What is WebGL? WebGL is a graphics library that extends JavaScript to allow it to generate some truly spectacular 3D graphics, within the browser, with no plug-ins needed. It uses the computer’s GPU (Graphics Processing Unit), and as such is a fairly low-level language (read: complicated).

WebGL interactive water example / (http://madebyevan.com/webgl-water/)

It uses the canvas element (html5) and the webgl context  of that element (if you know anything about drawing with the canvas element, the context is how you access the particular api for drawing in either 2D or WebGL).

You can use WebGL now in Safari, Firefox, and Chrome. But not Opera or Internet Explorer, and not on smart phones or tablets yet.

Although the actual language looks daunting, not only can you create superb results, but there are various JavaScript libraries that will use WebGL to render their output…

• scenejs (WebGL scene library) http://scenejs.org/ 
• processingjs (An open programming language for creating animations etc without using Java or Flash)  http://processingjs.org/
• threejs (A lightweight 3D JavaScript engine that can render using the <canvas> tag, WebGl, or sag) https://github.com/mrdoob/three.js/

Here are some examples of WebGL in action…

BioDigital Human

(http://www.biodigitalhuman.com/default.html)

 HelloRacer (using three.js)

(http://helloracer.com/webgl/)

Interactive water example

(http://madebyevan.com/webgl-water/)

WebGL filters

(http://evanw.github.com/webgl-filter/)

There are many more (if you know of any please let me know).

You can even use Blender to create a scene and output it to something that can be used by scene.js and so basically create a 3D environment in Blender for use on a web page.

In future posts I am going to look into these topics and see what can be created and I will be posting the results here.

There are over 15 hours of movies, taking you through the process of modelling a Gyrocopter, from a series of pictures. It took we a while to go through all the videos, but it was well worth it. Here is a still of my final result…

Final gyrocoptor render

The series goes through a lot of modelling, and at the end of it I came away with a much better appreciation of Blender, its tools, and how to model. I would recommend this series to anyone who wishes to become a better modeller.

I now have a few more techniques to use when modelling, and also a better understanding of the steps I need to go through when modelling.

The model is far from perfect, I made loads of mistakes . But at least now I can see what the problems are and I can have a good go at fixing them. After going through this series it has me wanting go back to other series that I have bought and finish them to see just how well I do. In the ensuing months I will do just that and I will post the results. Here is the timelapse movie, along with the final render…

All in all I am quite happy with the result.

In the meantime, here is the list, and below some of them is the current render that I have created after going through the tutorial.

Blenderella (http://www.blender3d.org/e-shop/product_info_n.php?products_id=133)

Creating realistic outdoor lighting (http://www.blenderguru.com/how-to-create-realistic-outdoor-lighting/)

Environment still 63

Blender Cookie Vehicle Modelling Series (http://cgcookie.com/vehicle-series/)

vehicle still 38

cgmasters.net – Rigging your ninja – (http://www.cgmasters.net/training-dvds/character-creation-rigging/) n.b. due out in July

cmifx.com – Rigging your mammoth (http://cmivfx.com/tutorials/view/302/Blender+Massive+Mammoth+Masterclass%3A+Rigging+V1)

Have fun!

http://www.blenderguru.com/how-to-make-a-realistic-asteroid/

I recommend you have a look at his site if you are at all interested in Blender and 3D work. And here is my asteroid, created by following his example…

…and here is the timelapse movie showing the steps that i took…

… and here is the final animation (not perfect by any means) that I created…

I haven’t sorted out any collisions between the small asteroids and the large one, but overall I am quite pleased with it.

Some simple examples of shapes and materials created within Blender

Disclaimer: It is only a four day course so the models are necessarily primitive, but useful nevertheless. To teach how to model a high detail human figure can take days, so we just created a simple figure – head, arms and legs. No fingers, toes, etc. Then we added a material and did a very simple animation with it (again learning how to do proper walk cycles etc is the job of another course entirely).

We also created a simple environment, hills and valleys, and played around with particles and added some rocks to the environment. Then we added materials and I created a simple camera tracking animation to take you through the environment, which I then rendered out. We also played around with materials and simple animations as applied to a ball – working with deformations and rigging. So, here is a picture of various shapes with various materials applied to them (some applied from an external picture, some created as procedural textures). Here is a little movie of the said shapes…

Here is a simple animation of a bouncing ball, with some deformation…

Here is a still of the environment I created and a movie…

Environment created within Blender 2.5

Here is a still of the figure that I created…

Simple figure created within Blender

…and here is a timelapse of the creation process of the figure…

…and here is an animation of the figure doing a very basic walk…

These were just some of the shapes and models created. Everyone loved the course, and our thanks go to Dolf who ran the course for us – he made it very interesting and fun to do.

