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!

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.

Still looking

I am still looking for a workable and effective workflow with the Everio GZ-HD7.  Using PowerDirector Express, I can convert the files to mpeg2 and use it in Premiere Pro 1.0.  But when I export the video, (as far as I know,) it squashes the widescreen footage, creating black letterboxes on both sides, and I cannot open the file with Media Player Classic.  I may check into getting a complient codec to read the exported files.

Cannot render file

So, some progress is being made, thankfully.  We will see whether I will need to purchase a commercial video converter or new editing (NLE) software soon.

I hope the ideas will come, and I need to sit down and brainstorm some film ideas!  Bonsai!

Well, God bless,

Thanks for listening,

-b