Blender 2.66 is out! Download it now if you haven’t already.

So what’s all the fuss about this new release anyway? Well besides a whole bunch of bug fixes, there’s also some pretty big features included…

Let’s take a look at each new feature in detail…

1. Cycles Hair Rendering

Arguably one of the biggest features of this release is the ability to render hair using Cycles.

What is it?

Put simply, it allows you to render strands using the Cycles rendering engine. Blender has had the ability to render strands using the internal renderer for years, but only now can you render strands with Cycles.

How do I use it?

Check out my full tutorial on rendering hair with Cycles. But in a nutshell…

Go to the particle panel and you’ll find a “Cycles Hair” section. Here you can change the size, method and shape of the rendered hair.

2. Dynamic Topology

Created by Michalis

Sculpting fans will rejoice to hear that Blender finally has the capabilities for Dynamic Topology (AKA Dynamesh from Zbrush).

What is it?

Dynamic Topology allows you to quickly add detail to a mesh without having to worry about topology. It automatically creates the required vertices on the fly. This makes it a great tool for quickly sketching out your ideas without getting bogged down with the technicalities of topology.

How do I use it?

Go into Sculpting Mode, press T to bring up the toolbar, and under Topology you’ll find a button called “Enable Dynamic“. Start sculpting and you’ll notice your mesh magically generates detail wherever you paint. Change the detail Size to scale how much fine the detail is generated.

Watch it in action here.

3. Rigid Body Simulation

What is it?

Rigid Body simulation allows you make any object roll, collide, bounce or smash as it would in the real world. Previously this feature was only available to the game engine, and was cumbersome to use for animations. But it’s now been fully integrated into the editor and animation system, making it much easier for artists and animators to use.

How do I use it?

Go to the Scene panel and click the Add Rigid Body World button.

Next press T to bring up the toolbar and you’ll find a section called Rigid Body Tools.

For more, watch this full tutorial on getting started with the Rigid Body simulator.

Other cool features/improvements

• Cycles Material Preview - You can now see how your Cycles materials look in the material panel, just like the old internal renderer. A BIG time saver for creating materials in Cycles.
• Matcap - Allows you to quickly see how your model will look with different materials and lighting. Really helpful for sculpting.
• Retina support - All text, buttons and icons are now clearer, crisper and higher res!
• Highlighting of Render Tiles – Now when you hit render, you’ll see orange boxes around the currently rendering tiles. Very nifty!
• Support for packed textures – Blender now supports textures that have been packed into the .blend file. You no longer need to unpack them in order to render them correctly.
• Transparent Panels – You now have the option of making your panels transparent for a more open feeling.

So what are you waiting for? Download the latest version now.

What feature are you most excited about? Leave a comment below.

Congratulations everyone! Despite grim predictions we actually made it through the year 2012. On the off chance any of you want to buy a 20 year supply of bottled water and shelter supplies, hit me up.

In other news, the Blender community really came through this year! There were some absolutely stellar artworks posted all over the place. But trying to keep a track of all these artworks is like trying to get all the marbles in Hungry, Hungry Hippos; it’s almost impossible.

So I’ve done the hard work for you. I went through 92 pages of artwork in the Finished Projects section of BlenderArtists and the featured images on BlenderNation to find the very best artworks. My eyes are blurring and I’m beginning to doubt reality.

So here goes, the Top 20 Blender Artworks of 2012 as decided by me:

20. Alpha Rest Room

Created by enricoceric

19. Kraz 257b

Created by ntnsftr

18. Dune Boiserie

Created by alan.zirpoli

17. Cryptocephalus

Created by Gabich

16. The Rudolph

Created by Pratik Solanki

15. Armored FS100 Fighter

Created by Agus3D

14. Simple Interior

Created by camara

13. Ferrari 458 Studioshot

Created by Linolafett

12. Pioneer VSX-D511

Created by Chrisbono

11. Opel GT

Created by rogper

10. Bidirectional interior with Yafaray

Created by Riofranco

9. Extractor

Created by !Fab!

8. Cabin in the Woods

Created by Jonathan L

7. Sci-Fi room in Cryengine 3

Created by MM

6. K.i.t.t

Created by tomket7

5. Loft in cloister

Created by enricoceric

4. 19 Billion Polygons

Created by Agus3D

3. SSS Study

Created by theLuthier

2. Juggernaut

Created by MmAaXx

1. Green Woods

Created by major4z. Winning entry of the Photorealism Competition.

So there you have it! Proof that the Blender community is really putting in the hard yards.

So whether you’re a newbie, occasional hobbyist or professional, give yourself a pat on the back. Your participation helps push Blender to new heights

‘Like’ the Blender Guru Facebook Page to discover more awesome blender artworks through 2013

Did you know that the Blender Internal render engine has been discontinued?

*gasp!*

I know. Apparently the decision was made 2 years ago that the Internal Render Engine development would cease, and be focused on Cycles instead.

For some reason this news was never broadcast to the community, so I’m doing it right now.

What does this mean? It means that the future of Blender will likely be Cycles only. If you haven’t made the switch already, then you may want to consider it. This tutorial may help.

I posted this news recently on the Blender Guru Facebook Page and besides the initial shock, the overwhelming response was “Noooo! Cycles is too slow!”

But here’s the thing: Cycles can be fast. Competitively fast in fact. But you have to know how to tweak it.

