Blender Newbies 3D Video Tutorials (Learn to Create 3D Graphics with Blender!) View RSS

News: BlenderNewbies is not dead, and DVD orders are still being processed. 13 Jul 2011 12:13 PM (13 years ago)

I just wanted to do a quick post to let everyone know that the site, despite appearances, is not abandoned. I'm still processing the huge amount of pre-orders received (thank you!) and haven't had time to create any new tutorials.

I'm also reviewing a new Blender animation book, in-between order fulfillments, that I'll eventually post on the blog. My main focus is on getting the Training DVD orders fulfilled, though.

It will be great to get back on schedule! BTW, when things get back to normal, I plan to do a bit of a "reboot" of the site to clean out the Blender 2.4x content.

Thanks for understanding!

(I've disabled the comments for this post since I won't have time to respond and it will help to keep my email Inbox under control.)

News: BlenderNewbies Blender 2.5 Training DVDs (Final Update) 28 Apr 2011 9:46 AM (14 years ago)

This is the final update for the training dvd. The next notice will be the official release, in about two weeks.

It turns out that the final product is now FOUR DVD-Rs! Originally, this was supposed to be two dvds, but I found it difficult to stay within that limitation. I tried, but ultimately decided it would be simpler to not fight it.

The original price for the two dvds was $35, but I will have to increase the price to $50 for the four dvds. However, this doesn't effect those that have pre-ordered the dvds. And, I think it's only fair to continue offering the training at the original $35 price for a two-week grace period for those that have been waiting for the official release to purchase.

So, if you're interested in purchasing the training dvds, you can still get them for $35 plus postage and handling (a steal) until May 13th! After May 13, 2011, the price will be $50 (plus postage and handling).

You can get more info about the training, here. This page is the original announcement and the graphics could use some updating, but I plan to get to that over the next two weeks.

News: Blender 2.57a (stable) is available for Download 22 Apr 2011 12:25 PM (14 years ago)

This release is a bugfix for the v2.57 release. Lots of issues addressed!

You can find the downloads, here...

Here's the changelog for this release...

News: Blender 2.57 (stable) is available for Download 13 Apr 2011 9:34 AM (14 years ago)

Blender 2.57 (Stable) is available for downloading from the Blender Foundation!

You can find download links, here...

News: Blender 2.57 RC2 (Release Candidate) available for Download 6 Apr 2011 5:53 AM (14 years ago)

Release Candidate 2 is available for downloading from the Blender Foundation!

You can find download links, here...

News: BlenderArt Mag Issue #32 is Available 6 Apr 2011 4:47 AM (14 years ago)

From BlenderArt Magazine:

In this issue we are going to explore some nice “Springy” topics like plants and trees. Nice warm growing things that make us think warm thoughts and forget all about being cold and snowed in.

Table of Contents:

• Making 2D environments for the iPhone game Spires
• A videogame in few logic bricks
• Modeling an iPhone 4 with Modifiers
• Creating Plants Using Arrays
• CanTree – Online Tree Generator
• Blender 2.5 Materials and Textures Cookbook

Resource: Animation Insiders Ebook 6 Apr 2011 4:35 AM (14 years ago)

I'll get straight to the point...This is gold. It's free. Get it. Read it.

NOTE: Link updated.



I haven't had time to really dig into this, yet. But, scanning through it, it's easy to see that it's definitely something to completely absorb. It's an incredible knowledge resource for animators at any level of experience, from some of the industry's leading animators.

More info...

What is Animation Insiders?

Animation Insiders is a book dedicated to animation. AI book #1 is a compilation of know-how, experience and anecdotes from 13 talented animators. Animation Insiders is aimed at people who are passionate about animation, those who are looking to surpass their limits and acquire new techniques. Every book of this amazing series will explores a new theme.

