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Thursday, December 24, 2009

Timelapse Video: Christmas Ribbon Bow



Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

I wanted to try and get something done for Christmas, and barely made it! So, here's a video demonstrating how to create a ribbon bow. This is really an unedited video with no narrative (ran out of time), and it's been sped up to help make up for the lack of editing. Hopefully, you'll be able to learn something from it.

If enough people are interested, I'll reproduce it with a narrative and a lesser timelapse factor.

This is only available online (didn't have time to create the download version, sorry).

Anyway, it's been a great year thanks to all of the support and feedback! Look for 2010 to be significantly more active.


Watch the tutorial online
The video will buffer for the first 10% before being displayed, then press play to start.


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Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Blender 2.5.0 Tutorial: Changing the Keystroke for the Add Menu from Shift-A to Spacebar

Well, Blender 2.5 ALPHA 0 has been officially released! I think many people will be pleased to see that, even though there are plenty of new features, Blender is still Blender. And with some initial effort to get up to speed with the basic differences, you can quickly begin to feel at home with the knowledge gained from using Blender 2.4x.

Personally, I'll still use Blender 2.4x because of its stability, but it will be fun to explore the new Blender while it stabilizes.

I'll be posting occasional tips and tutorials for Blender 2.5.0, but I want to be careful about the subjects I cover until 2.5 stabilizes.

Having said that, here's a quick tip video on how to change the keystroke mapping for the Add Menu in 2.5 so it's the same as what you may be used to using in the 2.4x series.




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Friday, October 30, 2009

News: Monthly Challenges in the BlenderNewbies Forums

The members of the BlenderNewbies Forums have been conducting several different challenges over the past few months. It's a great way for participants to have creative fun and challenge their current abilities with Blender. The challenges are always friendly because it's not about the competition, it's about participating in a fun way to help strengthen your Blender skills. So, no worries about being "good enough".

I'll be posting news about these challenges in the future, so come on in and have some fun!

The winner of the previous challenge decides what the next challenge will be. The last challenge ended with a tie, so they decided who would come up with the next challenge idea. The current challenge is a Monthly Challenge called "Self-Portraits" :

Challenge Idea:
I thought it'd be interesting to see how each of the members that participate on these challenges look.

It doesnt have to be a photo-realistic and accurate render, it's open to your interpretation.

So you could model yourself as an animal, as a tree, as a jedi, or whatever you think that represents yourself, having, of course, some sort of similarity to your look.

...Good luck and I hope to see a lot of entries!


This challenge is set to end on November 29th. Check it out...


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Monday, October 19, 2009

Video Tutorial: Finishing the Low-Poly 3D Cartoon Hand



This is part 3 in the BlenderNewbies Hand Modeling Tutorial series. In this part, we'll pick up from where we left off in the blocking phase and move towards creating a low-poly cartoon hand.





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Sunday, October 11, 2009

News: Blender Community Toolbar Review

Ira Krakow has done a nice review of the Blender Community Toolbar, along with sharing some kind words (although maybe a little embarrassing) about BlenderNewbies. I appreciate the effort and kind thoughts. Thanks!



Ira also has a blogsite featuring many Blender tutorials, so be sure to check out his site at http://blender3dvideos.blogspot.com/


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Friday, October 09, 2009

Video Tutorial: Basic Blocking for a 3D Cartoon Hand



In this tutorial, we'll be taking a look at the basic blocking for modeling a 3d cartoon hand.

This is part 2 in the BlenderNewbies Hand Modeling Tutorial series.





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Monday, October 05, 2009

Video Tutorial: Basic Hand Structure for 3D Modeling



In this tutorial, we'll be taking a look at basic hand structure for 3d modeling. This is part of a Hand Modeling Tutorial Series, but we won't get into any modeling at this point.

We, first, want to take a look at what we need to consider when modeling a hand. These structural issues are relevant whether you're modeling a cartoon hand, a more realistic hand, or any type of stylized hand.