In the words of Thomas Dinges (developer), “The Internal rendering engine was built for speed, but if you wanted realism you had to turn stuff on. Cycles is the other way round. It’s built for realism, and if you want it fast you have to turn stuff OFF.” (said during a conversation at the 2012 Blender Conference).

So without further ado, here’s a list of 4 Easy Ways You Can Speed Up Cycles…

1. Switch to GPU rendering

This may sound like an obvious tip to some of you, but a lot of users aren’t aware just how much faster GPU rendering is.

Take this scene for example:

BMW Benchmark Scene by Mike Pan – Download it here.

On a CPU it renders in 9 minutes 34 seconds.

On a GPU it renders in 46 seconds.

“Whaaaaaaa…!”

That’s right. Simply by changing one setting you can improve your rendertimes by x12! It’s the single best thing you can do to improve your rendertimes.

To enable GPU rendering, go to File>User Preferences>System and under Compute Device, check CUDA. Then in the render panel you will have the option to change the device to GPU (screenshot).

NOTE: GPU rendering is currently only possible on Nvidia graphics cards. Support for AMD cards has been put on-hold due to driver and hardware limitations.

2. Reduce the amount of bounces

Comparison of Bounce settings in Cycles

One of the biggest reasons that Cycles takes so long to render is because it calculates light bounces.

What are light bounces you ask? Light bounces are indirect light that bounces off walls and other objects. It’s what makes the scene look so good in comparison to the Internal renderer.

However, this realism comes at the price of render times.

By default the maximum amount of Light Bounces is set to 8. Which is far too high in my opinion. I use Cycles a lot, and I rarely need more than 4 bounces for adequate realism.

To change the number of bounces, go to the render panel and under Light Paths, you’ll find Bounces (screenshot). Set the Min to 0 and Max to a low setting. Experiment with the setting till you find a value that achieves a good amount of realism, but without sacrificing too much in rendertimes.

For even more fine tuning, you can adjust the amount of bounces for individual light path types like diffuse, transmission and glossy. In the example above, I would set the Transmission amount higher than others as it is the most noticeable when reduced.

3. Change the Tile Size

Another awesome, yet relatively unknown way of reducing render times, is to change the “Tile Size”.

What are Tiles? Tiles are those little boxes that appear on your screen while blender is rendering.

OH TILES. If I had a dollar for every minute I’ve spent watching these squares unfold, I could retire.

Tiles are awesome, because it allows the processor to focus on a smaller portion of the scene and save memory, thus reducing crashes.

Blender always had the ability to change the number of tiles, but recently a code change made it so you can change the exact tile dimensions:

The new way of tiling in Blender…

That’s right. Tiles are no longer defined by their count, but by their size in pixels. This was introduced because certain sizes render faster than others. (If you don’t have Tile Sizes, download the latest trunk version of Blender.)

I conducted some studies using this scene, and came to these results:

Yes… Tiles matters a whole lot more than you may have thought.

Interestingly, the fastest render time for CPU is the slowest on the GPU. This due to the GPU only being able to render one tile at a time, so it doesn’t benefit from more tiles.

In summary, the optimal tile size for GPU is 256 x 256. For CPU it’s 16 x 16. And if those don’t work for you, try to keep it in the power of 2s (eg. 128, 256, 512, 1024), as the processor handles these faster.

4. Reduce Your Samples

Put this one in the “duh” category, since most people already know it. But samples are the biggest time sucker of all, so I need to mention it.

What are Samples? Samples are the noise that appear as your scene is rendering. In the render panel you define the number of samples, and then blender stops once it reaches it. The more samples, the clearer, but longer your render is.

More samples are generally good. But there comes a point where more samples does almost nothing.

Take these two examples:

2000 samples – 9 minutes

5000 samples – 21 minutes

Did you really need those extra 3000 samples? Unless you’re a pixel scientist (I’m sure the job exists somewhere) you probably wouldn’t have noticed much of a difference. And if you did, you could always put the render through photoshop to clear up any remaining noise.

If you’re only rendering a still, an extra 12 minutes probably isn’t anything to stress over if it’s for the final render. But if you’re rendering an animation? Well those frames will add up very quickly.

Moral of the story: Don’t go overboard on the samples, because the audience probably won’t notice anyway. Experiment and see how few samples you can get away with.

Got a tip for speeding up Cycles? Post it in the comments below.

This is a summary of the presentation that I gave at the 2012 Blender Conference in Amsterdam.

For those that couldn’t be there, I’ve written this summary…

(Unfortunately the video I recorded on the day was too dark and difficult to hear, so I figured there was no point in uploading it. Sorry about that!)

In this presentation you will discover:

• How to train your eye to see more detail
• How using the “Photorealism Pyramid” can help you achieve realism
• Tips for creating better materials and lighting in your scenes

Have you ever tried to create a photorealistic scene in Blender? Have you ever failed? You’re not alone.

In this presentation I’m going to break down the topic of photorealism into easy to understand concrete ideas that you can use in your next project.

Photorealism is when something comes so close to realism that it’s indistinguishable from a photograph. Artists have been doing this for hundreds of years with paint and pencils, but with the advent of cg software, the process has become a whole lot easier and more fun.

I first became interested in the topic of photorealism when I came across this website called “Fake or Foto” 8 years ago. It was created by Autodesk, and in my opinion is one of their smartest marketing campaigns.

