Posted on 05. Oct, 2010 by Andrew Price in Articles, Interviews
Let me start by saying, what an amazing week for Blender this has been!
It’s barely been 5 days since the release of Sintel and it’s already been viewed over 1 million times on YouTube, heavily discussed on CGSociety, hit the front page of 3d world and is still being tweeted every few minutes (even by celebrities!)
So I think I speak for everyone when I say, “Well done Durian team!” You guys sure know how to get the attention of the public ;)
Last week we interviewed Ton Roosendaal, and this week I’m excited to speak with the director of Sintel, Colin Levy!
In this 57 minute audio interview Colin explains:
Why he was choosen as the directorThe biggest challenges that the team facedWhat he would do differently if given the opportunityHow he deals with criticismHis future plans and aspirations
*WARNING: This interview discusses scenes from the film! If you haven’t yet seen Sintel, watch it now.*
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Click Play to stream the audio or download the MP3 file here.
If you liked this interview you may also like the interview with Ton Roosendaal.
That concludes this week’s post! Join me next week for an indepth discussion with Campbell Barton on developing Blender and the upcoming stable release :)
Posted on 24. Oct, 2010 by Andrew Price in Focused Critique
Focused Critique is the segment in which I select artworks that readers have sent to me, and critique them. This segment doesn’t poke fun at artwork, but instead aims to help the artist see areas that could be improved.
To submit your own artwork, go here.
This episode features 9 artworks that were sent to me in the last 2 weeks. Watch the video below.
Posted on 14. Oct, 2010 by Andrew Price in Compositing, Lighting, Materials, Tutorials
When I posted the interview with Colin last week, many of you kindly informed me that it had been a while since my last tutorial. And you were right! At least 3 weeks to be exact. So rather than post another interview I’ve decided to revert back to some good ‘ol fashioned tutorial fun. Enjoy! :)
If there’s one thing hollywood loves, it’s muzzle flashes. It lets the viewer know that has gun has been fired and hell is indeed breaking loose.
In fact if you had took a shot everytime you saw one in the Matrix you’d be on the floor before the halfway mark.
One, two, three, floor
The military use flash suppressors to help the soldier remain hidden in night time situations. But where’s the fun in that?
Use volumetrics to create a realistic fire materialUse displacements to quickly deform a meshRandomize animation using the noise modifierCreate glow and glare effects using the compositor
Posted on 21. Sep, 2010 by Andrew Price in Articles
Ever since I started Blender Guru I’ve had countless emails from people asking me for advice on what PC they should buy. We’ve all bought PC lemons in the past, so I can see why this would be a common question.
Now before we move on, let me start by saying that your PC is only as good as your skill. If you suck at Blender and buy $4000 computer, you will still suck. The only way to improve your work is through practice, practice and oh yeah, practice.
But now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s talk about getting one a PC specifically built for Blender…
[Click here to read this post in Persian]
Photo by fosk
Everyone has their own preferences in terms of usablity and stability, but for me the winner is Linux. In the past I’ve used blender on both Windows and Linux, and I found that Linux crashes less, handles memory better and generally runs more smoothly than a windows operating system.
However… what most people won’t tell you is that Ubuntu can be an absolute pain in the ass to set up.
If you come from a windows background (like me) then expect to be punching holes in the wall when you find out that you need to type complex commands in the terminal just to connect to a wired LAN. It really is like entering another world. Everything is done differently and tasks that would usually take 2 seconds in Windows to setup could take hours in Linux, if you don’t know what you are doing (like me). A technical savvy person may say that Linux is a piece of cake, but to me it was an absolute nightmare. Go figure.
So for that reason I actually recommend Windows 7. It’s fast, easy to use and comes with 99% less headaches than Linux.
Photo by Friedemann Wulff-Woesten
The faster your CPU, the faster your render times. This is the meat and bones of your PC and will play the greatest influence on how quickly your render will finish.
I recommend choosing a CPU with multiple cores, as this will allow blender to render more tiles simultaniously. My current CPU has 4 cores, which means blender will render 4 tiles simultaneously. This really pays off in render times.
Cores = Like having multiple CPUs and only paying for one.
Other than that there’s really no secret to choosing a CPU. Buy the fastest one that you can afford!
Photo by Heather Greene
Second on my priority list is RAM. Whilst it won’t effect your render times, RAM will set the limit on how “epic” your scene can be. Now I say the word “epic” loosely here, but really I’m talking about memory usage limits. Everytime you use a large image texture or bake a high resolution simulation you use up more RAM. When you run out or RAM, blender crashes.
Thanks for reminding me to purchase more RAM!
The more RAM you have, the more you can push your scene to it’s extremes. If you had only 2GB of RAM and created a fluid simulation, you may only be able to use a domain resolution level of 100 before blender crashed. But if you upgraded to 16GB you may be able to reach 800.
And who knows, in the future you may even reach over 9000!
If you’re a simulation junkie then I recommend splashing out and buying lots of RAM.
Photo by Fred.org
A common misconception by beginners is that you need a super duper awesome graphics card to use blender. This is false.
A good graphics card will only help you when you are navigating around the 3d viewport. It will not effect your render times! For the past 7 years I’ve used a graphics card that was at least a year older than the current leading card (I’m cheap), and my work has never suffered from it.
