Sunday, December 29, 2013

Blend it all together

This year I made a switch to Blender 3D from Maya. Quite simply I was tired of looking for ways to make maya talk to external renderers just to get the look I wanted. Now I'm happy to say I'm glad to be learning Blender's other superb built in features too.

I was initially attracted to Cycles, Blender's unbiased renderer that is GPU enabled. Whilst I don't have a GPU enabled pc yet that is on the list for 2014. I am very excited to see the results of what I plan to shoot and matchmove, combined with what I can model and render in Blender.

My major headaches currently (as blender is known for its interface quirks), are getting materials looking the way I want, and understanding how, and becoming comfortable with all the rigging and animating tools.

Also I wonder if its possible to rig lattice modifiers with splines like a circle.
I could in 3DSMax....

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

A busy year - 2013

Well it seems Christmas is nearly upon us again and as regards this blog not much documented for the year.

As the year winds down I'm getting time to do a bit of spring cleaning in a number of ways.

I suppose since December last year I've achieved the following things, of which I feel very good, given my current financial ham stringing.

I got a Canon 50mm F1.4 FD lens that I have been able to do some great tilt shift photography stuff with, as well as a proper Canon 50mm F1.4 USM lens. The latter lens needs a repair folllowing a small accident that damaged the autofocus. I have also gotten 2 M42 to EOS lens adaptors and use one for a Russian Helios 44-2 lens I bought and the other for a fixed 500mm F8 hanimex lens a friend gave me. That aside I also got a 28mm F2.8 for next to nothing and a 58mm variable ND filter for the (currently damaged) 50mm USM lens. Finally in the camera department I have also got a battery grip for the Canon 550D and a magnetic screen viewfinder.

My CNC router aspirations are as yet incomplete but I have learnt much on both the electronics side (how to etch a pc board), and the chassis side and hope to complete my cnc in 2014.

This year also marked a transition from Maya to Blender 3D for me and I am enthralled with the possibilities that Blender offers now particularly in GPU rendering.

I've come to really love GIMP as a photo editor and slowly forage ahead in my android development learning.

That's all I can think of right now, but one thing is for sure. More posts will follow more regularly