Blender 2.5 How to Remove Dark Blocks of Shadows

In the Blender 2.49b version you can have a scene composed of one lamp light and an object and you wont have a problem producing this kind of image.

Notice the transition from light to soft shadows.

However, in the current Blender 2.5 version you will get this...

We get large blocks of ugly dark shadows.

How are we going to solve this problem? How do we make it as nice as the old Blender 2.49b render?

1. Click on the World button.

2. Click on Environment Lighting
3. Play with the Energy setting until you get the desired result.

Blender Artists: Bispodejesus Bros

I like the two Brazilian brothers working on CG animated films using Blender. So I am bookmarking their blog here.

http://bispodejesusbros.blogspot.com/

Animated CG Film Pipeline

You can make a 2D Animated Short without going through any pipeline. This is especially true if you are just working alone.

But when you are trying to transfer to 3D, the pipeline becomes very important whether you are working solo or with a group.

3D Animated Shorts are a lot harder to make than 2D. It requires more art discipline. You need to have someone skilled at modeling (somewhat similar to a sculptor). You need a person with great painting skills to make the textures. Then you need to have a good video editor. You need to have a rigger. And then an animator.

3D Animated Films requires more people compared to 2D Animated films.

Having said that I like this article from cgtuts describing a CG Animated Film Pipeline.

Sculptris Primer

Sculptris is a very nice digital sculpting software. It takes advantage of dynamic tessellation to keep the number of faces down.

It is a very intuitive software. But you will be able to use it better if you really understand how its various tools work.

Sculptris sculpting primer Part 1 from 3dioot on Vimeo.

Sculptris Primer part 2 from 3dioot on Vimeo.

Sculptris Painting Primer from 3dioot on Vimeo.

The Future of 3D Printing

Blender 2.49 Draw Type Shaded in Blender 2.5 Beta

In Blender 2.49b had a Draw Type feature named Shaded. It allows you to see your 3D Mesh with its texture even if you haven't rendered it yet.

It's is a useful feature because it allows you to get a sense of how your model would approximately look like when it is rendered.

However, in Blender 2.5, "Draw Type" is now called "Viewport Shading". And the previous "Draw Type: Shaded" is no longer there.

Where did it go?

Let's find it.

1. Go to Object Mode
2. Set the Viewport Shading to Solid.
3. Press N
4. The Properties Panel will appear.
5. Scroll Down and find the a section marked Display
6. Click the arrow next to it to show the options for this section
7. Look for Shading
8. Click the check box marked "Textured Solid"
9. You are done.

If you will notice, the option to use GLSL rendering is also in this Properties Panel.

The Cup

Blender 2.5 beta has just been released. But even in using the Alpha version some artist have already created very good CG Short Films. Take this one created by Psl-Man.

The Cup from psl on Vimeo.

Designing Robots, Futuristic Vehicles, and Architectures

 I was at the bookstore yesterday and I found this book Extreme Worlds by Francis Tsai.  He seem to be a very good artist and also a very good teacher.

According to him, in order to draw robots and futuristic vehicles, he often take inspiration from construction vehicles.

On the other hand, when he is designing futuristic architectures, he uses construction buildings as his reference.

The Making: Treasure of the Skyrocks

This short film is not really made with Blender. But we can learn the workflow that it's creators followed. And then we can apply the same process when we make our own CG film using Blender.

Part 1


Part 2:


The Making of the Film:

Blender Surface Sketching

This is something to look forward to in Blender 2.5. What you do is loosely draw lines and the script will automatically create the surface/faces.

Checkout the Blender Artist thread for more information:
Blender Surface Sketching Script

Surface Sketching for Blender (tutorial version) from Blend_Ideas on Vimeo.

How to Cover a Hole in Wings3D

Wings3D 1.2 now allow you to make holes in your mesh. Unfortunately, it is quite confusing to cover this holes.

Here is what you need to do.

1. Select a face adjacent to the hole.
2. Right click on the selected face.
3. A list of commands would appear
4. Hover your mouse pointer over the command .Hole
5. Right click again

The hole should now be covered.

This would have been less confusing if the developers created a separate command in the list named "Face" or "Remove/Cover Hole".

Hopefully they are doing just that in the later versions.

Low Poly Anime Character Modeling

First in a series about Low Poly Anime Character Modeling

How to Make a Runescape Machinima Using Blender

This is a very nice demonstration on how to make a machinima. The author used Blender 2.52