XfrogPlants 2.0 released March 15, 2006. Sample file available in every format at the bottom of the page. From the site: “XfrogPlants are 16 Libraries, each containing 60 models. These Libraries are modeled by botanical experts, and real samples of each species of plant in each library are obtained for textures – tree leaves are scanned, flower petals are scanned, and bark is photographed.”
SketchUp has been purchased by Google. This news is being reported at several sites, but what does it mean for Blender users (if it means anything at all)?
With 64-bit applications taking the 3D world by storm, Blender is no exception. Adkiller, who brought us the first x64 Windows build of Blender 2.41, has posted his latest Blender 2.41 and YafRay 0.0.8 x64 builds which fixes some Blender 32-bit compatibility issues.
As many of you may be aware, there will be a three day event in Lyon France called Libre Graphics Meeting, it will be a three day conference around Open Source graphics, and Blender as an Open Source graphics related tool will be there.
Ask anybody who knows Blender well which school they were taught it at, and their reply will most likely be “I wish.†Learning Blender has long been the major sticking point of this great 3D app; the price is very attractive to amateurs, but the interface, unfortunately, is not well suited to those that are not familiar with 3D applications and 3D computer graphics terminology. Further compounding the problem is the lack of professional Blender training available in most parts of the world, even in areas where 3D Studio Max, Maya, and similar training is readily available. Enter Rui Campos, a Java developer from Portugal. You may already know Campos as the head of the Blender Foundation Education Board (BF-Education), and recently I got together with Rui to discuss the initiatives that he and the board are taking to improve the situation of Blender education.
Trillian is hosting a contest on Elysiun: creating the most realistic Blender explosion.
Fast issue this time, just a few words to report that recently subdivisionmodeling.com added Blender on its Reviews section banners area and on the Software review section with a quick’n'nice introduction about 2.41 written by Patrick Noland.
It’s always a pleasure to see Blender advertised on websites not strictly connected to it, expecially when they have a huge community made up of real pros.
This tutorial will teach you everything you need to know to get started with keyframe animation in Blender. It is a golden oldie that I wrote for the first Blender Tutorial Guide. This weekend I’ve dusted it off, checked if everything still worked for Blender 2.41 and redid many screenshots. I hope you’ll enjoy it!
You’ll find it in the Tutorials Section.
Being a nexus for tutorials from an immense amount of sources, Pixel2Life is a good repository for tutorials of many different programs, including Blender, GIMP, and Terragen.
Those of you who were there in Amsterdam attending Blender Conference 2005 will remember Marc and Serge Umé’s participation about Blender and SFX in Feature Film; for those who missed it these two guys from Digital Graphics were there to illustrate how they used Blender in the Visual FX production workflow of “Friday or another day”, a full length movie by Yvan Lemoine. Now they’re back with a new work, powered by Blender of course!
