ISSUE 42 | SEP 2013 | WWW.BLENDERART.ORG

Using 3d Printing for Stopmotions

Crossing the Digital Divide!

Chicken on Steroids

Unmanned Vengence

Coupe - Vadim Andreyev

BLENDER LEARNING MADE EASY!

EDITOR - GauravNawaniMANAGER/EDITOR - SandraGilbertWEBSITE - NamPhamDESIGN - GauravNawani

PROOFERSCharlie SheneFade Shayol *Scott HillBrian C. TreacyBruce WestfallDaniel HandDaniel MateHenriël VeldtmannJoshua LeungJoshua ScottonKevin BraunMark Warren *Noah SummersPatrick O DonnellPhillip RyalWade Bick *

WRITERS

Albert Laine

David Stringham

Carl Endres

Krzysztof Bozalek

Sandra Gilbert

COVERARTCoupe - Vadim Andreyev

DISCLAIMER

Blenderart.org does not take any responsibility either ex-pressed or implied for the material and its nature or ac-curacy of the information which is published in this PDFmagazine. All the materials presented in this PDFmagazine have been produced with the expressed per-mission of their respective authors/owners. Blender-art.org and the contributors disclaim all warranties,expressed or implied, including, but not limited to impliedwarranties of merchantability or fitness for a particularpurpose. All images and materials present in this docu-ment are printed/re-printed with expressed permissionfrom the authors and or writers. The contents responsib-ility lies completely with the contributing writer or the au-thor of the article.

This PDF magazine is archived and available from theblenderart.org website. The blenderart magazine is madeavailable under Creative Commons ‘Attribution-NoDerivs2.5’ license.

COPYRIGHT© 2005-2012 ‘Blenderart Magazine’, ‘blender-art’ and Blenderart logo are copyright of Gaurav Nawani.‘Izzy’ and ‘Izzy logo’ are copyright Sandra Gilbert. Allproducts and company names featured in the publicationare trademark or registered trademarks of their respect-ive owners.

As artists, we have aunique vision of how

things should look and evenhow to go about realizingthose visions. And lucky forus, today's improvements intechnology, tools andmaterials allow for anunlimited breadth of visionand realization.

While many have traditionalart backgrounds and are justas happy working intraditional mediums, some ofus, okay a lot of us, jumpedstraight into digital art as ourmedium of choice. And thereis an amazing freedom in thatchoice as well as a fewpitfalls. But concentrating onthe positive side of life. Digitalartists have a freedom toexplore their visions inwhatever creative mannerthey choose without worryingabout securing and paying for

the needed materials, such aspaint, clay, paper, pencils etc.Which means we canexperiment indefinitely untilwe realize what weenvisioned.

Pretty cool for us. One of thedownsides, is that unliketraditional mediums, our art isgenerally stuck in ourcomputer. Well it was untilrather recently. These daysyour amazing creation can beprinted out not only as a niceimage, but as an actual 3dobject. Now that is cool beansindeed.

But printing aside, there areother means of sharing yourprecious artwork. One favoredmedium of course isanimations which can beshared on a variety of videosharing sites as well as beoutput to cd or dvd and evenfilm. Game creators have onlyto send their files to others toshare it with friends or evencustomers.

No matter what you create orhow you choose to share thatcreation, there has never beena more exciting time to “Crossthe Digital Divide”. So cozy onup with our latest issue andread all about the variousways our community has beendreaming and creating in thedigital world of art and howthey have brought theircreations across the DigitalDivide into a new reality.

Unlike traditional mediums,our art is generally stuck inour computer...

Sandra GilbertManager/Editor

EDITORIAL

CONTENTS

BLENDERART - ISSUE 42 | SEP 2013

2

Chicken onSteroids

3D PrintingforStopmotion

Interview:Bensimmonds

UnmannedVengence

DisplacementModifier Tip.

Making OfTrophy

4

6

10

8

9

There are some tools in Blender that either youuse constantly or not at all. The Grease Pencil

seems to fall into this category.

When it was first introduced along about version2.48, the main purpose seemed to be centeredaround animation, which was something I wasn'treally into at the time. So I kind of ignored it and allthe possible uses for it as well.

