Day 54 : The Waves : 3D

An ocean 3D render done in blender. One of the more interesting aspects of this was the light glints of the ocean in the background are actually small bright spheres placed on the mesh with a particle system. 

Day 49 : Glasses On a Table : 3D

All right, this is much more of a technical experiment than an artistic image. Wanted to really focus on building some good wood shaders along with more realistic glass modeling. Think it turned out pretty well and I'm looking forward to using these techniques in future projects.  

The real challenge I had with the wood was I wanted to create something that was able to use a single input texture. Once I got a good setup with the shaders I was able to tweak the setting to get it to the point where the glossy shader is less intense in the etched and scratched sections and the bump is still generated by the base texture.  This shader setup will also be fairly easy for me to adapt to other image textures as well.

Day 45 : Next Level Logo : VIDEO

This one was fun to work on. 15,000 full 3D trees, 20 hours of rendering. I learned a lot and think the results turned out pretty well. Definitely a challenge keeping the render time down, but with lot's of instancing and keeping the lighting simple, was able to keep it about 5-7 minutes a frame. 

Day 43 : Mountain : 3D

So this is a WIP.  A first test pass to see if I can render out a manageable large scale forest for a video clip I'm making.  Instanced trees spread out over a terrain surface, I believe around 5000 tree's for this shot. Was able to do it with fairly low RAM requirements and the 720p render time of under 5 minutes. Think it might work fairly well. 

Day 35 : BOX : VIDEO

Was messing around with Blender using the same basic box shape to test out some render techniques and a few other things. I liked some of the shots and wanted to share, so I decided to edit them together and make a little abstract video. 

Day 24 : Upgrade Station : 3D

Another model for a game I'm working on. Making up some prototypes so we can start getting an idea for game layouts before we finalize design and do the high quality models. 

Day 14 : Gem : 3D

Game ready asset I made and textured for a game me and some friends are working on. It took me way longer than it should have to do good looking reflectance shader, but at least now I know how to do it properly.

Day 9 : Shatter : VIDEO

Familiar from the top of my blog, I decided to do a test render of it all in motion. GPU rendering using Blender's Cycle's renderer. 

Day 7 : Crash : VIDEO

Visual effects test I did with a friend of mine to practice motion tracking and familiarize myself with VideoCopilot's Element 3D plugin (fantastic tool). The project was motion tracked and composited in After Effects. The front of the car was replaced with a digital double , snow and an artificial sun was added, along with a smoke simulation for the fire.

Blender Physics Test from Brandon Ballschmidt on Vimeo.
A test of having multiple physics systems interact. This simulation shows a rigid body simulation interacting with both a particle and a smoke simulation.

3D Gunshot

   
  So I've been working around with smoke simulations more and in preparation for a project I'm working which will need a slow motion muzzle flash composited onto a moving live action shot.

   Whats nice about using the smoke engine in blender is that it allows me to be able sculpt the flames through invisible meshes interacting with the fire. In this particular example there is actually an "bullet" mesh that is shot out from the barrel. While this bullet interacts with smoke it remains unrendered in the final scene.

     The other benefit of using a full simulation is that this muzzle flash is in full 3D allowing me to move around it at any angle and even inside it if desired.

Independent Study for College

     So this semester I will be doing an independent study for college credit in simulation based visual effects. The main goal and emphasis of this will be on creating near photo realistic fluid simulation that are composited on live action footage. Most of this will be done using the open source tool Blender. 

These are the tentative goals for the course this semester:

     FLUID SIMULATIONS

• Research  the mesh based Lattice Boltzmann Method used in the Blender fluid tools.
• Research the use of Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics. 
• Find any other potential methods to be used (Rigid Body surfaces/Smoke Simulation)
• Research/develop techniques for combining multiple simulation methods for better results.
• Composite a large scale flood scene into an interior of a building.

    OTHER SIMULATION GOALS

• Study rigid body setups and how to create convincing destruction using voronoi fracture tools.
• Smoke/Fire simulations interacting with lighting in live action shots.
• A full integrated visual effects sequence using a number of various simulation effects.

     While it's unlikely I will get through all of these the goal is to get through as much as I can but the main focus of this study will be on fluid sims. I'll have at least weekly updates this semester on my progress.

Solar Array -Outpost-

Got a second model finished for the game tentatively titled "Outpost". This one is one of solar array types you can use to gather energy on a planet.

Water Filtration Plant Model -Outpost-

     So I finally finished my first full UV unwrapped model in Blender. It was a fantastic experience because it was the first time I really got to learn how to properly UV unwrap and texture (which yes in fact is an absolute pain). But what is also cool is I feel like I've really completed the first step in a small game I'm working on in my free time as I now have my first completed asset! Dozens more to go but hey, a starts a start.