Recently they produced a public build of Blender that works with their new modifier and it is blinding. I thought I would post a quick example that I made using this tutorial.

Here is a simple example I got going in a few minutes of playing around…

Here is a link to the main site…

http://www.savetheoceansim.com/

I will make just one clarification – I do not do much animation in Blender yet, so when it came to animating my ocean, it did not work – you need to be over the Time box when you press I – this will add a Time keyframe, which is what you want. If you do not do this you get an ordinary set of keyframes – none of which do what we need, which is to animate our ocean.

Here is a link to the tutorial, which has a link to the a build of Blender 2.5 with the Ocean modifier…

http://www.savetheoceansim.com/blog/?p=161

Try this out for yourselves and let me know how it goes, I would love to see other people’s results.

The more I use Blender, the more I see how modelling with Blender can produce fantastic results, with some people making it more of an artform. To show you what I mean, here are some links that show you just what a great Blender modeller can do (the second link shows you how collaborating can produce great work as well)…

Beginning Blender

Author: Lance Flavell

Title: Beginning Blender

Number of pages: 449

Publisher: Apress

Price (as of December 17th 2010): ($34.99 and $49.99 respectively)

Format: Comes in pdf and print versions

I love Blender, but ever since 2.5 came out there has been a dearth of good, up-to-date tutorials and documentation. It has been difficult to get information regarding all the various aspects of Blender.

This is partly because Blender keeps on changing and partly because there is so much that Blender can do.

So I am always on the look out for Blender books, and when I saw this one I thought – let’s give it a go.

There are 12 main chapters, and 10 of them cover the major topics regarding Blender…

The interface
Modeling
Lighting and textures
UV mapping
Curves and NURBS
Basic rigging and Animation
Advanced rigging
Making movies
Particles and Physics
The Game Engine

The other two chapters deal with the history and installation of Blender and Going Further – both important topics in their own right.

Also useful were appendices dealing with what licensing Blender uses, and what restrictions you could be under for your work etc, a very good clarification of how Blender licensing works (it is under GPL) and also a nice appendix on who uses Blender at the moment. It was very helpful to see a roundup of that sort of information.

But what about the main content of the book?

Well each chapter starts with an overview of what it will cover, and then goes into the chapter’s topic in more detail. Then there are some excercises for you to go through (and these can be downloaded as well so you do not have to create a particular model just to go through lighting, for example).

I found the chapters engaging and informative. This is billed as a beginner’s book, and each chapter introduces you to a particular topic with just the right amount of background, just the right examples, and just the right amount of information to show you what you need to know in order to understand the topic and get working on your own.

You soon realise just how much Blender can do when you start to go through the examples for yourself, but at no time does the book swamp you with too much information – I found it pitched just right.

The book was based on Blender 2.52 alpha, and I was testing things on Blender 2.55 beta, but i found there were no problems working on a newer version.

In short, I enjoyed reading the book and I had great fun going through the excercises.

This book is perfect for beginners, as it gives a good all-round introduction to just what Blender is capable of. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to get a grip with just what Blender can do, and how powerful it can be, and it certainly left me a thirst for doing more with Blender.

I will put together some more in another post, as there are some really great videos out there, but these at least give you a good taste of just what Blender can do.

And there are a lot of them!

Blender 2.5 and Add-ons

They can be enabled very easily by just clicking on the checkbox on the right-hand side. For example, here is the standard list of items that can be added to your scene by pressing Shift-A…

Standard list of add types within Blender

…and now look at it when I have enabled all the add-ons…

New add types within Blender 2.5

We now have gears, bolts, gemstones, chains, pipe joints, etc.

Some Blender examples

What I particularly like though is the Chain mesh.  Have a look at what you get when you add a chain mesh…

Initial chain example

What is nice about this script is that it uses the standard modifiers to do its work – have a look in the Outliner and Properties panel…

Chain modifiers and properties

You can see that what you have is a simple curve, with a Chain object, and that the Chain object is made up of a Torus, and the following modifiers – Array, Subsurf, and Curve.

scene outline with chain

Once this has been added to your scene, make sure that it is selected, and tab into it (i.e. go into Editing mode). Then scale the torus down, now see what you get.

more links

You get more links!

If you now select the curve, tab into Editing mode, and extend the curve (just RMB click on the end of the curve and press the EKEY and LMB click further along a few times), you now get…

Extending your chain

Lovely! – at the moment though i can see that the bends cause a few problems, but changing the angle of the bend and/or scaling the torus down should produce a better result.

What happens if we change the torus to a sphere (say)?

Spheres along a path

Lovely – nice and simple. I am really impressed with the Add-ons that have been added to Blender 2.5 and how easy they are to adjust.

Next I am going to play around with installing new add-ons and see what we get.