The Virtual Museum of Computers in Ciudad Real, Spain, offers a walk through the history of computers. Next to their display of a cool array of old computers, they have also created a virtual walkthrough, using Blender in the process. And guess what: they're offering .blend files of all their models under a Creative Commons license. I talked to the technical director of the project, Carlos González Morcillo, who explained how they used Blender.

Continue Reading 'Virtual Museum of Computers, Offers .Blend Library' »

The second edition of the 'Blender Magazine Italia' has been released. In this issue they cover rendering with Indigo, designing for rapid prototyping, using Blender alongside with Autocad and more. Enjoy!

Earlier this afternoon BlenderNation went down. Exactly 20 minutes after reporting the issue, our ISP had replaced a broken power supply and everything was back to normal. I think that deserves a pat on the back: Anywise have provided us with great service for years and they're always available if I need help. Cheers, guys!

Image: 'Lights Out' by Amitubal, via Flickr [cc license]

"This issue we take a look at using Blenders post processing tools as well as explore some tips and tricks to make your lighting more impressive. And as a special treat we hear from not one, but two Blender authors as they talk about their new books."

So grab your copy today.

Continue Reading 'Blenderart Magazine #17 now available – "Lights, Camera, Action!"' »

Do you remember MOSAIC? The script that allows Blender to export 3d scenes, to Pixar RiSpec and related renders. At the web site Blender to RenderMan, the autor of the script has posted a full set of tutorials, showing how to use the script.

Continue Reading 'Full tutorials on how to use MOSAIC' »

Last week a very cool making-of, for a scene called Sci-fi City was published at itsartmag.com. The scene was made by Bertrand Benoit, who modeled the scene in Blender 3D and rendered it in Indigo.

Continue Reading 'Making of the sci-fi city by Bertrand Benoit' »

Vladimir Vichegzhanin and Dmitry Balezinu have published a Russian Blender Magazine. The first issue counts 39 pages and it's stuffed with tutorials and art. It will make a great read for any Russian Blender user!

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Christian Storay has released Blender Commander, a GUI for Blender's command-line interface. It's not open source, but free to use – as this is just an exercise I can understand that he doesn't want to release the code (yet?). At this moment, it's Windows-only but a Linux version has been planned.

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While some of you may be familiar with these animations, (one was nominated for the 2007 Suzanne awards) they are some excellent examples of cutout animation done utilizing Blender and GIMP. And well worth spotlighting. See a couple videos embedded after the cut and a link to more at their Vimeo gallery.

You can for more info about the artists at their blog here.

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This is a neat little demonstration of IPO drivers used to control textures. The demonstration uses the Mancandy model and rig. Video after the cut or you can find the video on vimeo.

Continue Reading 'Bone-driven texture animation' »

Ashish recently emailed us to point out a great step by step head modeling tutorial, by Carlos R. Bisquertt, done completely in Blender. It has been published by CGarena and can be found here.

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Occasionally we get word that Suzanne has popped up in some unexpected place. Which we love to see of course! Spread the Blender monkey love! Maxwell Renderer has released a new version and on page 3 in the pdf flyer whose wide-eyed and grinning face do we see? Suzanne of course!

View the pdf here and Suzanne in all her subdivided glory.

The newly formed Bloomington Blender Users Group will be kicked off tonight at 7pm. That's TODAY, so drop your work and get in your car if you're in the area!

Continue Reading 'Bloomington Blender Users Group Meetup, Thursday July 24th' »

This is a pretty good step by step tutorial on modeling a soccer ball in Blender. There is one possible change I'd make to the tutorial.

Note: This tutorial is great for a simple prop in the background. But it doesn't stand up in accuracy. Upon reviewing the tutorial further and receiving comments this is indeed not a completely accurate representation of a soccer/football. For a video demonstrating how to create an accurate version see here.

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Some might have heard lately that fluid simulations in Blender are getting a new major feature – Fluid Control (also known as 'Magic fluid control'). Nils Thuerey developed the code and Daniel Genrich (Genscher) works on the integration and small fixes/enhancements.

Theres been some good progress lately and the first build is now up on graphicall.org for bug testing.

Continue Reading 'Fluid Control Build Available' »

This post is a review of the Body modeling DVD created by Jonathan Williamson of Montage Studio. If you don't know about Jonathan Williamson or Montage Studio I recommend browsing our past posts here at Blendernation or checking out montagestudio.org. They have a blog they keep up to date on the latest happenings at the studio.

In this review, I'll do my best to touch on each topic covered on the DVD, so the reader can get an understanding on whether or not this DVD is for them, as well as describe the quality of the content.

Continue Reading 'Review: Modeling a Female Body' »

On July 26, the Western Pennsylvania Linux Users Group will be showing both Elephants Dream and Big Buck Bunny at the Creative Treehouse in Pittsburgh, which will be followed by a 45-minute presentation/demo/talk and Q & A about Blender by Roland Hess (harkyman).

Continue Reading 'Western Pennsylvania Linux Users Group will be showing both Elephants Dream and Big Buck Bunny' »

Bruno Postle tells us that "we recently built this monumental sculpture for Land Rover at the Goodwood Festival of Speed."

The 3D design was done entirely with Blender, the final geometry was extracted from the blender model with some custom perl scripting.

Continue Reading 'Land Rover Sculpture Designed using Blender' »