Nathan Vegdahl's - Humane Rigging - DVD Review

Another month and it's time to do another Blender Foundation Open Movie Workshop training DVD release review.

The Blender Foundation Open Movie Workshop training DVD are high quality training DVD's covering all aspects of production and training in relation to Blender 3D. They are the nearest thing to official/gold standard training that the Blender Community currently has access to, as they tend to be created by the people that created Blender. Each DVD is released under Creative Commons Licensing.  The sale of the training DVD helps support the Blender Foundation and helps in improving Blender.

This time the DVD released is "Humane Rigging" created by Nathan Vegdahl, the irrepressible guy who has worked on many of the Blender Foundation's Open Movie Projects and has produced many different training products.

For those who don't already know Nathan is an extremely talented Blender user who specializes in all things rigging. Which means that he is the ideal person to be producing this training DVD, as it covers rigging in Blender.

Product Specifications:

• Name: Training DVD 8: Humane Rigging - Rigging For Human Beings
• Author: Nathan Vegdahl
• Price: €27.50 (as of 10th July 2012)
• Type: Video Training DVD
• Runtime: 6 Hours (approximately)

The first thing to say about this DVD is that it only covers certain concepts related to rigging in Blender.  It will not cover how to animate the rigs you create with this DVD, nor will it cover deformations in any great detail and weight painting is only briefly demonstrated.  This is to be expected as rigging is a vast and sometimes complex topic, and trying to cover both rigging, weight painting and animation at the same time would make this DVD much longer than it already is.

What is covered are the major rigging structures and controls that are needed to make flexible rigs which can stand up to a real world production requirements of a professional animator, giving the animator the flexibility they need to get their job done.

The approach Nathan takes to do this is simple and effective, he goes over the topics he wants to teach by introducing and creating 3 character rig types.  Each different rig type explaining an important rigging concept in Blender.

The 3 different rig types are loosely ordered from simple to complex, using a process of continued refinement to the rigs to make them more flexible as new topics are introduced to the watcher.  This helps greatly when trying to get to grips with some of the more complex theoretical concepts that Nathan explains throughout the DVD.  It is important to note that Nathan does introduce a lot of theory as well as practical instruction when creating his rigs.  I found this very useful and educational.

The DVD is very well narrated and Nathan on the whole is very clear when it comes to explaining the topics of rigging.  Though rigging is a complex topic and by necessity you will have to be paying complete attention to what he is saying if you want to understand the rigs he makes.  Rigging at the best of times can be confusing but Nathan does his best to keep it understandable.

Over the course of the 6 chapters, Nathan shows you how to rig some of the major parts of a character (fingers, eyes, hands, palms, feet, legs, etc.).  He also covers using various modifiers and constraints to make the job of rigging more efficient and his rigs more powerful.

By the end of this DVD you will have good knowledge of what Rigs, Bone Constraints and Drivers can be used for.  The Bone and Driver Constraints are used extensively in Nathan's rig and his descriptions of how to use these features if very good.  Another highlight of the DVD was Nathans discussion of Intermediate Parenting and it uses.  I found this very useful once I was able to wrap my head around it.  Also the use of drivers to prevent alterations to specific rig values was very clever.

I personally think that if you are a beginner/intermediate Blender user starting out in the rigging side of things that you will learn a lot from this DVD.  Be warned though that you will be required to be paying attention and probably have to rewatch parts of the DVD repeatedly to get your head around a lot of the topics Nathan goes over.

All in all an excellent DVD, well worth adding to your collection especially if you have an interest in wanting to rig more effectively in Blender.

Review Score 85%

David Revoy - Blend And Paint - Training DVD Review

The Blender Foundation has been very busy recently putting out DVD Training Videos. This time around the DVD is from David Revoy, an amazing painter and general artistic genius. He has worked on many major projects and to Blender users is probably most well known for his work on the Sintel open movie. Check out his personal website for examples of his work (www.davidrevoy.com), he also has a blog accessible from him website, which is a very informative read.

