If you have visited CGSociety (CGTalk) recently you may have noticed that they now have a CGSociety Wiki. One page of interest at the wiki is the 3D software comparison chart.

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Victor Navone first came to the attention of Pixar with his animation 1999 classic Alien Song. In Alien Song, the character movements are fluid and expressive and it's easy to see why Pixar grabbed him. Since then he has worked on the major motion pictures Monster Inc, Finding Nemo and The Incredibles.

Continue Reading 'Animating a Facial Take by Victor Navone' »

To all of you following what is being done for the upcoming versions of Blender, this might be a really good one to keep an eye on.

Jahka has been rewriting the Particles system. And while I would normally save this for my monthly CVS report I just couldn't wait to show you guys his latest image.

Continue Reading 'Development Report: Particles Rewrite' »

The German TV news-mag Heute has published an article and a six-minute video interview with @ndy about Elephants Dream.

Continue Reading 'Interview with Andy on German TV website' »

As Blender matures, so does the level of artistic works created by the Blender community. While browsing online 3D art galleries, it quickly becomes clear that there really isn't a good representation of Blender's current capabilities. Of course, there are galleries and forums that we all are aware of within the Blender community but, we can't expect the world to flock to our doorsteps. Sometimes, you have to deliver the message.

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Giuseppe Luca Scrofani (gls) has re-established the ancient web pratice of the webring - for Blender.

Continue Reading 'New Blender Webring Started' »

The line from the Monty Python's Flying Circus "And Now for Something Completely Different" comes to mind when I was watching Sago’s 2006 Suzanne Award Winner Man in Man animation for the first time. I love humor that is “off the wall”, something that takes you by surprise and Man and Man captures that spirit.

Continue Reading 'Sacha Goedegebure's Man in Man' »

More proof that Blender makes an excellent commercial tool. Zac Duff (Greenlig@blenderartists) utilized Blender to create a 7.5 minute animation for an Engineering company. The animation while not full of special effects like hair or softbody dynamics does show the range of flexibility and how Blender can be used within a commercial project.

Continue Reading 'Commercial work: animation for an Australian mine.' »

We reported earlier about the nomination of Elephants Dream for the UK Linux & Open Source Awards 2006. I just talked to Ton, who is in London right now, and he told me that Elephants Dream won, making Dreamworks' Over the Hedge and Sony Pictures Imageworks' Monster House bite the dust!

Continue Reading 'This Just In: Elephants Dream Wins UK Linux & Open Source Awards 2006' »

All of the Blender Conference presentation videos are now online and you can download them using BitTorrent. Many of them have by now also appeared on Google Video.

Continue Reading 'Blender Conference Videos Online, BlenderNation Presentation' »

Getting help with Blender is often arduous task. Between books you can't afford, forum posts that go ignored, and online tutorials that were written on autopilot, where's a beginner to go for quick answers? This may not be news to many, but there is a collection of public Blender chatroooms where Blender users can get help and friends can meet. Before I continue, props go out to Florian Mayer (who went by “name” in chat) for giving me the idea behind this article.

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During Siggraph 2006, Mark Puttnam (who along with Bob Holcomb, Martin and Dave was keeping an eye on all the Linux machines) conducted the following interview with several Blender notables. The first was Andy Goralczyk aka @ndy.

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On October 25th, 2006, Ton will be putting on a tux and heading to England for the UK Linux & Open Source Awards 2006.

Continue Reading 'ED Nominated For UK Linux & Open Source Awards 2006' »

Without further ado, here's the BlenderNation Journal for the last day of the Blender Conference 2006. The absolute highlight of the day was the presentation of the Plumiferos project; these people are really working on an amazing project. In order of appearance, the interviews are: Tony Mullen (author of 'Introduction to Character Animation in Blender'), Colin Litster, Samo Korosec, Ivan Hoffman and Manuel Perez of Plumiferos, Jason van Gumster and finally the man himself: Ton.

Update: hi-res Quicktime file added

Continue Reading 'Blender Conference - Day Three' »

A blueprint is generally defined as a plan or technical drawing usually documenting an architecture or an engineering design. Within the world of 3D a "blueprint" can be more generally defined as any plan, its the 2D representation of the 3D model you wish to create. This 2D drawing can be anything from a building plan to a model sheet of game character.

Now what do you do if you lack the skills to create your own "blueprint" or need some obscure blueprint and can't find it? Have no fear, Blendernation is here!

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