Gooseberry and the Blender Cloud

I haven't written about Blender in a while, and this is the perfect time to talk about what's going on with my favorite open-source CG program. In fact, they're currently gearing up for the next open film code-named project Gooseberry. For those who don't know, the Blender foundation pushes development of its software by creating an open project, meaning a project released under the creative commons license, which allows anyone to reuse assets from the film in ways consistent with the specific license. The projects are usually funded in part by the foundation itself, and part by sponsors, but also with donations and pre-orders of the film. But in the words of every action movie cliche' "This time it's personal!" Well, not really, but it is different. The Gooseberry project is intended to be a feature-length animated film done by studios around the world in collaboration. This will require more money, and a place where shared assets, information, and probably a lot of other things will need to be housed.

Enter the Blender Cloud. This is a new service proposed to be a creative hub for not only the Gooseberry project, but future and community projects as well. It has a base infrastructure that contains all the previous open movies, including all assets and extras. It also houses all of the Blender Foundation's training DVDs, made available to members, and according to Ton Rosendaal, the founder and CEO of the foundation, will grow to allow others to house their personal and community projects in the future.

Not only that, but as usual, Blender will undergo major enhancements to it's asset management and VFX pipeline functionality. After all, they're recruiting diverse professional studios from around the world for this project, so Blender should scale to the challenge. I really like that.

All of these reasons led me to sign up for the cloud. And I think others interested in the capabilities I mentioned above should consider it, too. Yes, Blender is free. But for it to grow, it does needs support.

Now, don't think you have to jump right into the cloud, and pay $12 per month. There are other avenues of support as well, many don't require any cash unless they reach their goal. But even $1 donation can help.

For more information head over to the main page of the Gooseberry project, and the FAQ. And don't forget to check out Blender itself. If you haven't seen it for a while, you will be surprised.

VFX Artist Solidarity

I'm a part-time VFX freelancer. My full-time job is in the IT industry, so I'm not affected like those whose livelihood is in the CG industry. But I was shocked to hear of their plight, and I hope they prevail. After all, without the VFX Industry, your movie would look like this



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For details on what's going on, read this article:

A Piece of the Pi ~ Thinking Animation Blog.

Blender 2.57 Released

The Blender Foundation just released the first stable release in about 2 years. 2.57 is a complete re-design from the ground up, and addresses many of the issues that have kept mainstream CG artists away. There's a whole new interface (the largest complaint in the past was how confusing and non-friendly the interface was), and nearly every feature has been greatly improved. There's also additional features like volumetric rendering, approximate indirect lighting, and many others. There are still a few things missing from this version (like BMesh), but Ton Roosendaal stated that they're going to try to release new versions every couple of months for the rest of the year. Good times!

The link to the latest version is here.

Related articles

• Rebranding Blender (talesfromthecellar.com)


• Sintel, 4k edition (and why it's useful) (creativecommons.org)


• 2 new Blender Foundation Training DVDs (dreamsgate.wordpress.com)


• Blender 3D: Noob to Pro, free ebook (en.wikibooks.org)

A Chronicle of the Journey that is Crawler

Rob Long at Smash or Trash Indie Filmmaking published a detailed article that documents the long journey that we at Timewarp Films have traveled in our quest to complete Don Dohler's last film. It's been a tough road, but the end is in sight.

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Rebranding Blender

Word is spreading throughout the Blender community of a few companies (3DMagix, 3DMagixPro, IllusionMage) who are rebranding Blender and using copy-written material to sell "their" product.

Ton Roosendaal explains:

With the success of blender.org projects, and publishing all the exciting Blender releases, we're now being challenged by third parties who like to ride the waves and do business with Blender.

There's nothing wrong with that. In its very nature, GNU GPL is about freedom, the freedom not only to use and modify the sources, but also to distribute and resell our releases under another brand name.

Recently we received several concerned emails and forum postings from people who were worried about Blender resellers using especially Ebay to sell Blender.

...

On their web pages they intentionally hide that the products are distributions of GNU GPL licensed software, and that the software is freely downloadable as well. More-over, even after contacting them several times, they don't remove copyrighted content from their websites.