Animation Insiders offer a new approach by compiling the various work
methods of many different artists. In the industry, this is what we call
“gold.” Back in the old days, many artists in the field of special effects
and animation did not want to give away their secrets. At Disney, the
nine old men did not pass on their knowledge and expertise until the
end of their careers. Fortunately, this philosophy has changed and
education has become more open and shared.

This book allows you to peer into the artistic approaches
of professionals, so that you can gain some insight into the way
they go about solving specific problems.

From its very inception, this book was to be dedicated to animation
in general, workflow in particular. We gave different artists the opportunity
to introduce themselves in their own words and to unveil the
“Shaman,” as acting coach Ed Hooks calls it, behind their magic.
In all the various animation topics, workflow seems to be the only one
that is ever redefining itself. Animation Insiders is, therefore, a platform
for talented animators to share their thoughts, experiences and workflow
tips.

The best animators use every resource to enhance their work.
I trust this book will be one of many in your arsenal that enable you to
push your work to the next level.

News: Blender 2.57 Quick Effect Operators Demo 31 Mar 2011 4:06 PM (14 years ago)

DEVELOPER NOTES (Janne Karhu)

Quick effects operators:

* A couple of operators to quickly create effects that would otherwise take some time to set up.
* Nice to use for demoing functionality or as a starting point for more complex effects.
* "Make Fur" - Gives every selected mesh object particle fur with a desired density and length.
* "Make Smoke" - Makes each selected object a smoke emitter and creates a new domain object around the emitters with the correct material to render the smoke. ** Has style options for "stream": constant smoke flow, "puff": only create smoke once from the volume of the emitter object, "fire": enable high resolution smoke and set a secondary fire color texture for the domain object.
* "Make Fluid" - Makes every selected object a fluid object (normal/inflow) and has the option to start fluid baking immediately.
* This should provide a nice base for extending these / adding more operators for different effects.

More info at the Blender Developer Blog...

technorati tags: Blender3D, 3D, graphics, Blender tutorials

News: Blender 2.57 RC1 (Release Candidate) available for Download 31 Mar 2011 4:55 AM (14 years ago)

The Blender Foundation has just made available the first non-Beta release of Blender 2.5!

You can find download links, here...

New Tools: Theme Manager, and LoopTools 30 Mar 2011 11:46 AM (14 years ago)

The power of python programming in Blender and the development skills of Bart Crouch combine to bring us two much-needed tools for Blender. Actually, it's far more than two, if you include the many tools in the LoopTools addon.

Theme Manager

Sharing custom themes for Blender 2.5 used to be difficult, as you had to share entire .blend files, replace your default .blend and then manually reorganize your start-up screen with the new colours. That's why I'm introducing: Theme manager

The LoopTools add-on is a script containing a collection of tools to aid mesh modelling in Blender.

News: Fluid Particles have been Refactored 12 Mar 2011 6:12 AM (14 years ago)

From the developer (jahka)

...the refactoring is finally done! Check the video to get a quick start on the new functionality...

technorati tags: Blender3D, 3D, graphics, Blender tutorials

Resource: Incredible Design and Composition Lessons from Feng Zhu 5 Mar 2011 12:51 PM (14 years ago)

The Feng Zhu Design School provides valuable video lessons on composition, color design, lighting, digital painting techniques, and more. These lessons are packed with extremely insightful information that's very relevant to what we do in Blender.

The lessons are free and given by Feng Zhu, himself! Feng Zhu is one of the most in-demand concept artists in the game and feature film industry.



Here's the first "episode". I recommend going through them in order because some of the content is progressive.


Here's a link to their YouTube channel to see all of the videos...

The information in these videos, if studied and applied, will greatly improve the final results you get in your 3d graphics work. A lot of important issues are addressed in these videos that are rarely adequately covered in a "3d" tutorial.

technorati tags: Blender3D, 3D, graphics, Blender tutorials

Rigged Character: Ivo Grigull's Norman Rig with video manual 21 Feb 2011 4:24 PM (14 years ago)

I think I've finally found a rigged character for Blender 2.5 that looks great and is really well-rigged! And, it's free (Creative Commons)!

