learning Blender

[treatkor]

i've been playing with Blender (http://www.blender3d.com/) for about a week now. here's a chess piece i modeled with the help of a tutorial. i'm so addicted to playing with this app. :)

edit: my newest renders are here http://treatkor.com/images/blender/ and you can see some old stuff i made with blender here: http://putfile.com/treatkor/

[DDD]

blender has come a long way. Very solid app. Nice chess piece. I saw a real good book in barnes and noble the other day on blender. May be worth a purchase.

[treatkor]

yeah i think it's great. especially for a free, open-source application. i'm still learning the interface really, at first i was overwhelmed by all the options. it's the first 3d app i've ever tried to learn, so even some of the terminology is new to me, but i'm having fun trying to learn it.

edit: btw, i love the mouse repulsing logo thingy on your homepage.

another edit: woot! i modeled a die (again with the help of a tutorial (http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro/Die_Another_Way))
.

[hybrid101]

cool. but doesn't it seem strange that the black chess piece has 2 shadows?

[treatkor]

it has two shadows because there are two lamps :)
i want to figure out how to make the shadows softer though, but i haven't really played with lighting yet.

[JoshuaJonah]

good work treaktor.... i'll be watching for your 3D flash sites now...

:thumb2:

[thesparky007]

man!
ive been using blender for over a year now and still not good at it

[treatkor]

i'm definitely addicted to blender! ;)

thesparky007, i found these tutorials very informative: http://www.blendernation.com/tutorials/
and the "bathtub and bishop" video here: http://www.ibiblio.org/bvidtute/

here's a space thingy i made:
http://img221.imageshack.us/img221/7387/spacecup21sw.png

here's the same image with the particles animated:
http://img70.imageshack.us/my.php?image=spacecup4zc.swf

[treatkor]

here's another one:
http://media.putfile.com/spacepod-fly-by

i need to fix the path so the exhaust trails look right but anyway, still learning :)

[thesparky007]

i'm definitely addicted to blender! ;)

thesparky007, i found these tutorials very informative: http://www.blendernation.com/tutorials/
and the "bathtub and bishop" video here: http://www.ibiblio.org/bvidtute/

here's a space thingy i made:


here's the same image with the particles animated:
http://img70.imageshack.us/my.php?image=spacecup4zc.swf (http://img70.imageshack.us/my.php?image=spacecup4zc.swf) how did u export the animation into flash? into an swf file?

[treatkor]

i did the original animation in blender. which can export a bunch of formats. for this one i exported as a series of png images, then brought that sequence into quicktime, where i exported as an flv, then i brought the flv into a flash movie and exported the swf. :)

here's few more:
http://media.putfile.com/earth-in-clouds
http://media.putfile.com/bubbles79
http://media.putfile.com/space-ring-waves
the first two are small (around 300KB), but that last one is 1.2MB

edit: you can import avi's directly into flash 8

[treatkor]

http://x402.putfile.com/2/5707275494-thumb.jpg (http://putfile.com/pic.php?pic=2/5707275494.jpg&s=x402)
click for a larger view.
comments appreciated ;)

[Loststarz]

Space Ring Waves kinda reminds me of the old HBO intro

[treatkor]

Space Ring Waves kinda reminds me of the old HBO intro
:) i remember that. my animation is inspired by a movie i saw here:
http://blender3d.org/cms/Animation_Festival_200.718.0.html

it's the one called "Esign" by Chris Larkee. his is much cooler than what i did and has lots more going on. (note it's 70MB)

after seeing that i wanted to see if i could recreate the effect. it's really simple to do with blender.
you subdivide a mesh plane until you have a large grid with lots of vertices. deform it in the z-axis with noise and/or by pulling up individual points using proportional falloff to get a bumpy landscape. then add a "halo" material to the plane. blender has several lighting effects called halos (flares, rings, lines, stars, etc...) then you just animate the camera across that plane and voila! instant HBO intro ;)

i've attached the blend file if anyone wants to check it out. of course you need the Blender app to view it. it's free and cross platform.

[treatkor]

larger version here: http://putfile.com/pic.php?pic=3/6017520620.jpg&s=x402

[matthewjumps]

blender is awesome...i so hope the orange project will get it some of the recognition it deserves....orange also seems to be speeding up the implementing of the few features blender still lacks...

I LOVE BLENDER!

heres a little somethin im workin on...yes he needs a head...and textures...