The viewer was presented with 10 images and had to guess which ones were real photographs and which were cg images. When I first saw this 8 years ago at the ripe age of 16, my mind was blown. The idea of creating something that looked identical to a real photograph conjured up limitless ideas in my mind.

Ever since then I’ve been trying to achieve photorealism in my works…

Why Photorealism is Important

If you pay any attention to the entertainment industry you’ll notice that an increasing number of movies and video games are centered around photorealism.

Whenever a movie needs to blend live action with VFX, it needs to look photorealistic. Video games have been feeling the pressure too, with fans now judging their games based on how realistic it is in comparison with others. If you’ve ever read a discussion on CoD4 vs BF3, you’ll know exactly what I mean.

Most would agree that the line between reality and fiction is becoming increasingly blurred. So as an artist, being able to master photorealism puts you in a good position, and makes you more desirable to an employer.

The Photorealism Pyramid

To help better understand what makes up a photorealistic image, I’ve created the “Photorealism Pyramid”: Modelling, Lighting, Materials and Rendering.

All of these elements are required for cg images, but photorealism only occurs when all 4 are perfect.

A breakdown from The Nature Academy.

Here’s an example using a breakdown from The Nature Academy trailer. First the geometry is laid out, then lighting is added, then materials and finally post processing is added for rendering.

Studying Photos

One of the best ways to get good at photorealism is to start by analysing real photographs and training your eye to notice the small amounts of detail.

Take a look at the following photographs and try to think about how you would approach each one in blender:

Modelling

How would you model this flower in blender? By zooming in on the flower, you can see there is a dense amount of detail around the bud, so you’ll need to decide early on about how much to model and how much you can fake.

Next is topology. Looking at the petals you can see that the ridges pinch at the base and flow outwards, so you’ll need to use proper mesh topology to ensure the models look as clean as possible.

Finally scale. It’s one of the most overlooked parts of modelling and pertains to how big objects are in comparison to the rest of your scene. If you made the flower as big as a tree, it’s going to immediately look fake to the viewer. If you get the proportions wrong in modelling, then you’ve shot yourself in the foot before you even start.

Lighting

Now let’s analyse this photograph of a carpark in Japan. How would you light this scene in Blender? The main light source is clearly the sunlight. Look closely to the temperature of the light and the size of it’s shadows. This will tell the viewer what time of day the scene is (sharp shadows + white light = noon).

Next you have the environment lighting (lighting from the sky). This is easily added in the world settings (in Cycles). Pay attention to the color of this light and it’s strength if you want to get a perfect match to a photograph. The human eye is very good at picking up subtle inaccuracies.

Finally you have bounce lighting. Thankfully this is mostly now solved thanks to the Cycles render engine. It’s unlikely that you’ll need to add any extra bounce lighting as Cycles does this fairly accurately automatically.

Materials

According to Pixar, when making Ratatouille, the food was one of the biggest challenges. This is because the properties of food materials are complex and hard to make it look life like.

So what better example than sushi?

Looking at the pink piece of fish on the left you can see that the entire surface is very wet (making a glossy map unnecessary). However it has a very fine level of bump, so a high resolution custom bump map will be perfect. Also notice that the towards the bottom of the fish, it gets darker. This is due to the light dispersing as it passes through the flesh of the fish. To recreate this in blender you’ll need to use SSS (SubSurface Scattering). Unfortunately this feature isn’t in Cycles yet, but it’s planned for 2.65-2.67.

Next let’s look at the piece of seaweed on the right. You’ll notice that there is a subtle amount of bump, but more importantly, some portions of the seaweed are shinier that others. This means that a glossy map is necessary to get a good level of realism.

Rendering

The final step for matching a cg image with a photo is adding the appropriate amount of post processing.

Looking at this image you can see several camera flaws. The first is the very obvious sunflare, that occurs naturally in cameras when light bounces around the internal components of the camera. It’s one of the more fun aspects of post-processing and quite a few artists go overboard with it. Look at real photographs to determine how much flare to use.

Next, notice the Chromatic Aberration. This is a rather ugly camera flaw that creates a red/blue outline around objects in the photograph. It’s most prevalent when high contrast areas clash with low constrast areas, and is also more obvious in cheaper cameras. You can add this in blender by using a Lens Distortion node in the compositor and increasing the Dispersion amount. Note: Professional photographers go to great lengths to eliminate Chromatic Aberration, so if you want your scene to look professionally shot, skip this.

Another key camera flaw is Barrel Distortion. This is a very subtle camera flaw that slightly bends the images outwards, creating unstraight lines. It’s most noticeable when looking at the wall of this building. Upon first sight you may miss it, but if you drew a line from top to bottom (as I have done here) you can see that the wall is indeed bending outwards. You can create this in blender using the Lens Distortion node in the compositor, and increasing the amount of Distortion. But again, pro photographers eliminate this in post production, so use it only when necessary.

Finally you have Focal Blur (aka Depth of Field of DoF). This is probably the most obvious effect. It’s when objects in the foreground or background become blurry. It is both a camera flaw and a creative tool. It adds realism whilst also allowing you to point your viewer to a certain element by focusing on it. However be careful not to overdo this or your scene may appear miniature in size to the viewer.

Workshop

Early Render from the upcoming training course “The Architecture Academy”.

To demonstrate these tactics, I’m going to give you a brief summary of how I created some of the above image. I’ll be showing you in the same order as the photorealism pyramid.

