loran

Production with Blender Cycle

2012-01-25T09:50:00.000-08:00

I've done my first production work rendered with Blender Cycle. Render was very fast at 15 or 25 sec /frame. Compositing and fx was done with after effects.

new year e-card

2012-01-06T08:49:00.000-08:00

Here his a "quick and dirty" newyear e-card I ve done. I ve done the music, edit and design/compositing.

>vidéo

Compositing setup - Blender (cycle)

2012-01-05T10:00:00.000-08:00

I ve just done a compositing setup with blender and Cycle Render:

World Film Production

2011-11-02T13:37:00.000-07:00

I've done a brandname logo animation for World Film Production last days. They just release a fantastic trailer for Black Day with terrorists, kungfu fighting, but no aliens unfortunatly.

check this out!

Krumbler

2011-10-25T09:03:00.000-07:00

This is a 3dsmax2012 tool done in maxscript. You can use it to animate destruction easily (collapsing bridge for example). Watch the demo and enjoy the script! happy destruction

>download KrumbleR

Gemini Rising trailer is out

2011-10-24T23:20:00.000-07:00

Most of the VFX of this movie are done in Blender. I ve done the alien design, sculpt, rig and animation. This is a story about aliens, secret military base on an uncharted island, roundhouse kick in the face and telepathy... I think the flying vampire monkeys will come in the sequel ;)
Thank you very much to Nataniel, Sam and Eric I've worked with. Cheers

KABOOM-MassFX

2011-10-24T10:05:00.000-07:00

I have update my KabooM script to 3ds max 2012 MassFx. The previous version worked with Reactor. Watch the demo and enjoy the script! happy destruction

>download KaboomMassFX

Speedpaint -Al.chemy

2011-10-09T10:20:00.000-07:00

Spacesuit speed paint with al.chemy.org

More pictures on my cghub gallery...

animation Blender Cycle

2011-09-14T05:37:00.000-07:00

A logo animation test with Cycle Render. 18 sec/frame GPU render on my 580GTX for 1024x576 pixels.

Blender to MD3 model

2011-09-06T04:34:00.001-07:00

export blender model to md3 for GTK Radiant with http://xembie.com/2010/md3-exporter/

export blender animation to 3ds max

2011-08-25T05:53:00.000-07:00

export blender animation to 3ds max by using point cache

Blender cavity map/texture mask

2011-06-30T03:26:00.000-07:00

How to bake cavity map to texture.
How to use texture as mask for another one

Blender UVW tutorial

2011-06-22T07:31:00.000-07:00

How to unwrap organic model for texture painting.

Motion Design (After Effects)

2011-06-16T02:44:00.000-07:00

Motion Design (Blender)

2011-06-16T02:24:00.000-07:00

Here is a motion design I've done recently with Blender, edit and text in After Effects.

Cycle- a New realtime unbiased renderer

2011-05-04T17:42:00.000-07:00

After a brief detour as a developer for Octane Renderer, Brecht van Lommel has decided to return to the Blender Foundation to work on Blender development...

more infos 1 /2/

my first Cycle test :

GEMINI RISING-alien hand

2011-04-27T13:02:00.000-07:00

Gemini Rising is a live action movie starring Lance Heriksen. The production open up the effects creation to the very talented Blender community.
Here is my contribution (9 hours) to the alien hand shot (the production design ):

> animation test 1

render below are about 15 sec/image on my amd phenom2 x6. Very fast for SSS shader!

Blender Fracture tools

2011-04-02T00:51:00.000-07:00

Some tests using fracture tools, Bullet and Logic connections to control the collision and procedural animation. Inspired by this tutorial

>video

Head Sculpt- skin

2011-03-21T16:08:00.000-07:00

sculpting skin wrinkles and adjusting specularity map...

Head Sculpt - 3d painting texture

2011-03-18T03:39:00.001-07:00

Painting texture directly on the 3d high resolution sculpt is so cool in Blender. You just have to first unwrap the base shape in editMode. I will try to paint bump later...

head sculpt - materials

2011-03-15T15:48:00.000-07:00

A render test of my previous sculpt with SSS and procedural textures. No UV.
Blender internal renderer

Head sculpt

2011-03-14T02:49:00.000-07:00

A 2 hours sculpt from scratch. I've been inspired (a lot!) by Jonas redneck model.