Here's a link to the full article on the Blender Foundation's  site: 3DMagix and IllusionMage, scam or open source leeches?

Related articles

• Ton Roosendaal, Sintel Producer and head of Blender Institute (creativecommons.org)


• Watch Sintel, a new open-source animated short from the Blender Institute (creativecommons.org)


• 10+ Amazing Short Films You'd Not Believe Were Made With Free Software (makeuseof.com)

Sintel Now Available Online

Image via Wikipedia

The wait is over. The Blender Foundation's 3rd open movie is done! It premiered,  and is ready for download here. The DVD should be available soon. I pre-ordered that, and am really excited to watch all the extras.

Congrats to the team of artists and developers who made it happen. I know from experience how hard it is to put together a film project -- of any size.

And my heartfelt thanks for the hard work on Blender 2.5. It's getting closer to 2.6 and it's looking great!

blender cgi sintel

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Back to Work on Crawler Starting in May

I know a lot of folks--cast and crew, as well as Timewarp fans--have been wondering when (and if) it would ever be finished. Well, the FX will be completed, and I'm shooting for the end of this year.

A lot of work has has already been done, and some FX are in the can. But one thing I plan to do is rework the look of the creature. While Don and Joe were okay with it, I was never completely satisfied. And I think now that my skills have improved and the tools available are simply amazing (I'll be using the current version of ZBrush--check out the mind-blowing gallery), I want to go for something that will WOW people. Don always said that the creature would make of break the movie, and I don't want to let him down.

Over the last few months, in addition to finishing Sealed Fates, I've been ramping up my CG skills to get ready. I hope to have the new Crawler ready by sometime in June, then fully rigged to animate by August. That leaves several months to do the rest.

I plan to post updates as much as possible with stills, clips, etc. So, stay tuned.

vfx, don dohler, crawler, zbrush, cgi

Import Blender Fluid Simulation into Lightwave

The latest Lightwave newsletter mentions a plugin that allows the import of Blender fluids. Blender's simulator is very cool, and Blender is completely free, of course. Once in Lightwave, you can texture using Lightwave's awesome surfacing system and render engine. I haven't tried it yet, but it looks great.

You can find the plugin and tutorial here.

Free 3D adds another contender: trueSpace

trueSpace was one of the first 3D applications I tried, way back in 2000. It was version 4 back then, and while its interface was a little different and it didn't have all of the state-of-the-art features, it was quite capable and got me through a few projects.

Now on version 7.6, trueSpace has quite a lot to offer, based on the features page. And to make that deal sweeter, it's completely free! Seems Microsoft purchased Caligari, the creators of trueSpace. I guess they want to compete with other free 3D apps, particularly Google SketchUp. Gee, I wonder why?

There's only a PC version, so Mac users are SOL in terms of trueSpace.

Camera Mapping in Blender, for Charity.

I read a post on Blendernation, a cornerstone of the Blender 3D community, that I felt bared repeating--for two reasons.

First, Colin Levy (Peerless Productions), created a 30 second public service announcement (PSA) as an entry for PSAId, a contest sponsored by the Center for International Disaster Information (CIDI). It's very impressive and has a strong message; no wonder it was a finalist. You can view his entry here.

Second, because he uploaded a video on how he used Blender 3D for camera mapping in order to create the proper setting for the scene. He also has a full camera mapping tutorial on his Web site.

Projects from the Cellar

I started a section for showcasing the projects I've worked on. Projects from the Cellar will have stills galleries of FX and videos, with some behind the scenes commentary, and how-tos.

I've already added sections for Amateur Short Films, a Stakes FX gallery, a Monster Planet FX gallery, and a video on how to create a quick and dirty vampire death. Stay tuned for more.

Can Blender 3D Compete with the Big Boys?

Blender, the open-source 3D application, has come a long way. According to a 2007 comparison of 3D applications published on the TDT 3D (The Dream Team) Web site, Blender performed well against Maya, Softimage XSI, Cinema 4d, and Lightwave. And considering each of the others costs at least $500, Blender should be especially appealing to a low-budget filmmaker.