Unfortunately I don’t have time to show everything, so I hope you don’t mind me focusing on just a few elements.

NOTE: This image is based off the upcoming training product called “The Architecture Academy”, so I am unable to provide any source files.

Modelling

The house was built to scale by taking measurements from a book, and modelling them to scale in blender.

Enable measurements and set it to Metric. Try to avoid that silly Imperial system

Once you’ve enabled measurements you can find out the size of any object by pressing N.

The dimensions of an object displayed in the properties bar (N).

Once you start modelling with measurements you’ll never go back

Lighting

Add a sun and rotate it to fit the scene.

The important value for the sun is the strength, color and size. The size determines the softness of the shadow.

Next you’ll want some environment lighting:

Go to the world settings and adjust the color to the color of the sky. Experiment with the strength till you have a value you’re happy with.

Materials

Next, let’s look at the material of the Concrete wall:

By using just two textures, two shaders and the right know how, you can create a realistic material.

Rendering

I want the image to look as though it was a taken by a professional photographer, so a lensflare, chromatic aberration and lens distortion will not be inappropriate.

However, focal blur would add a nice subtle touch:

I want most of the scene to remain in focus, so I set the F/stop to 11 (a nice number that photographers use for long open scenes) and set the focal point to the center of the scene.

Now let’s add some trees:

I’m going to use this alpha masked tree image from The Nature Academy, but you can find similar images on CGTextures.com

Go to File>User Preferences and enable the Import Images as Planes add-on.

Next go to File>Import>Import Images as Planes. Select the alpha masked image then in the sidebar click Diffuse & Transparent, which will automatically add it with the correct materials.

Click import and you’ll see a plane imported into the scene. Repeat this step for multiple trees.

Voila! You now have trees in the background and a lovely shadow casting in front of the camera.

There’s obviously a bit more to it than that, but trying to fit all this into a 30 minute workshop live on stage was pretty tough.

You can look forward to more in the upcoming Architecture Academy, due for release in Spring 2013

Hope you enjoyed this mini preview, as well as learned a few things in the presentation

Will you be at next year’s blender conference? Leave a comment below!

Recently I advertised two new job positions here at Blender Guru, and over the course of 3 weeks received over 200 applications! I loved seeing all the work that the blender community was producing and was flattered that so many people applied.

But I couldn’t help but notice several repeated mistakes that many artists made. I’m sure that most of you will probably go on to apply to other studios, and it would be wrong of me not to help you out as best I can. So I’m writing this list to do just that.

Please don’t take anything you read here personally. I’ve made most of these mistakes myself!

Here goes… How to Make Successful Portfolio or Demoreel:

Portfolios

1. Put Your Best Stuff First - If the first 3 images on your site are “duds” your employer isn’t likely to look any further. Always sort by order of quality.
2. Remove the Fluff - Don’t include old works that are obviously worse than your newer stuff. It’s poison that will taint your good works and make your employer think twice about hiring you.
3. Make your Portfolio One Page – If you have 20 images in your portfolio, and your reviewer has to click 20 times, waiting each time for the image to load, he may just give up. Put it all on one page and he’ll love you for it. (here’s my portfolio to show you what I mean)
4. Don’t use a Flash Website – …ever! Flash websites are the most infuriating platform to host anything. Not only is it annoying to use, but it sends a message to your employer that you aren’t keeping up with current industry trends.
5. Link Directly to your Portfolio - About 50% of applicants sent me a link to their website homepage. Not only is it annoying to hunt for the appropriate page, but I may find the wrong page and judge your work off the “WIPs” category.

From the portfolio of Andree Wallin

Demo Reels

From the portfolio of Andree Wallin

But the Most Important Thing of All!

…is the work itself. If your work is average you won’t get hired. Period.

Following my advice above won’t guarantee you’ll get a job, but if applied correctly it can make you appear more attractive to a prospective employer.

At the end of the day, the most important thing about your application to any studio is your actual work.

So here’s a tip: Post your portfolio or demoreel on forums and ask for critiques. You’ll get them. They won’t always be what you want to hear, but it’s the fastest way to grow and actually stand the chance of being hired.

I’d go out on a limb and say that out of the few artists that actually have a portfolio or reel, only about 5% of them actually ask people to critique them. Be one of the few that does, and you’ll set yourself heads and shoulders above the competition.

Helpful Links

For further discussion on creating portfolios, I recommend watching these videos:

• The Ctrl Paint guy teaches how to create a Portfolio
• Industry professional Feng Zhu discusses portfolios (submitted by Daren in the comments)

Got any tips for finding work? Share them in the comments below.

If I had a dollar for every time I received an email from someone asking me for tips on how to improve their work, I’d have almost enough to purchase 3ds Max and be out of here for good! (kidding! sort of)

But as repetitive as this question is, and as much as I hate answering it, I understand why people ask it. As with anything, when you’re learning something new, there are multiple routes to “mastery” and some of them are quicker than others. So it makes sense to choose the quickest route.

Now whilst I don’t consider myself an expert, I do have a few tips that I learned through the last 8 years that may save you some time (and pain).

So here we go, 6 tips on becoming a better artist…

1. Do something that scares you

No I’m not talking about asking a girl out to dinner (although that’s probably not a bad idea), I’m talking about starting a project that you know is beyond your capabilities. Does the thought of modelling a human head fill you with fear? Good, then do it! By challenging yourself with new topics, you’ll force yourself to learn. Because believe it or not, learning won’t happen by itself. So make sure you’re proactive about choosing something that you know is over your head.