Character animation in Blender 2.5 with the Norman Rig - Video Manual from Ivo Grigull.

Addendum: Adding custom variants of the Norman Rig from Ivo Grigull.

technorati tags: Blender3D, 3D, graphics, Blender tutorials

News: Download 130 Free 3D Trees and Plants from Xfrog 17 Feb 2011 6:25 AM (14 years ago)

Xfrog is providing free sample downloads of 3d trees and plants from its XfrogPlants collection!

You can import them into Blender using the OBJ format.

Check it out...

technorati tags: Blender3D, 3D, graphics, Blender tutorials

News: The HD Version of Sintel is Available for Download 10 Feb 2011 10:00 AM (14 years ago)

Ton Roosendaal has made available an HD .AVI file (H264 and stereo wav sound). Also available are HD PNG files and a lossless 5.1 master of the sound. Very cool!

Check it out at the Sintel blog...

Blender 2.5 QuickTips #1 24 Jan 2011 12:13 PM (14 years ago)

Zooming the Backdrop image in the Nodes Editor

Original size


Zoom Out the Backdrop with the V-key


Zoom In the Backdrop with Alt-V



Drag-Drop features

Drag-Drop materials using the Browse Material icon




Other areas that support drag-drop:

• An image from your desktop or folder onto the 3D View to add it as a background image
• An image from your desktop or folder onto the UV/Image Editor
• A .blend file to load it into Blender
• probably some others, so experiment!

• You can repeat the last action by pressing Shift-R.
• You can display a menu for previous actions performed (History) by pressing F3. Selecting an item in the popup menu will repeat the action. You can then use Shift-R to continue repeating the item selected from the menu.
• Note: Currenetly, pressing Ctrl-Z to undo causes the History stack to be cleared! This is a documented bug.

News: Developer's Overview of Blender's Importers and Exporters 21 Jan 2011 6:09 AM (14 years ago)

By Nathan Letwory (aka jesterking):

Blender is being used a lot as part of a pipeline, thus having a great need for import and export of various formats. In this article I list what formats used to be supported in Blender 2.4x series and how well these did their jobs, and then compare them to the current status.

technorati tags: Blender3D, 3D, graphics, Blender tutorials

News: Errata for BlenderArt Mag (Issue #31) 16 Jan 2011 2:14 PM (14 years ago)

Some layout errors have been found in the "World of Rotations" article that may cause some confusion.

From BlenderArt.org

Seems some rather nasty booboos slid past layout proofing. Pep Ribal’s article on Rotations has some confusing layout errors that make the whole article rather confusing, to say the least. We will get that fixed and re-uploaded as quickly as possible. In the meantime, here is a list of the errors and their locations so that you can continue on until we get the new version fixed up and released.

p.12 – first paragraph is repeated
p.14 – paragraphs 2,3,4,5 and 6 are repeated
p.14 – last paragraph mentions ‘2x’ twice, when it should be ‘2′ and the symbol for ‘pi’ (very confusing).
p.15 – in the formula, squares are not formatted as such.
p.16 – same thing.
p.16 – the table is unreadable
p.17 – again ‘2x’ mentioned
p.17 – just before the ‘Gimbals and locks’ section, a total of 6 paragraphs are dropped out, and they are appended at the end of the ‘Summary’ section, which makes the reading really confusing.
All text – The character ‘pi’ is replaced by question marks in the whole text

Sorry for the confusion this causes, we will get it fixed as soon as possible.

technorati tags: Blender3D, 3D, graphics, Blender tutorials

News: BlenderArt Mag Issue #31 is Available 16 Jan 2011 8:56 AM (14 years ago)

From BlenderArt Magazine:

Blender provides an excellent tool set for producing simulations, visualizations and walk-throughs, as well as educational videos based on the various research projects. In this issue we take a look at some of the exciting ways that Blender is being used for research and education.