But then an odd thing happened. I noticed thatJonathan used it constantly during his BlenderCookie tutorials. Throughout any of his tutorials youcan see him constantly drawing all over the screen tohelp explain what he is doing. Not only was he usingit to highlight or draw attention to what he wasexplaining, he was also using it to show where heplanned to create edge loops and major topologyfeatures on the model as he was working on it.

Hmm.... now that might be rather useful.

Then Bsurfaces arrived and lo and behold, theGrease Pencil allowed you to make short work ofretopologizing a model. Okay, that is seriouslyuseful. I am rather bad at retopology, so anything

that makes it even remotely easier is definitelyhelpful.

Come to find out, there are a great many uses forthis unassuming little tool. In case you haven'texplored the Grease Pencil here are a few ideas toget you started.

Oscar Baechler has a great blog post over on hisblog, The Og Bog Blog, about using the Grease Pencilas an aid for composition.

Onion skinning.

Drawing arcs for animation and timing purposes.

Bsurfaces (retopology).

Grease Pencil strokes can be converted to actualgeometry.

Leave notes for yourself or others in your team.

Educational aid to highlight or help explain.

Sketching out concepts for later modeling.

And I'm sure there is quite a bit more as well. Lookslike I need to dust of my graphic tablet and getdrawing. :P

IZZY SPEAKSTHE TRUTH AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH

3

IZZY SPEAKS: GREASE PENCIL - THE LITTLE TOOL THAT COULD

IZZY SPEAKSBLENDERART - ISSUE 42 | SEP 2013

This idea came to me around 2008, when I heard thatgrowth hormones are used in the U.S poultryindustry. I started to contemplate on a tabletop sizedstatue of a bodybuilder chicken. A real life issue, in avessel of an entertaining character. If you can give it athought, that is.

When I saw the Finnish “From Bits to Atoms” call forentries at the end of 2011, I decided to enter the“Artistic and Entertaining” segment of thecompetition with this entertaining “ProfessionalFitness” character. The competition called digitalartists to send their work to be machined / printed inphysical format.

At the time I had to start designing the character,Blender did not have dynamic topology sculpting, atleast as a stable feature toharness in a relativelydemanding project. I startedto visualize the character inSculptris. Going through theinternet with imagesearches, looking for photosof featherless chickens, myfirst design ended up to be achicken with quite realisticproportions– alas, withripped muscles! The result

was more in the realm of grotesque, and not light andfunny.

It was time to find new directions. I opted for a morecartoony approach. After recalling a Ren & Stimpyepisode called “Ren’s Pecks”, where the skinnychihuahua was “enhanced” with big pectoral muscles,I remembered “Earthworm Jim”, a worm in an athleticbodybuilder spacesuit. Searching again with these inmind, I started to find the character.

I worked in between Sculptris and Blender, cleaningartifacts etc. when needed. The “Pro-Fit” textualplatform was made by designing the text in Inkscape,and then importing the SVG's in to Blender, andextruding the depth. The front inset in the text wasmade with Blender's boolean function.

When it was time to finally give pose to the chicken, Iimported the “Pro-Fit” base/text in .obj format toSculptris, and made the pose match the base bymasking and rotating. Finally sculpting in final details

illustrating how the weightof the character isdistributed, and affectingthe feet. I wanted the poseto utilize a feature, that canonly be made withcomputer assisted design:perfect mirror symmetry.

Sculptris can't combine twoseparate meshes, so I had toexport the finished chickenwithout the base, and

4

MAKING OF

MAKING OFEXPLORING BLENDERART AND BLENDERHEADS

CHICKEN ON STEROIDS

Albert LaineContributing Author

BLENDERART - ISSUE 42 | SEP 2013

boolean them togetherinside Blender. With thatamount of vertices, I had toleave the workstation tocalculate the booleanfunction and go for a coffeebreak! Sadly, I had no timefor a nice retopology, andmaking the piece hollow.

After all was good to go, Iexported the mesh fromBlender in .obj format toNetfabb Studio Basic.

Therein scaling to propersize and checking that themesh is a one solidcontinuous surface. FromNetfabb I exported a .stl file,within the specifications ofthe competition.

