With some hair …

Low Poly, Good Topology

In our character head creation, students are making low poly (saves computational power) and good topology (for animation) in their models.  Below is a sample of a good head!

Developing Skills in Character Creation and Animation

The more we work in CGI. the better we get.  Take a look …

Blender 2.4x or Blender 2.5

The alpha version of Blender is available to use.  We are trying both in the lab.  Blender 2.5 alpha is definitely easier to use and more efficient.  So far, we have only experienced small bugs or inconveniences.  In our experience, Blender 2.49 crashes more than 2.5

The best reason to stick with Blender 2.49 is because most tutorials are written for Blender versions 2.4x.  However, with a little bit of experience, the transition to 2.5 is easy.

We will let you know how the students make out in character creation and animation.  Expect some more  screenshots soon.

Blender Education — Tutorials, Videos, Lessons … all free!

Blender is open source, free software.  It is a tool to create 3D images and animation.  Blender is limitless in possibilities.

Some people have taken their time to learn Blender well.  They contribute back to the open source community by creating tutorials, teaching what they have learned.  There are thousands of them out there.  Other people are organizing the tutorials to help users find what they need.

Students at NIS will be able to choose a tutorial series and progress through it.  They make create a character, an animation, or 3d environment.  I am busy preparing the material.  Stay tuned …

Creative Commons, Open Source and Sharing

In our Level II courses, students are learning to use Blender to create computer generated images.  Blender is open source software, free for anyone, anywhere in the world to use.  It is a powerful, fully featured application that can be used to create 3D images, animation or games.  It is limitless in possibilities.

In the spirit of open source and sharing, James Chronister has produced a classroom tutorial book called Blender Basics. We are using the book as a guide for our lessons.  Published with a creative commons licence, we are free to use it and share it with the students.  Many thanks to Mr Chronister, and others like him who enhance education and society by freely sharing their knowledge and hard work.

Happy Blending!