Studio@jumpers-inn.de

This is my personal short review of the Blender Institute training DVD  6:  Blenderella, Character Modeling in Blender 2.5.

Summary

What is it all about? Obviously character modeling. More specifically the DVD focuses on polygonal quad-based modeling using the latest Blender version. There are a lot of different ways one can go about character modeling, for example using a sculpting program like ZBrush or Scultpris and then at some point switching to a modeling application. This not the approach presented here, rather the other popular way is characterized, which is starting from reference images inside the modeler and then using polygonal modeling techniques like extruding and subdividing to form the mesh. While this approach is less intuitive it generates really nice geometry which is very suitable for animation later on. The DVD covers the complete workflow from adjusting and setting up the reference images to finishing up the model with intricate detail. Not covered are rigging, animation, texturing and rendering. (continue reading…)

The more I play around with Lux render, the more I like it. Two main reasons for that: first, you can fairly easily achieve convincing result because of the good material presets it brings along, second, it’s got super nice network rendering capabilities.

So in this post I want to show you the newest project I’ve been doing using Lux render. While browsing the web looking for inspiration for photography (see last post) I stumbled upon this image by Derek Cooper:

Inspirational image by Derek Cooper

This is a rather simple scene consisting only of the bottle, the glass, a flat table and a background. Even though content-wise it is simple, the lighting and slight depth of field effect make it a challenging subject for photography and more so for rendering. But that also makes it a perfect practice subject for playing around with a raytracer like lux. Modeling effort required is rather low and so you can pretty soon concentrate on getting the light and dof right.

Scene setup in Blender

Modeling this scene in Blender is very easy. I just used the image as a background image, traced the outline of the bottle and the glass with a polygon and then spin duplicated it from the top view to get a complete mesh. After that I cut off the top of the bottle (the blue part), as this would get a different material. I also added a subdivision modifier to each object to get it nice and smooth. The label of the bottle is an extra mesh that I bent using a shrinkwrap modifier onto the bottle. The glass is pretty much the same, I cut off the filled part and made it a unique mesh with the same material as the main part of the bottle. The table is just a plane textured with some wood texture. The background is a L-shaped mesh with an added subdivision modifier to make it like the typical background piece of table top photography. I then added two light sources and that’s about it (compare the setup shot below and download the .blend file at the end of the article). Next thing is the material setup in lux.

I set up the materials as follows:

• Bottle (main part): Rough glass with slightly yellow transitional
• Bottle (top): Matte blue (should probably be a tiny bit glossy)
• Glass (filled part): same as bottle main
• Glass (unfilled part): Glass (standard)
• Table: Matte with wood texture
• Background: Matte, grey

The result of this can be seen below. I set the output resolution to 1024×768 then cropped the final image. As lux keeps improving the image as long as you let it a good result can take quite some time. I used four machines in total, my laptop and three remote machines to render this in network mode. Total render time is approx. 16 hours. As you can see the render does not totally match the original image in lighting and materials. I find it pretty hard to adjust the lighting with lux as it takes quite a lot of time to see the first results. I guess this needs more experience. The different materials also would need more tweaking, especially a liquid filled glass bottle probably needs a different approach. Next time I’ll try to model the liquid as a separate mesh and see if this looks better. Maybe one can also get away with a more sophisticated glass material. Anyway it was fun and these kinds of scenes are great training for getting to know lux!

Final image rendered with Lux render

Download the Blender file here: Lux render example scene -

Note: textures are not included in the .blend file. The file is provided under a Creativ Commons License

Lux render test von Alexander Kasper steht unter einer Creative Commons Namensnennung-Keine kommerzielle Nutzung 3.0 Deutschland Lizenz.
Beruht auf einem Inhalt unter www.derekcooper.com.
Über diese Lizenz hinausgehende Erlaubnisse können Sie unter http://studio.jumpers-inn.de erhalten.

While trying to create a nice indoor render I found that the Blender internal raytracer is not really well suited, at least not without extensive tuning. Especially volume lights are hard to achieve correctly. With the last revision of Yafaray the integration into Blender is now very well done. The script allows the convenient fine tuning of materials and lights through easy interaction with the Blender scene. This allows to get impressive results with very little effort, the Yafary gallery impressively shows what can be done with a deeper understanding. This is what I achieved after maybe half an hour of fiddling with light emitting meshes, materials and render settings:

Yafary test render

Quickly modeled a capstan to add to the shipwright library. The capstan was used to lift all things heavy on a ship but especially for the anchors. The capstan is a cylindrical piece of wood that can be rotated using logs that are put into it radially. Several sailors then pushed the logs to rotate the capstan which then served as a windlass. Usually the capstan continued from the upper part down at least one deck. This page explains the setup very well.

The model is simplified but still detailed. As usual textures are not included and need to be downloaded separately from the PotBS website and restricted to the conditions posted by FLS.

The first item in the shipwright library is now available. The shipwright library is intended as a help for creating ships for Pirates of the Burning Sea. It contains models of objects frequently needed in a ship model, ranging from a barrel to a longboat. Check out the first item here and tell me what you think!