A company called Retina Software is sponsoring a contest for a realistic cityscape made in Blender. The prize? 500 big ones ($500 USD)… and maybe more.

Continue Reading 'Contest: Modeling A Cityscape' »

Mariano has updated the Blender Library script with some nice updates:

BlenderPeople's Roland Hess has posted on his blog that for the final stages of his next BlenderPeople release he needs your help!

Continue Reading 'BlenderPeople Call For Content (Armatures and Actions)' »

Here's some cool news I just *have* to share with you: yesterday I booked a flight and a hotel in Boston which means that I'll be going to Siggraph together with Ton and a third Blenderhead who has yet to reveal himself. Oh, happy day! (Read on to see why this is good news for you, too)

Continue Reading 'BlenderNation Goes to Siggraph!' »

You may have heard the agonizing screams of those learning YafRay. You may also have heard the sullen whispers speaking of YafRay's slow return from the netherworld. Whatever you may have heard or believe, YafRay is an integral part of Blender and still used by a great many people. Read on for the most comprehensive notes on YafRay features and use in the known universe!

Continue Reading 'YafRay 0.0.8 Comprehensive Release Notes' »

Nicholas Chapman has been hard at work with updating his free unbiased raytracer Indigo (now version 0.5 released June 18th, 2006)

Main new features are:

• Experimental support for bidirectional MLT and bidirectional path tracing
• Measured complex indices of refraction for more realistic rendering of metals
• Image based lighting using HDR environment maps
• White balance setting for virtual camera
• Improved colours
• RGB and blackbody emission spectra
• Reverse gamma correction for textures

There is also an Blender exporter for Indigo, though at the time of this writing it is for version 0.4. I'm unsure if an update to the exporter is necessary, but if you're an Indigo user, post a comment to tell us if it is!

Take a look at our last Indigo post for a more closer look at the program.

Blenderheads rejoice! The Blender Foundation has released the first Release Candidate of 2.42 and they need your help to test the code before the final release.

Continue Reading '2.42 RC1 Released' »

Glen Moyes (Metsys on the forums) has written an excellent article on the key steps to becoming a great 3D artist.

Continue Reading 'To Those Learning 3D' »

I saw a thread by Gunnar (gunnarstahl) on the BlenderArtists forum and thought it would be something worth doing so we could 1) Have a lot of fun seeing how different specs handle the same scene and 2) maybe getting some worthwhile information on what really makes rendertime diminish.

Continue Reading 'Post Your Render Times' »

jms is at it again, with an update to his kml/kmz import scripts (version 0.1.7 released June 14th) for importing SketchUp And Google Earth files into Blender.

__version__ = "0.1.7, june 14th, 2006" :
Force brute import for missed colors

To celebrate the 200th Weekend Challenge at http://blenderartists.org .The Blender World Cup, Weekend Challenge, and Monthly Challenge have been combined. The topic till the 26th is "Look what the cat dragged in" which focuses on comedy. A great selection of prizes are available for the winners to take away.

Continue Reading 'Weekend Challenge #200 Super Challenge (Week long)' »

I was visiting Colin Levy's (effstops) site recently and saw an amazing animation using Blender's particle system. The animation was aptly named "Symmetrical Particles" but the title hardly does justice to its stunning visuals. And how was this done you might ask? Colin will tell you!

Continue Reading 'Videotutorial: Symmetrical Particle Effects' »

Great news for Brazillian and other Portuguese speaking Blender users: as of today there is a Blender book titled 'Blender 3D - Guia do Usuário' available in your own language! The book is aimed both at the beginning and the advanced Blender user and it counts 448 pages.

Continue Reading 'Brazilian Blender Book Released Today' »

I don't make a habit out of reporting on other sites who report on Blender, but this is more than averagely cool: multiple people have reported that an article on Elephants Dream has appeared in (drumroll) The Wall Street Journal!

Continue Reading 'Elephants Dream in the Wall Street Journal' »

The 10 inaugural Blender Summer of Documentation (BSoD) proposals have been chosen! It was certainly a tough choice with over 20 proposals being submitted and all covering some great topics. And what topics made the BSoD this year? Read on to see what documentation will move Blender forward!

Continue Reading 'Blender Summer Of Documentation Begins' »