As the comparison chart shows, Blender scored Good or Very Good in animation, rendering, particles, and dynamics. In fact, it outscored Cinema 4D in character animation, and Lightwave and XSI in UV tools. It was also listed as the only package with built-in compositing; though, XSI's higher-end versions (the entry-level version was used for the comparison) do have compositing as well.

Blender does need work in some areas. It scored poorly in NURB and curves modeling, and low in 3D painting. Plus, it's still doesn't have an industry-standard interface. But the developers are constantly working on updates, and there is a tremendous 3rd party community adding plug-ins and scripts all the time.

Blender's growth can mean a lot for those who need to use CG for their movies but can't afford a $500+ price tag. Do you need matte paintings, pyrotechnics, space ships, dinosaurs? Try Blender. It's free!

So long, and thanks for all the Goju

Last week my friend Rakesh (back center of the picture), a fellow FX artist and Goju karate instructor left for the west coast. Even with free long distance, e-mail, and occasional visits, I'll still miss him.

We met through a Lightwave user group several years ago, and became fast friends. The group sort of fizzled out, but we had so much in common, we continued working on and discussing CGI on our own. In fact, I recruited him to work on Timewarp's CGI-heavy feature Crawler. Work has been slow-going, but he's made progress--and he insists he wants to keep working in spite of the distance. I'm holding you to that, bud.

One day about 4 years ago, we discovered that we were both long-time martial artists, and he was an instructor. The timing couldn't have been better for me, because I was in between schools and looking for a place to train. His school, a Kodokan flavor of Goju Ryu located in D.C., was run out of a small activity room in an apartment complex. It was a little bit of a trek from Rockville, but worth it. At that time, there were only 3 regulars, including the two of us, so the small space suited us. And it was great training again.

I actually came from a completely different style, Shorinji-Ryu, a Japanese style (Goju is Okinawan.) Boy did I have a lot to learn... or, rather, unlearn. But Rakesh was up to the challenge of dealing with an old warhorse that was a little set in his ways. And with the help of the other instructors, Josh (bottom right), Jay (back, second from the left) and Vu (back, second from the right), I was able to make the transition.

Thursdays became a night-long ritual of training for 2 hours, then dinner (where we'd talk about movies, computer geekery, and Goju, of course), and then more chatting by one of our cars. There were several nights that I didn't get home until 1 or 2AM. That made for an unproductive Friday at work.

It's about 4 years since I joined, and our school has really grown. Among the regulars are Sampak (bottom, second from the left), Johann (back left), John-Joseph (back right), and James (bottom left). We also have several part-time students and two more black belts. And we added two more weekly classes on Tuesdays and Saturdays. Sometimes we train outside on Saturdays if the weather is nice.

Of course, the activity room has started to show its size, or lack thereof. As I said, it's small and we share the room with 2 couches, a treadmill, and 3 tables. It's not so bad when we're all doing the same thing, but we often get in each other's way when we branch off. And don't get me started on the parking. But that doesn't stop us. After all, we're Samurai. Inconvenience matters, not.

But the absence of a friend does matter. I'm sure we'll feel the effect, at least for a while. It's certainly the greatest challenge to our Samurai persistence. But I think I speak for all of us in wishing Rakesh Sensei well, and we look forward to his occasional return for a class.

ZBrush 3 Coming on May 15, 2007

The future of digital art is about to take a quantum leap forward.

Pixolator has posted an announcement on the Zbrush central forum that on May 17th, Pixologic will release the latest version of ZBrush, their digital sculpting and painting tool. The announcement has a downloadable Quicktime that demonstrates ZB3's capabilities.

If you create digital imagery of any form (stills, animated films, visual effects, etc.) and need detailed characters or other organic models, I recommend taking a look at it.

And take a peek at the Pixologic gallery to see some amazing art, all created with ZBrush.

Another scene finished

Featured in this shot are actors Darla Albornoz and Justin Timpaine.