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Friday, September 25, 2009

Video Tutorial: Modeling a Smooth T-Joint Connection in Blender



In this Blender tutorial, we'll be taking a look at how to model a smooth t-joint connection. This technique is something you might want to consider when simply intersecting two cylinders doesn't quite give you the appearance you need.




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Sunday, September 20, 2009

News: Final and Deepest Discount on the BlenderNewbies DVD (Limited Quantity)

If you've been on the fence deciding about purchasing the BlenderNewbies DVD, now is the time to act! I am offering the final and deepest discount that I can afford, and I only have a little over 100 units available.

The discount is 30% off the original price of $35. So, for only $24.50 you can get the BlenderNewbies Video Tutorial Compilation DVD-ROM. The videos on the disc are of a higher quality than what can be found on this site, plus there are many extras thrown in. You can get complete details at http://www.blendernewbies.com/tcdvdrom/index.html.

Note: DVD purchases made on this past Friday and over the weekend (before this announcement) will be at the new discounted price! (I think that's fair.) I'll return the difference between the two prices ($5.25) to you via your PayPal account.

Thanks again for all of the support! It really has helped me to keep the site going.


Kernon


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Saturday, September 19, 2009

Video: Adding Transitions to Camera Changes in an Animation



In this Blender tutorial, we'll take a look at how to add simple transitions to camera changes in an animation. This will be accomplished using Blender's Video Sequence Editor.

This tutorial is an extension to the Camera Changing tutorial.






Additional Info:



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Tuesday, September 15, 2009

News: Blender Tutorials Featured on 3DArtist Magazine Cover Disc



Blender is getting some recognition in the print magazine, 3D Artist! I'm honored that they wanted to include some of the BlenderNewbies video tutorials (about 30 minutes, 4 tutorials) as part of their cover disc in the latest issue (#7).



I just received my complimentary copy in the mail, and I must say that I'm really impressed with this magazine! The design and artistic content are really top-notch. They cover a broad range of the most widely used CG 3D applications and they include a lot of helpful tutorials and WIPs. The content is rich and not riddled with advertisements like a lot of magazines. I'm usually not one to check out printed magazines, but this one genuinely surprised me. And no, I'm not biased because they've included some of the BlenderNewbies tutorials...it is pretty cool, though.

I'm glad to have the opportunity to help Blender get some more coverage.

Check out 3D Artist.
It's a printed publication, so you might find it available at most larger bookstores.

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Friday, September 04, 2009

Video Tutorial: How to Change Cameras during an Animation in Blender


This video tutorial will show you how to use multiple cameras in your animation, and easily control the camera switching in your animated scene.




Additional Info:
To assign a camera to be active at multiple points during your animation, simply add the necessary frame numbers to the camera's name, separated by commas (no space required).

Example
---------
A camera desired to be the active camera at frames 48 and 1726 should be named as follows:

48,1726

You can have as many assignments per camera as desired, up to the character limit for object names. Note that frame numbers greater than 4 digits should not be formatted with commas (i.e. 1,429 should be named as 1429).


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Thursday, September 03, 2009

News: Blender 2.49b Released

Blender 2.49b is the latest stable release from the Blender Foundation. It contains lots of bug fixes and some new features!

You can get it, here.


And, you can check out the release log, here.



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Wednesday, August 26, 2009

News: Finally added my Twitter to the blog!

Hey, there! You'll notice in the sidebar to the right that I've added my Twitter feed. I've had one for a while, but it just kept slipping my mind to add it to the blog site.

I post interesting things I come across and learn, plus info about stuff I'm working on.

Another tutorial is coming...soon.


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Wednesday, August 19, 2009

News: Latest Blender Browser Toolbar Updates


Time for another Blender Browser Toolbar update!

View an overview of the latest Blender Toolbar changes.
(This link is always available in the sidebar to the right.)

If you're not seeing the new content, go to the dropdown configuration menu (click the little arrow button to the right of the Blender logo) and select the Refresh Toolbar item.

