- Blender Workshop - Staatliche Hochschule für Gestaltung Karlsruhe -

- Nov 05 / 06 / 07 / 08 / 09 2007 -

Blender is the premier open source package for modeling, shading, animation, rendering, compositing, editing and game creation. it is used by hobbyists, professionals, studios and institutions around the world for a large variety of applications ranging from architectural design, commercials, motion graphics, illustrative art up to full blown cinematic movie productions.

For students / (emerging) artists like us Blender is especially interesting because it gives them the full flexibility / power of the movie industry to realize our projects - without depending on student licenses and / or large wallets. In this workshop we explore all the things that blender can offer… and more.

- edit: workshop over, some pics-

- 05 - overview -

user interface

features

window types

screens (workspaces)

scenes

object types

data blocks

meshes

adding, editing, deforming objects

non-guided, very cryptic and confusing exercise: build a setting / environment that - in its overall shape - resembles one or more of the following geometric forms BUT does not contain the blender primitive of the same name: plane - cube - cylinder - sphere - circle - cone - grid - torus - monkey

- 06 - medium -

object level editing using modifiers

organic mesh modeling

loops, topology, poles and edge flow

cutting, filling, merging

the mirror modifier

subdivision surfaces

guided exercise: creating a stick figure using the tools we have learnt so far. creating a basic rigging for animation lesson tomorrow.

- 07 - closeup -

rigging using armatures

keyframing objects

IPOs and actions

a few animation principles and how to translate them into 3D

the IK constraint

guided exercise: animating a jumping action with our character and tweaking the result. rendering and lighting an animation.

- 08 - action -

lighting and rendering tools

the compositor

materials and textures

guided exercise: think of a project you would like to start / finalize during the last two days, discuss and execute it. please keep in mind that simplicity is the key to success!

- 09 - recap -

working on projects

we discuss our work and what we have done this week - how we can apply that to our future / current work.

any further questions?

- links -

http://www.blender.org/ - the main blender site with downloads, docs and pics

http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Manual - the blender manual

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D - blender wikibooks

http://blenderartists.org/forum/ - the largest english speaking blender community site

http://www.blendernation.com/ - fresh blender news, every day

http://www.graphicall.org/builds/index.php - latest development versions of blender

http://freefactory.org/posts/candy-for-everyone - the free mancandy character

http://jasonpierce.animadillo.com/resource/ludwig/ludwig.html - a ready-to use rig like mancandy, easier and simpler to use