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Tuesday, July 27, 2010

News: 2.5 DVD Content update (LOTS of Trees in Wide Open Spaces)

I've finally established a good workflow for creating lots of trees in Blender that begin to approach some of the results that are possible in popular commercial software.

The results below are simple tests, but the results are very promising! I will be covering this workflow on the BlenderNewbies Blender 2.5 Training DVD, along with creating a much more interesting landscape (with better-looking trees and more variety).

Initial test


Tweaked settings with a larger landscape, more trees


Even larger landscape, more trees, atmosphere effects


A lot more trees


A LOT more trees added, got weight-painting to work with density (still not sure if I encountered a bug, or if I made a mistake somewhere but it's working now).


Even more trees with a tiny bit of node work to enhance the atmosphere effect.


Same settings with slightly different trees (I think the other trees looked better and more varied). No node effects.


Same shot with node effects to enhance atmosphere.


I look forward to experimenting with adding clouds, some water, buildings, etc. Animating through the scene introduces some minor flicker where some trees are too close together, but that shouldn't prove to be difficult to resolve. Also, some shadow issues to resolve.


Kernon

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16 comments:

4beaches said...

Excellent work. I am looking forward to your DVD....

KWebb said...

The trees in the initial test make me happy, they remind me of Smashmethod's Mario tribute art.

Turtles
http://smashmethod.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d50g1w

Mushrooms
http://smashmethod.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d4rlp2

Bullets
http://smashmethod.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d6lprz

PixelFractor said...

Kernon, this is exactly the stuff I've been looking for. Is this a script or plug-in?

Do you see Blender becoming as powerful as commercial packages?

CorsairX said...

Hi Kernon, you just made another sale! I've been trying to figure out how to do exactly these sort of scenes for ages now! Can't wait for release!

vfx'n'3d (Riko) said...

wwwooooowww! it is Vue?! lol
no...to be serious Blender is very impressive!

greg p said...

This looks way better than the scenery in IL2 Sturmovic(what a game!), blown away!
I'm gettin the dvd, that's just too good.

Anonymous said...

Wow.. I want to render the last scene with my machine lol..

Kernon Dillon said...

@4beaches
Thanks!

@KWebb
Yeah, they made me happy too! :p

@PixelFractor
No plugins or scripts, just Blender particles. I think Blender is already as powerful as some commercial packages. There are a lot of standard features still not in place, but it's just a matter of time.

@CorsairX
Great! Same here.

@vfx'n'3d (Riko)
I've got the PLE version of Vue, so I hope to get more time to study how they do things and try to reproduce similar techniques in Blender.

@greg p
Thanks for the support! I checked out some youtube videos for that game and it looks really good.

@anon
It's not as tough of a render as I thought it would be. Blender's rendering engine is a lot more efficient these days.

PixelFractor said...

Kernon, I've actually started selling my Blender graphics on Fotolia.com. Yes, guys, you can make money using Blender.

Based on your experience, what's the one feature you'd like to see them implement in Blender ASAP?

Virgilio said...

Beautiful stuff, Kernon. This DVD is going to rock!

Congratulations! :)

Kernon Dillon said...

@PixelFractor
Cool, that's definitely something I want to get into, probably by the end of the year.

Actually, I would simply prefer the existing features be completed and stabilized, especially the particles and mesh-editing.

@Virgilio
Thanks! :)

Anonymous said...

Great stuff, Kernon! I'm especially looking forward to this tutorial. :)

Tobey said...

Just this week I was thinking about ways to quickly create realistic looking plants without using scripts and stuff, hope this tutorial will touch upon it. Very nice work Kernon and looking forward to the DVD release. :-)

Matt Jordan said...

With these DVD previews, it's almost like you're reading my mind as to both what I'd most like to learn and the style I'd like to learn it in!

Matt Jordan said...

Kernon,

Now that the first beta is out, do you have any firmer an idea of when your DVD might be available?

I only ask because I really, really wish I could buy it right now. :D

Kernon Dillon said...

Yeah, I know the feeling. I really, really wish Blender was in a more stable state.

DVD development continues on a daily basis, but I'm still experiencing a lot of crashes when doing more involved projects. There's also some talk of making some more changes to the UI to make better use of the screen space, and possibly bring back the horizontal properties window orientation (I hope so).

So, I'm in pretty much the same situation as many other training authors...circling the airport waiting for landing clearance.

You could pre-order it and save a little bit with the 5% discount. When I start shipping, the current 5% pre-order discount will be removed.

Another content update is coming soon.

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