This scene still remains as one of my best learning experiences

I learned more in the 3 months it took to create this scene than I did in the 4 years of fooling around I did previous to it. When you have an end goal in mind, you always find a way to achieve it.

2. Read books like your career depends on it

…because it does. And not just blender books either. If you’re serious about your career as an artist (and I’d like to assume you are), then you need to expand your knowledge to as many avenues of design theory as possible. This is so that you actually understand the “why” behind what you do, as opposed to just getting some inspiration online and copying it.

Some great books to start with are the Universal Principles of Design, Digital Lighting and Rendering and these 5 videos (yeah it’s not a book, but it still contains invaluable knowledge).

3. Don’t depend on tutorials

I bet you never expected to read that on a tutorial website! It sounds counter-intuitive to my business (and it probably is) but tutorials won’t get you far if you don’t know the “why” behind your actions. If I say to place a lamp at a 45 degree angle from the camera, you won’t know why to do that, you’ll just know how to do that. And that’s why limiting yourself to just tutorials is dangerous.

These Donuts don’t make themselves

Why is it dangerous? Well let’s say you land a freelance job in the future creating an advertisement for McFlurrys. If you’d been depending on tutorials all the time, you’d be gutted to find out that there are in fact no McFlurry tutorials and you’d have to figure it out for yourself. If you aren’t used to this, then it will surely come as a shock to you. So lose the training wheels every now and then and throw yourself in the deep end. Further reading: Tutorial Culture vs Two Goldfish.

4. Brick walls are gonna happen

If you haven’t experienced it already, there will come a time during your learning process, where you will become absolutely stumped. You’ll hit a snag in your project that stops all productivity and stops you from moving forward. And despite your best efforts, you just can’t figure it out. You’ll feel like throwing in the towel and abandoning the project for something easier.

…and to this day I still haven’t.

But it’s at this point that the men are separated from the boys (or the artists from the hobbyists). You won’t make it into the choice gallery without pushing through a few “brick walls”. And you certainly won’t get a job at Pixar (which seems to be everyone’s dream) without pulling a few all-nighters to finish what you started. So if you want to be a successful artist, don’t give up so easily. To quote Randy Pausch: “The brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough.”

5. Figure out who you really want to be

When I landed my first freelance job I was beyond excited. I couldn’t believe I was going to work on a real TV commercial! But I quickly realized that taking orders from a “boss” sucked all the live and joy out of what I previously loved. It was an awful realisation. “What do I do now?” I thought. I’d worked for years, perfecting my portfolio to an acceptable level for freelancing, and when I finally got there I realized I hated it! Thankfully I was able to sit down and work out how to make business out of doing what I love (this site), without sacrificing my standards.

“Yeah working on Avatar is alright, but my real passion is fixing toilets”

So make sure you’re crystal clear about what is that you love, and then aim for a career that provides that. And how do you know what you’ll love if you’ve never experienced it? Well head over to the General Discussion forum and read stories from industry professionals who’ve worked in the thick of it. A good thread to start with is The Unofficial Truth about Working in the Industry. That’ll give you enough perspective to hone in on your goal and start creating art that will help you get there.

 6. Go easy on the “inspiration”

Ever wonder why so many designers and artists seem to be recycling the same old styles and trends over and over again? The answer may seem obvious, but I’m going to say it anyway: They all copied each other. “Well duh, that’s obvious Andrew”. Yeah? Well if copying is frowned up, then why do so many artists seek inspiration online? You may think that inspiration is just “fueling your own creativity”, but whether you realise it or not, the things you look at will influence your artwork. Don’t believe me? In 2009 I created what I thought was a totally original scene:

“I’m so original!” says Andrew from the past.

I didn’t copy any existing work and I sketched it by hand first. How could I go wrong ? Well several months after I made it, the movie Up came out. And as anyone who’s seen film can recall, there is a scene where the old guy walks to the top of a hill under a tree. “That’s weird” I thought. “I created my artwork before the movie came out, and yet my image looks nearly the same.” But then it dawned on me… several months prior to creating the artwork I stumbled upon this blog post by the storyboard artist who worked on Up, which included this image:

Sorry Pixar! It was an honest mistake I promise.

Oops. I thought I was creating something totally original, and without realizing it, I had drawn upon an image I’d seen long ago and didn’t even realize it. Scary.

Now let me add a small disclaimer: Inspiration is not bad. In fact most of the masterpieces around today were inspired by works before it. But the 3d industry is small, and closely knit. If you accidentally copy the look and feel of someone else’s artwork, you stand a good chance at getting called out for it (I’ve seen it happen multiple times and it isn’t pretty). Having to explain why your art looks familiar to the job interviewer is not something you’ll enjoy.

What tips do you have for becoming a better artist? Leave it in the comments below!

In case you missed the news, Blender recently underwent a “merge hurricane”. Meaning that a bunch of new features that were in alpha development phase, have now been merged into the trunk version Blender.

These features are massive and are going to change the way we use Blender in the future.

Here’s a brief explanation of each feature and how to start using them:

1. Cycles

In a nutshell: New improved rendering engine, more realistic renders

Arguably the biggest thing to happen to blender in the last few years is the Cycles rendering engine. Cycles is a completely new way of rendering in Blender that produces far superior results to the outdated internal renderer. Bounce lighting, caustics and glass are now available as standard without any messing around.

