Everyone knows endi– he’s one of those guys who can’t seem to touch the computer without making something fabulous. So when endi decided to try out the Blender Game Engine, it was inevitable that something amazing would result.
Author Archives: PlantPerson
Metaballs as Digital Clay
From joe’s Secret Lab comes this interesting tutorial on how to create models in Blender using a “digital clay” method. Those of you interested in alternative methods of modeling will certainly not want to miss this!
PantoGraph: The Vector Renderer
The pantograph was a special tool invented in the 1600′s to copy diagrams. Today, with the advent of tools such as CAD, computer-based tools have become the norm for designing and drafting. But where does Blender fit into this? Simple. Blender user rocketship has created a new plugin renderer called PantoGraph which can render your models not to a typical image file, but as Scalable Vector Graphics.
Blender > ActionScript Exporter
Anyone who works with Flash should find this interesting. Blender user Dennis Ippel has created a script which can convert Blender objects in Flash ActionScript 3.0 objects. This allows the creation of realtime-3D rendering within Flash (which is more typically used to render two-dimensional vector imagery). For more information, visit the exporter’s official page, or its wiki entry.
Learn Composition from Blue Sky
In the art world, composition is one of the most important elements of an artwork. However, many Blender artists lack formal artistic training, and may not be familiar with either the concept or application of this important aspect of visual imagery. That’s where this handy “tutorial” comes in.
Tufts University Online Blender Course
Neal Hirsig, a professor at the prestigious Tufts University, has created an online course to teach students to use Blender. The course is available to all for free on Hirsig’s website.
Gimp 2.4 Released
After years in development, The GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) v. 2.4 is now available for download for your favorite OS, be it Windows, Linux or Mac OS. The popular open source image editing tool has been redesigned with new features and a new look, and it’s ready to take on all your texturing and image post-processing needs. Oh, and you can edit photos too! Don’t miss out, check out GIMP 2.4 today!
Sun to render Peach!
Exciting news! Sun Microsystems has agreed to donate processing power to render the Blender Foundation’s new open-movie venture, Peach! The corporation has granted the project free hours of computing time on their supercomputing network network.com. This will enable far faster rendering and allow the team to build more-complex scenes than they might have otherwise! See more on the official Peach blog.
Blender’s 1.5 GB RAM Limitation
Astute users of Microsoft 32-bit Windows may have noticed that Blender is never allowed to use more than 1.5 GB of memory. As Blender can often consume a lot of memory, this can be a severe limitation at times. In this short tutorial, user mpan3 explains what causes the issue, and how to correct it.
Making a Skybox with Blender
A skybox is one of the most typical ways to create a sky for a game. A sky texture is mapped onto a large sphere or box, which then surrounds the game environment to provide the illusion of a sky and distant background. Skyboxes can, however, be a pain to make, requiring a lot of touchy manipulation and set up. With this tutorial, you’ll learn how to use Blender to make fairly realistic skyboxes quickly and easily.