Note: I'll be doing regular unannounced updates in-between these announcements.


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Tuesday, August 04, 2009

Tip: Generating Automatic Names for Materials and Textures

Blender has a feature that will create a name for the current material or texture. This is very useful for those times when you just don't feel like being creative in coming up with a name, yourself.

For materials, the name generated is based on an approximation of the material's color (Red, Blue, LightBlue, etc.). The name generated isn't always an exact match, but it's definitely good enough for a quick naming solution.

The auto-naming feature is activated by a button located to the right of the material's name field. It's icon is an automobile, making it easy to remember its function.


For textures, the button is located in a similar location as shown below. The automatic name generated for a texture is simply based on the texture's type (Image, Wood, Blend, etc.).



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Monday, August 03, 2009

News - 15% Discount on the BlenderNewbies DVD-ROM


Since the economy is effecting everyone, I think it's a good idea to offer a 15% discount on the BlenderNewbies DVD-ROM. If you've been waiting to get the DVD, now would be a great time while this discount is in effect!

Related Post: BlenderNewbies DVD-ROM Review and Comments

(A special Thank You to all of you that have already purchased the DVD. I really appreciate it.)


Also, you may have noticed that some of the tutorials now include a purchasable download option. This download is the same quality that's found on the DVD, so if you're only interested in a higher quality version of certain tutorials, this might be a good option. However, it's a much better bargain to purchase the DVD.

I'm still working on making the higher-quality downloads available, so you may still find many tutorials without this type of download option. Also note that the current lower-quality download option is removed after putting the higher-quality option in place (I can't afford to host both copies on my server).

Thanks for all your support! Expect more new tutorials and tips soon...

EDIT:
I've had some people requesting an alternative payment service besides PayPal. I've looked at other solutions, but PayPal is really the best workable option for me.

Note:

  • You can pay via PayPal without having to have a PayPal account. On the checkout page, us the link indicated in the image below.

Thanks!

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Thursday, July 16, 2009

Creating a Library of Reusable Composite Nodes

Hello,

In this video tutorial, we’ll take a look at how you can create a library of reusable composite nodes in Blender. It takes time to create node setups, and often the work is repetitive, so let’s see what can be done to be more efficient.



This tutorial can be viewed at BlenderCookie.

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Monday, July 13, 2009

Gen3 Tree Script URL updated

It appears that the Gen3 tree script webpage no longer exists, so I'm providing another download link for the script.


I've also updated the Gen3 tutorial post with the new links.

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Tip: How to set bookmarks in Blender for your favorite project folders

When opening a file in Blender, you often have to navigate to the desired project folder over and over again every time you start a new Blender session. And, it gets to be a bit irritating after a while. In Blender 2.5, this irritation will be soothed with new bookmarking features in the file browser. Unfortunately, Blender 2.5 is quite a ways away so how do we be more efficient?

This question was recently asked in the BlenderNewbies Forums and forum member, "radialronnie", provided a great workaround that will allow you to bookmark your favorite folders within Blender and have them always available!

Check it out.



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Thursday, May 21, 2009

"Level" labels have been added to the tutorials

Hello there,

In an effort to better organize things, I've added three levels of difficulty to the tutorial labels: Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced. The level assignments are based on the amount of experience required, the depth of coverage, and a dash of guesswork.

Hopefully, this will help make it easier for people to better target which tutorials to check out.

You can find the labels to the right in the Labels column. Each one begins with "Level:" so they're grouped together in the labels listing.

You can also click the links below to retrieve the search results.
Level: Beginner
Level: Intermediate
Level: Advanced

I'm also in the process of trying to put the tutorials in a suggested viewing order (it's not nearly as simple as I thought it would be). The tutorials weren't created as a progressive set of lessons, but hopefully this will provide a little more organization.

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Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Blender Themes Used in BlenderNewbies Tutorials

I'm often asked about the themes that have been used in the BlenderNewbies tutorial videos, so I've decided to provide downloads for all of the themes that have been used thus far.