Cycles will eventually replace the internal rendering engine, becoming the standard that every Blender user will soon use. The sooner you can jump aboard, the better.

To get started, check my Introduction to Cycles tutorial.

2. Camera Tracking

In a nutshell: Allows you to add 3d elements to moving video footage.

Anyone who’s tried adding 3d elements to video footage knows that if the camera is moving, you need to use a camera tracker to match the motion to your 3d scene. However dedicated camera trackers aren’t cheap, some costing cost upwards of $3,000. But thanks to Sergey Sharybin, we now have this feature in blender.

You can now track camera motion, add 3d elements, composite it, render it and edit the video, all without leaving Blender. Expect lots of budding film makers to suddenly show an interest in Blender as this is developed further.

To get started, check out this early Camera Tracking Tutorial by Sebastian Koenig.

3. Dynamic Paint

In a nutshell: Makes the environment react to interaction

When a character walks through snow, or a car skids it’s tires, it helps to have the environment react accordingly. Previously this wasn’t possible without doing some fiddly workaround, but thanks to Dynamic Paint it’s a piece of a cake.

The way it works is by baking animated textures onto the objects surface. These textures can these be used for reflections, displacements or anything else you wish.

To get started, check out this Dynamic Paint Guide by the developer Miika Hämäläinen.

4. Ocean Simulator

In a nutshell: Allows you to simulate a realistic ocean.

A much desired feature for the nature buffs out there is the ability to create realistic oceans. Whilst this may seem like a rather specialized feature, oceans are an incredibly necessary part of 3d work as they make up 2/3 of the earth, and without a dedicated feature they are almost impossible to create realistically.

To get started, check out the Ocean Wiki or wait for The Nature Academy to reopen.

How to Get These Features

The features are now included in the official blender version!

Just download the newest release here. Anything from v2.61 will have it.

A massive thank you to Brecht Van Lommel, Sergey Sharybin, Miika Hämäläinen and Matt Ebb for developing these four incredible features!

Which feature are you most excited about? Leave your comment below.

Blender Guru has looked the same for over 2 years now. And whilst it’s functional, I think it could be a lot better.

So I’ve decided that I’m going to redesign the website from the ground up with a fresh new look, new features and new segments.

But I need your help.

Redesigns can be good or bad. If I rush into this without first asking you what you want, I could potentially create a website that’s worse than what it currently is

So I’ve created this survey for you to tell me what you want the new Blender Guru to look like:

>>Take the 3 minute Survey<<

The answers you give will directly effect the outcome of the website. So don’t pass it up!

And if you’re passionate about web design and want to send through any mockups or design ideas, you’re welcome to! I’m all ears

Instead of another tutorial I’m dedicating this week’s post to improving skills as an artist. Quite often we get caught up in the technicalities of 3d that we forget what creating art is all about.

I often think back to when I first started Blender and how differently I would approach it now.

Here are some tips to fast track your success as an artist:

1. Produce one finished render each week

If I could jump back in time machine to my skinny-framed 14-year old self, I would give him this one tip: create one finished render each week.

Why? Because when you come at blender with the flipent approach of ‘There’s no rush, I can stop whenever I like’, you are shooting yourself in the foot. Think about it: If your school teacher told you that you could hand in your assignment “whenever”, do you honestly think you ever would? Chances are you just wouldn’t get around to it. Why would you go through the pain of completing that boring assignment when Call of Duty provides instant gratification? When you have no deadline you become lazy.

Deadlines are what drives society to finish projects.

Did you know that when tradesmen are hired to construct a building they have strict deadlines for which the project needs to be finished by? I once heard of an insulation company having to pay fines of $80,000 per day until they could finish the skyscaper they were working on. They overshot their deadline and had to pay the (very hefty) price.

I know that you’re probably just using Blender as late night hobby, but it’s worth at least entertaining the idea of setting yourself a goal. My recommendation would be to set yourself the goal of creating one finished render in 7 days. This imaginary deadline ensures that you stay on track and don’t get distracted by Facebook or other time wasters. The rule is that on day 7 you must stop working on it, regardless of how bad it is and upload it to a forum and start another project. Repeat this process every week and you’ll be amazed at how quickly you grow as an artist.

Funnily enough, I recently discovered that director Sam Raimi has the exact same advice to aspiring film makers.

2. Recreate photographs

Photo I found on Flickr.com

My recreation of that photo - Used in the tutorial 'Introduction to Texture Nodes'

One of the biggest questions a lot of 3d artists have is, “Why does my scene look so fake?” Well if you create a scene based entirely off a photograph then you won’t have this problem, as you can compare your scene with the reference photograph.

When you set out to replicate a photograph you start to notice new details in the photo that you had never seen before. The bounce lighting, the glare, the depth of field, the subtle reflections, all of these things are essential to making the scene believable, but you wouldn’t have noticed them without carefully studying the photo.

Now I know what you’re thinking: “Replicating photos are boring! I’m an artist, I have a right to be creative!” Well that’s true, and I’m not suggesting that you recreate photos forever, but if you’re just starting out it’s essential to understand the fundamentals before moving onto more complicated things. Trust me, you’ll have plenty of time to create wacky sci-fi scenes in the future, but for now it’s more important to understand the fundamentals of how to create a real world scene.