Blender Arm Rig Tutorial

2011-02-18T09:25:00.000-08:00

>Video Tutorial

Volumetrics setup

2011-01-27T22:48:00.000-08:00

Blender basic volumetric smoke setup test.

>download the blender scene

>video

2D Characters

2011-01-12T08:25:00.000-08:00

Some 2 characters concepts I've done those days...

Could be cool to animate this...

>View full size

(update)... Just done one of them in Blender (I can't help it!)

>View full size

...Mental Ray render :

>Full size

... then Blender again:
>View full size

Blender Particles Practice

2011-01-10T05:48:00.000-08:00

Just gave a try to Blender particles. Blender has a "point render" solution named halo. You can map the alpha, color and size... Size take month to render I don't know why. Anyway My first test is a simple ball animation emitting 300 000 particles. The distrotion motion is given by a texture field. Render is very fast because of "point render" mean no geometry.

No smoke simultation was used here, just basics particles.

>download the blender Scene

>video

blender 2 max script

2011-01-04T23:03:00.000-08:00

"...It's a way of baking animation to a file, in the form of vertex locations, that can then be later streamed off disk, that can help not only for things like speeding up complex rig deformation playback, but also for i/o of animation data..."

http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=105959

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2011

2010-12-24T02:41:00.000-08:00

My 2011 greating card I've done with a Flashman friend of me.
I ve done sound fx, music, animations, zombies, car and the cg junk yard.

Happy new year!

Blender Bull

2010-12-18T02:30:00.000-08:00

A bull model I have done in blender 2.5 from a 2d sketch of mine. No sculpt, only quad modeling, multitextures, area lights and blured reflection in the Blender internal renderer.

Ambient Occlusion tutorial

2010-12-03T12:27:00.000-08:00

Check my new tutorial on Ambient Occlusion cool tips with MentalRay.
Use google translate to read it in English
You can check out this interesting post from Zap about the same subject (but I cant achieve a good render with his technics )

> Tutorial

This HD animation was entirely rendered with this technics

BLENDER TUTORIALS LINKS

2010-11-28T13:06:00.000-08:00

blender car physics
blender car physics
blender car physics

blender car rig

Fire Shader (no more blobby particles!)

Dynamic Fracture Tool
and logic connections

breaking objects

scripting breaking object

Blender internal screencast
and online solutions

Blender Key status script

IK/FK arm + hand rig

Faking Stop Motion

particles + forces

explode modifier

dissolve text

dissolve

outdoor lighting+ compositing

blendswap.com

artist-3d.com/

Roberto Roch blog

very good Blender sculpts!

great timelapses

Sculpting lesson
Brush download link

Arrays sketching

Hand rig

Hand Rig from meta rig

NPR with blender 2.5 Freestyle
freestyleintegration
sketch-shader
blender-2-50-and-freestyle/
pdf tutorial
download 2.55 freestyle build

Particles and explode modifier

Change loop path

Modeling walls

Zbrush Matcaps in Blender viewport

Array modifier

Advanced Array animation

Modelisation / Sculpt /Rendering

Blender 2.5 Ultimate shortcuts

16 awsome modeling tools

Fire & smoke

Curves modeling + cloth simulation

Chocolate simulation

THE BIG TITLE (blender)

2010-11-24T16:21:00.000-08:00

A title animation test. Material reflection/refraction test. Compositor motion blur , lens distortion and RGB curves are setup in realtime.This is very fast to render. Check out the file:

> blender scene
> video

Blender Smoke

2010-11-21T09:31:00.000-08:00

Blender Smoke emited from an animated mesh.

> video

Iray Manager Maxscript (updated)

2010-10-01T06:03:00.001-07:00

UPDATED VERSION 1.4
IRay manager is a toolset to setup Iray renderer with Mental Ray Material Editor (the Iray Material Editor is too slow to update!!). The script let you choose CPU or GPU only render and let you adjust the number of GPU and CPU cores to use for rendering.

> download the maxscript (V1.2)

> v1.4 (Artur Leao) Artur enhance the script day after day :)

UPDATE!! Artur Leao completly rewrote my script and enhance is stability and functionalities!

::composite_this:: / MAXSCRIPT /

2010-09-29T05:37:00.000-07:00

::Composite_This :: is a maxscript tool to help the Mental Ray Production shader use.

