What are your plans for Blender in 2013? Do you intend to master some new functionality, create some work or get more involved in the community? What can we (the community ;-) do to help you?
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About the Author
Bart Veldhuizen
I have a LONG history with Blender - I wrote some of the earliest Blender tutorials, worked for Not a Number and helped run the crowdfunding campaign that open sourced Blender (the first one on the internet!). I founded BlenderNation in 2006 and have been editing it every single day since then ;-) I also run the Blender Artists forum and I'm Head of Community at Sketchfab.
39 Comments
For me it would be (in no particular order) :
Learn animation ; Master Cycles ; Get involved with blenderartists forum ; and hopefully do some freelancing :)
Here's a great article that immensely helped me with Cycles.
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.6/Manual/Render/Cycles/Reducing_Noise
Thanks, will look into it! :)
I'll be continuing to work on my ongoing game project; recreating a classic game from the '90s "The Journeyman Project". All of the imagery is being done using Blender; modelling, rendering, special effects etc.
The project has the backing of the original game company, Presto Studios.
The project is helping me learn new and different ways of working with Blender to achieve the results I have in my head; everything from modelling and texturing in Cycles to improving my compositing skills and use of the VSE.
I'm also starting to make my own tutorials covering aspects of Blender that I've discovered or techniques for producing effects/animations that I think could be useful to other users. I've learned so much with the help of the community and sites such as Blendercookie and tutorials by Andrew Price that I'd like to give something back in some small way.
Best wishes to all for 2013!
That sounds like quite a project! Do you think it's interesting to share it in a post here on BN?
Hi Bart,
I would certainly like to get some more publicity and hopefully a few new team members :) How should I go about posting? Can I include images?
Many thanks!
Oops I neglected to include the link to the project blog! It's http://andyjourneyman.blogspot.com.
After contributing with a new Laser Sheet OSL, I intend to Improve my modeling skills by participating in the Mastering Modeling of CGCookie, help organizing the Portuguese Blender Conference, finish my shor animation movie.
I intend to become one of the top motion graphics artists using Blender.
Character Animation and Cycles. I'd like to finally create a comedy web series made with Blender.
Nature modeling, perhaps entering Nature Academy. Creating a site about Blender used for scientific teaching and popularization. Character rigging and animation. In that order.
Nice plan! For environmental visualization in scientific teaching using Blender you may want to visit http://evoblog.ethz.ch.
I would like that Blender incorporates the Pixar's open subdiv :)
Yes! Open subdiv would be a key features for one of the next releases, definitely! I hope we can push this forward
Produce more finished renders, to develop my skills further; get better at archviz; make short VFX videos with Blender, either biweekly or monthly; and hopefully get some client work.
Produce more finished renders, to develop my skills further; get better at archviz; make short VFX videos with Blender, either biweekly or monthly; and hopefully get more client work.
I would like to become better at 3d modelling with Blender, as well as finish off some projects I started a long time ago...
I just want to eat a lot of sheep. :)
(subscribe)
Learn Python with BGE. Improve my modeling/sculpting skills (specifically hard surface). I have been worried about my animation skills so I'll probably focus on that also some time.
Hi xy,
I also want to get into Python, both in BGE and for animation.
Want to team up somehow?
To finally get to grips with UV texturing (which still never seems to work properly - textures not re-loading when I reopen a file, the wrong .jpg appearing on the wrong models etc.)... and using armatures, which I still find almost impossible to get right. I know the problems are all due to me - I just need to sort me out :-)
Hi Reaction,
Don't view these issues as being caused by yourself; it is just down to trial and error plus experience. For me UV texturing has always been a difficult thing to get my head around; once I got to grips with Cycles and put a decent GPU in my PC so I could have a viewport set to "Rendered" view the whole time, it became easier as I could make changes and see the changes instantly.
Most importantly - don't put yourself down or get disheartened - enjoy the experience and let any mistakes you make teach you :) Also, if in doubt, ask the community - we've all been there before too!
Best wishes,
Andy
Learn python.
Did you see this site, mentioned in a BN post on 19 December 2012? http://www.codecademy.com/tracks/python
1) revive my blender wiki-to-pdf script project (stuck to 2.4x) to always have a decent up-to-date 2.6 pdf manual everywhere, and possibly in every language that wiki has content for...
2) rtfm in pdf, learn everything, and find in myself unexpected good artist skills to show the wolrd how great blender is! :-D
I plan to actually FINISH a project or two; my tiny toonstyle test, my huge-amount-of-work short film, and a couple of fanimations with toonstyle renders and Kinect motion capture.
I've been wanting to do a high speed chase scene for a long time. Maybe ill fit that in.
Get my head around creating a variety of 'organic' shaders for Cycles using OSL or just stringing existing nodes together. Particularly interested - atm - in getting very close geometry (like a skullcap over skin) to not cast a shadow and yet at the same time do transparency (using .pngs)...
I've just started a project that will really put my modeling, texturing, and composting skills to the test (I like those). I hope to get it finished this year.
I also want to figure out how to realistically simulate/put snow on a tree.
Joshua™
If you want to learn Python in group, you could try this :
http://www.blendernation.com/2012/12/19/codeacademy-3d-artists-python-learning-group/#more-31456
Good luck ! :-)
I have a few.
1. Get my MIDI import script finished (I doubt you guys would want it. It's a command line program that exports MIDI data to a text file with a script that imports that file and displays the events of each channel on the proper frames. A lot of hassle compared to the other scripts and no automation but it allows for a more organic result than tying the import to animation channels)
2. Make a video (been using it since 1.8 and still haven't made anything I want to show off)
3. Reach a point to where I don't have to rely on Makehuman or the exchange for human characters.
And a fourth one I forgot: Dive into the source code of Blender so I can add my own Floor constraint. The current one is useful but it would be even more useful if you could set it so that it only takes effect when it's over the target object (i.e. a stick over a drum wouldn't go through it but he could still reach the floor tom without animating the influence of several constraints, something that couldn't be done with a traditional drum setup)
Serious goal: Learn how to make a tutorial in some kind of efficient way.
Get more familar with Cycles and learn compositing.
Also, I will find *some* kind of documentation on what the "BOUNDARY checkbox for the INSET tool does even if it's the last thing I ever do. I've been on this for ages and can't turn up a hint of a clue as to what it does.
Work on my game project (Roman Siege of Jerusalem) to send in with a college application. I've already gotten invited for a 1 on 1 tour Rochester Institute of Technology after sending in some pictures of the game. Although it's a 3 year project (I'm only in 10th grade) and I won't have it finished by the end of this year, it's still my resolution for the year.
I have at least 3 planned projects I want to do in Blender this year with 2 of those being pretty big, and on of those being an animation by year's end. I am pretty new to Blender (moving over from C4D) and my new years resolution is to spend at least 1 hour 5 days/week being creative... traditional art, photography, writing, blender etc. with no less than one of those days/week being spent in blender to try and retain what I'm learning and stay on track. Of course as I'm starting to work in blender smaller projects are popping up, which will hopefully allow me to learn the ins and outs for the bigger projects.
I am going to start using Blender to help create charts and infographics.