[treatkor]

that is awesome. reminds me to the mad magazine spy vs. spy guys :)
is that black outline toon shading? how'd you do that?
is it rigged for animation? i have yet to try building a character with armatures. questions questions questions... :thumb2:

[matthewjumps]

yes its toon outlines...ill post an explanation sometime soon...

its not rigged yet but it will be after ive done the head...ill post a walk cycle or something

[treatkor]

green pea moons above chocolate planet?

[esnetni]

dude u have been doing this for a week and just wow I am getting blender I have really been interested in 3d.

[ar]

Wow, you have some amazing work. And props for making it with Blender :D!

GBP

[treatkor]

thx! i'm always learning. (i've actually been playing with blender for about a month now ;) )

[Pasquale]

heh nice work treatkor! :P nice folio btw :)

[treatkor]

thanks for all the nice comments.
next thing i'm working on is modeling my guitar :)
i still have lots of work to do on it, but here's a wireframe of what i have so far:

[danulf]

wow, your a real fast learner :D Looking great!

[treatkor]

more guitar work in progress:
i still have more modeling to do (head stock and bridge, and i need to re-do the body because that f-hole is fake right now and the area where the body meets the neck isn't correct) but for some reason i decided to go ahead and add some materials and textures.
what do you think?

[matthewjumps]

looks really good...man you are certainly blazin the trail for someone so new to blender...you must ave got your hands on some good tuts no?

http://www.blendernation.com/

this is a good resource for blenderheads...some good tuts there :D

[treatkor]

still adding details and textures. this is going to have to move to the back burner for a while because of another project, but eventually i hope to have this looking fairly photo realistic.

[matthewjumps]

man thats looking really good - are you following a tut or ar u making it from scratch?

[treatkor]

i've been doing lots of tutorials, to learn techniques. i used a reference image ( http://www.fender.com/new_repository/fender_guitars/images/0137402_xl.jpg ) for the body and pickguard curves, but this is modeled after the guitar i own. a '72 thinline (not a reissue). mine is not the normal blonde finish and it's really beat up. so yes, from scratch.
after i get the basic materials and textures close i'm going to try and make it look as beat up as mine is. :)

i just got through tweaking the body wood grain texture (too much of a visible pattern (the smaller ripples) in the one above, redid the pickups, cut holes in the pickguard and made the pickguard screws real meshes (those above are texture mapped), and finished the bridge hardware (i might redo the saddle height adjusters at some point.) it's 3/4 through rendering now, takes about an hour. i'll post an update when it's finished. what's up with your headless dude? worked on him anymore?
anyone else here use blender? :)

[gpdesigner]

nice work on the guitar treatkor,
The detail work on that is really good . . . you did all this in Blender?
surprising little app. I like the texture job as well

[matthewjumps]

blender is not a little app - blender is a BIG app!

http://www.blender.org/cms/Features.155.0.html

its feature set is more than ample for highend stuff and since its source is open if a studio needs to add scripts/features - they can!

the orange project
http://orange.blender.org/
is an 'open-source movie' made entirely in blender, along with other open source programs like the GIMP....it premiered on the 24th of this month - it should be released to download soon, along with all the project files (thats what an open source movies all about ;) )


Get a copy today man it rocks!

[gpdesigner]

blender is not a little app - blender is a BIG app!



. . . . . . . . . OK ! :thumb2:

[treatkor]

nice work on the guitar treatkor,
The detail work on that is really good . . . you did all this in Blender?
surprising little app. I like the texture job as well
thx, gpdesigner. yup, all done in Blender. all the textures are procedural except the knurling on the knobs and the tops of those screws.

it really is a surprising app. it's really powerful and although some people find the interface strange, it's great once you get used to it.

matthewjumps, uhm, that's not really necessary. ;)

[matthewjumps]

im just a psycho :hugegrin:

yea the interface of blender takes some getting used to ... i actually hated it when i installed it the first time cause it was so strange - but second time round i tweaked the UI and button config and now its great...its also so easy to customise views etc...

[gpdesigner]

matthewjumps, uhm, that's not really necessary. ;)

. . . I get the impression he really likes his Blender . . . .
what-ever the tool, if you enjoy doing 3d that is all that matters. Discovery and expansion is always possible. Hell . . I use pen and paper if it get's me what I need.

Rock on with Blender I say.

gp

[matthewjumps]

:thumb2:

[treatkor]

all good then!

[treatkor]

here's my latest progress. the body is pretty much done, now i need to work on the neck and the headstock. (larger version here) (http://treatkor.com/telethinline_wip_6hourslrg.jpg)

[matthewjumps]

thats looking great :thumb:

[danulf]

yeah, that's really nice!