As per the rules of thecompetition, a valid entryrequired a previsualizationrender and a documentationof the workflow used. TheBlender Cycles rendering engine was used with asimple but dramatic lighting setup. Thedocumentation .pdf was made in Inkscape. I deliveredthe required material via email.

Later on I received an email stating that my entry wasselected to the final competition, so it would be 3Dprinted and I would get to keep the sculpture. Yay! Iwent to the ceremony, where the final winners wereto be announced, but our beloved bodybuildingchicken was seconded by a design vase. The piece wasat the Sovelto exhibition room for the summer, and inthe fall I exhibited it in Helsinki Art Forum 2012.

I learned a lot with this project. First of all, It's a goodidea to make cartoony shapes with polygonal

modelling or nurbs, as sculpting parametric, smoothand curvy surfaces with a virtual brush is very timeconsuming. Secondly, it's a lot less hassle to make thewhole thing from start to finish in one application.Blender's impressive toolset is now capable of doing aproject such as this, and much more. Think aboutposing for example. It's easy to make a simple bone rigin Blender, and let Blender's automatic weighting doit's magic. Touching up with weight painting if needed.Posing with bones is a lot more intuitive, and above allreversible. Retopology is a no brainer. With tools likesnapping to surface, shrinkwrap and Bsurfaces addonyou can figure out a pretty nice workflow for yourself.

I just recentlydesigned andsculpted acharacter, madea retopology fora realtimeoptimized mesh,baked a normalmap fromsculpted mesh,and rigged it foranimation in oneday insideBlender! I'vemade somecommissionedwork for 3Dprintable objects, but I make a living with commercial3D animation using Blender, and with some grants Ireceive. I've learned to love Blender more and more.

For me it's a great tool for artistic expression, but italso brings food to the table. Thank you Blenderdevelopers and the community! The gem of opensource, that rivals (and in some cases beats) thehighest end 3DC apps out there, Blender indeed is inthe CG heavyweight league, and it does it with style!

5

MAKING OF

Chicken On Steroids

BLENDERART - ISSUE 42 | SEP 2013

This past year has marked my entry into 3D printing.In the fall of 2012, I became the operator of aMakerBot 3D printer at my college, HuntingtonUniversity. My responsibilities include printingmodels from animation and 3D classes andperforming maintenance. I also manage a NextEngine3D Scanner.

I have completed more than a few projects during thistime, but one in particular deserves special mention.One of the stop-motion animators, Cara Bolley,approached me about having miniature china ballsbuilt on the printer for her senior thesis, Curio. Achina ball is a specific type of light modifier that istypically made out of paper and used in film toprovide a soft, sphericallight source. The reason forusing 3D printing in this waywas to take advantage ofthe high precision andrepeatability offered by thetechnology.

I modeled the china balls inBlender using a UV sphereand removed the top edgeloops. I then added a Solidifymodifier to make the meshwatertight and add

thickness. With the model finished, I exported theobject as an .STL file for importing into MakerBot'sMakerware software.

In MakerWare, I scaled the china ball object to therequested diameter of one inch. Next, I sliced themodel and sent it to the MakerBot for printing. Eachchina ball was printed individually using semi-transparent PLA plastic. PLA was useful because of itsability to transmit light and also because it is resistantto warping, giving it a higher chance of success. Myfirst attempts involved trying to print six instances atonce; however, this resulted in a high failure rate asthe extruder had to move between objects and wouldeventually bump into most of the objects and breakthem free of the build platform. Once the china ballshad finished printing, they were hung around the topof the set.

Another contribution to this project that I made wasin printing a head. The puppet used in the film wassculpted in clay and then cast using foam latex for thebody and polyurethane for the head. However, afterthe puppet was finished, Bolley and her professordecidedthat theheadneededto beenlarged.Ratherthan gothroughthe time-

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MAKING OF

MAKING OFEXPLORING BLENDERART AND BLENDERHEADS

USING 3D PRINTING FOR STOP-MOTIONS

David StringhamContributing Author

BLENDERART - ISSUE 42 | SEP 2013

consuming process of re-sculpting and re-casting thehead, they asked me to make a 3D print of the head.