Product Specifications:

• Name: Blend & Paint
• Author: David Revoy
• Price: €27.50
• Type: Training DVD
• Length: 5 Hours 28 Mins (Roughly)

Topics Covered:

• Intro To Blender 3D Modeling
• Blender UI
• Blender Basics
• Modeling Part 1
• Modeling Part 2
• Full WIP - Mission
• Vehicle Part 1
• Vehicle Part 2
• Background
• Rendering
• Texturing
• Render Layers
• Switch To 2D
• Color And Blocking Part 1
• Color And Blocking Part 2
• Color And Blocking Part 3
• Gimp Ambiant
• Mypaint
• Gimp Finishing
• WIP Epilogue
• Bonus - Speed Blend And Paint Projects
• Vaisseau 3D
• Vaisseau 2D
• Secret Passage - Part 1
• Secret Passage - Part 2

The first thing to mention is that this DVD uses a combination of teaching techniques to get different points across to the viewer. The first technique is that unlike a lot of other training DVDs which are just glorified time lapse videos, this DVD takes the time to explain the methodology and reasoning behind the techniques used within the videos. So you don't just end up watching someone paint/model and sit there wondering why the work is being carried out the way it is. Once the explanations and reasons are done then the videos go into time lapse/realtime mode and periodically captions are displayed to explain things as they progress.

The DVD starts off by first explaining the basic usage of Blender in terms of its interface and how to use it. The same thing also happens with explanations of both Gimp and MyPaint. So if you do want to follow along with David you should be able to do so. Though be aware this is not a beginners DVD, so not every single features he uses will be spelled out for you though I think that a person with moderate experiences of Blender, Gimp and MyPaint should have not difficultly following Davids process. All the software used in the creation of the art work is also provided on the DVD, as are all the resultant created artwork files. Each saved at different stages throughout the video, so you can examine the state of the files, if you do not want to watch through the entire video collection. Though personally given the purpose of the videos, it would be a big waste if you skipped them as they are packed with lot of useful information and technical details.

After the preliminaries of using Blender and its interface are described David then goes over using Blender to model a 3D scene using very simple modeling techniques. The roughly modeled scene is what will be used in later stages of the tutorial and will be used as a guide to be painted over in later parts of the video. Even though David calls it a rough 3D model, rough is relative, because it still a nicely constructed scene, a lot of people would be totally happy if they made such a "rough scene". Just goes to show how good David is as an artist, that his idea of a rough model is what a lot of people would consider a quality model. The scene that is modeled is spit up into different sections. First the main focus of the scene is modeled which is a spaceship model. Then the platform the space is launched from and background buildings and objects of the scene are also modeled.

The modeled scene is then organised into layers using Blenders render layers feature, which later helps with painting and organization of scene layout and details. Once the scene has been split into layers the next stage of the tutorial begins, that of lighting the scene using various methods such as ambient occlusion, environment lighting and sun lamps. A nice amount of time is used in explaining the theory behind render layers and why they are useful, and how they can be used, almost a mini tutorial within the larger DVD tutorial. Davids explanations of how to carryout good lighting tasks are also very clear and easy to understand.
Once the different layers of the modeled scene have been lighted, basic 3D texturing techniques are applied from within Blender to texture the major elements of the scene. Even though it's very basic texturing techniques that are used, they are very effective and later on in the tutorial speed up painting and detailing a significant amount.

At this point the 3D parts of scene preparation are completed and everything moves towards the 2D painting/texturing and color correction side of things, using combination's of various 2D painting applications. If there was one criticism at this point, it was that David creates a 3D Perspective Grid yet does not explain why it is useful or appear to use it very often, so unless you know ahead of time how to use it and why it is useful you may be left wondering why he bothered creating it.

The real meat of the DVD is given over to the 2D processes involved in painting over the scene he created previously in Blender. The techniques he uses are extremely effective and efficient. It's a joy to watch him work and see the painting come together as he works. It is also a really effective way to show how to use gimps layering and blending systems to increase flexibility when painting over a scene. When rough color blocking is completed David moves on to detailing his work in fine detail. As with previous part of the DVD, as he uses various tricks and techniques, he indicates them and explains how and why they are useful.

The end result is a highly detailed painted scene, it,s not photorealistic but then it is not supposed to be, none the less it looks visually stunning.

After the main painted scene is completed there are 2 extra bonus videos which follow the same process as the first main scene and model freighter ship, while the other extra modeling video models a well scene. The bonus videos are very well done though obviously slightly rougher than the fully detailed main scene, though still stunning to look at and just as educational.

I was expecting this DVD to be a time lapse video just showing David paint, but it really is so much more, the combination of good use of captioning and explanations of what he is doing and why really make this DVD stand out. The attention to detail is really impressive. To beat this DVD you would have to work very hard.

