Jupiter Flyby Finally Finished!

What a pain in the ass!

It usually doesn’t take me too long to get a video made once I have a plan for it.

Usually. But in this case it took over three MONTHS!. yea, that’s what I said.

But how is it possible to take three months to make a video that is only 16 minutes long and and is more or less done in one sitting?

The problem comes from the subject of the video. A simple space shot with a camera flying past a planet. (In this case Jupiter)

Sounds simple dosen’t it? And it kind of is, but it’s very lengthy to explain properly.

But I wanted to put this where everyone could see it (Youtube) for nice and free. But the issue with youtube is that people who are casually moseying around there, will not sit through a very long video.

But this subject has a LOT of noodly details that cannot be done in a short video.

So… what do you do.

Simple. After making hours and hours of videos, (Mostly trying to shorten it), I realized that it was impossible to do it right in a short video. So, I did it wrong. Let me explain…

Some people can pick up the gist of a thing then run with it on their own. For such people this video is enough. Other folks, just need simple, and are not interested in gists. For those people this video is also just fine.

There is a third category, however. People who really want to learn deeply and really need it spelled out for them because they haven’t been doing it long enough to have all the tricks in their back pockets.

These people are important to me, and are why it took me so long to figure this thing out. Every time I simplified it to shorten it, I knew I was leaving important things off. Things that my real students would benefit from.

So, my final idea was to place a minimal video on youtube, for the general populous, and save the detailed ones for my Patreon members.

Not only does being paid to make them allow me to spend more time on them, but it also makes people more accepting of longer more informative videos. I mean, they paid for it, they expect a better lesson (or lessons) than they could find for free on youtube, right?

Of course.

If you are interested in the longer more detailed stuff, including assets, textures, and such, head on over to Patreon.

Otherwise, here is the Youtube version.

If there is anything you want to ask or say, leave comments. You can also leave them on Youtube, or on facebook. I see them all those places and try to respond to everything.

Coming Soon: Texture Node Magic!

Nodes are only complex if no one explains them to you.

I have been searching a very long time to find the complete shit on how to get the most from Blender’s own texture system, with limited luck.

Either I see someone using some sort of add on, or they show some complex texture with no real explanation as to how it was set up.

They just hand it to you and good luck trying to figure out how it works.

Well, after using blender, for over fifteen years I have learned and discovered a crap ton of super cool shit, most of which I never have seen taught.

Well I’m teaching it!

I am doing the introductory videos now, and have a pretty good idea where I want this series to go. But I need your help. Because I have no idea what YOU need to know. I need for you to tell me that.

So, here is where you do that. Leave comments on this post, with any kind of questions, or problems, or issues, that you want covered.

And covered, they will be.

I am also planning on doing some live teaching. I will let you know exactly when in a future update, but expect it to be sooner than you think.

PS-my first couple live sessions will not be announced ahead of time. I will do them as tests. If you’re watching your youtube, or facebook notifications you may see them pop up. When you do, jump on in.

There will probably only be a couple of people on there. So your questions, can’t be missed.

Modeling a Cable in Blender

I’m in a few different blender forums. And in one of them someone asked about how to model a weird sort of twisted cable.

I was going to answer him directly, but I then couldn’t find his post.

So I made a short video explaining it.

In addition to solving his problem, this lesson also shows a few non- obvious ways that modifiers and procedures can be stacked in creative ways.

I didn’t go into all the possibilities in this video because I wanted to keep it short.

But you can easily add more steps along the same lines to create a myriad of complex models for whatever devious purposes you might have in mind.

The Day It Changed

Ok. For those of you who read this blog frequently (Or ever). You may have noticed that the very last post here was about Blender 2.8 being a waste of time. And you may have thought I was some sort of nut job for thinking that.

But if you have actually read that post you will know that I was (as usual) right about it.

Because I was not saying that 2.8 was a waste of time in general. I was saying that if you were playing with it before its official release, and if you weren’t familiar with how to work Blender, then you were wasting your time.

Because you would have to try to navigate a changing program, and try to learn from sources that were all over the board in which version they were teaching, and most existing material was for earlier versions.

Well all that has changed now.

Blender 2.8 is official.

I am using it. Some of my future lessons will still use 2.79b because there isn’t a lot of difference. But I am shifting over to 100% 2.8. And It is fantastic.

Most of what I do is create finished stuff. Film effects. Stand alone animations. Hand drawn animations, and so on.

So, what I need is something that I can use to get things done. Fiddling with controls and hunting for features, doesn’t get things done. Savvy?

So, while I am using 2.8 now. I am also using 2.79b. And it shall remain that way until the last thing that I am really fast at in 2.79b is matched by my ability to do it in 2.8.

Honestly, from what I have already done, I don’t think that’ll take very long at all.

2.8 is brilliantly designed. And the only problems I run into with it, are habits left over from previous versions. But those will fade quickly.

So, for all you folks who hang on my every word and won’t even chew gum without my blessing, consider yourself blessed.

