TopMod is pretty slick and complete open source modeling application with a unique workflow. It is officially available for Windows and OSX. But a Linux version is available. Quite a few tutorials are available. I recommend taking a look at the video tutorials.

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This is an older modeling tutorial, but some might not be aware of it. The tutorial goes over modeling the engine, setting up a system of constraints to animate the model and even setting up a simple particle system to simulate the engine exhaust.

Continue Reading 'Modeling a thrust vectoring engine' »

Nicholas Bishop has uploaded a series of screencasts demonstrating the work he has done on Multires for the Google Summer of Code.

See the all current screencasts embedded after the cut. I’ve included Nicholas’s descriptions from Vimeo describing what each video is demonstrating.

Or if you’d like to browse each video individually you can find them here.
Continue Reading 'Blender GSoC – Multires Screencasts' »

dav_ recently announced the release of a simple toon character and rig on Blenderartists. He describes it as having basic controls and says that it is a work in progress. Because it is a work in progress, dav_ would like to hear any feedback you may have.

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From Montage Studio this new DVD (currently only available in download form) is set to be part of a series of exercises that will walk newer users through modeling, texturing and animating in Blender.

Continue Reading 'Training DVD: Introduction to Character Creation Part 1' »

Endi2 has made a great trio of timelapses demonstrating sculpting a head, retopologizing the resulting mesh and the mesh with a normal map applied in a GLSL enabled 3D view. I found the head sculpting video particularly good. Really they were all great to watch. Find the videos here.

Visit the cgtalk thread about the videos here.

Sebastian König has posted some great timelapse modeling and rendering sessions that are available at vimeo for your viewing pleasure. I particularly enjoyed the timelapse for the foxglove challenge. And remember if you are a member of vimeo you can download the original video files.

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Renderdemon has posted up an incredible hair test on Blenderartists. I’d say its Blendernation praiseworthy. Nice work renderdemon. Some good screenshot eyecandy as well.

Yorik sent us a tutorial recently on the process he went through creating trees, using nGPlant, for eventual rendering in Blender. And he even has a number of tree models ready and available for download in the .blend file format for use in Blender. Find them here.

Continue Reading 'Tree modeling and setup tutorial' »

Kerkythea Echo has been released. If you haven’t heard of Kerkythea its a flexible and powerful free rendering engine now capable of ray tracing, Photon Mapping and Metropolis Light Transport.

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