Setup your compositing set up in 3 clicks!

> download the script

> demo video

from this:

to this:

Blender compositing CG+photo

2010-09-24T02:09:00.000-07:00

Basic tutorial on how to blend CG and background photo. The shadows are still too weak but you could enhance this by using the compositor. Another problem can be seen in the reflection: the floor shadows doesn't appear because I disabled the tracing in the floor shader so it doesn't render. Some best settings are to be found here...

>video

from this:

(This 2 pictures are taken from a Jeff Patton Mental Ray tutorial)

to this:

Blender projection painting texture tutorial

2010-09-23T08:38:00.000-07:00

Check out the power of Blender 2.5 projection painting !

> video tutorial

From this :

to this:

Camera Tracking -Icarus/Blender/After Effects

2010-09-17T13:39:00.000-07:00

Icarus is a powerfull automated 3d tracker, first version of PFtrack. You will need blender 2.49 to import the tracking data because the import script is old and doesnt works in Blender2.53.
Blender 2.53 support an amazing After Effects export script. Blender can load your footage in the camera viewport in realtime! (try to do that in 3dsmax 2011 !! lol)
The following is my workflow to create 3d floating titles. I've completed 14 tracked shots in 16h !

> resulting video for Icarus/Blender
> workflow video

Tools needed :
Blender 2.49 >download
Blender 2.54 >download
Icarus and Icarus 3D Import Script for Blender 2.41 >download
Blender253 to AE script >download
And After Effects...

01-ICARUS
Download and install Icarus. Launch Icarus Calibration. Create a new project (project menu/new)
then import your footage (project menu/ import movie). Close the Camera Parameter Window, leave the default settings. Go to Camera menu/ Track and calibrate. Wait until the job is finished. Go to project menu/ Export 3d Motion then save as human readable format.

02-Blender 2.49
Open Blender 2.49. In the text editor window open the Icarus_import241.py then Run the script (Alt-P). CLic the FSEL button and select your Icarus 3d Motion *.txt. Clic on Create Curves to create the tracked camera then Clic on Features point mesh to create the trackers.
Match the Render format to your tracked footage settings. Save your Blender Scene.

03-Blender 2.5
Install the Blender To AE script has described here. Open the Blender scene. Load your footage in camera view background. Choose a tracker point to isolate then align a cube center on it. Select the Camera and the cube only, then go to File menu / export /after Effects (jsx) and save.

04-After Effects
In after Effects go to File menu /scripts /Run script file and select your *.jsx file. The script create a compostion at the Blender scene format and footage lenght with the animated tracked camera and a 3d layer at the blender cube position.

And That 's all! You can now perfectly integrate any 3d layer in your footage.

you can find some HD sample footage here :http://umesh3d.blogspot.com/

Enjoy!

Blender Frog animation

2010-09-09T00:35:00.000-07:00

Here is the final rendered animation I done by learning Blender. Render is about 1 min/frame

> video

After Effects missing QuickTime Codecs

2010-09-08T07:52:00.000-07:00

To enablel egacy codecs for QuickTime 7.x on WindowsXP:

Exit After Effects.
Click Start > Control Panel.
Double-click QuickTime.
Click the Advanced tab.
Under Media Encoding check Enable encoding using legacy codecs.
Click OK.

export 3dsmax to blender

2010-09-06T14:20:00.000-07:00

Silvio Falcinelli created a solution to export a 3ds max 2010 secne with keyframe, parented animation, lights camera to Blender 2.5 !

Check this out:
>scene interchange scripts
>video demo
>Blender3darchitect.com article

Taking Advantage of Blender 2.5

2010-08-31T13:47:00.000-07:00

Taking Advantage of Blender 2.5
a very interesting article

Blender Frog

2010-08-30T08:21:00.000-07:00

Here is a 100% Blender frog I ve done for testing Sculpting, texture painting (in Blender) and rendering.

A basic area light with a white plane with emit = 4 (for light reflection)

No specular, highlights are based on the white plane reflection

and the render settings:

Blender Shape Key Driver

2010-08-26T07:30:00.000-07:00

Basic tutorial on How to create shape Keys Drivers Rig.