2.8 is now official. And it’s astounding.

Because of its new capabilities, and features, I am building a new machine for it. and some of my old projects that needed multiple Adobe products to do, I am looking forward to doing ENTIRELY in blender.

OH YEA!

I am an open source junky at heart, and I have always felt a bit soiled when I had to use proprietary shit. If I choose to use it is one thing, but HAVING to use it bothers the begeezuss out of me.

Well, thanks for stopping by. There will be another post much sooner than how long it’s been since the last one. (4 months!)

OH! If you don’t have Blender you can get it, here.

Blender 2.8 a Waste Of Time?

The short answer is yes.

But I realize that some people will choose to be upset about this. Or will start screaming and kvetching about all the lovely things that 2.8 has going for it. (Evee. That’s it, really.)

And they would be right, but only to a certain point.

First off, Evee is fast and pretty, but will not render things anywhere near as well as cycles. That’s just the nature of the beast.

At some point in some far distant future Evee, or something akin to it, may render as well or better than cycles does. In fact I am certain that will happen. Again, nature of software development.

But that time is not now. Which brings me to my main point. Blender 2.8 is not out yet.

If you choose to get the latest build, and try to learn that, that’s fine. I hope you’re having fun. But don’t think that you are accomplishing anything other than playing, because you are not.

Other than this post I have not mentioned 2.8 at all. And I will continue to ignore it, right up until it is the official release.

Because, say what you will, it is under development. And until that development is complete, you can’t even know which features will or will not be there when it’s finalized. Also the features that remain may be moved around and such.

I understand the desire to be at the bleeding edge of blender. I myself have lurked there from time to time. But I never lost site of the fact that I was wasting my time out there.

I was having fun, but that’s all I was having. I was not doing anything productive.

If you are a software geek and love it out there, more power to you. That’s fine. My message is to the artists.

Avoid the cutting edge. That’s not the place for artists to hang out.

We create art. It is difficult enough to solve the inevitable problems that arise with each and every project. They all are unique. (If you’re doing it right.)

Adding unknown factors on top of that, can only degrade the quality of your art. Since you will be spending at least some of your time and thought, on solving the problems of your cranky software, rather than just focusing down on your creation.

As I have said, if you are a software geek, then by all means push up against the cutting edge, and enjoy the burn. I get it. But if you are an artist than I need to alert you to the new brush syndrome.

Many early artists think that the difference between the quality of their art, and that of their favorite artist, is in the tools they use.

For watercolorists, this manifests in trying to save up to by the most expensive Kolinsky sables, because those are the brushes that “real” artists use.

I have used expensive brushes. I have worked in oils, and acrylics, and colored pencils. More recently in photoshop, and illustrator, and of course blender. And In all of those things, I can produce good looking stuff. And it all looks like my style.

Because that’s the secret. The art comes from the artist. Not the tools.

A while back I was taking life drawing classes and Boris Vallejo had to step in for the teacher for a class. At one point he was trying to explain something to me and asked if he could draw on my drawing. I said yes and handed him my pencil.

With the same pencil that had been doing what looked like my stuff, he did something that looked unmistakably like Boris. I have seen pencil works of his that have all the contrast and dynamics of his oil paintings. Point is it ain’t the tool. Savvy?

My advice to any neophyte Blender artists out there is, use 2.79b. It has a ton of videos (including mine). It has a huge community. and it is rock stable.

Work on your skill. Use the time till 2.8 comes out to develop as an artist. Then, when the new tool comes, you will have a set of skills to start with.

Then the learning of the, then stable software, won’t take any time at all.

Falling, Bouncing, Colors

It’s been a little while since I made a lesson video. I have been doing much stuff that I want to teach, but I just didn’t have the time.

I got a few minutes last night to pump out a lesson, but I hadn’t planned on doing it. As a result this one was improvised. But it’s simple and it’s something that I have taught a lot, so it turned out ok.

I show a quick way of setting up large arrays of objects and then adding physics to them, without using the array modifier. And then I show how you can add a more interesting material.

It’s a simple lesson, mostly intended for people who know, more or less where the buttons are in blender, but just haven’t found out what to do with them yet.

I think it is more important to give someone a basic structure with which they can start exploring, than to give them a complex finished thing with so many steps and details, that it overwhelms them.

If you have any questions, you can put them in the comments here, or on youtube, or in the BlenderGuerrilla group on Facebook. I answer all of them.

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The Truth Revealed!

Yes. Ok … Blender Guerrilla is actually the artist formerly known as CG Bunny.

I  have a few aliases out there. Why? Because in the early days of the net, that’s how we rolled.

Most of them are irrelevant, but someone just commented that they liked this tutorial which was done on the CG Bunny channel.

So, I figured I should put it here. This one is not my best work. But I did it live one day and never bothered to pull it down. Since people seem to like it, I decided to ‘fess up to it and put it here.

PS-I intend to do an update to this one fairly soon. It’ll take it just a bit farther, and be (hopefully) easier to follow.