Unless you plan to do lots of high poly sculpting in the future, then an expensive graphics card is a waste of money.
At least as far as Blender is concerned. Crysis however...
Now when it comes to choosing a GFX card, I always recommend Nvidia. In the past many blender users (including me) have had issues with ATI cards, wherein the menu flickers or some other glitch makes itself known. So for that reason I always recommend other blender users purchase Nvidia.
But! Having said that my last laptop had an ATI card and had no issues whatsoever, so maybe those glitchy days are over? Nope! According to the comments below, the ATI issues are still very much alive. Stick with Nvidia people! :P
Side note: If you follow 3d news, you may have heard about a new, faster method for rendering that uses your GPU instead of the CPU. Unfortunately, this technology is not yet available for Blender, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s developed soon. In the meantime use an external renderer like SmallLuxGPU or Octane if you would like to take advantage of GPU rendering.
Photo by Adamcha
If you’re going to be doing lots of rendering on your PC then I’d recommend finding a PC with adaquet cooling.
My last PC suffered permanent internal damage when rendering my New York Earthquake animation, because I only used a standard PC case. As a result, it overheated and now refuses to turn on.
But hey, at least it didn't catch fire.
Standard cases are suited more for air conditioned office environments, not prolonged rendering sessions in your stuffy bedroom. Take note :)
I’d recommend choosing a gaming case as these generally have better cooling than standard cases.
Photo by Stuart Bryant
In terms of speed within blender, you aren’t going to see any noticeable difference by purchasing a faster hard drive. So let’s focus on stability instead…
The last thing you want is for your hard drive to fail, right? Well unfortunately hard drive failure is a sad fact of life so the best thing you can do is be prepared and create a backup.
And what’s the easiest way to do that you ask? Set up a RAID array.
A RAID array. It’s a system configuration that uses two physical hard drives to mirror each other, so that if one fails you always have a backup. All you need to do is purchase two identical hard drives and set it up in the BIOS settings. I highly recommend that you do this before the inevitable happens! ;)
Since so many people have asked what my specific PC specs are, I’ve created this short video revealing exactly what hardware I use. Check it!
My specs are:
OS: Windows 7 64 BitCPU: Intel i7 950 3.06GhzRAM: 12GB Kingston 2000Mhz DDR3GFX Card: Gigabyte Nvidia GTX 470 1280MBHDD: 2 x 1TB Western Digital Sata 3 (RAID 1 array)Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-X58ACase: Antec ‘Nine Hundred’ 750WMonitor: 21? Benq WidescreenKeyboard: Logitech G15Mouse: Microsoft basic optical mouse
If you’re still unsure PC components to purchase, then check out the Blender Render Benchmark. This is a website dedicated to benchmarking PCs with Blender, showing you exactly what rigs give the fastest render times. In fact, I probably could have just started the post with this website and saved myself the trouble of writing it. Oh well :P
Here’s the site again: Blender Render Benchmark – Bookmark it.
Thanks for reading! :) If you enjoyed this post you might also enjoy 5 Worthwhile Purchases for 3d Artists.
Posted on 20. Oct, 2010 by Andrew Price in Articles, Interviews
This week I thought it would be interesting to hear from one of the quiet achievers of the community: Campbell Barton.
Campbell is a fulltime Blender developer who is working hard to make Blender more stable and easier to use. Most recently he worked on Sintel as the Technical Director, fixing bugs and adding features that the team needed.
He currently lives in Victoria, Australia, working 9-5 to meet the demands of this very demanding community!
In this interview I ask him some of the big questions that the community has been echoing of late. Such as:
When will the final stable version of 2.5 be released?Is BMesh still being developed?How long will you be sticking with Blender?What was the hardest part about working on Sintel?How was the Sintel renderfarm created?How did you first learn Python?Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Click Play to stream the audio or download the MP3 file here.
Campbell has opened my eyes to a lot of issues that I didn’t know about and I hope it had the same effect on you. Join me in thanking Campbell for his hard work! :)
In other news, on Tuesday next week I will be flying to Amsterdam where I will be attending the Blender conference and updating Blender Guru with up to date happenings and hopefully recording a few presentations. Stay tuned ;)
Posted on 05. Oct, 2010 by Andrew Price in Articles, Interviews
Posted on 16. Oct, 2010 by Andrew Price in Focused Critique
Posted on 24. Oct, 2010 by Andrew Price in Focused Critique
Posted on 14. Oct, 2010 by Andrew Price in Compositing, Lighting, Materials, 
One, two, three, floor
Posted on 21. Sep, 2010 by Andrew Price in Articles
Photo by fosk
Photo by Friedemann Wulff-Woesten
Cores = Like having multiple CPUs and only paying for one.
Photo by Heather Greene
Thanks for reminding me to purchase more RAM!
And who knows, in the future you may even reach over 9000!
Photo by Fred.org
At least as far as Blender is concerned. Crysis however...
Photo by Adamcha
But hey, at least it didn't catch fire.
Photo by Stuart Bryant
Posted on 20. Oct, 2010 by Andrew Price in Articles, Interviews