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
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:
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
