I just had an idea

Hey, remember the "Super Smash Bros Brawl - Animation and VFX" posts?  Well, I haven't done any in a long time and I was looking at the list of videos when I played the other day, and it's ridiculously long.  On top of which, since the last one I've seen some amazing animations that I wanted to add to the series, but they weren't from Brawl.

So I had an idea.  I will be replacing the Brawl-posts with plain-and-simple "Game Cutscene" posts, featuring scenes from games such as Brawl (there are still a few I want to cover), The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario games, Sonic the Hedgehog, and more :D  I have a few in mind already, including some amazing Sonic cutscenes that I saw recently.

Anyway, this means that I will have to contact each YouTube member (in contrast to just one, ChildrenoftheAtomSB) whenever I want to embed a video, but hey, it's going to be totally worth it :D

...at least, I hope...

Skyward Sword Celebration Project - Cartridge Turntable

So as you can see, a turntable render of the NES game cartridge. Included in the video are both the default clay render turntable and a Wire version, for those of you curious about the topology :D

I also used Blender's built-in video editor for the first time to put this together :D  Went very well, and I definitely like the organization method - the various columns and things.

Anyway, here's the video.  Vimeo version is in queue for conversion - have to wait an hour before this 25-second video is converted, it's ridiculous.  Seems to me that the video conversion time should be judged by how long it is and the image quality...anyway, before I branch off again, here's the video, for real this time:

...I might have rendered it kinda fast, even though it was at 17 frames per second.  Maybe a slower animation would have been better, though the method I used doesn't really allow for much customization. I have to figure that out, there's going to be turntables of every object. :D  At least, I think...

Looking back...

Wow...  I was looking over my Flickr Photostream just now and I got a bit of a Flashback moment - it felt weird.  Really weird.  Seriously.

This was the trigger-picture:

When I saw this picture, it was like my brain had pressed the "Play" button on a memory tape somewhere in my head and I remembered all the steps involved in the project - extruding out the gum tray, creating every single face on the bottom of the tray by hand because I didn't know how to do it properly back then, figuring out how to do Transparency, sketching out the letters with a multi-subdivided Plane and then repositioning the vertices to match the shape with absolutely no regard to proper topology, and the rendering :D  I also remembered how proud I was to have achieved this - it was my first project outside of the tutorials (the reason I chose an Excel gum pack is because I had one lying on my desk at the time, I can still remember it, it had a tear on the side and was pretty banged up, I had carried it around in my pocket for a while).

It's weird, isn't it?  And to think that exactly two years later, I'd have my most complex project yet underway, with only one piece of the not-yet-final mesh probably over 100 times more complex than this simple gum pack :D

Well, while I'm talking about this kind of stuff, I'm going to send out a message to all of the new Blender-heads out there :  May the Blend be with you!

Skyward Sword Celebration Project - WIP 02

(btw, the post is longer than this.  Click the "Read More" button to...well...read more :D)


Hmm, I've posted pictures about this on DeviantART more often than I post about it here...weird.


Anyway, I've made a lot of progress since the first post, considering it was at the beginning of July.  Lots of W.I.P pictures too, as you can see:



SkywardSword celebration WIP 3 by ~MeshWeaver on deviantART


July 25th

New Tutorial - "16 Awesome Modelling Tools"

Hey Followers and whoever-might-be-reading-this :D


So I have a new tutorial online, covering 16 modelling tools I use the most often when working.  Each tool/function has its own intro and they're separated into individual parts...though not with the “P” shortcut.  It’s my best tutorial so far, if I say so myself :D


Also, as with all my other tutorials, it’s in full 1280x720 HD – ok, little disclaimer, the Vimeo version is slightly crappy for a few seconds right at the beginning (due to the *.wmv-to-*.mp4 conversion to bring down the file size), but it quickly settles into nice, high-definition images.



16 Awesome Modelling Tools - HD from MeshWeaver on Vimeo.





By the way, the YouTube link also includes the Playlist.


This is more of a beginner tutorial, btw.  I plan on maybe making more, like a mini featuring the Snapping tool, or various Modifers.


Enjoy!


MeshWeaver