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Marius Oberholster Hey! I'm having an incredible learning experience, not only learning how Blender works (yes, still learning), but also about Open-Source and the incredible software available. Stick around!

Browsing Archive: November, 2012

A little progress

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Friday, November 30, 2012, In : wip 
Hey all!

Remember yesterday's post? Well, this is taking yesterday's work just that step further:


I really like it, but I have to admit that it could've used some grasses, stones, possibly even a tree (oh yes, there are underwater trees and underwater lakes). Eitherway, it came out cool.

For this image, I actually used the motion blur in Cycles. On my GPU mode it seems to support motion blur, but since my CPU is stronger, it's a waste trying to render with the GPU. Now, both working together, th...
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Always learnin'

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Thursday, November 29, 2012, In : wip 
Hey all!

I just adore that HE has given me the chance to work in 3D and to be able to watch tutorials. Today I watched two in particular:
Sparks and motion blur in Cycles
Boid particles in Blender

Absolutely fantastic, but I didn't finish watching the one on the boid particles. Reason: he showed me what I wanted to know in that moment, but I do want to finish watching it tomorrow, if HE allows.

I definitely recommend both of these tutorials, especially the one on the sparks, because Andrew put tog...
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Getting it to not look generated

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Wednesday, November 28, 2012, In : wip 
Hey all!

The title is easier said than done, especially with bad reference, but, I used what was at my disposal and it came out quite well:



If you know trees, you may (hopefully) recognize what I was aiming for here. While I do like the result as a sketch, so to speak, it is by no means a satisfactory result for a tutorial. It still looks too fake, although it does look very stylized.

Hope you like it!

Thank YOU!!!!!!!

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Been busy, but here's an update

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Monday, November 26, 2012, In : wip 
Hey all!

It's been a while since my last post, but I am glad to reveal an update on the next tutorial. Hope you all like it!!:


This is not a very complicated scene, but it is one that has enough detail imo to show what the trees will look like in a scene.

There is no tree focal point. In fact, before adding another in the middle, the sky was the focal point; not good. Now, it begs the viewer to look for a spot. Sort of like you would when going to a park. Hopefully that's the effect here, lol.

An...
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A little prep

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Monday, November 19, 2012, In : General 
Hey all!

As you all know, before you go ahead and do any kind of project, especially an art one, it is vitally important to do some research and do some practice runs (in the case of tutorials). They enable your project to not only be more creative and convincing, but of a much higher standard.

This is today's prep for another tutorial I am working on:


Not quite where I want them and still working out the kinks, but really happy with the overall result (the one on the far right needs a bit extra...

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Some new (to me) features

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Friday, November 16, 2012, In : General 
Hey all!

As you know, this blog has been going for just over a year now, and I do thank everyone of you that have been reading!

     Image posts
There is a different kind of blog post known as an image post. What it is, is a normal blog post that you attach an image to. That image is then displayed right under the Title and Date at full size. This means that if you do want to use image posts, you need to make sure that your images are not full HD. Not everyone has a monitor that size and the sty...
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Update

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Thursday, November 15, 2012, In : General 
Hey all!

So far, the book is around 230 pages! Fantastic!! I am super excited about it and I really hope to finish it as soon as possible. Due to unforeseen circumstances that will still come (means I can't predict the future, lol), I can't give a release date, but I can continue to show you the progress as I work.

Looking forward to the other tutorials to be added to the book and tonight (it's just turned 22:44 as I am writing this post), I would like to just leave you with a very well done wa...
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Finished ruin!!!

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Wednesday, November 14, 2012, In : General 
Heya!!

Here is an 8 image summary from start to finish on this project:

Right after modeling, this was the first look (obviously, this was pre-unwrapping)


Post unwrapping and finishing of the basic bricks, I added some dust. This dust was later edited and became close to invisible.


Of course, what ruin would be complete without run-off stains and muddy bases and so on? None. This was even after displacement was added (and before I knew of the texture bug in Cycles).


The ivies have finally been add...
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Progress render!

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Tuesday, November 13, 2012, In : wip 
Hey all!

Really jazzed to get this one out today!



