know, the quality of the final render lies heavily upon the work done in the modeling/animation application prior to the rendering.  The detail of textures, proper placement of lamps, and correct shading and maps all play into getting the stunning result we all want.

Blender’s internal renderer may (or may not) render as high quality results as 3DS Max – I do not have experience with 3DS Max – but Blender’s internal renderer results are definitely satisfactory for general usage.

With the use of an external renderer such as Yaf(a)Ray or Indigo you can achieve higher realism in your photo-realistic renders, and with a program such as Freestyle (coding for the integration with Blender is still in progress as far as I know,) you can create artistic stroke renderings as well.  I have also heard of another photo-realistic renderer called Pixie.

Now onto your question directly:

“Do you think Blender is as good as 3D max for professional 3D renderings?”

Is Blender as good as 3DS Max for professional 3D renderings?  I don’t know, but I would say a big “yes.”

Give Blender a try, learn online with all the great tutorials out there, and you will soon see that Blender is a very capable program.  I highly recommend it!

To find out more of what Blender can do, see the features page (and also see the new features for the 2.48a release,) and check out the image gallery (I do not like some of the images here for various reasons, but I hope you will be OK with them.)

If you have any more questions, feel free to ask!  I am welcome to answering your questions.

God bless and best wishes!

-b

P.S. All of the above programs that I have listed are open source.

This election – vote your conscience!

This excellent-quality film voices the heart of a nation seeking the redemption of the priceless values that the United States of America is built upon.*

Stand with me this November as we spread the truth of Jesus Christ and the good values upon which our nation was built.  Your country is waiting for you, for we the people are the flesh of America, and our values the backbone.

This election, vote your conscience.  Cast your vote for what you believe, not what you want.  Your personal decision counts. and each and every vote makes a difference.

Please, stand.

-b

*We are not only built upon the high principles that define our constitution, but upon God, (that is Jesus Christ,) who graciously guided our forefathers in laying the foundations of our once-great America.

P.S. God bless all the Catholic and Protestant Christians who helped lead America to victory and finally becoming an independent nation.  For all their sweat, blood, prayers, and love, that went into the founding of our America.  God bless, always, -b

Blender 2.48a released!

This needed release is an important bug-fix release for the excellent 3D content creation suite Blender.

Check out the article on BlenderNation.com here: http://www.blendernation.com/2008/10/23/248a-update-release/

And you can download the new version here: Blender 2.48a.

God bless!
Happy Blending!

-b

P.S. A little background story on why this release is needed can be found here: http://www.blendernation.com/2008/10/22/yo-frankie-delay/

P.P.S. God is good… He is always good, nomatter what you or I face…

P.P.P.S. Looking forward to doing some “personal filming” sometime… my own music, you name it – the whole she-bang… hopefully…

P.P.P.P.S. A friend of mine told me about Owl City, an unsigned music artist.  Well, I started listening to it today (once I remembered,) and, lo-and-behold, I liked it!  That artist’s work is now the official “focus for listening” for October 23, 2008… in other words, that is the music group I focused on listening to today (on Playlist.com.)  Check out some of their music here. Wow, so inspiring… I could do my own MUSIC!!!! WHOOT!!! … or, JOIN A GROUP, or START A GROUP, or… SOMETHING!!! … 🙂  Maybe I’m crazy, but I love the idea, wow… I want to start… start soon. 😉

Need sleep, contemplating

Ever sit down and wonder about life?  Wonder what’s next, what the duties are that you must complete, and how you are to achieve those goals?  I do.

I wonder about the future, my life, who I am and who I will be.  I contemplate how I can better accomplish my goals, I consider what I am required to do, what I have volunteered for and what must be completed first.  And in all this, I wish and dream and wonder.

So here I am, a soul in the wind of time, seeking what I want to find and secretly knowing what I must end up resolving upon.

But, in a way I am encouraged.  Encouraged at who I am right now, and what the future might hold; what I can be now and tomorrow… the potential of a dreams fulfilled in full blossom.