The one minor down side to the DVD is that there is a slight technical issue with the production of the DVD when accessing the video files from the HTML interface on Windows machines only. There has been a patch supplied at the Blender E-shop which you can download for free which will fix the issue. Even if you do not apply the patch you will still be able to ignore the HTML interface and access the videos directly from the videos folder on the DVD.

This is an excellent DVD well worth the money, really an example of how to do tutorial DVDs properly, this is the best Blender Foundation DVD so far that I have watched.

Review Score 90%

Angela Guenette - Blenderella - Character Modeling In Blender 2.5 - Training DVD Review

If you use Blender enough and stay in the irc channels for long enough, certain artists popup repeatedly or are mentioned in tones of awe. We see their work, are suitably impressed. One such artist is Angela Guenette, who has worked on everything you can do in the 3D modeling world (website Ponder Studios.org), see her youtube channel for examples of her work.

The people at the Blender Foundation were so impressed they decided it would be a good idea if they made her one of the main 3D modelers on the Sintel open movie project which was released a while back. She was the person responsible for modeling the character of Sintel the heroine of the movie.

So when i found out that Ms Guenette would be creating a training video DVD, I went right to the Blender EShop and ordered a copy.

Product Specifications:

• Name: Blenderella - Character Modeling In Blender 2.5
• Author: Angela Guenette
• Price: €27.50
• Type: Training DVD
• Length: 6 Hours 38 Mins (Roughly)

Topics Covered:

• Section 1 - References
• Head
• Body
• Hand
• Section 2 - Head
• Eyeball and Cornea
• Background Images
• Eye Socket Blocking
• Nose Blocking/li>
• Mouth Blocking
• Eyeball Fitting
• Eye Socket Detailing
• Mouth Detailing
• Nose Detailing
• Cheek, Jaw, Forehead, Scalp
• Neck
• Shaping
• Ear
• Final Shaping
• Geometry Eyelashes
• Section 3 - Body
• Background Images
• Torso
• Pelvis
• Leg
• Arm
• Fingers
• Hand and Thumb
• Rest Pose
• Section 4 - Hair
• Hair Base
• Hair Strands
• Section 5 - Clothing
• Pants
• Shirt
• Boot
• Masking Under Clothing
• Shirt 2 And Corset
• Boot Detailing
• Corset Detailing
• Pants Finishing
• Section 6 - Wrap Up
• Wrap Up

A few days ago the "Blenderella" DVD arrived, and given what I had heard and seen of Ms Guenettes works, I was very eager to see what the Blenderella DVD would be like.

The first thing to note is that Blenderella is not a beginners DVD. Very little time is taken to go over the basics of how to use Blender, although Ms Guenette does cover the basics of the Blender 2.5 interface. You are expected to know the basic ins and outs of Blender before you watch this DVD. I personally think a beginner may be able to follow along so long as they know the basics of vertex manipulation, but they would have to be paying complete attention as things move along at a fairly brisk rate on this DVD.

A combination of commentary and timelapsed sequences are used to explain and visualize the various steps and processes involed in modeling a high quality (but not vertex heavy) 3D model of a woman from start to finish.

The start of the DVD goes over how to use and setup reference images before you start modeling within Blender. This is the first time I have seen on a Blender Foundation DVD, how to properly setup reference images. Yes other tutorials have gone over setting up background images but rarely in the amount of detail as this DVD. Not only is how to assign background images described, also how to alter the contents of reference images so as to get the most accurate reference to work from is also explained. Normally most tutorials skip over this step or only lightly cover it, which is shame, as it is such an important step, that must be done correctly.

Having setup and corrected the background images such that they are usable, things move on to modeling the individual parts of the Blenderella model. The different video sections range in length from a few minutes to just under 30 minutes. So there are many different video section, each gernally describing and visualising a different part of the Blenderella model. Each video moves from blocking (rough modeling), through to very detailed modeling as the sequences of video progress.