3. Ask for honest critiques

Photo by Kim Bentley

Lately I have noticed a disturbing trend in the online art community: users are no longer looking for critiques, they are looking for compliments.

I know why this is happening but it doesn’t make it any less stupid. People that do this are putting their fragile emotions before your long term success.

Be a man. Post your artwork with the phrase, “I want to improve my skills as an artist so please give your honest feedback! Don’t worry about hurting my feelings ”

This encourages people to open up and tell you what they really think. Which is a good thing. Instead of the same old “Well done, looks great” response you’ll get real feedback on how you can improve for next time. This is invaluable if you want to improve as an artist.

4. Surround yourself with better artists

'Forest Refuge' by Alex Roman

There’s an old saying, “If you want to soar like an eagle, don’t run with the turkeys.”

It’s almost scary how much of an effect our peers have on our life. Studies have shown that if you take the income of your five best friends, average it out, it will be the same or close to yours. The same goes for your weight, spending habits and oh yeah, artist talent.

Now I’m not just talking about the friends you hang out with on the weekend. I’m talking about the online art communities you associate yourself with.

For example, if you post your artwork on BlenderArtist.org you will get a lot more positive comments than if you posted it on CGSociety.org. Why? Because CGSociety is a community of industry professionals that has a lot higher standards than say, BlenderArtists which is a community of mostly inexperienced or new artists (you know it’s true).

Now I’m not here to bag on BlenderArtists.org, as they provide an invaluable service to the community. But I do want to highlight the importance of surrounding yourself with artists who are more talented then you are. If you constantly surround yourself with mediocre art then you’ll feel accomplished and more likely to slack off. However if you surround yourself with awesome art, then you you’ll realize how lacking you are.

Personally I make it a habit to watch The Third and The Seventh on a regular basis. It reminds me how much further I have to go

5. Actually ‘do’ tutorials, don’t just watch

Photo by John Norton

If you only watch a tutorial, you may remember about half of it by the time it’s finished, but it’s almost guaranteed that you’ll have forgetten most of it by the end of the next day. However if you actually do the tutorial, you will not only retain the information longer but you will also discover new tips and realize that somethings don’t pan out as you thought they would in your head.

Don’t get into the habit of thinking that by simply watching tutorials you are improving your artistic talent. It’s only by doing it that you actually start learning.

6. Decorate your workspace

A 'cubicle' at Pixar Studios

One thing that Pixar, Google and Facebook share in common is that they all give free reign to their employees to decorate their workplace as much as they want. Why? It’s simple: Studies have shown that decorated workspaces increase creativity and encourage out-of-the-box thinking.

It makes sense really. If you put one person in an empty white room and another person in a colorful decorated room, chances are the second person will think of more creative ideas.

Printouts, magazine clippings, posters, anything! Provided it’s inspirational to you, go ahead and stick it to your wall. The next time you’re struggling to think of an idea, your wall will no longer be blank

7. Become an information junkie

Photo by Ruth Ellison

I once heard a speaker say that if you can read three books on one topic then you will become an expert of that field. Why? Because nobody else can be bothered doing this.

There is a plethora of information regarding art, and most of it is free. You just need to tap into it and start absorbing it.

There’s magazines, interviews, DVD commentary, tutorials, making-ofs, breakdowns and more.

Sure you may read some stuff that you already know, but I can guarantee that there will be at least one nugget of invaluable information you can learn from every book or interview out there. Motivational speaker Tony Robbins got to where he is today by attending hundreds of seminars as a kid. He came at it with the approach of ‘If I learn just one tip from this seminar then it has been worth my while’. He became a sponge for new information and as a result is one of the highest paid public speakers today.

What simple, practical tips can you offer new artists? Post your comment below.

It’s inspiration time! If you follow my Facebook page then you’ll know that I like to post little snippets of inspiration that I find on the net. But it’s not always created by Blender users.

“Do you know any good animations created with Blender?”

It’s a question that I get asked a lot, because let’s face it: we all want to know if Blender has what it takes to compete with the big boys.

Well, I’ve been hanging out in the Blender community for the last 8 years and so I’ve encountered quite a lot of blender animatons. You’d be surprised at the quality of blender animations out there.

So in lieu of a tutorial this week, I’ve put together the ultimate blender inspiration post: A list of the most inspiring Blender Animations. Some of these you may have seen, some you haven’t, but I hope that it can inspire you to get out there and create your own animation with Blender.

In no particular order, let’s begin with…

1. Memory

Director Junichi Yamamoto won Best Short Film at the 2009 Suzanne Awards for this attention grabbing short film about a robot in a post apocolyptic world.

2. BMW 3 Promo

Mike Pan modelled, lit and rendered a BMW for this conceptial advertisement using Blender 2.5.

3. Transformation

Andre B used Blender and AutoCAD to demonstrate the beauty of mechanical transformation in this beautiful short film.

4. Mindfields

When Andy Goralczyk created this short film way back in 2003 it became a milestone achievement for Blender. Up until then animations produced with Blender were rather basic, but in just 5 minutes Andy demonstrated grass rendering, deserts, character animation and meteor explosions. Way to break the mold Andy!

5. Kajimba

Red Cartel (formerly known as Promotion Studios) created this animated film project aimed at the Adult comedy market. It gained lots of attention for the Sydney based studio, who then went on to create TV adverts for Bridgestone Tires.

