In this issue we take a look at some of the techniques used to create spectacular effects in Blender. With several areas covered such as water, smoke, fire, hair and even realistic skin, you are guaranteed to find a new technique/or tool for your next project.

So grab your copy today.

Also be sure to check out our gallery of wonderful images submitted by very talented members of our community.

Table of Contents:

• Skin Shading using multi-layered SSS
• Realistic Smoke in Blender
• Twirl of Smoke in Blender
• Making hair for Wolf
• Gone with the waves
• Burn Them All!
• Procedurally Driven Scene
• Making of – Meet the Eye
• And more . . .

http://urbanwebstudios.com/blog/magazine

BlenderArt Magazine

Issue 1: Mechanical Modeling
Issue 2: Animation Special
Issue 3: Rendering Special
Issue 4: Character Modeling
Issue 5: Modeling Techniques & Blender Scripts
Issue 6: Blender for Architecture & Games Special
Issue 7: Blender Materials
Issue 8: Car Modeling Mega Issue
Issue 9: Space
Issue 10: Organic
Issue 11: Mechanical
Issue 12: Texturing Special
Issue 13: Fantasy Special
Issue 14: Cartoon & Game Engine
Issue 15: Animation

It’s all new though and all my content has been migrated (kind of a pain really) to a new install of WordPress complete with a custom theme to match my site. I had to re-catalog all of the files and posts into new categories so please update your links!

I am still in the process of making some small tweaks for cross-browser support and stuff so please be patient with me as I debug it all. If you notice anything wrong just shoot me an email at daniel@urbanpowered.com with the link and the browser so I can get it fixed.

I still have to republish all of my artwork, all my downloads, and all of my mirrors for different communities. In all this I’m busier than ever with projects – and you’ll never hear me complain since I went out on my own! Ah, the life of a freelancer…

-Daniel

Personal

Well every self-respecting person has a Gmail account so I of course have my Gmail Inbox first on the list. I like to keep it minimized to keep unwanted people from looking at my mail (I’m paranoid like that) but basically it’s just the standard 5 recent messages in my inbox! Next down would be my buddy Eugene’s Geneome RSS feed from his very interesting Blender blog. Last on that column is the every popular BlenderNation RSS feed which helps me stay up to date on recent Blender happenings.

Web Applications

This column is basically for everything I need to know about or have in the world of web applications. I love web applications and developing them so these give me inspiration and ideas. Plus, they are great resources for finding things to use in my applications or projects. First on the list is WebAppers which has a daily featured web application or feature for web applications. Often you get your hands on free (we love free right?) fonts, graphics, logos, or other scripts that can really enhance your web apps. Next up is FeedMyApp which is similar to WebAppers but not as great. It’s more of an inspirational site of the latest web apps or industry news about them. I’m not really into news that much – more like latest and greatest cool stuff – so this one is usually minimized. The last one on this list is LogoTemplater - it pretty much sucks as a site but well I like to have logo templates to use when ever I can so I keep it on my RSS reader to know when they come out. It’s packaged as an EPS which isn’t supported by GIMP, which makes me mad, but I have other tools to get around that and so I can still use them, if for anything, inspiration. It updates about once a month so after a while you got yourself a pretty nice collection of stock logos!

Inspiration

This column contains mainly web site inspiration. The latest and greatest websites are featured on these RSS feeds and so it’s nice to see what other people are doing. They are often good search tools for finding design patterns too! I’m not going to take time to analyze each but they are all worth checking out: WebCreme, Design Shack, FaveUp, Web Design Gallery, CSS Design Yorkshire, and CSS Hive. The other two things that are on this list is LogoPond logo inspirations and ColourLovers color palette inspirations. Both of these are better for someone looking for logo ideas or branding concepts. Inspiration is important for the non-creative artist!

Tutorials

Ah, the tutorials! My favorite group – I love to learn and so tutorials are often the best way to get that idea for how to do something better. Not all of these are great but for the most part they all show concepts that are helpful. The main thing to remember for those who use OpenSource tools is that you will rarely find a tutorial showing you how to use your tools – get used to it! Look beyond the tools and try to learn the concepts taught – then think how to use your tools to do the same thing. My favorite is definitely PSD Tuts (surprising right?). Most of the tuts are for Photoshop which is something I rarely use but the site itself it so professional and the tutorials are all uniform and very informative. The concepts are great and the final designs are always great looking! Recently they went more commercial which made it hard to get your hands on the PSDs without paying and then they created a membership program so I expect this kind of site to get more and more “free friendly”, but until it completely goes membership only, it’s worth checking out. Then there is Abduzeedo, Luxa, and Pixel2Life – all of these are great but nothing like PSD Tuts. You can always find good resources online for different tutorials but for the latest and greatest you usually only have a handful and these are mine.