The tutorials emphasize not just making a model look nice visually, but also making sure that topologically the models are of a very high quality. One of the ways this is achieved is by only modeling using quad polygons and diamond quads. Unsurprisingly the quality of the mesh geometry is excellent, watching the videos it seems that Ms Guenette never puts a vertex in the wrong place and almost never hesitates when she is placing and maninulating vertices. As a handy hint to the viewer Ms Guenette also indicates the topoligical flow of the models different parts by highlighting various parts of it using simple material coloring techniques. Some may find this useful while others will find it a distraction, but at least the time was taken to try and make things clearer to users not as sure of themselves as far as mesh topology goes.

Unlike a lot of Blender training DVDs this one does not resort to sculpting to add surface details, instead a combination of subsurfacing, proportional editing and manual vertex pushing are used to form all the detail of the Blenderella model. This has the advantage of keeping the mesh geometry very clean and light weight. Also it allows the viewer to see how to add creases and wrinkles in the Blenderella model using just basic vertex manipulation rather than sculpting. I found this very useful when watching the modeling of the hand knukles and similar items. Often it is difficult to determine how wrickles are constructed for items such as fingers, but it is much easier to see when done manually, rather than just going directly to sculpting them.

The Subsurf, Mirror, Mask and modifiers are used to aide in construction of the Blenderella model, their use is clearly explained. One surprising part of the DVD is that at the end after the model is almost completed Ms Guenette goes over how to check your finished model to make sure it is in a sane state, by checking for triangles and doubles and applying scales and transformations. It may only be a small thing to check but forgetting can cause annoying problems and it is good that time was taken to highlight this often overlooked step.

So the overal quality of the modeling is excellent, I couldn't find any fault in the videos or the modeling techniques used in them. If you want to know how to do mesh modeling and do it to a very high standard, these videos will be a massive help.

The finished blend files and all the resource files are included on the DVD, so if you do not want to watch all the way through all the vidoes you can still experiement with the finished blend file.

All the above text are the good points of the DVD and normally this is where the review would stop, however there is unfortunately an issue with the production of the DVD. Apparently if you are using a Windows machine the html interface to the DVD does not work because of a prodcution mistake when the DVD was created. The Blender Foundation is aware of this issue and has issued a patch which can fix the issue on Windows. If you want a replacement DVD they will replace it on request. Please bear in mind that even if you don't apply the patch or get a replacement DVD, you can still access the video files on the DVD directly from inside the video folder on the DVD. The encoding of the video is not effected and is very clear and will play on any video player which supports MKV (Matroska) video files. MKV file format is an opensourced video format that is playable in all the major video players. If you can't play the MKV files you can download VLC media player which will play the videos. I am not sure why ogg or webm wasn't choosen instead but if you have problems, VLC is very easy to use and install and is available for all platforms. Maybe next time a training DVD is released by the Blender Foundation it will have its video encoded in webm format, at which point you won't need a seperate video player, it will be directly supported in your browser.

Even taking the production issues mentioned above the videos are of excellent standard and are well worth watching if you get the chance.

Review Score 80%

Pablo Vazquez - DVD Training 4: Venoms Lab! - DVD Training Review

The Blender DVD mill churns out another DVD this time it is by Pablo Vazquez of Venom GFX. The DVD is part of the Blender Open Movie Workshop Training DVD range.

Pablo is well known to the Blender community as an awesome modeller and Blender user. Even if he does like the color pink way too much.

• Product Specifications:
• Price : €27.50 (on 3rd of Aug 2009)
• Video Run Length : Roughly 4 hours
• Format : DVD

On putting the DVD into my laptop machine I was presented with a Venoms Lab entrance page in my web browser. Unsurprisingly a very brightly pink/mauve design is displayed, although it was very slick looking.

The start page indicates that Spanish language support is available on the DVD, this is true but only in terms of writing the webpages in Spanish. The videos still appear to be in English (after experimenting I found an option to switch to Spanish audio track but this really should of been sorted out when selecting Spanish section of the DVD or at least made very clear on the Spanish sections of the pages.).

The price of the DVD seems reasonable to me given the amount of video content. Though some may find it expensive, although with the DVD being Blender Open Workshop some of the cost of the DVD go towards funding further development of Blender.

The DVD is split into 10 Chapter like sections, each Chapter uses a different character model to describe various features and workflow methods of Blender.