After receiving the head, I set about to create theduplicate. The head was mounted and on the 3Dscanning platform. This platform, the AutoDrive,made it simple to capture the puppet from alldifferent sides by rotating on two axes, instead of astandard turntable rotation. I used NextEngine'sScanStudio HD software to scan the puppet and thenalign the scans and fuse them into one mesh.

I exported the model from ScanStudio as an OBJ fileand brought it into Blender. I applied basiccorrections to the mesh, including fixing holes in theempty eye sockets and hollowing out the hole for theneck, and applied a level of SubSurf to keep any facetsfrom appearing. I then exported the model as an STL,similarly to the china balls.

One helpful feature that I did not have at the time wasthe 3D Print Toolkit. This makes it easy to identifycommon issues for 3D printing. Since it was released,I have made this addon a regular part of my workflowand have found it highly useful.

My next step was to bring the model into netfabbStudio. Netfabb is an excellent free program forcleaning and repairing models, either automatically orby clicking on individual problem areas and repairing

them. This prevents getting non-manifold warningsand other errors.

Finally, I imported the model into MakerWare andscaled it to the dimensions that I had been given. Thenit was a simple matter of setting the layer height to itslowest recommended value (0.1 mm) and enablesupports to keep the overhanging parts of the model

from drooping. I chose to use black ABS plastic for theprint simply because I had been using black, and thusit was convenient at the time. I did not use PLA, as itmerges too strongly with the support section. Bolleylater painted the head and added hair.

Looking back at the project, Bolley reflected that shemay forego the polyurethane casting and begin the3D scanning and printing process from the originalclay sculpt. This is due partly to the increases inefficiency offered by the technology and partly in thatBolley is allergic to polyurethane. 3D printing woulddefinitely be used for any film that requires lipsync ora lot of facial expressions as the replacement mouths.

I enjoyed working on this project as it was a good testof the workflow. More than that, however, I enjoyedthe unique opportunity to apply 3D printing in thisunique way and hope to promote this technology foruse on other films in the future

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BLENDERART - ISSUE 42 | SEP 2013 MAKING OF

Using 3D Printing for Stop-Motions

One day I decided to model a drone, then I thought...why not try and make it fly? After being pleased withhow it looked in flight, I decided to take it a lotfarther... a fun Blender based storyline emerged, and Imade this short adventure /action video .

"Unmanned Vengeance" was made over the course of6 weeks, I had a work in progress thread atBlenderartist.org forum that showed some of myprogress as I was making the video. That can be foundhere:

Work In Progress thread on blenderartist forums.

All of the modeling, animation, lighting and renderingwas done in Blender. The audio / video editing andcompositing was done in a different program. I diduse someotherartistsmodelsfromBlendswap,which arenoted in thecredits. Itgave metime tofocus more

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BLENDERART - ISSUE 42 | SEP 2013 MAKING OF

MAKING OFEXPLORING BLENDERART AND BLENDERHEADS

UNMANNED VENGENCE

Carl EndresContributing Author

Fig 1. Storyline Beginnings.

Fig 1. Mission Objective

on the storyline and animation aspects.

I hope you enjoy it, and be sure you don't miss the topsecret ending after the credits

"Unmanned Vengeance"

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BLENDERART - ISSUE 42 | SEP 2013 MAKING OF

Unmanned Vengence

I have seen coupledifferent tutorialsabout texturingand displacementmodifier.

I would like toshare one nicetrick. For thedisplacementmodifier you canmake a differentdisplacementtexture based on the color texture.

You can use for it different brushes. I gave youcouple of examples, how sharp or blurred edge caneffect the displacement

QUICK TIP: DISPLACEMENT MODIFIER

Krzysztof Bozalek

Contributing Author

Ben thank you for taking the time to discuss your newbook, Blender Master Class with us.

What prompted or inspired you to write BlenderMaster Class?

I had been writing tutorials and articles for my ownwebsite for a while, and potentially contemplatingsomething bigger. When the people at No Starchasked if I'd like to write a book I jumped at the chance.

How did you end up choosing the three projects youused?

