Hello everyone. I've been using Blender for a little less than a year now. The program is an open sourced and free to use 3d creation suite. It can be used in each of the major platforms (Windows, Mac, and Linux). It has the ability to animate, sculpt, create, and much much more. However, I feel that I'm still quite a novice.
This year, I've put together some images, and people said that they tried blender, but found it too confusing. I have such respect for this program, that I thought I would start a thread where people could ask and answer questions about Blender. Part of this is a fishing expedition to see if anyone else is currently using blender, and the other part, is my desire to share what I've learned with others.
Currently, I'm working on a tutorial about the sculpting abilities of Blender and I will post that when I have time to finish it. Unfortunately it will be during the summer. (Sorry). I hope that I'm able to create a tutorial that will help to take some of the fright of the rather "scary" interface... although, It's really not that bad.
If anyone is interested in working within a 3d environment, and you're like me (without extra money) then I would highly suggest you try out Blender. You can get it here (www.blender.org).
(The next post will contain links and information that I have found very helpful in my quest to learn Blender, and I'll add to this thread as soon as I find, try, and/or learn new things about Blender)
Some People Mentioned that they were running into blocks with
Blender, So I decided to post some tutorial links and other stuff that
I use:
First is Blender Underground (has great beginning/basics video tutorials) http://blenderunderground.com/
Then the Blender Wiki (Which, like the Blender Program is a nightmare to navigate because there's so much information) http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Main_Page But I really appreciate Blender's: Noob to Pro Page that has a ton of walk-throughs and tutorials: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro
Then, First Animation Part I and Part II: Very Detailed walk through based on the Introduction to Character Animation I found it nice for learning the program and doing something at the same time.
For people interested and willing to spend a little money these two books have been very helpful: "Introducing Character Animation With Blender" And. "Essential Blender"
The only problem with Essential Blender, is the reference photos that
are used in the tutorials are VERY small, but it has proved very useful
in learning the small bit that I've put together so far.
I hope this helps anyone interest in Blender. Matt
Not sure where to post my blender pictures, so i am posting them here. Hopefully a little insight on what blender is capable of, plus if i find a place to put the blender files, I will give them away for free. These have been done many years ago, i think about 3-4 years ago. These got me into college, so i owe these images a lot. If you want to know more about how i done them just ask.
A syring done to test blender's glass material with another glass inside. I tried to get the photon lamp correct but failed badly.
I done this one as my second attempt at a guitar. It never got finished though
This one i had to do without any blueprints, just references. I started by modelling all the keys and working from the size of the key to get the right size piano. In total it took a day to get it to that stage.
This was done to test particles with the white thing in the middle (stigma?) Background i just used an image and done some blurring.
This was done for a speed contest, a total of 30 minutes to produce the piece. (Came last of course )
A lotus (whatever model, sure it's the old type) Never got to put a material on it or texture since it never got finished. This was done with just one verticle, then adding loads and just joined them up.
Dark Pulse, Those are amazing! What are you using to render those (internal or something like Yafray)? Would you be willing to create a tutorial for how you get your effects and your lighting especially along the lines of materials, lighting, and transparency? Or if you don't have time, would you let us know where one can find good tuts for the above mentioned questions?
From the tutorials that I've been able to look at, they have a tendency to be scary for people just getting started with Blender.
Also, I could free up some space on my own website for you because I would like to eventually write a sculpting tutorial, and I'll be using the space for that anyway. I know I'm personally lacking the knowledge about the topics that I asked about.
Gix, look in your sketchbook post :) i posted it a few days ago about AO. And i think all of them are blenders internal renderer. But i'm not sure about the syringe.
Yes, i know what you mean about tutorials. Mostly i spoke to people that use blender and gathered information that way. The tutorials i felt at the time didn't help one bit, even when i was first starting out. Most of it's done with testing what works, like instead of using one light source, add about three (i think i used spot lights, not a lamp). Turn the light source down so it's not overlighting your render. I'll gather some pics for you since i used different things.
If you want, i can send you the .blend files from some, like the syringe is a good one with the glass.
I would appreciate the blend files... I'll start working on a Blender site this weekend, so if you want, people can get additional info and .blend files from there. I just don't know how big they are, or if my yahoo acct will accept them... I know my main acct will not.
Here's my forum e-mail: gixgidea@yahoo.com
I know personally I would like to get to a more "photo real" feeling to the pieces I create, so your info would definitely be helpful.
Gix, i have spent most of the day creating, editing and what not doing this
Hopefully it shows you a few settings that create that realism you are looking for. The downside to it is that it's a video. I did try to show you how to do it with pictures but a video was much easier and quicker. The video size, with the .blend file and the skymap is 15mb in total (video runs for 5 minutes or so). It was 100mb but I somehow found out how to compress it
If you have a way to get this 15mb file, e-mail? or some other way? I'd be happy to give you it. If you can't get it, like i said i'll put a temp web server up and give you the information.
Here is what i came up with in a few minutes. [Edit] This was done with yafray.
After an hour of testing with the ball scene. I quickly went to google and got some textures and added a few more planes. These are the two I used with textures
In the end I had 2 spot lights and a lamp in this one.
And this one i kept the same lights but added a new light [photon]
If you set up a temp server, i can host it on my webpage and I'll get it from you... Or I think there's a program to send larger files via the Internet. I don't know that site off hand. Really cool looking stuff, and I think others might enjoy seeing how it was done too.
How did you add the textures so that they actually look good and aren't all freaky looking?
Not sure if you two are familiar with torrents.....Bit torrents....they were originally conceived for just such an occassion, sharing large files over the internet without tying up resources and hogging bandwidth.
Wizard's First Rule
Thanks Penabled, not sure how to do a torrent though? what torrent thing do i need?
Gix, i'll do another tutorial for the textures only downside, i hate the sound of my voice, so there is no sound. I'll try and figure how to torrent them up. When i do i'll put the link in here.
I was playing with a Text to voice program yesterday... There's one from ATT that makes wav files (but is limited to 300 characters), and there's another called Open Mary (open source), but it's a little tweeky.
Hope it works. I'll do another video tutorial soon on the textures and materials, with voice hopefully. I'll cringe everytime i here it though, but hopefully it'll be priceless tips for you
)