The entire list of things has changed a bit, as you can see, but, the main points remain, the most important of which was to get the ruin as the focal point.

The coordinates system is still a bit buggy with the ruin's textures (as you can see the floor's bump-mapping is gone and there are some black bricks), but the rest of the scene I am really jazzed about (though it's still not complete).

The background, makes it look as though there is DOF (de...
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First full render

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Monday, November 12, 2012, In : wip 
Hey all!

Happy to share this one with you!
It is only rendered at 50 samples, which isn't much, but apparently more than enough for this scene, so yey! Here's the render, followed by things that need to change:



 - Currently, there is no focal point, because everything is practically evenly lit. So for that I want to use light to set focus on the ruin itself.
 - The texturing is a problem, because sometimes Cycles renders it right, sometimes it doesn't (bug they need to fix). So the goal is not to...
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Test render

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Friday, November 9, 2012, In : wip 
Hey all!

I went ahead of the tutorial on this one for now, because I needed to see how this scene could be finished. The below is NOT the finished scene. It is only a test render and looks cheap and nasty (apart from the ruin, but even that is out of focus, lol):


Looks terrible.... lol.

Anyway, the night of, I was working on the trees. Making sure to keep it as simple as possible, but still giving as much detail as possible. It's a juggling act in every project (no matter how powerful your PC is...
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Preview

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Thursday, November 8, 2012, In : General 
Hey all!

Today I was working on the trees and got bored and so I made these instead by just messing around with the textures. Think they came out rather cool! I stuck with the circular theme, because it looked amazing. The top middle one was made first.



In the book, I will tell you how you can make this kind of thing with procedural textures, because many times you need an art piece for a scene (especially when doing architecture) and as a respecter of copyright, you won't just fling something ...
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The first tree, sort of, lol

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Wednesday, November 7, 2012, In : wip 
Heya!

Today is a mystery post; the first tree made with procedural textures. While I personally think it doesn't qualify yet as one, since it's just the trunk (it's to add some space to the image and fill the gap in the composition on the left (plus it'll look extra cool once I add more shading and so on):



Soon enough I'll be making more and I hope you like them too and that they are not too stick-figure-like. Here's to making cool, low memory trees (^^,)! lol

Thank YOU!!!!!!!!!!!

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A bit off-topic: Wet bricks

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Tuesday, November 6, 2012, In : General 
Heya!

Over the last weeks, I have been posting about the tutorial I am working on and while I currently am experiencing quite a bit of difficulty there, it has given me some time to just mess around trying to look for a solution (already prayed and waiting for HIM to reveal it).

While messing around with some of the textures, I came across a combination that works really well for wall tiles, but after playing with it a bit, turned it back into bricks I add the gloss node as well and got this in...
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Ivies now have some leaves

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Monday, November 5, 2012, In : wip 
Hey all!

This is what the current preview render looks like:


I adjusted the above a bit, because it's lighting isn't finished yet and so it was a bit on the dark side, environmentally speaking, haha. Anyway, just added some brightness and contrast.

The leaves themselves are the most difficult and personally, I have to admit I couldn't get them as close to the real thing as I had hoped, but, I am very happy with the leaf shape:

I've seen this three-point shape not nearly as often as I would like t...
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Started adding some color!

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Friday, November 2, 2012, In : wip 
Hey all!

Today's post is more a taste of the final (though merely, if even, a shadow):


The inside of the structures needed to have a different color to indicate a different material.

The Viewport (or 3DView as I prefer) can have different colors assigned. It can help you see, to a very limited degree imo, the overall look your scene may have when completed.
   While the branches of the ivies have been completed, the leaves are just at the starting point. While preparing for this tutorial I had cr...

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Ivy is next!

Posted by Marius Oberholster on Thursday, November 1, 2012, In : wip 
Hey all!

What a mission! It was such a task to get this size of ivy in the scene. The generator works extremely well and it has nothing to do with the quality of the software. Blender rocks and the ivy generator too, but I was referring to getting it to render (Cycles is a bit more heavy duty than Blender Render, imo).

BUT! HE came through as usual and I added HIS suggestions to the book as well on how to get it going with a good look and proper detail.

For today's post, I made a clay render (fo...
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