Last week I finished what I called the "pivotal" scene. It's pivotal for two reasons. First, the good guys face off against the creature for the first time. Second, it was the most challenging scene to complete. Ironically, though, the shot I expected to be the most difficult of the whole film, a shot that required a major on-screen alteration to the creature, lots of tiny particles flying around, and direct interaction between an actor and the Crawler, only took a day to complete.
While working on the scene, an issue that came up a couple of times, including the shot shown above, was dealing with continuity problems. It's hard enough dealing with them when editing, but when you add into the mix the placement of CG elements after the fact, it opens up a whole other can of worms, or Crawlers in this case. Since we didn't initially plan to use CG for the Crawler, we hadn't planned the shots to the level of detail needed for adding CG. We basically winged it. Luckily, however, we decided to film with traditional editing in mind, as opposed to the style adopted by many newer Hollywood directors, the long, motion-filled shots with no cuts. The traditional way uses frequent cuts from various angles: wide, mid, closeup, etc., while maintaining proper stage direction. Thus, a lot was fixed in editing before we even got the CG elements. But, as you can see in the above shot, while Darla and Justin should be looking directly at the creature's eyes, it appears that Justin is looking at the creatures throat (if it actually has one); they have two different lines of sight.

Oops.

I dealt with this by making a choice: I set to Darla's line of sight. Since she's holding a shiny canister, she draws the eye more than Justin. Well, okay, she'd draw the eye more anyway.

Most of the continuity problems we faced were minor, and for some I did my due diligence as a post-production artist and "fixed them in post". The rest we'll live with as all filmmakers do.

Back to Crawler

After a brief diversion working on Dead Hunt, I'm now back to finishing up Crawler. I'm actually on a pivotal scene, a major confrontation between the good guys and the monster. This one has some serious FX stuff in it; I get to do neat things to the Crawler itself, but since it deals with the plot, I can't give details. Suffice it to say, I get to pay homage to Terminator 2 :)

More Crawler Pictures

As I continue to crank out more final FX clips, I thought I'd post a couple of stills. These shots, courtesy of Timewarp, show the creature in both an outdoor, nighttime setting, which is very dark, and an indoor setting that is lighter--though not by much. These renders, which I call "final" use a feature in XSI called Final Gathering to augment the base lighting with a global illumination. For my purposes, it serves to subtly fill in some light, and accentuate the creature's surface details. The base lighting still dictates the key and rim areas on the creature, but Final Gathering augments the fill lighting, providing more depth.The actor in the second image is George Stover, who plays the sheriff. Hey, George!

Click on the thumbnail for a larger image.

The Crawler

I received a request to post an image of the Crawler. I created this image a while ago to use for printed materials such as the DVD cover. It is more stylized than the version that will appear in the movie, but it conveys, I hope, the creature's menacing appearance. So, with Don's approval, here he...er, she, er...it is:

(Click the image to view a larger version.)

Welcome

I plan to use this blog to keep track of my progress with the seemingly endless list of creative projects on which I plan to work in the next few years. Whether it's filmmaking, music, writing, martial arts, or even computer programming, creativity is in my blood—I can't stop it. Whether what I produce appeals to anyone else is a different matter. I'd like to think it does.

At the top of my laundry list is Crawler. For the last three years, I have been working on the visual f/x for this low-budget horror movie produced by Timewarp Films. In particular, I'm working on the computer-generated title character. One thing I've learned in the last three years is that there's a reason we see hundreds of names at the tail end of movie credits for visual f/x; it's hard to do this stuff. It took at least a year to zero in on the best software to create and animate this beast. I finally settled on Softimage XSI—a godsend.

Currently, I'm on the 3rd to last scene involving the creature. After I finish the last creature shot in the last scene, and the 30-some shots of final renders, I have to address the miscellaneous f/x. For this I've recruited a few friends interested in f/x to help. That led to the next lesson learned (no, not "don't hire friends"): I learned not to try to manage and do at the same time. You wind up doing a half-assed job at both. Thus, I had to concentrate on my stuff first. Once I finish the remaining creature shots, I'll pull the gang (or what's left of them) back together to finish the rest.

As a final note, I want to mention a project on the back burner, an amateur film project that is a mere 14 years in the making: Monster Planet.