Animation Project: more Interior progress - almost done

 The left right and centre of the room. I am not working on the entry with the door. Since rendering these I have made a few tweaks, the windows didn't look good enough so I made them dark and smaller in the new version. This one sees cobwebs and other details added which I tin really add a lot to the look. The scene is getting "heavy" which means it's taxing the computer to render quickly so I can't add much more especially since there will be two characters in here at first. 

This was sort of nightmare to do. I guess it is all part of learning new software but Blender while much better is still nowhere near C4D in terms of easier usability for artists. 

Animation Project: Interior progress

 This was HOURS of more work. The time killer was using Blender's Asset Library, many of the items I put in it did not work right. The books were the worst. They looked fine in the work space for they either did not render or rendered as a single book or in some configuration other the one I saved them in! I still don't have a good reason why but managed to work around it. The more detail the more time it will take to render each frame so I need to be mindful of that. This might be Ok or I might add some cobwebs. There are windows and doors to add in other parts of the set and Mike was right about adding rugs. The addition of windows will add to the ambience even if you don't see them as there will be a blue light from outdoors coming from then. I think the characters will need a fill light so we can see their expressions, I think there is a way to have a light only show on selected objects and nowhere else as there was in Cinema 4D. A very new feature for Blender. 

Animation Project: Interior start with character.

 Further along. The interior structure I thought would be a breeze. I would simply use the manor model and delete everything I didn't need. Turned out to be a nightmare and I wasted a couple days. Instead I made a trace of the floor plan in an EPS file and converted it to a mesh and just extruded upwards to make the walls. Lesson learned. 

I am now adding the furniture and textures. There will a lot of books and weird paraphernalia like full animal and human bones on display. The characters live in a secluded manor so no one gets wind of their "collection". 

The animation will be in black and white but I thought the colour rendering might be interesting to show as well. 

Animation project- Main Crypt

 

I based this crypt on one I LOVE from the North Dorchester burying ground in Boston. I had to learn sweep nurbs in blender which involves making a profile and "sweeping" it along another shape, in this case a rectangle then adding details on top. I used a plugin that damaged things and another to add a grunge texture to complete the worn/aging effect. This will be the main focus in a couple important shots so it has a lot more detail than anything else in the cemetery will have.

Animation / Blender : scene update

 

Getting there. The textures are greatly improved and the rendering time is still reasonable for animation. So far. I have to make the garden area on the side of the house for a scene later in the film and find a better solution for the walkway to the house and the ground around the house that you can't see in this render.  Balancing the street light and fog was not easy, it had to be think enough for something emerge from it and not too think to hide the lights completely. 

Blender progress for my first Blender short film.

 One element in a much larger setup.  The mansion will be behind walls and a gate and we will be looking down a foggy street lit by lamplight. My goal is to model the street and set up the shot and lighting then make the characters to be animated. I will need a cemetery set, an indoor set and this mansion will have a garden somewhere. So not many locations. It has to be as simple as possible so I can learn enough to make it look OK and live long enough to finish it. The mansion is an older model repurposed and redecorated. 

Illustration: Dragon 1982

 This was found in a frame somewhere while clearing out my may parent's house. I had forgotten all about it even though I have a pencil drawing with this same dragon in it. Ink with watercolour with chalk pastels (I think). It almost fit in the scanner but not quite exactly. I sometimes wonder what else is out there still that I drew and forgot about. 

Illustration: rue Berthier

 

Another in my local house series. This one is also close to the gym as those are the houses I see most of the week. I think I like the brick houses, they look cool to me and I like the colour palette. 

Like a lot of there, the drawing looks much nicer than the real place. This building is cute but it is hidden by poles, electric line, meters... you name it. There really should a law against visual pollution blocking our appreciation of the places we see every day. 

Blender 4.0 - Am I really learning it finally?

 I certainly hope I am! With the release of 4.0 Blender has updated it's interface to a point I thought I could  finally understand it and use it. I had no real choice, my V19 of Cinema 4D stopped being supported by the MAC OS and Maxon has gone the subscription route, including not very satisfying updates since. 

I started with CG Cookie's playlist of basics which introduces you to the layout, interface and basic concepts in a sort of an entertaining but text book way. I will go over it again as I begin to start a real short animation in my Lovecraft series... soon... soon-ish. 

I then went on to Blender Guru's famous Blender donut tutorial, updated for 4.0 and teaches the software by taking you through a project using all of Blender's most used features and tools. I didn't follow it slavishly, I have a lot of 3D experience already but it really helped to see it all done step by step in Blender. So I have joined the crowd and finished the donut tutorial. 

I do feel I can work or will be able to work in Bender now, gradually getting confidence and learning the things I need to to continue making films. The interface is more user friendly but not exactly intuitive or easy yet. It also crashed much more than C4D did for me. More positively working with the EEVEE live renderer it was much easier to see what I was working on clearly and with a big update for that coming very soon, I can see rendering my finished project quickly. Cycles was more slow but also, I thought, a better render than that of the native C4D rendering options. 

So see my donut thing in all it's donut-y glory above. 

Cirru book series for children

Over the last 6 months or more I have been working with authors Danny and Melissa on a series of children's books featuring Cirru the travelling cloud. The books teach young children about colours, shapes and how to count to ten. I not only designed the books but did all the illustrations.

The books are available to buy on Amazon, so buy them and leave a good review, especially for the illustrations! 

Click the title to go to the Amazon page! 

Cirru Counts to Ten

Learning Shapes with Cirru

Learning Colors with Cirru