> Blender File

> Video

Blender Shape Key Mirror

2010-08-26T07:00:00.001-07:00

Basic tutorial on how to create shape keys (morph targets) in blender and how You can create symmetrical shape easily

> Blender file

> Video

Blender Leg rig V2.

2010-08-25T00:26:00.000-07:00

This version is much more correct for Blender. All the rig have to be component of the same "Armature", even controlers.

> blender file

> video

Blender Leg Rig

2010-08-20T05:14:00.000-07:00

Leg and Foot rig based on my old 3ds max setup.
(max version : laurent.renaud.free.fr/tutoriel-rigs.html)

> blender file

> video tutorial

Fire and smoke - The torch

2010-08-18T06:12:00.000-07:00

> blender file

> video

Fire and smoke - canon shot

2010-08-17T05:14:00.000-07:00

> video

> Blender file

Fire and smoke test 2

2010-08-17T00:23:00.000-07:00

> video

> download blender scene

Blender Fire and Smoke

2010-08-16T09:24:00.000-07:00

Here is a test I 've done with blender 2.53 beta after looking at the Phoenix plugin gallery

> video

> download the Blender scene

Iray 3dsmax2011 installation

2010-06-22T10:39:00.000-07:00

You will need to have an installed copy of mental ray Standalone 2011.
Copy the following 3 .dll files
cudart.dll
libiraymr.dll
libiray.dll
From: C:\Program Files\Autodesk\mrstand3.8.1-adsk2011\bin
To: C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max 2011

then download and install this Ctrl.Ghost like this:

mrGeomShaderObject.dlo >3ds Max 2011\plugins

ctrl_ghost_settings.mi > 3ds Max 2011\mentalimages\shaders_autoload\mentalray\include

ctrl_ghost_settings.dll > C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max 2011\mentalimages\shaders_autoload\mentalray\shaders

Then start 3dsmax2011 and create a basic scene with MentalRay

Create>Geometry>Mental ray> mr Shader then drag the box on the viewport

With mr Geometry Shader box selected go to Modify>Shader>none

then pick Maps>mental ray>Ctrl.Ghost.Settings(ctrl.studio)

then drag it as instance in the MaterialEditor

Progressive rendering > enable > Iray

Max samples > 1000000

Render

Tips:

If it render black, you have a Cuda problem so uou have to disable Cuda. You can do that in the graphic card control panel or by temporary renaming the nvcuda.dll in windows>system32

Iray

2010-06-22T06:53:00.000-07:00

Iray is out on MentalRay Standalone 3.8.1. For those who own a license you can try Iray on Maya and 3dsmax2011 by copying somme dll. Check the thread about this

Some people like me encounter black render problem because of Cuda problem. You can use the CPU only Iray by renaming the nvcuda.dll in C:\Windows\System32. For now I can't use textures map for some reason...
some test Ive done (CPU only):

win7 64 / Phenom II X6
1 min

2 minutes

14min51

12min45

Sea Shore animation

2010-06-14T15:55:00.000-07:00

A animation test I am working on. No plugin is used here, only noises and gradiant ramp combined in a composite map.

>>Video

SmallLuxGPU

2010-06-09T15:54:00.000-07:00

SLG 1.5 beta4 test from 3dsmax 2010 64
windows7-AMD Phenom II X6 1055T -nvidia GTS250

http://www.luxrender.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=4047

MentalRay took 20 minutes to render this scene

interior renders -MentalRay

2010-06-06T22:48:00.000-07:00

Here are some test about interior rendering. The first one is done with Final Gather set on "Medium" with 5 Diffuse Bounces. The is only one Sky portal mapped with a Kelvin Temprature Color with Intensity set to 3.

The second one is rendered with Irradiance Particles you can use with this free plugin.
There is 2 SkyPortal lights mapped with Kelvin Temprature Color and 2 photometric lights.

Mental Ray BLURED REFLECTIONS

2010-02-26T10:14:00.000-08:00

I recently worked on metal material for animation. The model is 2.6 Million polygons (amazing model from Ludovic Gicqueau!) The animation is 1400 frames 1280x840. I want my render to be quite fast (around 1 minute/frame) so I had to find some good tips to speed up rendering. I have first tried the "environment blur" hidden shader from Zap but It only works fine with Final Gather. My basic setting is an Ambiant Occlusion Light shader on an omni light (aligned and linked to the camera). No light on in the scene, the mental light shader works with light off too. HDRI in the enviroment for far reflections and reduced reflection max distance. No Fg, no GI.

