Camera mapping is a clever technique that allows you to take a still image and convert it into 3d geometry for use in an animation. This powerful technique is used extensively by visual effects studios for feature films, commercials and television shows. It’s especially useful for faking helicopters flyovers because it costs just a fraction of the cost of hiring a real helicopter.

In this tutorial I am going to show you how to make this animation from scratch:

The video tutorial is 28 minutes long.

During the tutorial you will learn:

• What camera mapping is used for
• How to easily project any image onto a 3d object
• How to match the perspective of a photo
• How to overcome a common camera mapping problem
• How to use the very useful ‘sticky’ texture function

Plus! At the end of the video I will reveal a bonus trick I learned on how to easily create a hand-held camera shake using a new feature in Blender 2.5!

Ready? Let’s begin…

You can download the photo that is used throughout the tutorial, here.

I originally planned to make the tutorial about how to create the new york city fly-through animation, but it proved to be too complex so I chose a simpler scene.

However I can offer you the source file:

I hope you enjoyed the tutorial! If you have any tips that could be valuable to others, share it in the comments below.

Keen to make my own, I experimented with different cloud shapes, trying to see what worked and what didn’t. Some of you may have already seen these attempts on my facebook fanpage.

But when I was stuck at Brisbane airport for 3 hours, I thought I might try my hand at…

Speed Modeling a Cloudscape

So armed with a laptop, I setup myself up at a vacant flight check-in desk and got to work. I honestly expected a flight attendant to kick me out, but amazingly no one bothered me. I knew I had less than an hour of battery life on my laptop, so I had to be fast.

Here’s the video:

Now that you’ve seen how easy it is, do you want to make your own?

Tutorial

Ready? Let's begin...

We will be using Blender 2.5 so if you don’t have it already, download it here.

Step 1

Create a new scene.

With the default cube selected, hit Ctrl+4 to add a subsurf modifier. Then go to the modifier stacker and hit ‘Apply‘. This will give us lots of vertices to play with.

Step 2

Press T to bring up the toolbar, and under the shading options hit Smooth.

Step 3

To make the cloud fluffy we will be using a combination of displacement modifiers.

But before we can add any displacement we need to add a new material. For now, we will leave all the settings as they are.

Step 4

Switch to the texture panel and click New to add the first texture.

Step 5

Leave the texture type as Cloud, but set the noise type to Hard and the Size to 1.00

Step 6

Next switch to the modifier stacker and add a Displacement modifier. Enter the name of the texture we just created and set the Strength to 0.40

Step 7

As you can see, the cloud texture we have just created is now effecting the geometry of the sphere.

To make it look smoother, add a Subsurf modifier underneath the displacement modifier. Change the Render count to 1.

Step 8

Add a second texture under the one we have already created.

Step 9

Set the noise size to 0.05 and the depth to 6.

Step 10

Add a second displacement modifier underneath the subsurf modifier we previously created. Set the texture name to the newly created texture and the strength to 0.30

Step 11

Add another subsurf modifier, making sure it’s underneath the last displacement modifier.

Step 12

Switch back to the texture panel and add a third and final texture. Leave the type to clouds  but change the size to 0 and depth to 6.

Step 13

Add another displacement modifier and set the texture field to the name of the texture we just created, and set the strength to 0.10

Step 14

Add a third and final subsurf modifier underneath that displacement modifier.

If you’ve done everything right, your object should now look like this:

Step 15

At the moment our cloud is spherical and looks very unrealistic.

Go into edit mode (TAB) and press O to activate proportional editing mode. We want to give the cloud a flat bottom, so select the vertice at the very bottom of your sphere and press G.

Step 16

Move the vertice upwards along the Z-axis until your sphere looks like a piece of dough that’s fallen flat. You can scale the amount of proportional editing by scrolling your mouse wheel.

Step 17

Use this method to shape the rest of the cloud. There’s no right or wrong shape as every cloud is different do whatever looks right to you. My cloud looks like a meringue

Step 18

We will now add the material.

Go to the materials panel, and set the material type to Volume. To give the cloud a thicker appearance, increase the density scale to 1.5. To exaggerate the effect of the bright sun, set the reflection to 1.3. Set the resolution to 100 and the transparency type to Raytrace. I’ve found these to give the best results. Finally set the Step Size to 0.02 so it doesn’t look too noisy.

Step 19

We don’t want any of the textures we created to effect the clouds material so turn all of them off. This will not effect the displacement modifier.

Step 20

With the modeling and materials out of the way, now we just need to light and render it.

Position the camera so it’s facing the side of the cloud. The easiest way to do this is to go into side view (Numpad 1) and hit Ctrl+Alt+0

Step 21

Next change the default lamp to a Sun Lamp and set the energy to 3. You may also wish to give it a slightly yellow color.

Step 22

Although the sun is the main light source, the sky also gives off a faint blue glow, and will make your cloud look a lot more realistic.

For this, add a second sun lamp and point it directly downwards. Set the colour to a light blue and the energy to 2.

Save your work. Render now and you should get a result similar to this:

Which is great except the sky is grey.

Go to the World panel. Check the Blend Sky box and set the horizon color to a very light blue and the Zenith Color to a light blue.

Render now and you’re finished!

As always I’m keen to see whatever creations you guys come up with, so if you make something, upload the render to pasteall.org/pic and post it in the comments!

Those days are over.

The new smoke simulator can not only create realistic smoke, but a gorgeous fire.

I’ve been working extensively with the smoke simulator over the past few months to find out the best method for creating fire. It’s been a long road but I believe I’ve finally got the formula right.

