Aleideka's space

Well, i have worked further with the Captain Blender tutorial from "introducing character animation in Blender" book by Tony Mullen.



The whole texturing stage is done now (coloring the character).  Beside the texturing i have added an hair particle system.  I have used mostly inmade Blender materials but for the face i have done something else.  I have UV-unwraped the face, then painted a flat face in GIMP (an program like photoshop), imported that image back in Blender and wrapped that image back around the face.  The first image shows the textured model in Blender.  The 2e image shows the hair particle system in Blender. The 3e image shows the selection from the face thats unwrapped in the 4e image.  And the 5e image shows the in GIMP painted flat face that i have made to wrap around the 3d model.  After that ill show 4 renders.  Enjoy.

You can follow the process of this character in more detail on Blenderartists: http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=153983

Hi all,

I am done now with the next modelling tutorial from the "introducing character animation in Blender" book by Tony Mullen.



I have modelled an complete character called "Captain Blender", an superhero-like cartoon character. The original "Captain Blender" character is copyright from Tony Mullen, the writer of this book.  But, the screenshots from "Captain Blender" below are from the model i have made ofcourse.   Anyway, i am learning alot these days aboud character modelling, edge loops, N and E poles, etc...  Note that the screenshots below are only the mesh for now.  There are no renders or textures or particles - like hair - added.  This is the next thing i have to do now.
Ill post the 2 reference image first (i found those on the DVD that was included with the book) and an screenshot from my Blender workspace.  Then ill post 3 images from the full body in wireframe mode. Front, side and up view.  After that 2 closer wireframe mode images from the head, in front and side.  Then an wireframe mode image from the hand.  And as last 2 images from the mesh in orthograpic object mode.

You can follow the process of this character in more detail on Blenderartists: http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=153983








Enjoy.

Hi all,

I have post-ordered an book in the Blender e-shop called "Introducing character animation with Blender". And last week its finally arrived.

Introducing Character Animation with Blender
Author: Tony Mullen
478 Pages, B&W
Includes DVD-rom with all files and software
Produced and printed by SYBEX, www.sybex.com.




This in-depth professional book is a guide to Blender, the powerful open-source 3D modeling and animation software. Using clear step-by-step instruction and pages of real-world examples from talented Blender users, expert animator Tony Mullen walks you through the complexities of modeling and animating, with a special focus on characters.
From Blender basics to creating facial expressions and emotion to rendering, you'll jump right into the process and learn valuable techniques that will transform your movies.

* Walk through the complete process of building a character
* Master mesh modeling tools and organic modeling
* Fashion skin, hair, and clothing with material shaders, textures, and other tools
* Learn to sync lip movements with a sound file
* Understand interpolation curves, keyframes, and the basics of animating
* Model your characters using a variety of mesh editing techniques
* See how armatures, lattices, and IK interact
* Light and render your work for exactly the effect you want.

The companion DVD provides the Blender installer for Windows(r), Macintosh(r), and Linux(r).
You'll also find:
* All the source files you need to produce the examples and tutorials in the book
* The short film Elephants Dream and all the files used to create it
* An impressive gallery of short animations created by Blender artists around the world
* Plenty of useful links to related Blender resources
* A large collection of third-party software and plug-ins, including Audacity, Python, and the popular BlenderPeople


Well, the first thing ive learned is how to create a low poly human face.  The four images below are the wire from the model in front, side and back in perspective and an screenshot in orthographic view. (internal Blender screenshots)  This is how close to realistic i come with 3 months Blender experience.  Anyway, its posted on the Blenderartists focused critique forum , so you can take a look there if youre interested.  This means that this model is an WIP.  Ah, and i have learned to model the ear trough an video tutorial from Jonathan Williamson "Modelling the human ear".
(Ill post the 2 reference-images ive used to - ive found those images on the cd-rom that was included with the book).