I wanted to be sure the book covered a good range ofprojects, so that each provided different challenges todiscuss and illustrate different approaches whenmodeling, texturing and so on. For this reason I chosethree projects. The bat creature makes use of organicmodeling and sculpting techniques, as well as hair andfur, and subsurface scattering materials.

The robotic spider is a more hard-surfaced model,which required a different approach to modeling andsculpting, and was textured and shaded moreprocedurally. The third project, a ruined temple in thejungle provided different challenges again, this timecomposing a whole scene and mixing plants andscenery with architectural elements, lots of textures,using particle systems to create grass and lighting thescene realistically.

Did you need to do a lot of research prior towriting?

For the most part the book is a reflection of my usualwork flow, so in that respect a lot of it flowed quitenaturally, but there were definitely some technicalareas where I wanted to be sure I was being accurate.Thomas Dinges, who did the technical review on thebook was very helpful in this, for example in makingsure I used the correct terms for UI elements. I alsodid a lot of “experiments” - creating small scenes totest out certain material and render settings forexample, to make sure I could explain them well.

What did you find most challenging while writingBlender Master Class?

Probably trying to balance making the projects bothinteresting to look at and interesting to read about.There's a lot of repetitive work in creating art in anymedium, and CG is no exception, particularly whencreating a complex scene. On the other hand I didn'twant reading about creating the projects to becomerepetitive, so I had to find a balance between makingthe projects complex enough that the final resultwould be interesting to look at, but not so big thatexplaining the process behind them would stop beinginteresting and educational.

What did you enjoy the most about writing BlenderMaster Class and would you do it again?

The most enjoyable thing is just getting to share mylove for blender and hopefully helping others to get toknow it better. I find that pretty rewarding. I am

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BLENDERART - ISSUE 42 | SEP 2013 BLENDERHEAD

BLENDERHEADINSPIRATIONAL BLENDERNESS

BEN SIMMONDS

definitely going to continue writing about blender,but I think I'll be focusing on smaller tutorials andthings for a little while.

Considering how fast Blender changes and grows,did you find it challenging to complete a book thatwouldn't be dated before it was even printed?

Yes! It's amazing how fast the blender dev's keepadding new tools, and it certainly kept me on my toesat times, going back and revising parts of the book asnew features were added. That said it's important tonote that the overall principles don't change thatmuch over time, and I tried to make the book aboutthe reasoning behind my workflow as much aspossible.

Do you use Blender for personal projects or just forwork?

I'm pretty busy using it for work these days, but Ioccasionally find some time to use it for personalprojects. Usually they end up on my website or theblender artists forums.

When you are not engaged in Blender activities,what do you do for fun?

I enjoy drawing, and I also do the occasional danceclass. My girlfriend got me into it last year and it's alot of fun. That and Minecraft. That's taken up far toomany hours of my time.

What is your favorite activity in Blender?

Usually just messing around, I like seeing if I can find anew way to use a certain tool, or learn how to dosomething new with python. It's a great way to learnand keep up with new features. I also love sculpting.

What inspires your artwork?

Primarily an interest in nature. I studied zoology atuniversity and I'm fascinated by anatomy and how thenatural world works. I love getting to grips with how

faces and bodies areconstructed, how theymove and expressemotion. Creating artis a great way toexplore that interest.

If you haven't gottenyour copy of Ben's,Blender Master Class, Iencourage you to doso. It is a wonderfulbook filled withexcellent informationon how to handle yourprojects and maximize your workflow to createstunning projects in a timely manner

Ben Simmonds.

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BLENDERART - ISSUE 42 | SEP 2013 BLENDERHEAD

INTERVIEW: Ben Simmonds

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BLENDERART - ISSUE 41 | MAY 2013 GALLERIA

GALLERIABLENDER ARTWORKS FROM THE BLENDERHEADS

Scanner - Benjamin Smith

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BLENDERART - ISSUE 41 | MAY 2013 GALLERIA

GALLERIABLENDER ARTWORKS FROM THE BLENDERHEADS

Coupe - Vadim Andreyev

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BLENDERART - ISSUE 41 | MAY 2013 GALLERIA

GALLERIABLENDER ARTWORKS FROM THE BLENDERHEADS

Knight - Tyler Russo