Below is a list of Chapters:

• 01 - Firulo
  • Subsurface Modeling
• 02 - Korno
  • Sculpting
• 03 - Zanno
  • UV unwrapping, Texture Layers, Painting
• 04 - Fraka
  • Shading, Material Nodes, Light
• 05 - Carnerito
  • Realtime GLSL Shading
• 06 - Antonio
  • Cloth Simulation
• 07 - Merlin
  • Eye Modeling, Shading
• 08 - Braka
  • Fur, Grooming and Shading
• 09 - Tibolino
  • Compositing and Environments
• 10 - Durano
  • Timelapse Video of Making a Character Model - runs over an hour

The range of topics covered are broad but this is not a beginners DVD, a reasonable familiarity with Blender and it's usage is important to get the most out of this DVD.

The version of Blender used in the videos is Blender 2.49, which is useful as some of the newer features of Blender are covered (Projection Painting for example).

Overall the quality of the information contained within the videos is very good. Intermediate and Advanced Blender users will likely find something new in these videos. Also very handy are web links on the video pages which point the viewer to the various relevant web pages which go into more detail on the topics being covered.

The videos are available in both flv/flash format (and playable in directly in a webpage flash player) & avi/high def (playable externally). To my eye both the flash version and high def versions of the videos were very clear and easy to see. Although some of the videos appear to be encoded in better quality than others. Also occasionally the screen encoding appears not to update quickly enough and results in the videos pixellating slightly. Though this doesn't happen often and even when it does it does not really affect the watch-ability of the tutorials. Another issue I had was that the audio seems to be slightly quiet and I had to really crank up the volume on my laptop to listen at a comfortable level. But again so long as you don't have a really noisy laptop things should be fine. I was slightly disappointed that the videos weren't encoded in Ogg Theora video format. But I will keep complaining until someone listens or everyone starts using Firefox 3.5.

Like all good Blender tutorial videos all the key presses are highlighted on screen and Pablo is reasonably good at explaining by voice what he is doing also. Yes Pablos accent is slightly heavy going at times but unless your American you should be able to cope.

All the Chapters of the DVD were very good but my personal favorites were the chapters covering Projection Paint and Material Nodes and the Compositing sections.

The most disappointing part of the DVD for me was the 10th part which was basically a long timelapse video covering the modelling and texturing of a character model called Durano. It was entertaining to watch but I think the space and time it took on the DVD would of been better used on covering other topics in more detail.

A little extra stuff is included on DVD which can be gotten to by browsing the DVD file structure. Also all the textures and blend files are also included on the DVD. One more extra thing which a lot of Blender users may find handy is having access to that hideous pink theme that Pablo uses when modelling his stuff in Blender. So if you want to overdose on the pink you will now be able to do it in just the same way Pablo does!

All in all this is an excellent DVD well up to the quality level of previous Open Movie Workshop DVD Training series.

Now I am going to go close my eyes till the pink haze disappears....

Review Score 85%

Blender 2.46 (The Bunny Release) - Blender 2.46 has landed

Blender 2.46 (The Bunny Release) - Blender 2.46 has landed

After using various beta's, svn's and release candidates, Blender 2.46 has finally been released. It was released on May 19 2008.

I had been very busy on the release date of Blender 2.46, so I didn't get a chance to use it on day of release and took a little while to get acquainted with Blender 2.46.

First though a little background on the whys and wherefores of Blender 2.46 (The Bunny Release).

The first thing to know is that Blender 2.46 is the result of work done while making the next Peach Open Movie, which has the ambition of making a totally open movie, which is to be released under the creative commons license and be made available to the public. Features and requests that were needed or wanted for the "Big Buck Bunny" movie were added to Blender 2.46 to allow the movie to be made with the features and workflow patterns required. It will be the second movie, the first was "Elephants Dream" and it was the movie that spawned the release of Blender 2.44 (Blender 2.45 was a bug fix release). The purpose of both of the movies is not only to generate a free creative resource but also to both demonstrate and push the features and development of Blender as a 3D suite and use it as a test bed to improve Blenders features.

Blender 2.46 can be seen as a stop gap measure until the release of Blender 2.50 (which has been mooted for July release, however I will believe that when I see it).

The latest version of Blender can be downloaded here and if you wish to download the statically linked versions here.

I've been playing with Blender 2.46 for a while now and it is extremely good. I especially like new option to determine the orientation of newly added mesh when it is first created and added. Also the new View display names for the 3D view port are also a very useful feature.

The new features are many and varied a list of some of the major additions can be found on the www.blender.org site here.

So if you don't have it Blender 2.46, go and get it now!