Blender Fluid

2009-12-08T16:16:00.000-08:00

Some Blender Fluid (and renders) tests.
This is done with Blender 2.49 because of there is no Fluid processing preview in Blender 2.5 Alpha for now.

Blender-sculpt/retopo/normals

2009-11-13T02:01:00.001-08:00

New test on Blender. Fast sphere sculpt/retopo/baking normals

>Download the scene (Blender2.49)

Very nice tutorial here

::K a b o o M:: 1.01 released!

2009-10-21T09:45:00.000-07:00

KabooM is an explosion animation tool. You have to precut your geometry before.( You can do precut with this ). Kaboom works with any geometry object.

New v 1.01 >> MAX2010 x32 and x64 compatible

> video demo
> video tutorial

> download KabooM 1.01

> CGSociety thread

VizPainter_maxscript

2009-10-13T06:55:00.000-07:00

VizPainter is a maxscript tool to help in animating the visibility track for single or several objects.
This one works with a "brush"( a Sphere Dummy ). Animate the Brush accross your scene, select the object you want to make appear the click on Apply To Selection button. When one of the object is in the sphere radius, the visibility animation start. You can adjust start and end visibility value, duration for the transition and add some random value.

> download VizPainter

> video 1
> video 2

VizAnimator _ maxscript

2009-10-07T02:27:00.001-07:00

VizAnimator is a maxscript tool to help in animating the visibility track for single or several objects.
Simply select objects then choose the start frame and the transition duration. You can choose the start and end transition visibility value. You can randomize the transition start with the random factor spinner. Simply click on Apply to Selection button and the animation is done! The visibility track is activated automatically.

>Download VizAnimator

>video

::K a b o o M::

2009-09-09T08:47:00.000-07:00

Kaboom is a maxscript tool I am creating, to animate explosion with Reactor in 3ds Max.
Still in progress...

>video

Planet Explosion Tutorial

2009-08-19T00:45:00.000-07:00

I wrote a new tutorial for cgcookie !

> video

ASTRONAUT-the man behind the space suit

2009-06-20T06:13:00.000-07:00

Currently wotking on my short film, I am close to finish the astronaut model.
I use Blender to modelize the base shape and to sculpt in multires.
Here are some screen captures:

Normals baking test

2009-06-12T03:08:00.001-07:00

Last night I test (once again) the Blender sculpt function on a face I had modeled , after reading this Excelent tutorial.
Unwarp a face and baking AO and Normals from High resolution model to Low resolution is so easy in Blender.
Here is the result:

2009-06-03T08:30:00.000-07:00

Final wall collapse animation (with sound)
Rendered with MentalRay for geometry and scanline for particle flow smoke. composited in After effects.
no plugins were used.

>video 768x576
>video youtube

Blender modelisation wip

2009-05-19T08:17:00.000-07:00

mudbox gorilla

2009-05-14T05:31:00.000-07:00

Some mudbox training...

Particle FLow Wall Collapse

2009-05-13T01:15:00.000-07:00

The animation illustrate a castle wall destroyed by canon shots. The final animation will be used in a museum show. No pligins were used. It is 100% Particle Flow, no physical simulation.

>>video
>>video (youtube)

EzCarRig 1.5 video demo

2009-05-06T05:51:00.001-07:00

>> video

EzCarRig 1.0 is downloadable here

face rig

2009-05-06T05:44:00.001-07:00

3ds max face rig. no plug

>> video

Mudbox

2009-05-06T05:41:00.001-07:00

MentalRay renders

sea - Mental Ray

2009-05-06T05:25:00.001-07:00

>> video

>> video

Blender sculpt test

2009-05-06T05:05:00.001-07:00

Happy New Year 09

2009-05-06T05:00:00.000-07:00

>> video

Physx

2009-05-06T04:16:00.000-07:00

Some physx 3dsMax plugin test, rendered with Mental Ray.
Cut is done with the excelent Voronoi maxscript tool

>> video

>> video

Wall Blast

2009-05-06T04:04:00.000-07:00

Currently working on a collapsing wall. Here is some RnD

>> video
>> max 2009 file