I hope you guys like it

Hi all,

Well, the last weeks i havent really focused on one project.  I did some tutorials here and there and ive started to work on a space still of my own.  Ill will show 2 things here.
The first is a scene with 2 final renders from a Science Fiction corridor, (this one is made trough a tutorial located on this link: http://www.blendernation.com/tutorials/blender-3d-beginner-tutorial-a-high-tech-corridor/)  and an Science Fiction Main room (This is the result of some further building on the first corridor ive made before.
And the second is a space still i am working on.  This is a WIP (Work In Progress) and can be followed on the work in progress forum at Blenderartists: http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=151869
(Its already finished now 12 april 09)


Ok, here are the some Blender screenshots and the 2 final renders from the SF-corridor and SF-Mainroom.











And here are some blender screenshots from the space still and a final render till now. Note that this is still an work in progress. The space background is getting to the final stage, but you will probably notice that there is still some work to do at the space city thats in the scene.  Anyway, if youre interested to so how i came to this stage then you can see the work in progress thread on Blenderartists: http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=151869
The Ice planet's and moon's textures are made in mapzone, and the star background have i made in GIMP.






Here, a close up from the space still.  It shows a bit more detail in the moon and ice planet.





And here it is, the finished result called: "Deep Space -City 698"



If you follow this link you have the image in big resolution (2000x1400)
http://www.hostbigimage.com/images/ehx7gmxu04sspbjvv.jpg

Hi all,

I am finished with my current project, so its time to post it here on my weblog.

In this project i have modelled an NEC corporation childcare robot called "PaPeRo". See this link for more info aboud this robots: http://www.nec.co.jp/robot/english/childcare/index.html   

                                                      
                                                                 PaPeRo is Copyright © from NEC Corporation



This project started when i did the "Modelling, texturing and animating a robot" tutorials from Blenderart magazine nr.1.  But, were the tutorials were done in a few hours, the whole project that came out of that was certainly not... (The whole project was spread over 17 days, animation render times included)
When i was done with the tutorials i decided first to add more detail to the model, then i completed all the texturing, shading and lightning.  After that i was playing with the idea to make an animation from the robot riding around on a checkered plane (Yea, i know..  the checkered plane is a cliché in 3D world..), and i tried to make a very short story.
Well, up to the rigging then (Building the armature), and after that was everything ready to start the animation.  Ive ended up with 19 different rendered .AVI parts all rendered in Blender that i have assembled together in Virtual_Dub (The titlescreen and endcredits included).
I have rendered the animation on 512x384 with antialiasing and it contains 2376 frames.  With an framerate of 25 fps is the animation 1 min 35sec long.
I have realised that i have to buy a new and faster pc... The animation render times were driving me crazy sometimes...  My pc has rendered around 120 hours in total for this animation.
Anyway, after that the animation was rendered, i needed to bring the size down, since that was 1.3GB.  Therefore i converted the animation in Powerdirector to an 640x480 animation that was only 8.78MB (But sadly lost a bit of detail to).  Once uploaded to Youtube, even more detail is lost and everything seems more dark to for some reason. (The 1.3GB video file here at my home PC has the same quality as the rendered images you see below). Well, i have still much to learn aboud this :)

Well, ive learned alot again this time, but what i like most is that i haven't learned much new with the tutorials, but have learned alot in the days after when i was struggling to get some animation settings right, or when i was wondering why all those actionkeys from some action were dissapeared out of the sudden for some reason, and ALOT of other simular problems that appeared :)


Anyway, first of here are some internal blender screenshots.
The first image shows you the mesh from the upper body part.  The second image shows the mesh from the head part.




The 3e image shows the mesh from the chesspiece.




And the last 2 images are screenshots from my interface when i make animations.





And here are some still images, all renders from the animation (exept the 3e image).  The first 2 images are a render from the titlescreen and a render from the endcredits. The 3e image is an internal Blender screenshot from my Blendersetup with the titlescreen and endcredits.  And the last 5 images are the renders from the animation. (If youre wondering: the woodtexture for the chesspiece is made in "Wood Workshop")








And here, at last ofcourse.  The animation.


               


Enjoy :)