Rejoicing in Hope

• Sep. 26, 2008 - Award

Posted By MaryBeth

Soccrchicksta awarded me! Thank you so much!

Here is the award!

I hope the image worked, I have been having problems with all my pictures.

Oh well, I hope you all have a great weekend!

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• Sep. 23, 2008 - I'm back!

Posted By MaryBeth

Okay, I know I have not posted in forever. I have had a lot of things going on lately. One of them was, I turned thirteen! My birthday was kind of interesting because my brother had a football game the day of my birthday. But that just meant that we had to have a kind of late party. I had a really good birthday though! Anyway, I am trying to think of a new title for my blog. I have had that one for a long time so I really am kind of tired of it. So.......if you have any ideas, let me know. Alright, I know this is short but at least I posted finally! I guess I have some things I need to go do. I hope it won't be to long before I post again.

-Marybeth-

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• Aug. 5, 2008 - Faking Object Shadows -- Great Camera Setup

Posted By Stephen in Blender 3D

I received a comment asking how I did the shadows and camera setup in my Car Game.

Shadows: The shadows are are not actual shadows (you have to fake the shape) but are very easy to make.

1. In the mesh that you want to have the shadow for, make a plane, subdivide it (if you need to), and make it the right shape for your object.

2. Then, in the 'Editing' buttons (F9) and in the 'Texture Face' panel, set the faces to 'shadow'. Now they will drop strait down the global Z axis and set on the next face that they hit when you start the game engine.

3. From what I can remember, you need to make sure the face is even, in the 'z' direction, with the object center. To get the right effect, you should also add a semi-transparent material to the shadow faces.

Camera Setup: This is a little more complicated, but all it is, is a bunch of empties and a small script.

Here is a '.blend' file with just the camera setup: Camera Setup.blend. (right click, select 'Save target/link as')

For illustration purposes:

Empty #1: The Camera!

Empty #2: The parent of the camera. The script sets the location of this empty to the location of Empty #3.

Empty #3: This empty is independent. It always tracks Empty #4, and moves toward it at a certain speed. The speed is defined in the script using a certain formula which makes it faster when it is farther away and slower when it is closer.

Empty #4: This is the main camera position. It sets it's location to the location of one of Empty #6's ray's collision points or the location of Empty #5 if there is no collision. (was that understandable?)

Empty #5: The location of Empty #4 when there is no collision. It has a location ipo so that it will match the distances of the collision rays from Empty #6 when you change the camera distance during the game by pushing 'c'.

Empty #6: Parent this to the object you want to follow. This also sends the rays that determine camera collisions.

On the slight chance that you were able to understand that (I'm not a very clear writer most of the time), you now have the basic functions of the setup.

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• Jul. 24, 2008 - More Trees!

Posted By Stephen in Blender Art

I have to admit, the trees in the previous post don't look that great. Here are some better ones that are not as sparse and have better proportions.

This is just a screenshot from inside the game engine (instead of a render), so the colors are probably not as good and there are no shadows. This is because, I'm not running it off of the Apricot build with GLSL. Of course this computer doesn't have a modern enough graphics card for it to work, so it wouldn't matter even if I was.

Anyway, here it is:

No, I didn't mean for the tree to be in the center of the path!

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• Jul. 9, 2008 - Trees

Posted By Stephen in Blender Art

There's not much to say about these trees except that I plan to create a script or something that will randomize the number and position of the branches.

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• Jun. 20, 2008 - Chevy Camaro Concept Car - Modeling Process

Posted By Stephen in Blender Art

This entry will take you through a not-so-detailed process of modeling a car.

Click on each picture to see it full size because it probably won't be clear unless you do.

The Car

Started at 9:40PM, June 18

I have a box that is the basic size and has the right number of edge loops.

The edge loop that runs down the middle of the car now has it's shape.

A render of a little more sculpting around the edge.

Finished section at 10:15PM, June 18

Started section at 5:25AM, June 19

A lot more detail on the top.

Finished section at 6:15AM, June 19

Took 1hr 25min in all to get this.

Started section at 10:05PM, June 19

Finished the entire main shape of the car.

Rendered

Finished section at 10:32PM, June 19

Now, the next morning, (from 9:15 to 10:10), I had finished all the little details of the car when the computer shut down. I hadn't saved in a while so I lost it all back to the above picture. But I got it all back except the last ten minutes of work because Blender had auto saved it.

Started section at 10:50AM, June 19

Details finished - Solid mode in Blender.

Details finished - Wireframe mode in Blender.

A render of the finished details.

Finished section at 11:05AM, June 20

Started section at 11:10AM, June 20

I then added textures and made a weird small scene.

Final render from the front.

Final render from the back.

Finished at 1:00PM, June 20

Hope you enjoyed!

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• Jun. 16, 2008 - Unfortunate Happening

Posted By Stephen

Bad news (at least for me). I discovered yesterday that the USB flash drive that I keep all my Blender stuff on, got corrupted! I lost almost three years of work. I think it has something to do with the fact that the computer that I work on the most, clicks off from time to time without warning.

Unfortunately, I didn't have the files backed up anywhere. So, a little piece of advice: make sure any files that you really want are backed up somewhere.

Now, this dosn't mean that I lost any thing that you can download from this blog. Only that I can't make them any better.

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• Jun. 11, 2008 - Car Game: Demo 2

Posted By Stephen in Blender Games

The next great demo release is here!!! Just kidding, it is here but it's not necessarily great.

There are a few upgrades: a second level, a few more camera options (see the readme), and some cheat codes! (that's all I can think of right now)

A couple of fixes that were suggested from last version: slower turning, no backing up camera.

Here's the link: Car Demo2.zip

Size: 11.3 MB

Just download and unzip. Be sure to read the 'readme' especially if you didn't play demo1.

If you have problems, questions, comments, or suggestions, let me know.

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• Jun. 1, 2008 - I found something to post about!

Posted By MaryBeth

Hey! I have something important to say!!!

Happy birthday to Felicity! (Joyful24) I don't have any presents or cake to give you. I am so ashamed of my self. I just wanted to wish you a happy birthday. You are a great friend! I hope you have a great birthday!

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• May. 7, 2008 - My soccer game...

Posted By MaryBeth

Well, my soccer game Saturday didn't go to good. Here is how it went......

Saturday:

I woke up at 7:00, which was not good because I had to be all ready by 7:30. I got up quickly, started putting all my stuff together and ate a quick breakfast. We did get there a little late but it didn't really matter because they were just doing pictures and they had to do one at a time. Then after the pictures my whole team went over to the soccer field and started warmups. We did warmups for about 15 minuets before the other team even showed up. There isn't much to tell about the game except they won 5-1. We played pretty good in the first half and then we just got really bad in the second half. We scored our only goal off of a penalty kick. That was the first time we lost this season, they were really good. Then a little bit later that day the other team I play with was playing the same team. So I got to play them twice in one day. That game I think the score was 3-0. But anyway that is about all I have to say about my soccer games. Sorry the post wasn't posted on saturday but I typed it on saturday I just forgot to post it. =)