Last week, I launched an Introduction to Smoke Simulation that covered an in-depth approach to realistic smoke physics.

This week it’s all about fire… and it’s completely free.

What you will get from this tutorial is essentially the 3 months worth of experimenting, testing and adjusting, it took me to create the best looking fire possible.

In this tutorial you will learn:

• How to create fire and smoke using the new smoke simulator
• A simple lighting trick that will vastly improve the look of your fire
• The correct material settings for fire
• How to make your flames emit burning embers
• An easy heat distortion trick that adds nothing to your rendertimes

Here’s a sneak peak at what’s inside:

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Let’s begin…

Start by adding a plane and rotating it to face the camera.

With the plane selected, add a new material and new texture. Those familar with blender will recognize that a new button labelled Nodes has been added. Click it. You will notice that doing so, disables the standard dropdown texture choices.

Now switch to the Node editor.

Again, you will notice a new button has been added to the header, in the shape of a spotted square. Click it to switch to the Texturing Node system.

By default you will see a checkboard and output nodes. Go ahead and delete the checkerboard node.

Creating the brick mask

Add a brick texture by hitting space then selecting, Add>Patterns>Bricks. Change the settings to the picture below and connect it to the Output node.

This basic brick texture will be used as the foundation to create our diffuse, bump, pattern and spec maps, so we want to make sure that if we change any of the settings, that all 4 textures update accordingly. So to do this, we need to create a group.

With only the Brick node selected hit Ctrl+G, and click Make Group. To make it easier to identify later, label it ‘Mask’:

The new node system allows us to add multiple outputs to the same node screen for each texture map that we need. In this case we are creating 4, so with the Mask and the Output nodes selected, duplicate it three times and label the outputs: Diffuse, Pattern, Spec and Bump.

That’s the basic brick mask set up. We will now move on to texturing each map accordingly.

Altering the Pattern Texture

Create two cloud inputs (Add>Textures>Clouds) and give them the following settings:

These cloud layers will be used to give the bricks a randomized texture pattern depending on the row and number of the brick. To do this, join each cloud layer to the brick inputs in the mask that is connected to the Pattern output:

The Bias setting can be adjusted from -1.00 to 1.00. This determines how much of Brick 1 and Brick 2 to use. Setting it to 0.00 will use both Brick 1 and Brick 2 evenly, creating a nice random brick texture, which is ideal for what we want.

Altering the Specular Texture

Just like we did with our pattern texture, we are going to be adding a texture that will reflect the light off our bricks. So in this instance the Musgrave texture works best (Add>Texture>Musgrave). Give the Musgrave texture the following settings (making sure you change the colors as shown) then insert it into the Brick 1 slot. Now change the colour of Brick 2 to black:

This will create a fine sandy texture that will reflect off the light.

Altering the Bump Map Texture

The bump is slightly different in that we aren’t altering brick slot 1 or 2, but instead converting the resulting texture to a normal map. To do this, add a Value to Normal node (Add>Convertor>Value to Normal) and place it in between the mask and the output as shown. Make sure that you change the connection on the output from Color to Normal.

This will ensure our bricks have nice bevelled edges.

The node system is now complete!

Adding the Node System to the Texture Panel

If you switch to the texture panel in our material settings, you will notice that our texture now has a dropdown list next to it, listing each of our outputs. This allows us to bring the textures from node system into our standard texture panel and change the blending options.

To start with select Diffuse from the drop down list.

Now swith to the Map To panel and make the following changes.

Going back to our Texture Panel, add another texture slot and change the output to Spec:

Switch to the Map To panel and make the following changes:

Add another texture slot and select Bump for the output:

Now make the following changes in the Map To panel:

Add a final texture slot and select Pattern as the output:

Switch to the Map To tab and make the following changes:

That’s it! If you render now, you should get a result similar to this:

I used the default brick size for this tutorial which is quite large. If you want to decrease their size, this can easily be done by altering the size of the texture in the Map Input field.

For example, altering those numbers to 3.00 yields this result:

As you can see the texture node system is incredibly powerful. It can be used to quickly create texture combinations that previously would have required the use of an image editor. This opens the doors to faster workflows, more realistic textures and more artistic license.

I hope you have enjoyed this tutorial! If you have any questions be sure to ask. I’d love to see your end result, so feel free to post it below!

Ever since 3d software was created, artists have hated the car wheel. The intricate detail combined with the circular shape make it one of the most difficult shapes to master. The tire in particular is so difficult that artists everywhere have invented new ways to fake it, like using a bumpmap, making it extra dark, applying motion blur, tilting the wheel, and the list goes on. But I think we can all agree: nothing beats the real thing. And that’s exactly what this tutorial is about: creating a wheel that is not only passable, but sexy.

I have broken this tutorial into two parts. Part 1 covers modelling and texturing a tire, and Part 2 is all about the rims.

Each part takes approximately 25 minutes to complete.

You will learn how to:

• Use arrays effectively
• Save time by mirroring
• Make an object bend to a curve
• Quickly unwrap a complex object

Part 1: Modelling & texturing the tire

You will need:
Tread texture
Sidewall texture (mirrored from cg-cars.com)

Ready? Let’s begin…

Well that’s the hard part done, now on to the shiny stuff

Part 2: Modelling the Rims

You will need:
BMW i325 wheel reference
BMW emblem

Let’s begin…

Finished! You now have a car wheel that you can proudly show in whatever scene you choose.

If you got stuck at any point in this tutorial, drop a comment below and I’ll be happy to help!