It seems like every time we mention the Blender Model Repository here at BlenderNation, it's more bad news. That's why I'm so happy to bring you good news today straight from the fingers of Dion Moult, who is hosting and maintaining the latest iteration of the BMR. Continue Reading 'Latest Blender Model Repository News' »

I remember a special epiphany that I had a long time ago, back when I had a lot of time to blend. For days on end I had been pouring all my spare time into an animation, and on one such day I was sitting there trying to get a toy brontosaurus's eyes to pop out of his skull when he was hit by falling letters (I'm not making this up), when suddenly it dawned on me that the whole project was just plain silly, and I just had to laugh at myself for spending all my time so absurdly. If you've ever experienced a moment like this, or you like to have a good laugh at yourself otherwise, you just might get a kick out of the hilarious Blender article that was recently created on Uncyclopedia.org:

Continue Reading 'Blender's Un-Documentation' »

One of the more interesting patches to be added to the tracker recently is the "Cast" patch, submitted by Willian Padovani Germano (also known as "ianwill"). Willian explains that the patch adds a "Cast" mesh modifier, which casts a mesh into certain pre-determined shapes (such as spheres).

Continue Reading 'Cast(? or Spherify? or Cubeify? Oh My)' »

Somebody that I've only been able to identify as "Oto the Cleaner" has provided the community with a good tutorial that is useful for any new 3D artists among us (edit: I have since learned that "Oto's" real name is Antonio Campos.  Thanks, Francisco!). The tutorial covers basic image projection theory, UV unwrapping, texture creation using the Gimp, and more.

Continue Reading 'Blender/Gimp Texturing and Unwrapping Tutorial' »

Recently, a small software company announced that they will be releasing their 3D modeling app as an open source project and turning it over to the community because the company is no longer able to develop it. Am I talking about Blender? Nope, not this time. Moray, a shareware 3D modeler for Windows that supports POV-Ray 3.5 was recently acquired by Persistence of Vision Raytracer Pty. Ltd (the makers of POV-Ray) from SoftTroncs (the makers of Moray). Persistence of Vision has announced their intentions to release the whole project under an OSI-approved open source license.

Continue Reading 'Moray: Another Commercial 3D App Goes GPL' »

Step aside, Joan! There's a new lady in town, and if you're a fan of the Warcraft series, you'll really dig this contribution.

Continue Reading 'The Making of the Night Elf' »

Not too long ago, the Blender community was all abuzz with Project Orange excitement. In case you weren’t around, here’s a summary of events: a small team of Blender artists and animators got together in Amsterdam for several months. They created the world’s first open movie using mostly Blender and other open source software. Their results of their work? A short film lovingly known as “Elephants Dream,” as well as a number of badly needed Blender improvements.

Continue Reading 'Project Yellow?' »

Are you a Blender artist looking for a good project? If so, then take a look at PlaneShift, a free and open source MMORPG under heavy development. In case you're not already familiar with the PlaneShift project, Wikipedia has some useful information:

PlaneShift is a cross-platform fantasy MMORPG in development. Client software is available for Linux, Windows and Mac OS X. It is produced by a developer community, founded by Luca Pancallo, and guided by the Atomic Blue non-profit organization. The engine code is based on the Crystal Space engine and therefore free software. The content is released under another license.

Continue Reading 'PlaneShift Project Recruiting Blender Artists' »

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.

Continue Reading 'Getting Started in Blender IRC' »

Macouno (the guy that brought us the BCG Panorama Renderer, BrayBaker 3, this cool animation and more) has announced today a Blender t-shirt design competition!

Continue Reading 'T-Shirt Design Contest' »

The Google Summer of Code Blender project acceptance results are in, and like many of you, we are shocked that so few Blender projects were accepted this year (in 2005, ten projects were accepted). That being said, some amazing new features will come out of SoC this year, and we're grateful to Google for their funding and support of these projects.

Continue Reading 'Google Summer of Code - Results Announced' »

Would you like to seriously pump up your character animation skills? Want to get personalized instruction from industry leaders from the comfort of your easy chair? Check out The Online Animation School at www.animationmentor.com.

Continue Reading 'Online Animation School' »

About two months ago we reported on a contest to create the most realistic explosion in Blender (Elysiun thread here). There were many fine entries, but this one by Rhysy2 was the clear winner. Great job to Rhysy and everyone else that participated!

Continue Reading 'Realistic Blender Explosion Tutorial' »

As a BlenderNation.com author and editor, it's my responsibility to scour the internet for anything interesting that is Blender related: new features, new ideas, new communities. Imagine my surprise when I discovered a little site called Elysiun.com. Some of you may have even been there: Elysiun.com sports an impressive 300,000 hits a day from 6,000 unique visitors, doing up to 25 Gigs in daily data transfer. The forums there get about 360 posts daily… that's even more than Blendernation.com!

Continue Reading 'Blending Ahead: Timothy Kanters and BlenderArtists.org' »

Ask anybody who knows Blender well which school they were taught it at, and their reply will most likely be “I wish.” Learning Blender has long been the major sticking point of this great 3D app; the price is very attractive to amateurs, but the interface, unfortunately, is not well suited to those that are not familiar with 3D applications and 3D computer graphics terminology. Further compounding the problem is the lack of professional Blender training available in most parts of the world, even in areas where 3D Studio Max, Maya, and similar training is readily available. Enter Rui Campos, a Java developer from Portugal. You may already know Campos as the head of the Blender Foundation Education Board (BF-Education), and recently I got together with Rui to discuss the initiatives that he and the board are taking to improve the situation of Blender education.

Continue Reading 'Blending Ahead: Rui Campos and Education' »

No list begs to be incomplete like one entitled "Essential Blender Resources," and the one posted here earlier was no exception. Here are a few more essentials that were not mentioned in the earlier post. Gentlemen, get your bookmarkers ready!

Continue Reading 'Essential Blender Resources: The Forgotten Links' »