Hopefully I’ll have some more exciting stuff up soon now that I have a little free time.

I figured that I’d also give the site a new look (the old leopard mac theme was looking a little dated).

I’m also playing around with Unity for a new computer game I’m starting to write (combingin this with blender. Here is a little test to see if it works within wordpress.

Please view the full post to see the Unity content.

Left|Right to turn, Up|Down to move forward and back.

Exciting isn’t it

I was having a little bit of trouble with my original empowerman I did earlier this week with the rigging and the way that the mesh was deforming while animating. I’ve decided to use this guy instead for the time being as I become more experienced. He is rigid so I can concentrate on the animation rather than the deforms.

Hopefully in the next few days I’ll post up a few animations of this guy.

It’s quite cute. Not bad for a first attempt.

Rigging and Animating him is another issue though – time to read the manual and my blender books to learn some more. I’d like to have him walk around the screen and wave ‘hello’.

The latest version Ubuntu Linux was released last month (8.04), and thought that I’d give it a go and see what happens.

I am quite impressed as to how far ubuntu has become. I have a dual head 19″ LCD monitor setup, and it just worked out of the box. Blender absolutely flies on ubuntu compared to windows!

I used to play around with gentoo, but again I felt as though I was fighting the computer just to do something (hmm.. maybe I should get a mac). I just want something that just ‘works’. Ubuntu detected all my hardware except my webcam (which I can live without for now).

I still have a small windows partition on my PC for when I am desperate and have the urge to play a game or two. I’ll most likely need it when spore comes out in a few months time.

I really think Microsoft has a bit of competition on its hands if Ubuntu keeps going in the direction it is heading.

While practising my blender skills I updated by blender design and you can view the updated animation below.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JZYHLnlBSQ

The tank builder was given the all OK to start buildling about 2 weeks ago, so I should be seeing it turn up at home shortly (there will be pictures!).

Can’t wait!

Looks like I will have to get my hands dirty and create a custom tank design.

Finally spent some time this week modelling what I wanted in a tank using blender, which not only helps me learn blender, but it also allowed me to visualise what I wanted and imagine it sitting in our main room:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3C3pBeTtP8

Tank will be 48″x24″30″ high, tank is 48″x24″x36″ high, and the hood is 48″x24″x18″. The whole think will be 7″ tall.

Right hand weir, with a durso/siphon setup, and the return pipe on the left. The only thing missing is the sump design, which I will do later on (after the tank arrives).

Can’t wait!

Look out Steven Spielberg.

I’ve placed up there a test animation that I did (took me about 5 minutes to make -- and it shows).

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Durh9TbXHJo

This animation was done with Blender, using the MPEG4 (xvid) format, recorded at 320x240 with 30 FPS. This is the suggested format for youtube to make them look good.

It was a lot easier than I first thought. I created a bezier curve for the clip, then mapped a circle shape to the curve. Added a shiny material to the object and then rendered.

I’m finding that building organic models are a lot harder to do than simple objects. Guess that just comes with practice.