That’s It

That’s the run down on my iGoogle home page. It works for me and maybe you’ll find some of these sites useful. I often add and delete different feeds throughout the week as I find they work and don’t. These have stood the test of time but you never know what might be getting the boot next. If you have your own favorites be sure to share them!

Startup

Finally a good looking startup image! More important than that though is the incredible speed improvement on loading the interface. It still has some to be desired on computers with around 1GB of memory but it’s definitely an improvement. I do have one warning for those who are thinking of installing over 1000+ fonts, brushes, or patterns – don’t! The startup is incredibly slow if you have alot of stuff you don’t use alot in the swap folders. Now, I did this and found that if you do move them to the Application Settings swap folder in the Documents & Settings directories then it does increase the speed but it’s an overall lag.

Interface

I love the Tango icons that they are using. It shows that even a free program is still trying to conform to standards. The interface has had a speed increase apparently too. Alot of new tools and shortcuts have been added for things like the Selection tools and Brushes which is very nice.

Brushes, Fonts, & More

Brushes finally have a Size selector which alows you to scale the brush bigger or smaller, useful for really big brushes made from PNGs. I’ve been Torrent downloading lately and found that it’s probably the best way to get your hands on 1,000s of fonts (some not so good and not so legal!). If you like to look at different font sets while selecting one then moving the Fonts Tab to your sidebar and you can easily Up/Dn key your way through previews. Another nice things with fonts is that you can now use the font type in the text editor window! Somethings are definitely to be desired around here though. One is that the jitter doesn’t have a rotational function and a tablet seems to be the only way to apply jitter based on time you remain in one area while brushing. PSD support of fonts and texts would be very nice as currently you can only achieve that with XCFs. Another pain is that the GIMP doesn’t allow you to set a text boundary for which the fonts will automatically wrap to. Layers have always been good but PSD support needs improvement as there is currently no support for folders or groupings yet. Something along the line of Photoshop’s Effects would be nice also for applying simple things like Drop Shadow or Bevel, etc.

Conclusion

The long and short of it all is that it’s freakin’ awesome! You can’t get a better, easier to use graphic program out there. It will do anything and is only limited by your understanding of color and design. It’s a definite must have for anybody who does anything personal or commercial in the graphic industry – it’s even good for moms and aunts (it’s a long story) who just want to scrapbook!

Get Your GIMP On!

Well since my last post three more magazines have been published so be sure to go and check them out:

www.blenderart.org

BlenderArt Magazine #12: Texturing Special

BlenderArt Magazine #13: Fantasy Special

BlenderArt Magazine #14: Cartoon & Game Engine

Here is the table of contents for Issue 11:

• Producing Models with accuracy
• Amateur Mechanism
• Solid Device Construction
• How to Create Weld Joint
• Blender As NURBS Application
• Burned Bridges Texturing – Walkthrough
• Unsolved Mystery – Walkthrough
• Meet The Blenderhead – Derek Marsh

Above information was taken from the official post on BlenderNation.
Get your copy of this issue by visiting the BlenderArt webpage or the ID Studios Mirror.

Features Articles/Tutorials on Taonui Face Modeling, Managing Metaballs, Modeling & Rigging a Frog, BlenRig: An Introduction, Froggy Walkthrough, Extinction Level Event, an Animated Castle Effect Walkthrough, Another Interview in ‘Meet The Blenderhead’, & more…

Release date: 6/01/2007 – 63 Pages PDF 6.9MB(Zip)

Download your copy from the official BlenderArt Magazine Mirror brought to you by ID Studios:

Download Blender Art Magazine Issue #10 (Blend Files)

Space Released: Welcome to Issue #9, “Space”

We have packed 63 pages full of space tutorials, covering tips and techniques from star fields to spaceships. We take a behind the scenes look at “Project Utopia” as well as learn how to model and texture aliens.

So grab your copy today.

Also be sure to check out our gallery of wonderful images submitted by very talented members of our community.

Features Articles/Tutorials on Creating Heatwave Exhaust Effect with the Displace Modifier, How to Make A Realistic Planet In Blender, Making A Sun like Star in Blender, Modeling An Alien Using Subsurf, Texturing An Alien Using Nodes, Modeling a Lowpoly Spaceship, The Making of “Project Utopia” and more…

Get your copy of the magazine at these available mirrors:

• http://apollux-designs.com/BA-Magazine/NewsStand.php
• http://idstudios.org/blenderart_mag
• http://blenderart.org/issue/2007/03/issue-9.html

BlenderNation Article