And, then once again, I am here.  I am responsible for my actions, my ways, my thoughts and beliefs.  I must choose what I will do, I must choose what I will become, I must choose what to do with what is ahead.  Not that I must decide whether or not I want to be a soloist singer and songwriter, a 3D animator and CG designer, or a popular novel author, but that I must choose whether I will seek these dreams or God first.  Yes, God.

Just encouraged, hoping, wishing for the future, and hoping that it will all turn out as well as my dreams fortell… that my dreams will not turn into nightmares, and that in everything I do, I will first find God as my true friend.

Anyhow, that’s a taste from the waterspout.

God bless, friends!

-b

P.S. Found out about a screenwriting template (someone told me about it,) for Open Office Writer.  I already use Celtx for my scriptwriting, but then again, what’s the harm of trying another possible software solution?  Here goes nothing… oh, btw, NaNoWriMo is slowly, but surely, approaching.  IT IS COMING! AHHHHHH! … >wanting to complete first novel, or at least get more progress on it before NaNoWriMo 08 starts< … a thought: what if I took all of my life as a NaNoWriMo?  Concentrating my efforts on one project at a time and completing it with the mindset that I will not leave it till my goal is reached… what then?  I might get really stressed out always living like that, but on the other hand, it’s possible I would complete my tasks much quicker… anyhow, but I believe it may call for a whole life-style change-over.  God bless! -b

P.P.S. Not exactly set on what we are going to do with “ITL” (“Is This Love?”) right now.  However, I hope to make some of my own, personal films sometime soon.  Nature clips set to music, thoughtful vid with voice over, crazy ideas and a mix of ketchup thrown in… anyhow, don’t know exactly, but hopefully I will make time for creating some personal films… complete with custom music!  God bless, -b

“Mussheron Paddocstol” a platformer game made in Blender (work in progress)

I have been working on designing a simple platformer game in Blender.  The game is currently called “Mussheron Paddocstol.”  You are a simple little mushroom jumping across pitfalls (that lead to an endless fall into oblivion,) and you’re navigating a “mysterious” world full of cubical, gray boxes – well, that’s what it’s like so far…

"Mussheron Paddocstol" a mushroom bouncing, WIP platformer game - made in Blender

It still remains a pretty basic game, but I am hoping to use this game as a stepping stone in learning 3D game creation with Blender.

If you want to see a REALLY impressive real-time model made in Blender, check out these images on BlenderArtists.

God bless,
Listening to Sixpence None the Richer, needing to complete work on updating ShadrachYouth.org, etc…

-b

P.S. This is a work in progress btw! ;D

New Macbook from Apple! (Video)

Check out the new Macbook from Apple!

http://www.viddler.com/explore/cdevroe/videos/489/

Some more news: Updating www.ShadrachYouth.org website, need to prepare to DVD projects to burn, making a game in Blender 2.48 (bouncing mushroom platformer,) listening to music on Playlist.com (check out my playlist,) and looking forward to what the future holds.

Best wishes, God bless,
-b

Blender 2.48 released!

Blender 2.48 is released! Blender is an excellent 3D modeling, UV mapping, rigging, animating, and rendering program that is open source and completely free!

Check out the BlenderNation article about the new version of Blender!

Download Blender 2.48 now!

NOTE: This version of Blender has two dependencies. The installer will let you know what they are. Downloading and installing these dependencies (needed third-party apps that help create the need environment for the program to run) is not that hard to figure out.

God bless and looking forward to the days ahead! It’s really late, so I better hit the hay.

…trying to make a game in Blender… I have had a desire to make games for a long time… I abandoned that desire thinking gaming wasn’t good. However, if I am careful with my time, I would still love to create some computer games.

