Welcome to Cycles!

Cycles is a brand new rendering engine built right into blender.

It’s flexible, fast and above all else: produces more realistic results. Forget everything you know about lighting and rendering in Blender… the game has officially changed

Don't have Cycles?

Cycles is not yet included in an official release of Blender, so in the meantime you will need to download a ‘build’. A build is a fully working version of blender that contains newly added bug fixes and features. It’s for people who want the bleeding edge

How to Download Cycles:

1. Go to Graphicall.org
2. In the sidebar you will see various ‘filters’. Click the icon that matches your operating system.
3. If you know the version of your operating system (32 or 64 bit) click it.
4. The site should now display all builds that match your operating system. Click on any of the builds to download them. There is no right or wrong version to choose, pick any.
7. If the download is a .7z file you will need to download 7-zip (http://www.7-zip.org/) to unzip it.
8. Once unzipped, no install is necessary, just  locate blender.exe and run it.
9. Finished!

In this tutorial you will discover:

• The difference between the internal renderer and Cycles
• Some of the cool features of Cycles
• How to create your very first Cycles render
• Using lights, materials, textures and bump mapping
• How I made the donut scene

Finished Result

Mmm no calories

More shots at BlenderArtists.org

Further Inspiration

Here’s some inspiring works from the Blender community using Cycles:

• Asylum
• Damaged Helicopter
• Dimitris

Further Links

• FAQ by Thomas Dinges (developer)
• Bedroom Cycles File

Cycles is big news for Blender and I can’t wait to see what works come out of it. In Jan-Feb of next year I will be holding a Cycles competition, so start practicing now!

Post any Cycles images you create in the comments below

During the 27-minute video you will learn:

• The Old System Vs New – What’s changed?
• How the Smoke Simulator works
• How to bake and render realistic smoke
• A behind the scenes look at creating a smoking city

Unless you’ve been living under a rock the last few months, you’ve probably heard about this new feature called the smoke simulator. But what is it? Why is everyone getting so excited over it? This tutorial will answer all your questions from a beginners perspective.

I originally gave this presentation at the 2009 Blender Conference . The presentation included creations from other users, a short demonstration of smoke in action and a slideshow. Since that time there have been massive developements in smoke simulation so consider my video a revised edition.

Do you have any tips or tricks for using the smoke simulator? Share your experiences in the comments below!