Table of Contents:

• Physics of Circular Motion
• A World of Rotations
• BioBlender: Blender for Biologists
• Educational Science and Engineering videos
• Computer Sim. and Modeling of Liquid Droplets
• The Transporters
• Microorganismal Worlds
• and more!

News: Development of the Blender 2.5 Installer 14 Jan 2011 6:16 PM (14 years ago)

As with most everything in Blender, improvements and tweaks are being considered for its installation program (Windows OS).



Developers are asking for feedback, ideas, and possible solutions...

technorati tags: Blender3D, 3D, graphics, Blender tutorials

News: Blender 2.56 Beta is Officially Released 30 Dec 2010 10:34 AM (14 years ago)

The Blender Foundation and online developer community is proud to present Blender 2.56 Beta. This release is the fourth official beta release of the Blender 2.5 series, representing the culmination of many years of redesign and development work.

This version is called a "Beta" because it's now for the most part feature complete. The Python API has had some extensive changes, most notably in naming conventions and in creation and access of properties.

Since Blender 2.55 beta over 440 bugs were fixed!

IMPORTANT: Between 2.53 and 2.56 an extensive renaming operation has changed the scripting API a lot, with repercussions also for loading 2.53 .blends with animation into 2.56. Make sure you try the FCurve/Driver 2.54 fix entry from the Help menu.

technorati tags: Blender3D, 3D, graphics, Blender tutorials

News: BlenderNewbies Blender 2.5 Training DVDs Update 21 Dec 2010 4:58 AM (14 years ago)

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Things are coming along with the completion of the DVDs. I suffered a few setbacks that caused some delays, but things are back on track.

The pre-order discount will end on Thursday, December 23rd.

For the Pre-Order customers only, I'm providing download links for groups of the video tutorials from the DVDs, starting near the "beginning" of the tutorial content (QuickStart section). So, you can begin receiving tutorials as soon as possible (within 24 hours).

I'll be providing new links to the DVD content about every other day until the actual DVDs are ready for shipping.

Each link in the group will be to single videos so you won't have to download huge files.

The interface, for the content linked to, isn't the same as the final DVD interface, but the videos are the same. This saves me some time in getting them setup. Videos like the QuickStart tutorials are at a resolution of 800x450, while the more involved tutorials are at 1280x720. However, the smaller videos have zoom effects to make it easier to see the key areas of focus. This approach has allowed me to pack more content onto the DVDs.

Thanks, everyone, for the patience! And, I look forward to finishing this project as soon as possible.


Kernon

News: Blender 2.5 Animesh Addon Test 13 Dec 2010 2:16 PM (14 years ago)

Simple test animating the vertices of a uvsphere. Some object Location and Rotation keys were added to the keyed vertices. This was a no-Hook and no-ShapeKey experience, and very fast to achieve!

Thanks to Daniel Salazar (aka ZanQdo) and Campbell Barton (aka ideasman42).

The python script can be found at:
BlenderArtists Forum Thread...

To test:

• Use a recent build from graphicall.org
• Go to the script link provided, and save the page as a python file. (In Firefox, File, Save As...)
• In the Blender Addons panel, click Install Addon, and locate the python file.
• The installed Addon will be under Animation. Enable it via the checkbox.

'location': 'Select a Mesh: Toolbar > AniMesh panel',
'description': 'Allows animation of mesh data (Verts, VCols, VGroups, UVs)',
'warning': 'Blender API has some bugs around this still',

News: All Blender Foundation Recordings from Blender Conference 2010 3 Dec 2010 5:23 AM (14 years ago)

From the tonroosendaal twitter:

All main theatre recordings from Blender Conference are now online. Thanks to Jaap Harders for adding/editing saturday!

Blend file: Quick Test of Animating Curves with the RotoBezier Addon 22 Nov 2010 4:20 PM (14 years ago)

There are so many new possibilities with this new tool! Here's a quick test.