This is the first theme that I started using regularly. It was created by Bastian Salmela (aka basse).

Download Zipped theme file.

This green theme is one that I created.

Download Zipped theme file.

This is the theme that I'm currently using. It's a modified version of a theme called "Dark". I can't remember who created the original version.

Download Zipped theme file.


To use these themes, you'll need to unzip the python script into your "scripts" subfolder.


Then, in Blender, open a Scripts window.


Locate the Scripts, Themes menu and select the desired theme. Blender's interface will be updated instantly.



For more info on how to customize Blender's interface, you might want to check out the Pimp Your Blender tutorial.


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Saturday, March 14, 2009

Enhance Your Blender Renders with Textured Lighting

Here's a text-based tutorial that I created to help you spice up your scenes with textured lighting. We’ll take a look at how simple it is to drastically effect the look and feel of your renders by applying textures to lighting. Applying a texture to a light is generally the same as applying a texture to an object. The only difference is that we’ll be projecting the texture into the scene based on the light settings.



Although not a lighting tutorial that goes into great details of the lighting setups, we will take a look at the basic function of the lights within the different scenes. We’ll also cover how to create your own simple textures for the lighting. The last example will show how simple it is to use a video as a light texture.

These techniques will allow you to create interesting light and shadow patterns that can help frame the "story" and context of your scene; thus helping you to create scenes that no longer appear to exist within the all too common CG vacuum. They will also allow you to add subtle variations to your lighting instead of the ultra-clean lighting often seen when using very basic lighting techniques.

This tutorial requires a knowledge of the basics of applying a texture to an object in Blender.

You can view the tutorial at BlenderCookie.com.

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Monday, March 02, 2009

Disabling Modifiers to Increase Interface Responsiveness

As you develop your 3d models and scenes, you inevitably come to a point where the responsiveness of the 3D View begins to diminish. There are many ways to deal with this issue, but one way that may not be too obvious is to simply temporarily disable the effects of some modifiers in the 3D View.

This works really well for modifiers that add geometry or objects to the scene, such as:

  • Subsurf
  • Particles
  • Mirror
  • Array
For example, you add a Level 2 Subsurf to a model in a scene and begin working on some other aspect of the scene. You can temporarily disable the Surbsurf effects for any existing models while still having the Subsurf applied during the render. This lightens the load for the 3D View and increases the interface's responsiveness as you continue to work on other aspects of your scene. Using this strategy in a scene containing several objects with multiple modifier's applied can result in a significant increase in performance.

To disable a modifier's effects in the 3D View, simply deselect the button indicated below. This same button can be found on the control panel of all modifiers and is enabled by default.


Also, note that you can disable a modifier's effects during a render and in the editing mode by toggling the appropriate button.


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Sunday, March 01, 2009

Enabling Texture Visibility on Both Sides of a Face

By default, Blender will display uv-mapped textures on only one side of a face. To get them to be visible on both sides, do the following:

Here we have a Plane object with an image texture mapped onto it.


Here is the back side of the Plane with no texture visible.


To make the texture visible on the back side, Tab into Edit mode and select the face. Then, go to the Editing buttons window (F9) and locate the Texture Face panel as shown. Enable the Twoside option, and that's it!


You now have the texture displaying on both sides.


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Thursday, February 19, 2009

Creating Mesh-based Arches from Curves

This video tutorial will show you how to leverage the power of curves to create smooth polygon-based arches. We'll also take a look at how to control the polycount of the resulting mesh. After covering the basics, there are two short timelapse videos demonstrating a couple of variations on the techniques.

The resulting geometry can be used to help create archways, doorways, architectural support structures, etc.



Watch the tutorial online
(FLV streaming, Length - 11:31)
Or, Download the 62MB ZIP file to view it offline (load the HTML file in your browser).