Hopefully the Minosa Films group will rehearse (run through the script of) “Is This Love?” this Sunday after church. Currently I plan to rehearse the film and prepare it as needed for production. It is very tempting to just say “Hey, who cares, let’s film now” when the script is not film-worthy yet. Like a ship that is not prepared for the ocean, our film will sink. So, we must prepare.

Tentative plan:

• Brief script rehearsals (group)
• Find location – if current location will not work (banor, others)
• Pray about it

When script has gone through revisions and is film-worthy, we will then commence a 2 day schedule:

1. Day 1: Take cast and crew to location.  Walk through scenes and familiarize the actors and crew with the location: when and where events take place in the film
2. Day 2: Shoot film

By the time the production is film-worthy and ready to shoot, we will have gone through a number of brief rehearsals, script revisions, blocking, acting emotions, etc., so that when we film we are ready, with no wrinkles or big problems to iron out on location (hopefully.)

Well, God bless and best wishes,

May you be guided on the road ahead,
And may we all find what we are looking for,

Never give up,

-b

About BlenderNation:

BlenderNation is the central news site for Blender, the free open source 3D content creation suite.

Check out BlenderNation.com!

Talked with Pastor about “Is This Love?”

Talked to my pastor some about “Is This Love?” I now have some extra stamina and idea on what to do, which is great! Thanks, Pastor! To do: brief rehearsals (~15mins) after church (running through the script,) a two-day schedule (getting used to the location on day one and shooting on day two,) and some more things.

Watched an episode of an old TV show called “The Rockford Files.” The episode is called “Foul On The First Play.” It was enjoyable. 😉 (There is one bad word in it… at least?)

Wrote a review for Fireproof (see the official site) for StreetSteeple.com this morning. Hopefully that will get online soon. Will post a link. Completed a design for poster that will be at a booth at Bridge Day, advertising that Borders (a large book company) will be giving 10% of sales on Bridge Day to the New River Youth Symphony and Chorus… I also played some Atom’o’run (X-Mas version) on Fedora 8 today… that was fun. 🙂 A very simple game that is surprisingly enticing.

Hopefully we will be rehearsing the “Is This Love?” script soon. 😉

More later?
God bless,
ciao,
-b

P.S. Still looking forward to NaNoWriMo!

Destination: where?

Was going to write a poem – started, but haven’t finished.  Oh well, maybe later on that.

Did a job for free on designing a small black and white ad for someone and now it turns out I had the deminsions wrong.  Maybe if I correct them and send them back in soon I will be able to repremind the situation more smoothly.

Prepared and completed the downsampled (720×480, mpeg2) video files from Charles Morey’s violin recital for someone to use with other footage and compile a 4 minute promo video for the string program.  That’s good to have that done.

Now need to prepare (cut, edit, burn…) the recital in HD SP for one DVD, with source footage starting at about 2hrs and 40mins.  This computer is not built to handle HD smoothly, so I long for a faster machine.  I am not sure exactly what approach we are going to take with this project, whether to use the entire recital or just cut and compile the best parts, making a 5, 10, or 20 minute video when finished.  We will probably use the entire recital, but I’m not sure yet.

Hoping to design a website and logo for someone, which will greatly help in my finances for film.

FLY

Who knows, what path will I take?
Who will I be, what am I now?
Where will I go – why, when, for what?
And who will I meet, for God, or for naught?
Who will I be in twenty years,
Or even twenty minutes.

Who am I now,
And what am I aiming for?
What am I living for,
And why?

Find out,
Endeavor,
Don’t just try,
Don’t fall and cry,
Get up, spread those wings,
And upon the high winds
Fly.

May your skies be as bright
As the hope we were born
To fulfill.

-b

Did some quick filming with a friend today

As the title implies, I got a little bit of time to do some filming with a good friend of mine.  I hope to do more later, and perhaps, if other obligations and responsbilities (or distractions like broswing the ‘net,)  I will edit the footage and hack together a short music vid of some sort… who knows?

Anyhow, a quick, little update.

Bleh bleh blehhh…

Best wishes!

-b