Creating fire in Blender was a chore. We were forced to use the outdated particle system combined with the clumsy halo renderer. We cringed as we hit F12 and watched the equivalent of a mustard stain materialize on screen. Those days are over.

Continue reading ‘Creating Realistic Fire in Blender 2.5′ »

A tutorial focussing on producing a large, detailed reconstruction of the ship HMS Victory. Covers modelling the hull, rigging and other parts, texturing, and compositing the final images.

Highlights some of the techniques used to approximate a linear workflow in blender. While its mainly targeted at tackling several linux problems its main ideas still hold true for all platforms.

A typical lightsaber effect realized with the compositor and aimed to be used in live action video. It is configurable and supports any color and motion blur.

Perfect for advertisements, logos and animations! This tutorial teaches you useful techniques such as modelling with curves, creating a glow effect and making a curve emit light.

Continue reading ‘Create a glowing neon sign’ »

Blender has a built-in video editor. Learn how to work with it and create a cool short videoclip.  An often underestimated function of Blender is the Sequence Editor. It is a complete video editing system that allows you to combine multiple video channels and add effects to them. Even though it has a limited number of operations, you can use these to create powerful video edits (especially when you combine it with the animation power of Blender!) And, furthermore, it is extensible via a Plugin system quite alike the Texture plugins.

A beginner book that covers the basics of Blender in a classroom format. 22 chapters with exercises designed to be completed in 1-2 one-hour class periods. Chapters are kept short (1-4 pages for most) and designed to only cover more commonly used features to get you “up-and-running” and comfortable with Blender. 146 pages. Free for use. The book can be downloaded as a complete pdf file or downloaded as individual chapters from the Central Dauphin High School Website.