6. Evolution

Alex Glawion won Best Design at the 2009 Suzanne Awards for this moving short film about evolution.

7. Old Key

A personal favourite of mine that showcases particles, fluid simulation and very realistic rendering. The music alone is enough make me hit replay

8. Bounce to space

Pablo Vazquez somehow managed to give a bouncy ball personality in this humourous short film. He received a nomination for Best Character animation at the 2009 Suzanne Awards and later went on to work on Sintel.

9. Omega – Teaser Trailer

Andy Goralczyk used a unique combination of stop motion and CG, to pull us into this post apocolyptic world of robots and trash formations. Omega is still a work in progress, but you can follow the progress on his blog here.

10. Esign

[iframe: src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/b717oeNkHXY?rel=0&showinfo=0" frameborder="0" width="540" height="333" scrolling="no"]

Chris Larkee created this abstract animation way back in 2005, winning Best Design at the Suzanne Awards.

11. Overheated

David Ward created this hilarious spoof of Pixar’s Cars about a grumpy car stuck in the sun.

12. The Cup

The students at Pepe-Shcool-Land created this hilarious short film in just three months using Blender. They received a well earned nomination for Best Short film at the recent 2010 Suzanne Awards.

13. Dikta – Goodbye

Miðstræti studio was contacted by the Icelandish band Dikta to create a music video for their popular song. The band gave complete artist license to the studio who pulled through to create a unique styled animation about a world made of paper.

14. Stop

Eoin Duffy won Best Design at the 2007 Suzanne Awards for this attention grabbing music video. It’s a perfect example of why visuals aren’t everything when it comes to creating a powerful video.

15. Chicken Chair

Bassam Kurdali created this iconic short film way back in 2003, and has stood the test of time with it’s brilliant character animation.

16. Lighthouse

Red Cartel created this short film for American insurance firm Liberty Mutual as a series of online short film around the theme ‘responsibility’. It is regarded by many as one of the finest Blender’s animations to date.

17. Project London: Benny’s Fuel and Repair

Project London is an independant, feature length, live action movie that uses blender for all it’s VFX work. It’s still a work in progress but you can follow their progress here.

18. Lista

Pawel Lyczkowski created this unique stop motion styled animation and won Best Short Film at the recent 2010 Suzanne Awards. Well deserved!

19. Suite Noire

Matray created this high impact opening for a TV show. Apparently the client deemed the intro “inappropriate” and it was never aired. I have no idea what the show was about but if I saw this intro I’d be hooked!

20. A Glimpse of Light

Alex Glawion created this super slick animation and received a nomination for Best Design at the 2009 Suzanne Awards. As with most of Alex’s work, the music and visuals go hand in hand to create a beautiful work of art.

21. Tape-à-l’oeil

Jason-Sean Guillemette created this artist short film about the topic ‘Cinema & Me’. The lighting, compositing and rendering are all top notch.

22. John el esquizofrénico Music Video

MoxStudios put an incredible amount of work into this catchy music video. It won Best Design at the 2010 Suzanne Awards.

23. Babioles Trailer

Matray composited this cute CG characted onto live backplates for the TV show pilot, Babioles.

24. Taste Lab

Chris Burton created this humourous short film about two rival professors in a race to create the ultimate drink. For his hard work, Chris received a nomination for Best Short film at the 2010 Suzanne Awards.

25. Klaas Vaak (TV intro)

Red Cartel created another amazing piece of work for the opening of the dutch TV show called Klaas Vaak (if you’re easily scared don’t watch past :32).

26. HapiLoli

Japanese artist Tomo, proves that anime styled animation is 100% possible using blender in this cute animation of a girl dancing. Be sure to check out his followup video: ルイズ／恋愛サーキュレーション

27. Death Grind

Endre Barath created this thought provoking short about the effect that television has on our minds. He received a nomination for Best Short Film at the 2009 Suzanne Awards.

Honourable Mentions

Some of these videos are more ‘tests’ than animations, but they are still powerful enough to deserve a mention.

• Japanese Camera Mapping by JuL J
• Blender car game test by Mike Pan
• Dynamic Paint + Indirect Lighting = Awesomeness by miikah
• Massive Blender fluid simulation by Mike Pan

That concludes this list of inspiring Blender animations! I deliberately left out Sintel, Big Buck Bunny and Elephants Dream as I wanted to focus on the lesser known independantly produced animations

Which animation was your favourite? Did I miss an animation? Write your comment below!

Flying to the Blender conference is expensive! Flights, accomodation, entry fee. Gah! Not everyone who wanted to attend, could. The event organizers set up live broadcasting of the presentations, but unfortunately there weren’t any cameras in the smaller room… except mine

I made an effort to record as much of the workshop presentations as possible. Enjoy 9 exclusive videos below!

1. Ton Roosendaal – Keynote Presentation

2. Andy Goralczyk – Speed Modelling

3. Jonathan Williamson – Topology

4. Pablo Vazquez – Compositing in Sintel

5. Soenke Maeter – Lighting and Compositing in Sintel

6. Beorn Leonard, Lee Salvemini and Jeremy Davidson – Bringing Sintel to Life

7. Andy Goralczyk & David Revoy – Art Collaboration

8. Andrew Price – The Big Issues

9. Andrew Price – How to Raise Your Profile as an Artist

PLUS! See photos from the event:

What was your favourite part of the Blender conference? Will you be attending next year? Drop a comment below!