What’s been happening

Someone gave me a very nice comment on this blog, so I thought I would give a shot at updating this blog by giving you this post.

Since I last wrote, I have become a Blenducation editor (see my presenter info at the bottom of the page here,) and I should be doing my second public class on Thursday evening, though I may do a two-hour class to see how that goes (instead of a one-hour class.)  See the post about my first public class here, and watch the the video recording version of the class here.

I have also been modeling more of late. Here are some thing’s I’ve done:

Head model for animation – got a lot of help on the topology from a head-modeling-timelapse video by Jonathan Williamson

Frame from the final animation renders – had technical (encoding) issues, so I couldn’t submit this animation to the Blenducation particle hair animation contest.

What I modeled in my first public Blenducation class. (False-colored, disasimbled, etc., after the class)

So, those are some things that have been happening with me.  I hope to continue design on my personal/professional portfolio website, advertising my services.

Cheers and God bless, and may you have a blessed Sunday,

-b

Various drawtypes in Blender – quick test

There are various drawtypes for objects within Blender’s 3D viewport.   Besides that, there is the Subsurf modifier and the “Set Smooth” button which adds goroud shading.  Here is a simple screenshot illustrating my point:

Drawtypes, Subsurf, and Set Smooth in Blender

Now I admit that this might not be worth reporting about, but it’s better to state that fact here than at the beginning of the post, warding readers off. 😀

Next on the Dancing Taco project: continue modeling the onion, then test the shading and texture with renders and tweaking.

I have started setting up some big goals for me this semester, (with someone’s excellent help,) and I really hope I accomplish them.  It will be extremely hard to conquer these goals, but it will be worth it.

Anyhow, I wish you the best in all your worthy endeavors!  God bless and goodnight!  I cherish your prayers.

-b

Tomato for project “Dancing Taco”

Still working on the Dancing Taco project.  Hope I will finish it.  Here is the current render of the tomato:

Current version of the tomato (new render)

However, previous versions were quite embarrassing:

A very embarrassing render of a tomato (first render)

Also, I am considering designing a T-shirt, which will be a neat experience.  We’ll see if that happens.  I found this neat PDF document that has some good guidelines regarding making a custom design.  I may use CafePress to print my design, but it may not have enough options for what I want to do.  We’ll see.

Cheers and God bless!  Hope you are enjoying the new year.  I better get to writing my JaNoWriMo novel. ;D

-b

P.S. I have recently downloaded The Mancandy FAQ videos from blip.tv (through Miro,) so I may get into learning a ton more about rigging soon!

Rebounding Jalapeno

Here is an animation test with my jalapeño pepper for my Dancing Taco short film.

The Dancing Taco Project is a personal project I adopted just a few days ago, and depending on how well the work flows out or if I run into any big stumbling blocks – or it takes way too much time and I loose interest – I may not complete it.  But here’s to hoping that I it will come to glorious completion!

JaNoWriMo has started, but I have barely started.  Instead of writing on my 2007 in hopes of completing it I may use the time to write script material for my live action show I might create.  Who knows?  We’ll see which route I end up spending most of my time on.

God bless and Happy New Year!

2009 rocks!

-b

P.S. A big thanks to Tim Formica for helping me with the materials/lighting.  Also, thanks to Doom9.net for the excellent help on using QuEnc.  My video went from being too compressed and the wrong aspect ratio to what it is now.  Thanks, Doom9.net!  And thanks for all your help, Tim Formica!

P.P.S. This test animation was made with Blender, an excellent open source 3D modeling, animation, and rendering app.  Check it out, it’s free!

“Dancing Taco” Blender work-in-progress

I’ve been working on a Blender project (since yesterday) called “Dancing Tacos.”  Here is my result so far:

Jalapaño pepper from Dancing Tacos (work in progress)

It started out as a simple rig exercise, but as I worked on it I modeled it into a hot pepper (a jalapeño, probably.)

The rig consists of two bones in one armature, linked to the mesh with the Armature modifier.  I am using envelope to influence the mesh’s deformation.  The first model I rigged was quite objectionable and ugly.

The ugly vegitable. Jagged shadows and ineffective texture

But before I went on I decided to change this object into it’s true calling: a hot pepper! 😀

The jalapeño model. The blocky shadow is still apparent.

But as you can see, I had a problem: the texture made it look as though it were some green jewel, and besides that the shadows were extremely blocky and jagged.

So I sent some renders and a .blend to a friend of mine, Tim Formica who kindly fixed the pepper’s texture and the scene’s lighting, and sent me back the file.  When I rendered his result it was like “Wow, this is weird… it’s cool, new, and weird to have my Blender work modified and enhanced by someone else.”

Tim Formica's result

Then I reverse engineered what he did, which was fun. 😉

Tim added subsurface scattering, fixed the lighting, added a plane, added the red to the tip of the pepper stem, and deleted the background colors.  Thank you Tim for all your help!

From there I added the mexican background, the mist effect in the World Buttons, and ultimately came up with the result I showed at the start of this post.  Here is what it looked like when it was rendering:

Rendering the jalapeño pepper for Dancing Tacos

I will probably tweak the pepper some more before I’m satisfied with it, particularly the red in it.

Anyhow, I hope the quick concept turns into a final animation, featuring bouncing vegitables and a mock taco ad. 🙂

God bless and Happ New Year 2009!!!

-b

P.S. Gotta hit the hay, but I will be rendering a little animation overnight…

P.P.S. JaNoWriMo starts … today.  Well, in about 10+ hours for me… 😀  (JaNoWriMo is similar to NaNoWriMo, but some friends and I are doing it in January.)

“Yo Frankie!” open game online for free download!

Hey, check it out!  The “Yo Frankie!” open game project is complete and open for free download!  Go ahead and go check it out now!

Besides that I have been working on a modeling tutorial for Blender.  I really hope it turns out well.  I am modeling a character that I made, called “Snorks.”  He is a little man with a big name (his full name is long,) and is a professor at a college.  I am using this tutorial to guide me as I model him.

Anyhow, that’s some news… working on an article on 3D Arkitektur, also hoping to compose at least one song by Christmas.

God bless,
See ya later,

-b

Big “oops, I deleted that”

Just realized that I accidentally deleted the editing files for a very short film I was working on. ;(  This means I will either have to start over with the editing process (I might still have the PNG title sequences) or give up on it.  I lost all other .blend files I was using with BlenderAVC before I moved my hard drive to this PC as well. 😦

So, in other words, oops. 😉

I am also realizing that shutter speed and frame rate are two totally different things. LOL.  Yeah, I know, I may sound amateur, and I am, but I am learning… some. ;D

So, for now, adios!

-b

P.S. I will most likely not complete NaNoWriMo this year (2008 for those of you who have lost track) because I did not spend enough time on it, and I am only to about 20,000 words so far.  Hopefully I will get 25k before the deadline hits.  Oh well, there is always next year … and this January (2009 for those of you who forgot about the New Year) three of us will hopefully be doing a “homemade” NaNoWriMo – same goal, different month.  This means more writing for me, so that’s great… You can still see my NaNoWriMo user page here. Ciao!

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.

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. 😉

“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