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I finally managed to get an environmental map working in Blender to make a reflective object. I found the standard tutorial for envmaps to be a little confusing, but this (scroll down) proved to be very useful in providing a simple series of steps for the basic effect. I still need to explore multiple recursive reflections, which were introduced in the last few releases of Blender. And of course, a reflective sphere is one thing, but actually making convincing reflective real-world objects is a different story. Back to work.

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I’m finally getting into doing some tutorials in Blender. I was browsing around and this mesh based terrain modelling technique caught my attention. It could be done with only blender and didn’t need to involve fractal height maps, so I gave it a whirl. Manipulating complex organic organic meshes is surprisingly un-daunting in the Blender interface. I was able to achieve the basic model quite painlessly.

I seem to have some innate problem with completing tutorials “by the book”, so as usual at this point I went off on a tangent. Playing around with the World settings took up quite a bit of time but that resulted in a weird and wonderful sky. It was satisfactory, but not quite. It needed something. So, I set out to model a figure to put into the landscape - yes I know that is a ridiculous thing to do for a newbie, but stranger things have happened.

A few hours later, after many mistakes and a lot of searching on how to group objects, I finally came up with this very stick-figure robot with no neck. Not bad for a first try. I put my mechanical friend into the landscape, posed him thanks to a basic parenting setup, and rendered away. The floating head thing wasn’t very convincing so I put in a box for the neck and played around with a halo material till I was satisfied. A good few hours of inefficient Blendering, but a good start I think.

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I am not a rank newcomer to the world of 3D graphics. In fact you could say it is the one field I have continued to try my hand at since my first association with computers. Like many today my fascination with computer graphics began with the Amiga. I too have spent countless hours rendering reflective spheres on checkered floors on my A500 with 1MB RAM. Back then my weapon of choice was Real 3D. When I moved to the PC I started playing around with POV Ray which I had heard of on the Amiga, and I created some pretty decent images in spite of text interface. I also dabbled in Bryce v2 and Poser v1 courtesy some Computer Arts cover discs, and Rhino 3D back when it was still a beta. All this exploration did contribute to my work, proof of which is evident on my old portfolio site.

My plunge into Blender started a few years ago when I came across version 1.8. I was very impressed by its feature list, and also by its small file size. However, the interface was a bit of a challenge. While I could see that it was actually better than the 3D interfaces I had come across before, I just didn’t have the need or inclination to get into it at the time. Since then I have repeated my forays into the software many times. Mostly this involved going through the Juicy Blender Tutorials yet another time (having totally forgotten everything since the last time), and making some half-hearted attempts to complete excellent tutorials (see image). By the way, I whole heartedly recommend the Juicy Blender Tutorials to anyone getting into Blender. It’s a great introduction.

Finally at the beginning of 2003, I used my usual trick to get to know any new software. I forced myself to make the new software a major part of some real-world project with pressing deadlines. In this case it was the complete print identity for an annual architecture conference, which I was working on for the second time in a row.

Frank Lloyd Wright once said “Space is the breath of Art” . I used this quote as a starting point. Also the theme of the conference was ‘architecture in the new millenium’. I needed to use the traditional concept of space and present it in modern way. While I had grandiose ideas of complex architectural 3D renderings, I was not going to learn that about Blender in the short time I had. So, I needed to come up with a simplification of space presented in a modern way. It was when I was having these thoughts about the idea, and looking around for Blender related information on the net that I saw my first image of the ‘Cornell Box‘. This ‘Radiosity’ look was exactly what I had been looking for. It provided a beautiful sense of space with even the most simple models. I played around with radiosity a lot in Blender, mostly trial and error. I tried various kinds of simplified spaces and objects in them, from spheres to weird abstract floating sculptures (see images).

I finally settled on a sphere because it was the perfect foil for the rectangular spaces I was creating, plus I have a soft spot for rendered spheres. It reminded me of the good old days. :rolleyes:
So this was the final image used as a magazine ad, a folder and a large A1 poster.

This has been my journey with Blender to date. I am currently just playing around with the interface, but I think I should be more organized about it and actually work through one of the manuals available on the site. That’s the plan, the results of which are forthcoming.

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As stated in the sub-head at the top of the page, this blog was born with two ends in sight:
1) Complete revamp of my web site
2) Thorough knowledge of Blender

Why revamp the site?

I was pretty proud of my old site (http://samir.shorturl.com/), and I still am. It was coded in raw html in Notepad, it had a distinct visual presence, and it was a very lean and quick piece of coding. However, right from day one this site was outdated in some ways. It was not even a fraction of what I wanted it to be, it was not very extensible, and the it was not the best representation of my work.

So, the site needs help:
- It needs to be more expandable.
- It needs some actual content, beyond pretty pictures.
- The portfolio part could use better presentation.
- The structure should be easy to update.

Why learn Blender?

Let’s see… so many reasons.
I like open source. I like 3D, and computer graphics in general. I like animation and would like to get into it seriously. I love small, free programs that surprise you no end as to what they are capable of. Something as powerful as Blender can not only be immensely useful, but can also save a lot of time in my work as a freelance designer.

For those who have no idea what I am talking about, you can check out this wonderful 3D animation suite at http://www.blender3d.com/

Both these ambitions have been on hold for a couple of years now, and I decided it was about time I tackled and conquered them. But, what will be my incentive to keep with it? That’s where the idea for this blog comes in. On one hand, this will force some regularity into my endeavors. And secondly, what I discover along the way might be of interest to some people. I have experienced a distinct shortage of freely available case-studies on the development of creative projects on the net. This blog will be my small contribution to remedy this situation. I enjoy reading about the thought processes of others and I am sure I am not alone.

With these intentions at heart I set out on my foray into blogging. May the stream of posts come thick and steady.
:satisfied:

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