Blender 3D Architecture, Buildings and Scenery - Chapter 14 Review

This is the last chapter of the book and covers the Post Production tasks which could maybe, be done in Blender, but which is much easier in other external applications.

In the case of this chapter Gimp is used as the external application for carrying out various tasks on Blender Rendered graphics output.

A brief explanation of what GIMP is, and what it can be used for, is run through. Followed on by an explanation of the interface that GIMP uses. After having described the interface, the difference types of selection methods are described. These descriptions are relatively clear. Though obviously the amount of detail that can go into describing features is limited because GIMP in it self could warrant a book 3 times the size of this book.

When the simpler selection tools are gotten out of the way the discussion moves onto paths and their uses. The uses of colour tools and described, such as Selecting by Colour and the fuzzy select/lasso tool are covered.

The various technical colour manipulation techniques such as colour balancing and hue and saturation are covered. There are examples of the effect of these tools shown on the resultant renders.

Using the GIMP layer tools are described and an example is shown, using these layer tools to add a different background to a rendered scene. And finally a section covering how to correct errors in a rendered scene and doing touch ups are explained.

It would have been nice to have a section on using the Blender Node Editor, as this could of kept us within the Blender application, as the Node Editor is very, very powerful system. That said GIMP is a very useful application and this section is well worth a read.

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!