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Wednesday, February 18, 2009

"Painting" Instanced Objects into your Blender Scene

This tutorial teaches how to use Blender’s particles system to “paint” instanced objects onto mesh surfaces. Similar to Maya’s “Paint Effects”, though not nearly as powerful, it’s a very nice way to fill a scene with flowers, vegetation, rocks, pebbles, gravel, debris, etc.

There's so much you can do with these techniques! The end of the tutorial includes a timelapse demonstrating a practical application of the techniques.




The tutorial is hosted by BlenderCookie. There's a streamed version of the tutorial at a nice resolution of 960x600 (10 fps) and, there's a downloadable version that includes

  • 1280 x 800 resolution, 30 fps, MOV format
  • better audio quality

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Friday, February 13, 2009

Bring Out More Details in Some of your Applied Image Textures

Do some of your applied image textures look a little blurry when rendered?

Well, here's a tip that can easily add a little bit more crispness to some of those textures. This applies specifically to Image textures.

The parameter involved is called MipMap. It can be found in the Texture buttons window (F6), on the Map Image panel. This panel is only visible after having added an Image texture to your object.



MipMap

With the MipMap option enabled (the default), Blender will create several lower-resolution images of your texture and automatically use them based on the objects distance from the camera. Because less memory is require to process these low-res textures, render speeds can be enhanced, as well as increased framerates within the Game Engine.

However, this can sometimes result in less crisp textures, it depends on the texture and your preference for how things should look. The difference is usually subtle and it often requires doing some test renders, but it can often result in crisper looking image textures. This may not provide consistent results in an animation so, you'll need to do some comparision renders to be sure.

How it Works (from Wikipedia)
Each bitmap image of the mipmap set is a version of the main texture, but at a certain reduced level of detail. Although the main texture would still be used when the view is sufficient to render it in full detail, the renderer will switch to a suitable mipmap image (or in fact, interpolate between the two nearest, if trilinear filtering is activated) when the texture is viewed from a distance or at a small size. Rendering speed increases since the number of texture pixels ("texels") being processed can be much lower than with simple textures. Artifacts are reduced since the mipmap images are effectively already anti-aliased, taking some of the burden off the real-time renderer. Scaling down and up is made more efficient with mipmaps as well.

Here are two renders where the only settings difference is the MipMap option.


Find more info on the other options available on the Map Image panel.

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Wednesday, February 04, 2009

QuickTip: Assigning a 3D Object to be Visible on Multiple Layers

You can easily assign a selected object(s) to be visible on a certain layer by using the M-key while in the Object mode. The following dialog will appear:



Simply select the desired layer button and click OK. The object will then be moved to that layer.

However, what if you want to make an object visible on more than one layer?

Well, it's simple. With your object selected, press the M-key to display the Move Object dialog. Now, hold down the Shift-key while selecting all of the other layers where you want your object to visible, then click OK.



That's it! You can now view that object on multiple layers.



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Wednesday, January 14, 2009

How to Create a Layered Snowflake Pattern in Blender

Hey there, time for the first video tutorial of the new year!

This one is about creating a layered snowflake pattern. The Blender 2.4x video tutorial covers:

  • Creating the snowflake pattern using simple poly-modeling techniques along with Blender's Mirror modifier and Spin tool
  • Arranging the snowflakes using the Scatter and Drop script along with some manual tweaking
  • Setting up render layers for compositing
  • Using Blender's nodes to composite the render layers with added FX
  • Adding colorful stars to the composited layers
  • Adding a background image to the snowflake pattern
If you've never used Blender's Composite Nodes before, this tutorial will be a good place to get your feet wet with the basics!

Resource File (ZIP file) Includes:

  • two Blender 2.4x blend files for the basic setup
  • the Scatter and Drop script (created by Roland Hess) along with a link to instructions on how to install python scripts. Normally, I would provide a link to a python script like this, but I couldn't find a working link to the file so I just included it in the download.
  • some additional sample renders of similar snowflake patterns
  • a copy of the background image used in the tutorial
I hope you enjoy it!

Check out the Blender video tutorial.
Check out the video tutorial...